Chapter 13
At thirteen, Marcus joined the school's cross-country running team, less because he had ambitions about running and more because Mr. Okafor had suggested physical activity with the particular tone that meant he thought it would be good for Marcus and Marcus had learned to weight Mr. Okafor's suggestions heavily.
He was, of course, fast. He had forgotten this about himself it had not seemed relevant in England, this speed that had once been so natural and obvious in the packed-earth yards of Arnett Gardens. But the first time he ran a proper course, lungs burning in the cold air, the world narrowing to the path ahead and the sound of his own breath, he remembered.
Speed was not just physical, he understood. It was a way of being. Forward. Committed. Once you started moving, the only honest thing was to go as fast as you could.
He ran well enough that by fourteen he was one of the school's top runners, competing in regional events where he finished in the top five consistently and occasionally won. And winning in England was different from winning in the yard more formal, more documented, recorded and reported but the feeling underneath it was the same. The feeling of having given what you had and found it was enough.
His coaches called him quietly brilliant, which was a phrase that embarrassed him and which he repeated in his next letter to Leroy, who wrote back: QUIETLY BRILLIANT!!! That is so you. Hahaha. Congratulations man.
After a regional tournament in which Marcus placed first, an older student a seventeen-year-old named Daniel whose family was from Barbados stopped him on the way back to the changing rooms.
"Good race," Daniel said.
"Thanks."
"How long you been here?"
"Four years."
Daniel nodded. "Gets easier. Around year three or four." He paused. "You figure out that you're not one thing or the other. You're both. That's not weakness that's extra. You know what I mean?"
Marcus thought he did. He was starting to get tired of being exactly like something that might have been tested for him into a hard-sided suitcase and he was practicing it was a sign of disease use logistics regression in the way that teachers sometimes notice things during the day .