Now is the Time for Running

The man, Salie, takes Deo to the Hartleyvale Stadium, where he gives Deo “boots, socks, a T-shirt, and shorts” (134). He tells Deo to get dressed quickly because they are late for practice. Deo also meets Tom Galloway, the team’s manager and doctor. As Salie (whose full name is Solomon Davids) takes Deo to practice, he tells Deo that because he has been to prison, he understands some of what Deo has been through. 

Salie takes Deo to a cement court and tells him that they are going to be playing street soccer. He introduces Deo to the rest of the team: 20 other kids of varying ages. Salie makes Deo watch the first game so he understands the rules. Street soccer is different from the version of soccer that Deo is used to playing; there are only four people to a side, and the game proceeds quickly. Soon, Deo plays his first match. At first, he is overwhelmed, as he is still coming down from a glue high. He soon gets the hang of things and scores a goal just before fainting. 

When Deo wakes up, he is worried that he will be kicked off the team. Instead, Salie empathizes with Deo and tells the boy that he is from Hanover Park, a township in Cape Town. He admits that he wanted to be a famous soccer player when he was a kid until he got involved with gangs. Now, Salie is putting together three teams for the Street Soccer World Cup, which will take place a few weeks before South Africa hosts the FIFA World Cup. All the players in the Street Soccer World Cup are children like Deo who often live on the street and have no permanent home. Thanks to Salie’s help, they now stay at a YMCA and receive help in the process of recovering from drug addiction. Deo agrees to join the team and give this new life a try.

Ten days later, Deo is now living at the YMCA and practicing street soccer with the team. One night, some kids that Deo knows from his time living on the street gather outside his window. They tell Deo that they need him to do a run for them and offer Deo more glue. Deo is tempted to join them because of something that happened at practice earlier that day. 

Deo recalls that earlier that day, at practice, a boy named T-Jay suggested playing a “South Africans versus Foreigners game” (141). A girl on the team named Keelan tried to dissuade him, but the game went ahead anyway. Deo was on a team along with Keelan, who is from Kenya; Ernesto, from Mozambique; and Godfast, who is also from Zimbabwe. They played a furious game against T-Jay’s side that eventually devolved into violence. T-Jay and Deo started fighting each other and only stopped when Salie arrived. Salie was furious and told them all that it does not matter where they come from. Deo vehemently disagreed and reminded Salie that in South Africa, he is “the lowest of the low because [he] come[s] from Zimbabwe” (143). 

Now, at night, Deo thinks about how easy it would be to leave the YMCA and go back to living with the other boys on the streets, but he resists the temptation.

For the next six days, Salie makes Deo and his teammates train hard. Deo notices that one by one, some kids are pulled aside and told that they have not made the team for the tournament. These kids do not come back to practice, but they are still offered places at halfway houses to help them stay off the streets. Salie pairs South African players with non-South Africans, and Deo and T-Jay end up as training partners. Although they do not get along at first, they eventually start to bond. One day, Salie tells the team that they all need to talk about xenophobia. He wants everyone to go around the circle and share their stories about where they come from so that they can better understand one another. He does not want to let “fear and hatred mess up [the] team” (147). Reluctantly, the children all share their stories. Deo learns that Keelan’s father was killed in Kenya; she and her mother had to leave her baby sister behind and flee to South Africa. Her mother has since died, but Keelan wants to make enough money to bring her younger sister to live with her in Cape Town. 

T-Jay tells his story. He is from Steinkopf, a desert town on the border with Namibia. His father’s foot was blown off when he worked in the South African Defense Force as a tracker. T-Jay’s father then became addicted to alcohol and abused his family before leaving for Cape Town. T-Jay ran away to Cape Town to try and find his father. He never did find him, so he lived on the streets and became addicted to drugs. Deo is the last one to tell his story. He feels glad that he can finally talk about Innocent again and feels like his brother is in the room with him. Salie thanks everyone for sharing their stories and tells them that they have all made the team for the tournament.

Deo lies awake on the night before the tournament starts. He waits until everyone is asleep and then takes a backpack from under his bed and sneaks out of the dormitory. As he leaves the YMCA, Keelan appears and asks where he is going. He tells her that he is too excited to sleep and asks if she wants to come for a walk. She agrees. Deo takes Keelan to a place under the highway and starts digging. Months ago, he buried his soccer ball and Innocent’s Bix-box at this spot, knowing that he did not want anything to happen to them while he had to live on the streets. 

Deo opens the Bix-box and shows Keelan all the objects inside. They find a Bible in the box, with an inscription from his father that reads, “To Innocent and Deo, This is not a book of laws but a book of love. It will always be your salvation. Love, Samuel” (157). In this moment, Deo realizes that his father does know who he is.

People from all over the world have come to watch the tournament. Bishop Desmond Tutu gives a speech, and the tournament begins. Deo and his team win against Denmark. On the first day, they win three of their games and lose two. The next day, they win four out of five of their games, only losing to Brazil. Deo and T-Jay are interviewed by CNN. The journalist asks T-Jay how “the other South Africans on the team feel about playing with refugees” (163), but T-Jay interrupts her and tells her that his teammates “are not refugees. They’re people” (163). The journalist also asks Deo how he feels about the xenophobic attacks happening in South Africa against Zimbabweans and Somalis. Deo replies that he is here to play soccer and that in five years’ time, he wants to play in the World Cup final for any country that will take him. 

The team’s last game before they make it to the finals is against Russia. The Russians are excellent players, and Deo’s team initially struggles. Salie reminds them to play as a team, and they manage to score enough goals to beat the Russian team and make it to the finals.

The final game is against Brazil. The Brazilian national anthem and then the South African anthem play. As the South African anthem plays, Deo imagines the stadium filled with all the people who were important to him on his journey. He sees his mother, Grandpa Longdrop, Captain Washington, Patson and his father, Aziz and Sinbaba from Beitbridge, Mai Maria and Lennox, Philani, his family in the bridge, and his friends and soccer teammates from Gutu: Bhuku, Shadrack, Javu, Pelo the Buster, and Lola. He cannot see Innocent, even though Innocent is the most important one of all. He remembers Innocent listening to his radio and knows that although “Innocent might not be in the crowd…he is in [Deo’s] heart” (169). The anthem ends, and Deo and his team “play the game of [their] lives” (169).