Lu

by Jason Reynolds

  “I need to talk to you for a second,” Dad said, as I continued to move backward across the track. They talked, and I walked. They talked and I walked. Backed farther and farther away, their voices becoming quieter and quieter, but their bodies becoming clearer and clearer. Off the track, back and back, onto the field, back and back, a few steps from Sunny. I could see my father holding the medal, the ribbon dangling from his hand. I could see Coach reach for it. Take it. Hold it up so that he could look at it as if it were his baby boy.

  “Lu.” Sunny tried to get my attention.

  “Hold on, Sunny. Hold on.” I tried to shush him. Not to be mean, but because I needed to keep watch to make sure these two men ain’t start trying to tear each other’s heads off.

  “Is that your father?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Cool. But Lu,” Sunny said again. I turned to see what was up with him, his body nothing but a fog. “You in the way. And if you don’t want me to send you to the planet Discobulus with this discus, you should probably move.”

  “Just give me one more minute, man. Please,” I begged, watching Dad and Coach go back and forth. There was a lot of hand moving. A lot of arm waving. A lot of pointing. Coach put his hand on my father’s shoulder. My father wiped his eyes. Then nodded. And then . . .

  “Fifty-six, fifty-seven, fifty-eight, fifty-nine . . . one minute,” Sunny announced. He didn’t even wait for me to move. Just started winding up. I couldn’t really see it, but I could tell.

  “Okay, okay.” I (quickly) got out the way. Started back toward Coach and Dad, who were now sitting on the bench, the same bench me and Sunny and Patty and Ghost sit on every day. Coach was rubbing his face, swiping it with his hand, pinching his nose. Dad was rubbing his hands together. I walked toward them across the grass, already knowing what had happened. What was happening. It was clear, even though the closer I got, the more they faded away.

  The rest of practice was Coach blowing his whistle, me running, counting off, jumping hurdles, waltzing, finishing, and my father meeting me to walk me back to the starting line to do it again. On the walks back, Dad would say stuff like, “Getting any easier?”

  “No.”

  “Well, take it from me, it won’t. But does that matter?”

  “No.”

  “Exactly. Just remember the upside: you’re always going to be bigger than the hurdle.”

  And then on the last one, the one just before the rest of my teammates came running back across the field toward the track—Lynn in the lead, Chris not far behind—my father, on our way back to the starting line, simply said, “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “Remember when I said I can see a lot of me in you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I think there’s some things in you that you see in me, that I didn’t even know were there.”

  I felt the urge to scratch my head to maybe try to wake up my brain. “That’s . . . confusing.”

  “I’m just saying that I’m happy you haven’t let the . . . pressure make you small. That you haven’t let it eat you.”

  I just nodded. But it wasn’t a good nod. My head felt sudsy like a washing machine. And my stomach felt hot like a dryer. I knew there was stuff that still needed to be cleaned.

  By the time I got my contacts back in, everyone else was back, breathing heavy, bent over, pacing back and forth on the track. Coach had the medal tucked in his back pocket—I could see the ribbon peeking out—and was telling everybody to stand up straight. My father was leaning against the fence that circled the track. Fingertips in his pockets. Watching.

  “Y’all know my rule. No bending over. Everybody up,” Coach commanded. “Whit, who shined out there?”

  “I gotta give it to Lynn. She put in work. And also, Chris. He was right behind her, and that’s pretty impressive since he hasn’t been here all season.” Coach gave Lynn and Chris pounds. “But to be honest, everybody pushed through. Patty, Curron, Deja, Brit-Brat, Mikey.” Stone-face Mikey smiled. Closed mouth. But still, it was a smile.

  “Good, good. That’s what I like to hear.” Out of nowhere, Coach sat down on the track. Just . . . took a seat. He’d never done that before. “Everybody down. Sit.” He patted the track. We all sat, some with our legs crossed, some with our legs stretched out in front of us. Sunny, with his knees tucked.

  “This is the last practice of the season. And I need y’all to know, before we go into the championship Saturday, that I’m proud of you. I really am. I know I’m hard on you, but that’s because I love you. Sometimes love sounds like . . . get back on the line. Sometimes it’s a hard conversation or me blowing the whistle and shaking my head. But as we go into this last meet, no matter what happens, I wanted you all to at least know that. Yes, I want to win. Yes, I want you all to go out there and do your best. But this team has never been about the races.” Sunny cleared his throat. “Or the throwing,” Coach amended. “This team is about the team. About y’all. About the lane”—Sunny cleared his throat again—“or circle, you’re in when no one’s timing or cheering. The race you’re running when no one’s looking. Understand?”

  A lot of nods.

  “That being said, Defenders, let’s leave smoke on the track this weekend. Let’s leave it all out here. The best never rest.”

  More nods.

  “The best never rest,” he repeated.

  I looked around at my friends. My new brothers and sisters.

  “The best never rest!” This time a little louder.

  “The best never rest,” Aaron joined in, and I caught the end of it.

  “The best never rest.” This time me and Aaron said it together.

  “The best never rest!” More of us.

  “The best never rest!” All of us.

  “THE BEST NEVER REST!” And we stood and clapped, and clapped, and clapped.

  On the way home, I asked Dad what him and Coach talked about. He said he ain’t want to tell me.

  “That’s between me and Otis,” he explained, glancing at me. “But just know we both had some stuff to say. Turns out we both kinda wanted what the other had. But now . . . I think . . . we’re good.” Dad checked the rearview, then cut his eyes at me, popped me on the arm with the back of his hand. “Hey.” I looked at him. “You see how good I treat your mother?”

  “Yeah,” I said, thinking he was doing the whole change-the-subject thing again.

  “Not everybody grew up seeing that,” he said, making a right turn. “So you make sure you treat her the same way. And anyone else you love.”

  Seemed like such a random thing to say, especially since I already knew that. She worries about me all the time. And I worry about her, too. Matter fact, I’d been worried about her all day. Dad and me both had been worried. So we stopped and picked up some flowers on the way home, hoping the smell of them wouldn’t make her gag.

  When we got inside, Mom was in the living room, knocked out on the couch. A stream of drool slimed out of her mouth, and my dad bent over and kissed her cheek as if it wasn’t there. There was a small trash can beside her—nothing in it, thankfully—and a jar of peanut butter next to the can.

  I took the flowers, cut the stems just like she always did, put them in a big plastic Slurpee cup, and set them on the coffee table in front of her.

  “What we gon’ eat?” I asked my dad softly so I didn’t wake my mother. Dad shrugged. Opened the fridge.

  “Any peanut butter left?” he asked. I crept over and grabbed the jar that was on the floor.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, let’s see what we can do.”

  We called it the Newbie. It was bread. Peanut butter. Honey. Bananas. Middle bread. Grape jelly. Grapes (cut in half so they look like purple bumps). Mashed-up kiwi that we called fruit guacamole. Top bread. Finished off with an orange slice (of course) with a toothpick through it.

  And it was delicious.

  9

  A NEW NAME FOR ME: Me (Maybe)

  The next mo
rning, when I came into the kitchen, my mother was sitting at the table. The flowers me and Dad got for her she had moved to the kitchen, in front of the window, where they belonged. But they were still in the Slurpee cup. She was flipping through one of her art magazines.

  “Good morning, Lu.” She glanced up.

  “Morning,” I replied, yanking the fridge open, reaching for the milk and orange juice. “Feeling better?”

  “At the moment,” she said, rubbing her stomach. “Baby girl’s not gonna put up with no mess, that’s for sure.”

  I poured my cereal, juice, the usual. Then sat down at the table. “What you doing?”

  “Looking for inspiration,” she said. She closed the magazine. Looked at me. “No deliveries today.” A day off. Yes. “But your father wants you to hang with him. That man—he works like he’s trying to win first place at it.” Apparently, no days off for me.

  “He’s here?” I only asked because usually when I wake up, Dad be already gone. He got home late most nights, and left early most mornings, running around doing whatever he does to help people struggling with addiction stuff.

  “Yeah, he’s outside cleaning out his car.”

  What my mother meant by cleaning out his car was making sure it was spotless. My father drove an old car. A really old car. So old that it seemed new. So old that it felt like a spaceship from the future. By the time I got out there, he was spraying shiny stuff on the tires to make sure the black wasn’t just black, but shiny black. A black that seemed to glow and sparkle when the sun hit it.

  “Wassup, man,” he said, looking over his shoulder. He was squatting and spraying. Squatting and spraying.

  “Hey.” I looked down the block. Up the block. No one outside yet. “Mom said you want me to hang with you.”

  Dad put the spray can down. Stood up. “Don’t do me no favors.” He smirked.

  “I ain’t mean it like that.”

  “I know,” he said. “I want to give your mom a day to chill out. Hopefully she won’t be too sick and she can really kick back and enjoy herself without you stinking up the joint. Plus, you’ve never seen what I do. And after yesterday . . . today might be a good day to check it out.”

  An hour later we were cruising. My father’s a little different from my mother because he plays my music—good music—all the time. And he plays it loud. Like he young. Like he Skunk.

  We rode through Barnaby Terrace, passing Cotton’s house—I couldn’t help but look to see if she was outside—Patty’s old house, where her mother still lives, the grocery stores, the owners of those grocery stores hosing down the sidewalk, the churches—Dad turned the music down whenever we passed one—dollar stores, general stores, which are basically five-dollar stores, more dollar stores, a ninety-nine-cent store, Everything Sports, which was my favorite store, and eventually we turned into Glass Manor and pulled up to the basketball court. It was busy. Lots of people already playing, running back and forth, shirts and skins, screaming and calling for the ball. Girls. Women looking on. Looking at their boyfriends, I guess. Or maybe not. Maybe some of them were waiting to play. And people who were messed up. People leaning, and scratching. People too awake, and too asleep.

  Right after we got out the car, another car pulled up.

  “Listen,” Dad said, locking the doors. “I know everybody here. So you’re fine. But if I call your name, I need you to come immediately. Got me?”

  “Yeah.” I glanced at the car parked behind us. The person opened the door, rose up from the driver’s side.

  “Yo.” A familiar voice came over my shoulder.

  “There she is,” my dad announced. “The great Whitney Cunningham.”

  “Whit?” Whit walked over, gave my father a hug. Gave me a playful smush to the face. “What you doing here?” I asked, confused.

  “What you doing here?” she asked back, just as confused.

  “I’m here because he”—I jerked a thumb at my father—“brought me. Plus we giving my mother a day off.”

  Whit laughed. “I know. I’m just joking. Me and Goose talked about it yesterday. I knew you were coming.” She turned to my dad. “You tell him why we here?”

  “Not yet. Figured you should tell him,” Dad replied.

  “Well, Coach told me you met my brother,” Whit explained.

  “The Wolf?”

  “Yeah.” Whit did a half eye-roll. “Torrie. Well, your father has been trying to help me . . . help him. Help me help him. We’ve tried a few times already, just with the letters. I’ve written several. But Torrie won’t bite. They haven’t been enough. So today, I decided to take off work and come down here myself and read it to him out loud.”

  “Here?” I darted my eyes to the court, a busy mash-up of sound and body.

  “Here,” Whit confirmed.

  “That’s why I had to get permission for you to come, kid,” Dad explained. “This is a big deal. And it’s personal.”

  “It’s life,” Whit said, sort of shrugging. “And it’s never a bad time to witness life.”

  But I felt funny about it. Funny in a queasy way, like I wasn’t supposed to see whatever I was going to see. Kind of how I felt when Dad was talking to Coach. And the funny feeling got worse when we actually got over to the court, and everybody shouted my father out.

  “Goose!” a big dude built like a tank boomed.

  “Whaddup, Goose.” From a dude my dad called Sicko. He was kneeling on the sideline, scratching a muscular pit bull behind the ear. My father whispered to me not to touch it.

  “Goose, don’t come in here making no trouble,” a young dude, dribbling the ball back and forth between his legs, warned.

  “I was making trouble when I was your age, Pop. You know I ain’t on that no more,” Dad replied. Then he turned to one of the other guys. Tall, cut-up dude, looked like he was supposed to be on somebody’s NBA team. “You good, Big James?”

  The guy called Big James nodded. “Better than everybody else on this court. It’s lunchtime, and these fools ain’t nothing but food.” He rubbed his fingers together. “Bread and cheese.”

  “Yeah, whatever,” Pop said.

  “You out your mind.”

  “I just took your money, James!”

  “Yeah, because Sicko a bum.”

  “Keep talking, James, and this here dog’ll show you who’s food.”

  My father laughed before finally introducing me and Whit to the crew.

  “Everybody, this is Whitney. Wolf’s sister.” Dad followed up with a quick warning. “No slick talk. I’m not playing.”

  “Ain’t nobody gon’ say nothing slick,” Pop said . . . slick.

  One guy whose name I didn’t know mumbled too loud to be a mumble. “Uh-oh. I already know what this about.”

  “And this is my son, Lu,” Dad announced.

  I almost waved, but waves be weird. So I nodded. Chin up.

  “Wassup, li’l man,” it seemed like everybody said.

  “Wassup.”

  “You play?”

  “No,” my father said, before I could even try to say it myself. Then Dad leaned into me. “Go sit over there.” He pointed to a bench in the corner. And . . . and . . . sitting on that bench was . . .

  No.

  No no no.

  Not again.

  Kelvin Jefferson.

  Just sitting there.

  Kelvin Jefferson.

  Watching the games.

  Kelvin Jefferson.

  Eating sunflower seeds.

  Right when I noticed him, he noticed me. And right when he noticed me, I swallowed what felt like a basketball.

  “Over by that kid.” My father nudged me. “Shouldn’t be no longer than ten minutes.”

  On the walk over, I prepared myself. Play it cool. Play it big. Head up. Chin up. Get ready to fire back on whatever this dude says.

  Yo, Kelvin, you smell like your blood ain’t blood. It’s trash juice pumping through your veins.

  Like bubble gum chewed too long.

>   Like a fart’s fart.

  Like your whole body is a underarm.

  Like your underarms are upper-body booties.

  Like bad milk.

  Like good milk. (Milk is weird.)

  Like last week, this week.

  Like boiled vegetables.

  Like something wrong with you.

  Like something wrong with you.

  Like something wrong.

  SMELLLLLLVIN!

  I was ready. And just in case after I said all this, things went left, I thought about Coach’s hurdling advice. My forever plan B. Get up quick. Lead with the knee.

  But when I got to the bench, Kelvin just glanced at me. Scooted over.

  “Wassup,” he said, shaking seeds from the bag into his hand.

  “Wassup,” I said, sitting, but still locked and loaded. Still ready. Waiting for him to do what he always did.

  But it never came. He just threw the fistful of seeds into his mouth and crunched on them. Like, just chewed them all up like they ain’t have no shells. Chewed and crunched like he was mad at them. Then dropped his head and spit the chewed seeds and shells out. Just chewed and spat, shards of sunflower seeds flying all over the place, all over the ground between his feet. And when I saw the mess he’d made, I also noticed his shoes.

  High-tops. With the high part cut off, to make low-tops. I knew those shoes. I knew who made them that way. Ghost. Those were Ghost’s sneakers. At least they used to be. Now they were . . . Kelvin’s?

  I had had so much I wanted to say to him. So many questions. But in that moment, right when I looked at his bashed-up shoes, he caught me looking, and I snapped my head up and forward to see whatever was happening on the basketball court.

  You saw nothing. And he ain’t see you see nothing. Nothing at all.

  I made a tight fist, just in case. Then I felt a tap on my arm. “Want some?” Kelvin held the bag of seeds out. No blue-and-purple spots on his arm. No marks.

  I nodded, rolled my fingers back. Opened my hand.

  We were quiet for a while, watching the court, the men talking trash like they hated each other even though I knew they didn’t, some of the girls watching and cheering, others on their phones, the leaners and scratchers . . . the Wolf. Eventually, after I got tired of Kelvin spitting all over the place, I tried to teach him how to open a sunflower seed like a pro. The way Ghost taught me. How to be patient, calm. How to move it around, how to stand it up, how to crack it open. But he wasn’t getting it.