The Runner
by Owen Banner
Wordcount: 4915
Genre: Adventure
Synopsis:
Hear the samba, taste the papaya, and meet a little boy named Carlito who dreams of being a runner like Usain Bolt. Join him as he sets off to see his hero race at the 2016 Rio Olympics, a journey that takes him through one of the city’s notorious favelas where he will learn that a dream has a cost.
First 500 words:
The city of Rio de Janeiro was an ant’s nest, kicked over and lit on fire. At least that was what Carlito Yaozu Chen thought as his school bus waited for the mob of protestors to clear out of the narrow street. They pumped signs in the air with slogans like, “They tore down my house to pave your track,” and, “Don’t close your eyes to the real Rio.” He knew where they had come from.
“Stupid beggars,” Vitor said, returning to his phone to slash another zombie. “Go back to Autodromo!” The rest of the boys around him laughed.
Enrique cracked the window to throw the rind of a guava at them. It tipped the window frame and fluttered down beside the bus.
Carlito had heard there was no more Vila Autodromo. His father told him so because he had been there with the construction crew when they tore it down. Many of these protestors, mothers with babies in their slings, children with no shoes, old men and young men, had spilled out of the new housing projects and favelas they had crammed themselves into when the bulldozers forced them from their homes. An “urban revitalization project” it was called on the billboards. “The Renaissance of Rio,” his father said over five-spice squid fried golden and crispy.
“Fodam,” Carlito said in his husky voice from the seat behind Enrique.
The boys twisted to look at him with gaping mouths. “What did you say?” Vitor asked.
“Fodam,” Carlito repeated, though a little quieter. He made sure to point a chubby finger outside to direct the insult. “If they cannot move up, then they should move out.”
Vitor’s open mouth exploded with laughter. “Fodam!” he yelled, the rest of the boys joining in the obscene chant.
Carlito’s head fizzed with pride. Though his family had lived in Rio for two years, he was still the new boy at his upper middle-class school and wanted badly to fit in. With one unmentionable word, he had risen to become comrades with the most popular kids in class.
“Fodam,” he had heard his dad say to his mom the night before as Isabel, their maid, was cleaning up the table. “If they cannot move up, then they should move out. That is what I did. From my father’s broken down pasteleria in Liberdade to a five star Chinese restaurant, and now we live here in Humaitá, just spitting distance from Copacabana.” He had sold the restaurant and used the money, and some that he’d borrowed, to start his own construction team. They were small, but had gotten many contracts with the city’s building projects leading up to the 2016 Olympics. Of course, his father had never driven the machines, only given the orders, signed the contracts, and kept the books. He was a hard-working man, but his fingernails were always clean.
That is why he did not approve when he saw Carlito run.
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