Darius & Twig (6 page)

“Ernesto!” Twig's mother pushed her arms between us. “If this is how you treat young people, then I don't want my son anywhere near you!”

He held me for a moment longer, squeezing my neck so I would react.

“Yo, man, let him go!” Twig spoke up. “What's wrong with you? You
loco
or something?”

I twisted away from his uncle.

“I'll be there to see him race,” Twig's uncle said, sneering at me. “I'll be there.”

“Darius, I know you mean well, but you're putting too much pressure on your friend,” Mom said.

“He said he liked the pressure,” I said.

“What's he going to say? His best friend is bringing his family to see him run in a race, and maybe change his young life, and it's up to him to do well. How old is he, anyway?”

“Sixteen,” Brian piped up. “He just made it, too.”

“Sixteen-year-olds shouldn't have that kind of pressure on them,” Mom went on.

“I just want him to do well,” I said.

“Boy, you are smart and you have a good heart, but you shouldn't put pressure on other people if you can't do anything to help them,” Mom said. “I don't think that's right.”

“You think I should tell him not to run?”

“You can't do that now,” Mom said.

“So you're just putting pressure on me, and you can't do anything about it, right?”

“No, I can do something about you,” Mom said. “I can teach you something that you need to know, and that's what I'm doing. You love your friends and you give them the benefit of the doubt, but you don't put them out there by themselves to do your work. And don't be getting into my face, boy.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

What did she know? She was so busy with her own problems, she couldn't see anything else. She didn't know what running meant to Twig, or what his succeeding meant to me. What she was doing was drifting into our problems for the moment, and then she would drift out again. The way she always does.

“Mom, how come Twig is Darius's best friend, and not me?” Brian asked.

“Because brothers are different than friends,” Mom said.

“Why?” Brian asked.

“Because they are,” Mom said.

“Why?”

“So his mother and grandmother are coming?” Mom took the last piece of toast, then offered it to me, and I shook my head.

“They want to see how he does,” I said.

“Well, me and Brian will come down, too,” Mom said. “Just to give him some support.”

I didn't want Mom to watch Twig run, and I didn't want to tell her to stay away. I wanted to find my own way of handling things, tell her how I was going to do it, and just go about my business. Instead, I grabbed my notebook and told her I had to go to the library.

The Countee Cullen Library was fairly full for a week night. I found a copy of
Cane
by Jean Toomer and read it in a corner. It didn't make a lot of sense, but I liked the mix of prose and poetry. I liked even more the way it took me away from the thoughts buzzing around my head.

The Saturday sky was bright gray, threatening to rain. The track team arrived in the bus provided by the city, and I helped unload the equipment.

“Everybody, compete within yourselves,” the coach was saying to the athletes as they gathered before him. “You know your times, you know your distances, and you know your bodies. If each of you achieves his best time, we have a good chance of winning this meet.”

Warm-ups. Runners eyeing one another, some talking, trying to sound confident to an opponent who was trying just as hard. Judges going around checking rosters, asking questions about eligibility. With everything in place, I sat on the sideline, in front of Twig's family. Mom and Brian came over and nodded, then sat next to me.

I watched as Twig's uncle looked at Mom and then turned away. Asshole.

Twig's grandmother got up and sat next to Mom.

There were a handful of reporters and they were talking to one of the other coaches. Then they called a runner over. He was a tall kid, thin, loose. A photographer was shooting pictures of him as the other reporters interviewed him. All the way through the interview, he was moving, stretching, touching his toes. Pulling his feet up behind him.

“I can stretch as good as he can, anyway,” Twig said when he came over to me. I was going to ask who
he
was when Coach Day came up. “That's Jameson,” he said. “He's got a chance to break the meet record in the 3200. There are probably a dozen scouts in the stands watching him today.”

“Scouts?” I asked.

“Guys who sell reports to colleges, or even some alumni who check on local athletes,” Coach said.

“They sitting in the stands with stopwatches and stuff?” Twig asked. “See who does the fastest 100, the fastest 200, stuff like that?”

Coach looked at Twig. “Mostly longer races,” he said. “If you can come anywhere near Jameson, they'll be writing your name down, too. You can bet on that.”

I felt someone sit next to me and saw that it was Twig's uncle.

“When are you going to run?” he said to Twig. “I don't have all day.”

“This is my uncle,” Twig said.

“Oh, you've got a good little runner here.” Coach Day extended his hand and Twig's uncle extended his. “Unfortunately, he's up against one of the best in the district today. All those reporters are here to see that kid in the maroon jumpsuit do his thing.”

Twig's uncle looked over to where Jameson was still being interviewed. There was a woman with a small camera in front of him.

“How old is he?” Twig's uncle asked. Good question.

“Eighteen. A half dozen colleges are interested in him. They even called me to ask how good I think he is.”

“How good is this boy?” The uncle points toward Twig.

“He's coming along,” Coach said. “He's coming along. They're going to have the sprint prelims, and then they'll have the 3200 after that. Normally they'd have the 1600 first, but the press wants to get the 3200 in so they can write up their stories for tomorrow's paper and still have time to party tonight. Jameson is the story.”

Coach went back to his position on the sideline. Twig's uncle returned to the stands and sat two rows up from Twig's mom. He was going to be aloof all the way. Twig sat next to me.

“How you feeling?” I asked.

“Nervous good,” he said. “I'm edgy, like I want to be.”

“The coach said if you just stay close to this guy, they'll notice you,” I said. “You ever see him before?”

“Yeah, one time I was running around the reservoir and he was running at the same time,” Twig said. “He started first and I was just running after him, using him to pace myself. I liked the way he ran and I ran with him, not thinking about much because I was just exercising. Then he took off for a short distance, and then he stopped. It was like he was finishing a race. Later I saw his picture in the paper and then I knew who he was. I always wanted to run against him.”

“You think you need to relax more?”

“No, I need to be nervous,” Twig said. “It's a good feeling.”

There weren't any surprises in the sprint semis. Black and Latino kids won; white kids who expected to lose made a showing and gave up.

In the infield, white kids threw the javelin farther, pole-vaulted higher, and shot-put farther. Black and Latino kids showed up, got eliminated, and put their sweats back on.

The high jump was mixed, with kids of all races doing fairly well.

Then came the 3200.

There were nine runners in the race. Jameson had the inside lane, and Twig was in the fifth. When the gun went off, the racers broke together, but one of the runners from the far outside cut quickly across the track and took the lead. He wore the same maroon-and-gold uniform as Jameson and was going to be the rabbit, the one to set the pace.

He sprinted ahead of the field quickly and then settled into a steady rhythm. For the first two laps, Twig was fourth, but by the third he had moved up behind the two runners from Ridgefield. He didn't look good. Several times he wiped at his face, and I wondered if something was bothering him.

Twig's uncle had moved above and behind me. I glanced back at him and saw him sitting with his hands folded on his lap, his head cocked to the side.

“The runners are on pace for a new district record!”
came the announcement over the loudspeaker system. Several of the reporters looked at their wristwatches. I wondered what they could tell from that.

At the beginning of the fourth lap, the runners still held the same position except for some jockeying at the rear of the pack. Twig was still five yards behind Jameson, but there were fifteen yards between him and the fourth runner. My legs were moving with Twig's. I could feel them, but I couldn't stop them. I tried to imagine myself flying above the track, looking down at the lead runners, thinking about what I would want to do.

The runner who was the rabbit in the race moved up slightly as Jameson neared him. Did Jameson say something? Could he feel Twig's presence?

By the end of the fifth lap, the kid setting the pace had moved aside, letting Jameson pass him. Twig moved up quickly, but the rabbit picked up speed and Twig didn't make a move. Twig fell back a few feet, waited until they had passed the first turn, and then moved easily past the guy who had been setting the pace. They knew what they could do, what their roles were. But by the time they had finished the second turn, headed down the long stretch, Twig was another ten yards behind Jameson.

“Jameson is still on pace for a district record!”

Now it was no longer “the runners,” it was Jameson. They were circling the 400-yard track in four to six seconds over a minute. A man standing with the reporters gave them the stats for each lap. And at the end of each lap, the loudspeaker announced that Jameson was still on pace.

There was a buzz from the crowd, a rising murmur that seemed to grow as the runners started the final quarter. A lapped runner moved and let the leaders past. Jameson looked strong, his long arms and legs moving effortlessly, efficiently, along the black cinder track. Twig moved to within a few yards of Jameson, and they were running almost as if they were a team.

As they went around the far turn of the eighth lap, Jameson took a quick peek over his shoulder. He saw Twig and turned toward the track. He seemed unconcerned. Off to my right, I saw one of the reporters stand up for a better view.

Nearing the final turn, they were two yards apart. Jameson glanced toward the finish line, and I thought he was calculating just how much energy he had to expend.

Then they were on the straightaway.

“It could be a district record!”
blared over the loudspeaker.

Less than a hundred yards to go.

“It's going to be a race to the finish!”

I felt too weak to stand, almost too afraid to look.

Twig moved a step out and went past Jameson with sixty yards to go. Jameson seemed surprised, but his effort was huge as he pumped his arms furiously. He closed a step, but no farther.

Twig crossed the finish line mere inches ahead of Jameson. His hands shot into the air. He ran a few yards farther before stopping and bending over, his arms across his chest. Then he stood and turned to where he knew his family was, and where I was, and pumped his fists in the air.

Afterward, there were hugs all around. Guys from the school tried to lift Twig but let him slip to the ground, and he was lucky to catch himself. Reporters got to Jameson and to Twig. The announcer stated that it had to be verified, but that he thought Fernandez had just set a new district record.

A reporter walked over to Coach Day, who motioned for Twig's uncle to come from the stands.

I listened from a few feet away as Twig's uncle said something about people in his family having a lot of dedication. I tuned him out. Twig came to me, exhausted, and slapped my palms as I held them up.

“Was that sweet?” he asked. “Was that sweet?”

“It was sweet!” I said.

On the way back to the nabe Twig's uncle talked about character and, touching his own chest, how races are won by character and heart. He said that when he was young, he was the fastest boy on his block. But it was Twig's grandmother who spoke the most. Her face was lit up by an old-lady smile as she said again and again how excited she had been to see Twig run.

“You were such a small
niño
,” she said. “No bigger than a handful. Look at you now. No, no, really, look at you!”

Does the hawk fly by thy wisdom?

—Job 39:26

Saturday night and I was on Skype with Twig. I saw he had a new poster on his wall and I asked him about it.

“That's Saint Margaret of the Sacred Heart,” Twig said. “My aunt said I should put a saint up in my room instead of worshipping football players.”

“And you put her up?”

“No, my aunt did,” Twig said. “And she's going to stay up until my aunt goes back to the DR.”

“You still floating from this afternoon?”

“No, man, I was thinking about it— Uh-oh, I gotta go—I'm supposed to be doing the dishes. I'll call you later, okay?”

“No, wait, what were you thinking?” I asked.

“Like how easy it would have been for me not to have been running today,” Twig said. “If my uncle Ernesto had got to my mom, I would have been pushing a broom around his store. It would have been so easy, Big D. That shit is scary. Look, I gotta go!”

“Later.”

I hung up and flopped on my bed. Twig was right. It wouldn't have mattered how fast he was, or how much heart he had, if his uncle had killed it. It just wouldn't have mattered.

I took out the story I had sent to the
Delta Review
. It was a good story and they had got into it. But if they didn't publish it, then it wouldn't matter how good it was. Like Mr. Ramey had said, colleges were interested in what did happen, not what could have happened. The editors were asking me to make it clear whether the boy had faith in the dolphins to save him. I knew I needed to find the truth. What was it Miss Carroll had said? All of fiction is truthful. What you create is your own truth and no one can take that away or change it.