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.”