Ultimate Sports (6 page)

“Randy! You came back!” Harlow cried.

“Didn’t have subway money,” Randy grumbled. “Didn’t even have money for a phone call. I been in your jail so long, I forgot about money.”

“I gave him some money,” Danni said to Harlow. “That’s more you owe me.”

“Then how come you’re still here?” Harlow asked Randy.

“I had to ask you something. You already lied to me so much, I don’t know what to believe. But did you mean it when you said I could be a champion?”

“More than anything I’ve ever said in my life. If you work at it as hard as you have been.”

Randy looked hard at Harlow, then asked, “Can I use your phone?”

“Help yourself.”

Danni and Harlow stood outside the office door while Randy dialed. Through the partly open door, Harlow could hear Randy’s side of the conversation.

“Hello… Mamma? Yeah, it’s me.…I’m just fine. Say listen, Mamma. Would you mind if I stayed with Uncle Harlow a while longer? No… I’m not sure how long. I’ll send you a letter about it, Mamma.…Sure, in my own handwriting. What, do you think I can’t? Yeah… I love you too, Mamma. Bye.”

When Randy came out of the office, he looked at Harlow and Danni and smiled. “What’s for dinner, Uncle?” he asked.

As the son of a Puerto Rican truck driver, T. Ernesto Bethancourt participated in the sports of
boxeo
and
beisbol
—boxing and baseball—as many Latino kids do. After absorbing enough punishment in sparring and in local matches sponsored by the New York City Police Athletic League, he decided to pursue either baseball or career diplomacy. “In those activities,” he says, “it doesn’t hurt, physically, if one makes mistakes.”

Because his father managed fighters for a time, young Tomas spent a lot of time in the company of fighters. The theme of “Fury,” he says, reflects the lives of many real-life amateur and professional fighters. The relationship between Harlow and Randy is based in part on the relationship between the famous trainer Cus D’Amato and the infamous boxer Mike Tyson.

Before becoming a writer, Mr. Bethancourt was a performer, playing blues guitar and singing in nightclubs and coffeehouses under the name Tom Paisley. He now lives in southern California, where he still plays guitar and sings on special occasions, usually when visiting schools, where he encourages kids to write their own stories.

He is the author of the popular Doris Fein mysteries, the most recent of which is
Doris Fein: Legacy of Terror
, and the novels
T.H.U.M.B.B., New York City Too Far from Tampa Blues, The Mortal Instruments, Where the Deer and the Cantaloupe Play, The Tomorrow Connection, The Me Inside of Me
, and
The Dog Days of Arthur Cane. Arthur Cane
was made into a film for ABC television that is still shown on Nickelodeon.

Pa
Kent says I ain’t probly gonna ever win no prizes for smarts, but I ain’t been in no contests. Long as I’m not in one, I could probly tell everone I coulda got maybe a Third or so, and who’d know?

That ain’t why he says it, though. He says it cause he wants me to try to win prizes in other stuff, like he says I’m a natural born triath-a-lete, which means I can do three things just about as good as each other. The
tri
part means three. See, I ain’t so dumb. I kinda wish it was just
any
three things, you know, like ridin’ your BMX bike over a big ol’ dirt pile an’ then maybe how fast can you switch through all the TV channels, an’ like a watermelon eatin’ contest or somethin’. But it ain’t that. You got to swim in Coeur d’Alene Lake which is about as big as the ocean, which I went to once, and then ride your ten-speed ’til the seat feels like it’s stuck clear up your insides, and then you got to run all over town and even
out
of town a ways, an’ you don’t get to rest in between any of ’em.

So when Pa Kent first tol’ me I was gonna be doin’ this,
I says, “Do a lot of other dumb guys do triath-a-lons?” because I figure they gotta be perty dumb or they’d think of a way not to haf to, an’ he tells me quit callin’ myself dumb, which I figure it’s best to get to it ahead of ever-body else. That way, you’re already agreein’ with ’em instead of tryin’ to hurt ’em for bein’ ugly to you. It’s hard to stay friends with smart guys if you’re always tryin’ to make their nose bleed. Pa Kent’s a nice dad and he means good, but I been dumb long enough to be the guy that probly knows how to handle it best.

You gotta kinda look up to Pa Kent for a guy that takes perty good care of you. Like I think I musta come here pickin’ my nose an’ eatin’ it or somethin’, cause he knew right off I wasn’t gonna be one of them Albert Silversteins or nothin’, and he got right busy tryin’ to make sure I didn’t have no more hard life. It musta worked, cause I ain’t had a whole lot to complain about from the time they took me out of my real house up ’til now, ’cept sometimes it feels like I miss my momma. That don’t make sense cause I guess she treated me
real
bad, which is how come everbody thinks I got such a bad temper. Anyway, I might hafta groan a little about this here triath-a-lon, cause it’s harder than just about anythin’ I ever tried to get out of.

I get a little shivvery thinkin’ about doin’ it cause I done all three things by theirselves when I was a kid, an’ ever time there was people got mad at me an’ sometimes they fixed it so I couldn’t do it no more. Like when I got on the Clark Fork Swim Team. I’d do real good in the workouts—be beatin’ just about everbody as old as me, but then when a swimmin’ meet would happen there’d always be somethin’ to mess me up. Like I swam on this relay, which is where a whole bunch of kids swim the same race, an’ I’d get too excited an’ forget when it was my
turn, or I’d think it was my turn when it was some other kid’s, an’ I’d get us this thing they called dis-qualified, an’ the other kids on my team would get all pissed off at me and call me dumb. ’Course then I’d have to make one of their noses bleed. Givin’ out bloody noses ain’t the best way to make it so you can stay on a swim team, is what Pa Kent tol’ me, but it was too late.

Or when I went to the Parks and Recreation to be in track in the summer. I was really fast but it was hard to know when you were sposed to stop an’ when you were sposed to keep on runnin’ an’ it would be differnt ever time. That one was easier though, cause lots of times there’d be this ribbon an’ when it hit you
in
your chest you was done. ’Cept the thing I had trouble with, was there was this gun that went off when you were sposed to go. First time it just scared me an’ I ducked, an’ everbody left me down on my knees on the ground while they went an’ won it. But the biggest trouble with track was this kid named James that I beat almost ever time, an’ once after I done that, his dad come up to Pa Kent an’ said I should go to this thing called the Special Olympics so all the regular kids didn’t have to get all embarrassed gettin’ beat by a dummy. Next thing, Pa Kent was fixin’ to make James’s dad have a bloody nose an’ we weren’t invited to be in any more track meets.

The bike part is always good, though, ’cept for where it feels like the seat goes after you been on it too long. I take my mountain bike way out in the woods all by myself where the trees get real tall an’ the road gets all skinny an’ don’t have no more highway on it, an’ when you get far enough out there, it don’t seem like you’re so dumb. Sometimes I stop there cause it’s the only place that feels like that.

Pa Kent ain’t my foster dad’s real name, just like Ma Kent ain’t my foster mom’s, but when I come here I guess I was perty young an’ perty scared, an’ I had me this Superboy doll my CPS worker—my Child Protection worker—give me cause she tol’ me he was a foster kid, too. They musta been tryin’ to trick me a little bit, cause they tol’ me I was gettin’ his very same foster parents, what with him all growed up an’
Superman
now, an’ that musta seemed okay to me cause it worked, just as soon as they give me some blue p.j.s an’ a red towel to pin around my neck. Plus, my name was already Clark an’ even though it was my last name, we took an’ made it my first one. Ma Kent says I didn’t say nothin’ for more than a month, which is a perty long time to be quiet, ’specially if you knew what it’s like inside my head. She says I just whizzed around the livin’ room makin’ little grunty noises an’ seemin’ like I was tryin’ to fly away. I guess I sweat up them Superboy p.j.s perty good. I know this is probly one tiling that makes me dumb, but I still wear the red towel around my neck whenever I can, but never at school cause I tried that a long time ago an’ I ended up haffin’ to give out a whole bunch of bloody noses right before I ended up haffin’ to go home. Ma Kent give me a bunch of Superboy comic books then, which showed how the real Clark Kent had this thing called a “secret idennity” which is where you don’t let anybody know you’re really Super-boy. You just wear regular clothes an’ act like you can’t fly or give out bloody noses. Plus, the Clark Kent in the comics has glasses just like me, ’cept I don’t think his are as thick as mine, cause of what my momma done to me. The secret idennity would of worked better if everbody didn’t already see the red towel, which is a cape in real life, but I guess it made things better.

I don’t like thinkin’ back before Ma an’ Pa Kent too much. First, it’s hard to remember exactly, like is somethin’ real or is my brain just makin’ it up. Sometimes stuff jumps in my head when I’m not thinkin’ about nothin’, or when I’m asleep. It’s bad to get too close to me when that happens cause there’s no tellin’ what I’ll do, like I might punch you or scream so loud you’ll pee. If I
try
to remember back then, it’s just all dark an’ bad. I heard my CPS lady tellin’ Ma an’ Pa Kent she ain’t sure if I’m dumb cause that’s how I come out, or cause of what they done to me after, but I don’t see who cares cause if you’re dumb you’re dumb, an’ it don’t make no differnce how come, you’re still gonna have to fight. She don’t call it dumb though, she calls it “inna-lekshully challenged” but I ain’t dumb, I know who all they call that, an’ we get treated differnt than everbody else.

There’s this guy gonna help me do this triath-a-lon. He’s about my same age, which
is
nineteen, an’ his name is Bo-re-gard Brewster. That’s his real name, honest. Everbody calls him Bo though, cause if you called him all of it you’d probly forget why you was talkin’ to him in the first place. Anyway, Bo’s kinda famous around our school on account of he called Mr. Redmond a asshole. Mr. Redmond is the football coach and the teacher of the English class they don’t let guys like me into. Really, Bo done that. Fact he done it twice, once when he was playin’ football, which he don’t do no more just for that very reason, and once in English class which he still does go to if he don’t call Mr. Redmond that again, an’ if he goes to Angry Management, which is this class that happens really early in the morning an’ has mostly scary guys in it, ’cept Bo ain’t one, even though everbody says he fights with his dad pretty good, too.

After he been helpin’ me awhile, I ast him why he said that to Mr. Redmond, an’ he said, “Settin’ the record straight, Superboy. Settin’ the record straight.” I think that means he done it cause it’s the truth. I had Redmond hollerin’ at me once when I was tryin’ to give this kid in the lunch room a bloody nose for callin’ me “shit-for-brains”—which they ain’t—an’ I called him a asshole, too, but I sure didn’t make it loud enough so he could hear it. If you get Redmond mad he can make bad things happen to you. I can see where he might wanna go to Angry Management hisself, but I don’t think he’d really do it. OP Bo must have a bad enough temper on ’im that makes it so he ain’t scared of Mr. Redmond, which makes us a little bit the same as each other, I think, cause sometimes I get so mad that I ain’t scared of nothin’. We’re differnt than each other too, though, cause I think Bo’s perty smart.

Anyway Bo has lotsa extra time now since he can’t play nothin’ after school on account of what he called Mr. Redmond, so he makes hisself be a triath-a-lete. Man, you don’t hardly ever see this guy when he ain’t runnin’ or swimmin’ or ridin’ his bike all over ever place. Pa Kent pays him money to take me with ’im sometimes when he goes trainin’, an’ when he goes up to the university where we both have this fake card that says we go to college there, so we can sneak into the weight room. He got one for me. Man, tell me who do you think is dumber, me, or somebody seein’ a guy carryin’ a red an’ blue Superboy gym bag an’ thinks I go to college?

So the first time Bo come over to my house to get me, I tell him right off I might not be too good at this triath-a-lon stuff cause I ain’t so smart, cause you always want to tell ’em that so they don’t figger it out later an’ not like you, an’ then you don’t got a friend you thought was.

But Bo smiled an’ said that was probly somethin’ I had workin’
for
me. He said if I was smart I might wanna be doin’ somethin’ that didn’t feel the same as this. An’ boy was he ever right! We started runnin’ an’ I kep’ askin’ was we done yet an’ he kep’ smilin’ an’ sayin’ I probly should put “done yet” outta my head, cause if you’re a triath-a-lete you ain’t never done, which I have to admit seemed like a perty long time so I threw up. That gets me out of a lot of stuff cause I can do it whenever I want, but Bo jus’ said to not get any on my shoes, an’ we kep’ right on runnin’. Damn.

After that, ever time I done somethin’ to try to get to quit, Bo just rubbed his hand back between my shoulders an’ said I was gettin’ too good an’ he needed me to help him go faster, an’ then he tol’ Pa Kent I had this thing called a “nak,” which I guess makes you go fast, an’ he said he was startin’ to need me just as much as I needed him. Nobody ever said that before, not nobody
ever
, an’ somethin’ really strange started happenin’. I started
likin’
bein’ a triath-a-lete. That scared me at first, cause I thought it might mean I’m gettin’ dumber, which wouldn’t be good, but Bo said nope, he’d been doin’ this a long time an’ he got smarter ever day, couldn’t I tell? I said yeah I could, but I couldn’t really. See, sometimes you have to lie if it don’t hurt nobody an’ you think it’ll make you get a friend. Plus, he wasn’t gettin’ dumber, an’ that’s all I didn’t want to happen.

Bo said I needed to get me some concentratin’. That’s where you think real hard about what you’re doin’. I know what it is because my teachers always want me to get some, but it’s easier to get when you’re workin’ out hard, cause you’re thinkin’ about stuff you can do, instead of at school where you’re thinkin’ about stuff you can’t. Bo
says the hardest part of a triath-a-lon is to keep your head in the game, which by that he means not to start thinkin’ about whatever jumps in your head so you forget you’re tryin’ to hurry up an’ win.

So we’re runnin’ this one day right after a bike ride an’ I’m right with ’im an’ everthin’, an’ then all of a sudden I’m “lollygaggin” like he calls it, an’ so he asts me, he says, do I gots anybody I don’t like, somebody like Mr. Redmond for him, an’ I say you kiddin’ me? cause I got more people like that than any other kind. So he tells me to pick one of ’em an’ then think of what they done to make me not like ’em, an’ see if it makes me go faster. Well, for some reason which I don’t even know why, the one I pick is my mother—I mean my real mother, not Ma Kent—an’ at first it’s hard to think of why I would even pick her cause I can’t hardly even see her face in my brain, but then all of a sudden I’m runnin’ faster an’ faster until I can hardly breathe, an everthin’ goes all white, an’ the next thing I’m on the ground an’ Bo is shakin’ me an’ askin’ am I okay, which I think I am definitely not. I would of started bawlin’ right there, ’cept I couldn’t breathe on account of I just got done runnin’ so fast, so I just laid there an’ felt about as awful as I ever did, an’ Bo tol’ me maybe I should pick somebody else.

I still couldn’t breathe too good, so I just nodded my head, but I couldn’t think of nobody.

So Bo sits with me there awhile, an’ perty soon he asts me, he says, “What was it you remembered ’bout your mom, Superboy?” an’ I says I ain’t sure.