Ghost (Track #1)(3)
A weird-looking kid, I can’t really explain what he looked like, well . . . let me try. You know how I said Mr. Charles looked like James Brown if James Brown was white? Well, this kid looked like a white boy, if a white boy was black. Wait. That doesn’t make sense. Let me start over. His skin was white. Like, the color white. And his hair was light brown. But his face looked like a black person’s. Like God forgot to put the brown in him. Wait, is that like Mr. Charles or not? Forget it. Anyway, the boy raised his hand.
“Yes, Lu?” the coach said.
“Is it true you ran in the Olympics?” the kid asked.
“Is it true that you didn’t?” the coach shot back, playing him out.
The boy called Lu stood there like he just got slapped in the face by one of Charlotte Lee’s rubber ducks. Like he didn’t know what to do. “U-uh . . . ,” he stammered, not sure of what to say.
“Don’t worry about what I’ve done. Worry about what you want to do. If you stick with me, I can get you there.” The coach wiped spit from the corners of his mouth. “Now,” he said, looking at his roll sheet, “let’s see what we can do with you newbies. Lu, Patina, Sunny, on the line!”
The three “newbies” hustled down to the other end of the track.
“Lu, you’re up first. Hundred meter on the whistle,” the coach directed. The weird-looking dude, Lu, was decked out in the flyest gear. Fresh Nike running shoes, and a full-body skintight suit. Like a superhero. He wore a headband and a gold chain around his neck, and a diamond glinted in each ear. All the other runners stood off to the side as the coach put the whistle in his mouth. He held a stopwatch in his other hand. “Ready,” he said through his teeth. Then came the short squeak, badeep! and Lu took off.
It was quick. I mean, this kid was really fast, and when he got to the end of the straightaway, a woman who was sitting on a bench on the other side of the track jumped up and squealed and clapped like this dude was some kind of celebrity or something. I was impressed, not enough to clap—really, I was just happy something unboring was finally happening—but definitely impressed enough to stop sorting seeds in my mouth until he was done.
“Nice job,” the coach said as Lu trotted back over to the side like a pro. Like this was no big deal, and he knew it. He glanced over at me. I spit shells on the ground. The coach also called out a time and scribbled it down, but I didn’t catch it.
Next up was the big goofy-looking kid the coach called Sunny. He was the one getting yelled at when I first got there about not kicking his legs up high enough in the warm-up. To be honest, he didn’t look like he could even walk in a straight line, so I figured this was going to be pretty funny. Sunny got in position, closed his eyes, and took slow, deep breaths. Then the coach blew the whistle, and off he went. I could tell he was pushing as hard as he could, but he just wasn’t going nowhere. It was like he was running into the wind, even though it wasn’t a windy day. Like his shoes weighed a ton or his bones were heavy or something. Nobody cheered for him, and a few of the other kids even laughed.
“We’ll see who’s laughing when we get to the mile,” the coach barked at the sniggering runners. They all cut it out quick. Sunny loped back over and joined the group, unfazed. He didn’t even mind that he had run the slowest I had ever seen anyone run. His sprint was like a jog. My mother could’ve probably smoked him. Mr. Charles might’ve even burned him up, and he’s like a thousand years old! The coach gave Sunny a nod, then turned to the next person. A girl. “Next up, Patina.”
The Patina girl was tall, and sprang up and down on her toes, rolling her neck and shoulders, I guessed to loosen up. Her hair was yanked back in a stubby ponytail, with lots of frizz around the edges. When the coach blew the whistle, Patina broke out in a flash, zooming down the track definitely faster than Sunny, but not quite as fast as Lu. Still, I was impressed. I mean, I don’t know a whole bunch of girls who can run that fast. Actually, I don’t really know a whole bunch of girls who run at all. They always be trying to be cute in school, but I ain’t mad about that.
“Y’all vets better look out for this girl. She runs the eight hundred like it’s a skip down the block,” the coach said, giving Patina a high five. If anybody complimented me like that, I’d be trying hard not to smile, but would probably slip a little one in. But she, Patina, she just kept it cool and got back in line like it was nothing. I could tell she was no joke.
After Lu, Sunny, and Patina ran, the coach told all the other runners, “the vets,” to line up and show “the newbies” how it was done. So on and on it went, the whistle blowing, one by one, boys and girls on the line, sprinting down the straightaway. Each of their times being recorded. Some were faster than others. Actually, most of the vets were pretty fast, but nobody was faster than the pretty boy, Lu. Nobody. And the coach kept saying stuff like, “Lu’s still the one to beat,” which was kinda pissing me off because . . . I don’t know. It just made me think about this kid Brandon at school, who always . . . ALWAYS picked on me. Not even just me, though. He picked on a lot of people, and didn’t nobody ever do nothing about it. They just said stupid stuff like, Can’t nobody beat him. Same kind of rah-rah this bowling-ball-head coach was kicking about this kid, Lu. It’s just . . . ugh. I mean, he was fast, but honestly, he wasn’t that fast.