Ultimate Sports (7 page)

“Musta been some bad shit,” he says, an’ I think that’s right.

Then he says, “You don’ have to talk about it,” an’ I says I wanna talk about it, cause it’s startin’ to feel like I
really like him, but I don’ know what to say. An’ he asts me was there pichers in my head or somethin’, an I tell ’im it was dark at first. He wants to know was it like a blackout or like some
place
dark, an’ for the first time ever, I see this here closet. An’ there’s me in it. An’ there’s somethin’ else. There’s this bottle that gots the pills I used to take when I had this thing called “seizures.” Only even though I can see it, I can’t see it, too, on account of how dark it is, an’ I can’t tell how much to take or when I should take it, an’ all of a sudden I’m feelin’ real scared right up in my throat, even though I know I’m really just sittin’ here with Bo.

So Bo asts me if I wanna talk some more about it or just shut up an’ run home, cause he knows this guy named Hudgie, an’ when
he
gets thinkin’ too much he has to go to the part of the hospital for guys with hurt brains. I ain’t never thought
that
much. I know Hudge, cause he’s in a bunch of my classes on account of he’s a big-time dummy too, only you better not say that to him. So I tell Bo if he’ll stay there with me maybe I could do just a
little
more thinkin’, but he gots to promise to stop me if I get goin’ too bad, an’ he says okay.

So I says what should I think about, an’ he says, “I don’ know, maybe you should just try to see why you’re in there.”

Well I don’t know, I tell ’im back, but I think it’s cause of trouble, like why else would somebody go in a closet, an’ he says he can think of a couple a other reasons.

He says, “You think somebody put you in there a lot to make you punished?” an’ I tell ’im yeah, I done lotsa closet time, I think. They called it that. Mostly I think that cause I remember Ma an’ Pa Kent gettin’ all crazy when I stuck myself in there one time after I spilt some milk all
over the kitchen table. They tol’ me only reason I ever had to go in a closet ever again was to git me a coat or somethin’. I remember likin’ to hear that, ’cept I
didn’t
really believe it at first.

Bo says the reason he’s askin’ me all these questions
is
on account of he’s learnin’ a whole lot in his Angry Management class about what to do when things sneak up on you in your head. I ast him does that happen to him too, an’ he says yup. He says if you teach yourself to remember bad stuff instead of tryin’ to forget about it all the time, on account of how it makes you feel, it can’t sneak up on you cause you know it’s there cause you been thinkin’ about it. He says it keeps him out of a lot of fights with his daddy.

So anyway, after we’re done talkin’ an’ I’m all feelin’ better an’ everthin’ we get back up an’ start trainin’ again, cause that’s what you do if you do triath-a-lons. You train. But right when we first start runnin’, Bo says, “Superboy, I got a idea. Maybe thinkin’ about somebody you don’t like to make you go fast ain’t such a good idea like it is for me,” an’ he picks up this rock. “Know what this is?” he asts me, an’ I tell ’im a rock. “Nope,” he says, “this here’s Kryptonite. You know about Kryptonite, right?” an’ I tell him ’course I know about Kryptonite, how could I be Superboy if I didn’t know that, but how come it ain’t green? He tells me trust ’im, it’s green on the inside. Bad guys covered it up with fake rock. Then he gets right behind me an’ keeps sayin’, “Better not let me touch you with this or you’ll get weak an’ slow,” an’ he gets goin’ faster to touch me an’ I gets goin’ faster to keep him from doin’ it. We got back real fast.

Bo’s laughin’ so hard at the end he can hardly talk, but he can a little an’ he tells me when the race comes I gots
to look around behind me real quick an’ pick a bad guy an’ pertend he’s got a big ol’ rock of Kryptonite an’ he’s comin’ to touch it on me an’ make me weak an’ slow. I tell ’im how will I know if it’s a bad guy, an’ he says if he’s fixin’ to catch you, he’s a bad guy. Now that’s somethin’ I can think about that’ll make me get goin’ I bet, ’cept when I’m swimmin’, cause it’s perty hard to look behind you in the water an’ Bo says, “Well jus’ swim fast then,” an’ I tell ’im okay.

One thing that makes people think somethin’s wrong with me is sometimes I freak when nobody’s expectin’ it. I can be goin’ along an’ goin’ along an’ nothin’s wrong an’ then all of a sudden somethin’ that shouldn’t make no never minds makes me remember that dark place before Ma an’ Pa Kent, an’ I’ll freak—maybe start screamin’ an’ pullin’ my hair out or somethin’. Like I was runnin’ along with Bo one day when the weather was gettin’ better so it’s almost like hot outside, an’ I was sweatin’ like I got automatic sprinklers in me. That don’t make me no never minds cause I sweat all the time an’ usually all it does is make me smell bad, but this one day it starts gettin’ in my eyes, an’ they start burnin’ an’ all of a sudden, oops. I start screamin’ an’ yellin’ right out there on the highway, which is where we’re runnin’, an’ before anythin’, Bo is pushin’ me over in the ditch an’ holdin’ me down, duckin’ so he don’t get hit. He’s yellin’ “Superboy! Superboy!” an’ stuff—anyway that’s what he tells me later, an’ that’s what I wake up hearin’ him yellin’. He says what the hell’s the matter with me an’ I tell ’im I gots sweat in my eyes an’ he says then wipe it the hell out. So I starts wipin’ it out with my arm which has sweat all over it too, so it’s like wipin’ somethin’ out of your eyes with whatever is already in there an’ I figure out perty quick that ain’t gonna work.

He says use my T-shirt but I show ’im that gots sweat all over it too an’ there just ain’t no answer to this an’ I’m feelin’ like freakin’ again, but Bo gets this great idea an’ he tells me if I’m truly Superboy then maybe I jus’ better be wearin’ my cape when we train so I can give my eyes a superwipe when shit gets in ’em an’ maybe protect myself from anythin’ else I’m not ready for. Now that makes me feel real good cause I ain’t had no good reason to wear it for a long time an’ even though the real Superboy has his “secret idennity” he still gets to wear his cape
some
of the time. When I get to feelin’ a little bit calm, Bo asts me, he says, “What the hell was that all about, Superboy, cause if you’re gonna be a triath-a-lete an’ freak whenever sweat gets in your eyes, you’re gonna be in a bad way.” I tell ’im what jumped in my head was walkin’ out in the livin’ room at night an’ seein’ my mom on the couch under this guy. She went an’ took this eye-dropper thing an’ stuck this stuff in my eyes that made ’em burn an’ burn. She said it would teach me not to be seein’ things I ain’t sposed to. That’s how come I gots to wear these really thick glasses. Bo jus’ shook his head an’ said Jesus.

So then Bo gets to thinkin’ maybe we oughta bring ol’ Superboy back in a big way—like maybe I should wear this cape at the actual triath-a-lon to let all them other triath-a-letes know just what they got theirselves into. Put the fear of Jor-el in ’em, Bo says. We’ll git you Superboy bikin’ shorts an’ a big red S all over the front of your runnin’ shirt an’ show everbody we’re puttin’ Smallville on the map, which is that’s where the real Superboy used to live before he got to be Superman an’ went to Metropolis. So I says what about when I’m swimmin’? an’ Bo asts me do I know about Aquaman, an’ I say uh-uh. He tells me Aquaman can do the things in the water that Superman
can do in the air, which I think he means go fast in it. If there’s a
Aquaman
, Bo says to me, there gots to be a
Aquaboy
, right? an’ I can see how that would be. An’ he says that’s who I can be in the water.

Then he says he’s not sure but he thinks Aquaboy has foster parents too, only probly they’re dolphins, or a mermaid an’ a pirate or somethin’.

•   •   •

When you’re goin’ along an’ you got a friend, the first thing you want to do is not to lose him. I know it’s perty easy for some guys to get theirselves friends, but that ain’t me. The trouble is, a couple days after you get one, you start worryin’ about that he won’t be your friend very long. When I was in grade school sometimes guys would be my friend cause their mom an’ dad would make ’em to help out the ones that was “less fortunate” than them, which was me. You could always tell the ones when their mom or dad made ’em do that, cause they only lasted not quite one whole day, an’ you would beg ’em to stay your friend, but that would make ’em mad an’ they’d end up callin’ you a dummy. I really hated it when that happened an’ it would usually make my head explode, which is where my temper is.

But I’m thinkin’ Bo likes me cause of triath-a-lons, an’ if I keep doin’ it real hard he’ll keep likin’ me. ’Cept then it makes me think, what if he finds somebody who does ’em better than you? So I try to do everthin’ faster, but it doesn’t matter, the longer somebody’s your friend the more scared you get. So perty soon you just have to find out.

Now I’ve got better at how to find out, cause if you just ast somebody will you stay bein’ my friend, that usually
never works, an’ the second they don’t answer you right back you know they won’t be. An’ if you beg, you lose ’em right that day ever time. But sometimes if you ask
how come
you can find out better.

So one day Bo takes me on a bike ride to the top of Mount Spokane, an’ it’s a long ways an’ the road gets crooked-er an’ crooked-er an’ steeper an’ steeper until you feel like your legs are burnin’ inside so bad you almost wisht they’d fall off so they could hurt without you feelin’ it. Bo goes in front, an’ I stays right behind him all the way to the top, an’ when we gets to the top he looks at his Ironman watch an’ says we done it faster than he ever had of before, an’ we deserve a rest, which I
always like
to hear him say that, an’ he almost never does. So we get off our bikes an’ take us out some Gatorade that was in our backpacks, which it made them heavier an’ you wanted to throw it away back there, but you’re really glad you never did.

We’re sittin’ there drinkin’ our Gatorade an’ tryin’ to get back to breathin’ regular an’ I go ahead an’ ast him how come.

He said it was cause he liked me an’ cause I push him.

An’ I say yeah, but would he keep bein’ my friend after there wasn’t no more triath-a-lon, an’ he don’t wait a minute or blink his eyes or cough or nothin’. He just says yes. So now my stomach’s
really
feelin’ all jumpy an’ I can’t tell why for sure, cause he said the right answer, but I gots to ast him will we always do things all the time, an’ he says not
all
the time, but we’ll do things, which is mostly train.

So then I ast if we could be
best
friends, cause I always wanted one of those, an’
then
he don’t answer me for a second an’ I’m all ready for him to make up a lie, but he
just says no, probly not best friends. I hang down my head for a minute, an’ just when I’m feelin’ like I should probly wipe my nose with my cape, he puts his hand on me, like on my arm and he says, “But we’ll still be friends, Super-boy, special friends.” He says
triath-a-lon
friends. I starts to pull away my arm from him, cause it feels like not a
real
friend, but he says wait, listen to him. He says, “We’re not the same, Superboy. We like to do differnt things an’ we gots differnt innersts.” He says he’ll probly go to college an’ I’ll go to a differnt kind of school. But he says we’re the same, too. He says he gets mad jus’ like me an’ when he does he usually does somethin’ that gets him in trouble. He says we both like to do triath-a-lons. He says even though my parents—not Ma an’ Pa Kent but the for real ones—was way meaner than his daddy ever was, an’ probly that asshole Redmond, too, he had plenty to be mad about hisself, an’ that was kinda like me. He says we could probably teach each other stuff about that, even though I don’t think I could teach anybody anythin’ cause who would listen?

Then he said somethin’ I didn’t quite understand, but it sounded like it was true. He said ’stead of worryin’ ’bout what kinda friends we
ain’t
, how ’bout thinkin’ ’bout what kinda friends we
are
, which what he meant by that was that we could always be friends about triath-a-lons an’ parents who pissed us off an’ hurt us, an’ sometimes teachers too. No matter what, he tol’ me, we’ll always be friends about those things, an’ there’s probly some other things that we’ll find out. He said people do triath-a-lons until they’re really old, an’ even if we’re in differnt places, we could train together cause we could think about each other in our head.

An’ then all of a sudden I don’t feel scared no more,
cause I don’t have to worry ’bout him goin’ away from me. I know how I can keep him. I can keep Bo my friend by always trainin’ for triath-a-lons, even though that seems like a long time when I’m tired, an’ by talkin’ to him ’bout things that we don’t like, or that hurt us. Bo says that’s a good way to find friends—you know, find out what’s the same ’bout you, an’ do some concentratin’ an’ talkin’ on that when you’re with ’em.

So I’m sittin’ here today feelin’ about the best a guy can feel. Soon as I get this cape pinned around my neck, an’ all my stuff in Pa Kent’s car, me an’ Bo are goin’ over to the Coeur d’Alene triath-a-lon an’ pick out some bad guys what gots Kryptonite.

An’ I’m not gonna tell ’im this, but ’til I find me somebody for a
best
friend, I’m gonna pertend it’s Bo.

Chris Crutcher is the highly respected author of
Running Loose, Stotan!, The Crazy Horse Electric Game, Chinese Handcuffs
, and
Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes
. Each of those five sports-oriented novels, as well as
Athletic Shorts
, his book of short stories, was named a Best Book for Young Adults by the American Library Association. Moreover, both
Stotan!
and
Athletic Shorts
have been listed by the ALA among the 100 Best of the Best Books for Young Adults published between 1967 and 1992. Like “Superboy,” each of his works provides an insightful examination of teenage struggles in a painful world, with a background of sports.

His understanding of the agony suffered by the characters in his stories is no doubt a reflection of the work he did for twelve years as a child and family therapist with the Community Mental Health Center in Spokane. His perceptions of sports, especially his insights into athletics at small schools,
come from his own experiences growing up in Cascade, Idaho, where he ran track and played football and basketball. “Had to,” he says, “it was a
small
school.” At Eastern Washington State College he was a member of the swim team, specializing in distance freestyle and qualifying for the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletes nationals in 1967 and 1968. Now he plays “old man” basketball and is a triathlon competitor—running, biking, and swimming.