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Over and over again he flung himself forward, thrusting out his chest like a rooster mating and trying to attract the attentions of a hen. He'd aim his body as if he were a human missile, firing ahead, faster, nearer the tape and the finish line. And over and over he would fall short, splayed on the red tarmac in a tangled mass of his and Bull Telek's legs as the, previously, third and fourth runners overtook them both to cross the tape first and second, quickly followed by the rest of the 1,500-meter pack.
Over and over again. In his sleep. In his nightmares. He'd see the disaster whenever he closed his eyes. Whenever he freaking blinked, the failure was there to taunt him.
Sleep evaded him. Night blended into day, day into afternoon, afternoon into night until the days seemed like one long minute of replay action. He had no idea how long he had been here in this pristine medical hellhole and he didn't care. The painkillers they regularly dispensed fueled this apathetic mien.
Every evening the heavenly, white-clad nurses made their rounds, rolling medication carts full of wonderful goodies that made him feel goofy and airy like a Macy's Thanksgiving Day balloon. Snoopy? Garfield? No, Spiderman. Whichever one yearly flew off course crashing into street lamps and traffic signs like a hung-over drunk.
Numbing. Intoxicating medications. He didn't know what they were called just that they made the mental and physical pain go away for a little while. Eased the letdown. A legal high. Who could ask for anything more?
He remembered his parents and Renny had been there earlier in the day. Mom's soft woman's hands had encouragingly gripped his, maternal fingers had ruffled his geometrically-cut sandy-brown hair. His dad and Renny had stood off to the side, at a loss. They had sensed his sour mood.
He had turned away from his mom's coddling, her empathy raining down on him from big Dondi-dark eyes. He hadn't wanted the pity.
He was sorry once they had left, throat and chest tight with remorse and unshed tears as he fought off a major waterworks display that would have embarrassed his C.O. father's and his younger brother's macho sensibilities.
He pounded the mattress now with his fists, frustration fueling each blow until he felt he had exhausted his anger.
Chris took a deep breath, pulling hospital-room air into his lungs. It was a medication-laden aroma he had come to loathe in the last couple of days. He closed his eyes against the dizziness, let the breath out on a long sigh.
Mac breezed into the room then, brimming over like an uncorked bottle of freshly shaken champagne as he made his way over to Chris' bed.
Any other time, Chris would have welcomed his friend's visit but now, today, when he was mired in depression and shame, he didn't think he could handle Mac's pep.
"Hey mon! How's the knee?"
No preamble. Just right to it. This was Mac.
Chris glowered at his comical put-on Jamaican accent. "It's busted, Mac. Whassit look like?"
Mac forged ahead, undaunted by his boy's surliness. "Oooh." He affectedly shivered. "Looks like somebody woke up on the wrong side of the gurney this morning."
Chris silently flipped him a finger then turned his head away. He would have turned his whole body but his tractioned leg prevented this maneuver.
Mac gripped the back of one of the room's guest chairs and pulled it up to the head of Chris' bed, stared at him as he flopped down in the vinyl seat. "You woulda had it, Chris. You woulda--"
"I don't wanna hear this." He covered his ears like a little boy throwing a tantrum, closed his eyes tight and watched the replay spatter his mental vision.
He had been going so well, at record-setting pace, leading the pack for the duration of the race before those final seconds when Bull had staggered him, trying to jockey by for the lead and tripping them both.
He'd lain there, sprawled on the tarmac beneath his teammate's bulk, all his ambitions for the season stalled in neutral, his dreams slipping away on a wait- till-next-season tide to limbo as he'd watched a flurry of long legs speed by his track-level view to the finish.
Kennedy's Michael Cavelli had taken the state title for the 1,500 meters. Mac had taken second and Truman's David Marin had taken third. All three boys would be going to Los Angeles for the nationals.
Chris was lucky to have gotten away from his fall with just a fractured knee and a sprained ankle. Bull was luckier, walking away almost unscathed except for a bruised ego. No record was set, Cavelli falling far short of the state's--and Chris'--high school record for the 1,500 meter.
"Hey, Chris?" Mac put a hand on his arm, serious and concerned now. "If I could trade places..."
"Shove your sympathy, all right?"
"We won't hit it, if it's any consolation. None of us. You were the only one who had a chance."
Prefontaine. Coe. Ovett. Cram. The records. Next year...
So many times during his high school career he had been compared to the legendary American and three Great Britain middle-distance runners and so many times he had lived up to expectations. He had been profiled in the Daily News' High School Athletes of the Week column after several of his major wins. Olympic feelers were a reality of his competitive life. Maybe it had all gone to his head. He had had his sights set 'way too high. Not on the state record but on world records. God had punished him for his megalomania.
"If you're trying to make me feel better, you're doing a lousy job of it."
"I'm just making a statement. Take it how you like and if you're gonna punk out--"
"What punk out? Bull messed up my leg!"
"There's next year and you're in there if you want it bad enough, Bull or not. You have a better chance of takin' 'im than me or anyone else."
Chris said nothing, stared at the ceiling and crossed his arms across his chest.
"Welp, I gotta be splittin', mon. Catch ya later."
Cheery again -- never a far away state with Mac.
He strode across the room to the door, paused on the threshold, kept his back to Chris. "Think about it, Chris."
Chris watched him leave, glad to finally be alone again.
You woulda had it...Think about it, Chris...You woulda...
Another year before he could shake his brother, step out of the shadow. Wait till next year.
He had no choice.
Chris watched her from the bleachers below. A lone figure clad in well-worn cut-off sweats, and beat-up canvas tennis shoes that had seen better days.
He'd seen her around the school before--in the halls, at the lockers, in passing in the lunchroom or the library during study hall. But he couldn't remember seeing her in the gym and an image of her engaged in athletic activity eluded him even though she was a story above him pounding the pavement like an angry rhino.
She ran like she had only one mission on her mind: hurt the tarmac, convert it back to its original state with the punishing rhythm of her Kedded feet.
Chris was so entranced with watching her run, he didn't realize he was staring up at her until she sneered down at him and gave him the finger.
Jesus.
Maybe all the stories he'd heard, mumbled behind spiteful cheerleaders' fashionable anorexic hands, hadn't been untrue.
Kids around the school--classmates and dudes he hung out with from track-- thought her some monstrosity.
Rumors ran rampant about her parentage.
Some claimed there was a definite pinch of Apache in her blood. The bolder kids had told her this to her face in unflattering terms reminiscent of cross burnings, lynchings and Jim Crow.
Chris couldn't see why anyone would put any ethnicity to the girl when she was so devoid of pigmentation that her skin reminded him of ivory keys on a piano. Maybe it was the wild Aztec-patterned headbands she regularly sported in addition to an array of silver-and-turquoise bangles, rings and chains adorning numerous limbs, lobes and orifices throughout her body. More than likely it was the small scar slicing a jagged path down the right side of her nose that made her look like she had been marked in some ancient tribal ceremony.
Or maybe she lost a knife fight, Chris thought.
He disliked himself for buying into vicious gossip, disliked even more that he was letting the girl thrashing the tarmac above bust his concentration and take up his track time. He could've used the wood, probably would if worse came to worse. He just didn't want to, had been looking forward to his solitary run. Force of habit and macho territoriality had him resenting the interference with his ritual. It wouldn't have been so bad if the girl had been a little gracious about things.
What was she doing here, really? He'd never seen her at Zero Period, much less engaged in athletic activity.
She wasn't the type.
Chris stared up at her, hoping she'd tire down and go to the sides or, better still, leave. He wanted the track to himself but it didn't look like he was going to get his wish.
Freak it. He'd just have to have some company today.
Chris finished stringing up his mix-match track shoes--one blue, one red-- stood to do some power yoga. He did wind sprints across the parquet gym floor before heading upstairs. He took them two at a time, just missed colliding with the girl as she loped by him on one of her circuits.
She flung a cursory glance over a shoulder, didn't break her stride.
Chris shook out his legs one at a time, tried to loosen and warm up some more. He felt tight as quick as it had taken him to run up the stairs. The place was drafty as hell. Big cathedral-like windows, old and in desperate need of caulking and repair, served as the gym's ventilation source. Chris couldn't understand why his running mate wasn't yet freezing to death in her shorts and T-shirt, even if she was speeding around the track maniac pace, working up an admirable sweat. He was feeling a chill and he had on long sweats. But then everybody always teased him about his thin blood.
Chris stood on his mark, silently counted to three and took off as the sound of a starter's pistol went off in his head. He caught up with the weird chick in five seconds, watched as she glanced over at him. He saw the glint of challenge in her unsmiling blue eyes.
Go ahead. I dare you.
He could almost hear her say it in a guttural, threatening voice.
Chris smiled. She didn't. He turned on the speed. She did too, but he knew he had a few advantages. Besides his being almost a foot taller with a longer stride, his running mate had already been out on the track for several laps and had used up a lot of gas on her earlier run.
And she was a girl, Chris thought. He hadn't seen a girl yet who could beat a guy in a foot race when both were equally athletic and healthy. The male usually had the edge, although females were quickly closing the gap.
This girl, in particular, was doing a good job of keeping up with him. He let her, easing up on his kick enough to let her catch him then turning on speed to pull ahead by several lengths before slowing again. He played with her like this for a couple of laps before she finally got tired of the game and loped off toward the sidelines.
By his count, she had finished a total of ten laps.
He still had fifteen to go to make his own personal quota.
Tori sat on the tarmac, knees drawn up toward her chest as she leisurely toweled off her face and arms before draping the towel around her neck. She leaned back, resting her weight on her palms as she watched Adonis-jock finish another lap.
She could have gone a few more laps with him, could have taken him if she had wanted to, she told herself.
She didn't feel like playing their game, the Mary Lous and Kurt Thomases who monopolized Everand's athletic programs. Bright-eyed and shiny-toothed and brimming with youth and health and enthusiasm. The All Americans. Fuck 'em.
What she could've gone for was a fat jay. At the very least, bum a puff of someone's Newport. No such luck. Anyone from whom she would've bummed a smoke wouldn't've been caught dead in a gym without ample coercion and usually Tori wouldn't have either.
She'd had a nice run before Adonis-jock had come along to ruin the peace. But who was she to complain? This was his turf. He and his team and the other jocks of Everand owned this arena. She was lucky she'd had several minutes to herself.
Solitude was the only perk of Zero Period, a pre-school hour punishment to most kids that Tori had asked for when she'd last met with her guidance counselor earlier in the year. Any extra time she spent away from home was a godsend and to ensure her school days' length she had filled up her program card with as many electives and study periods that she could muster without jeopardizing her regular compulsory classes.
She was here because she chose to be. Adonis-jock was here because he had to be.
Tori watched him complete another circuit. He had stripped out of his sweats- -seamlessly shucked them somewhere during his run--to reveal a black varsity tank and matching shorts. A light film of perspiration glimmered on new-penny brown skin, but he was barely breathing hard as he passed her. And, unlike her hard-driving stride, he glided with the effortless grace of a well-conditioned machine, arms close to his body, pumping only enough to maintain his steady pace, the smooth thrust of his long legs gobbling up track in big gulps. He ran like he owned the ground, the air around him, ran like he had not a care in the world. Tori admired his deer-like strides.
She stretched out her legs, down the sloping track, unmindful of his approaching footsteps. She felt him at the instant before he noticed her feet and hurdled over them.
Tori's heart hammered as he glared back at her before quickening his pace. She resented him for making her feel as if she had been punched in the stomach.
Bastard.
She scrambled to her feet, didn't want to be in a vulnerable position when he made his way back around. She stretched some, lunged--nothing as fancy and formal as Adonis-jock's disciplined calisthenics but they did the trick for her.
She headed back onto the track at a slow jog as Chris advanced. He didn't have time to stop, barely had to time to slow down before he collided with her back, hurtled them both towards the tarmac. He unconsciously thrust out his arms, encircled her waist as he tried to cushion her descent to the floor.
"Get off me! Get off!"
"Sorry. I'm sorry." Jesus.
Chris tried to disentangle his arms and legs from hers but was having a hard time with her wildly wriggling and squirming as if he were a knife-wielding attacker trying to have his way with her instead of an innocent bystander trying to cushion her fall. Everywhere he put a hand, he'd encounter soft flesh--a breast, a thigh, a crimson cheek.
"Gimme a break. Calm down. If you would just stay still a minute..."
"Leggo of me!"
"All right already, geez." Grudgingly, Chris complied, releasing her as he stared up into her furious eyes. God, you'd think it had been his fault and he'd done it on purpose.
Tori straddled him for a brief second as she sat up to get her bearings--his long length pillowing her against the floor's hard surface--before she staggered to her feet. She muttered several expletives at him as she dusted off her shorts and massaged her knees, thighs and arms.
Chris stood up beside her, did the same.
"Why didn't you watch where you were goin', jerk?"
He bit back a retort. The "B" word was the closest one to the surface but he wouldn't denigrate himself or his mother like that. "You okay?" he asked instead.
"No thanks to you. Clumsy jock."
Chris looked at her, furrowed his brows.
"Oh, yeah," Tori said, misinterpreting his look. "Gym belongs to jocks, right?"
"No one said that." Chris reached out a hand to lead her to the sides as several kids barreled through the entrance.
Zero Period was almost over.
"I'm not an invalid." Tori jerked her arm out of his grasp as they stood at the peak of the track's slope.
Chris helplessly shook his head as she began gathering her things--tattered towel, beat-up gym bag. She flung the bag over a shoulder, just avoided another collision as the freshman team rushed by.
"Sorry about the crash," Chris called to her, trying to be nice. He really wanted to tell her to next time watch where the hell she was going.
Tori paused, shot an ironic look his way before flipping him the bird then disappearing through the heavy steel door.
Sometimes, it didn't pay to be nice.
Jesus.
Chris hustled to his first period, dodging and maneuvering through the crowded halls. He got held up at the room door by a gaggle of classmates in no particular hurry to face Bruner's special brand of brain-picking.
"C'mon guys, break it up." He squeezed his way passed the group. They gawked as if he had just spoken in Venusian.
A stampede of classmates followed his lead passed the holdups just as the warning bell sounded. Five minutes left to cut up, get reacquainted, catch up on the weekend and the latest dirt of who was balling who and who had dumped who before the next bell sounded.
Most classes were unofficially broken up into cliques, kids falling in with their own kind by the end of first semester to form comfortable niches.
Girls comprised most of this class--a total of twenty-five out of a class of thirty-seven.
The two front rows were inhabited by various braniacs, nerds and 3.9 GPA egg-heads--most social misfits because of their "excellent student" status--who didn't mind sitting in questioning range and beneath the nose of authority since they usually had all the answers that a prospective teacher might fire at them.
Scattered in several seats throughout the three middle rows was a diverse mix of good, average and fair-to-middling students. This group encompassed a majority of the class with kids from the braniac group, the jock group, the co-op group and even the class clowns; every class had its Eddie Murphys and Robin Williamses.
The back two rows were a wasteland of incorrigible juvies, dopers, goof-offs, and Hell's Angels type who laughed at authority, spat at pain and thought school was just a social gathering. They came mostly to make connections, score their next high with a friendly student pharmacist, scope their next piece or generally make fun of the Establishment. These were the
hard-living kids who would comfortably fit in dingy, smoke-
filled bars where backroom spitting contests would be considered high points of an evening.
Chris didn't have a beef with any group, could have fit easily with any had he chose. His seat assignment fell on the border of braniac territory because of his last "C" name and the jock/co-op group as he knew how to surreptitiously maneuver his seat during the course of the forty-minute period.
A spitball soared from the middle of the room, hit Chris in the noggin as he cut by the teacher's mahogany desk and made his way passed the first two rows.
"How mature of you, Macklin," Chris said in a put-on superior tone as he took his seat in front of the pitcher.
Mac threw him a kiss. "How's it hangin', Casanova?"
Chris benevolently smiled. He had learned long ago not to wince at the title, had resigned himself to an unavoidable lifetime of jibes and incredulous stares at the mention of his last name. He had no choice. It was either grin and bear it, change his name or kill someone. Besides, he was used to it now, kind of appreciated his surname's coolness.
At least his first name wasn't "Romeo" like one of his cousins. Someone on that side of the family had had a real mean sense of humor, Chris thought.
"Hangin'," he said now, sliding his books under his chair.
"That's what's worrying me."
Chris ignored him.
"Hey, you down for some B-ball later?"
"If it's not too cold out."
"You and your psychosomatic anemia. You need to go back to PR where you belong, spic."
Chris turned in his seat, grinned. "Them's fighting words, mick.
"Shaddup, for I mess up ya pretty-boy face."
"Jealous?" Chris rested his chin on his knuckles and batted his long lashes. "Tell me more about my eyes," he chirped.
Mac gave him the finger instead.
Chris laughed, was going to turn back in his seat before he felt the heat on his forehead and glanced up to find its source.
Normally, he paid little or no attention to the kids in the back. They were losers in no man's land. Every school, every class--except college bound--had them. But now, he couldn't help himself.
Chris caught her looking up from a strident crap game. She stared at him. He stared back. He hadn't known she was in this class, couldn't recall ever having seen her before today.
He didn't know how long they sat looking at each other, didn't know for sure who looked away first. He knew only that his chest hurt because his heart was slamming against his ribs as if he'd just finished several dozen wind sprints.
"Yo, Jiminy," Mac said, snapped his fingers in front of his face as he used another one of his nicknames for Chris; he had a million of them. "Tell me you're not scoping the squaw. Tell me you're not."
"What?" Chris blinked at him.
"Pocahontas, man. Apache. The freak, bro."
"Her?" Chris stopped himself short of pointing, had been rude enough for one day, he decided. His trackmate was now engrossed in the next roll. A muscle- bound Hell's Angel had her full attention as she blew on his die.
"You hot on her?"
"No!"
"I hope not cause she belongs to your favorite bovine personage and mine..."
"All right, class. Let's settle down." Mr. Bruner stood in front of the class, immediately eliciting collective sighs from the girls and undivided attention from the 3.9's. The rest of the class gradually came around, the Hell's Angels expectedly falling in order last. "The last time we were together, we discussed the different types of body language humans use to communicate their thoughts or feelings to each other."
Snickers abounded as crews scattered throughout the room "communicated" with crotch-grabbing, lip-licking and finger-flipping.
Bruner was a lively instructor, always up for a challenge. He was looser then some, more strict than others. His male students respected his paradoxical discipline and free teaching methods, and the girls thought his blond boyish curls and powder-blue eyes dreamy and sexy.
The general consensus among the student body bore out that Levi Bruner was one of the coolest teachers in the school next to the Spanish teacher, Ms. Torres, who had enormous creamy boobs that appeared in the wet dreams of most of Everand's male population.
"C'mon, guys. Settle down." Bruner clapped his hands for order, sauntered to the center of the classroom, picked up an empty chair and straddled it. He hugged its straight wooden back, looking as comfortable and easy as one of his students as he began the day's discussion in a quiet but commanding voice that educed yet more estrous sighs. "When you're among a group in an enclosed space--be it an elevator or a crowded subway car--you might notice how uncomfortable people are. They avoid eye contact..." Bruner made eye contact with each of his students. The girls primed to faint as his eyes passed over them. "...or body contact where possible. It's unconscious but almost instant. Can anyone tell me why we react this way?"
A hand shot up in the middle of the room.
"Mr. Lefkowitz."
"The passengers are strangers to each other."
"Right. And when strangers are thrown together, they congregate to their 'own kind'. As I said, it's unconscious. They don't even realize they're doing it.
"There are some instances, however...let's say with your perennial perverts who like to get their rocks off in public on any available body."
The class erupted into laughter and Bruner had to wait for various shouts of agreement and hysterical guffaws to subside before he was able to continue.
"The general body language in these crowd circumstances is 'Stay away. I'm in a hurry. Leave me alone. I don't know you. I've got places to go and people to see'."
Chris hazarded a glance back at his running mate. She was staring at him. He quickly turned his attention forward, wondered if flipping the finger fell under body language.
"...These same people from the elevator or train, put them at the office with their co-workers or home with their family and friends and you have a different person whose body language communicates: 'You're my friend, my wife, my lover. I know you, I like you. I allow you to get close to me'.
"Now, when I say get close," Bruner emphasized, visually singling out Chris' runningmate and the dice player in the back of the room. "I don't necessarily mean tongue-down-the-throat, grinding close," Bruner finished to more raucous laughter as the class mercilessly rode the amorous pair.
At least she had the good grace to blush, Chris thought and wondered why he cared.
"The point I'm trying to make here is that we all have our own Personal Space." Bruner stood, walked to the front of the room and pointed to the phrase on the blackboard. "Personal Space," he repeated, facing the class. "Knowing how very diligent and self-motivated my students are, I'm sure someone in the class can tell me what the term means."
Silence reigned as Bruner scanned the room for a raised hand. "Anyone? Someone?"
Dumbfounded looks--bubblegum blowing and snapping, fingernail filing and low scattered snores--abounded, filling the unresponsive void.
"Hokay..."
A hand shot up in the back as Bruner strolled to his desk and opened the top, left-hand drawer, a sure sign that he was about to pile on some extra reading assignments for punishment masquerading as homework.
"Yes, Ms. Damiano?" Bruner nodded his head at Chris' running mate and all eyes turned to her again.
"This oughta be good. She's an expert on 'personal space'...'specially guys' space," Mac whispered and Chris shushed him with a censuring look.
"Personal Space is an area of 2 to 3 feet around an individual. It's an imaginary boundary erected around said individual and, as you said, one in which he or she will only allow others if he or she feels comfortable or safe..."
Bruner had his back to the class, busily scribbling down "Ms. Damiano's" answer on the board. "That was a very good beginning." He faced the class. "Okay. Now you can all open your texts to Section III, the chapter you should have read last night, and we'll cover Personal Space today in more detail..."
"Sounds like fun," Mac said and Chris didn't know whether he was being sarcastic or was really looking forward to the lesson.
He wondered if he was looking forward to it or not, glanced back at "Ms. Damiano" again, thought how they had invaded each other's Personal Space this morning.
She stared back, undaunted by his look, flipped him her second bird of the day.
Just when he had begun to change his opinion about her.
Jesus.
Before this week, he'd barely known the chick existed, hadn't seen her more than ten times in a school year, but this week he hadn't been able to turn around without bumping into the girl.
First thing every morning at Zero Period she was there on the track, always before him and pounding away the tarmac as if it had offended her in some way.
Besides being in Bruner's Psych I class, she was in another of Chris' elective classes and his Geometry II, English Lit. and P.E. classes. He was confused as to why she was in so many of his classes. He was a college-bound senior and she was a junior. Unless she was on some accelerated course or just liked to fill up her program card, he shouldn't have been bumping into her so often.
And to top it all off, he'd spotted her in the student cafeteria, hairnet firmly in place over her jet-black shock of Sid Vicious/Billy Idol hair as she grumpily doled out the day's unidentifiable meat and starch to a multitude of unsuspecting botulism candidates.
They hadn't had another physical run-in on the track since that first day. He kept his distance and she kept hers and when she was done with her workout she split in a sweaty, ragged wake of female musk and clinking silver, leaving Chris feeling mildly relieved and strangely bereft.
Chris was playing hard, like he had demons clambering up his back and was trying to shake them off.
As far back as Mac could remember, as long as they had known each other, Chris'd played everything--from skellies to checkers, from chess to handball-- hard, driving and pushing himself as if his life depended on victory. But today, hell, the guy was a beast, banging away under the boards, using his elbows and shoulders, stopping only short of hacking.
"All right. Break." Mac cradled the ball under an arm as he put his hands together in the universal time-out sign.
"I was just gettin' warmed up."
"What the hell's eatin' you?"
"Nothin'. Why?" Chris lunged, made a grab for the ball, panting as Mac easily evaded him and stepped back with the ball behind him and out of reach.
"You're playin' like you're trying to get rid of somethin'. Ease up. I'm not the enemy."
"You're trying to get out of this game. You wanted it."
"Basketball, not Judo. You're creaming me under the boards."
"Isn't that the idea?"
"In hockey, maybe. What's with you?"
"Nothin'. Let's finish."
"You need a good lay."
"As opposed to a bad one?"
Mac laughed and shook his head as they strolled towards the sidelines. In unison, they collapsed onto the blacktop, leaned back against the playground gate, each propping an elbow on the basketball between them as they stretched out their long legs and rested their heels in melting snow.
"You're gonna explode one day you don't take care of your problem," Mac opened.
"What problem?" Chris did not feel like starting this conversation, did not want to be reminded of his non-existent sex life.
"You need a piece."
"You offering?" Chris joked instead of agreeing. He would never admit his "need" to anyone, especially not the Fido likes of Mac. Mac was cool, he was a homeboy and all, but some things Chris was not talking about.
He had never been particularly libidinous even when homeboys around him, just barely passed toilet training, were losing and popping cherries to the left and right of him. Now it was starting to catch up with him.
Lately, he had been feeling as if he were one big throbbing penis that happened to have other limbs attached to it. The damn thing always seemed to be hard, ready for action. When he woke up, when he went to bed, during Home Ec., during English, especially during Psych I when Bruner got on his subliminal message, Freudian Slip and oral gratification rolls. Any freaking time you pleased, his partner was armed and ready, screaming cherry.
"You need a piece," Mac repeated and Chris snatched the ball from under him, sprung to his feet to dribble. Mac coolly righted himself, lay with his chin cradled in a palm.
"Your answer to everything," Chris muttered.
"Hey, if the piece fits..."
"Give it a rest."
"You need the rest. Take a break, Jiminy. Wake up and smell the pheromones."
"Such a one-track mind."
"Pun?"
"You know what I mean."
"And you know what I mean. The girlies are forever throwing it your way and you keep throwing it back."
Chris stared and arched a brow.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. Why don't you just pack a jimmy like everyone else?"
Chris didn't want to tell Mac he had been packing the same two "in case" foil packs in his wallet for the last two years. He'd never found a good enough reason to use them, a strong enough reason to divert his energies from track. Besides, it wasn't worth it anyway, too many risks.
Let 'em rot... And they had. He still carried them around though, like a talisman.
"I got two prime cuties in mind for ya cherry ass."
"Yeah."
"Serious, bro. Party later this week. You can celebrate your win with the gang. You're way overdue."
Chris said nothing. He didn't like talking about a meet that hadn't happened yet, didn't like talking about his running at all. Words didn't do it justice, couldn't describe it. He just liked to do it.
"You'll be in the mood," Mac assured. "Besides, you gotta start living up to your name, Casanova."
Chris rolled his eyes and sighed. "When and where?"
The scene was boring her. The people were boring her.
The two beers she'd had had only succeeded in giving her a mildly pleasant buzz, not enough of a high to block out pretentious supercilious jocks and their bimbo groupies. She had come because Mark had begged her, had insisted he needed to make an appearance.
"For the team," he had told her.
Tori knew it was bull because Mark wasn't the rah-rah type, only wanted to make some connections and deal. And this was cool long as he kept his shit clear of her. Two years hanging around him and his shady friends, being his semi-girl and she hadn't yet suffered any legal ramifications. She didn't plan to now so close to getting out of school, didn't want to jeopardize the deal she'd made with her mother. She wouldn't.
Her social standing she gave a hot crap about. She could care less about what Barbie cheerleaders like Sharon Cooper thought of her.
Tori watched the bitch now--the centerpiece of some cackling hens busy trashing half the people at the party--stood on the fringes and listened with half an ear as she downed her third Heineken. She knew as soon as she was out of earshot they would be slandering her too.
Let 'em talk all they want.
There was no love lost between Sharon and her and it was no secret that Sharon had her eyes on Mark.
As far as Tori was concerned, she was more than welcome to him. She was just weary of the whole lot of them. Mark was good for a mind-numbing fuck every now and then, and Tori didn't mind taking a wild spin in his son-of-a-rich- man-'s red Corvette. But this was as far as their "relationship" went.
Lately, he had been getting rough and physical with her, painfully banging her when they went at it as if he had a score to settle. Tori didn't need the violent trip, had experienced enough of this type of scene at home, in the past, fuckyouverymuch.
"Hey, babe."
Speak of the devil.
Mark encircled her waist with muscular arms, leaned down to thrust a tongue in her ear. The sensation was moderately enjoyable and Tori leaned back into his hard chest.
He was built like a diesel engine, stocky and thick-necked at 5"9 and with the broad chest and shoulders of most football players Tori knew. On the field, he chased after quarterbacks with lightning speed, barreled over offensive linemen with power disproportionate to his 170-pound weight.
Paradoxically, he served just as effectively on the track team, not as graceful and pretty to watch on the field as the slimmer typical runners on the team but he was more than able to hold his own against the likes of Adonis-jock and his ilk.
She wondered if there was anything to the rumors about him and 'roids.
"You look bored," Mark whispered against her ear.
How well he knew her. Or was lack of enthusiasm written all over her face?
Tori turned in his arms, half-heartedly reciprocated his hug, locking her fingers behind his back.
To her and most of the guys on the track team his bulk could sometimes be intimidating. But standing there now, a sizable six inches shorter and slim in his big arms, Tori glanced up to admire his sun-bleached surfer-boy looks. She could barely believe that this was the same guy who regularly crunched shoulder-pads and cracked helmets on the football field with guys fifty to a hundred pounds heavier than he was.
"There's a free bedroom upstairs," Mark said between licking the outer crevices of an ear and gently squeezing a soft nipple between a thumb and forefinger. "What say we split for a few minutes?"
What the hell kind of romantic interlude was he planning to complete in a few minutes? Just slam away until he was empty, more than likely because this was about all he could do in that time. And Tori was not in the mood to be roughed up beneath Mark's bulk. Not tonight. "Another time, Mark. I'm not up to it." This was the truth and not just excuse.
"You don't appreciate me the way you should, babe."
Tori wouldn't bite, said nothing.
"I know other girls who would."
Tori saw red, knew to whom he was referring. "Don't fuckin' threaten me, Mark." She coolly folded her arms across her breasts, heart hammering behind her ribs. She wouldn't let him see he'd gotten to her. Who the hell did he think he was dealing with? He must have mistaken her for someone named Susan.
Mark glared at her for a moment, sea-green eyes turning Hudson River murky before he graced her with a wolfish smile. "All right, babe. Have it your way."
She didn't like the cryptic tone in his voice. She knew Mark could be spiteful. Several injured football and track teammates could attest to this. She just wondered if he were crazy enough to be violent with her outside the sheets as he had lately been when between them.
Fuck it. She didn't need his macho shit. Jocks. They just thought they were such hot shit when all they really were were poor excuses for manhood. Tori could really do without them.
"I need some air." She didn't give him a chance to object, just pulled out of his arms and headed for the living room closet to retrieve her denim jacket. She flung it on and aimed her body at the front door.
Sharon waylaid her, the queen bitch talking loud enough to be heard over the blaring stereo music. "Leaving so soon?"
"Getting some air," Tori said.
"I know how you feel. Gets stuffy in here after a while and the music's so loud..."
"Yeah, yeah. Scuse m--"
"Don't let me hold you. Wish I had the luxury but..." Sharon paused for emphasis. "I'm the hostess."
Did the bitch actually think she was Joan Collins or was she trying to be Joan Crawford? Betty Davis, maybe? Tori wondered, couldn't decide which bitch goddess it was that Sharon reminded her of. "Right." She closed the door on the plastic girl's plastic smile.
Arrivefuckingderci.
The din of one of the fiercest audio systems that Chris had ever heard this side of any adolescent mixer's wet dreams blasted a rambunctious rap piece at top volume, bass overpowering and deafening as undulant teen ululations and giggles reached fever pitch.
Chris was mildly impressed, gravitating towards bored.
He'd let Mac drag him to this thing and now he was beginning to regret it. He could have been home cracking the books, out running, at the very least, sleeping. Hell, it was a freaking school night and he had to face some pretty rough customers in class and on the track tomorrow.
He felt like he had been dropped into the middle of a Risky Business audition. The crush of teens, the noise, the staggering scent of desperation and adolescent sexuality was a cloying weight pressing his chest. He'd have left long ago but for his promise to Mac to at least "Try it!." Sure. Easy for Mr. Brian Macklin to say. He was Mr. Life-of-the-Party.
Chris watched him now as he circulated and worked the room like a seasoned night club performer, alternately stopping at scattered cliques to add his two cents or listen to the latest gossip or help the party's DJ--Hakeem Beckett, a freshman B-ball player--scratch and mix his array of music.
At a first glance, Mac came off like an overgrown elf. His bright green eyes and lightly freckled nose almost danced when he laughed and gave some an impression of the Lucky Charms leprechaun. Until they got a look at his hair--a lovely shade of auburn for which women would kill or die--worn shoulder-length and in the day's fashionable dreadlocks. His father referred to his hairstyle as "those damn nigger Buckwheat naps" and his mother helplessly and silently shook her head at him with a look that said, "I-give-up-I-don't-know-where-the- boy-gets-his-tastse-and-wacky-ideas-sometimes-I-wonder-if-I-really-bore-this- child!"
Exasperation punctuated most emotions regarding Brian Macklin but no matter what your slant or opinion, there was no middle ground. You either loved the guy or you hated him.
Chris now couldn't decide into which category he fit.
He should have been in a supreme partying mood. It was yet early in the season but it wasn't every day he beat his own record for New York City high school milers. He had only been a couple of seconds off the State record, still intact after last year's debacle in Albany.
Mac was right about Chris having the best chance of anyone on Everand's team at breaking the record and making it to the nationals in L.A.. After last year's dismal showing--coming in tenth in a field of fifteen against the big boys-- Mac himself had decided to quit the team. Coach had not argued or tried to dissuade him.
Chris sensed there was more to Mac's quitting the team than a pitiable display in some meet. Mac wasn't the type to quit without a good reason. It wasn't his style.
Something was up and Chris decided he'd keep his eye out for whatever it was.
Bull Telek was another story. Even splitting his time and energy between two major sports--football and track--he had the ability to take Chris. Today's intramural meet had proven this.
It irked Chris that his long-time rival had come so close to taking him, so close to winning today's race. The idea of defeat was intolerable. He wouldn't loss, he told himself. But he was sure he wouldn't have a peaceful night until this gig was settled and he won once and for all.
"I don't understand you one bit, mon." Mac threw a comradely arm around his shoulder. "You look so down for a dude that beat his own record today. You got it in the bag, Casanova."
"New York City, Mac. There's still State. The season's too young to start making predictions."
"Well thank you Mr. Cosell for that update."
"Just trying to be realistic." Chris downed his virgin punch as Mac sipped from his own rum-laced punch. "What about you?"
"Me?" Mac arched a brow.
"I don't buy that bull for a minute about you not having the drive anymore."
"Yeah, well, we won't talk about that."
"Oh?"
"I really don't feel like gettin' into it with you," Mac said. "Besides, it's better for me to get out of the game now before Bull cripples me in Albany."
"Yeah, right." Chris smiled, not fooled by his friend's smooth evasion. He drained his punch, aimed his Styrofoam cup at a nearby wastebasket, swished it home. He'd nail Mac down one of these days soon.
Chris spotted his morning trackmate over at the front door. He watched Sharon bushwhack her as she donned a denim jacket.
A denim jacket? It was way too cold out and the chick only had on a purple, tie-dyed T-shirt underneath. No hat. No scarf. No gloves. Was she a polar bear or something?
"You always did have weird tastes."
"What?" Chris turned to Mac, saw the leer.
"The least you could do is pick someone a little less used for your first time."
"Whaddaya mean?"
"She's been around, bro."
"How do you know?" Chris asked, immediately felt stupid for caring and dignifying the gossip.
Mac stared at him. "She's Bull's girl, anyway. You wanna stay clear. There's enough bad blood between you guys."
Chris rolled his eyes. "Think I'm gonna go get some air." He headed for the front door. He'd been meaning to get out anyway but of course Mac wasn't buying it.
"Don't forget your raincoat!" he called.
Chris laughingly flipped him the finger over a shoulder.
Tori stood out back leaning against the side of the well-maintained tract house when Chris ventured outside.
Her jacket was open and she dragged on a cigarette beneath the protection of some low-hanging, snow-encrusted trees. She saw him come out, heard the snow crunching under his Timberland boots as he made his way over.
What the hell was Adonis-jock doing sniffing around? She wondered. Following her? Didn't he have autographs to sign and victory twat to claim inside?
He loped over, had this cool walk. Not a flagrant homeboy bop but a mildly jaunty strut that reminded her of the tiger emblem on the back of his varsity jacket. Tori remembered his stride from the track, pictured him gliding around it, barely touching ground.
She hadn't realized he was so tall, getting a glimpse now of his full height as he approached and lounged against the house to stare down at her.
Tori straightened out of her slouch, didn't like the way he dwarfed her. He had to be at least 6"2, towered over her by almost a whole foot. She nonchalantly flicked her butt out into the street, feigning detachment.
"Litterbug," Chris teased.
"Gonna gimme a ticket?"
"Mind if I stand out here with you?" he asked instead of addressing her smart remark.
"Free country."
Chris shivered against the cold--burrowing in his leather and wool jacket, jamming his hands into the pockets as far as they would go--thought his trackmate looked inordinately serene and comfortable in the chilly night air, wondered how she did it.
"Jesus, if you have to chatter like that, do it somewhere else!"
He stared at her, hadn't realized his teeth were clacking together so loudly. "Sorry," he mumbled.
"What'd ya come out here for?"
"Needed some air."
"Lame."
"You?"
"Same."
Chris nodded, still shivering inside his coat. He had no idea why he'd followed her out and now he was sorry he had.
He tried not to stare at her as she stood still and majestic in all her punky splendor but his eyes kept straying to all the silver studs and hoops lining her pierced earlobes. Four hoops of varying sizes in her left ear, three studs in her right. She even had her nose twice pierced, a stud and a hoop in her left nostril.
Jesus Christ, it looked painful.
Then there was that jagged cut on her nose. She looked so freaking fierce.
Chris worked his way to the front, to her eyes--a deep Elizabeth Taylor blue-- and it shocked him that they were so pretty. But they were, simultaneously soft and sharp, slanting up just slightly. They went perfectly with the spiky do that was shorter than his long-on-top geometric cut.
There was nothing mundane or average about the girl, he told himself. And her eyes were not the exception.
"You're staring," Tori said through her teeth but didn't make a move to leave. "Got a problem?"
"No. Sorry." Chris thought she sounded like a spaghetti western gunslinger. He smiled at the mental vision.
"What's with you, jerk-off? Why don't you go back inside and leave me alone."
"You smoke."
The simple statement and change of subject threw Tori. Was this guy schizo or what? "Yeah. So?"
"Just surprised me. The way you run and all... It just surprised me."
"Obviously."
"You know, if you cut out the cigarettes I bet you could do twice as many laps as you do now."
Tori stared at him, flabbergasted. "Who says I want to?"
"No one. I just--"
"Look, I'm not in training. You're the jock, not me."
"I wish you wouldn't call me that."
"There's more to you than just being a jock, right."
"Damn straight."
"Like you're sensitive and smart," Tori sneered.
Jesus, she had such a freaking attitude. From the ripped-in-the-knees jeans-- that he was sure she had on more for the I-don't-give-a-shit-what-the-world- thinks statement they made than for fashion--all the way to her wild accessories and jewelry.
"You got some kinda burr up your ass?" he asked.
"Yeah. You, dick-weed."
"My name's Chris," he said.
"I know. Casanova."
"Thass right."
She frowned. "That your real name?"
He gawked, knew what she meant but didn't want to give her the satisfaction of answering right away. Let her sweat.
"Casanova," she clarified. "That can't be your real--"
"Of course it is. Don't I look like one?" He was only teasing but Tori went ballistic.
"Bite me, jerk," she spat.
Chris stood speechless for a moment then suddenly burst out laughing.
"What's so funny, 'jock?" She stood in front of him, hands on hips, a thunderous look slashing across her face as if she were ready to kick his ass. Like she could kick his ass.
He stared down at her, surprised and turned on as his eyes drifted down from her face to take in her breasts. Palm size. Nice.
Christ! How could such a dykey girl turn him on? Something must be wrong with his neurons. Or maybe Mac was right, things were finally getting to him and he needed a piece. Badly. Hell.
This chick couldn't be the one, he told himself. But he couldn't stop picturing her as she looked in the mornings on the track. No fancy colorful leotards or varsity outfits like the other girls wore, not for her. She sported well- worn cut-offs--sweats, denims--that revealed her long slim legs and midriff muscle tops or cut-off T-shirts that showcased toned arms and abs.
He still couldn't believe she smoked. She was in such good shape... Get a freaking grip, Chris!
"You need to stop smoking," he blurted.
"What are you? Surgeon General? Besides, I asked you what was so funny."
"You are."
"Fuck you." She flounced off to the front of the house, rang the doorbell.
Chris doubted anyone inside could hear it over the popular riffs and swells of the reggae tune drifting outside at peak volume.
Tori stood on the front step alternately hugging herself and leaning on the bell.
"Finally cold?"
She ignored him.
"Bull's probably missing you."
She scowled, didn't know who he meant. Tori didn't call Mark by the bovine moniker. Although it fit, she thought it was stupid, almost as stupid as Casanova.
Fucking Casanova. Gimme a break.
"You try it? Maybe it's unlocked." Chris reached around her, turned the knob and pushed the door in. "After you."
She preceded him in without looking back or saying a word.
"You're welcome."
"C'mon, Bull. The slut's gone." Sharon Cooper grasped well-developed biceps with both hands, tried to lead him to the staircase.
Mark stared at her, wasn't sure he liked his sport's moniker coming from her mouth. Only his teammates called him "Bull". Tori refused to call him "Bull" and for odd reasons this made him soft and warm inside when she called him "Mark". He was sure he did not like Sharon calling Tori "slut". Tori had her faults. She could be uppity, even a bitch. And she could definitely be a cock-tease. He liked her moxie. But he'd never thought of her as a slut, even though she had obviously been experienced when he'd first started balling her several months before her fifteenth birthday a little over a year ago.
"I don't get you." Sharon dropped her hands, gave up trying to move him as she pouted and batted her dark-brown eyes at him.
Mark looked down at her oval face, guts clenching, the tightness drifting down to his groin as he took in her sensual lips. She had a kiss-me, Betty Boop mouth that always looked ready for action. And he had a definite buzz from three generous cups of rum punch.
"You said you wanted to have a good time," Sharon whispered, sensed she was getting to him.
"You can't be serious about her. She's such a freak."
"Cap it, Sharon." Mark extricated himself from her grip as the subject of Sharon's derision entered the house, high cheeks ruddy from her brief jaunt outside.
Right on her heels was that Puerto Rican guy who was on the track team with Bull. Sharon remembered he had some weird-cute name. Casiano. Carlos. Casino. Casanova! That was it.
"What the hell?" Bull mumbled, goggling at the pair.
"Forget about her, Bull. She's obviously where she wants to be. C'mon..."
"Nah." He broke away from her, headed for the front door where Tori was blowing on and rubbing together her hands.
"What's up?" she asked, innocently looked up at him as he approached.
Mark didn't answer, stared passed Tori to glare at Chris standing just behind her.
"Hey, Bull. Howzit goin'?"
"Talk to you for a minute?" Mark grabbed Tori's arm, ignoring Chris' greeting.
"You're hurting me," Tori coolly said and Mark instantly released her.
"Let's go upstairs...to talk."
"I'm ready to go."
"Since when do you rush home?"
"Since tonight."
Chris listened to the exchange, incredulous at the size of the girl's cojones, ready to give her a hand for her brass set.
"All right, Tori. Have it your way."
Tori glanced at Chris as she passed him on the way out, flipped him a double bird before Mark grabbed her under an elbow and led her down the front walkway.
Chris licked out his tongue, crossed his eyes and did the nah-nah, nah-nah- nah wave with a thumb poked in each ear, took much satisfaction in watching the surprised expression cross her face.
He wished he had a camera.
Mac elbowed Chris in the shoulder and Chris jerked out of his nod as the downtown Lexington Avenue #5 pulled to a stop at the 181st Street station.
"What?"
Mac barely motioned to several teenage girls sitting on the bench across from him and Chris.
"Stare Down."
"Nah, man. I'm busted. Lemme clock some zzz's."
Mac stared at him. The poor bastard looked so whipped, he decided to have pity on him, although playing Stare Down alone wasn't much fun.
He and Chris played every opportunity they got--on the way home from work, on the way from school, even hanging in a club with Joy. They'd grab a bench or a visible spot against a train's doors, profile, sport the family jewels or any other anatomical gifts and features to their greatest advantage, and put some females on the spot with the visual contest of wills. By now they were experts--Chris a little shy about his conquests but just as successful--when it came to creaming a chick's Victoria Secrets with sexy smirks, wicked winks, subtle leers and hooded bedroom glances. Sometimes the girls would become uncomfortable enough to leave the vicinity. More often, prey became hunter, approached the boys and slid business cards into their hands or pockets, if they didn't outright feel them up.
Mac always tried the digits later and ninety-five percent of the time they were legit and the ladies were interested. Chris always threw the numbers out, said the thrill was in the chase and knowing he could get them.
Next to the football and basketball players, track and field members were some of the biggest pussy magnets at Everand. But Chris never took advantage. Damn guy could have had his pick from the cheerleading squad to the girl's basketball and volleyball teams and all points in between.
Weird guy, Mac thought, sometimes just didn't understand what made Chris tick, unless it was something to do with the strict Catholic discipline under which his boy had been educated. Catholic schools all the way up until the end of junior high. To Mac, a fate worse than celibacy and a guilt-trip-and-a-half that alternately threatened punishment of blindness to hairy palms if you thought about touching it.
Hell, Mac thought, if this were the case, then he should have had two-foot- high afros growing out of each palm and been blinder than the three mice.
One thing he did know for sure though: Running was Chris' release. The guy got off on it and to hear him talk about it--which was rare--you'd think track was the best sport created next to achieving multiple orgasms.
Mac used to run and he couldn't see it. He'd had fun and gotten kicks at it but nothing to match Chris' euphoria. He hadn't experienced anything like what his boy described as The High. Maybe Mac just approached the whole thing too lightly.
He looked at running as a mode of transportation, something to get him from one point to another.
Chris took it serious, was an addict who ran for his own enjoyment, during the off-season, as well as for the team. He ran out of desire and need, conquering it like Mount Everest, not because it was there, but because it was in his way.
Sometimes Mac would watch Chris' face when he went through his Swedish Drills, sprinting back and forth on the track. Homeboy never looked like he was having fun, but he never looked like he was working either, even by the end of a long race. He always looked like he was floating.
Poor bastard, Mac thought again as he glanced over at Chris. All the talent and all the self-inflicted pressure and expectations to go with it. No wonder the guy didn't have any time for fun. He was too busy trying to be perfect.
Mac watched as Chris' head lolled forward, chin resting on his chest, mouth agape as a snore crept out of his nose. He expected a ribbon of saliva to soon slide down the corner of his boy's mouth. The guy looked so beat. Made Mac want to curl right up on the bench beside him and tuck his JanSport under his dreads like a pillow.
Chris had had a long full day of school and then the meet and the party that they'd prematurely left. Mac could have gone another hour or so, but Chris couldn't hang. He didn't party often, didn't swing with the hedonists his age. Today had been a social breakthrough to tip the scales and freak out his circadian rhythms but good.
Chris was nothing like his older brother Fernando, Mac thought, and couldn't imagine his friend falling down the same hole as had Fernando. Chris was too tight, exercised such restraint and self-discipline that Mac sometimes imagined the guy had a tiny ruler-wielding nun daily hovering over a shoulder.
He leaned forward now to get a better look at Chris' serene features. Was that a smile? Mac wondered if he was dreaming about that weird chick. She was so wild and outlandish-looking, such a removal from Chris' clean-cut looks that Mac couldn't imagine the two of them together. He hoped the guy wasn't serious about getting with her because the repercussions would not be pretty.
Mac brought his attention to the foxy sister sitting directly across from him and Chris, wondered when she had gotten on. He definitely would have noticed her before now.
Time to start playing, Chris or not.
"What're you doin' up?"
"Why're you so late?"
Did he need this in his life? Chris wondered as he ignored the interrogation and headed for his bedroom, tossed his books onto his bed and flung his jacket over a knob of the oak headboard. He trekked back to the living room, stepped over his brother's prone form and sat on the arm of an adjacent recliner.
Mom would've given them hell had she seen them, Renny centimeters away from the 27-inch television screen, chin resting in cupped palms, and Chris sitting on top of the furniture as if he had been raised in the wilds and had no sense.
Even Greasy got into the act, the black cat leaping up into the seat of the recliner to rub his silken head against Chris' thigh.
Chris could just imagine the harangue.
"Mom and Dad?" he asked.
"Huh?" Renny's eyes didn't leave the TV screen where some loud and discordant band was raving about murder, sex, drugs and mayhem on a perennial MTV video.
"They doin' OT?"
"Uh-huh," Renny grunted.
The kid looked so catatonic that Chris wondered if there was some kind of hypnotic laser beam shooting from the screen that he didn't know about.
His brother could have been the poster child for Couch Potatoism, Chris decided. Whether sneaking off with his panas to see some R-rated slasher flick, staying home to veg out in front of BET Soul and MTV, or play his Sega Genesis, Renny could always be found in front of some flickering monitor. If he wasn't driving his brother crazy with his lousy bass playing, that was.
Chris knew the kid had just gotten the thing and was only learning but holy shitness, did he have to hold the entire house hostage to the auditory assault?
"You eat?" Chris asked, trying again to get passed the laser beams.
"I popped some a Ma's left-over chicken in the micro."
"Do your homework?" Chris asked and arched an eyebrow at Renny's affirmative grunt.
Renny hazarded a look over a shoulder, saw his brother's skeptical expression. "I did it, man. Geesh."
"You better had."
Renny sighed, went back to his TV show.
"Shouldn't you be in bed?"
"You're up."
Chris stood astride Renny, arms akimbo.
Renny stared up into the storm cloud that was his brother's face, knew he had overstepped his little-brother bounds.
"Look, smart aleck, I'm older than y--"
"You still got a curfew."
Chris couldn't believe the shrimp was giving him lip. "Go to bed."
"Bu--"
Chris grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, dragged him to his feet. "It's eleven-thirty. Your bedtime is nine-thirty on a good night."
"Wuz wichu?" Renny protested, stared at his brother from the corner of his eyes.
"Cap it, Ren and go to bed before I tell Ma how late you were up."
"I'll tell her you didn't get in till--"
"I'll tell her myself, tattletale."
"I don't see why I have to listen to you." The kid grumbled Spanish cuss words and shot Chris murderous looks all the way to his own room.
Chris sighed, forked a hand through his hair and wondered what the hell that had been about.
"Ren?" He knocked on the kid's door, expected a terse "Go away!" but got an adamant "Leave me the hell alone, pendejo." instead.
Okay. Fine. He had been a little rough earlier and Renny had been an extra special brat. They were even now.
Chris turned the knob, entered without permission.
"I don't get privacy just cause I'm younger or do I have to lock my door?"
What the hell was wrong with the kid? This wasn't like Renny. He could be a regular pain in the ass sometimes, but this was different. Something was up.
Chris advanced, sat down on the full-size bed beside his brother and Renny scooted to the opposite end of the bed.
"Whaddaya want?"
"A truce."
Renny shrugged and pouted, looked like the eleven-year-old child that he was trying so hard not to be.
"Wanna tell me what your problem is?"
Renny shrugged again.
Sometimes the kid could be so secretive. Ma called it his teeth-pulling stage. Every drop of info she got from Renny was extracted as if with pliers. Most of the time it was hard to know what was happening in his life or going on his mind because he just didn't volunteer things.
Unless he was being a freaking tattletale, Chris thought.
"Where were you?" Renny pinned his brother with an accusatory stare.
"Why?"
"I just wondered. You were late, and...I just wondered."
"I was at a party. I told Mom."
"With Mac?"
"Yeah."
Renny nodded as if in approval. He liked Mac, one of Chris' few, newish friends with whom he got along. Joy was the other.
"Have fun?"
Chris shrugged, noncommittal. "It was all right."
Renny frowned. "So, what'd ya do?"
"You know how those parties..." Chris paused when he noticed his brother's look. Of course Renny wouldn't kn -
"You get high?"
Or maybe he would.
"Renny..."
"I was only askin'."
"What's with you today?"
"Nothin'." Renny shrugged. "Nando called," he blurted.
"And? What'd he have to say?"
"Things."
"Like?"
Renny averted his eyes, piqued Chris' curiosity. Renny wasn't the only one who worried about their brother.
"So, uh, how's he doing?"
"He didn't really say. He asked how Mom was."
Didn't ask about Dad?
"He asked how your running was coming."
"What'd you tell him?"
"That you broke his league record last year."
Chris chuckled, could just imagine Renny saying it in exactly the same boastful tone he'd just used.
"How'd it go today?" Renny asked.
"Broke last year's record."
"For real?"
Chris nodded, blushing at Renny's obvious pride and excitement.
"Mom's gonna be upset she missed it. Dad too."
Chris knew his mother would be upset. Dad, he wasn't so sure about. His father had only made it to one of his meets last year, the infamous loss, of course, the worst moment of Chris' career. When Fernando had been on the team, the star of Everand track, Dad had gone out of his way to make it to most of his races.
Chris's throat now tightened at the thought.
"I miss him," Renny murmured and Chris nodded.
They almost never referred to Fernando around their parents, especially around Dad. But here, surrounded by so many memories of brotherhood and childhood frivolity, it was hard to forget the other sibling's existence. His presence still filled the house, had touched every piece of furniture, every nook and cranny.
Chris glanced at the framed color photo standing prominently atop Renny's bedside table. Three faces--subtly different shades of brown--smiling out at the camera. Three different aged boys, hugging and roughhousing during a break from the summer waves at Jones Beach. One of their last family outings.
One year before things blew up, Chris thought, wondered where and how it had gone so wrong for Nando.
"He told me not to tell them he called. He said he would have hung up if Mom or Dad had answered."
Chris nodded again, understood. Three boys linked by their generation and fraternal secrets.
He silently got up to leave, stopped at the door and turned when Renny called him. "Yeah?"
His brother peered as if trying to see his insides. Chris felt like he was being x-rayed by hundred-year-old eyes.
"Sorry about...you know...earlier."
"You just don't want me to tell Mom you were a smart ass," Chris teased.
"It's not that," Renny murmured, solemnly glanced at him.
Chris thought about his earlier question--You get high?--and a bulb suddenly went on in his head.
His little bro had nothing to worry about, Chris told himself. He was not going down Nando's road.
Mid-terms were coming up in the next two weeks. Practice for one of the bigger league meets had him tense and edgy. To top it all off, The Girl was constantly on his mind.
He knew her name. Tori Damiano. Weird, like her.
He knew her face, even her scent.
When he guzzled his o.j. and downed his cereal before leaving for school in the mornings, his olfactory senses were already assaulting him with a memory of her aroma as if preparing him for an inevitable confrontation at the track later.
The closer the White Plains #2 got to the Gunhill Road Station, the quicker his heart would pound. Anticipation had become a four-letter word in his vocabulary. He actually looked forward to seeing her mean face in the mornings, having her flip him a bird or curse at him, both of which she inevitably did with glee.
"Dumb Jock" was her favorite epithet, which he knew he didn't deserve. Bull Telek he was not and he resented the implication.
Nevertheless, he looked forward, to hearing her, seeing her, smelling her. She was a part of his morning ritual now. He was used to having her there when he made his circuits, wondered what he would do, how he would function, if she stopped coming to the track for her runs.
He wondered, too, if he was getting to her as much as she was getting to him. He didn't think so. She was there for the running, he told himself. Like him. And she was in a zone now. Like him. He could see it on her face, in her lighter strides. She didn't seem to be running as a form of revenge against the pavement anymore as much as she seemed to be running for pure enjoyment.
Chris slept deep and hard, unconscious before his head finally landed on the mattress.
He dreamed about her, on the track, pounding the tarmac.
She kept up with him stride for stride, her slim form moist with perspiration, silver chains on her neck and bangles on her wrists and biceps and ankles bouncing softly against ivory skin, rhythmically clanking against each other where there were pairs.
Barely winded, Chris made a beeline for the sides, sat down on the tarmac, pulled his knees up to his chest, leaned back on his palms and admired her run.
She smiled at him when she approached, left giggles in her wake as she passed.
Chris' heart pounded at the sight of her firm nipples pressing against her Lycra spandex halter-top.
He missed her as she rounded the corner and when he turned his head to search, she was there, kneeling beside him, had been silently staring at his profile. Her halter-top and cut-offs were soaked and female scent drifted out to him as she leaned in--a tangy musk smell that tickled his nostrils. He sat very still staring at her face. Her body heat surrounded him, made blood rush to his cheeks and the tip of his ears. He felt like his whole body was on fire.
"'jock," she murmured but was smiling, not insulting him. "Chris-jock." She leaned. "Chris..."
"...Christiano?" A hand gently shook him. Chris shifted, turned his head and felt the cat squirm on his chest, objecting to the sudden disturbance.
Chris yawned, opened an eye.
"Chris? You fell asleep in your street clothes again."
Mom. He realized it at the same instant he realized he was hard. Damn. Stiff as a rock.
"Boo, get up."
He wondered if she noticed. Probably, but too tactful to tease him about it, thank God.
Sometimes when she found him in bed fully clothed--usually with his nose buried in one book with several others open and spread out on the covers--she'd just throw a sheet or blanket over him, cut off his halogen lamp and close the door behind her as she left.
"Time is it?" he rasped, sat up and rubbed his eyes. He didn't think it was too late since she had bothered to wake him to get out of his street clothes.
"Time for you to get up, shower and really go to bed."
Chris chuckled as he stood, the soft lilt of his mom's Neorican accent floating to him from down the hall.
"New York PR born and raised," she was proud of saying. Put the Spanish in Harlem in the Sixties and Bronx blood pumping through her veins ever since.
Chris peeked at his digital clock, still groggy. Ten PM. Not too late.
He padded down the hall, followed his mother's trail to the kitchen/dining room where she was busy pouring Ocean Spray Cran-Grape into her favorite jelly-glass before taking a seat at the table.
Ultra-modern rustic punctuated every nuance of the room. Sleek, micro and electric appliances balanced out by a real wood-burning brick fireplace.
The centerpiece of the room was a solid oak table, a piece Mom and Dad had picked up at a garage sale. Mom couldn't believe the owners were letting go of such a beautiful piece of furniture. Dad said it was a beat-up piece of junk. Compromise and haggling got the table home for a song and Dad, using his handy carpentry skills, had scraped and varnished it almost to its original luster.
Chris took a seat at the table across from his mom.
"Renny go to bed on time?"
He nodded. "How was work?"
"Overtime."
The one-word statement said it all. His mother had been putting in OT since the beginning of fall.
Chris saw its toll, and worried about his mother, especially this time of year.
Two years ago, a week before Christmas, he, Renny and Dad had sat at home anxiously waiting for the results of a breast biopsy Mom'd had two days before. A week before this, she'd felt a tiny lump in her left breast during a monthly self-exam.
"Don't you dare," Anna warned.
"I wasn't."
"I'm looking right through you, boy. Don't tell me."
Now she sounded more like Dad or one of his older aunts from Georgia than Neorican, Chris thought. They rubbed off on each other.
"Christiano, I'm all right," Anna said.
He reached across the table to catch her hand, feel her warm palm against his as he raised her hand to his lips and kissed the back of her wrist like a suitor instead of her son.
She was a beautiful woman. Chris knew this without the constant reminders from his libidinous friends like Mac and Carlos.
"Your mother's got some slammin' supermodel looks," Carlos was fond of saying when he visited. Charming and well-behaved to a fault around "Mrs. Casanova", he uncharacteristically stumbled over himself like a love-sick school boy with a crush. He had been in love with Mom since Chris could remember.
"Yo, Chris, if she wasn't your mother..."
Chris never let Mac finish this statement, always punching him in an arm or putting him in a headlock to head off the wolfish remark. Mac had fallen in love with Mom three years ago when he'd first visited the Casanova house.
Chris wondered if it was at all incestuous to think his mother attractive because she did have some "slammin' supermodel looks" even after the twelve- hour shift she had just put in at TA headquarters. Although, unlike today's supermodels, Mom was only 5"2 (two inches shorter than her youngest son's 5"4, and Renny never failed to tease her about it). She had sandy-brown hair like Chris but, unlike his nape-length stylish waves, hers stopped mid-back.
Chris took in the whole package--the sloe-eyed glance hidden behind fashionably-framed, rose-tinted glasses, the tired smile, the café au lait skin--and his heart wound into a tight ball, spiraled down to land in his gut with a hard thud. He felt like he had suddenly been struck in the sternum.
"So," Anna opened, breaking the heavy silence as she playfully cuffed her son with her free hand. "When's your next meet? I don't want to miss it."
"After Christmas break we have a conference meet with Kennedy. If you can't get the time..."
"I'll get the time. I'm not missing you break another record." She reached over to ruffle his hair as if he were a little boy.
"Mom?"
"Hmm?
"You think Dad will make it?"
"Well..." Anna stared passed his shoulder, obviously, suddenly uncomfortable. "You'll have to ask him, Chris. You know how hectic his schedule is."
Chris silently nodded. He hadn't meant to put her on the spot, but the idea of speaking to his father about a track meet churned his stomach. Might as well set off a cherry bomb behind a shell-shocked vet, intentionally bring on an unpleasant flashback, same effect.
He knew that as far as Malcolm Casanova was concerned, Nando Casanova no longer existed and reminding his father of anything connected to Nando's past existence--especially track and running--was something Chris didn't want to do. He'd rather wear gasoline drawers in the middle of a gas station and light a match.
He had a flash of that last scene--when Dad had banished Fernando from their lives--and he closed his eyes against the memory of his mom and Renny's hysterical tears.
Chris couldn't remember whom he blamed more as the source of Mom's illness. He ultimately targeted this last incident as its basis and had a feeling Dad did too, that he blamed Nando for Mom's getting sick because not too long after the big blow-up and Nando's final departure, Mom had found the lump.
"I'm gonna go finish studying." Chris stood.
"What, exactly? You had about twenty books spread out on your bed."
Chris chuckled. "I don't plan on getting into college on my track record alone. I'm gonna bust out the SATs."
"You put too much pressure on yourself."
"No, just enough."
"Chris..."
He bent to kiss her cheek before sauntering down the hall to his room.