'Hurdles in the Dark' tells of prevailing over obstacles both mental and physical

Elvira K. Gonzales overcame her mother's abduction and a stay in juvenile detention to become a champion high school hurdler in Laredo, Texas. But hurdling also brought her into contact with coaches who sexually harassed and abused her.

She tells her story in the young adult book "Hurdles in the Dark," and joins host Deepa Fernandes to talk about it.

By Elvira K. Gonzalez

RUN

For some middle schoolers who compete in track and field, ribbons and gold medals might be the main goal, but for a barrio girl like me, it’s a lot more than winning first place.

It’s a fight for survival.

“Stick!” I yell, sprinting through the first triangle mark on the track, entering the exchange zone. I extend my right hand to pass the baton to Velma Reyes. She’s our second leg in our 4×400 meter relay.

Clean handoff. We’re up by thirty meters, but those girls from the north side schools are turning up the heat. After all, they’re the relay champions every single year. I wonder if we’d have a fair shot at winning if we didn’t train on a makeshift dirt track and only practice twice a week.

“Let’s go, ándaleeee!” I shout from behind, pushing out each syllable and imagining my voice moving her body forward like the wind would blow a leaf. She dashes away in the lead as I wobble into the infield, my legs feeling like Jell-O. I collapse on my knees trying to catch my breath.

I look up at Ma and she gives me two big thumbs-up. Standing next to her in the bleachers is Miss Marissa, my former elementary teacher who encouraged me to try out for the school track team six years ago.

“You’re awesome!” Miss Marissa yells. She’s got a knack for discovering hidden talents on the playground, but had she visited our barrio, she would have figured out sooner. We’re all quick at getaways, runners who bolt from danger.

Black. Silver. Go! Our team chants our school colors as Marcela, our anchor, comes out of the second turn and into the homestretch. Ahead of her, a girl from a north school. To her left, a girl from another north school. Marcela can’t hit the gears and power through to first or second place. She’s boxed in.

“¡Vamos, Marcela!” I yell hoarsely, but the sounds of my teammates singing Dame más gasolina muffle my words.

A block party has broken out on our side of the bleachers. We got singing. Dancing. Clapping. So what if our sports teams can’t beat the teams in the north side in relays or in any other sport? We roar like leopards, just like our school mascot. We’re known to cheer louder than any other team and we’re proud of it. Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the bleachers, there’s no dancing. No singing. No shaking their hips. Why do they clap so proper, with their backs straight and chants faint? Que chafos.

Our coach rallies around us, “Buenas, ladies!” She’s proud we finished strong.

“Time to celebrate, eyyy!” Ana, our third leg screams, and we pop open bags of Hot Cheetos.

I’m relieved it’s a wrap, cuz this past school year I was in way too many sports teams: The school track team. A club track team. The school cheer team. A club cheer team. I can’t wait to chillax for a few weeks before summer track begins.

“Bye, guys! See y’all at school mañana.” I wave to my teammates and turn to Ma.

“Look!” I wave my third-place ribbon at her, pumping my arms up and down.

You ran so fast, mija!” “Nambe. I got super tired at the end, though. Couldn’t feel my damn legs,” I say, dragging my feet like a flat tire. I gave this race everything I got, cuz Ma raised me to give it my best. Quitting isn’t an option.

“Ma’am…” A man wearing a striped collared shirt and white tennis shoes interrupts us. “… You must be this track star’s beautiful sister,” he says in an accent, not the staccato type like me and Ma picked up from the barrio. Our accent sounds like an accordion that rises and falls with the vowels. His sounds more like a mix between Tejano and a Texas twang.

Ma chuckles. I think she loves whenever people mistake her for my older sister. Sometimes, she even goes along with it and forgets to tell people she’s not actually twenty-two. She’s thirty.

Crossing my arms and pursing my lips, I clear my throat and say, “Nah. She’s my mom.”

“Oh!” he adds with one eyebrow raised, shaking Ma’s hand, and then reaching for mine.

I stare at my fingers covered in chili powder. Oops. I rub my hands furiously on my shorts, but the red dye from the powder has seeped into my skin like a tattoo. “Ay, sorry, sir,” I apologize, snapping my hand out anyway.

“Great to meet you.” He shakes my hand, squeezing it firmly. “I’m a track and cross-country coach at Anderson High School,” he says, making Ma’s spine stiffen up straight as a pencil.

He’s a coach at one of the top local public high schools in the north side of town, a thirty-minute drive from our barrio, in an area where rows of Spanish-style houses with smooth stucco exteriors, arched doorways, and tiled roofs stretch for miles. The only time our family has ever strayed there is to gawk at the big, fancy Christmas lights once a year, conjuring daydreams of what it would be like to grow up in one of those homes.

“Here. Take my info,” the man adds, reaching into his pocket and giving Ma his business card.

Ma holds the card up, scrutinizing every inch. “Mira, look.” Her eyes glisten as she reads the black lettering.

ANDERSON HIGH SCHOOL

Coach Richard

Assistant Coach Track & Field / Cross-Country

“Miss Gonzalez,” he starts to say, not realizing me and Ma have different last names. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but your daughter … look at how she’s built. She was born to be a runner. She’s going to be real damn fast. One of the fastest around here. I tell you that.”

Thanks but no thanks. My head snaps. I don’t like the way he’s looking at me or Ma. Or maybe I’m overreacting, but it’s sorta weird.

“Mija, did you hear what the man said?” Ma pulls me under her busty chest. I look up, faking a smile. “Sí, Amá.”

“Kristy’s always been athletic since she was three,” Ma answers back, recalling the time she caught me climbing and leaping off furniture at my dad’s house shortly before they split up and we moved down the street into Ma’s childhood casita. Eventually, after Ma got her first job at a nursing home as a palomita and saved enough money, she begged the only gymnastics center in town to allow me to enroll at their gym despite my age.

“She must get it from you,” the man responds flirtatiously. Ma blushes, smiling wide, something she seldom does cuz of her crowded teeth. “And…” He points directly at me. “What do you think about coming to our school next year?”

“I’m a sixth grader, sir.” I still got two more school years before I reach high school. And who the heck thinks about life that far ahead? All I really know is that I wanna play sports. I wanna go to school with my friends at South Middle. I wanna be a punk singer when I grow up. And I will always love to eat bean-and-cheese tacos every single day.

“Well, I’ll tell you more about our school anyway. We got the best of everything you can imagine. Sports. Academics. Coaches…,” he brags on and on. Everyone knows that the north side schools, Anderson and Union, are the best public schools in town.

I nod my head. Bet they don’t have bleacher parties like us, though.

“You go and think about it, oh-kay?”

I shrug my shoulders, looking in the distance as my teammates load onto the bus. I could never ditch my best friends and teammates.

Ma’s lips purse. “Ay. Kris-ty.” She says my name in two broken syllables, making me feel guilty about not wanting to end up at a north side school.

“Sure. I guess…” I fiddle with the black jelly bracelets around my wrist, fearing I’d be forced to swap my metal studded belts, pink hair extensions, and fake eyebrow piercing for white wigs and elaborate, handmade colonial dresses. Just like Las Marthas that attend the north side schools. They’re a group of high school girls that are members of an exclusive society for the most prominent families, many of whom trace their lineage back to the founding Spanish families of our town.

Every year during our city’s annual George Washington Celebration, Las Marthas are paraded around on patriotic floats along the Rio Grande as they’re officially debuted into the community while the rest of us wave at them like celebrities.

I’ve heard that could never be a barrio girl like me, anyway. I’m not a descendant of those elite families, and we can’t afford a thirty-thousand-dollar dress. That’s more than Ma makes in a year, and I don’t even know how to eat with a fork and knife properly. But whatever, who needs cutlery when you can eat the world’s best tacos for breakfast, lunch, and dinner? I’m a morena, a prieta, and I wouldn’t change it for anything.

“I’d take care of your daughter. You have my word.”

“Thank you!” Ma guards the business card close to her body, igniting memories of seeing her reread letters from her father, Enrique. He writes us monthly from prison, promising to move us out of the barrio and into one of his houses.

Someday, mija. Just pray to God it will happen soon. He signs off each letter, like a dangling carrot. I think he gave Ma hope for years. But it’s been nearly a decade now, and I’m beginning to believe that Ma wishes she would have never met him in the first place.

Copyright © 2024 by Elvira Gonzalez