Lu

“According to them, I was a miracle. I wasn’t supposed to even be born. So another baby was almost impossible. A miracle with some extra miracle-ness sprinkled on it. Magic. Lightning. Striking twice.”

Upon hearing that his mother is expecting a second baby, Lu’s identity as special or a miracle feels threatened. He describes this new baby as magic or lightning striking twice, which is known to be an incredibly rare occurrence. While Lu often thinks of himself as lightning, suddenly he feels less special or like his existence somehow means less because of the new baby or “miracle.”

“Here’s the thing. When you look at a hurdle, it don’t really seem like that big of a deal until you get right up on it. You gotta time it just right, and pump your heart big enough to get your leg up and over the bar. You can’t just hop it like you hop over everything else.”

Although Lu is a successful track runner, his new event, the 110-meter hurdle, challenges him. Lu struggles to successfully jump the hurdles for much of the text, even with the help of Coach. Lu feels anxious to jump the hurdles and fall in front of people, to embarrass himself in front of a crowd of onlookers. Hurdles also serve a metaphorical function in the text, symbolizing obstacles in life that are difficult to overcome. As Lu points out, hurdles or life-obstacles do not have a universal approach and are unavoidable. They take head-on confrontation to be surmounted. Lu learns throughout the text that even if someone ignores a hurdle for a time, like his father does in not addressing the hurt from his childhood, the hurdle does not just disappear but instead appears again later in a different form, until one feels ready to overcome it.

“To me, that’s embarrassment. Not the dope–that’s illness. But to let something get in the way of your full potential [...] Actually, maybe I can’t say that. because the thing that’s beating him, he never stood a chance against. He’s not jumping over a hurdle, son. That brother back there’s jumping over a mountain.”

Coach tells Lu the story of Torrie “the Wolf” Cunningham to put Lu’s embarrassment in perspective and to caution him to not let anything derail his potential. It is significant that Coach also does not refer to the Wolf’s drug addiction as an embarrassment, acknowledging that it is an illness. What Coach considers embarrassing is the Wolf’s willingness to let something get in the way of his running career. Now, so many years later, Wolf’s hurdles have only become larger, to the point that now Coach describes his hurdle of drug addiction as trying to jump over a mountain. The quote illustrates that if one does not address hurdles early on, when they are surmountable, they only become larger and more difficult to overcome.

“And, uh, you can thank me tomorrow by cutting out all that embarrassment nonsense. Sometimes we fall. It happens. [...] I was the one being a human hurdle. And I didn’t care what I looked like. You know why? Because sometimes I gotta be who I am for you to know it’s okay for you to be who you are.”

Coach, who is known for his philosophical advice, tells Lu that falling is a part of life, and that it is through falling and getting back up that one learns who they really are. Coach also illustrates his own willingness to be himself, his example being a human hurdle for Lu to jump over, to encourage his athletes to be themselves even when it feels uncomfortable. Coach can see early on that Lu struggles with confidence despite his outward appearance, and this early quote illustrates Coach’s goal to help Lu find confidence from within.

“I was just about to get in the shower and wash the track funk off me before dinner, but doubled back to get the big baby surprise that I wanted but didn’t really want. But did. But didn’t. But kinda needed to want. Or was supposed to want. And did. But… didn’t.”

Lu waits for his parents to return home after their appointment to tell him the sex of his new sibling. This quote illustrates Lu’s conflicted emotions about having a new sibling. He goes back and forth in his mind, knowing that he should be excited about the new baby, while also feeling hesitant and unsure.

“But even if she doesn’t look like you, she is going to look at you. And you know what she’s gonna see? [...] Herself. [...] She’s gonna see herself, son. In you.”

Lu’s mother senses his disappointment upon learning that the baby is a girl. Lu admits that he wanted a brother because he wanted to know what he would look like if he did not have albinism. Conscious of her son’s lingering insecurity over his albinism, Christina assures Lu that what is more important than the baby looking like Lu is that she will look up to him as an example and a guide through life.

“After a while it started really getting to me. So I quit. I wanted to be a winner, Lu. To be cool. And at the time, I couldn't see nothing down the line in my life. I could only see what was right in front of me. And what was in front of me was stuttering and goose jokes. So at fifteen I decided to do the only other thing I saw as cool around my way.”

Goose explains the path that led him to dealing drugs, which affected the lives of people like the Wolf and Coach’s father. Goose admits that he began selling drugs to gain social status and that at the time he could not see his own potential. This lack of self-acceptance led him to make choices that negatively affected himself and others, choices whose consequences Goose works every day to try and mitigate. Goose could only see what was right in front of him, which relates to Lu’s own inability to jump the hurdles in track, and the lesson that Lu will learn about tackling hurdles or obstacles head on by keeping the finish line or end goal in mind.

“I wasn’t always the fine-o albino. I used to be Lu with the thick glasses that made me look like I was part fish [...] This was before Dad gave me some of his gold chains. Before the earrings [...] But now all that’s fixed, and I’m me. So I guess as long as you try to fix the mess-ups, then… well… but my father’s mess-ups messed other people’s lives up. Big-time. Maybe that’s different. I don’t know. But I can understand wanting to be cool.”

Upon learning more about his father’s history dealing drugs, Lu tries to reconcile his father’s desire to be cool that led him down that path with his own desire for social influence. Lu thinks about who he was before he adorned himself with earrings and gold chains, and before he got his contact lenses. He explains that after these cosmetic changes he is “fixed,” which shows that Lu viewed who he used to be as someone needing fixing rather than acceptance. This foreshadows the important lesson that Lu will learn through hearing about his father’s story: that self-acceptance and striving for integrity is more important than social status or influence.

“Dude stands like a capital T. That’s how I knew them purple and blue spots weren’t bruises, or nothing like that. Couldn’t have been, because nobody was big enough to bruise Kelvin. Nobody.”

Lu mistakenly believes that his childhood bully, Kelvin, is immune to hardship or struggle because of his large physical size. When Kelvin comes into Lu’s life again, Lu remembers the sting of Kelvin’s taunts about Lu’s appearance. Lu feels relieved that Kelvin is no longer in his life because he had trouble at home, which led to him living with his grandfather. At first, Lu lacks empathy for Kelvin because he can only see Kelvin through his memories of the past. Later, when Lu and Kelvin meet again on the basketball court, Lu notes that the bruises are gone from Kelvin’s arms, suggesting that Lu understands that things have not always been easy for Kelvin and that he has had to overcome his own obstacles and hurdles (the implication is that Kelvin experienced physical abuse). Kelvin and Lu do not become friends, but they come to a mutual understanding that the hardships people go through can negatively affect how they relate to others.

“That’s it. You don’t have to see the hurdle to know it’s there. You’ll feel it in your way. And sometimes timing is all you need to get over it.”

Coach offers advice to Lu about how to successfully jump over the hurdles. The hurdle also serves as an important metaphor in the text. Coach states that Lu will feel the hurdle in his way, even if he cannot see it without his contacts. Obstacles in life, too, will present themselves, and it is up to the person trying to surmount them to “lead with the knee” and approach it head-on even if it feels scary. Coach also says that sometimes timing is all that it takes to get over an obstacle or a hurdle. This proves true for characters in the text, such as Goose, who needs Lu’s encouragement to push him to confront his past and admit the truth about the gold medal to Coach.

“I repeated my mantra, pumping myself up, this time to talk to him. I am the man. The guy. The kid. The one. The only. The Lu. [...] I thought about future-new-little-baby sis. How her name couldn’t be Gordon. Or Gordy. Or Gordonia. Or Goosey. Or anything like that.”

Lu’s mantra is a valuable tool he uses to help him process stress or obstacles. At this moment in the text, he uses it as he thinks of confronting his father about Coach’s gold medal, and the fact that Goose sold the drugs that killed Coach’s father. Lu feels angry with his father and therefore, when thinking about his baby sister’s name, decides that her name should not have any connection to their father’s.

“I taught you how to peel it. Told you that skin is part of the orange, but not all of it. It’s just there to protect all the sweet stuff on the inside.”

An important lesson Christina teaches Lu throughout the text is that there is more beneath the surface of things. She recalls a funny memory in which Lu tried to eat an orange like an apple and bit into the skin. She brings this memory up to try and suggest to Lu before he confronts Goose that there is more to his father than his mistakes. She suggests that sometimes the skin that people show the outside world is there for protection, and it requires time and effort to uncover the inner layers of a person that give more context to their actions.

“Before answering, I pinched each of my eyes. Peeled my contacts out, held them in a loose fist. Turned him into a blur.”

Just before Lu speaks to his father about the gold medal, he takes out his contact lenses. Because of his hyperopia, Lu can only see things that are far away; anything close-up is an indistinguishable blur. Lu chooses this moment to take out his contacts and make his father blurry to make the conversation easier for him–if he does not have to truly face his father head-on, he can keep the end-goal of getting him to admit his wrong-doing in mind and can help him make amends. Like Coach encourages Lu during hurdle practice, sometimes it is better to keep an eye on the finish line, the goal, than to focus solely on the obstacle that is right in front of you.

“I…wanted to be him. Not be him, but be like him.” Dad calmed his voice a little. “He teased me, and he was better than me. A better runner, a better everything. That’s why–I wanted you on his team, because he’s the best.”

In a moment of vulnerability, Goose admits his jealousy towards Coach as they were growing up. Goose shows that Coach's teasing amplified his feelings of inadequacy, and that it made Goose feel as if he was not good enough. This lack of self-acceptance led Goose to make the decision to sell drugs, which led him down a dark path for a time. In this quote, Goose shows that he still harbors some feelings of inadequacy, but that he still admires Coach as a person and therefore wanted Lu to be on his team.

“He’s wrong. All I’m saying is, he’s human too. And sometimes the jokes cut deep. Deeper than we think. And if we don’t deal with them, if we don’t figure out how to somehow get over them, move past them, we have no idea what they can do to us.”

After Lu’s conversation with his father, his mother acknowledges that while Goose has made major mistakes in his life, he is still human and therefore worthy of forgiveness and empathy. In this quote, Christina speaks of the jokes that have affected Goose’s life as hurdles to overcome. She warns Lu that when someone affected by a joke or supposedly harmless language does not do the work necessary to overcome it, it can have long-lasting effects. It is also a warning in terms of directing “jokes” or potentially harmful language towards others, in that the impact of one’s language may not always be known right away, or one's intentions may not account for impact.

“And it hit me. I always say my mantra as a way to get gassed up, get me ready to go face whatever. Practice. Races. Kelvins. I always said it’s how I get ready for battle, which means maybe…maybe it was kinda like my version of armor. [...] Maybe for me, my kind of armor was made out of gold and diamonds. Made out of fly. Maybe it was passed down to me by my dad to somehow protect me from what got him.”

Sunny realizes that he uses his mantra to cope and face obstacles and that perhaps he also uses his jewelry as a kind of armor. Unlike his mantra, however, Lu’s feelings about his jewelry have shifted considering what he now knows about his father’s past decisions. In Goose’s pursuit of coolness and social status, he compromised his values and harmed others. Lu fears that his jewelry has the same effect on him, and that he may have been wearing it to shield himself from scrutiny because of his albinism. Lu’s confidence has been only skin-deep for a long time, and how he finds that without the jewelry, he can gain self-acceptance and confidence from a place inside of himself rather than deriving it all from outward adornment.

“But what if I don’t want the sword? Or the stone? Does that mean I don’t get to be King Arthur [...] what if I’m Arthur the lightning bolt? What he need armor for anyway? He a lightning bolt! [...] I knew I had to put the diamond back down on the dresser. And, one by one, I took every chain back off.”

In an important display of growth, Lu decides to take off the jewelry, his armor, and face his challenges without them. Lu inherited his gold chains and diamond earrings from his father and used these adornments to feel more confident in his appearance. Lu uses the jewelry as armor against his feelings of insecurity. By taking off his jewelry, Lu rejects the idea that he must posture or dress a certain way to be cool. Still processing the mistakes his father has made, Lu also distances himself from Goose’s past mistakes by not wearing the jewelry his father gave him.

“This team is about the team. About y’all. About the lane [...] or circle, you’re in when no one’s timing or cheering. The race you’re running when no one’s looking. Understand?”

In his final speech before the championship meet, Coach reminds the team that their performance on the track is not as important as how they treat each other. Without saying so directly, he encourages his athletes to act with integrity and to think about how they act and respond to situations when no one is watching.

“But just know we both had some stuff to say. Turns out we both kinda wanted what the other had. But now…I think…we’re good. [...] You see how good I treat your mother? [...] Not everybody grew up seeing that [...] So you make sure you treat her the same way. And anyone else you love.”

Goose chooses not to tell Lu the entire contents of his conversation with Coach, but he does say that through their conversation, both men realized that they coveted something of what the other had. Goose always viewed Coach as better than him in every way, which led him to keep Coach’s gold medal all those years. What Goose did not realize, however, is that Coach viewed Goose as being lucky for having a stable home life and family, while he often had to stay with Goose’s family due to his mother’s work schedule and father’s drug addiction. Goose reminds Lu that it is important to be mindful of what you have, and to treat others with support and compassion. This is echoed later when Lu makes the decision to forfeit the championship meet in favor of showing up for Coach at the hospital.

“It’s like the good parts of you that… [...] You know that gold medal I just gave back to Otis? [...] See how the gold didn’t change? Didn’t turn any other color? [...] See how it was still heavy after all those years, and how it didn’t bend or start to disintegrate [...] Well, think of integrity as the gold medal… inside you.”

After dropping off the Wolf at rehab, Lu asks Goose what the word integrity means. Goose thinks about his response, and then says that it is like the “gold medal inside of you,” the part of yourself that stays untarnished and pure despite outside pressure. This definition resonates with Lu and inspires him to act with integrity when presented with the choice to either compete in the championship race or to go to the hospital and support Coach.

“Before we left, I went back to my room and looked at all the jewelry on my dresser, the necklaces laid out like a gold river. My armor. The one diamond earring. none of it really meaning what it meant to be before finding out all of the stuff about my dad and the medal. It all meant something else now. [...] Then I grabbed one chain–just one–and put it around my neck. I mean, they were my father’s. And I’m his son. Gold. Shining. Cool.”

Lu decides to wear one gold chain, given to him by his father, at the championship track meet. Previously, Lu decided that he would no longer wear the jewelry given to him by his father because it stood for his desire to be cool that led his father to make bad decisions. Lu forgives his father, but he acknowledges that his perspective on the jewelry has changed. Now he views it as a barrier between himself and the world. In choosing to wear one gold chain, however, Lu does show that he forgives and values his father, and that he is cool simply by being his father’s son.

“If we run and win, he’ll be proud of us, and he’ll know we’re the best athletes. But I don’t think that’s what he cares about. If we show up for him when he needs us, he’ll know we’re family [...] We’ll know we’re family.”

In an act of integrity, Lu convinces his teammates to forfeit the championship meet to support Coach at the hospital. Lu states that if they stay and compete, they will prove themselves to be great athletes and Coach will be proud of them. But, Lu argues, it is more important that the team show up for Coach in person, in his time of need, it will prove much more to him. Through this action, Lu shows that he is a leader and that his priorities are based in his relationships with others rather than gaining social status by winning the meet.

“What we learn is that if we push, if we aren’t scared to be scared, if we’re not terrified of being uncomfortable, if we can trust ourselves and be honest about where we fall short, where we miss the bar, and can accept a little help, which we all need sometimes, we can be…good.”

In his final speech to the Defenders, while at the hospital, Coach explains the importance of vulnerability and honesty. He posits that success stems from being honest with oneself and others. Once someone accepts that they are flawed and finds areas in which they need help, true growth can occur. This is something that the characters in the text have learned: Goose admits the mistakes that he made as a teenager that have haunted him for years, and Lu learns that it is okay not to be perfect, or to ask for help in overcoming obstacles.