2
WORLD RECORD FOR THE FASTEST TRYOUT EVER
AT FIRST I watched through the gate. I was gonna keep moving, but then I saw that there were other people down closer to the track, hanging out, watching the practice. Like moms and stuff. So I joined them. Well, I didn’t sit with them, because that would’ve been weird, but I grabbed a seat on one of the other benches. My school didn’t have a track team, not that I would’ve tried out for it if it did. I was more into basketball. That was my sport, even though I had never really played. Sometimes on my walk home I would stop at the court and see if I could get a pickup game, but no one ever picked me, mainly because the old heads didn’t like running with kids my age. But I always had this feeling that if I could just get on, I’d be the next LeBron. But I never wanted to be the next . . . whoever the most famous runner is. I never even thought about it. I looked in the world records book and it says some dude named Usain Bolt is the fastest, but I had never heard of him. My dad never watched running on TV. Are there even any famous runners? Like, seriously? I never heard of none, but judging from the way these kids were stretching and jumping around on the track, some of them probably had.
“Okay, let’s get some high knees!” the coach was commanding. He was short, and bald, but I could tell that his baldy didn’t come from all his hair falling out. He was one of those guys who shaved it. Actually, he was one of those guys who shaved all the hair on his face except his eyebrows, which wasn’t a good look. He looked like a turtle. A turtle with a chipped tooth, wearing a hoop earring and a black whistle around his neck. “Up! Up! Up!”
There were boys and girls—around my age—everybody dressed in shorts and T-shirts, holding their arms out in front of them, doing a jump-march kind of thing, slapping their knees to their hands.
“Come on, Sunny! It’s only the second day of practice and you’re already slackin’!” the coach barked at the tallest boy out there. He was holding a clipboard and smacked it against his leg. “Get ’em up!”
I sat with my feet spread apart so I could spit the sunflower-seed shells on the ground between them. The salt was making me so thirsty, but I just couldn’t stop eating them. On the track, the high-knee things were followed by jumping jacks, and some warm-up laps around the track, which seemed like a really bad idea to me. I mean, why would you run to warm up? You’d be tired before it’s even time to race. Duh. Then all the runners gathered around the turtle-faced coach.
“Listen up,” he said. “If you are on this track, you have either already been part of the Defenders, or you have been recruited to be part of the Defenders.” He was talking to them like they had just joined the army or something. “I’m sure you all know what that means, but in case you don’t, it means that you are part of one of the best youth teams in the city. We are the people the top high schools come to for talent. And if you go to a good high school and do well on a good team, guess what? You might even get to go to college for free.”
Don’t nobody go to college for free to run no races, I thought to myself, spitting a shell out. I hate when they get stuck to your tongue and you gotta do that spit-flick thing. So annoying.
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.
When everyone had taken a turn, the coach started over and gave everybody a chance to give it another go to see if they could beat their first time. So Lu was up for another go. He did that same cocky swagger over to the starting line. Did a few stretches, some jumps. And the lady on the other side of the track screamed again. The boy was just getting loose and she was going off like he was doing something. The people around her looked at her like she was crazy, obviously annoyed. All of his teammates looked on. Some of them seemed to be bubbling with anticipation to see the mighty Lu run again. Others looked . . . over it. That’s probably how I looked. That’s definitely how I felt. Over Lu, over Brandon, and over anybody else who thought they were unbeatable. Not to mention I was all out of sunflower seeds, so I had nothing to hold me back from getting up and showing him that he really wasn’t all that, and that I ain’t never had a running lesson in my whole life and I could keep up with him, if not beat him. So I stepped over all the sunflower seed shells that had piled up between my feet like a mountain of dead flies, and walked, not on the track, but just beside it, on the grass. I lined up with Lu, who had now dropped into his “on your mark” stance. I didn’t need to do all that. I just needed to roll my jeans up and tuck my laces in my high-tops and I was good to go.
Coach Turtle Face noticed me and called out, “Kid, what are you doing? Tryouts were last week.”
I didn’t say nothing, and the coach followed up with, “This is a private practice.”
I still didn’t respond, and just started scrunching the sleeves of my T-shirt up to my shoulders.
“Did you hear me?” the coach now asked, a little louder this time. He started walking toward me. The other kids were looking at me like most kids did. Like I was something else. Like I wasn’t one of them. But whatever. “Do you not understand what private means?” the coach jeered. I thought of a funny comeback but kept it to myself.
“Yeah, man, the track is for runners, not people who want to pretend like they runners,” Lu jabbed, now standing straight. He looked me up and down, then flashed an arrogant grin.
“Just blow the whistle!” I finally called back to the coach. He stopped in his tracks and glared. Then he looked at Lu before continuing in my direction. He pointed his clipboard at me.
“Listen, you get one run, hear me? After this, I don’t wanna see you around here no more,” he threatened. “This is serious business, you understand?”
I gave him the whatever face and nodded. He pointed his stupid clipboard at me again, like I was scared of that. Please. Then, as the coach headed back to the finish line, Lu shook his head at me and growled, “Hope you ready to get smoked.”
This time I said it. “Whatever,” and gave him my best ice grill to make sure he knew he didn’t scare me. And he didn’t. We were just running, not fighting, so why should I be frightened by some milk-face running boy?
Now back at the other end of the track, the coach yelled out, “On your mark . . .” Lu dropped down on all fours again. I just put my right foot forward. “Get set . . .” Lu put his butt in the air. I leaned in. Then . . . badeep! I wish I could tell you what I was thinking. But I can’t. I probably wasn’t thinking nothing. Just moving. Man, were my legs going! I pumped and pushed, my ankles loose and wobbly in my sneakers, my jeans stiff and hot, the whole time seeing Lu out the corner of my eye like a white blur. And then it was over. And everybody watching, all the other runners, clapped and hooted, pointing at us both. Some had their mouths open. Others just looked confused. The lady on the other side of the track—not a peep. But all the people around her were standing and cheering.
Lu walked in circles with his hands on his head, trying to catch his breath, panting, wheezing out, “Who won? Who won, Coach?”
“I don’t know, son. It was pretty close.” The coach said it like the words were sour in his mouth. I walked back over to my bench, grabbed my backpack, and to keep my part of the deal, headed out. I’d made my point, and it wasn’t like I wanted to be part of their little club. I just needed everybody to know that the fancy, white-black boy wasn’t all that.
“Kid.” I could hear the coach’s footsteps coming behind me. I was still trying to get my heart to stop trippin’ and my lungs to start working again. “Kid, wait. Wait,” he said, running up beside me. He was wearing those sweatpants, the swishy-swishy kind that make every step sound like paper crumpling. “Who you run for?” he asked. What? Who did I run for? What kind of question was that?
“I run for me. Who else?” I replied. I stopped walking.
“No, I mean, what team?”
“No team.”
“I see.” He glanced over at the track. “So then, who trained you? Somebody had to train you to be so fast.”
“Nobody. I just know how to run.”
“You just know how to run,” he repeated under his breath, followed up by, “Yes. Yes, you do,” also breath-talk. “Look, I don’t know you—what’s your name?”
“Castle Cranshaw,” I said, then quickly clarified, “But everybody calls me Ghost.” By everybody, I meant nobody except me. That was my self-given nickname. Well, halfway self-given. The night me and Ma busted into Mr. Charles’s store, Mr. Charles looked at us like he was looking at two ghosts. Like he didn’t recognize us, probably because of how scared we both must’ve looked. So I just started calling myself that. Plus it wasn’t the only time someone had looked at me that way. As a matter of fact, this man, the coach, was looking at me the exact same way as Mr. Charles did that night, stunned, and I couldn’t tell if it was because my real name was Castle or because of my nickname.
“Okay . . . uh . . . Ghost. I’m Coach Brody.” We did a proper handshake. “Listen, like I said, I don’t know you, obviously, but I know you got something special. At least I think you do. So, you wanna join the Defenders and run with us?”
I didn’t even think about it.
“Nope.” Just like that.
“Nope?” Judging by the look on Coach’s face, I could tell nobody said no to running on his team, ever. “What you mean, nope? Why not?”
All the other runners on the track were cracking jokes and playing around. Everybody but Lu. He was back on the line down on his knees, like he was getting ready to take off again.
“Because my sport is basketball.”
“You play ball?” he asked, like he didn’t believe it. Like I didn’t look like I could hoop.
“Yep.”
“For who?”
“Why you keep asking me who I do things for?” I snapped, mainly because I didn’t play ball for nobody. Not yet, at least. But it was still in my plans. Plus, who was he to be all in my business anyway? I didn’t even know him. And he didn’t know me. “Look, even if I wanted to join your team,” I continued, “I would have to ask my mother first, and she’s probably gonna say no, so—”
“So let me ask her,” he cut in.
“Why you care? It’s just running,” I said.
“Is that what you think?” Coach narrowed his eyes. “That this is just running?”
“Uh . . . yeah. I mean, what else is there? Ready, set, go. Run. The end,” I said like a robot.
Coach let out a hearty laugh, the kind that sounds fake. Nobody really laughs that hard and that loud without bending over like it hurts. “We’ll get to that,” Coach said, cutting his laugh off instantly. Like I said, fake. “For now, let’s focus on the task at hand. If your mom says it’s cool, will you join?”
“Man, I told you, I play ball.”
Coach sized me up, biting down on his bottom lip. “Okay, I’ll tell you what. Basketball’s your sport? Cool. But if you wanna be a better ball player, join this team and you’ll be faster and stronger than anyone on any court. Matter fact, your legs will be so strong you’ll be dunking on people by next year.”
“You think I’m stupid?” I looked at him sideways. Ain’t no way I could be dunking in a year. I never heard of no eighth graders that can dunk.
“Depends on what you say next. You are if you don’t let me ask your mom about joining.” Coach was looking at me like he was dead serious. Like he really thought running could help my hops and get me dunking by next year, which if that did happen, I would go right down to the court with Sicko and them and demand to play. I kept checking his face for a sign he was lying, a sign that would’ve been easy to see because he didn’t have any hair to disguise it. But there was no sign. No lie.
“Man, I’m telling you, she ain’t gonna say yes.”
“Good enough.” Coach nodded, a sure smirk on his face. “Practice is almost over. Might as well stay, and then I’ll drop you off at home. I’ll talk to her then. Cool?”
Not cool. Not really. I mean, track? And who was this man? I’ve seen those weird shows where psychos pose like coaches and stuff and get you caught up and the next thing you know my mother’s in jail too for handling this dude. I didn’t trust him. But on the other hand, I didn’t really have anything else to do, or nowhere else to be, so I figured it was worth scoping him out and seeing how he acted around all the other kids and their parents. I mean, I could always use the ride home, but I ain’t no fool.
After practice was done, everybody met up with the people waiting for them, family and friends or whatever. Coach spent a lot of time talking to all the moms and dads—mostly moms—especially of the vets. They all acted like they really, really knew each other. Like family. Hugs and all that. And that made me feel a little better about him, because moms don’t trust nobody around their kids. So I agreed on the ride.
Coach and I walked to his car, which I was surprised to see was a cab.
“You stole a cab?” I asked, while he cleaned a bunch of stuff off the seat. Food bags, shoes, water bottles, sports drinks. The front of his car was a mess. He threw everything in the back.
“No,” Coach said, brushing crumbs on the floor so I could finally get in. “What makes you think that?”
“Because you a coach,” I said, holding my backpack in my lap. “So how you get one?”
“I coach because I love it. But it don’t pay the rent. Being a cabdriver does.” He started the car.
“Then why would you love coaching? Seems like if being a cabbie gets you paid, that should be what you love,” I explained what seemed obvious, looking out the window. Coach backed out of the parking space. “Wait,” I said. “You not gonna make me pay for this ride home, are you? Because if you are, you can just let me out and I can walk.”
“Why would I make—” Coach started, then stopped. Then he sighed. “Just tell me where you live.”
Where I live. Where I live. When anyone ever asks about where I live, I get weird because people always treat you funny when they find out you stay in a certain kind of neighborhood. But I was used to people treating me funny. When your clothes are two sizes too big, and you got on no-name sneakers, and your mother cuts your hair and it looks like your mother cuts your hair, you get used to people treating you funny. So what’s one more person?
“Glass Manor,” I said. “You know where that’s at?”
Coach didn’t blink. “Yeah, I know where that is.”
We didn’t really say too much in the car. Just zipped from one side of the neighborhood to the other—from the good side to the “other” side. It was my first time ever in a cab. I was used to walking everywhere, unless I was going somewhere with my mom. Then it was on the bus. Coach talked on the phone most of the trip. Judging by what he was saying, what time he’d be home, checking to see if somebody named Tyrone had eaten yet, asking what was for dinner, made me think he was talking to his wife. I wonder what she looked like. Probably not too hot, since she married a man who looked like a chipped-tooth turtle. Coach was saying something about gym shoes to the maybe-wife on the phone when I noticed a woman walking in white scrubs, white sneakers, carrying a black leather purse big enough to fit the whole world in it, and her hair was cut like a boy’s. I tapped Coach on the arm and told him to pull the cab over.
“Hold on,” he said to the person on the phone. Then to me, “What?”
“Pull over,” I repeated. “That’s my mother.”
Coach pulled to the side of the street, and I rolled down the window. “Ma!” I called out, waving to her.
She looked, then looked again, trying to make sure I was who she thought I was.
“Cas?” she said, approaching the cab. “What are you doing in a cab? Matter fact, what are you doing in the front seat of a cab? No, answer the first question. What are you doing in a cab?”
“Hop in,” I said.
“No, you hop out,” she replied.
“Ma.”
“Ma’am.” Coach leaned over so she could see him. “It’s fine. Hop in. I’m just giving him a ride home.” Then he added, “On the house.”
Coach swiped everything on the backseat to one side as I reached back and opened the door. My mother stood outside the car for what seemed like minutes before deciding to climb in. And even after she did, she kept the door open, one foot still on the sidewalk, so she could jump back out if she needed to. Her bag, which I knew was full of Styrofoam containers of chicken and gravy, or whatever gross but free meal we were going to be having for dinner, crunched on the seat beside her as she finally pulled her leg in and closed the door.
“How was work?” I asked as Coach pulled back into the street.
“Cas, don’t ‘how was work’ me. Why are you in a cab? And excuse me, sir, no offense, but who are you?” she asked. Told you. Moms don’t trust nobody around their kids.
Coach adjusted the rearview mirror so he could see my mother in the back.
“I’m Coach Brody, but everybody calls me Coach. I run the Defenders city track team.”
“Uh-huh. And?”
“And your son came and, uh, sat in on my practice today.” Coach threw a quick glance at me. “Did you know he could run?”
“Did I know he could run?” She was sitting directly behind me, but I could still feel the heat of her eyes burning through the headrest, scorching the back of my neck.
“Yeah, he can run. Like, really run.”
My mother just sort of grunted. I knew better than to say anything, or to even turn around and look back at her. I just said to Coach, “Make this left,” when we got close to my street.
Coach made the left and continued, “And I think he’s got potential. With the proper coaching, he could be a serious problem.” I felt like I had seen this in every single sports movie I had ever watched. All of them. Ma’am, your son has potential. If this went like the movies, I was either going to score the game-winning touchdown (which is impossible in track) or . . . die.
“Sir, I appreciate that, but let me tell you something. Cas already is a serious problem,” my mom explained. “And right now, he needs to focus on school, not sports.”
“Right here,” I murmured to let Coach know where to stop and let us out. I figured there was no reason to drag the conversation out. It went exactly like I thought it would. So I wasn’t really even mad about it. He cut his blinker on, pulled over, and put the car in park.
“Listen”—Coach turned around to look my mother in the face—“I totally get that. But what if I made you a deal,” he went on. “If he messes up in school, one time, he’s off the team.”
“One time?!” I squawked.
“One time.” Coach held his hand out to my mother. I kept my eyes forward until I heard her exhale the breath of a long day.
“You’re gonna get him home every day?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“What about his homework?”
“It’ll be done.” He sounded pretty confident for not even knowing me like that.
Coach gave us both one of his cards. I put mine in my backpack while Ma gazed at hers, making sure everything was legit. Then she let out another big sigh, this time probably the breath of a worried mom.
“Well, at least I’ll know where he’ll be after school,” she gave in.
And that was it. Just like that. For the first time in my whole life, I was on a team.