Watch Me Run

The night before I started fourth grade, I heard my father heading toward my room. Chucking my book under the bed, I assumed my most convincing sound-asleep pose. Unimpressed, he looked me in the eye and gave me my morality: “My job is to make you proud of me. Your job is to make me proud of you”. Seven years later in a tony neighborhood mall, I didn’t.

In Yeezus, the ever-modest Kanye West proclaims himself a god. West seems to have discovered the same secret Joseph Goebbels and Adolf Hitler found so useful: the bigger the lie, the more believable. Most people need a strong leader to tell them what to do and think and say. As I began sophomore year, I was one of those people.

After a Sisyphean freshman year at D.C’s School Without Walls, I transferred to Wilson intent on doing everything I couldn’t at Walls: pursue my love of design, play on a competitive baseball team, and enjoy learning again. Unfortunately, I did even more. Throughout middle school, I had been a bookish jerk. I preferred reading Catch-22 to playing catch with my peers. I loved competition but was awkward and uncoordinated. I had a few good friends and kept them close.

By tenth grade, sick of being a benchwarmer, I cobbled together a semblance of popularity. Pillsbury-white, I listened to rap–and pretended to love it. I wanted arrogance with an asphalt aftertaste. I stopped reading. I lost focus. I had always wanted to be an architect. That winter, the only thing I wanted to build was my rep.

It came to a head on a dreary January afternoon. After finishing my last midterm, I was determined to celebrate. We wound up in a Neiman Marcus a mile from my house; my best friend and I stuck out like teenagers in a luxury department store, riding shotgun to a scrawny, spoiled kid we had known since middle school. He had transformed himself into a street tough. He associated with the kids who came to school drunk and left in handcuffs. He was false. I envied him.

We wanted a watch: blonde wood, $115, the only thing not bolted down.

My best friend, wiser than I, saw it coming. He excused himself, blah blah his sister, and made haste. I could have come to my senses. I didn’t.

The faker stole the watch. It was my turn. I picked up another watch, put it down, picked it up, tried to hide behind a shoe display. I didn’t see the burly guard until I was halfway out the door.

I gave myself up immediately. My mind went limp. I felt nothing until my mother came.

I was held in the back-room of the store. The guard frogwalked my mortified mom and me out of the store, grandmotherly women glaring daggers at us. The guard was kinder than I deserved: You don’t belong here. Beanstalk like you should be playing basketball. Shame.

He didn’t have to tell me about shame.

That night was the first time I heard my father cry. He called from a work trip. I remember every word. He tried to recite our agreement. I broke.

I was grounded for a while. I paid for the faker’s watch, never spoke to him again. I started drawing again. I started to read again, first Winters Tale, then For Whom the Bell Tolls, some Nick Hornby. I trained for baseball. I started caring again. I didn’t stop.

Every other night, I run a triangular route from my house to Tenleytown then Friendship Heights, and back. As I approach the last leg of the triangle, the Neiman Marcus edges into view. By this point I’ve hit a wall, I breathe staccato. I slog past, eyes lingering on the cameras lurking above the doors. Then I round a corner, and run until I see stars.