Ultimate Sports by Donald R. Gallo Page B

cause it’s the truth. I had Redmond hollerin’ at me once when I was tryin’ to give this kid in the lunch room a bloody nose for callin’ me “shit-for-brains”—which they ain’t—an’ I called him a asshole, too, but I sure didn’t make it loud enough so he could hear it. If you get Redmond mad he can make bad things happen to you. I can see where he might wanna go to Angry Management hisself, but I don’t think he’d really do it. OP Bo must have a bad enough temper on ’im that makes it so he ain’t scared of Mr. Redmond, which makes us a little bit the same as each other, I think, cause sometimes I get so mad that I ain’t scared of nothin’. We’re differnt than each other too, though, cause I think Bo’s perty smart.
    Anyway Bo has lotsa extra time now since he can’t play nothin’ after school on account of what he called Mr. Redmond, so he makes hisself be a triath-a-lete. Man, you don’t hardly ever see this guy when he ain’t runnin’ or swimmin’ or ridin’ his bike all over ever place. Pa Kent pays him money to take me with ’im sometimes when he goes trainin’, an’ when he goes up to the university where we both have this fake card that says we go to college there, so we can sneak into the weight room. He got one for me. Man, tell me who do you think is dumber, me, or somebody seein’ a guy carryin’ a red an’ blue Superboy gym bag an’ thinks I go to college?
    So the first time Bo come over to my house to get me, I tell him right off I might not be too good at this triath-a-lon stuff cause I ain’t so smart, cause you always want to tell ’em that so they don’t figger it out later an’ not like you, an’ then you don’t got a friend you thought was.
    But Bo smiled an’ said that was probly somethin’ I had workin’
for
me. He said if I was smart I might wanna be doin’ somethin’ that didn’t feel the same as this. An’ boy was he ever right! We started runnin’ an’ I kep’ askin’ was we done yet an’ he kep’ smilin’ an’ sayin’ I probly should put “done yet” outta my head, cause if you’re a triath-a-lete you ain’t never done, which I have to admit seemed like a perty long time so I threw up. That gets me out of a lot of stuff cause I can do it whenever I want, but Bo jus’ said to not get any on my shoes, an’ we kep’ right on runnin’. Damn.
    After that, ever time I done somethin’ to try to get to quit, Bo just rubbed his hand back between my shoulders an’ said I was gettin’ too good an’ he needed me to help him go faster, an’ then he tol’ Pa Kent I had this thing called a “nak,” which I guess makes you go fast, an’ he said he was startin’ to need me just as much as I needed him. Nobody ever said that before, not nobody
ever
, an’ somethin’ really strange started happenin’. I started
likin’
bein’ a triath-a-lete. That scared me at first, cause I thought it might mean I’m gettin’ dumber, which wouldn’t be good, but Bo said nope, he’d been doin’ this a long time an’ he got smarter ever day, couldn’t I tell? I said yeah I could, but I couldn’t really. See, sometimes you have to lie if it don’t hurt nobody an’ you think it’ll make you get a friend. Plus, he wasn’t gettin’ dumber, an’ that’s all I didn’t want to happen.
    Bo said I needed to get me some concentratin’. That’s where you think real hard about what you’re doin’. I know what it is because my teachers always want me to get some, but it’s easier to get when you’re workin’ out hard, cause you’re thinkin’ about stuff you can do, instead of at school where you’re thinkin’ about stuff you can’t. Bosays the hardest part of a triath-a-lon is to keep your head in the game, which by that he means not to start thinkin’ about whatever jumps in your head so you forget you’re tryin’ to hurry up an’ win.
    So we’re runnin’ this one day right after a bike ride an’ I’m right with ’im an’