Three laps to go. Jeremy accelerated purposefully now and moved within ten meters of the leaders. O’Neal dropped the last two pretenders over the fifth water jump and relaxed. But as he passed the finish line with two laps remaining, the announcer’s message unnerved him.
Chapter Six
JEREMY STANFIELD
Wellston and its surrounding farms stood bootless in mud as they often did in April. Daffodils popped from their bulbs, looking for spring, while robins fattened up on night crawlers seeking drier ground.
The farmers lingered an extra hour at Chaney’s Cafe on South Street. Roosting around red Formica tables, they compared pig litters and depth of mud while slurping hot coffee and swallowing jelly doughnuts. Planters loaded with seed corn stood ready to pull, but another inch of rain meant four days – maybe five – before the fields would be firm enough to bear the weight of tractors and men intent on sowing.
“What in hell is that Stanfield kid doing, Hal?” Gene Henry asked his friend across the table. Other farmers perked up, leaned in to hear the answer.
Harold Bond looked at Gene thoughtfully for half a minute, sipped his coffee, and frowned. “Dunno what you mean,” he said.
“Well, I watched him circling your barnyard for prit-near an hour this morning. Round and round, jumping over hog boxes and plows, sometimes with mud over his shoe tops. That boy’s been out of school goin’ on a year, now. Don’t he plan to quit all that runnin’?”
Harold smiled. He signaled Dottie to bring more coffee and cleared his throat.
“Jeremy’s the best help I ever had, even my own sons included,” said Harold, scratching his bristly chin. “He can run all he wants, wherever he wants, on my farm. I don’t know much about it, but the boy says he wants to try for the Olympics.”
“No lie?” said Gene. “Wellston ain’t had a famous athlete since Ricky Stevens played quarterback at Darnell U. How much does Jeremy work for you?”
“Forty hours a week. Keeps his own hours. Comes and goes when he wants. Some weeks, I swear he works 60. I leave him a job list and he marks them off. That boy could make the Olympic farming team, that’s for sure,” Harold said.
Jeremy Stanfield was mostly on his own since he was eight, the year his mother died. His father traveled the Midwest, city to city, motel to motel, selling pens and banners and stickers to businesses. Jeremy hadn’t heard from his dad since he was 14 and it didn’t matter. He lived happily alone in the small white house next to the Wellston water tower.
As he grew through high school, Jeremy found less time for team sports. He avoided them completely after his sophomore year.
His departure was abrupt and complete. One September afternoon, he returned to the dank locker room after football practice. He had removed his cleats and run ten 100s, barefoot on the grass, before coming in. By then, most of the team were gone.
Three teammates hovered over a wooden stool; on it stood four brown medicine bottles.
“What’s going on, Snake?” Jeremy asked the sophomore halfback.
“Stanfield, come here! This is the stuff I’ve been waiting for. Take these and you’ll be on your way to 175 pounds–and you’ll already believe you are. You’ll be able to run the 40 in 4.3!”
“What is it? Drugs? Jeremy asked.
“My cousin Frank – you know, at Central – he got me this stuff. I got steroids, growth hormone, uppers . . . hell, Jer, with this juice we’ll make varsity and kick the butts of everyone in the league!”
“That isn’t right,” Jeremy said. “That stuff is dangerous. Don’t take any of it. It could hurt you more than it can help. Besides, it’s illegal.”
“Shit, Stanfield! Shit! I thought you’d have the balls to go for something that would give us a winning edge. Lots of teams take this stuff. You know your size is against you. Get real. Don’t be such a chicken-shit.”
Jeremy turned his back and walked away.
“You gonna tell Coach?”, someone called out.
He walked home carrying his cleats. He would get his clothes tomorrow before school. Vomit rose in his throat and he swallowed hard. Next day, he turned in his pads.
Over the next two springs, Jeremy grew from strength to strength. He could bench press 50 pounds over the 133 pounds he weighed. He could do 25 pullups. He could do sit-ups until others tired of watching. And he could run and run. In track meets, he was unbeatable in his league. His last year, he won the District 1600 in 4:19, but passed on running at State. He drove to Cincinnati to watch Beethoven’s Fidelio instead.
Jeremy devoured books with the enthusiasm his classmates reserved for borrowing the family car on prom night. He earned mostly A’s but college had no appeal. He graduated a year early and went to work on the farm.
“I can do everything I want to do right here,” he told Harold Bond one night when he stayed over for supper. “Most guys leave town because they don’t know what they want. I do.”
Harold dished up platefuls of produce from the farm: corn on the cob, green beans, mashed potatoes, and pork chops. The aroma of fresh-baked bread filled the room. They ate in silence for several minutes until Harold used up his patience.
“Well, spill it, Son. What do you want?” he asked.
“You can work here forever, of course,” Harold added. “I’ll even sell you some acreage if you’re interested.”
Future dreams dancing in his eyes, Jeremy said, “I want three things right now, Mr. Bond – to run, to learn, and to farm.”
“On a farm, a man can make things happen,” he continued. “Animals you care for grow up and are worth something. Crops you plant and tend grow and you can sell them. Gardens produce food. Barns protect your possessions. Farming is simple and it’s honest.”
Harold stared intently at the seventeen-year-old. Did any of his buddies at Chaney’s know why they farmed? Was it just labor to them, or a philosophy – as it was to this kid? Harold nodded an “Uh-huh” for the boy to continue.
“And I like to learn. There is no end to it. Science, music, philosophy – every discovery makes life more interesting. You taught me about corn and hogs, how to tune a tractor and how to repair a combine. Until I’ve read every book in the Wellston Library, I can’t see moving away.”
Harold knew there was lots of ‘special’ in this kid he had taken onto his farm after his wife died and his sons moved away. He mused, Jeremy might be one of those rare piglets that grows up to be Grand Champion Boar at the State Fair.
Harold had extended many invitations for Jeremy to move out here on Prairie Road to live at the farm, but the lad wanted his privacy.
“Well, how about your running? I’ve never known you to miss a day.”
“Nothing makes me feel more alive, Mr. Bond. I love it when sweat just pours out of me. I like going to bed at night, tired to the bone, and know that in the morning, I’m going to wake up ready to go again. When I run – well, it just makes me feel like I make a difference, like I’m cutting a path through the world, not just sitting still and letting things happen to me.”
Jeremy took a deep breath, gulped some iced tea, and looked his employer and friend in the eyes. “I truly believe I can make the Olympic team, too. It may take a long time to get that good, but I think this is the place to train and make my goal a reality.”
No more words were spoken. A middle-aged man sat at the dinner table with a precocious youngster, sliding bowls of food to him and wondering about the unbelievable intersections of peoples’ lives.
At the end of May, Harold drove Jeremy to the Buckeye Games track meet in Columbus. Three hundred athletes jogged around, sporting bright uniforms from Nike, Reebok, Adidas, and ASICS. Bold letters identified them as runners from Michigan, Ohio State, Western Kentucky, Toledo Olympic Club, Midwest Track Club, and many more.
Jeremy lined up for the 3,000-meter steeplechase, his first race ever in the event. Twenty-eight barriers and seven water jumps lay ahead. He wore his green Wellston singlet and a pair of green cotton shorts. On his feet were his beloved but tattered spikes from three high school track seasons.
On the starting line, the veterans crowded across the waterfall start. Jeremy assumed a place on the extreme edge of lane eight. Mortal fear is not too strong a term to describe how Jeremy Stanfield felt as he awaited the starter’s pistol.
Bang!
The fourteen athletes surged off the line and strung out, all dropping into the two inside lanes to save ground. Jeremy worked his way into the middle of the pack and felt the elbows and hands of his veteran opponents. After three laps, he grudgingly began to lose contact with the leaders. Every hurdle jarred his body, every water jump threw him off-balance. With two laps to go, Jeremy had faded to ninth. With a lap left, he was twelfth. Despite his hardest effort to summon a kick, two more runners passed him on the run-in. Jeremy placed 14th and last.
Bruised and drenched, his body sprained from the pounding, Jeremy draped an arm over the powerful shoulders of Harold Bond and allowed the man to walk him slowly to the red pickup truck. Jeremy sagged into the passenger’s corner of the cab, too exhausted to remove his spikes. He slept most of the way home to Wellston.
Later that evening, the farmer and the boy-athlete sat entrenched in the corner booth at Chaney’s Cafe. Jeremy slumped over a bowl of vegetable soup, exhausted. Harold slowly shook his head and sipped the creamy coffee.
“Tough race, kid. You really ran hard. Those other guys are just a lot older.”
Jeremy Stanfield looked up at Harold Bond and smiled. Tears welled in his eyes and rolled down his cheeks into his soup.
“That was the best race I ever ran,” he said, beaming. “I never knew I could run that hard. Thanks for taking me, Mr. Bond. Next year, when we go back, I’ll make you proud of me.”
Jeremy ordered a book from the British AAA by 1956 Olympic steeplechase champion Chris Brasher. He joined the Ohio Valley Track Club and placed third in the Ohio Championship cross country race in November. In March, he ran a snappy 8:25 for 3,000 meters at an indoor meet at Ohio State. In April, at the Carolina Highlands meet in Asheville, he reeled off a 14:20 for 5,000 meters, defeating a good field of collegians. He trained harder than ever now, his focus on the Buckeye Games steeplechase.
Harold Bond knew what to expect this time. Even though the athletes looked taller, more muscular, and older than last year, maybe the boy could place in the top six and win a ribbon for his efforts.
Kerry O’Neal was a steeplechase veteran and perennial victor at the Buckeye Games. An Ohio State graduate and 1996 Olympian, he basked in his reputation at the meet and intended to make this spring’s event his first step toward another Olympic berth. O’Neal surveyed the field and relaxed; he would be racing the clock. No one here could stay with him.
The gun’s report sent the 16 men into the 200-meter barrier-free prelude that led to the first of the 35 obstacles. For two laps, Jeremy trailed the field – the pace was fast enough. On the third lap, he caught a runner at each of the five barriers. By the end of the fourth lap, he’d moved into fifth place.
Three laps to go. Jeremy accelerated purposefully now and moved within ten meters of the leaders. O’Neal dropped the last two pretenders over the fifth water jump and relaxed. But as he passed the finish line with two laps remaining, the announcer’s message unnerved him.
“This is Kerry O’Neal in the lead with two laps to go, followed closely by . . .number 331. . . that’s Jeremy Stanfield of Wellston moving into second.”
O’Neal glanced over his left shoulder as he rounded the curve. Sure enough, he had company. On the backstretch, Jeremy pulled alongside him.
‘Criminy!’ O’Neal said to himself. ‘Who is this guy? He barely comes up to my shoulder.’
O’Neal squinted to read the boy’s jersey. The green singlet bore the word WELLSTON. O’Neal blasted over the penultimate water jump and opened a ten-meter gap. Jeremy dropped his chin, ignored the pain in his weary legs, and 100 meters later, pulled even again.
Damn, O’Neal thought, this kid is tough! Automatically, he laid down another surge to break his opponent. They were now 40 meters clear of the rest of the field.
O’Neal’s first surge had caught Jeremy off guard. This time, the youngster immediately went with him. The sixth lap had been the fastest of the race, 66 seconds. The stadium crowd rose to its feet and athletes on the infield were energized by the battle. They roared their approval.
“And here they go into the bell lap,” shouted the announcer. “O’Neal and Stanfield. O’Neal’s meet record of 8:41 will fall! Put your hands together and bring these fine athletes around.”
Panic grabbed O’Neal, constricting his throat. This was supposed to be an easy win, he reminded himself. He narrowed his focus to the last three barriers: hurdle, water jump, hurdle. Six years of world-class racing had taught him that unwavering concentration was essential in the final lap of the steeplechase.
O’Neal hit his stride perfectly over the first hurdle and the boy fell back two meters. Jeremy quick-stepped and caught back up. His lungs were on fire. He could not feel his legs. Seventy-seven meters later, they stepped onto the water jump barrier in unison, and splashed out of the ditch. O’Neal rose to a magnificent sprint, glided over the final hurdle, and held form to the tape.
The instant he crossed the finish line, O’Neal sagged to the track surface. Fifteen yards back, an elated Jeremy Stanfield finished.
“You O.K.?” Jeremy panted, his hands on his knees, standing over the winner.
“Hellava race, kid. Hellava race. Help me up. Let’s walk a victory lap.”
The announcer’s voice blared over the excited crowd: “The winner–the winner with a n-new Buckeye Games record time of 8:35.03, a graduate of Ohio State University and now . . . now representing the Midwest Track Club . . . Kerry O’Neal! In second place, also under the old record, from Wellston, Ohio . . . Jeremy Stanfield. His time, 8:38 flat!”
It was the first time Jeremy had heard his name announced. He liked the sound of it at 90 decibels.
“You’re just 18?” whined O’Neal. “Where did you learn to run the steeplechase like that?”
Jeremy was honored to eat dinner with the veteran of a dozen international competitions at the Victoria House Restaurant in Columbus. Jeremy devoured a rack of barbecue ribs. O’Neal spooned some tomato soup into his weary body and tried to eat a sandwich. Harold Bond, his burly arms crossed over his chest, leaned back and just listened.
“Well, the farm work makes me strong,” Jeremy said. “I run five miles to Mr. Bond’s farm, and five miles home. Once a week, I run hills. Twice a week, I practice hurdles.”
“Do you train over water barriers?” asked O’Neal.
“Nope. Last time I saw one was here, last year. I was last. You won.”
“Then how can you handle the water jumps so well without practice?”
“Hog boxes,” the farm boy said. “Every time I cross the hog lot at the farm, I get a running start, leap to the top of a box, and push off. The harder I jump, the less slop I land in.”
“Just like the steeplechase, Jeremy,” responded the exhausted champion. “Just like the steeple.”