“Note to self,” he mutters. “Short Stack no longer likes sleep.”
I glance at Rochelle. She continues nibbling on bacon and toast and isn’t paying us any attention. “Are you planning to disappear, go away, and leave us again?” I whisper. “Do you have another place to live? Do you still want to run away to Memphis?”
He jerks. “You remember that?”
“How’m I supposed to forget? You talked me into running away and told me I needed to man up when I didn’t want to go with you.”
“I suppose something like that would burn itself into your memory.” He pauses. “Memphis is still an option,” he says finally. “I know people there.”
“By people you mean gang members, don’t you? That’s a bad option. Leaving the city means breaking parole.”
“Yeah, well, I won’t always be on parole,” he says.
“When will I be free?”
“I?” He swings around and stares at me.
“You. I meant you,” I try correcting. I have to stop saying my thoughts out loud.
He stares at me. “No, I think you said exactly what you meant. Soon, little brother. I’ll get you your freedom real soon.”
It’s a promise that sounds a lot like a threat.
At school, my day goes from bad to really bad. Someone must have shoved peanut butter in the clock, but eventually the bell sounds and it’s time for lunch. I grab my things and rush for the door. I’m only one step away from the hall when I hear the Hun say, “Can I have a word with you, T?”
“Uh, I’m hungry. It’s lunchtime, and I have to get to the cafeteria if I’m gonna find a seat.”
“I only need a few minutes.”
This is going to be bad. Teachers aren’t supposed to interfere with a student’s lunch period. I think it’s some kind of law or something. So this must be really, really super bad. I arrived unprepared and zoning out a few times while he talked. I could blame the stranger in my room, but really, it’s all on me. My mind is everywhere except on my work. Dontae throws me a look of sympathy as I reverse direction and walk to the teacher’s desk.
“Am I in trouble or something?” I ask once the room empties out.
“You seem to be losing focus lately,” the Hun says. “The other teachers have said the same thing. Are you okay? Are there problems at home?”
“I’m fine,” I say, and he nods acceptance. The truth is sometimes when I claim to be fine, I want someone to look me in the eyes and say, “Tell the truth.” But it never happens.
The Hun drums his fingers on his desk. “You have real potential, T’Shawn. In more ways than one. But you need to keep yourself focused.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll do better. Can I go now? I mean, I’m really hungry.” I rub my stomach to show how empty I feel. I’m glad I’m standing so my feet won’t tap. I don’t need to hear him lay the “work up to your potential” speech on me. Teachers say that all the time and never explain what it means except do more work.
“Actually, I have an offer for you.” The Hun clears his throat and begins pulling papers from his briefcase. “The Racing Rays organization is dedicated to the nurturing and growth of future competitors. We practice four times a week: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons, and Saturday mornings. If you can handle that, then give these to your mother to sign, and you become a Racing Ray.”
“What?” A band tightens around my chest. I think I might stop breathing in a minute. I grab the papers. They are the same swim-club forms I saw before, but the payment amount fields are all marked zero dollars. “I don’t understand. You said there weren’t any scholarships.”
“Yes, well, I decided that desire and drive should count for something, and I went to the board,” he says without looking me in the eye. “We came up with some discretionary funding.”
“I don’t know what that is,” I admit.
“Money for special projects. Congratulations, T. You’re a special project.”
I’m in.
I’m a Racing Ray.
“I—I don’t know what to say. Thanks, I guess.” My tongue stumbles over the words.
The Hun smiles. “Now, I don’t want you spreading news about this scholarship to other team members, and that includes Carmela Rhodes. They won’t understand. The other coaches know, and your mother will need to know, but let’s leave it at that.”
I can’t even tell Dontae. He’d tell everyone.
“You should get your lunch now,” he says. I start out the door. “Oh, and one last thing.”
I turn and look at him. “Yes?”
“I’ll expect another ninety-eight on your next assignment.”
I grin. “You’ll see a hundred, I swear.”
I love this man.
Chapter
Thirteen
A WEEK LATER, I ONCE again step into the boys’ locker room at the community college. This time things are different. During Family Time, the place swarms with lots of people like me. I hear familiar sounds now: the clang of metal doors opening and closing, bodies bumping into one another, burping, and fart jokes. Instead of laughing fathers and joking sons, this afternoon brings a whiff of over a dozen muscled bodies. The few pine air fresheners hanging from the ceiling don’t have a chance against the odor.
The guys I see joking as they undress are all older than me. None seem like ordinary people—you know, guys with clothes from Walmart or Goodwill, wearing old discolored sneakers or carrying patched gym bags like the one I cradle against my chest. This is one of those trendy, Abercrombie & Fitch–type crowds. Something creepy scrambles around my insides. These guys all know some secret password that grants them entry to a different world, one where I’m a forever outsider.
I take a deep breath. I am T. I deserve to be here.
One guy looks up, sees me, and taps another on the shoulder. Soon all of them are staring at me.
“What are you looking at?” the first guy barks as he pulls royal-blue trunks over his pale white legs. He has an accent. New York, I think, or maybe Boston.
“Nothing,” I say in a voice that squeaks.
“Oh, man, he got you,” another voice declares. He is tall and blond, much older than me, with the name Bishop embroidered on the side of his warm-up jacket.
“No, no, that’s not what I meant.” Another step backward, and I slam into the wall. I feel cold. These guys are all big, all wearing the same royal-blue swim trunks with matching warm-up jackets across their shoulders. The glossy material reflects the overhead lights. I know this is a club, not a gang, but right now it feels like I’m surrounded by gang members trying to decide if I deserve to become one of them. I look at the only other black guy in the group. He shrugs as if telling me I’m on my own.
“What’s your stroke?” Bishop asks.
“He’s too puny for butterfly,” the Ray beside him says.
“Uh . . . I’m not a swimmer. I’m a diver. I mean, I’m going to be a diver.”
“Mung meat,” Bishop says, and several others chortle.
“I’m T’Shawn Rodgers,” I add. “But people call me T.”
An excited voice booms, “You made it!”
I turn and find Sammy running across the locker room in high-top sneakers, pushing his way through the much bigger guys to get to me. I almost jump up and down in relief, knowing I’m not alone anymore.
He grabs my arm and begins pulling me away. “Come on, take a locker near me.” With a wave, he indicates a different section of the locker room. There are only a few boys in that corner, all younger and smaller than the ones in the main group.
As I strip down to my trunks, he says, “It’s been weeks since you talked about joining. I thought you changed your mind.”
“No way. I just, um, had to work out some details with my mom.”
“Yeah, moms can be strange,” he says with a weird grimace.
A new voice orders people to finish dressing and leave the locker room. I pull my faded jacket back on over my bare chest, slam my locker
shut, and start following the others.
Sammy grabs my arm. “You’re gonna need your shoes.” He’s still wearing his sneakers. So are the other guys around us.
“Why? Aren’t we going in the water?” I ask. Dontae promised to come and watch me today. He has to see me in the water.
“Yeah, but we have conditioning first. The coaches have this place reserved for us for the first half hour.” Sammy leads the way to a glass door marked Fitness Room. The air smells of sweat and rubber and more sweat. The girls are here too—more girls than boys are on the team.
We have a fitness center at school. There are no gleaming treadmills inside that tiny room. We have to run outside on the sidewalk, circling the school building. The center does have some free weights that the bigger guys use to show off with, some mats, and a stationary bike. I knew college would be different from grade school, but the gadgets in this place are, like, wow! I don’t like exercise, but looking at the equipment here makes the idea inviting. Especially since this must be where Sammy gets his muscles. I rub the fleece sleeves of my jacket wondering how long before the magic of this place works on me.
Team members form a semicircle. Sammy leads me to a spot on the outer rim of the circle. I glance around, looking for Carmela, and see her standing across the way. We are the only black faces on the team: Carmela, the one black guy from the boys’ locker room, and me. Except for Sammy, the rest are all white. I wonder if Carmela gets this all-alone-in-a-crowd feeling too. She stands straight, eyes wide, staring in the direction of the coaches. Probably not.
Mr. Hundle stands in the center of the circle, dressed in another of the gleaming team jackets. Two men and two women stand beside him, all white. Since I am supposed to be Mung meat, I want to know which one is Coach Mung, my guy. The man who will help me achieve my dreams.
The Hun looks around the room, using only his eyes to get, and hold, everyone’s attention. “Good afternoon, Rays,” he begins. “Since we have a new person starting today, I’ll begin with introductions. T’Shawn Rodgers is a brand-new member of the diving group.”
I reluctantly step forward and wave. Several guys snicker; most girls look uninterested. Carmela seems surprised. I step back beside Sammy quickly.
The Hun continues, “These are our coaches: Mr. James, Mrs. Henderson, Ms. Watson, and Mr. Mung.”
I stare at the man I have to impress. Mr. Mung is at least six feet tall, with blond, almost white hair; blue eyes; and thin, tight lips that look like they forgot how to smile. He wears a white, short-sleeved shirt tucked into pants the same royal-blue shade as the Rays warm-up jackets. The other coaches all nodded at me when their names were called. Mung seems to stare right through me.
“What kind of coach is Mr. Hundle?” I ask Sammy.
“He’s not really a coach; he’s the guy in charge of everything, including dealing with the college and the boosters.”
“What’s a booster?”
“A super fan. You know, adults who raise funds, come to our meets and yell. Sometimes they throw cool parties. But mostly they get in the way. Mom’s one of the worst. I mean, she’s a really big fan. Anyway, Mung is our guy. He really knows his stuff.” Sammy’s voice shakes with the kind of hero worship I once felt for my brother. “Mom says Mung is one of the best coaches in the city. They both swam at Stanford together and competed in the NCAA. She has a load of trophies. She made my dad build a new trophy case for me. I’ve already begun filling it for her. They both come to every meet.”
“Meet? What’s that?”
Sammy rolls his big dark eyes, suddenly looking even younger than twelve. “You have a million questions.”
I realize I’ve missed most of Mr. Hundle’s speech when he claps his hands and says, “Okay, Rays, you know the drill. It’s cardio time.”
I don’t know the drill, not until I see the other Rays scampering for different machines.
“Here, T’Shawn,” Sammy calls. He rushes to a treadmill and points at an empty machine next to him. I climb on and begin walking. He laughs. “You can do better than that.”
A few minutes later, my legs are shaky with fatigue. I have to struggle to keep going and not let anyone see how out of breath I am. Sweat skates down my back, my chest burns, and I wonder if this pain in my ankles is what Dontae feels during a sickle cell crisis.
Coaches walk around the room, talking, sometimes nodding or patting team members on the back. The Hun acts differently here. There’s no fun in his eyes, and he constantly types things into his tablet.
He stops in front of me. “I need your heart rate,” he says.
“Must be about a thousand,” I say between heavy breaths.
That makes him smile. “Not quite.” He takes a reading from the instruments on the treadmill, including my heart rate, speed, and incline.
“I know I’m slower than anyone else.”
“Don’t worry: it’s a baseline. This will track your development over time. That’s what we look for—not where you begin but how you change. Improve.” He updates his tablet, then asks, “How are you doing?”
“Fine.” It’s all I can manage. I’m not supposed to stop running. Actually, fast walking.
At least I am moving.
The coaches announce we can begin the cooldown before I collapse, but it’s a close thing. So much sweat drips from my skin, I could have already been in the pool.
“Do we always start this way?” I ask Sammy as we file from the room. The coaches can’t really expect us to actually have the strength to keep our heads above water after all this.
“There’s no cardio at the next practice,” he replies. Then, when I begin to relax, he points at different machines around the room and numerous weights racked up against one wall. “We alternate cardio with weight training.”
Sammy walks over to the mats with a bounce, as if he could do another mile. “Come on, time for stretches.” I take a shaky breath as he and I take adjacent mats, and we start doing stretches. These hurt almost as bad as the cardio. I’m supposed to contort my body into impossible positions that Sammy makes look easy.
Maybe I need to join Dontae in his morning tai chi.
“You’re Rodgers, aren’t you?” a male voice asks. I look up and see Coach Mung standing over me. There is a deep cleft in his chin, and his eyes, deep set under thick brows, are pulled tight as he looks me over.
“That’s right,” I say. “But you can call me T.”
“Open up your abs, Rodgers,” he barks, a big Adam’s apple pulsing in his throat.
“Uh, how?” I have no idea what he means.
He sighs heavily. “You are supposed to have the basics down before you become a Ray. If you need beginner treatment, may I suggest you try playing around in a park-district pool in the summer? We are not a developmental club. Our goals are superior performance and competition, against the city’s best. Our alumni dive for colleges across the country.”
That’s what I’m here for too.
He shakes his head before grabbing one of my arms and pulling it straight over my head and then backward.
“Ouch!” I feel like a burning knife is skewering my shoulder.
He releases me and steps back, a frown of contempt on his face. “You’ll never be a diver without flexibility.”
I rub my arm and remain silent. Talking too much can get a guy in trouble, and Coach Mung already seems unhappy with me.
It’s not my imagination. I watch him with the others. He smiles when he helps them. Still no charisma, but he is totally friendly with Sammy and the other divers. Meaning it’s just me he has a problem with. Maybe it’s because I’m new. He has to get to know me first.
After the cooldown ends, we finally head for the pool. A cloud of humidity and chlorine blasts me in the face. The swimmers move to the left side of the pool, near the bleachers and the now-closed concessions area. Signs in front of four lanes read, Reserved for Racing Rays. Coach Mung calls for the divers to follow him. Sammy and six other Rays hurry afte
r him toward the diving well, a separate pool near the rear of the aquatic facility.
I start to join them, but then I spot Carmela. I change directions and rush after her.
“Hey, I made it. I’m here,” I say, stopping in front of her.
“That’s . . . good.” She barely looks up, busy stuffing her hair into a swimming cap. “What made you decide to join us?”
“You told me you wanted me to come. You said I had to join.” How could she forget? She even sent Linda to check on me.
“Oh. And here you are. That’s great,” she says before turning her back on me. She jumps into the pool, joining one of the lanes where other Rays are already churning the water with quick strokes.
“No, wait.” She can’t just leave like I don’t count.
“T, you have to go with your group!” the Hun yells. I see him up on the balcony with a bunch of other people, spectators. Mostly adults. But Dontae is there, and I see Linda sitting in the front row at the railing.
“Uh, okay,” I mumble, nodding as I rush after the group of divers gathered around Coach Mung beneath the three-meter board.
“You’re late, Rodgers,” he says, scowling, when I reach the group.
“I was trying to talk to—”
“You’re new, so I’ll give you one chance. I expect three things from my divers: desire, dedication, and discipline.
“Don’t forget flexibility.” Ka-ching. He’ll be impressed because I remembered his words.
Mung’s eyes narrow. He stares at me, long and hard, before turning his back on me and going back to the other divers.
“All right, people,” he says. “What do you do before every dive?”
“PITA,” Sammy and the others recite, all sounding equally bored.
Pita? Like the bread?
“And what does that stand for?” our coach continues.
Another unison chant: “Plan. Imagine. Think. Act.”
The coach nods and points to the side of the pool. The divers head for the spot indicated.
Instead of following them, I ask, “What should I imagine?”
He stops and turns back to me, his mouth falling open as if he’d forgotten I was around. “Success,” he says after a moment. “You make a plan and then visualize the successful completion of that plan in your mind’s eye. Think and then act to make success happen.”
Courage Page 8