In Formation by Cheryl Dietrich

Author:Cheryl Dietrich
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2015-12-13T16:00:00+00:00

C. SOS

SOS, Squadron Officer School, was a refresher course for junior officers. Air University on Maxwell Air Force Base was like any other college campus, complete with three-story buildings flush with windows through which the sunlight poured cheerfully in, a campus quad where off-duty students could mingle in mufti, and a huge library—though its collection included more Sun Tzu and Clausewitz than Thackeray or Moliere.

I missed Lynn and Tippy, but it was a relief to be away from Security Hill, where I felt everyone knew about me and my weight failure. Here I could disappear into the mass of eight hundred-plus lieutenants and captains, my responsibilities limited to turning in papers and passing tests. And playing flickerball.

Flickerball was a hybrid game, designed to balance the skills of the athlete and the nerd. Played on a long field, with a football you weren’t allowed to run with, only throw, it had goals mounted at each end like basketball backboards but with small square holes rather than baskets. One point for hitting the backboard with the football; three points for getting the ball through the opening. We memorized pages of arbitrary rules, things like, “On overcast Tuesdays, players have to run backward.” Maybe not that absurd, but close. Anyone who broke one of the rules had to spend time in the penalty box. My main achievement was staying out of it. My participation consisted of running aimlessly around the field, avoiding the football.

Our flight’s strongest players should have been Henry and Malcolm. They were our only Air Force Academy graduates, the service’s aristocracy. Both had played football there, and Malcolm had even been offered a chance to go pro. They despised flickerball, which they considered a “pussy game,” and disdained its rules. Both spent too much time in the penalty box.

Still, our flight always managed to win, despite little help from the two of them and none at all from me. Our commander/coach/instructor, a senior captain, finally took me to task. “You’re not really taking part in the game. You’re not even trying.”

“I’m hopeless at sports.”

“Maybe. But you owe it to the team to try.”

Owe it to the team? I knew the words, heard them often enough, but like many women of my generation, I’d never internalized the concept of team. My brothers’ childhoods had been taken up with Little League and Punt, Pass, and Kick teams, junior high and high school basketball. My opportunities to be on a team had been limited to drill and swim, but neither my inclinations nor skills had drawn me to those.

I began keeping a closer eye on the football, running more determinedly toward it, attempting to block throws—with little discernible success except for Captain Wallin’s smiling encouragement. That was enough, since basically I was just trying to look like I was trying.

One day, however, my awareness was heightened by the subtle scent of leaves dying gracefully, fall carried on the breeze, the smell of football season I remembered from college. The opposing player nearest to me happened to receive the ball.

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