10. Hibernation

Tuesday, September 13th

Jason sat on his bed, gazing out the window at the rising moon. The sun had not yet fully set, but a gibbous moon rose into the darkening sky. His eyes were swelling with frustrated tears as he looked at the message on his phone again. 

Had our first practice today, wasn’t the same without you. The message was from Winston, who had taken over the helm of captain from Stav. It had been a long day for Jason before he had gotten the text. The simple message was enough to     bring Jason to the brink of a  breakdown. Less than a week into the school year and Jason was already tired. He wanted to feel like he belonged in Madison, but he also wanted to go home to Vancouver and see his friends. Above all else, he wanted things to be easy. Being away from home was hard, making friends was hard, getting up and going to school each day was hard, having to put on a happy face for his family and the people at school was hard. Jason wanted his older, simpler life back where he could just live and not have to be more than himself. 

Jason wiped the tears from his eyes, took a deep breath, gathered himself and composed a reply to Winston. Wish I could be there with you guys. It was a bit of an awkward reply, but Jason could not figure a better way to word a response. It was still early in the evening, not yet even 7:30pm but Jason was ready to go to bed. He pulled up a playlist on his phone, plugged his earbuds in, laid back on his bed and stared at the ceiling. 

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Tuesday, September 20th

“Anyone want to take a stab at defining hibernation?” Mrs. Randall, Jason’s biology teacher, asked the class. All the students sat perfectly still in response. No one spoke, no one made eye contact with the Mrs. Randall, no one even twitched as cold silence filled the room. “I know it’s only the second week and we’re all still getting warmed up, but I want to be clear. I’d rather you be confidently wrong and blurt out the wrong answer than be quiet and have no participation in this class. We’re here to learn, not be right or wrong.” Mrs. Randall patiently scanned the faces of the thirty or so students in the room, looking for any response at all. “Okay guess I’m gonna pick one of you at random. Just give me an answer, any answer” Mrs. Randall pulled up a random number generator and set the range to the number of students in the class. “Okay, looks like that is going to be Mr. Ewing, Jason.” Dread slowly filled Jason as the entire class turned to look at him. 

“Uhm, isn’t hibernation what bears do in the winter? Their metabolism slows down and they basically sleep through the coldest parts of the year?” Jason sputtered out an answer. 

“Perfect, a wonderful answer. Almost exactly right.” With that, Mrs. Randall launched into a discussion about dormancy in plant and animal life. Jason kept his head down, taking meticulous notes for the entirety of class. At his old school, Jason had reached a level of comfort with most of his classmates that he had no problem being wrong when called on. But in the unfamiliar environment of the new school, Jason wanted nothing more than to coast through each day without being forced into the center of anyone’s attention. For much of the rest of the day, he accomplished that. 

After US History, his last class of the day, Jason stuck around to ask some questions to Ms. Conley. To Jason some of this stuff was brand new information, putting him a bit behind compared to his peers who had been learning US history for years now. The day took a turn for the worse when Jason left Ms. Conley’s room and finally exited the school building. Jason discovered one of his bike tires had gone flat during the day. He took the time to get his earbuds out and start some music as he started down the path that would take him to his house. 

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Frederick, X, Anya, and Zed all repeated the process from the practices in the prior week. Meeting in the back corner of the school and proceeding to the practice field from there. As is common in the fall in Wisconsin, it was rather windy. Currents of air swirled and flowed out of the west. Wind is a pain for all sports, however with discs like ultimate uses, even the slightest amount of win has an immense impact. When throwing upwind, discs get pushed upwards, and downwind, discs get forced downwards. Wind causes discs to wobble and bob up and down, becoming unpredictable as they fly. The most experienced of the players gathered knew this well. Years of playing in the midwest will teach anyone how much wind can affect ultimate. 

Zed and the other newbies in attendance struggled mightily. It wasn’t smooth sailing for the veterans either, though they were more skilled than their less experienced teammates, they were not masters of throwing in the wind by any margin. The captains adjusted their practice plans to account for the windy conditions. They wanted to take advantage of the conditions to teach the fundamentals of throwing in the wind. 

Frederick and Anya had the players split into pairs who would stand about ten yards apart and work through a progression of throws. They would do ten forehands and ten backhands each, and then switch directions. After that, they had the option to either take a few steps apart to increase the distance, or stay at ten yards apart and then repeat the progression. There were an odd number of people at practice, so Anya, X, and Frederick rotated through throwing in pairs and walking through the lines and offering advice on form to the newer players. 

Terry was not a brand new player on the team. In fact this would be his third year on the team. However he really struggled with playing in the wind. He had an incredibly difficult time with balancing his power and strength with getting rotation on the disc. Spin helps to mitigate the effects of wind when throwing, and is generated by the wrist when throwing. Terry used far too much arm and shoulder, and often could only get a lot of rotation when he used a lot of force. Meaning that when he threw downwind he would often whip the disc too hard at the receiver, making it difficult to catch. On one particular throw, about midway through the first progression, Terry was throwing a backhand downwind. He released the disc high, throwing it clean over Austin, his throwing partner’s head and careening towards someone walking their bike on the sidewalk 50 or so yards away. 

“HEADS UP!” Terry yelled, doing his best to warn the person of the incoming disc. 

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The path that Jason took to get home wound between the athletic fields behind the high school. Suddenly a shout pierced through the music playing he was listening to. Jason’s head snapped up, trying to locate the source of the warning. Jason then noticed the frisbee flying towards him, reacting on instinct and shooting his left arm out. The disc slammed into his hand, making a gentle thud sound as his palm and fingers gripped the edge of the disc. Having caught the disc, Jason turned it over, reading “Madison North Ultimate Team” scribbled in fading black sharpie on the underside. Without thinking, Jason moved the disc from his left hand to his right, grasping the disc in a forehand grip and ripping a throw back to Terry before continuing to walk home. The path the disc took required Terry to adjust by a couple yards, but was mostly on target. As Terry gathered the disc, he stood still for a couple moments processing what he had just seen. The shock of seeing someone react and catch a disc hurled so hard at them and then casually huck it back 50 yards upwind took some time to wear off for Terry. Once the shock was gone, Terry tossed the disc back to Austin and raced after the mysterious figure. When Terry got close enough to identify it as Jason, he called out for him.

            “Wait! Jason!?” 

Hearing his name called, Jason looked up again, seeing Terry approaching him. Jason pulled his earbuds out of his ear and turned towards Terry. 

“Hey, What’s up?” Jason asked calmly. 

“Dude you just made a great catch and then threw a disc like 50 yards upwind. I know you said you used to play, but you never said you were crazy good.” Terry bubbled as he described Jason’s feat. Jason knew internally that it was in fact a great sequence that he had. But it wasn't enough to reignite his love of the game in that moment. 

“Look, I already told you, I don’t want to play anymore” Jason sighed. 

“I know. I know, but at least let me introduce you to some of the team.” Terry noticed the flat tire on Jason’s bike, as well as the smell of rain in the air. “We’re probably going to be wrapping up soon, I can give you and your bike a ride home.” Terry offered.The promise of not having to walk the rest of the way home was too good, so Jason begrudgingly agreed. 

“Okay, fine, introduce me to the team.” Terry and Jason walked to the cluster of people wrapping up the throwing drill. On the way over Terry explained that it was only a portion of the team and that a lot of the team did cross country and other fall sports. The team transitioned into a water break and everyone was milling about. 

Terry announced his and Jason’s presence loudly declaring “Hello everyone, this is Jason, they’re not gonna be playing with us just yet, but I wanted to introduce him to you all.” As Jason looked around and attention centered on him, the dread that had recently accompanied becoming the center of attention was absent.  He already knew X, Frederick, and Anya, and recognized Isabella from his Ap Bio class and Julia from Calculous. In addition to those he already knew, Jason became acquainted with Zheng, Zed, Sabrina, Reagan, Sofia, Austin, and Valerie. Practice continued for another twenty minutes before a light drizzle of rain started coming down. Not wanting to destroy the fields this early in the season, the captains ended practice early. 

Terry drove Jason home, attaching his bike to a rack on the back of the car. During the short drive from the school to Jason’s house, the two chatted about school and other superfluous matters, avoiding the topic of frisbee altogether. When Terry dropped Jason off, he smiled “You’re a pretty cool dude Jason, I’ll see you at school tomorrow.”Again knocked off balance by Terry’s blunt and energetic honesty, Jason took a moment to respond. 

“Yeah, cool, I’ll see you tomorrow. You’re pretty cool too” Jason stammered. 

“I know” Terry smirked before backing out of Jason’s driveway. After a quick dinner and finishing off some homework, Jason laid down on his bed. It was only about 9pm, but Jason was as exhausted as ever. Even despite Terry’s uplifting words, all Jason wanted to do was sink deep into sleep. To make like a bear and hibernate. 

Fin Chapter 10