Ghost

It was three years ago when my dad lost it. When the liquor made him meaner than he’d ever been. Every other night he would become a different person, like he’d morph into someone crazy, but this one night my mother decided to finally fight back.

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.

“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.

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.

“I ain’t saying that. I’ve definitely been scared of somebody before. Real scared,” I added, thinking about how loud a gun sounds when it’s fired in a small room. “That’s how come I know how to run so fast. But now, the only person I’m scared of, other than my mother . . . I mean, like I do things, I know ain’t cool, but even though I know they ain’t cool, like beating on Brandon, all of a sudden I’m doing it anyway, y’know? So I guess . . . I guess the only other person I’m really scared of, maybe . . . is me.”

“Usain ran a nine-five-eight,” Coach said. […]

“But that ain’t even that fast,” I said. Plus it just didn’t seem like one hundred meters was all that long. I mean, I had just run it the day before in what had to be six or seven seconds. Couldn’t have been more than eight.

“You know who’s really tired, son? Your principal.” Coach put his hands up, palms facing me as if to stop me from even thinking about responding. Then he continued, “No, no. You know who’s really, really tired? Your mother. She’s so tired. So tired. And she’s gonna be even more exhausted when she hears about your suspension.”

“And as of yesterday, this kid. Castle Cran—”

“Ghost,” I cut him off before he could even get the shaw out. “Just call me Ghost.”

I just told him that my mother had gotten them for me as a way to encourage me to do the right thing and stay out of trouble. Just saying it turned my stomach, because here I was, a boy who was suspended for busting somebody in the face at school one day, and skipped half the day the next because I was laughed at. Then I swiped shoes!

“I been around here before,” Patty said, skipping the hello. “I can’t remember when. But I know I been around here.”

“Me too,” Lu said. “Not really these parts, but my pops plays ball sometimes at the court down the street.”

“My dad’s in jail for trying to shoot me and my mother,” I blurted. And before anyone could say anything, I held my hands out for my utensils.

And it felt good to feel like one of the teammates. Like I was there—really, really there—as me, but without as much scream inside.

My tongue had suddenly turned into a stone in my mouth. I couldn’t breathe, like I had just finished running ladders, like I was going to yak up every sunflower I had ever eaten, and if there was a sunflower growing in me, it was definitely dying right then.

“Because that’s where we lived. That’s where I grew up. So don’t tell me what I know and don’t know, Ghost.”