Away Running Read online

  DAVID WRIGHT AND LUC BOUCHARD

  O R C A B O O K P U B L I S H E R S

  Text copyright © 2016 David Wright and Luc Bouchard

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Bouchard, Luc, 1963 June 6–, author

  Away running / Luc Bouchard and David Wright.

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-4598-1046-4 (paperback).—ISBN 978-1-4598-1047-1 (pdf).—

  ISBN 978-1-4598-1048-8 (epub)

  I. Wright, David, 1964–, author II. Title.

  PS8603.O92435A93 2015 jC813'.6 C2015-904518-5

  C2015-904519-3

  First published in the United States, 2016

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2015946245

  Summary: In this novel for teens, Matt and Free meet in Paris, where they both play American football on a team in a poverty-stricken suburb where racial tension affects the team.

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Cover design by Teresa Bubela

  Cover images by Getty Images and Dreamstime.com

  Author photos by Jonathan Wei, Julie Durocher

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  www.orcabook.com

  19 18 17 16 • 4 3 2 1

  For Zyed Benna, Bouna Traoré and Muhittin Altun

  But Paris was a very old city and we were young and nothing was simple there.

  —Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

  CONTENTS

  VILLENEUVE-LA-GRANDE: APRIL 15

  THREE MONTHS EARLIER: JANUARY 10

  MATHIEU “MATT” DUMAS

  MATT

  MATT

  MATT

  MATT

  FREEMAN OMONWOLE BEHANZIN

  FREE

  FREE

  DIABLES ROUGES V. JETS: JANUARY 31

  MATT

  MATT

  MATT

  DIABLES ROUGES (1–1) V. OURS (0–2): FEBRUARY 28

  FREE

  FREE

  MATT

  ANGES BLEUS (2–1) V. DIABLES ROUGES (2–1): MARCH 14

  MATT

  MATT

  FREE

  CAÏMANS (3–1) V. DIABLES ROUGES (3–1): MARCH 29

  FREE

  FREE

  FREE

  DIABLES ROUGES (4–1) V. ARGONAUTES (3–2): APRIL 11

  MATT

  MATT

  FREE

  FOUR DAYS BEFORE THE UNDER-20s: CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: APRIL 15

  MATT

  FREE

  FREE

  MATT

  MATT

  MATT

  MATT

  FREE

  FREE

  MATT

  THE UNDER-20s CHAMPIONSHIP: DIABLES ROUGES V. JETS: APRIL 19

  FREE

  MATT

  FREE

  AUTHORS’ NOTE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  VILLENEUVE-LA-GRANDE

  APRIL 15

  The Wednesday before game day—our last game of the season, for the league championship—me and Matt take the suburban train, the RER, from Paris up to Villeneuve-La-Grande early, way before practice. Me and him play American football for the team there, the Diables Rouges. We meet a bunch of our teammates outside the station and walk to a field between some abandoned cinder-block warehouses and their high school to play a pickup game of soccer.

  A few guys from their projects join us, including Karim and one of his crew. Me and Karim got history, dating back to when I first got here, in February. Him and his set were slinging dime bags outside their high-rise like the bangers do back in my ’hood in San Antonio, and he just strode up on me, spitting French slang I didn’t understand at the time, but I squared off with him all the same. That’s what you do when someone’s fronting on you.

  Now he acts like he doesn’t remember or doesn’t care. But Matt whispers in English, “Keep cool, Freeman. We’ll be going home soon. No more Karim.”

  I’m like, “Tsst. I ain’t studying that fool.”

  Never having to see Karim again is the last thing I think on when I think of home. I think about Mama, my brother Tookie and baby sister Tina, who I haven’t seen in so long—you know I do. But I also think about not seeing Matt anymore, him going back to Montreal and off to college to major in business and become a big businessman like almost everyone else in his family. I’m going to miss every single one of the Diables Rouges. Even Moose. We’ve gotten pretty close since our rough start. That’s what I think on when I think about leaving.

  Moose takes charge now. “The two ’Ricains,” he says, pointing to me and Matt, “with me, Jean-Marc and Couly. Sidi, you and Mobylette take Adar, Franck, Karim and…?”

  He’s looking at Karim’s boy.

  “Omar,” Karim’s boy says, doing that dope-smoker giggle thing as he pulls his hoodie off over his head.

  Like so many here, the field is more dirt than grass and the goals don’t have nets, but there’s a brick wall surrounding the lot, so we shouldn’t have to go chasing after too many missed kicks. Adar pulls a ball out of his book bag and kicks the game off.

  Matt insists on covering Karim—or trying to. Karim is cat quick. He plays with a cigarette dangling from his lips (that pisses Matt off even more) and dribbles circles around Matt.

  I’m no better. I play cornerback and am fit, but all you do in soccer is run, and every few seconds I’m bent over at the waist and wheezing. (I think Moose put me and Matt on the same side to humiliate us ’Ricains, as the guys call us North Americans, even more.)

  And I notice something: everybody is loose today—all our teammates. Sidi pulls Moose’s T-shirt over his head to steal his dribble. Jean-Marc and Mobylette and Adar play grab-ass as much as soccer. They don’t act nothing like before, like after we beat the Anges Bleus and then the Caïmans and everybody pretended like it was no big deal but they were all sniping at each other and practices were a disaster. This week, the week of the last game of our season, everybody is Zen.

  Karim passes the ball to Sidi, and I cover him. Sidi plays it serious, dribbling forward, shifting his weight to keep his body between me and the ball. Nearing the box, he does this dope scissors move where he switches it from one foot to the other, and then he fires it into the goal.

  Dang!

  I jog back upfield. “I’ll never again in my life look down on the sport of soccer,” I say, saying soccer in English, the rest en français.

  “Football,” Moose corrects me, pronouncing it in French—FOO-tuh-bowl. “This is the real football, not what we do with the Diables Rouges.” He jogs ahead, teasing, “All the world calls it by its proper name but you bullheaded ’Ricains.”

  The sun is setting. Matt points to the incoming black clouds. “It’s going to rain a river.”

  “Should be a great practice tonight then,” I say. “Slogging around and drenched and no footing.”

  “I hope the weather clears by Sunday,” Matt adds, looking worried.

  Matt is our starting QB, but it’s not about stats with him. Rain will make a mess of our passing game, and everybody knows, our opponents included, that we need the pass if we’re going to win on Sunday. A heavy, slick ball will make Matt’s job all the harder.

  We play
a little while longer, till it gets too dark to continue, then call it quits. We have to grab our gear from the clubhouse and then get to practice on time, and we’re cutting it a little close. Still, everybody is laughing, boasting about his best play (except me and Matt—there’s not much to boast about).

  Moose grabs Karim from behind in a bear hug and lifts him off his feet. “How many times do I have to say it, mec? You’ve got crazy quicks. We could use you on the Diables Rouges.”

  Mec means “guy,” but up here they use it kind of like we do back home, like dawg or G or whatnot.

  Karim flips the hood of his sweatshirt up over his head, strikes a match and puts it to his cigarette, the glow lighting up his face. “Naw. Sports is your thing. I’ve got other interests.”

  “The Diables treat us right, Karim, no joke,” Moose says. “City hall finds guys work, stuff like that.”

  “City jobs.” He pulls hard on his smoke, the tip burning bright. “My pay scale is higher.”

  Karim’s friend Omar laughs, and he and Karim head off in the other direction from us.

  “Oueche!” Karim calls over his shoulder. Yo! “Kill those bourgeois pricks Sunday.”

  The rest of us, ten or twelve or so, walk down the street, past an abandoned warehouse, its windows all busted out, a machine shop and a funeral home, then along the corrugated tin fence of a darkened construction site.

  Sidi says, “I know a shortcut.”

  “Through the site?” Moose sounds reluctant.

  “It’ll save us fifteen minutes.”

  Sidi climbs up onto the padlocked chain-link gate and jumps down on the other side. Matt follows suit, and I follow him.

  Moose stays outside. “My father” is all he says.

  And I’m thinking, He’s right, duh! Moose’s dad keeps a pretty tight rein on him. I’m about to climb back over when Sidi says, “C’mon, you wimp,” and Mobylette and the others climb over too.

  Moose doesn’t move.

  It’s pitch-black inside the site, all of us just shadows against more shadows. The Cité des Cinq Mille, the high-rise projects where most of the guys live, looms ahead of us, pushing up past the far-side fence, two football fields away. Most of its windows are lit up.

  Finally, Moose says, “But nobody screws around in there.” He points his finger through the chain-link directly at Sidi’s dark shape. “Nobody! Understood?”

  “Okay, okay already,” Sidi says.

  Then Moose hops the fence.

  Once my eyes adjust, I see that there are stacks of two-by-fours and two-by-sixes and rebar all over. A yellow-and-black hydraulic excavator stands there like a sleeping Decepticon, its giant metal arm and bucket still. I kind of want to warn the others to tiptoe by, so we don’t wake it. Then Sidi jumps up onto the tracks of the digging machine, opens his arms wide and in thick-accented English yells, “I’m the King of the Woooorrrld!”

  We all laugh. Even Moose.

  “Come on,” he tells Sidi. “Get down.”

  We work our way through the rows of stacked gear and metal pipes. At the gate on the other side, we climb up and jump over. Just as the last one of us drops to the ground, the night is suddenly blue-lit, and there’s a siren. Then another. Two white cars, engines roaring, POLICE in block letters across each hood, bear down on us. A third rounds the corner. I think I can hear a fourth.

  We all freeze.

  “I don’t have my ID papers,” Sidi says.

  “Me neither,” says Mobylette.

  “Merde,” says Moose.

  The first two cars scream forward, sirens blaring.

  “We didn’t do anything,” Matt says. “We’ll be okay.”

  But they ignore him.

  “That means they’ll take us in,” Sidi says. “Call our parents.”

  “Merde!” says Moose again.

  He looks freaked. Panicked.

  The cars screech to a stop not ten feet from us, one blocking us to the right, the other to the left. Six cops in civilian clothes spring out, carrying those huge Flash-Ball guns. They grab Adar and Ibrahim, tossing them to the ground.

  The cops are screaming, “Par terre, par terre!”—On the ground!—and “Tout de suite! Allez, bougez-vous!”—Right now! Go, move!

  Me and Matt, we raise our hands, but Moose and Sidi and Mobylette, they break. So fast the cops don’t immediately react. They just kind of follow with their eyes, looking unsure what to do. I watch Moose and them running too, as surprised as the cops are.

  “Don’t move, or we fire!” one says, pointing his Flash-Ball directly at my chest.

  “Halte!” another screams after Moose and Sidi and Mobylette.

  Two cops take off after them on foot. One of the cars peels off, its siren blowing, shrill and insistent.

  A cop throws me to the ground, driving his shoe into the back of my neck.

  “Easy, podner,” I say in English.

  “Arrêtes de bouger,” he says—Stop moving.

  “You’re crushing my neck!”

  “Ta gueule!” the cop screams—Shut your trap.

  Matt is on the ground now too.

  The bottom chassis of the police car, the axle and tires, frames my view. An officer frisks me, empties my pockets, then handcuffs me. I can hear dogs barking off in the distance.

  “Debout!” the cops are all screaming at us. Get up! Now!

  It ain’t as easy as it sounds, lying on our bellies like that, hands cuffed behind our backs. Matt says so, and the officer he says it to grabs his cuffed hands and wrenches him to his feet.

  Matt’s scream sends a chill down my spine.

  They line the nine of us up against a police van that has arrived. There are three more cars now too, blue lights flashing. We didn’t do anything wrong, but still I feel kind of guilty, standing there in the glare of their lights. I glance at Matt. He’s sweaty, all dirty from the ground.

  “We know you broke into the construction site to steal,” one of the cops says calmly.

  None of us says anything. The cops don’t either, not for a long time. They just stand there staring at us, their Flash-Balls still out.

  “What did you vandalize?” one cop says finally. “If we have to go in and figure it out ourselves, it’s going to be much worse for you.”

  Another long silence.

  “Some of you don’t have papers. How can we know you even have the right to be in France?”

  A cop off to the side scrutinizes me and Matt, our passports in his hand, then walks over to the cop in charge, the one who has been speaking. He points from our passports to us. The head cop indicates for him to pull us out of the line. The cop grabs each of us by an arm and pushes us ahead of him toward the top guy, who says, “You shouldn’t be running around with a bunch of hoodlums.”

  The cop who separated me and Matt from the rest stares at us—hard—while the other flips through our passports. Then it occurs to me: Can they deport us for this? Will we have to miss our last game? And what’ll Mama say?

  The cops start shepherding the other guys into the back of the police van. Some have their ID cards, some don’t—it doesn’t matter.

  “Check my papers,” Adar is saying. “They’re fine.”

  “We didn’t do anything,” says Jean-Marc. “We were just taking a shortcut to practice.”

  “Vos gueules!” the head cop says—Shut up! “You broke into a locked construction site to vandalize and steal. You’re going to jail.”

  A cop comes toward me and Matt, but the head guy waves him off and then goes to one of the cars, where he sits behind the wheel, one foot out on the ground, leaving me and Matt standing there while the other cops push our friends—our teammates!—into the back of the van.

  “Should be us going in too, right alongside them,” I say as the van pulls off.

  Matt says, “You’re right, Free, but I can’t help it—I feel kind of relieved.” He looks me in my eye, then quickly looks down at his feet.

  I look away too.

  Th
e head cop talks into the radio in the car, one foot jackhammering up and down as he stares over at us. He looks disappointed, like he knows us and entrusted us with some simple task—feeding the dog or taking out the trash—and we didn’t do it.

  The cop who pulled us out of the line joins him in the car, the only car left. I hear the radio, staticky and distant but clear: “…three fugitives are in flight at the cemetery. Four officers in pursuit…”

  “That’s Moose and Sidi and Mobylette,” I whisper to Matt.

  Matt stays stiff, steady, staring at his feet. “We weren’t doing anything!” he suddenly yells toward the car. “We were just trying to get to practice on time!”

  The head cop gets out and storms over. “Arrêtes ton cinéma. You think this is a game?”

  “We were just crossing the site. We didn’t do anything.”

  “And you think that’s what this is about?” he tells Matt. “Take a look around you, mon petit gars. This isn’t Canada. This is France’s gutter. Half the population lives off drug dealing and petty theft. And the hatred, the anti-police and anti-white hatred…”

  He stops, but not because of me, because I’m black and he’s just showed his ass. It’s as though he sees me like Matt, as white. The cop stands there staring straight at us.

  Matt doesn’t drop his eyes. “We play for the American football team,” he says, calm now, like he can reason with the guy. “All of us do. The municipality sponsors the team.”

  “And?” the head cop says. “You think that means something?”

  The radio crackles: “…heading toward the electrical substation. We need backup…”

  The cop heads to the car. “If those boys aren’t in the system,” he says, “well, then, they have nothing to worry about. They’ll be back in their beds later tonight.”

  He makes a gesture to the other officer, who comes over.

  “My boss seems to think you’re okay,” the cop says, unlocking Matt first. “Me, I know better. Americans or not, you boys were into something.” He looks me, then Matt, in the eye. “But he thinks we should let you go, and it’s his call.” He walks back toward the police car. “Get out of here. This is no place for tourists.”

  He gets in, and the car pulls away.