Copyright © 2007 by Gerald C. Matics
Ricky's death hit his former high school teammates hard. In the end, there really was only one way to honor his memory.
It was a closed-casket affair, Ricky having chosen to kill himself in a particularly messy fashion. He had been out running, naturally, and apparently stepped off a curb wrong and snapped his ankle, the latest in a conga line of injuries. Had he lived, this one would have kept him out of the mile at the Relays and likely sidelined him the rest of the year, according to the coroner.
By law they had to do an autopsy, even though the cause of death was as obvious as blood on white sheets, to determine if drugs had played a role. But the very idea of Ricky using was a laugh. Doubtless the stress of the last several months — the divorce, the loss of two jobs, and of course the injuries — must have been more than he could bear. He had gone down not far from some train tracks, and when in his despair he saw a train approaching, he crawled forward . . . .
God rest his troubled soul, I prayed as Kim and I climbed the steps of
The four of us were as tight as non-sexually possible at
The other two sat with a woman I didn't recognize in a pew halfway back. When Harry stood we hugged without the least trace of embarrassment. Harry had always had a big frame, but since he'd stopped running years ago he'd put on a formidable belly. What once was rangy was now almost porcine; I had trouble getting my arms around him.
"Steve," he said, "I wish I could be happier to see you."
"I know, Harry," I told him. "Same here."
Then Mick rose with the woman, an attractive brunette, and we embraced without words. Mick was as trim as ever, and still vertically challenged; the brunette he was with was slightly taller in heels.
I introduced Kim and we met Tracy, Mick's girlfriend, just as the service began.
"My brothers and sisters in Christ," the priest intoned after the opening rites, "we are gathered today to pay our final respects to Eric William Vogel, beloved son of William and Lorraine, 'Ricky' to his family and friends, a gentle man and accomplished athlete . . ."
As I listened to the priest drone on, my eyes kept wandering over to the casket like a willful toddler. I couldn't help wondering what Ricky would have said about this eulogy. Accomplished athlete? Only to everyone around him. He was by far my superior as a runner, particularly in the mile; he had nearly broken the magic four-minute barrier twice, coming up tantalizing tenths of a second short. He'd go back and redouble his training each time, only to succumb to another injury.
In Ricky's world, it was a personal failure, and the ultimate curse; he was extraordinarily good — better than all but a relative handful of mortals — but he wasn't great. He'd never be mentioned in the same heady breath as the Jim Ryuns or the Marty Liquoris of the track world, and rightly or wrongly, he blamed his fragile body.
To Ricky there was always a race he should have won, a time he should have achieved. I felt tears slip down my cheeks as I thought about the sad lack of perspective that had brought Ricky to this abhorrent end; rough coughs from beside me told me the others' thoughts were probably much the same. We'd left it all behind, but it was easier for us. We simply weren't that good. We hadn't the gift he'd had, and therefore none of the demons that attended it, for it was, in the end, an incomplete gift.
Sad as it was, the essential truth of Ricky Vogel was this: as successful a competitor as he had been, and though he'd sacrificed literally everything for that success, his destiny was never to do more than brush the brass ring with his straining, outstretched hand. . . .
