Devil at My Heels - Louis Zamperini [9]
“That’s true,” said the principal.
“But,” said Pete, “if I got him to run, and the demerits made him ineligible…”
The principal frowned, but Pete pressed his advantage. “If he gets a break, if he gets a chance to find that he has some other way to draw attention and get recognition, it might help.”
The principal relented, and in February 1932, when I was fifteen—because I was a January baby I was in the smaller class that the California school system started each winter, so kids born midyear didn’t fall behind an entire year—I entered the ninth grade with a clean slate.
Of course, I had no intention of running unless someone forced me to.
A FEW WEEKS into the semester the school held an interclass track meet. My class wanted to compete. I was one of four boys in a roomful of girls. The other boys were either fat or sickly. That left me. The girls talked fast and overrode my objections. On Friday, feeling green and foolish and just to get the girls off my back, I showed up for the meet, half ready to run.
I hid behind the bleachers until my event, the 660-yard race, was announced. Then I lined up with the others and waited. When the gun sounded, I took off, barefoot, arms flapping.
On the sidelines the head coach exploded with laughter. When he caught his breath he told Bob Lewellen, the local printer and Boy Scout leader as well as part-time assistant coach, who stood beside him, “That kid will never make a runner, that’s for sure.” He turned to Pete and asked, “Who is that?”
“That’s my kid brother.”
“Well,” said Lewellen, “he may not have any qualifications—no chest, no legs, no form—but he’s got guts, and that’s what counts. Has he signed up for track?”
“No,” said Pete. “They had to beg him to show up today. I bet wild horses couldn’t make him run again. But it would be swell if he would.”
I came in last. The pain was almost intolerable, and I don’t mean mental pain. I’d rather have had someone cut me with a knife than bear the misery I felt from being out of shape because of drinking, smoking, and dissipating myself. I stumbled off the track, hid behind the bleachers, and thought, Never again. Never.
A week later our team met rival Narbonne High for the season’s first interscholastic track meet. My brother said, “This is a big meet for us. Torrance against Narbonne. You’ve got to run.”
“I’d rather be dead,” I told Pete.
“You’ve got to,” he insisted.
We argued, but in a way Pete was right. Torrance didn’t have anyone to run the 660. Narbonne had three boys. I signed up, lined up, and took off. A hundred yards from the tape, two Narbonne runners led. Their third guy was back a ways, and I lagged behind him. I didn’t care whether I beat him or not; I was just doing my brother a favor. Then I heard the kids from my school hollering, “Come on, Louie!”
I hadn’t realized anybody at Torrance other than my buddies and the principal knew my name. Suddenly I felt a surge of adrenaline and beat Narbonne’s last guy by about a foot.
That night Pete said, “You could be a runner.” He knew I had drive, and the beginnings of a final kick.
“Yeah, but the pain,” I whined.
“That will go away when you train. You’ll get in shape.”
“I don’t know….”
Pete locked his eyes on mine. “Do you want to be a bum all your life? Or do you want to amount to something? You can become a runner.”
I knew in my heart that I was already a bum. A teenaged bum. I pictured myself standing in a soup line. I thought of what I’d seen on a sidewalk by the Columbia Steel mill in Torrance: the cleanup guys on a real hot day hauling heavy steel, sweating, dirty, filthy. I thought, Boy, I hope I never end up like that. But the truth hit me: I figured the best job I could get would be the worst job over there.
That night I had to make a decision: Give up suffering on the track and continue with my delinquent life, or decide that, if nothing else, the recognition from running—forget winning