Airball

Chapter 6 - I Run Unnecessarily For Some Random Kid

"You want to do the suicides... for him?" Coach Hendrix asked, looking confused.

"Yeah," I said. "I'll do them instead of him."

Hendrix looked between me and the chubby kid for a few seconds. "You two are friends?"

I shook my head. "No sir."

"Acquaintances?"

I shook my head again.

"You don't even know this kid?" the coach asked.

"No sir."

"Haven't even seen him before?"

I shook my head. "Never."

"So," the coach concluded. "You want to run for a random kid you don't know."

"Yes, sir. If that's okay, I would like to."

Coach Hendrix looked between me and the freshman sitting beat on the court. "Okay," he said eventually. "If you switch with him, you do four suicides."

I nodded. "Will do, sir."

The coach raised his eyebrow, but then nodded and gestured for me to take the floor.

I waited for the other three freshmen to finish up their suicides, then started mine. I had been running a lot during the summer and the beginning of the school year, so I got through the first two okay. The third one was when it started to burn a little. I was in shape, all right, but no one is immune from suicides. My steps started to become heavier, and my shoulder began to rise higher. I felt every time my foot touched the ground like someone was stepping on my gut. I began to slow down, but I could feel everyone's eyes behind me. I finished the third suicide and started the fourth, running from the baseline to the free throw and back. The half court line and back. The other free throw line. The other baseline. And then back to the starting baseline, where I was met with applause.

Nathan stepped forward and guided me over to where he, Cam, and Max were hanging out. I leaned heavily on a wall and tried to catch my breath.

"Well done," said Max.

"Yeah, that's how we do it," Cam said, slapping me on the shoulder.

"Well, well, well," Coach Hendrix was saying.

I managed to pull myself up a little and focus my attention on the coach.

"What's your name, kid?"

"Blake Manson, sir," I said between breaths.

"I must admit, I'm mildly impressed," Hendrix said. "Don't get me wrong, any of you here could have probably done that." He looked over at some of the freshman who had run extra laps. All four of them were collapsed on the floor. "Well, maybe not all of you, but you get my point. Most of you could have run that, maybe even faster than Blake here did, but you wouldn't have, would you?"

I was a little ticked off. I had just ran who knows how many suicides in the past twenty minutes and his comment was that I could have gone faster.

"Who here would have ran those laps for that random kid?" the coach asked.

No one raised their hands or answered. At least everyone was smart enough to not answer that—another trick question. The coach nodded slowly and wrote something down on a clipboard that Coach Myers handed to him on queue.

"Alright, workouts let's go!" the coach yelled, handing the pen and clipboard back to the assistant coach. "Everyone spread out and find their own place on the court. Come on, hop to it! You all know how this works. I'm aware that we have no mats, you'll just have to tough it out."