How did we get here? I want to ask. Alonzo and me, running around a quarter-mile track at an amazingly slow pace. I mean, amazingly slow. We are running a mile, but like none in human history has ever run one, I’ll bet. Well, at least there’s that.

We’re both seniors but Alonzo is a miler. I am not. I’m a 1320 man. Which is three-quarters of a mile. I am the fastest on my team—our team—the Quietville Union High School—at three-quarters of a mile. But this is not that. This is a whole mile and that’s entirely different. Besides, I’m the only one on the team who runs the 1320. How could I not be the fastest? To be clear, I’m not a star. My times are in the moderate range. Alonzo is a star. The standout on our very middle of the road track team. He’s the best in the League, the San Joaquin Valley Small Schools League (a collection of the dozen or so low-density burgs scattered across the Great Valley), except for one person. The League’s overall stellar performer in this category is Silvester Soames, from the neighboring school of Sycamore. That’s the school we’re facing today. But Soames is not present at this Quietville-Sycamore joint track meet. He’s out sick, like many of his classmates and fellow-tracksters, with the flu. Moreover, half their team is missing. Which explains why Alonzo and I are trotting around this course at the pace we are.

It was Coach’s idea. Coach McKenzie. He’s the track coach who also teaches Social Science. There, in class, I am a star. Sort of. We’re seniors, Alonzo and me, and I’m on track (excuse the pun) to be valedictorian or salutatorian—one or the other, surely—while Alonzo is lounging somewhere in the middle of the pack.

Thing is, Alonzo and I are friends. Not buddy-buddy close, not besties, perhaps, but still. And I’m already beginning to wonder about next year and the next and the year after that. The future, I mean. What will happen to me? To Alonzo?

But I was telling you about the track meet. About how our pace was set (or rather strongly suggested) by Coach McKenzie.

“This is our chance to beat these guys, fellas. We don’t usually whip Sycamore in track. Certainly not for the three years I’ve been here. So, Alonzo, consider. You are, of course, our miler. But I’d like Silvester here to run with you today.”

(Please don’t blame me for that name; blame my parents.)

He added: “That’s because, you two will be the only ones in the race. Which means we’ll have a second and a first-place winner and that means more team points. Five points for first, three points for second. That’s eight points. Ya get me? If Alonzo runs by himself, then it’s only three points for the team.”

We looked at each other and nodded. “Sure coach,” we said simultaneously.

“Do I still run the 1320?” I asked.

“Yes, but it’s not for another forty-five minutes or so. So take it easy on this one. Both of you. Jog around the track. Everybody’s doing double-duty today so we can pick up extra points. I’d like both of you to be in the 440 relay, too. Last race of the afternoon. An hour and a half away, at least. We’ll probably lose that one, but we’ll pick up the points for second place—I got it all figured out—and that will put us over the top. So take it easy, right?”

And truth to tell, we were having a ball. That’s because, besides being good at books, I considered myself something of a showman. At the pace we were running, there was no reason not to chat, right? So I suggested to Alonzo that we ham it up a bit. Meaning that we make it obvious to the crowd in the stadium (a 10-row bleacher on one side of the field) that we were conversing, having a ball. Thus, I began exaggerating the opening and closing of my mouth, gesticulating with my hands and arms, nodding or shaking my head, looking as if I was considering a point he’d made and, of course, encouraging Alonzo to do the same. Occasionally we’d laugh, as if sharing a big joke. It was the visual I wanted to communicate to the audience, all 300 or so family members of the athletes and scattered students who inhabited the bleachers. Something to shed the boredom of trotting around the track like a couple of losers. Alonzo went along with it and, frankly, we were enjoying ourselves. We could hear their occasional titters and that gave us a good feeling. Why not ham it up a little bit when we had—literally—nothing to lose?

But somewhere in the middle of our fourth—and last—revolution, it suddenly hit me.

“Alonzo,” says I.

“Yup. What?”

“I just realized. Here we are talking and whooping it up. Which you can do, of course, when you’re together. Side by side. But that won’t work with the coach’s plan, will it? If we cross the finish line at the same time, then it’s a tie, right? Which means that the first-place score of five points will be split, two-and-one-half for each, only five points for the team?”

“Right.”

“Therefore, one of us has to win, right? Which should it be?”

“Jeez, I don’t know. Whadda you think?”

“Should we make a race of it? So one of us will come in first and the other second?”

“Okay by me. When do we start racing?”

“Lemme think. How about a hundred yards from the finish line? Okay?”

We were rounding the last turn as I spoke. The bleachers—our audience—loomed in the distance.

“So,” I said. “We both need to start racing at the same time, to make it fair. How do we decide that?”
“Beats me.”

Clearly everything was being left up to me. Well, why not? I was the one who proposed our Laurel & Hardy act in the first place.

“Okay,” I said. “How about one of us says, ‘Go!’ and we start racing for the finish line. Good enough?”

“Fine by me.”

By this time, we’d rounded the curve, were looking at the bleachers—our audience—in the near distance.

“Okay, then. You want to give the signal? When you say, ‘GO!’ we’ll take off like turpentined cats, okay?”

“Got it. I’ll say go when we get about a hundred yards from the finish line.”

“Agreed. May the best man win.”

“GO!”

And that’s how I wound up taking one for the team. It didn’t take long to realize how stupid I’d been.

What I’d failed to consider beforehand is that when someone shouts “go,” said person already knows they are about to do it. The listener can’t start running hell-bent for leather until the message is processed. Reaction time, it’s called, which I remembered too late that my textbooks had told me was about three-quarters of a second. By the time my brain got the signal and directed my legs to start churning as fast as they could, Alonzo was two yards in front of me and—as sprinters—we appeared to be equally matched. I didn’t lose any ground, according to my father, who was in the stands on a rare visit to see me perform. However, alas, I could not catch up.

Ever after, I would wonder, who was the smart one, anyway?