Is Graham a Psychopath? Nevermind

Lauren was on afternoon pickup duty Thursday, but Graham texted 3:20 that track hadn’t even started yet. The coaches had a department meeting and were supposed to arrive by 3. That was going to cause a conflict with a meeting Lauren had, so I wound up on driving duty.

I imagine the coaches weren’t in a hurry partly because rain had been coming down at a Noah’s Ark sort of pace for hours, and I am sure they assumed the kids would just go home after their meeting. But the Silver Lake coaches clearly don’t know any psychopaths. I can spot them, though. Can you?

That’s Graham and his fellow psychopath friend Owen. They were two out of the total three kids on the track when I got there. The third? Graham’s friend Jake who was carpooling home with us. Instead of running, Jake was standing in the middle of the track looking sad.

I rolled down the window: “Jake, you can get in the car if you want!”

He quickly dashed over and thanked me. We talked some track while we waited. Then Graham finally wrapped it up and came over.

“Did you get it all done?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Wow.”

“Well, it was supposed to be four sets of 600, 400, 200, but we decided three was good.”

Ah, well, even psychopaths have their limits.

I had my playlist on in the car, and “Cold Water” by Tom Waits was playing.

“You heard of Tom Waits, Jake?”

“Uh, no.”

I thought of explaining the gravelly voiced master of the American song but could tell it would be lost on the audience. Next up was “Scentless Apprentice” by Nirvana.

“How about Nirvana?”

“Uh, yeah. Cuz everyone gets Nirvana t shirts,” he said.

“Yeah,” said Graham. “Everyone has that one shirt.”

“With the naked baby chasing the dollar in the pool?”

“No,” said Graham.

“If I asked kids to name a song by Nirvana, a few might be able to say ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit,’ right?” I said.

“No,” said Graham. “They would all say ‘Something in the Way.’”

I rolled my eyes. “Because of the stupid Batman movie?”

“Yeah.”

This would be like knowing “Imagine” by John Lennon because Gal Gadot sang it at the start of the pandemic.

I glanced at my playlist. Up soon, “Mellow Yellow” by Donovan. Should we discuss Donovan?

Well, as Kurt would say, “Nevermind.”

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