The Million Dollar Race

by Matthew Ross Smith

  Dave Falloon, Dad

  We’ve always taught the boys to stand up and fight for what they believe.

  Diane Falloon, Mom

  But—I think we can agree—this was not the appropriate forum.

  Jay Fa’atasi, Track Star/Best Friend

  Dude. The crowd was booing Franny so hard.

  Grant Falloon, Track Star

  Franny was loving it. The more they booed—the more of a spectacle it became—the better.

  Jay Fa’atasi, Track Star/Best Friend

  He was filming himself, of course. I was like, “Bro, your brother’s a genius. He’s gonna get so many views from that.”

  Grant Falloon, Track Star

  They finally dragged Franny off the track. I was stunned. I felt like I was watching my life in the third person. And now I was supposed to race?

  Jay Fa’atasi, Track Star/Best Friend

  I felt bad for Grant… but this wasn’t the time for a pity party.

  Grant Falloon, Track Star

  But then something really cool happened. It was like things had become so ridiculous that nothing mattered anymore. The tension left my body. I felt great. I exploded out of the blocks, arms firing like pistons. I felt my spikes biting into the track, spitting it out. It was the best start of my life. But still…

  Jay Fa’atasi, Track Star/Best Friend

  I was right with you. [Smirks.]

  Diane Falloon, Mom

  I couldn’t believe how fast they were moving. Both of them.

  Dave Falloon, Dad

  I was holding my breath the whole time.

  Grant Falloon, Track Star

  Our strides were perfectly in sync: left foot, right foot, left foot…

  Jay Fa’atasi, Track Star/Best Friend

  Mirror images.

  Dave Falloon, Dad

  I swear they crossed the line at the exact same time.

  Diane Falloon, Mom

  It really was that close.

  Grant Falloon, Track Star

  Afterward we paced on the track, hands atop our heads. We hugged. I said something like “Good race, bro. Good race.” We still didn’t know who’d won.

  Jay Fa’atasi, Track Star/Best Friend

  The judges were crowded around a little TV monitor.

  Grant Falloon, Track Star

  The judges all nodded, agreeing on something. One of them leaned over and said something to the PA announcer.

  Kevin Casey, Public Address Announcer

  Ladies and gentlemen (gentlemen)… today’s winner (winner)… advancing to the national qualifier (qualifier)… is (is)…

  Grant Falloon, Track Star

  I stared down at my feet. I already knew. This was my destiny. To get inches from my dream. Only to—

  Kevin Casey, Public Address Announcer

  GRANT FALLOON.

  Grant Falloon, Track Star

  I couldn’t believe it. I’d won. Jay came over and hugged me. We pressed our foreheads together. I don’t think we even said anything.

  Jay Fa’atasi, Track Star/Best Friend

  I had to see the video, though. I went over to check the monitor.

  Grant Falloon, Track Star

  It’s funny—as a sprinter, you’re taught not to lean. Leaning causes deceleration. We all know that. But there I was in the freeze-frame, leaning over the line like a lowercase r…

  Jay Fa’atasi, Track Star/Best Friend

  It’s crazy. All those years staring down, hunched over, embarrassed by your family. It won you the race!

  Grant Falloon, Track Star

  Leaving the track, I looked back over my shoulder. Jay was still there, crying onto his mom’s shoulder. Seeing that… I don’t know. Something, like, loosened in my chest. My best friend—my brother—he was hurting. I wanted to run back. I even started to. But I couldn’t. Going back would’ve made it worse somehow, like I was gloating or pitying him. I didn’t even want him to know that I’d seen.

  So I just left.

  10

  Jay’s basement. Sometime last summer. We’re both in sleeping bags on the carpet. We like to sleep down here because we can stay up later. His mom made us turn off the TV, but it’s still kind of glowing darkly, if that makes sense.

  He says, “You awake, bro?”

  “Nah,” I say.

  We both laugh.

  “What’s up?” I say.

  “You ever get a song stuck in your head? I mean like really bad?”

  “Dude. One time I had ‘Baby Shark’ in there for like a month. I thought I was gonna have to get my head amputated.”

  I sense his smile in the dark.

  “That ever happen with anything else?” he asks. And now I know it wasn’t a real question. It was just a question to get to the question.

  He rolls toward me.

  I roll toward him.

  “How ’bout a dream?” he says. “You ever have a dream get stuck in your head? I have the same one every night.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. It’s… my brother.”

  “For real?”

  “Yeah. He’s on this mission in the desert… and he’s hurt. He’s reaching for me saying, ‘Help. Please.’ But I don’t. I just stand there and watch.”

  “Did you tell your mom?” I ask.

  “Come on, bro.”

  “What?”

  “You think I need her worrying about me, too?”

  I roll away so I’m flat on my back. I can’t tell if I’m seeing the outline of the ceiling panels or projecting them from memory. I feel dumb. By comparison, all my family drama seems so small. “It’s just a dream,” I say. “He’ll be fine.”

  “Yeah. I know.…”

  A few minutes pass. We’re both staring up at the ceiling. Finally he rolls toward me and whispers, “Baby Shark doot-doot, doot-doot-doot-doot, Baby Shark, doot-doot, doot-doot-doot-doot…”

  I shove him. “Noooooooooo!”

  We laugh so loud that his mom stomps on her bedroom floor, two levels up. Her don’t-make-me-come-down-there warning stomps.

  We cover our mouths and laugh quietly.

  * * *

  My family has this annoying tradition where, right before we eat, we go around and say a word that sums up our day. A single word. I’ve just won the regional championship, so for once I’m looking forward to the words they’ll choose.

  “Proud,” Mom says, steam rising from her plate.

  “Thrilled,” Dad says, beaming.

  “Skeptical,” Franny says—meaning about the Million Dollar Race in general, and we all frown, but he doesn’t back down.

  And now it’s my turn.

  I try on a few words in my mind, seeing how they feel. Excited? Definitely. But that doesn’t quite capture it. Invincible? Nah, because I know how close I was to losing. If any one of a hundred tiny things had gone differently, I’d be choosing from a much darker collection of words. This is why my parents do this. It forces you to reflect.

  “Relieved,” I finally say.

  Mom’s smile flickers. “Relieved” means I expected myself to win, and anything less would’ve been a crushing disappointment. She’s always saying how running should just be fun, the way it started. I blink, and she’s smiling brightly again.

  “Well cheers to our champion,” she says, raising her bubbling seltzer.

  After dinner I’m up in my room, reading about all the other regional winners on my phone. I peek up for a second, and Franny’s in the doorway. He’s leaning against the frame, holding his open laptop in his palm, long hair in a ponytail.

  Aside from passing insults, we hardly ever talk anymore. In another lifetime, believe it or not, we were best friends.

  “Hey,” he says. “I just wanted to say… congrats. I think it’s awesome that you won.”

  “Thanks,” I mutter.

  And that could be it.

  It could be over.

  But then I say, “But who really cares, right? You got your footage. That’s all t
hat really matters, right?”

  To my own surprise, I want him to say something back. I want things to escalate until we scream at each other. I want fireworks, an explosion. Maybe if we burn it all down, something new could rise from the ashes.

  Instead he opens his mouth like he’s going to respond—then leaves.

  11

  Next morning, I’m on the fenced-in walking bridge over the highway. It’s the midway point between my house and Jay’s house. We meet here every morning, then jog over to the middle school track to train.

  Except today… he’s not here.

  I check my phone.

  No texts.

  I start to write Yo bro, where u—

  But I delete it.

  What if he’s not coming… on purpose?

  What if, no matter how much we say “no hard feelings,” it’s impossible to be both rivals and best friends? I take a deep breath and grip the metal fence. The rust crumbles beneath my fingertips.

  Below, the cars inch along in their dotted lanes. It’s the most normal thing in the world. Morning traffic. And yet, if you tilt your head just slightly, it all seems insane.

  Normal (n): You wake up every morning, pee, brush your teeth, shower, get dressed, and then go to some cramped, over-bright office, where you stay for the next eight hours, making someone else a lot of money.

  Gripping the fence, I promise myself that I won’t ever be like that—inching toward some finish line that I hate. No. I’ll be a star. When I need to get somewhere, I’ll have a private helicopter. Or better yet, the world will come to me.

  * * *

  I turn, and Jay’s jogging toward me.

  “My bad,” he says, wearing all-white running gear with neon-yellow sneakers. “Couldn’t sleep, then I overslept. Kinda funny when you say it out loud.” He shrugs. “You know what I mean.”

  “It’s all good,” I say.

  We fist-bump.

  Jogging toward the track, we spot my brother outside the Town Watch building. We stop and observe him from a distance like he’s an exhibit at the zoo. He’s holding his phone up, saying something we can’t hear.

  Jay says, “You know how they say if you make a funny face for too long your face will get stuck like that?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I think his arm is gonna get stuck like that, in selfie-taking position.”

  I laugh. “It really is amazing. His whole life is just… content.”

  Jay smirks. “Yo, remember those lame movies you guys used to make?”

  It’s true. When we were kids, me and Franny had our own company: G&F Productions. We were a perfect creative duo because our personalities suited us to different roles. I was always the writer. I’d sit at Dad’s typewriter and think up the weirdest, wildest plots. I loved the way the words would pour out of my fingertips and appear on the page with that awesomely loud clack!

  Franny was the talent. He’d lounge beside the inflatable pool, in Mom’s sunglasses, sipping lemonade, while I labored over the script. I’d rush out the back door, holding the new pages excitedly over my head, and he’d say, drowsily, “I hope this is better than your last effort.”

  My favorite movie was about a swashbuckling cowboy named Small Bladder Bill. He was always late to his gunfights because he had to stop to pee so many times on the way. We had to reshoot it like ten times because we were both laughing so hard. Something about being on camera made us so giggly.

  It was still a novelty back then, I guess.

  Watching Franny now, with the low drone of the highway behind us, I say to Jay, “Imagine if a young Einstein had been obsessed with getting views and likes instead of gazing up at the stars, wondering how it all works.”

  Jay frowns. “Bro, if there’d been social media back then, Einstein’s ideas would’ve spread way faster and wider. It would’ve been awesome.” He rubs his chin. He claims he’s growing a goatee, but there’s nothing there. “You really think Franny’s that smart? Like, Einstein level?”

  I don’t know about that. But Franny’s the smartest kid I know. He’s probably smarter than all the rest of our family combined. (I would never admit this, of course.)

  No, his intelligence has never been the question.

  The question is if he’ll use his powers for good or evil.

  12

  Aweek later it’s Jay’s mom’s fortieth birthday party. Originally they were going to have it at their house, but then so many aunts and uncles and cousins RSVP’d that they had to rent the local church hall. It’s a Samoan tradition that each branch of the family tree has to be represented for major celebrations.

  I know it’s silly, but I get nervous when our families are in the same place. I mean, it’s fine. Mom and Dad love Mrs. Fa’atasi; she loves them. They always say, “We need to all get together more often!” But then they don’t, and I’m glad. I guess I like to keep my two worlds separate—or rather, I’ve made a new world for myself, and I don’t want my parents polluting it with their toxic weirdness.

  I’m riding over early with the Fa’atasis to help them set up. With me and Jay in the back seat of his mom’s Camry, it feels like she’s our personal Uber driver. Which is kind of what a parent is, if you think about it.

  (Minus the rating system.)

  (That would be awesome.)

  I’m staring out the window, daydreaming that I’m being interviewed on ESPN.

  Interviewer: Grant, thanks for making time to talk to us. We know you’re super busy with all your endorsements and your charity work and your training.

  Grant: [Neck weighed down by gold medals] My pleasure.

  Interviewer: We have a lot of young viewers out there who tell us you’re their hero, they want to be just like you. Can tell us what makes you so great?

  Grant: Well, ESPN, I have to tell you, there’s no shortcut, no magic phone call that will make all your dreams come true. It’s really all about hard work. Everyone says “follow your dreams”… but to me, that’s not good enough. I want to become so fast that my dreams have to struggle to keep up with me.

  Interviewer: So, instead of following your dreams, you want your dreams to… follow you?

  Grant: [Flashes million-dollar smile.] Exactly.

  Fiddling with his seat belt, Jay says, “So I started doing some scouting. There’s a kid from California who ran a 10.79. He’s fast. But if you do your thing, you should dust him, no problem.”

  I ran a 10.76 at regionals, just shy of the record for our age group.

  Jay ran a 10.77.

  It’s crazy how, in our world, a hundredth of a second can matter so much. It can change your future in major ways.

  At a red light, Mrs. Fa’atasi eyes us in the rearview mirror. “What you clowns whispering about?”

  “Just plotting our world takeover,” Jay says.

  She swats back playfully, then turns up her audiobook again. The light turns green.

  “Been meaning to ask you,” Jay says. “You thought about what you’re gonna wear at nationals?”

  I have to laugh. It’s such a Jay question. First time I ever saw him, winter of fourth grade, just after he’d moved from Hawaii, he was running laps around our neighborhood in a designer coat. The faux-fur hood kept falling over his eyes.

  I remember standing there by the window. A single snowflake had frozen to the upper corner of the glass. I remember watching this new kid go by again and again, never seeming to slow down, and I thought, Who is this dude? Where’d he come from?

  “You should run track,” I said the next day at school. I was thinking he’d be a great first leg for our 4x100 relay. “You’re fast.”

  “I am?” he said, wide-eyed. “You really think?”

  “Yeah, I—”

  “I’m joking, bro. I know I’m fast. Are you?”

  We both smirked.

  It was only later that he told me why he’d been running all those laps. “Bro,” he said. “I had to keep running, or I felt like I was gonna die.”

 
Coming here from Hawaii (his mom had taken a job as the manager of a local warehouse), he’d never experienced winter before.

  He’d only seen it on TV.

  13

  My favorite part of Samoan parties is the food. Everything’s cooked in this underground oven called an umu. When the food comes out, all the juices have been swapping around, and it tastes (to quote Jay himself) “amazeballs.” Pisupo (corned beef). Palusami (coconut shreds/milk/onions/fish). And so much more.

  The church hall is decorated with traditional Samoan fine mats and strings of colored lights. I’ve already hit the buffet three times. I can’t help noticing the tofu shrimp Mom brought hasn’t been touched. She, Dad, and Franny are all on the dance floor, gyrating awkwardly to a Black Eyed Peas song.

  “Dude,” Jay says, heaping more pork onto his plate. “Your parents have some serious dance moves.”

  “Yeah,” I say, face reddening.

  “I mean, I’ve seen the robot before. But tandem robot? That’s next level.”

  Mom is pretending to apply oil to Dad’s creaky joints.

  Franny is their robot child—filming them.

  “Something’s up,” Jay says, walking back to our table with his food.

  “Huh?”

  “I mean, with this party. My mom’s acting weird, don’t you think?”

  “Seems pretty normal to me.”

  “I think she’s got something up her sleeve.”

  “For her own party?”

  Last year Mrs. Fa’atasi hired a full mariachi band to play “Happy Birthday” to Jay at his birthday dinner. She loves big, over-the-top gestures. It must be where Jay gets his love of the spotlight.

  “Something’s definitely up,” he says.

  A few minutes later the DJ plays “Lavalava Samoa” by the Five Stars. Jay rolls his eyes. “Bro, if I hear this song one more time…” But everyone flocks to the dance floor, and we follow. A circle forms, and Jay gets pushed into the center. He busts a few moves, and then one of his cousins jumps into the circle with him.