Metal Womb

          The worst part of the bus ride home from the DeSchriver memorial track meet was that I got stuck with the seat on the wheel. The bulge and contour of the floor forced me to either pull my legs up so far that they hurt or swing them out into the aisle where every passerby kicked them. I looked around the bus for another seat but all of the single seats were taking and I always sit in a single. As the bus got underway I put on my headphones and listened to a little Midtown. I remember picking out one lyric off the album that I hadn’t really noticed before. “There's nothing I can do, but try to climb out the trenches I've dug because I can't see underground. I'm saying that I understand what it's like to be living in spite.” I’m not sure if I just think that I made mental note of these lyrics or actually did.
          The CD mercilessly finished before the trip home was over and I placed my disc man back in my bag. I took to one of my favorite bus ride activities and peered out the window at a gray sky. The trees, ravaged by winter, appeared gnarled and ugly. They towered above me, imposing, formidable, and frightening. Disturbed by the landscape, I turned my attention back to the interior of the shaky bus. Amy was screaming about some perceived offense to her honor. She was crying about how none of the boy’s team members are gentleman and how we were all raised by wolves. Amy was a strange girl. Amy's appearance was kindly described as plain by a number of her teammates. I would more truthfully say that she has the face one expects on a bulldog, not a teenage girl. Amy was probably the most childish person I’ve ever met. She was the kind of girl that religiously watches cartoon shows and buys all of the toys that go along. Those two facts earned her, in my mind at least, the nickname of Scooby-doo.
          So while Scooby was barking up a storm, I could see the pain in the eyes of Matt, who was sitting next to her. If I had to choose one word to describe Matt it would be enigmatic. I could never peg Matt. Sometimes I thought that he was a great guy and other times I thought he was kind of a jerk. However at that moment I could see we agreed on one thing, Amy should shut up. Not being able to stand Scooby’s thoughtless screeching anymore I turned my attention forward. There was a whole bus to entertain me, no sense in letting one canine bore me to death. Sitting directly in front of me was Sammy and his friend Kathleen, the two of them scrunched up in a seat that would normally only seat one. The running joke amongst the team was that Kathleen was constantly throwing herself at Sam and Sam was oblivious to the whole thing. I couldn’t see either of them because of the back of their seat, but I could hear their jovial discussion and I could imagine their smiles.
          Sammy was probably wearing his goofy, full-mouthed grin. The thing about Sammy was that he was the nicest guy in the world but he had no backbone. He could not tell anyone that he is upset with them. Nobody is perfect. Kathleen’s girlishly lilting laugh caught my ear. I didn’t really know Kathleen very well but I could tell you she had the warmest smile coupled with the most mischievous eyes I have ever seen. Her long black hair looked soft and inviting, caressing her shoulders with a simple grace. She was the stereotypical teen dream, open, funny, kind demeanor, great body, and a playful attitude.
          Sam and Kathleen were talking about mutual plans and mutual friends, stuff I would never be a part of so I turned my attention back to the window. The steel gray color of the sky had only grown dimmer in the late afternoon. The sun’s light barely staving off complete darkness, cast a depressing pall over the barren trees, making them scarier than ever. I sat there with my legs scrunched up and pain slowly creeping into my lower back thinking about how the outside looked so lonely. Eventhough we were traveling through suburban New Jersey and could see the subdivisions behind the chilling trees everything looked lonely. And here was this bus, this entity of liveliness and clamor passing through the Valley of Death, or as near to it as I will ever see. And I wondered why I had been included? Why was I not outside with the pain and terror, which I felt in my chest looking at my teammates, where I probably belonged?
          As the bus pulled up to the field house I shook those thoughts from my head and exited the bus with a mumbled “thank you” to the bus driver. Inside the locker room everything was subdued, guys tend to be less boisterous when their pants are off. As I exited, Joe Monaco asked me how I ran. I replied with a standard “fine, how about you?” The conversation quickly lapsed in to an all too familiar awkward silence after his answer. I put my headphones on as an excuse to end the conversation and leave while thinking “He was at the meet why doesn’t he know how I ran?” As I cut through an open field on my walk home I could sense the emptiness around me and inside me. There, in the field, there was no bus to protect me, to hide in. In the middle of the field, which was ringed by trees like silent sentinels, was one sapling. It had traveled from the dense concentration of foliage to stand alone. I wondered if it had a choice. I guessed not. It grew there, seemingly ignored by its larger brethren. The fact that it grew at all without the protection of the larger trees was a testament to its resolve. Completely open to attack from wind, rain, and the other terrors of nature, it had no other place to go. If it’s seed had just fallen amongst the other trees, if it had just grown up with the rest of them it would be fine. But it didn’t and its not like it had a choice. Its not like it could just decide to grow up sheltered. I did. I wanted to scream at the trees, to force them to pay attention to the life of this poor sapling. I wanted to open the eyes of my desolate surroundings. It was there that I realized that the opportunity for screaming passed an hour earlier on that bus because on that bus I had the chance to open the eyes of someone, to get the attention of someone. I pushed further on, past the tiny tree, and came to the gate that would let me into the dead forest. On the right side of the paved path I could see two bike ruts, probably from the fall, running parallel to each other, perfectly persevered in the now hardened ground. If there had been a few miniature artillery pieces and some barb wire it would have looked like an abandoned WWI battlefield. I kind of wished I had my little green army men right then so I could have played. But since I was eighteen and not eight it would have looked weird. I just wanted to play again. Then in my ears, resonating through my mind, I heard, “there's nothing I can do, but try to climb out the trenches I've dug because I can't see underground. I'm saying that I understand what it's like to be living in spite.”