Red Clover by Florence Osmund Read Free Book Online Page B

sir, I don’t—”
    “Wanna go for suspension?”
    “No, sir.”
    “Good day, Mr. Winekoop.”
    * * *
    When Lee found it hard to concentrate on his studies in his third week of the new quarter, he knew it was more than just a matter of getting back into the swing of things after having had the summer off. And he was having other problems: constant nausea, lack of sleep, and a general feeling of inadequacy and helplessness—shades of his childhood he had thought were behind him. By week five of the ten-week quarter, he was failing most of his classes.
    Following the student counselor’s advice, he dropped two of his six classes, agreeing that it was too heavy a course load but knowing in his heart that wasn’t the problem. After all, he had carried the same number of classes, in addition to karate, the previous year and had maintained a 3.0 GPA, a requirement to remain on the karate team.
    He missed karate. On his way from his dorm room to class, Lee occasionally stopped by the exhibition room to watch his former teammates sparring. His longing to be back in it made him wonder if he would have provided the dean with Robin’s name and school if he would have lessoned punishment. He thought about calling her to let her know that, but in the end, decided against it.
    Karate had given him that smidgen of self-confidence—more than he had ever had before. It had allowed him to void all thoughts from his head during performances except for two things—responding to his opponent’s moves and finding opportunities to make his own. That sort of mindfulness was such a welcome reprieve from his usual insecurities.
    Now that was gone.
    He considered dropping out of school. Maybe he was just fooling himself about being able to get a college degree. Maybe he was still caught in that trap of trying to meet someone else’s expectations. The more he thought about it, the more sense it made to drop out. He had no plan for after he graduated, so what was the point? Why postpone the inevitable?
    Lee stopped by the karate exhibition room one last time. Instead of the usual sparring going on, the room had been set up with hundreds of folding chairs and a dais. Students were streaming toward the building. He walked toward the front door to check it out.
    “Who’s speaking today?” he asked one of the students rushing into the building. He ignored Lee. He had to ask several others before getting an answer.
    “Grandmaster Tatsuo Suzuki,” someone shouted at him.
    Lee was aware of him—anyone who studied Wado-Ryu was aware of him. One of the youngest men to achieve the highest rank attainable in Wado-Ryu, Susuki had gone on to form the first Wado Federation in England and had been instrumental in spreading Wado-Ryu throughout Europe. A scholar of the Zen doctrine, the man was highly revered in the karate community.
    Tickets would be required, of that Lee was certain. Determined to get in, he hid out in the men’s room until the nearest half-hour on the clock and then went through the now-closed double doors of the exhibition room. He stood in the back of the room and waited for the lecture to begin.
    Suzuki’s topic was the significance of fear. Fear arises out of helplessness, he explained, and when we feel helpless, our instinct is to run. But if you train yourself to transform all that valuable energy into a positive motivating force, it turns into self-confidence that allows you to face the fear. Suzuki defined anxiety as nothing more than drawn-out fear. Lee had never looked at it that way. Suzuki went on to say that anxiety arises from the mind’s perception of stress as a danger to the body, causing the body to respond by going into panic mode—a lot of wasted energy.
    Lee had heard ideas like these expressed before, but for some reason, they hadn’t completely resonated with him until now.
    An hour and a half later, on his way back to his dorm room, Lee stopped by the Office of Student Affairs to inquire about getting