Can’t Go Back

Cassidy stands on the square blue carpet of the tumbling floor, trembling. Her muscled legs quake with anticipation, and her diaphragm contracts, bowling her belly out through the leotard to reveal a smothered, held breath. White chalk cakes her hands and bare thighs. The thighs emerge from her singlet, like pistons of white ivory. She raises her arms high into the fifth position. A cloud of chalk forms and particles of powder rain down over her head.

She is beginning her floor exercise routine, which starts with a back-tumbling pass—one she hasn’t performed since the accident. Her teammate, Kelly, who handles the floor routine music, starts the one-minute-thirty-second clip from “Confident” by Demi Lovato. Several of the girls scream out, “Let’s go Cassie! You got this!” Then Cassidy drops her arms to her side and sighs. Kelly pauses the music.

The girls sit Indian Style in their performance leotards by the edge of the square spring floor we use for floor exercise. They wear injuries like merit badges. Bags of ice and bandages abound. This is a dress rehearsal for the upcoming USAG meet. Kids are on the high bar, the beam, the trampoline, and pretty much hanging from the rafters. But my girls’ team is the beating heart of this gym.

They are the standouts. Their parents’ money keeps this place running. Cassidy is the spiritual leader of the Women’s Elite Team. These are the Olympic hopefuls, the girls the college recruiters seek out, the ones whose names will be on the tongues of sportscasters at televised events that get just enough viewership and rate just high enough with Nielsen to rate a spot on the television sports calendar. They are the zookeepers of fear, in all its grisly forms. The zoologists who feed the lions in captivity, entering the cage of devouring with red meat in tow—totally alone—naked, before the apparatus, bathed in bright lights, the oculus of dissecting television cameras recording every flaw, and the sheets of the judge's scorecards ready to deliver their forty lashes.

If you name your fear, it loses its power over you. My own coach told me that a long time ago. And it’s true. The problem is that fear is like a dragon’s egg. When it first hatches it is a small thing with pink translucent skin and giant oversized eyes. Harmless enough. But only when it first hatches.

Cassidy raises her arms again, accentuating the decorations on her purple leotard, this time lifting a knee as if about to lurch into a sprint, and drops all of her limbs, slouching. And the same series of events unfold, over and over.

“How many times are we going to do this,” Kelly mutters to one of the other girls.

“Can you cut that out,” I say to her.

“Sorry Paul,” Kelly says, with attitude.

I look at Cassidy and say, “If you’re not comfortable, it's okay.”

“I just can’t go backward, coach,” Cassidy says, tears filling her eyes. “I’m so sorry. I can’t do it.”

“Go to the tumbling track and go back to the wedge. We’ll work on it after practice,” I say.

Fear. If you feed it, before long, it grows. It gains strength and power. Then it starts stalking you. It guards the treasurers of your ambition with shiny scales, sharp talons, and threatening jagged teeth. Its menacing visage is there when your eyes are closed. Its forked tongue flicks and licks your cheek with hot sulfur breath and you hear others' doubts whispering from its jaundiced yellow eyes.

I had been there when Cassidy fell off the beam and crashed. She’d gotten lost in the air. Placed her hands awkwardly in the back handspring. The girls have to make a blind leap and place their hands one over the other or alternate them in an inward-facing alternating palm pattern (like Cassidy does) on that four-inch surface, so the weight is distributed in a straight line.

This is murder on the shoulders and collarbones. And if they are off angle by a few degrees, only one palm and one shoulder will absorb all the shock, sending the girl wildly off balance. That near miss on the one-hundred-eighty-degree dead-on-balls accurate alignment on the four-inch beam will invariably send the girl off in vicious zigzags that portend injury. That’s life.

Cassidy doesn’t quit. I envy her for that.

She didn’t bail on the skill. The element. She tried to muscle it. She shot herself off balance as she somersaulted back to her feet. In no man’s land. In her heart of hearts, I think she knew she was going down before her feet searched, aimlessly, in the dark, for the mark they couldn’t find.

As gymnasts, we are like engineers, it is precision or nothing. It is cold physics. Acceleration. Tensile strength. Force versus force. And math doesn’t lie. We put strength, skill, and guts down against the forces of nature, and try to solve for the unknown. We ante up and pay the price of admission. In a game that eats its own young.

But it’s never worth it. You only get so many injuries and I always say it until I am blue in the face—never gamble your health to land a skill—bail. Bail. Bail. Bail. You are too precious to risk. So, bail. Don’t risk it. Don’t ever risk it.

I’m not going to lie though. The only reason I’m in it is for those days when someone doesn’t listen. Win, lose, or draw. If you don’t have the stones to take that risk you’ve got no business calling yourself a competitor. All of the high adventure is tied up in those small moments. I’m only in it for Cassidy. She is the example of everything I love about sports.

Her ankle had buckled underneath her. She’d slipped off the beam, which she barely contacted, and on her way down to the mats, her leg had landed at a weird angle. And she’d broken her tibia. It was a tibia shaft fracture caused by torsion. A nasty, potentially career-ending injury.

The rehab had been grueling and included the insertion of a metal rod to ensure the bone healed in perfect alignment. Humpty Dumpty. All the king's horses and all the king's men. And all of that.

You know something. If I’m being honest. I preach to the choir. But I’m Cassidy.

My busted ankle. My bad back. At my age. I don’t recommend it to anyone.

I know the right answer.

But you know something?

There’s a certain kind of person that goes for it. Without those of us who do that, why even have sports? I see myself in her. It brings me to tears sometimes, driving home.

If you don’t love it that much, why even play?

* * *

I am twenty-two and a junior in college. Cassidy is seventeen and a senior in high school. I’m not going to lie; I find her kind of cute. With my hand on the small of her back and her life literally in my hands, it is hard not to notice.

I have respect for her. Admiration too, sure. She’s gone much farther with this than I ever did. And she will be a far better coach one day than I am now. She’s been in the trenches and knows where the artillery fire is coming from.

The fact I fancy her. I think she knows it. Of course, she does. And she makes no bones about using her power over me when it suits her. But, for the last two months, she has been like a ball of clay in my hands. She will do anything I say. This fear of going backward is a career-ender. If we can’t get over it. And I’ve never seen a case this bad.

She has jet-black hair she wears in a French cut just below her collar bones. The teased bangs accentuate her prominent cheekbones, pulling her face up into a dogged expression. She wears a hair clip on top and a scrunchy tie in the back, and the two drapes that frame her face flap about when she tumbles. Her skin is olive. She has a gold necklace with a pendant. I believe of Egyptian origin. Her eyes are dark black and offset by thick, dark eyebrows. Gorgeous.

“Arms at sides. Swing and spring. As you push off with your legs, reach back and tense your tummy. Dive over the blocks and land at a forty-five-degree angle, passing through the handstand, and snap your feet to the ground hard. Remember. Block with your shoulders. Drive with your hips and pull those feet under.”

As Cassidy does her handspring in slow motion, diving and clearing the “We Sell” Octagonal Tumbling Handspring Trainer, she briefly floats through a perfect, crisp straight weightless handstand. She’d mastered this position as a little girl and her body hits this position as naturally as taking a breath.

“Again,” I say.

I pull the trainer out.

“Now, with just me spotting you,” I say.

She knows I will never drop her.

She snaps through the handspring without a hint of fear.

I take one step back.

“Now, on your own.”

She looks at me as if speaking. But doesn’t say a word.

The thing about that dragon. Those cute bug eyes become dark wells of madness. It happens so quickly. The venomous fire it breathes consumes you in green and orange flames. The shadow of the beast's enormous frame casts your confidence in veils of heavy, inky darkness. The edifice of its body looms above growing in size and significance. Cassidy’s fear looms over her. It is eclipsing her.

“I can’t do it myself.”

“What are you afraid of?” I ask.

“I am so afraid,” she says.

I don’t know what to say, but I know what it is like.

“I’m right here, Cassie.”

“I know, but…”

“No buts. It all comes down to this moment. Forget everything else. The grand sum of all your training. Years of sacrifice. All the sacrifices that are yet to come. It all comes down to this.”

“What if I fall?”

“Name your fear. Face it. I will never let you fall.”

“On my own?”

“I’m right here.”

“But…”

“Breathe and go. It is all about this moment. You’ve done it a million times. What’s the worst that can happen? You end up on your tummy? You stumble? Like you have a million times. Cassie. I would never send you out if you weren’t ready. Breathe and go.”

I hold out my hand for effect and take another step back.

She does a perfect back handspring.

“I did it!” she says.

“You did it,” I say. “See. Was it that bad?”

“But you were right there,” she says, looking at me, childlike with wonder.

“I could kiss you,” I say. “You beautiful, courageous girl. For the rest of your life. Every time you step on the floor. Every time you step on the beam. Imagine me there by your side. And I always will be. I will never let you fall.”

“Okay,” she says. And she grabs her bag and runs to go and change.

* * *

While Cassie is changing, Rita comes out on the floor to talk to me. She is an executive. She wears it like a name badge. In some corner of the world, in some stifling office suite, in a place that I care nothing about and hope to never visit, she is a tyrant. And she’s made a lot of money at it.

She reeks of Chanel No. 5 and false authority.

“Is Cassie ready? Will she suit up for the meet?”

“Not this time, Rita,” I say. “She’s not ready.”

“But we need a qualifying score.”

“We need your little girl in one piece.”

“I don’t pay you for pussyfooting around. I pay you for results.”

“She’s got a long career. This is just one meet. I’ll be the judge of when she’s ready.”

“I want her to be entered. I am her mother, and I pay you to get her ready.”

“I don’t tell you how to do your job, Rita. Don’t tell me how to do mine. Safety first. There will be other meets.”

“But she won’t be able to qualify.”

“I know,” I say. “This isn’t the Olympics. Give her a chance to heal.”

“It’s been months.”

“It might be a year. It could be two. But I won’t put her in danger, Rita. I won’t put her out there until she’s ready.”

“Well, I’m going to talk to Steve. I think it is enough. It’s enough. She needs to get back out there. We need a qualifying score.”

“Do what you need to do, Rita. Just remember. She’s a human being, not a human doing. She’s your little girl. She’s not her career. She’s Cassidy. And you need to focus on her, not some numbers on some cheap judge’s score sheet.”

“I’ll take it up with Steve.”

“You do that, Rita,” I say and head over to the trampoline to wind down.

* * *

The next day, I am out watching the campers at Tumble Camp running around on the green lawn, in the sticky summer heat, doing an obstacle course of foam blocks. The summer has been dry and hot. The sun screams at us. Against that heat, the air-conditioned gym, bathed in overhead lighting, and a touch of natural light emanating through the slatted windows in panes of light on the floor, is a surreal daydream.

Cassie sits down next to me while I eat my sandwich and drink a Diet Coke.

“I feel like I can’t go back,” she says.

“Go back to what?” I ask.

“Go back to being who I was. Go back to being her,” she says.

“No, you’re right. You can’t go back,” I say.

“And I can’t move forward,” she says.

I look at her. I feel parental. Adoring. But also, lustful. Not just for her sexuality, but for her. For her courage, more than anything. I am jealous of her. Jealous for her chances, not yet taken. Jealous for her struggle, not yet overcome. Jealous for her talent and the beauty of what she has not yet done—but will—still will. I could eat her potential and be full for years.

I say it as seriously as I can, to bring it home, “You already have.”

“But I’m still afraid,” she says.

“And that is your superpower. That is the thing that was missing. That is what you needed most,” I say.

“What do you mean?”

“You used to hammer out your routines as if the rules did not apply to you. You trusted your talent—thought it was some immutable law. But then you fell.”

“Fell and broke to pieces,” she says.

“Fell and got up with a broken tibia to salute the judges,” I say.

“Still broke. Cracked like an egg,” she says.

“But now, you know the value of the thing you get to do. That it can be taken away at any moment. Now you know that the risk exacts a toll. You have paid for it. You own it.”

“And that will make me better?” she asks.

“It is going to make you the best of the best,” I say. “But better than that, it is going to make you the best you can possibly be.”

“If you say so,” she says.

“Get up. Right here. On this grass. Back handspring.”

“Paul,” she says.

“Cassie,” I say. “I mean it. No thinking. Do it now.”

And she does.

* * *

Gaithersburg, MD. Women’s Elite Compulsory Qualifiers.

Hill’s Gymnastics is a huge building. A factory for national champions.

Cassie is up on the beam.

She runs over to me as she chalks up.

“You’re ready. You’ve got this,” I say.

“Paul,” she says—always Paul—never Coach—and she says it so sweetly. “Paul, I can’t thank you enough.” She gives me a kiss on the cheek and goes and stands before the springboard. I’m going to keep that one. I’m going to keep it in my heart, under lock and key. And I’ll pull that gem out someday when the dragon’s breath is on my face.

Her mount is a death-defying gainer back flip with a half twist, landing on a four-inch beam platform, while launching four feet up. The forces are crazy.

She has to move forward at top speed while somersaulting backward, generating sufficient acceleration forward to redirect that energy upward and move an eighty-pound object four feet up, simultaneously flipping three hundred and sixty degrees backward while twisting one hundred eighty degrees to her right, losing sight of the landing for half her flight, and her internal gyroscope has to calculate and navigate all those forces tugging in a thousand different directions and land her like a pinpoint in perfect balance on the beam, and she has to be ready to snap into a fourth position pose and immediately connect an arabesque with arms back, hopping straight into a split jump in the other direction. And all this has to happen in a third of one second. Completely impossible. Try it sometime. I dare you.

After her breathtaking mount, Cassie flashes a big smile and looks over at me.

There’s no going back now.

She is on her way.

My work is done.

A small tear, warm and friendly, drops to my right cheek.

Cassie does her two back handsprings and breaks into another ballet pose.

A second tear, sad and lonely, falls on my left cheek.

I wipe them away, getting some chalk on both my cheeks, like eye black on a footballer, or war paint on an Indian.

As I hear the thumps of her feet before she dismounts, I think that this small reward—this is all I get—and it is all worth it.