Screw Waffles

            by Greg Specht

 

The last practice of the day; it was dark, windy, and rainy. We left the dock and followed the normal routine that we always followed. The water was choppy and it grabbed our oars and yanked them under the dark, oily water. We Rowed behind Coast Guard Island. We always used the Island or the water behind it to shield the boats from rough weather. The water was smooth and glassy as we began rowing harder and faster, which is what every row loves to do. As we came out from behind the Island the wind smashed into us and built huge waves that drove them crashing over the sides of our boat. Usually we say nothing when an ice blast water hits you across the back, as our coach says, " It’s a water sport", but after the forth of fifth time it started to wear on us. We started yelling every time a new freezing wave crashed upon us. The water got so high in our boat that it covered our feet and numbed them out of existence. At this point I figured that we were pretty much done with and that we would be sinking in short order. We got to about halfway though the "water from hell", as we later referred to it, when Will started to sob. So that everyone in the boat started to shake with laughter so bad that we could no longer row. This only made things worse because the boat started to flop from side to side and water began to gush over the sides.

We finally cleared the rough water with our boat barely above the water. The coach’s launch pulled up and we got a pump from our coach. We drained the boat and laughed at what we had just been though. After the water was removed from our boat we continued with practice.

On the last practice before we left for San Diego we did a dry run of sorts against the other boat that was racing. We lost badly, to put it bluntly. The boat had felt weak and without confidence. We had to do something to get our boat moral up. So we decided to go out for breakfast at Fat Apples on Cedar street. When we arrived we filled the whole restaurant. We hung and had fun eating and laughing. When the waitress came to take my order I got French toast, and most of they guys did too. After the waitress left I high-fived max and said " Hell yah French Toast."

"Dude French toast sucks its all about waffles." Both Max and I shoved our chairs aside and jumped to our feet.

"Who ever said that is a dumbass motherfucker and fuck waffles," Max called out. In return a soggy half eaten part of a waffle flew across the room and smacked into the window and slid slowly down the window leaving a dark and sticky trail behind it. "Its on bitch"

Max grabbed and threw a glob of butter. It flew across the room and spread across Daniel’s face. Before anything worse could be chucked back at Max and I the waitress came back and handed us our food. While I was eating I looked around. Max and Cole were playing bloody knuckles while they waited for their food. Mog and Lucy talked in high-pitched voices about who the newest crew couple was and how long it would take before they broke up. Jeff sat at the end of the table jumping from conversation to conversation and fixing the hair tie for his shoulder length hair. Daniel, and I talked about racing strategies and each part of the piece in detail hoping to guide this boat to the winner’s circle.

The next day we woke up early and left our respective homes and went to the airport. At the airport we all met up and made our way though the tight airport security, and of course one person had brought a banned item on their carry on luggage (a wrench). Jeff's tools were thrown out and he was allowed into the airport after the strip search that he had to endure at the hands of a huge, smelly, hairy Albanian man named Siv. We were about four hours early for our flight, so we walked around the Oakland airport trying to buy porn and reading Maxim and FHM. After what seemed like an eternity we finally boarded the flight and we were on our way to San Diego.

The San Diego crew classic, as some would say " the ultimate collection of crew bitches" but to us this was the most prestigious race of the year. The San Diego crew classic is not only a high school race but also a college race; this was our shot to get noticed by coaches and the competition. We were excited to say the least and our boat was risky since we had brought up two freshmen from the novice team to bluster our line up.

When we walked out of the airport doors, we were immediately hit with a warm blast of air and the bright sun. We waited for what seemed like half the day for the cars. While we waited for the cars, we played cards; we got in about six or seven games of hearts. When the cars finally arrived, we piled into the different vehicles. My van was early which made us wait for the others to get cars. As we waited we listened to The Chronic Two-Thousand-and-one and drove in a loop. When we finally got to the hotel we pulled up and unloaded all of our multicolored bags out of the shiny minivan. We stayed at a Days Inn that was in a not so reputable area of San Diego. Our coaches signed in the team and gave out room assignments. I was staying with Mog, Max and Cole. Problem. Four guys, two beds; this was going to take some negotiations. " We should go by seniority," I said.

"Fuck you," said Cole and Max together. They were the youngest and were therefore a totally against my plan.

"I don’t mind sleeping on the floor," volunteered Mog.

"Ok the people who sleep on the floor the first night sleep in the beds on the second night."

"Sure" I agreed. I figured that the only day that we would be racing would be Saturday and that I could deal with it on Sunday.

After we got all of our stuff together we went down to the lobby to meet up with our coaches. "We will be goin’ to the race course now so get back into the cars." We piled into the vans and went to the racecourse. I had been to this course once before, when I was about twelve and my sister was here for her first college race. My family had driven down there to support her and visit San Diego. Back in the van we watched Euro Trip on the car's DVD player and argued over whether it matters if the movie was total bullshit. As I stepped out of the Van and on to scalding black top, I looked around. I was in shock; I had never seen so many boats before. I looked around and saw at least twenty High school teams and forty college teams. We went about the tedious task of taking the boats off of their trailers and getting them ready to race. We gathered around our Coach "Ok, I want you guys to run though the race course twice." That’s all he said before he sent us out.

The course at San Diego is unlike any other that we have ever seen before. The starting Line is directly underneath the gondola from Sea World. The start is so close to Sea World that you could jump out of your boat and swim into the park, and I thought about doing just that several times. After the start line the course is not the normal straight shot that most races are; there are two bridges from which strong winds come and slam in to the racing boats. This wind hits the boat on the left side and blows the boats towards the other lanes of racers. If your boat is not used to this kind of nasty weather or not ready for the wind in general, these bridges can make your race very long. The finish line is watched by thousands of loud cheering people. Most teams from the Bay Area are only used to about a hundred people being in the crowd in a race.

After we got back to the hotel we relaxed in our rooms. We walked up and down the hallways and called phoned random rooms around us. As I sat watching Man vs. Beast, when Max yelled over, "Dude the Los Gatos Girls are staying in the same building."

"No fucking shit! Call Josh’s room and let them know." I leapt to my feet and grabbed some clean clothes. Just then Cole walked in.

"Dude wait for me; I just need to take a quick shower," Cole begged as he jumped into the shower. About half an hour into Cole’s shower we left without him. We knew which room one group of girls was in but we didn’t know what the girls would look like. We volunteered Daniel to go up to the girl’s door and investigate and tell us the good or bad news. After about 10 seconds Daniel came running down the hall.

"FUCK SOMEBODY HIDE ME!" he screamed as he dove for cover in the bathroom. Max looked at me and I returned his stare he mouthed over "Cole is still taking a shower!" Max and I held the door as Daniel tried to escape. A loud bang on the door to the hallway made both Max and I jump. What the hell had Daniel done now? I thought, as I looked though the peephole at a scarlet-faced man. I slowly opened the door as Max still holding the door closed, tried to look as unakward as possible. The man was about fifty, clad in a bathrobe and swaying like he had just made his way through about a handle of brandy. "Where the hell is that boy?"

"Who?" I asked him trying to be as loud as I could be over the shouts coming from Daniel and Cole.

"That boy who just came to my floor asking about hot rower girls, I want to know where these girls are."

A wave of revulsion passed over me as the image of this old, fat, drunken man having his way with young girls passed through my mind.

"Ummm I have no idea. We had to kick him out of our room because he had too many girls,"

"Damn," he said and stumbled down the hall towards the elevator. And then about a second later Max released the door and out scrambled Daniel with Cole yelling after him

"Goddamn it who the fuck just ran fucking into the shower with a guy in it. Goddamn it!" Cole, clad only in a towel, proceeded to chase Daniel around the room and down the empty hallway.

That night we lay in bed or on the floor wide-awake. "You pumped Greg?"

"Yah", I lied. I was not pumped; I was scared. I knew that I was not about to go to war, but I still feared what I would do when we got down to the nasty parts of the race. Would I chicken out or would I rise to the challenge? Would I let down my teammates down, what was going to happen?

I woke up at four in the morning about three hours after I finally fell asleep. I laid awake in my bed running though the questions again. I finally came up with an answer: I won’t, I can’t. I felt my strength and courage rise. I’m pumped, I’m ready.

The rest of the guys get up at around seven. We talk about everything but crew and try to carry on as though this was any other day. The day is bright and I can tell that it will be hot, really hot. The sun beats down on the early morning dew lying on the sleek hulls of thousands of boats. We have to stay in the shade. Our race isn’t till eleven and we must wait. We will launch at ten. Time to run, warm up stay in line nothing to hard. We launch and row up to the start line.

Ohh god I freaking out. All the effort I put into getting pump jumps out of the boat and swims over to Sea World and watches the Killer Whale show. Ok I can do this I’m a junior this is not new, it’s just like every other race. We get to the line. We sit ready. A female voice comes up over the PA system.

"All boats sit ready attention………. Row!" Ohh god. We start off down, last place. We knew this; we knew that we would start slower then the other teams. We cut though the water using every ounce of everything that we have. We start catching the other boats, working our way though the lesser teams. With the Norcal and Long Beach boats behind us we have to move on the next boat. It hits me full on like my legs have suddenly been placed in a blast furnace. FUCK IT LETS DO THIS. I check over my shoulder the next boat, is close I can hear their coxswain screaming at his boat that they aren’t going to lose to Berkeley. FUCK HIM lets do this. The last five hundred this is it who wants it more. I look over the boat is from Capital Crew in Sacramento, FUCK THEM this is it, we work though their boat each stroke hurts like new coals are added to the fire. Now I don’t even look forward anymore I keep all my attention on the Capital boat pushing them back with my eyes and building the fire. We finish third place, good enough, we advance.

We are the first Berkeley High boat to make it to the finals at San Diego in five years. We talk and prepare for the finals tomorrow. I leave the group to meet up with my parents and my sister who is here with the Notre Dame Rowing team. I feel good; I may not be able to walk well, but I feel great. I spend the day eating funnel cake and Churros and hanging out with my family. At about five we leave to go back to the hotel. I go to my room and lie down on my bed. The rest of my room walks in and Cole walks over to the bathroom, " No showers, they’re bad luck".

 Cole turns and walks past me and his stench hits me right in the face like a wet towel to the back. "Cole try the other bed I think it’s softer."

We watch Drum Line and Homeward Bound. We talk about how we are going to beat the crap out of the other teams and what we are going to do with our gold medals. We stay up late and talk more and more shit.

We get out of the room and run down into the lobby. And hop in the van. Our race is the third race of the day. We launch and row up to the start line much calmer then yesterday, "Attention…… Row!"

Again we start down. We row for each other we row for Berkeley High. We get to the first bridge and we are hit by a blast of wind that slams into our boat and sends the race off course. Boats come close but do not hit the other boat, we continue to row. We pull though the pain towards the lead boats. The first boats that we see is the Sammamish boat from Washington. We work our way past them towards our rival the Oakland Strokes. We pull even. Each boat fights for their spot like two Pitbulls. We fight to kill not just to win; this is about more then just a race. These are the guys who go to our school, who we see everyday in their strokes gear and traitorous smiles. This is personal. We beat them and we take every thing that they have said about our team and shove it back in their faces. We stomp them. We take forth in the San Diego crew classic.

We leave later that day and we hop on a southwest flight and leave sunny San Diego. On the flight back we talk about how much homework we haven’t done and what tests we have to make up. As we get closer to Oakland, the wind picks up and the jet rocks like ice in a martini shaker. As we approach the landing strip, the flight attendant said over the PA system, "Lets thank our captain for getting us here safely." She began to sing, "He’s a smooth operator… our pilot is a smooth operator". We quickly got off the airplane. We walked to baggage claim and then outside. It was raining. It hit us that San Diego was definitely warmer then Oakland.