Slow to Grow

Chapter 7

  By his senior year, his grades were so middling that there was no chance for him to even consider getting into a decent college, but that didn=t matter. Lloyd knew what he wanted to be. A sports announcer. He lived and breathed sports, though with being a Chicagoan there wasn=t much to cheer about until the 1985 Bears came along. He wasn=t much of an athlete, but he was good for a Jew, and he always figured he could have started at the Jewish High School, but then he wouldn=t have any women to look at. A veritable Sophie=s Choice.

  His only recourse was getting a good score on his ACT, if not, hello Northern Illinois University. He was a classic underachiever who managed to do well on standardized tests and save his ass. He couldn=t tell you the participants in the Spanish Civil War but he knew the name of every actor on Mr. Belvidere, and the career RBI totals of the 1982 Cincinnati Reds by heart.

  The ACT test was a four hour affair and it was no big deal except for the fact that his whole future would be determined by it. Most of it was by scantron, a multiple choice testing system from the Paleozoic age known as the 80's, in which you would shade in the A B C or D area. He was a good guesser so he hoped he was guessing right.

  He had applied to four schools, The University of Iowa, The University of Illinois, Northern Illinois, and the hallowed halls of The University of Kansas. The rejections from Iowa and Illinois were sent back faster than Carl Lewis. (ugh, another tired 80's Olympic reference. Wait until you see the Mary Lou Retton jokes!)

  He got ACT results in his Trigonometry class, coincidentally the last time he EVER needed to know any of that stuff. The average score across the country was an 18. A good score was over 22. He got a 24. Hello, University of Kansas! For the rest of his life people would ask, Why did you go to University of Kansas, and the answer was always the same. Because he got in.

  Steve and his 34 score on the ACT was off to the University of Illinois. Ooh, a 34, Steve, Lloyd would jokingly taunt, why didn=t you get a perfect 36? For shame. For shame. Such is the burden of excellence.

  Lloyd and Steve were hanging out a lot on the weekends now. Henry had a long term girlfriend and combined with Lloyd=s jealousy they didn=t see each other as much.

  But they did have gym class together during their Senior year. They were playing Soccer which sucked balls and they both hated it. The running back and forth and barely touching the ball, what a stupid sport. Right up there with wrestling. God, wrestling sucked. Hey, lets invent a sport where you grapple with sweaty dudes in very little clothing, who lie on top of you and smush you like a walrus having sex, and then twist your arms and legs into pretzels. No, no homoeroticism there at all. And free asphyxiation at no charge!

  The wrestling coach was a slick fella who seemed way to into it. Lloyd had worked with dudes at the theater who were on the wrestling team and they were nonchalant about how the coach would leer at them in the locker room and touch them inappropriately. Like it was a joke. Seriously, why would you choose to wrestle? Seriously. Makes no sense.

  Anyhow, to the shock of no one the coach was arrested a few years later for sexual misconduct in regards to a male minor at the summer male youth camp he ran in Indiana. Nobody saw that coming. Insert eye roll.

  Anyhow, back on the soccer field, instead of running back and forth like chickens, Lloyd and Henry would station themselves at one end of the field and engage in fake drug transactions with a supposed real drug dealer by the name of Davey Miter. Miter was about 350 pounds and was as odd as the number 13. He was way off kilter.

  AHow bout two kilos?@ Lloyd would ask, and Davey would say he would have it the next day. Then Henry would sidle up beside him and say he needed 13 dimebags, and Miter would calculate a price. They did it every day for a month, until one day Miter said he had the stash. Henry and Lloyd freaked out and didn=t know what to do. Miter said to meet him at his locker after class. They figured what the hell and did it. When they got there they affected their drug personas and pretended to be all nervous and twitchy, and begging for a hit. Miter opened his locker and two hamsters ran out. Miter screamed at them, one he called Bob, and the other Marley, as he chased them down the hall and berated them for their malfeasance. They decided to find a new dealer.