FILTERS 3

ANDREW BLACK

Andrew Black runs at night.

It's a new habit, a response to recently developed restlessness. In the late hours in front of his computer an unproductive guilt would creep over him. He ignored it at first, attributing the feeling to his body adjusting to a sudden change in lifestyle. When it did not improve, he looked for something new. Reading was his first solution, but it wasn't enough. Exercise was the sudden, obvious choice. He started running.

This was interrupted in less than a week. He would run until he was satisfied, and he would ride that satisfaction until the next sunrise. Then he was stopped by police. There was no hostility in the interaction, simply tacit, officerial skepticism. The encounter left him embarrassed, he should have known better.

With badged circum-specters looming, he was again a shut-in. For one night. The difference in mood had been so great he immediately looked for a fix, and in a deliberate naivety of any-solution-is-better-than-circumstance, he wondered how he would be treated if he were conspicuously benign. He took his brightest clothing, sleeves rolled up, shirt tucked into his waistband-pulled-high. He thought it worked, in fact it had become irrelevant. The first patrol to pass gave him a nod, the second stopped and asked "Hey Andrew! What college are you thinking?"

The clothing may have helped someone else, for Andrew it was his name spreading across dispatch. Now the police are friendly, greeting him by name and often stopping to chat.

It could be worse.

Andrew tries to think about different subjects when he runs, but he always returns to a single thought, continuous. The domination of his surroundings that become like limbs. He knows the houses, feels them in a timbre, their yards a stroke outlining the path of his run. Two-story houses with two-cars-in-garage, both cold. A car on the corner parked in front of a one-story no-garage no-occupant house. The sharp heat of boilers. Radiant heat beneath floors, or from water circulating through iron registers. The human warmth of beds, the voids within falling into each other. Animals are not voids, he knows their living brightness, in dens or burrows or at prowl.

His sense of place has become more important than his sight. It makes him feel set right, on proper bearing, like the agile animal must feel of its tail. His tail is cosmic locale, it balances spatial ignorance.

This thought does not motivate his running, even as he runs as its consequence. His motivation is the clock, though time ignored. The clock has set him on these roads, a loop around the city-suburb, home start and end. Many miles nightly, he supposes his endurance beneficiary. A cruiser passes, miles pass. A cruiser passes, miles pass. A cruiser slows. "Hey Andrew!"

They talk (indeed. . .) football.

His parents know he does this, of course.

Andrew lies in bed, staring at his ceiling.

It is the first Tuesday of February. His alarm will ring soon; he thinks about the day ahead. Andrew is a senior at a public high school in Atlanta and the first practice for spring baseball begins in nine hours. His bedroom is in one corner of the second story of a house in the quiet groves west of the city. His walls are pale blue, his window frames are white and rise to the ceiling, three-fourths curtained, clerestory quarter, un-shuttered and fogged-over in the morning cold. He sits up and one mirrored sliding door of his closet slips behind the other, his clothes for the day hang at the front of the rack.

He walks across the rug covering hardwood to his now-opening door. In the hall he knocks on his brother's door and sets it slightly ajar and enters the bathroom. The faucet turns and blinds draw over also-fogged bathroom windows and he strips. He brushes his teeth and steps around one blue outer curtain and one clear inner curtain and he turns his back to the water and closes his eyes and sees the world.

His brother is in bed, staring at his phone.

His mother is at the stove.

His father is at the kitchen table, tablet open and on its stand.

Neighbors to one side are in bed, unmoving. Neighbors to the other have already left for the day, their dog asleep in its crate in their bedroom.

Andrew again wonders if to possess ubiquity is to deserve it.

His father does not know this secret.

A cloth runs over his back.

Someone walking by could guess that someone is showering. They could guess that someone is in bed; that someone is at a stove; that someone is at a table, reading the news. Is it invasive to have certainty from strict options? He cannot see their faces or hear their thoughts or words. He cannot see their screens. He does not even truly apprehend the people around him, only the voids he cannot reach, the absences that denote presence. He lingers under the water for a time and then the faucet turns back and he dries himself and cleans the mirror.

Modest, he knocks again on his brother's door and pushes it open and walks across the run. His towel finds its hook, he reaches for his clothes. Brandless white t-shirt and black gym shorts. Red socks and red Solars and a white hoodie with Adidas large and in black across the chest. His bag is beside his desk, it finds his hand and his door closes as he's in the stairwell. Andrew greets his mother, Anna, now in the living room, and greets his father, still at the table.

James Black says "Good morning."

His father is in his work coveralls, dark navy, two chest pockets, gold embroidery above one pocket reads BLACK'S MACHINING, the pocket above the other reads JIM. A United States flag is on one shoulder and on the other a yellow flag with a black snake and four illegible words. Andrew is eating when Michael comes down the stairs in a whirl, saying "Baseball today!"

Andrew smiles slightly, casually replying "In eight hours, chill."

Michael says "I've been chill all winter, I'm sick of the cold!"

James chuckles.

They leave, their mother waves at them from the back stoop.

Andrew takes them through a quiet forest road, gently curving, itself still waking up, with few other cars and regularly spaced orange lights and steady green lights beneath a uniform wall of gray sky. A car stays behind him, then two, some fellows of the thousands at his school. He sees the heat of their engines, in their tires over the pavement. A tree they pass has an orange stake hammered into its trunk, and beyond it he sees deer, just invisible from the road.

The school is on the crest of a hill, parking is at its base. As a senior, Andrew has a designated spot, and as he closes his door he hears people call his name. The path to the school is a scenic sweep, pebble-pavement, students marching up the incline. Andrew looks to the base of a different part of the hill, to a park with full creekbeds and dead brush on its banks.

The path leads through the divided commons, and some students sitting at the exterior tables call out to him. The entrance is glass and metal, great windows, painted-blue steel double-double-doors. The chatter of the commons reaches them in the vestibule, and through the next set of doors Michael heads off with a "Later, bro." Andrew continues his little glances and nodded acknowledgements, he's looking for Isaiah.

The school is four wings in a square, with an open courtyard at the center, where more tables and benches have students occupying them as other students pass under covered paths. He stays inside, turning down a hall that has classrooms and stairs and lockers on one side and lockers and windows on the other, past more stairs, down another hall of the same. Blue lockers, pale yellow walls, beige and blue glossy vinyl tile, all subdued in the gray morning light. His locker unlocks and he's found Isaiah's void, his obvious height, his easy gait, lanyard hanging from his waistband, duffel bag at his side. He hears him before he says "Sup Drew."

"Yo." Andrew shuts his bag in the locker.

Isaiah signed to Mizzou in December; he benefited second-most from Andrew's success.

"You know how much I want to walk in tomorrow wearing the Florida hat? Fuck a suit."

"Fuck a suit," Isaiah repeats, laughing, "yeah but your mom say so."

"Gotta look good for five minutes on camera."

They pass through the showers and into the gym and sit on bleachers looking at their phones until the bell rings and they fall into line for warm-ups. The class has an odd number of students, Andrew is pulled as usual to play the coach, badminton today.

They don't keep score, but Andrew wins.

His second class is College Literature.

Reading was the first habit found in restlessness. One night the feeling of wasted time became so much that he got up and wandered the house, eventually pulling a novel from the shelves in his father's office. He enjoyed it greatly, and that enjoyment became a desire to take classes with more work and more reading. It challenged him at first, but after months of uninteresting assignments over books already read, the class turned rote. They are studying Shakespeare and taking notes on a text-literal film adaptation of Coriolanus. Andrew has liked text-literal adaptations of other works more.

Isaiah's second class is next to his, and they walk together to weights. Down the stairs, again to his locker, again through the showers, into the weights room. Shrugs, skull crushers, squats. Deadlifts, pull-ups, dead hangs. Curls, bench. Isaiah spots, grousing over Andrew's head.

"Where you get this lift from? I'm twice your damn size."

"Two years," Andrew raises the bar, "carrying your ass."

Weights ends and they go to lunch, their table full of football players.

His final class is College Physics. It's the only class he doesn't breeze through, so he takes exact notes, recording every lecture and listening at night.

He often wonders if it's the only class he actually needs.

At the final bell he finds Michael and they go to the team changing rooms. Andrew has played almost every sport the school offers, but Michael's heart has only ever been for baseball. Michael established his status in pitching as a sophomore, and as a junior there is the full expectation that he will be the ace. The day is brisk but little wind keeps it tolerable, and as the brothers arrive at the field, Andrew notices the new faces. He can see their nervousness and their quiet energy, and from a few who shout his name, freshman braggadocio.

Andrew stopped pitching before his junior season, self-preservation described in misdirection as "My future's probably in football, coach." Catcher was never a question, he was too fast to waste behind the plate, but he could play everything else, so he's starting centerfield. Scouts score his plays 8-often-with-a-star. Atypical leadoff hitter and an existential threat on the bases. First at the dish, the hardest out to get and the table-setter. His coach played briefly in the minors, but establishing an adult life of good decision-making left before languishing. Andrew is on good terms with him with only one point of contention: his coach thinks he would be better in baseball. Andrew's unelaborated disagreement is lateral, he worries he'll get caught in baseball. In football he just has to be fast.

The older players have the relaxed camaraderie of hundreds of days of battle, their warm-up is easy, and they quickly progress to the jocular rookie hazing. The freshmen are given a lengthy head-start but still can't beat Andrew around the track. Fungoes are hit and he catches every one. He hits sharp grounders to third or deep short and no throw beats him to first. The older players watch on and laugh.

As they drive home, streetlights begin to come on.

Their mother is at the stove, their father still at the shop. "How was practice?" asks Anna as Michael brushes past her, bags and cleats in hand as he runs upstairs. Andrew says "Good, typical. Nobody standing out yet." Anna titters, "It's the first day," then, "did you show them up?" Andrew nods, "You know I did."

"That's my boy."

Andrew lays out his physics work. Papers from the class go on his laptop, the playing-at-one-point-five-speed recorder goes on one side and his open book on the other. The recording finishes and he finishes the work and and he thinks about the class and the heat of the stove and of his brother's television and his father's truck as it turns onto their street. He stands and stretches and walks into the hall, saying through Michael's open door, "Dad's about home."

Andrew sees the garage open from the kitchen, "Dad's home." His mother says mhm and he sets the table. James comes into the mudroom, leaving his own heavy bag beside his boots. He kisses Anna and passes Michael on the stairs as he goes to the master bedroom to shower and change.

Chicken is on the table, James is seated, now in shorts and t-shirt. "Boys," he says, "Dad," they answer. They eat, and James asks "How was practice?" prompting Michael to give a full recollection. They finish and clear the table, then return to it.

Anna says "I have a cake after we've finished talking about tomorrow."

Andrew thinks about the many schools that have approached him and the three that are left. Georgia, USC, and Florida. He thinks about the visits, he thinks about the coaching staffs, the players, the offerings. He wonders for well more than the first time if he should be doing something else.

Andrew says "I'm going to Florida. I've compared every program to theirs, they're the best."

His mother asks "Why not California?"

"It's across the country, the team is worse, and Florida has better facilities."

"Georgia?"

"I'd be the backup, and it's the same as USC, it's a worse team and Florida has better facilities."

"So," says his mother, "what else is good about UF?"

"Gainesville is close, and Devaris Walker is the best quarterback in college football."

His mother nods.

James has been quiet throughout. He finally says "Florida also already guaranteed your housing requirements. This is the largest commitment of your life, until now, are you ready for that?"

Andrew says "Yes, I am."

James is again quiet, and the silence is unbroken until he says "We've said this many times before, Andrew, and we're so proud of you that you've reached this night, so allow me to relish saying this for the last time, at least until next year with your brother: whatever decision you make tomorrow, we trust you, and regardless, your next school is just a step. In four years there will be things that you will have loved and hated about any school you attend, but you'll be entering the NFL and that's what your focus should be. School isn't your goal, it's what helps you reach it."

Anna agrees, adding "and Gainesville is close."

Andrew appreciates their reinforcement. No one else on the football team was even approached by Florida, but he isn't looking for a place with friends, he's looking for a place to play. Weather and his family being relatively close are fringe benefits.

Florida, he repeats it in his head as he and Michael clean the kitchen.

Florida, again and again.

When his schoolwork is finished he opens his laptop. YouTube, Reddit, Instagram. Local news. Continued inquiry over the carcass of a dire bear. Basketball highlights, baseball forecasts. When he feels sufficiently unproductive he opens a digital copy of a book from the AP list. When he can no longer sit still, he pulls on a red Braves long-T and black Ultraboost ATR. He walks downstairs and outside through the mudroom. The door locks behind him.