The Illegal

For Miranda—

always full of love, understanding and inspiration.

This one is for you.

G
O HOME.
”

The words came from the runner on Keita’s left. White, and surely from Freedom State. Limp brown hair, flopping as he ran. Arms too high. Choppy gait. Running was the smoothest dance in the world. Keita had been trained to picture his own legs like wheels. He had learned to strike with his feet soundlessly, transfer weight through the balls of his feet, roll off the toes and spend more time flying than earthbound. Anybody could run, but few with grace. This competitor ran as if his tires weren’t inflated. Keita didn’t say a word. Didn’t acknowledge that he spoke or understood English. He just kept running.

The runner on his shoulder said it again. “Go. Fucking. Home.”

A rude man. He deserved to suffer. Keita bumped up the pace. Sooner or later, the obnoxious fellow would start to hurt. The name of the game was to inflict more pain than he felt. So Keita—a stranger in a strange land whose only transgression was to exist in a place where his presence was illegal—would use speed to break this man.

Keita had studied a map of the Buttersby Marathon. It was an out-and-back route: 21.1 kilometres east along the Chelting Escarpment, a 180-degree turn, and 21.1 kilometres right back to the finish line. A few kilometres after the halfway turn, they would climb back up the marathon’s one and only hill. It would curve,
steepen and keep rising for two kilometres. Challenging, for sure. But what were two kilometres uphill at sea level in Freedom State compared to the Red Hills of Zantoroland at altitude?

They ran along a winding road bordered by the tallest pine trees Keita had ever seen. A hundred years ago, somebody must have set out to create the most peaceful tree-lined road in the world. On each side of him, as high as he could see, trees defined the bends in the road. They had grown so big and thick that they created their own microclimate; it was a warm day, but it felt five degrees cooler in their prodigious shade. Running this race was like swimming in a lake back home in Zantoroland and suddenly hitting a pocket of cool water.

Here along the marathon route, massive, branchless trunks reached many storeys into the air and exploded into a riot of needles and cones. Keita inhaled the smell of pine. Odd, to find such welcoming trees in this hostile land. Perhaps if he were free, he could appreciate all of this beauty. To Keita, the treetops looked like glorious afros of the sort he had seen in photos of African Americans in the 1970s. Way up above, the afros wove together. They made Keita think of people in church pews inclining their heads to pray. Keita imagined two of the treetop heads to be his own mother and father.

Driving just ahead of them were three police motorcycles. One carried a race official, who sat facing backwards to keep his eye on the leading marathoners. Keita tried to put the police officers out of his mind. They would never suspect him. Not in a race. Not under their noses.

The motorcade rounded a corner, and the instant it slipped out of sight, the fellow to Keita’s left threw a low punch. Keita saw the blow coming and stepped to the right, but it glanced off his umbilical hernia. The hernia, now the size of a golf ball, throbbed. Could the other runner tell it was there, under Keita’s shirt? The runners rounded the corner, and the motorcycles came into sight again. It wouldn’t be enough to beat his aggressor; Keita wanted to make him suffer. But the aggressive runner remained close.

“Gonna mess you up,” the man said.

Keita drifted to the far side of the road. The runner stayed with him. Keita swerved back. The name-caller stuck to him.

A string of orange cones marked the halfway point. The runners rounded the turn and began to run back in the direction from which they had come. Keita glanced at the large digital clock, which showed 1:05:11. He would have to pick up his pace slightly. The second half of the race would be harder because of the hill, but there was extra prize money if the winner came in at under 2:10. Keita wanted to finish under the bonus time but didn’t want to run faster than necessary. He had to save his legs for the next race.

Keita’s adversary tucked in behind him, and a third runner trailed by a step. Another white guy from Freedom State. Two hundred metres back in the direction of the finish line, they blew past the fourth- and fifth-place runners. Six hundred metres farther along, they encountered another trickle of outbound runners.

Keita glanced down. The hernia embarrassed him. When the television news in Freedom State wanted to show hungry kids in Zantoroland, they zoomed in on a child with a hernia. A swollen belly. And meagre hair, faintly reddish from malnutrition. Perhaps it was to blame for Keita’s recent bouts of thirst. The hernia was small, but in the weeks since he had gone into hiding in Freedom State, staying in black market guest houses that took in undocumented people at dusk and booted them out at dawn, he had often experienced an unquenchable thirst.

Today, however, he had gulped down cups of electrolyte drink at each water station, and so far he felt strong. Today, he hoped his body would not betray him.

Keita had to make enough money to get the hernia fixed. Leaving aside money to keep himself fed, clothed and well hidden, he would need thousands for the surgery. If he won another few races, he would check out a private clinic. But first, he had to win
this
race.

The jerk remained one stride back.

“Right on your ass, sonny boy,” he said. “Go run in your own fucking country.” He poked Keita’s shoulder. “Roger Bannister,” he sneered, referring to the name on Keita’s bib. “Not on your life. That’s a white man’s name.”

Keita glanced back at his nemesis. A snarling face, snot in the nose, mouth hanging open and a race bib that said
Billy Deeds
.

“What you looking at?” Deeds asked him.

Keita kept running. Deeds would expect a race up the hill, so the best strategy was to cause him pain before they got there. A kilometre before the hill, Keita kicked up the pace and put on a burst for a hundred metres. Deeds and the third runner stayed with him.

“Is that all you got?” Deeds said, but Keita heard the strain in his voice.

Keita coasted for two hundred metres, then attacked again for fifteen seconds. He glanced over. Deeds was starting to slap the ground with his feet.

“Gonna kick your ass, nigger,” Deeds panted.

“Billy, shut up with that.” It was the third runner. Another white guy.

Keita glanced at his bib. Last name was Smart.

“Sorry, buddy,” Smart said. “He’s just messing with you.”

“Stay out of this,” Deeds said.

At the base of the hill, they passed the twenty-four-kilometre mark. Smart dropped back a few metres. Deeds was still on Keita’s tail but breathing hard. Keita picked up the pace once more, drilling down just under 3:00 per kilometre. They were passing a river of runners, and some held out their hands to congratulate him. Keita high-fived one or two, just to pretend that he was feeling no pain.

As the grade of the slope increased, Keita employed the trick that he had been taught while training in the Red Hills.
Want to shatter your opponent’s confidence? Just when he starts to hurt, you sing.