Coming Home / Number 1
You're my favourite moment.
You're my Saturday
-Goldfrapp
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Raw Footage, Reel 2:1
Kate looks me right in the eye. Honestly, it's hard not to stare at your coxswain when she's barely two feet away and facing you directly. She covered the boom mic extending down from her headband for a tiny moment of stroke/coxswain bonding. "It's not even a choice," she mutters. "We're going to dominate," she says, barely above a whisper. I nodded. She took her hand off the mic, ending our momentary pow-wow, and yelled, "FUCK 'EM UP!" The seven guys behind me yelled in agreement.
As soon as I rolled the window down my ears popped. "What the fuck dude?" I stuck my head out the car flying down the freeway at 80 miles per hour and looked up at the sun, filtered and polarized. It was still blinding. My eyes scrunched up to slits and my peripheral vision faded away.
About 1000 meters in my vision shrinks down to a pinpoint. I can see Kate, talking us through the midsection, urging us to continue walking on the other boats. By the way her head's starting to dart around I can tell she's about to call a power ten. She does, and I start slamming down on the foot stretchers at each catch, jumping off the board and settling smoothly into the finish. My head's tingling slightly. I could do this eyes closed, feeling the boat and listening to Kate make the calls. And I do.
I opened my eyes and looked up into Emily's eyes. "We're getting old or something," she says, curling up next to me. Her hand touches my chin. "You need a shave," she says into my shoulder.
And then Chris yanked my arm and pulled me off the field. "Middie rotation man," he said. He knocked my helmet with a fist. "You got anything up there?" He grinned at me. I spun my lacrosse stick in the palm of my hand and sent it flying, catching it perfectly balanced vertically in my other palm. "Yeah real fucking useful," he said. I tapped his helmet with my stick and sat on the bench.
The rhythmic chunk/ka-chunk of the oars alternately catching and finishing and feathering has lulled me into a woozy cloud. I open my eyes just enough to look at the boat next to us; I can make out the Vespoli logo on the side of the boat. There's a momentary break in the sun as we fly through a bridge, and I could swear I can make out Maia standing there with her arm around Murph, who's carrying their kid in some goofy parental-baby binding device. I almost crack a smile but I can't spare the calories.
It all swirled together. It hadn't been like this for… awhile. The mixture point, when arms and legs and sheets and blankets are all tangled and the room's boiling, the colors are indistinct, fluid. I reach for the glass of water on the nightstand and drink the last bits of ice. He climbs over me and tries to grab the glass, but I swing it out of the way. "I think we should refill this," he says. I can actually feel his abs touching the small of my back and it actually makes me catch my breath for second. Embarrassing; I'm never like that. He gets off me and heads for the kitchen leaving me half hanging over the edge of the bed. The colors are still swirly, but they've calmed down enough for me to spot a Vespoli tshirt hanging off his closet door. I lunge for it, snapping the hanger that held it in half, then curl up in the bed with the fabric.
It's gotten to the point of the race where I can only concentrate on Kate's voice. My eyes are closed again, but I know she's tensing up, itching to call the final sprint. She's really going for it, telling bow seat their catches are early, that we all need to dig deep, to keep our set steady in the last 500, and then she calls it, she calls me to up the rating and for everyone to follow right with me. I barely open my eyes and everything's tearing horizontally, jagged lines in overwhelming sunlight, heat from the boat, the constant din of Kate now in yelling overdrive. The boat's lifting out of the water, the oars are flipping easily through, we're going hard but keeping the check in control. Starting to get dizzy.
The blood's rushing to my head, but it's a pleasant warmth. Our legs are up over the back of the couch, our heads hanging over the edge, the TV's image upside down. "Would you ever get a rowing tattoo?"
God no.
"You ever miss Chicago?"
All the time.
Number 1