My Jack Side

Chapter Two

    I arrive at the stadium gate by 7:30, having ridden my bicycle all the way. My hair is pressed flat under my helmet, which makes me look like a startled alien life form. This place is populated with amateur and professional cyclists clad in all their fancy gear. I stop for a moment and look around for my aerobics teammates. When I don’t find them among the spandex of the cyclists, I cycle down a dirt road to the other side of the stadium.

    The team I'm looking for is made up of teenagers like myself. I call them my aerobics goons. From our first meeting, we commandeered the square of the juvenile sports stadium with its outcroppings and a fire hydrant we use as a chair, as ours. Comes with young palm trees and filtered sunshine and we haven’t had any competition for the space since then. This team is more than just an aerobics group to me. They are family, church, and a moral club, if moral clubs had high standards and swore like sailors.  

    My phone rings in my strap pocket. I pull over to the sidewalk before pulling it out.

    “Jeremiah, I see you,” says the caller.

    “Hey, who?”

    “Who I am or who Jeremiah is?”

    “Lol. Who—”

    “Hold on, is your phone memory so like your boy memory it doesn't recognize my number? Oh God. This is Eka. Now... Wow, I see your… What’s that metal expansivity joke about Ghost Rider and his bike again? I see your…” she's finding words, and what meaningless words she finds are full more of gasp than voice: “Ghostly hot bike”.

    “My ghostly very-personal very-mine bike, thank you very much”. She likes to know if she can ride it for a minute. I like to tell her no in creative ways that beat her creative compliments.

   “Back to what I was saying”, says Eka. “Look to your left.”

    I look to what I presume is my left and see a semicircle of trees connected by a chain-link fence that reminds me of toes pillaring webbed feet, and a yellow billboard advertising spaghetti.

    “Guy, your left.”

    That wasn’t my left. I'd turned to my right instead.

    When I see her — chubby epitome-of-black-beauty, lips that inspire songs, with legs that can put her in the front row of a carnival band and in men's beds too often than is wise —, she's standing among four of the others from the aerobics team and looking at me like I'm actually dumb to the indistinguishability of where's left. A look of Who is Jeremiah? Well, Jeremiah is a dumb cousin of mine, why?

    Meet my family:

    Eka, a distant cousin. She paid a condolence visit to my parents following the news of my brother's suicide and moved in with them. 

    Joy, head of this team and wokest girl on the planet. I once made a pun of beheading the team. Apparently, it was a stupid pun to make because she openly snarled at me.

    Prince Jones with the bridgeless nose and the chemically straightened hair. He’s the only person these months of exercise haven't had any effect on as he's still as fat as he was when we started working out together. Has never said a word directly to me.

    The Siblings, whose names nobody knows, new to the group, always standing on either side of Eka.

    All heads turn to follow my progress as I cycle over to them.

    “Ever late”, says Eka by way of greeting.

    Joy agrees. “Ever late. We’ve shared the grace already.”

    “Have we?” says Prince Jones, interjecting.

    “Oh, I'm sorry,” Joy says, to Prince Jones’ upraised eyebrows. “Haha. We haven’t, we only had a short meeting today because half the team’s out of town. Jerry, come on, you can sit.”

    “Thanks”. I don't sit.

     Joy says “But for real, couldn't we do it? Like the grace, guys? Something to mark that we're officially over or officially started. Maybe a song, or an anthem. It doesn’t have to be the grace.”

    “Thanks, but I'd hardly have any breath left for it after a workout like this; so, we’ll have to choose between having a workout or doing a theme song. Personally, I can't do both,” Prince Jones protests.

    “Precisely why you do so poorly. Lack of guts, and no determination.” Joy really is the mistress of cutting remarks. In the literal sense of the word though, everyone would agree Jones is abundant in guts. Potty.

    “That's what you should teach us, not make us contort ourselves into weird angles. If anybody missed today’s workout, with all the torture that happened here, kudos to the person for prizing survival above all else.” Jones talking to me without actually saying a word to me as always.

    Joy cuts him a look of hooded eyes and says “Asanas, Prince. Asanas, not contortion or whatever you think it is.”

    “I'm fine calling it torture.”

    “And just keep in mind I'm telling your mom.”

    “Like she approves of your leadership in the first place.”  He snorts.

    “She approves of the aerobics because I have a BA in PE and she's hoping it improves your asthma even though you're secretly hoping to die of it. Maybe being nice to you won’t help you. And oh God. How many times do I have to say this? Equality isn't the absence of a leader so you can run amok and create chaos. Equality is... You'll first have to provide me with four reasons why equality, however defined, is necessary for a group. And explain to me why, to you, the concept means blindness? But of course, you'll need a textbook on how to use your brain to understand this, so, you know, maybe talking to you is a waste of my time.”

    “Highest she'll say is okay thanks.”

    “I'll still tell her.”

    Something of apprehension snaps onto Prince Jones’ face. I can see him taking the brief break in drama to flit through reaction (laugh, make it all into an LOL stunt) after reaction (grim no-worries shrug) after reaction (walk away), and all the while, I'm leaning on my bike, earnestly disgusted to have to watch this. When he settles for words: “Jesus, Joy!.. Where's everyone's sense of humor? I was only messing with you.”

    “Being the point” she says, so fast she may yet have been picking off from his sentence, and for one buddy second that shouldn't exist, I feel awful for him because he looks soon to break out in profuse, wept sorries to a girl, in the presence of girls. He doesn't.

    Joy is suppressing a triumphant smile, I can swear it, and as he stomps away, she calls after his retreating figure, “Never mess with me. Remember, I'm the captain here!”