Unfortunately for me, the one sport I was “good” at was javelin. It’s probably a risk to even call javelin a sport, it’s just one of those activities that is lumped together with like 25 other activities and called “Track & Field.” In fact, javelin was so “not a sport” that our gym teacher, Mr. Hogan (name changed, duh), only devoted about 20 minutes to having us line up outside and throw the thing out to the field.
In fact, javelin is so not a sport that when Allison read this I had to explain that it was throwing a spear. Now you know.
The 2 guys who threw it the furthest got to go on a field trip to compete in the divisional meet at the closest University, which is an hour away. That day at the Jr. High field, I threw the javelin the furthest. I won. I won something. The next week at divisionals, I did not.
End of javelin career.
But, sadly, this story isn’t about javelin. It is about 9th grade gym class, softball, and Chad.
Any of you who grew up with me are probably wondering right now who Chad is. Because I still have family living in Cardston – and because I don’t want their house to burn down while they sleep – Chad is not the real name of this individual.
Note: Chad, if you are reading this and you think this is you, it isn’t. If you think you know who Chad is, you don’t. If you think Chad is your son or your brother or your father or your uncle, he isn’t. Chad, if it’s really you, hakuna matata ok?
Chad’s horrible day started in the Jr. High locker room. Ah, yes. The iconic smell of Jr. High males: Axe bodyspray.
I’m proud to say that I owned only two cans of Axe in my life, and neither of them went empty. That is probably because I was romancing a girl who wasn’t afraid to tell me how gross she thought it was. But Johnny thought that stuff smelled amazing, and regularly would gas us all out with about a full can whenever we went somewhere. Even when we were college roommates
This is a lie.
When the Axe came out and started getting sprayed around, Chad figured he had a great idea. He grabbed a can from somebody, and pulled a lighter out of his pants. What the hell a 14 year old was doing with a lighter is your guess as well as mine (people, this was Cardston. A sheltered little bubble where D.A.R.E. worked pretty effectively until somebody got a driving permit and started parking their car down at the Remington).
I remember the look on Mark’s face. He knew exactly what the result of this was about to be.
Chad lit the lighter and held it out a couple feet in front of himself. He positioned the Axe right behind the flame, and sprayed it. It became a blowtorch. This was pretty damn cool. It was so cool, that kids started going down to the drug store and buying body spray and cigarette lighters just to bring back to the Jr. High locker room. The stupidsoundingness doctrine applies here, obviously.
The immediate reaction was a mix of surprise and being impressed. Chad wasn’t exactly known for his academic prowess as a chemist. He was pretty excited about it, too, because he started to dance around a bit. It didn’t take long for the stink of burning body spray to change a bit to a smell that the farming town knew pretty well: burning hairs. Yep, Chad burned off his arm hairs in the locker room that day. He wasn’t impressed, and let out a string of profanity that made our poor virgin ears start bleeding.
After a quick visit to the school health office – and an eye-rolling from Mr. Hogan – Chad was back with the class and ready for softball.
Johnny, Mark, Ryan, and myself were lined up for our turns at bat. Chad was on the opposite team. He was assigned to play catcher. Because nobody likes to get hit in the face with a softball, the catcher was carefully protected by a metal folding chair.
From behind this protection, Chad decided to be a moron. He talked some serious trash to the batter. Sentences that involved “your mom” “last night” and “fat” with some creative fill-in-the-blanks. Most of us ignored this.
Most of us.
But not Stage.
Stage and I had been close friends ever since my family moved onto his block when we first came to Cardston. He and I engaged in various shenanigans throughout our entire friendship. One time we laid down on skateboards and street-luged down Main Street in the middle of the night. We shot firecrackers out of paintball guns. We caught garter snakes and scared our moms. We prank-called cute girls. We experimented with varying ways to blow things up. We built forts in the “wilderness” behind our houses. Stage was probably the single funniest person in the whole town – and he didn’t take no crap off’a nobody. Stage was a champion in the midst of commoners of our teenage society.
Stage came up to bat. He got ready for the pitch. Chad mouthed him off. Stage felt like Chad should get more intimate the chair-shield. With his face. Stage spun around, and at the speed of light used one of his lanky legs and kicked that chair right into Chad’s head.
After a few choice words – and an eye-roll from Mr. Hogan – Chad humbled himself. For a couple minutes.
Our team took the field. I was in a very strategic location – right fielder. If you know about childhood and baseball, you immediately understand what that means – it’s the spot where the guys who aren’t good at baseball go out into the field and stand there to wait for nothing to happen.
Eventually, Chad came up to bat. He hit a foul ball. It went over the barbed-wire fence and into the cow pasture, so a kid had to navigate through cow pies to get it. But being the schmuck that Chad was, he ran anyway as if he hit a home run. He threw the bat after the swing. That was a mistake. It bounced off the grass and hit David in the shin. Not cool.
David is probably the kindest and gentlest kid to ever grace the halls of Cardston Jr. High. And it was his bare-shin as well, because he was working on a world-record for most consecutive days wearing shorts (this continued throughout even the Canadian winters. The last time I saw David, he was still wearing shorts) or something.
This instantly had everybody boo-ing Chad. As if that wasn’t enough, the guy had the cojones to slap the kids on first AND second base as he ran by them. In protest, our classmates began throwing our gloves at him. Everybody missed. Johnny missed. Ryan missed. Mark missed. Chad was almost rounding third base. I still had my glove.
Mark, who was the most encouraging during my javelin career, shot me a look. This kind of look his hard to properly translate. It’s the kind of look that takes a half-second but contains an entire conversation. We see this look in Mission Impossible movies, Remember the Titans, and Mean Girls. Contained in this look were the following sentiments:
“Help us, Obi-Wan Jamesobi. You’re our only hope.”
“Yeah, right. I’ll never hit him.”
“But, you’re Superman. You’re Atticus Finch. You throw javelins like a Spartan!”
“You’re right. For us. For glory. This isn’t a game. THIS IS SPARTA!”
And with a nod that our telepathic (and anachronistic) conversation had concluded, I took aim and launched my glove at Chad from deep in right field. The world slowed down. Chad was approaching home plate. The huge leather glove was twirling through the air. Johnny, Mark, Ryan, and I were all following it. It seemed impossible. It wasn’t going to make it. It was going to fall short.
Chad stopped right before home plate, turned around, and took a cocky bow to his audience. Then the clouds opened up and God said, “I hate you, Chad,” and just as Chad stood back up, the huge glove hit him right in his stupid freaking mouth.
Chad crumpled. He crawled back up, covering his mouth while shouting death threats mingled with “your mom” and spitting out blood.
Uh oh. There was basically one rule in Jr. High: It’s all fun and games until somebody bleeds. That was one that Mr. Hogan certainly couldn’t ignore.
“In my office, now.”
The guys came to the office with me for moral support.
“Close the door.”
Ryan closed the door behind us. Johnny looked pretty worried. He was the craziest of us, but he was also the one who didn’t like when the crazy actually had a consequence. He didn’t enjoy being in trouble.
Mr. Hogan sat down at his desk, saw our sheepish faces, and started to chuckle.
“Guys – let’s not do that again.”
Hello, my name is James.
I'm an Experience Chaser, Peanut-Gallery Philosopher, Serial Wantrepreneur, Devoted Daydreamer, Passionate Flavor Enthusiast, Amateur Family Historian, and Casual Photo & Film Hobbyist.
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