Ghost Quotes

It was three years ago when my dad lost it. When the liquor made him meaner than he’d ever been. Every other night he would become a different person, like he’d morph into someone crazy, but this one night my mother decided to finally fight back.

I haven’t seen my dad since. Ma said the cops said that when they got to the house, he was sitting outside on the steps, shirtless, with the pistol beside him, guzzling beer, eating sunflower seeds, waiting. Like he wanted to get caught. Like it was no big deal. They gave him ten years in prison, and to be honest, I don’t know if I’m happy about that or not. Sometimes, I wish he would’ve gotten forever in jail. Other times, I wish he was home on the couch, watching the game, shaking seeds in his hand. Either way, one thing is for sure: that was the night I learned how to run.

And the coach kept saying stuff like, “Lu’s still the one to beat,” which was kinda pissing me off because . . . I don’t know. It just made me think about this kid Brandon at school, who always . . . ALWAYS picked on me. Not even just me, though. He picked on a lot of people, and didn’t nobody ever do nothing about it. They just said stupid stuff like, Can’t nobody beat him. Same kind of rah-rah this bowling-ball-head coach was kicking about this kid, Lu. It's just . . . ugh. I mean, he was fast, but honestly, he wasn’t that fast.

“Who you run for?” he asked. What? Who did I run for? What kind of question was that?

“I run for me. Who else?” I replied.

Where I live. Where I live. When anyone ever asks about where I live, I get weird because people always treat you funny when they find out you stay in a certain kind of neighborhood. But I was used to people treating me funny. When your clothes are two sizes too big, and you got on no-name sneakers, and your mother cuts your hair and it looks like your mother cuts your hair, you get used to people treating you funny.

And Red, well, I’ve known him for a long time. We’ve been cool since fifth grade, mainly because even though we’ve never really talked about nothing bad, we both kinda knew something bad had happened to us. Like, for me, the best way to describe it is, I got a lot of scream inside.

“You wanna tell me what happened, or should I tell you?” Principal Marshall closed his door behind him and took a seat at his desk.

“I ain’t saying that. I’ve definitely been scared of somebody before. Real scared,” I added, thinking about how loud a gun sounds when it’s fired in a small room. “That’s how come I know how to run so fast. But now, the only person I’m scared of, other than my mother . . . I mean, like I do things, I know ain’t cool, but even though I know they ain’t cool, like beating on Brandon, all of a sudden I’m doing it anyway, y’know? So I guess . . . I guess the only other person I’m really scared of, maybe . . . is me.”

“Usain ran a nine-five-eight,” Coach said. […]

“But that ain’t even that fast,” I said. Plus it just didn’t seem like one hundred meters was all that long. I mean, I had just run it the day before in what had to be six or seven seconds. Couldn’t have been more than eight.

“You know who’s really tired, son? Your principal.” Coach put his hands up, palms facing me as if to stop me from even thinking about responding. Then he continued, “No, no. You know who’s really, really tired? Your mother. She’s so tired. So tired. And she’s gonna be even more exhausted when she hears about your suspension.”

“And as of yesterday, this kid. Castle Cran—”

“Ghost,” I cut him off before he could even get the shaw out. “Just call me Ghost.”

Who is he? I thought. What gave him the right to just make fun of me for no reason? Like he was perfect. He’s the one God ain’t color in. He’s the one who looked weird.

I wonder if doctors ever cut off somebody’s arm or leg and afterward realize that they made a huge mistake. Like, totally blew it. Because that’s definitely how I felt about low-topping my high-tops, but not until I got to school the next day.

I was literally shaking with embarrassment, like my insides had turned into ice. Ice that was cracking.

I wanted to break the desk.

Or flip it over.

Scream. Something. Anything.

At first, I wasn’t going to do it. I mean, when I went into the store, it was a thought, but only a thought. Not even like a real, real thought either, because I knew that I could just ask my mother to get them for me, and she would because she felt like this track thing was gonna keep me out of trouble. But when I saw how much they cost . . . I just couldn’t ask her for them.

So I banged. Still nothing. Then I started trippin’. Like how when you at the swimming pool on the hottest day of summer, and you jump in and it’s cool, and then you take one step too far and suddenly you’re in the deep end, and things ain’t so cool no more. Because you can’t swim. That’s how I felt. Like I was drowning. Like I was filling up with water. Like this place, this weird little room that had saved my life, now felt like it was gonna take it.

I just told him that my mother had gotten them for me as a way to encourage me to do the right thing and stay out of trouble. Just saying it turned my stomach, because here I was, a boy who was suspended for busting somebody in the face at school one day, and skipped half the day the next because I was laughed at. Then I swiped shoes!

Brandon didn’t have too much to say to me. I saw him just before first period, and he walked right past me and Dre. I saw some of the other kids snickering at him as he passed. But I told them all to chill. I don’t know why because he totally deserved to be roasted, but I guess I felt kinda bad for the dude. I been there.

“I been around here before,” Patty said, skipping the hello. “I can’t remember when. But I know I been around here.”

“Me too,” Lu said. “Not really these parts, but my pops plays ball sometimes at the court down the street.”

“My dad’s in jail for trying to shoot me and my mother,” I blurted. And before anyone could say anything, I held my hands out for my utensils.

And it felt good to feel like one of the teammates. Like I was there—really, really there—as me, but without as much scream inside.

My tongue had suddenly turned into a stone in my mouth. I couldn’t breathe, like I had just finished running ladders, like I was going to yak up every sunflower I had ever eaten, and if there was a sunflower growing in me, it was definitely dying right then.

“Because that’s where we lived. That’s where I grew up. So don’t tell me what I know and don’t know, Ghost.”

“Yeah,” Lu said from behind me. He put his hand on my shoulder. He runs, real, real, real fast,” he said, taunting Brandon. Lu Pulled me into him, grabbed me by the back on my neck. “It’s me and you,” he said, snapping me out of my Brandon Simmons nightmare state and back into focus.

The sound of the gun cocking. The sound of the door unlocking. Heart pounding. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Silence. This. Is. It.

And then . . . BOOM!