When Chris reached the field, he noticed a large man, maybe Hawaiian-Portuguese, sitting on the bleachers. He had a whistle dangling from his neck. Chris had a hunch he knew what this was about.
After changing, he came out of the locker room and headed over to the group forming near the bleachers.
“All right, guys,” said the man, “do we think everybody’s here?”
There was some mumbling before a few people shouted out that they thought so.
The large man stood up. He looked even bigger now.
“Hey, guys, my name is El Santos. Coach Arroyo asked me to work with the linemen this year. He can’t be here today, so he asked me to fill in.”
Chris raised his hand.
“Yes. What’s your name, son?”
“Chris Andaya.”
“Okay, Chris, what’s your question?”
“I go Kikīhale Intermediate. Sergeant Arroyo wasn’t there today either. Do you what happened to him?”
“Well,” Coach Santos said, “I’m not real clear on the details. I probably shouldn’t say what – Well, okay, I do know this. There’s been a death in his family. He needs to take care of things. He says he’ll be back here on Monday, he’s pretty sure. But for now, guys, let’s do some warm-ups.”
Chris was stunned. A death in the family. He had a strong suspicion, but it wasn’t necessarily true that the death had been Jake. Jake could have been out of school just because someone else had passed away. His mother. A brother or sister. It could be that twin sister. But even that image, the shy little girl in the corner of the cafeteria being gone, it depressed the hell out of him.
“Let’s go, Mister Andaya,” said Coach Santos. “Line up.”
And with that, Chris snapped back to reality and joined the other would-be players. What ensued was a conditioning practice even more horrendous than usual. By the end, if he thought been exhausted the days before, Chris could barely muster the energy to walk home that night.
“Are you okay?” his mother asked as he limped through the front door.
“I don’t know, Mom. I had one real rough practice today. Had a new coach who worked us more hard than Sergeant Arroyo.”
“Aiya,” said Mrs. Andaya. “You gonna be okay with this football thing? I no like you get into trouble because you can’t do your schoolwork. You flunk out, you might end up just like your brother. That’s all I need. One more son in prison.”
“No worry, Ma, I not going prison. I not going flunk out of school either. In fact, I think I going college.”
Mrs. Andaya stopped and stared at her son. “College. You really thinking about college, Son?”
“Yeah, Mom. I think I like go. I can be good in school, I know it. Good enough to go community college at least.”
“Cost money, that,” said Mrs. Andaya. “But you know, if you go, I going help with what I can. But I don’t think I’m going to be able to pay the whole thing.”
“I going get a job,” said Chris. “Something.”
“But how you going to work, go school, and play sports?”
“I don’t know, Mom, but when I get old enough to work, I’ll find something next year. Maybe start next year summertime. Who knows what going happen?”
Mrs. Andaya beamed, a smile broader than her son had seen in a long time.
“My boy in college,” she said. “You would make me so proud, Christopher. You would make me do darn proud.”
Chris smiled too. “I going do my best, Mom. I going try so hard for you and me.”
It was like Mrs. Andaya stood frozen in time, never wanting this moment of enormous pride in her son to pass.
Chris said, “Ma, you okay?”
Mrs. Andaya came back to herself. She’d been on a journey that led her to watch her son receive his college diploma, cap and gown sparkling as if some magic aura surrounded him.
“Oh, sure,” she said. “I’m good. Come come come. You go eat some dinner and then you study hard.”
She smiled again, came to her son and wrapped her arms around him. “My college boy,” she said. And then she began to cry.
Chris squeezed her tightly. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen his mother cry. Being abandoned by her husband, she’d grown into a strong and very independent woman. Mentally tough. She worked hard at the hotel, and she was moving up the housekeeping ranks.
“Come on, Mom,” said Chris. “Let’s eat before we keel over.”
That night, Chris, working through his grammar worksheet, had trouble concentrating. He kept thinking about Denise Chan, wondering if she would still have to do grammar worksheets at Stevenson. After all his other homework, Chris began the night’s reading for English.
They were into a short story by Robert Hedges called, “A Good Day to Run.” It was the story of a boy, now their age, who had been born with very weak legs. As he grew, he needed braces to walk, and he used what were called Canadian crutches, more complicated than the simple wooden kind you would see someone with a broken foot use.
The boy goes to a Shriner’s Hospital and with therapy is able to wean off his crutches. Then in a one-in-a-thousand-chance, he finds himself able to walk without the braces.
But his legs are still not as strong as would be expected for a boy his age. So he begins to walk a lot. He walks from home to school and back. After he finishes his homework, he walks around his neighborhood at night. On weekends he walks to a park quite a distance from his home and walks laps around it.
By the time he reaches sixth grade, he begins to jog very slowly, and by the end of the school year, he is running in small spurts around the park.
This is where they were in the story, and Chris was very interested to see what was going to happen with the running. A good day to run. What would that mean for this boy who overcoming his disability?
But Chris couldn’t concentrate on what he was reading. It wasn’t Denise Chan this time. He was thinking about Jake Arroyo, and he knew why.
Lanning Lee 