“No, no, not like that. The whole thing was just weird. He was trying to give me some kind of pep talk, and he was just … It was like he was mad at me or something. Like he was trying to get me to shape up from something I did to him and he was trying to be sympathetic at the same time. I don’t know how to explain it. It was just fucked up.”

“Yeah, well, they don’t call him Wooden Washington for nothing.” Gerald paused before speaking again. “Listen,” he said, his voice a little ragged. “I know … I know that we haven’t had the same kind of lives. I saw you looking around my house, bro. And I know you’ve been through some shit I only know about from CDs and TV shows. But I’m glad you told me about your brother, man. That’s a lot to carry by yourself.”

Rashid snuffled and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. He nodded and then, in the silence that had suddenly grown awkward, scooted off the bed and rummaged in his drawer for something to wipe his face with. For the first time in a week, his stomach didn’t hurt. He could feel Gerald’s steady gaze on him as he pulled out a worn handkerchief. “Thanks, man, for listening and all,” he said without looking up.

“No problem.” Gerald climbed off the bed, suddenly brisk, his voice a little too loud. “Let’s go see if it’s anything left in the Coke machine. Those knuckleheads probably drank up everything by now.”

The boys left the room together. You would have had to look closely to see the sorrow in their eyes.

Speed

LONG-DISTANCE RUNNING is largely about pain and the transcendence of that pain. The pain, of course, is obvious the first time one runs anything more than a quarter mile or so. What at first perhaps felt liberating and easy begins to start offering a twinge in the foot there, a tightening of the calf here. As you continue, your lungs begin to cry out for more air, every rock on the roadway becomes an insult, sharp beneath your feet. Your whole body gradually becomes taut as a rubber band, begging only for relief, and then, just when you cannot bear another minute, it comes. You are suddenly above the pain, outside your body, and a strange and fragile joy comes over you. It doesn’t last long, and you cannot force it to come. But the effort toward it is one that brings me back to running day after day after day.