he lands, every part of him is where it should be.
I’m still there, staring, when he walks around from behind the jump. He sees me. He just stands there, poised and perfect, staring back at me. It’s like he wants me to admire him. Maybe he does.
I shake myself out a little and jog back to where Coach Everett is gathering the runners. But I can’t shake the face of the high jumper. The arched black eyebrows, the curve of the full lips—these stay with me.
There will be only one relay team from our school in the intramural competitions, so only four of us will be picked as finalists. But there are about seventeen guys waiting to compete, so we do a few elimination heats.
We’re down to eight guys in no time, which means that we’ll race four and four against each other. Then Coach will mix us up and we’ll do it again to get the final team. In relay, it isn’t just speed that counts. If you drop the baton in the handoff—well, it’s pretty much over. You still pick it up and run, but just so you can say you did.
For the first of these final heats, Coach puts me in the starting position. Not what I want, but it’s the second fastest, and you have to get off to a good start, so there’s some glory in it. We win.
Mixed up again, I’m anchor this time, but we don’t have the inside track. This means we start farther ahead, but it’s harder on the curves anyway. Maybe it’s just a psychological thing, but it seems real. Those of us in nonstart positions jog off at angles toward our posts to wait for the baton.
Since I’m anchor, I see the whole race as it happens. Denny Shriver is our start, and he gets a really good launch, exploding from the line like a champagne cork. He’s handing his baton off to Paul Roche ahead of the other team’s handoff, so we’re in great shape. I almost don’t want this, because I shine better if we’re a little behind, but I’d rather have a sure win than risk wishing for a slow runner.
For some reason Paul is in some kind of frenzy and he runs like I’ve never seen him. He gets to Norm Landers way ahead of the other team. Paul is about to hand off just as I’m starting to dance a little so that I’ll be ready to pace with Norm when he approaches me, and suddenly the baton is on the ground. I can’t tell whose fault it is. It doesn’t even matter. What matters now is how quickly Norm can pick it up and how fast I can run. Our lead is gone.
I don’t even look at the other team’s runner. I don’t allow myself. Right now the baton is everything. In a minute, the finish line will be everything. Norm’s pumping toward me, grimacing with effort. And then all I can see is that baton.
I don’t even know when my feet start moving, but by the time Norm reaches me we’re like two parts of the same machine, two pistons working in tandem, and the engine is smooth. Our hands are together on the baton only as long as it takes for me to relieve him of it, and I’m off.
It’s all mine now. It’s all my race. Denny, Paul, Norm—they’ve done their part, but from here on it’s up to me. Somewhere on the edge of my vision I can see another boy, running, ahead of me. I can just make out the motion of his arms flying forward and back, the whipping motion of his jersey. But I’m not looking at him. I’m looking at the finish line.
There’s no thought. My concentration moves my arms, my arms move my legs, and I’m flying.
A split second before I cross the line, I pass the other guy. A split second. But it’s enough. It’s fantastic.
I hold my arms up as I run forward, slowing down, opening my mouth wide to get as much air into my lungs as possible. I can hear cheering behind me, and I turn, a grin on my face.
And then I see him again. The high jumper. He’s in the bleachers this time, standing, watching me, his face expressionless. I shake my hands in the air once, still clutching the baton, looking right at him. I want to shout, “Yes!” But his look has silenced almost everything. I can’t hear cheering now. But I can hear myself breathing. And if he even whispers, I’m sure I’ll hear him.
And then he smiles. Suddenly I can hear clapping again. I do shout now. That “Yes!” I’d wanted to. I do. And it feels great.
He turns and moves away. I stand there for a second, grinning after him, and then lope back to my team.
Paul is pretty upset; he feels it was his fault the baton dropped. It seems the coach agrees with him, or maybe there’s some other reason, but Coach doesn’t put him on the final team. Paul’s performance is a little like Jimmy Walsh’s; some days he does great, some days he doesn’t. But I like Paul. Too bad, though; this isn’t a friendship team, and we want to win. So the final team is me, Denny, Norm, and the anchor from the other team, Rich Turner. But I’ll anchor ours. I’m soaring now, as high as that fellow over the high jump.
Speaking of Jimmy Walsh, I know I’m up against him in less than fifteen minutes, when we do short dashes. A number of us from the relay competition will try for dashes too, so Coach gives us a few minutes’ rest. I look at the tryout sheet posted on the side of the bleacher: high jump next.
Everyone is moving that way, so I fall in. I’m fully expecting to see that Indian fellow again, and I’m expecting he will outshine everyone else there.
I’m not wrong. He’s fifth in a group of nine contestants. Coach Everett calls out something unintelligible, stumbling over the unfamiliar syllables of my Indian’s name. But I know it’s going to be him. And he does, in fact, soar every bit as gloriously as he’d done before the relays. It’s the sort of thing that’s so studied, and yet so effortless, that you know it will be the same every time. Until it gets even better.
It doesn’t get better today, but it doesn’t need to. He beats everyone else hands down. But we get to send two jumpers, so Dane Caldwell will also represent us. Remember Dane? The one who turned Jimmy into my enemy? He does okay, I have to admit grudgingly.
I watch to see who goes up to congratulate the Indian. I’m not the most popular kid in school, but a lot of guys clapped my back after that relay. But no one moves toward the high jumper. So I do. I reach out my hand. He looks at me a second and then takes it. His eyes are such a deep color I feel like I could fall into them.
“Jason Peele,” I tell him, trying not to sound as breathless as I feel. “You were fantastic.”
“Thank you. Nagaraju Burugapalli,” he says in the most lilting, undulating tones. Seeing my blank stare, he adds, “You Americans usually find it easier to call me Raj.”
I hear Coach shouting for the dash contestants, so I just say, “Anyway, great job.” And I turn and jog back to the starting line.
Again we have to go through a few elimination runs. I’m sort of watching how Jimmy is doing and sort of watching to see where Raj has gone. Jimmy is doing well; Raj is nowhere in sight. I guess he decided not to stay and watch the other trials, and I’m disappointed. It means he didn’t want to stay and watch me.
As luck would have it, I’m up against Jimmy in the final heat. He grimaces at me before falling into his starting position, and I swear he growls, but I could be making that up. I’ve done well so far, or I wouldn’t be in this last heat, but there’s no denying I’m tired. I have to call on all my concentration not to let Jimmy’s ill will affect me. So I try to imagine something great at the finish line that I want to beat him out of. But what?
The signal goes before I come up with something, but I’m ready to run. So’s Jimmy. We’re neck-and-neck for a good seventy-five out of the one hundred yards. I can hear him breathing through clenched teeth, occasionally grunting with strain.
And then I see my goal. Or, rather, I don’t. It’s a mirage, I’m sure of it, and yet there’s Raj standing just past the finish line, his deep eyes full on me. I know it’s my mind doing this, he’s not really there, but I sure don’t want Jimmy to get there first.
He doesn’t. Again, it’s a split-second-or-two win, but it’s a win. But there’s something dark in it; I don’t feel like shaking my hands in the air and shouting, so I just run forward a ways and bend over,