By Lael Flores
Those Who Run Fast
“Tell me about the Tarahumara again, Mama.”
Nico sits upright, his brown eyes pleading. Mama has just kissed him goodnight, but he is wide awake. With an impulsive movement, he throws off the covers.
“Ya estuvo, Nico,” Mama says as he tugs a strand of her long black hair. “It’s nine o’clock. I’ve already let you stay up too late.”
“Please, Mama. I can’t sleep when it’s light. Tell me about the Indians until the sun goes down.”
Mama checks her watch: fifteen minutes until total darkness. She sighs, then sits down on the edge of the bed.
“They are called the Rarámuri,” she says, her voice low, mysterious. “Tarahumara is the name the Spanish gave to them, but it’s not their real name.”
“Rarámuri.” Nico lets the word roll around on his tongue. “What does Rarámuri mean, Mama?”
Mama smiles at him. Her face is round and indulgent, her skin brown like the California hills.
“Rarámuri means ‘those who run fast,’” she says. “They are Rarámuri because they run everywhere—to the market, to see friends and family in other villages. They run through deep valleys and high mountains, on rugged paths across canyons bigger than the one in Arizona. They even run to pray.” Mama’s fingers leave Nico’s hair to trace the rosary hanging around her neck.
“Don’t they ever get tired?” Nico asks, yawning.
Mama shakes her head. “They have magic in their feet. Magic that keeps them going.”
Nico gazes up at Mama, her soft face framed by cascades of black silk.
“How do I get magical feet?” he asks, his voice hushed with wonder.
Mama laughs, pinches his toes. “You already have them,” she says wisely. “They have been passed down to you from your Abuelito.”
“But Abuelito is fat and lives in Nevada,” Nico says.
Mama laughs again. “This is a different Abuelito—one from long ago.”
Nico wonders how long ago but doesn’t ask. His eyelids feel heavy. Darkness has fallen over the room, and Mama is nothing but an outline of herself, fuzzy, vague.
A door slams in the hall. Mama stands up quickly.
“Goodnight, Nico,” she says, forgetting to kiss him.
He watches her slip out of his room and into the shabby hall. When she closes the door, locking it behind her, darkness swallows him. He throws the covers over his head.
Father is home. Nico plugs his ears with his fingers as Father begins to shout.
Nico has five siblings—four sisters and a brother. His sisters’ names are like things plastered on white picket fences or found on the collars of lost dogs: Annie, Margie, Katie, Francie. His brother, James, is named after Father. But Nico is special. His is the only name that Mama can pronounce without difficulty. When Mama calls him, her voice takes on a birdlike quality, melodious and tangy-sweet. He loves the sound of his name, but only when Mama pronounces it. Nee-co, so unlike Father’s dry Nick-oh-lass.
Sometimes Nico pretends that he is the child of Mama and another man, one with brown skin and dark hair like himself. A man named Emiliano who makes beans and fried eggs for breakfast, who can run fast like the Tarahumara Indians that come to life in Nico’s head whenever he falls asleep at night. A man who cares about Mama almost as much as Nico does because no one can love Mama as much as him. Impossible. But so is this dream. Nico wakes from it every morning, to the sound of Father’s patrol boots pounding against the floorboards.
Father is nothing like Nico’s dream father. He is blue-eyed with golden hair, handsome like Jacques Louis-David’s Napoleon. An imperious figure, looming, with bloodshed on his cloak. Like Napoleon, Father inspires the terror of nations. He is a man that can swallow a person whole.
Nico and his siblings know to stay out of Father’s way. When he comes home from a long day patrolling the Los Angeles streets, they are tucked away in their rooms, doors locked, voices silent. They hold their breath as he marches past, their hearts drumming to a single beat. In their fear, the siblings are unified, one. They are still learning as they go along.
Nico learns when he is eight years old. He is searching the freezer for a popsicle when Father comes home earlier than usual, his eyes bursting with blue flames. Nico snatches the popsicle out of the freezer as Father enters the kitchen. He trembles as he holds the popsicle behind his back.
“Thief!” Father shouts.
Nico drops the popsicle, stammers that he didn’t steal anything. But his excuses are drowned out by Father’s anger.
“I didn’t raise a thief!”
Nico crumples against the kitchen counter as Father grabs him, shaking him until his vision blurs. He begins to cry, silently at first, and then louder when the shaking doesn’t stop. Father releases Nico, his nostrils flaring. Nico sniffles and sobs. He can’t stop himself.
“Quiet, boy!” Father screams.
Nico sees the frying pan in Father’s hand and shuts his eyes. He imagines the Tarahumara Indians running across the orange plateaus of Mexico’s Copper Canyon, tries to summon their magic into his feet. But he is not fast enough. A gasp of air, then the sound of metal on skull. The pain is instant, and then it is nothing. Nico feels himself floating, borne away on a dozen Rarámuri feet.
When he wakes up, Father is gone, and Mama is sobbing into his shirt. As his swollen eyes unstick, Mama draws in a sharp breath. Nico can feel the shudder of relief running through her body. Francie, his eldest sister, stands nearby, watching them with frozen eyes.
“We need to take him to the hospital.” Her voice swims through Nico’s mind.
Mama shakes her head. “No. We can’t. No one can know.”
“But Mama—”
“Nico fell and hit his head,” Mama says sternly. “That is all that happened. That is all.”
Francie’s eyes begin to smolder like Father’s. She opens her mouth to say something, then shuts it. Nico is afraid she might hit Mama, but she simply turns away. Mama’s tears fall on Nico’s face, a cold, damp relief.
Nico does not go to school for a week. His head hurts terribly, but he is glad to be home with Mama. She brings him ice packs and cookies while he lounges in Father’s armchair in the living room, watching Star Trek on the television. Occasionally, Mama sits down on the couch and asks him about his favorite characters. Nico tells her all about Spock and Captain Kirk, how they risk their lives for each other. Mama promises Nico that she will be brave like Captain Kirk next time. Nico doesn’t understand what she means, so he changes the subject.
“Do the Tarahumara Indians have mamas, Mama?” he asks, looking away from the television
Mama smiles at him, her eyes glistening. “Of course they do,” she says. “Everyone has a mama.”
“Do their mamas care for them when they get hurt?”
Mama shakes her head. “The Rarámuri never get hurt,” she says sagely. “Because of their magic feet, they never feel pain.”
When Nico turns fourteen, he is the smallest boy in his grade. His skin has grown darker with time, and his limbs longer, more gangly. He has seen photographs of the Rarámuri in the National Geographic, their bodies lithe like gazelles as they dash over the steep ridges and volcanic plateaus of the Sierra Madre. They are all dark skinned and black-haired like Nico, with wrinkles in the corners of their eyes when they smile. Nico often envisions himself running when he looks in the mirror. He can feel the urge in his feet.
Despite how much he wants to, Nico does not run to school. Instead, he rides his bike, his backpack—a hand-me-down from James—slung over one shoulder. On his first day, he wears the huaraches Mama bought him for Christmas. He feels proud, like a Tarahumara Indian. But that is before people turn to stare at him. Before his teacher eyes him with suspicion when he sits down in first-period Biology.
The other boys, the ones who look like Father, point at him and call him names: Greaser, Beaner. Girls don’t speak to him at all, and his biology teacher continues to call him Pedro despite his efforts to correct her. By October, he has ditched his huaraches for Converse sneakers. He has learned to call Mama “my mother” in front of his teachers and to say yes when the boys in his grade tell him to mow their lawns or trim their hedges. He does not expect to make good grades or be Homecoming King.
Nico is therefore surprised when his history teacher, Mr. Cantello, hands him a paper marked with a bright red A+. Mr. Cantello is not like the other teachers at Santa Clarity Valley High School. He is small and skinny, with mouse-brown hair and a gentle, well-meaning face. He never raises his voice, and sometimes he asks students questions as though he doesn’t already know the answer. He is the only teacher who does not call Nico “Nicolas.”
As Mr. Cantello returns Nico’s graded test, he puts a hand on Nico’s shoulder.
“Please see me after class,” he says.
If another teacher said this, Nico would be trembling from head to toe. But those daunting words are friendly on Mr. Cantello’s lips, and Nico feels no fear.
When the bell rings, Nico slips his test into his backpack and lingers behind the lengthening queue by the door. Once everyone has filed out of the classroom, Mr. Cantello invites Nico to sit down.
“How are you finding school so far, Nico?” he asks.
Nico gazes at his feet. “Good, sir,” he lies.
Mr. Cantello looks at him, a frown forming on his lips. He seems like he’s about to say something, then changes his mind.
“Have you ever thought about joining a sports team?” Mr. Cantello asks after a moment.
Nico stares at him, his mouth slightly agape. He wants to ask Mr. Cantello if he’s serious, if he’s seen him, Nico, how weak and gangly he is. But instead, he shakes his head.
“No, sir,” he says.
Mr. Cantello smiles, reading his mind. “I don’t mean football or basketball—I never cared for those games. You know, I used to be small like you when I was in high school. I never thought I would play a sport until I joined the cross country team.”
“Cross country?” Nico is unfamiliar with the term.
“That’s right,” Mr. Cantello says, nodding. “Cross country is sort of like track, except you get to run through forests and over hills—think rugged terrain.”
“Like the paths through the Copper Canyon?”
Mr. Cantello raises his brows. “Well, yes. But think closer to home.”
Closer to home. Nico nods.
“You’re built like a runner, you know,” Mr. Cantello says. “With proper training, you could go far.”
“As far as the Tarahumara Indians?”
Mr. Cantello laughs. “One day, perhaps,” he says. “But I won’t keep you any longer. You ought to get to your next class.”
Nico stands up. So does Mr. Cantello.
“We meet after school at the track, by the way,” Mr. Cantello says as he walks Nico to the door. “It would be great to have you on the team.”
Nico no longer dreads school like he used to. He finds his tribe in the group of gangly boys who gather on the track at three o’clock every afternoon. They are interested in interesting things—not girls and cars, but split times and shoe grip, the physics of wind resistance. On long runs in the hills around the high school, they discuss Spock’s latest adventure, the new arcade opening at the Santa Clarita Mall. Their friendship is motion, the act of putting one foot in front of the other, of racing up desertous hills and down into the fields below.
Mr. Cantello becomes Coach Jean. He is always blowing into his whistle, shouting encouragement as the tribe dashes along the track. Nico’s skin smells of asphalt and burnt rubber; his clothes are stained with red dust. Whenever he takes off his sneakers, small turf pebbles roll out. He pours them into his hands, collects them in a jar that he keeps in his bedroom. He begins to wear his huaraches to school again. Running is an answered prayer.
At first, Nico does not feel the magic in his feet. When he runs, his legs feel heavy, and he is breathless after a few laps around the track. After practice, he rides home on his bike, his body glistening with sweat. He enters the house, drops his bags on the floor, and slumps into the kitchen where Mama is preparing dinner.
“You lied to me, Mama,” he says, collapsing into a chair. “I am not like the Tarahumara Indians. I don’t have magic in my feet.”
Mama stops stirring the tortilla soup and turns to Nico.
“Give it time,” she says. “The magic does not come easy, but when it comes it comes.”
“When will it come?” Nico asks.
“I don’t know,” Mama says. “But it will come. I promise you that.”
The magic comes when Nico is fifteen years old. It is summer, and the California sun beats down on Nico’s head. He is out in the backyard, feeding the chickens from a tin pail. He reaches his hand into the feed—it feels like turf—and scatters it on the lawn. The chickens squawk and bend their heads, pecking hungrily at the earth. A fat hen accidently nips Nico’s toe. He decides he should have worn his sneakers instead of his huaraches.
Nico places the pail on the ground and turns to go inside, but the rumble of car wheels on the drive stops him. He assumes Mama has come home from her job at the convenience store and heads around the house to meet her. But instead of Mama’s yellow VW Bug, he sees a cop car on the gravel drive. Father is getting out of the driver’s seat, murder on his face. Nico backs away too late. Father has already seen him.
“What are you looking at, boy?” Father snarls, slamming the car door shut. He never touches alcohol, but he is drunk today. Drunk on rage.
Nico has no time to reply. Father is bearing down on him, his long baton in hand. He raises it above his head. This time, Nico does not shut his eyes.
Father swings. Nico ducks. Father howls in fury. Nico runs.
Soon, Nico’s feet have carried him the length of the neighborhood, but they don’t stop there. They continue to carry him, across parking lots and highways, down dirt trails and over steep hills. The farther Nico goes, the lighter he feels. It is as though his feet have become air, bearing him forward on the wings of a breeze.
He continues to run for miles and miles, day turning into night, night turning into day. He does not stop until he reaches the edge of Santa Monica Pier, the ocean swirling below his feet. The sun is setting over the blue horizon, casting fire across the water. Although Nico sits down to watch it, he does not feel tired.
Nico stands on the starting line, shoulder to shoulder with the long-limbed boys from Hart High School. When the starter raises his gun, Nico leans forward, his breathing deep, steady. A flat stretch of brown earth lies before him, with hills like camel humps rising in the distance. He paws at the ground, huaraches on his feet.
The gun goes off with a bang! and the pack surges forward. Suddenly, Nico is swallowed up by the heat of many bodies moving all around him. The air smells salty, like sweat. The sun glares down from overhead.
As Nico feels his way across the rugged ground, images of Mama in the kitchen that morning flood his mind. She is standing by the stovetop, waving her spatula as she hums along to the radio. Elvis’s voice drifts hauntingly through the kitchen. Mama flips a pancake; it sizzles loudly.
“But what if the magic goes away when I get to the starting line?” Nico’s own voice swirls through his mind.
Mama laughs as though he has made a joke. “Impossible,” she says. “Once you have the magic, it never goes away.”
With a surge of strength, Nico breaks free of the pack of gangly limbs. Wind splashes his face as his feet push him forward, one after the other, one after the other. The boys he could never keep up with are falling fast behind him, fading into the distance with the rest of the race. Nico makes his way to the hills, shuts his eyes as the ground zooms beneath his feet.
Suddenly, he is dashing along the Copper Canyon, passing villages with thatched roofs, great blue rivers winding through the giant cradle of rock. The Rarámuri run on either side of him, their feet keeping beat with his own. Their faces look just like Mama’s, brown and gentle, as they urge him onward.
“Keep going,” they say. “Keep going.”
Nico nods, lets his feet carry him away.
Lael Flores is a Chicana writer from Pennsylvania whose work explores Latinx themes of identity and family. She holds a BS in Mathematics and an MA in English from Indiana University and is currently pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing at Queens University of Charlotte. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in the Southern Review of Books and Azahares Literary Magazine. She is the Fiction Editor at Qu Literary Magazine.