Ahead of Our Time (Prompt: Leader and/or Follower Poem)

1977 -

In junior high school PE,

I was one of those boys

who wasn’t a great athlete

and I didn’t aspire to be one.

I liked talking to girls

and reading

and listening to records

and daydreaming

and watching

Heckle and Jeckle cartoons.

I dreaded the miscreant sadists

we called “Coach,”

and their misguided attempts

to make men of

"sissy boys" like me

and Armando,

the other overweight Mexican

kid in the group.

Our skinny white classmates

ran like grinning idiots

at these coaches’ command,

but Armando and I

protested as we

walked the track

far behind the pack.

I never understood

why all my classmates

loved this -

even as a kid

I knew it was sweaty,

messy

and not conducive to

learning.

Maybe they were

acting out some homoerotic

army man fantasy

as they bobbed in anticipation

and divided themselves into

teams.

One day, Coach Perez,

the only other Mexican in class

(imagine our  betrayal!)

had enough of our apathy,

so he had us lay on our backs

on the blacktop

and do leg lifts,

at 30 degrees

then 60 degrees,

then 90 degree angles

for the entire period.

Our guts burned

but we didn’t

say a word to complain.

We just took it,

silent and stoic –

like men.

For the remainder of the year

we had an unspoken compact

with Coach Perez,

where we would half-try

and he would half leave us alone.

And now, as I see the fattening

of middle school boys

2011

texting girls

plugged into their iPods

and playing Call of Duty

and not wanting to get sweaty,

I smile

at how Armando and I were

ahead of our time.