A Most Beautiful Thing

by Arshay Cooper

At that moment, I decided to try to let it go, all the hatred I had toward her, the pain, the memories of kids at school making my life hell because of her addiction, the sleepless, hungry nights. In my heart, I had forgiven her before she opened her mouth. I didn’t want to, because that year had seen my darkest hours and my deepest depression. But I knew when she came home, I had to be patient with her, love her, laugh with her, talk with her, pray with her, walk with her, and try to get to know her.

I walk over to the TV and look closer and see nothing but white people. “Oh no,” I whisper and walk away. “Hey, young man!” she shouts. I just keep it moving to the snack station to buy a soda. Splitting like that is rude and insensitive, but white-people shit like that gets you killed.

I don’t say anything else, I just look at her. There is nowhere in the world I want to be but right here, looking at her while she is looking back. I want to ask her to run away with me.

My thoughts are all over the place trying to coordinate every move my body makes. I’m overthinking, and it is all happening too fast. “Okay, Arshay. Slow, now drive! Slow, now drive! There it is, you at a 24. Now settle in. Breath on the recovery and push on the drive. Don’t pull, push.”

“Give yourself a hand.” Everyone starts clapping. “The feeling of accomplishment that you have right now is the feeling you should have every day of your life. Today, you did

“It’s all because of you; your prayers and spirituality. Religion couldn’t do that! All I know is that I didn’t believe in anything, but now I believe in something and it lives in you. Mom, you always tell people, ‘Train up a child in the way he should go, and they will never depart from it.’

I’m willing to do whatever it takes to leave, but the hood is all I know.

We have a steady fifteen with a couple of girls: Preston, Alvin, Terry, Malcolm, Ronald, Danny, Arthur, Marcus, Leslie, Tanika, Elliot, Dashun, Pheodus, Antwon, and me. It takes a village to raise a child, and our village is gang members, drug dealers, drug addicts, and prostitutes. It’s easy to become a product of this, but I feel like the coaches are using rowing to get us into college and to change our village.

We see the tank and all run toward it like we are at a water theme park. We have been spending so much time on the erg that we thirst to see some version of the water, and this reminds us that we are a step closer. I am most excited to have an oar in my hand.

I was trying to get him to understand that it’s not just trying or wanting to change. I believe you have to make a choice, you have to decide. I make a choice right there and then that I am done with my old life. I choose rowing. I choose a future. I know it’s easier to say I’ll try than to do it. I haven’t been institutionalized. Maybe if the judge saw Ike as his own son, he would have offered a therapist and some form of education instead of jail time. And things could have been different around here.

My ego tells me to forget her and not to let her use me, but I think about a scripture my mom always says: “Don’t grow weary in doing good, for you shall reap if you don’t give up.”

I’m not sure anyone has earned the right to be captain yet, but if we have to pick it should be Arthur and Elliot. I learned at Victory Outreach that leadership is not the position, but the effort you put in.

When we get off the boat, everyone starts teasing Deshaun for freaking out even though we all were. He doesn’t care though, he is still a mess. The coaches look a little disappointed, but I don’t know what they were expecting. This is all completely foreign to us. I want to tell Ken not to give up on us because we’ve been through a lot tougher, we will manage this with time.

I will never understand why the ones we like don’t like us back, or why we’re never interested in the ones who actually do like us. Listening to my mom’s scripture readings, I’ve learned how love is supposed to be: gentle, kind, not boastful, not jealous, not irritable, not self-seeking, not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrong, never gives up, always protects, always trusts, and is always hopeful. I know that I need to practice having patience, especially when it comes to Grace. Patience has shown me some of Grace’s strengths, strong aspects of her personality that I probably wouldn’t have seen if I was actually with her. I’ve also seen her weaknesses, and patience gave me the opportunity to know what I can and cannot deal with before investing more time.

This week, I have gotten a sense of what being a teammate is all about. More than any other sport, rowing instills discipline and skill that you can only obtain by spending hours of beating your craft. Unlike ball sports, there are no superstars. Just eight rowers that have to move in the same exact way at the same time to push the boat forward. Ken was right; it’s not all about athletic abilities but work ethic. What you put in is what you get out. At the Penn Boathouse, these college rowers are on the water at 5:00 a.m., then on to school, and back to the boathouse. I have never seen such discipline. I want this hunger to work hard on the water and off the water. I notice that most rowers are white, tall, and lean. I am none of those things. So, my goal is not to change that about the sport, but to add to it. Rowing is also about trust and if we can’t do that we can forget about this season. On the West Side, one of the first things you are taught through rap music and from your parents is Trust No One. I am not sure how you undo that, but I’m willing to try. I will start with at least talking to each of my teammates because we barely do that.

It seems like the only time the team is calm now is when we’re in the water. I’m not sure if it’s because the water makes us feel a sense of peace … or fear. I just know it works.

He walks away and I stand there trying to figure out what just happened. I wonder if he saw me sitting in the front of the auditorium with Alvin and decided to make peace. I’m relieved because I don’t want to fight Melvin. He looks like he’s having a bad day just like I was when my mom told me about my grandfather. I guess every day is a bad day when you live where we live.

Running up the school stairs comes easy for me these days. Being in shape makes you feel alive and mentally well-balanced.

It seems like the more I try to become a better person for myself and others, the more shit I get.

I’m the guy who has to work really hard to get noticed, and I’m pretty sure it will always be that way for me. I’m used to it, so I just keep my feelings to myself.

My other favorite quote is by Ken: “I would love to have a fast boat, but I am more interested in using rowing to keep kids in school, increase their self-esteem, and help us get admitted to colleges with good financial aid packages.” I am pumped to get back on the water.

We row on misty days, extremely sunny days, and when the water is choppy. We are learning to weather the storm on all occasions. Dealing with exhaustion and pain has become a part of my life in this sport. If you can hang in there and not let discouragement take over, you may just learn something about yourself.

My mind starts playing tricks on me, saying shit like you’re not built for balancing boats, callused hands, open water, and regattas—that I don’t belong in this ancient sport so long reserved for schools like Harvard and Yale, Oxford and Cambridge. Places light-years away from the West Side of Chicago. In this moment, I am in a game of tug-of-war between the me in the boat and the me the world expects. But I am not the only one fighting here. My muscles surge with adrenaline as my team pushes forward in unison.

Keep your head in the boat and don’t stop. Those are the rules. And if you catch a crab, you recover it and keep going.”

Usually after practices Coach Jessica, Coach Victor, and Ken drive us all home, dropping us off one by one. They all are far too kind, and I know their belief in us is limitless.

“So, the father noticed that he kept striking out and felt awful right away. He walked over to his son and said, ‘Sorry you couldn’t hit the ball, son,’ and the little boy looked at his dad with excitement and said, ‘Why? This means I’m a great pitcher.’”

I sit on the machine, close my eyes, and say to myself, This is precious. I open my eyes and slide up to the catch, squeeze the handle like a vice grip, and wait for that sound. “Row!”

I am grateful to Ken for making all this happen and starting a program that will challenge us. I faced a fear of water and now life is a little less scary. He is a special kind of human being. We respond differently to him than we do to anyone else. We are so used to people we encounter talking at us. Nagging us, yelling at us without knowing anything about us. They tell us to do things but don’t want to take the time to get to know us. Ken always talks with us. He spends time with us, learns our jokes, our ways, our inner strengths and weaknesses. Ken uses his time, talent, and treasure to get to know

It’s like a bank account: You have nothing to withdraw if you don’t make a deposit. A lot of times teachers and parents just want to withdraw from us. They want to know our problems, secrets, and the things that are going on in our lives. They wonder why we never tell them anything, and the reason is because they’ve never made any deposits. Ken is excellent at making trust and faith deposits in our lives.

When I first started rowing, I didn’t care to know much about anyone, but this sport has opened me up to trust.

From what I’ve seen, crew teams are all first class and have a laser focus. They believe in themselves, their backgrounds, and their teammates. I am longing for the day that we become as disciplined but I wonder if we will get there.

Even though I tell Ken that I’ve gone a day without eating, been in fistfights, beaten with belts and cords, tackled on a football field, and hit upside the head with a glass bottle and none of it hurts more than a 2,000-meter race on an erg machine when you’re giving your all, the truth is, I can only imagine this.

“Tunnel vision is focus,” he explains. “Limiting what you see or think. When you’re in a tunnel you can only go one way. When you’re in school, think about school. When you’re with Grace, think about Grace. When you’re rowing, think about rowing.”

I’m cracking up as I head inside, happier and more confident than I’ve ever been. Ken is undoing what all the bad teachers and friends did to my self-esteem. Watching his actions and seeing the man he is to his family gives me hope.

I think about Ken and all the things I used to go through at home, and how nobody knew. I think about how I wasn’t really alone, that it’s possibly happening to every young man and woman I know in my school and in my city. My mind is filled with voices that I’ve heard in the last year from the guys at church, the guys at the barbershop, my mom, and Ken. Those voices are talking about change and the responsibility of reaching out to those who are hurting. I want to be an agent of change for my teammates and those around me but I feel a little bit like I have one foot in and one foot out because I’m still young and want to be cool.

As young people, we shout to the rooftop that we want to go to college, make the NBA, graduate high school, win a race, or get a job. Those things will never come to pass if we sit on our butts and just say we want it. We have to get up, put in the work, and get it because if we don’t someone will take what is supposed to be ours, like that twenty dollars.

“Or if they came to block parties and school games to hang out, they might build some trust then.” “That will never happen,” Alvin says, shaking his head. I know he’s right. I’ve been getting stopped by police since I was a kid. No block party is going to change that.

The relationship between those who serve and protect and my community is nonexistent. I don’t know what it is like to be the child of a cop who hopes that their parent makes it home safe after working in a community I am afraid to walk in. I don’t want to hate cops, because I remember when my grandfather was abusive to my granny, and they showed up and removed him when no one else would. I don’t know how tough it is to be them. I know what it is like to be me.

I want to stand up for myself, but any wrong move can scare him and get me killed, then what? What will they say about me? That I am on the crew team or I live on the West Side? What picture will they show? Me holding an oar or the one with my hat turned backward? Will I get a flag on my casket or cheap drugstore roses? I am scared, too.

I want to make a difference; I feel like it’s our year. All I know is the water is my peace. I live in a place where I have been taught not to swim in deep water, to always wear a life jacket when I’m in a boat. I feared the water and any sport that had to do with water. Now, when I’m in the boat, I don’t hear gunshots or ambulance sirens. I don’t see gang signs and I don’t have fear because Alvin is behind me and Preston is in front of me. I feel powerful.

Today’s practice is about bridging and connecting to the oar, water, boat, and ourselves. I feel ready for St. Louis.

My mother always says people perish without vision. I think that applies to our team, too. I’m a true believer that if you have a bow and arrow and aim for nothing, you will hit nothing every time. We need a clear target, a clear goal. Ken talked to me about vision before, and having the ability to focus on what you want and then get it.

The guys on the team always tease me, telling me to slow down, that I get too excited. I know I get ahead of myself sometimes, so I decide to live my life the way I race on the boat and the erg. It’s all about drive and recovery.

I feel like the coaches develop them too much as athletes and not as good human beings. It’s almost as if their existence is about basketball skills and not life skills. I realize now why all the traveling, classes, mentoring, and exposure was more of a priority than rowing. If this program were shut down, I know exactly what I want to do next.

Rowing makes you forget that the world is on fire.”

The boat is like a spinal cord connecting us all, and if pieces are detached, it hurts.

I knew Ken was being criticized for trying to turn us white, but he is just giving us access to something new and trying to diversify the sport. I don’t know why the world is so complicated. Now I understand what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. meant when he said, “I just want to do God’s will” out of frustration.

Out of nowhere, Pookie G. starts screaming. “Okay, fools, let’s do this.” We are all in shock. “Power ten strokes in two,” he screams. “One, two, now!” He counts down with each stroke and is shouting at us, telling us we got this. He is saying anything that comes to mind and cursing like crazy. It’s funny, but at the same time it is working. We finally pass the finish line, feeling half-past dead. We lean back on each other’s laps. When we get off the boat, Coach Jessica is smiling.

Winter in Chicago feels like a pair of windshield wipers, slapping you from side to side for four months straight.

I wonder, Who am I that life is so wonderful to me?