Ghost (Track #1)(14)
“Where’s your water, newbie?” Aaron asked, looking down the row.
“I . . . forgot it . . . ,” I replied, the fire in my chest finally cooling down.
“Here.” Aaron held his bottle out. “Take some. And don’t put your mouth on it either.”
Lu leaned back so I could grab Aaron’s bottle. I held it above my head and squeezed the bottle until the water shot through the nozzle like a jet stream, splashing me in the face, some even getting in my nose. Eventually I hit the target—my mouth, which was when I realized I was wrong. Water was way better than just catching your breath. Way, way better. After I handed the bottle back to Aaron, Lu finally had something to say.
“Yo, what you doing here?” he asked. The way he said it made it seem like the words had been bubbling up inside him.
“What you mean?” I replied. “I’m doing the same thing you doing. Running.”
Lu looked at me like I was speaking a different language. “Is that what you call that?” he jabbed. “I mean, yesterday you were big and bad, and today you just . . . bad. Plus, we all had to try out to prove we belong here, and you just walk on our track like you one of us?” Lu was giving me a stink-eyed stare, and I was looking to see if Aaron or Mikey agreed with him, but neither of them showed any sign of hate. I got the feeling Mikey never showed any sign of anything. Ever. Dude was a blank slate.
I tried to keep my cool, because I was all the way clear on what the punishment would be if I did something stupid. Plus, he was just talking trash. And it was just a little bit of trash. He wasn’t gonna do nothing to me. I knew that for sure.
Still, I had to ask, “You mad about yesterday? Is that what this is about? Me proving that you ain’t all that fast?” Then I had to add, “That you just got on a fancy suit, trying to front like you Usain Bolt.” It felt good to throw that name out there like I really knew what I was talking about, especially since I had to pretend like I didn’t think Lu’s gear was the sweetest I had ever seen. Especially the shoes. Oh man, those shoes. They were bright green and looked like they were specially made just for him. They had to have been helping him run.
“Ain’t nobody trying to be Bolt. I’mma be better than Bolt. Plus, at least I got on running clothes. You out here in your daddy’s gear pretending to be something you not.”
Oh no. I could feel the altercation-ness creeping up in my chest like a new kind of lightning. The black was turning red again, and I really wasn’t trying to be a repeat offender of the bully beat-down. Not in the same day. But Lu was begging for it.
“What you say about my daddy?” I asked, my head cocked to the side, which is pretty much the universal symbol for watch yourself, homie.
“I’m just saying if you can’t afford running gear, at least wear pants that fit. And what are those shoes? Sikes? Freeboks?”
“Chill,” Mikey said, flat. That’s all he said. Just, “Chill.”
Aaron followed up. “Yeah, take it out on the track, newbies.”
Luckily, Coach blew the whistle and called us all back to the starting line. I stood up. Lu stood up. We eyeballed each other for a second until Coach barked, “Hustle up!” Aaron finally pushed me toward the track, and Lu had no clue how lucky he was.
It was time to run back up the “ladder.” Starting with the one hundred. My adrenaline was still pumping from all that trash Lu was talking. I didn’t even do nothing to this dude, and he just felt like he could snap on me. Like I was some chump. Who is he? I thought. What gave him the right to just make fun of me for no reason? Like he was perfect. He’s the one God ain’t color in. He’s the one who looked weird. Why didn’t I at least get him on that? Stupid. But that’s okay, because when Coach blew the whistle, I kept up with Lu on the one hundred. Matter fact, I might’ve even beat him. On the two, I did okay. But it was on the three where the day got even worse.
I was wiped, but there was nothing that was going to make me quit. Not after all that trash talk. Plus, I could tell Lu was tired too. He was panting even harder than I was, and he didn’t even have the pre-workout workout! Coach even had to tell him to stop bending over, which made me feel good, to know I wasn’t the only one who felt like I was dying. But when the whistle blew, and we started running, what I didn’t know was that one of my shoes had come untied. By the time I realized one lace was flapping around, we were halfway through the sprint, and I was still keeping up with Lu and there was nothing that was going to stop me from beating him. So I pushed on. We rounded the bend, Lu leaning into it, which I honestly thought was kind of cool, and then we hit the straightaway. I had my elbows tucked and everything. But . . . my shoestrings. They apparently hated me. I stepped on one, I guess. I mean, who really knows how anyone trips over shoestrings. They’re just strings. How can you trip over a string? I don’t know, but I did. And it was bad. Not only did I do the whole slow-motion, stumble—stumble—stumble—fall thing, but to make it even worse (yeah, we’re in like negative worse at this point), my shoes came off. Both! Off?!
Of course, you know that at the exact moment I slammed into the track, everybody else—who had all been off working on their specialties—just happened to be looking toward us.
Ohhhhhhh! was literally what everyone howled. Everyone. Even Coach. I lay there on my stomach for a second, before finally rolling over and sitting up.