The boy and I met up again a year later, after he hit fourteen. He was jimmying a lock when I came up on him. He spun around on me before I could pull a fast one, implement held high.

“You’re good,” I told him.

“I could hear you breathing,” he said.   

Empty bleachers shimmered across the field.
“You sure it’s safe?”

“You worry too much,” he said. “It’s fine – school’s out, another hour before security comes by.” He popped the latch and swung open the gate. “You want to call it that.” He motioned for me to enter. “Might want to get a handle on that breathing though.”

We dropped our bags on the grass. He trotted past me onto the track and began jogging in place. I watched the boy. Hardness raged alongside puberty on his features, shades of dark experience. I studied him as you would a piece of art, waiting for meaning to reveal itself.

“How far you think you’re good for?” he said. “Hundred? Seventy-five? Fifty?”

I did not appreciate his tone. “We do a lap like always,” I said. I sat on the grass and limbered up. Lack of mobility will do you in every time. The boy continued his smooth canter. His calm irritated me. He needed rattling. If you don’t maintain the upper hand you’re nothing in this world. “I see your skin cleared up a bit,” I said. “What’s that the girls use? Noxzema? Or that other one, what is it? Clearasil?” Embarrassment hung in the air. The cloud of self-doubt. The boy didn’t stand a chance. He looked at me and smiled.

“You ever going to trim that thing?” he said.

I got up and pointed at my chin. “This? This makes me look dignified.”

“It makes you look insane,” he said. He leaned in for a closer look and frowned. “Hold on, don’t move.” He plunged his fingers into my beard, working them deep into the tangle. He pulled out a bottle cap and held it up to the light. “Jesus Christ, Pop,” he said.

“Jesus Christ,” I said. “Please don’t say anything.”

“I don’t know what I’d tell her.”

“How is she, anyways?”

“Good,” he said. He let the cap fall to the ground. “Going out again. Dancing.”

“That’s a laugh, woman never was any good on her feet. She meeting decent people at least?”

“Met a man,” the boy said. “I like him.”
   
“He do anything besides dance?”
   
“This and that.”
   
A this-and-that Romeo, I thought. The worst kind. I could only guess what notions he was filling the boy’s head with.
   
“And you?” I said. “You have any great claims on the year?”

He took a cigarette out of his shirt pocket and fired it up. “This and that.”
   
This and that. I bet he had a girl. One of those gypsy types – pale skin, fine arms, freckled titties.
   
“You getting any?” I said. “Rookie nookie? Giving it to ‘em good?” I punched him in the arm as one does in such situations. He blew smoke at me.
   
“We better get this thing going,” he said. “Time’s running short.”
  
“Why yes,” I said. “Yes it is.”
  
He took starting blocks out of his bag and set them on the track. “Sure you don’t want a head start?” he said. “A little advantage?”
   
I waved him away. “Keep your charity.”
   
He tapped the blocks into the sod. I made sure they were even. I stepped in to get a feel and practiced a few soft starts. I shot another across the bow.
   
“They called me Mercury, you know. Fastest white kid around. Kept me out of ass-whuppings. Got me respect. Got me hip-deep in poon.”
   
“I know, I know,” the boy said. He crushed the cigarette under his heel. “Want me to wear ankle weights at least?”
   
I spit. He smiled and nodded. He took his place beside me on the blocks. He did not practice his starts.
  
“You call it,” I said.
   
We leaned forward, fingers splayed in front of us. I looked over at him looking straight ahead. I was in his profile.
   
“On your marks.”
   
Our muscles tensed.
   
“Get set.”
   
Hips rose, thighs tightened.
   
“Go!”
   
We burst together, soaring down the track, the pock of our cleats the only sound as the rest of the world peeled away, the two of us running as one. And as we rounded the first turn and he pulled ahead and my legs began to tremble and my lungs howled and my heart tore apart, I wanted it to last forever. What a wonderful thing. What sweet punishment. To be circling the track once again under a brilliant moon, this young man and I.


Sean Murphy's writing has appeared in Opium, Nerve, Yankee Pot Roast, and The Onion. He lives in Tucson, Arizona.