Shirtless, you stare down the steep, grassy hill. At the bottom, men dressed as referees wait to catch you and the other competitors. Swinging the cheese wheel between bent knees, the mayor practices his launch. You scan the crowd for your personal trainer Terry. All week, he had you rolling and tumbling. He’d sneak up behind you and pretend to push you down a flight of stairs. “You’ve got to be ready to fall at a moment’s notice,” he’d say, flopping onto the ground, his limbs forming imaginary snow angels.
You’re competing to prove to yourself and everyone else that you can. You give your body to become a somebody because it’s all you have to give.
A microphone crackles. The mayor poses for a picture, says cheese. You take your position at the starting line. The man standing next to you stretches his hamstring, so you figure you better do the same. The race is about to start. Where is he? you think.
“All right, folks,” a voice says over an intercom, “the first one down the hill wins the cheese wheel and your admiration.”
Trying to summon Terry, you focus on the roped-off spectators’ section. You see people drinking from plastic cups. You see people laughing and pointing. You don’t see him.
The hill becomes increasingly vertical, increasingly impossible. You step backward and feel like an abandoned fawn who’d just learned how to walk on unsteady legs. The other competitors lean forward like they have all the angles figured out, like they’re ready to sacrifice everything to win. You’re digging a hole in your chest, becoming less and less. “Breathe,” you whisper to yourself. You try to remember what Terry taught you. Then the mayor chucks the cheese wheel. On three, you scurry down the hill, following.
“Stay on your feet,” Terry says.
This isn’t the real Terry but one you’ve constructed in your head. You didn’t meet this Terry through an advertisement pinned to a corkboard inside a gas station. You’ve known this Terry your whole life. This Terry raised you since birth.
You arch your back. You raise your arms like a tightrope walker. The heels of your sneakers stab into the uneven dirt. To your left, a man collapses, and his body compacts and spins into a fleshy tumbleweed. To your right, another man drops and flails into oblivion. But you stay upright. You make Terry proud.
Then your foot lands sideways. You reach for the sky. For a second, you think you might soar away, might disappear into the creamy clouds. Instead, your face smacks the hard earth, and you feel silly for believing you could fly. Your mouth tastes like pennies. You smell rust. Your ankle is surely broken, but your spirit isn’t. What would Terry do? you think.
You fold in on yourself. Existence becomes a rotating nausea of green then blue, green then blue, green then blue. Your bones bend and snap like celery. You’re in so much pain you feel nothing. However, you refuse to quit. Once you possess the cheese wheel, you think all of this will be worth it.
Finally, you slide to a stop at the base of the hill. You hear clapping and cheering. Did you win? You can’t move but can see the mayor shaking the hand of an upright man. The man, grinning, balances the cheese wheel on his flexing bicep. Standing behind the man, Terry. Not your Terry. A different one. One who puffs his chest out. One who shouts, “I’m proud. I’m proud.” One who hugs the upright man instead of trying to push him down.
You lost.
Did you ever have a chance?
A shadow blankets your vision. A man holding a beer bottle hovers over you. It’s Terry, your Terry.
“Where were you?” you ask.
“Went to the bar with the chaps for a few beers,” Terry says with a hiccup.
“I needed you.”
“Oh, did I forget to teach you to always expect disappointment?”
You realize your version of Terry and your real Terry don’t match up. What else have you been wrong about? you think.
“How do I look?”
“No one gets out of this alive, bud.”
You watch the upright man and his Terry disappear into a minivan and drive away. One by one, the other bruised but standing competitors and their Terrys leave. The sun sets. You look up and realize your Terry is gone, and you’re alone again, disappointed.
Will Musgrove is a writer and journalist from Northwest Iowa. He received an MFA from Minnesota State University, Mankato. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Penn Review, X-R-A-Y, Sundog Lit, Tampa Review, and elsewhere. Connect on Twitter at @Will_Musgrove or at williammusgrove.com.
Image: golfdigest.com
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Heavy Feather Review 