Once a Runner (24 page)

"There's gotta be something to do. I cain't keep up with all this stuff and operate a godamn ass-kicking football team at the same time. That's more'n a full time job by itself! More'n full time!"

"Now come on honey," she said sofdy, still working upwards, "We don't have to talk about that stuff all evenin', do we? Let's talk about somethin' else." Dick Doobey loosened with a moan under the onslaught of her simple ministrations. The toe probed feverishly.

^What do you want to do, hon," he murmured softly.

"What do
you
want to do, angel?" she cooed back, as he began sinking lower and lower until finally his mouth was almost awash in the swirling water.

"Play alligator," he smiled evilly as his hot beady eyes slowly disappeared beneath the surface.

31. Irish Highs

When no one answered his knock, Bruce Denton wiped his muddy feet on the filthy welcome mat and went into the cabin. He was accustomed to the disarray, but surprised to see a bottle of Bushmills Irish Whiskey open on the big cable spool that served as a kitchen table. He walked over, placed the cap back on the bottle and picked up the book lying beside it; it was a soft cover copy of
In Our Time.
He smiled.

"Hey, Nick," he called, "You in here, Nick?" "Very funny," Quenton Cassidy croaked from behind a stack of paneling. He lay just under the front window, parallel to it, almost completely obscured by the lumber. Denton walked over and sat down on the wood. Cassidy smiled up at him, a coffee mug rising and falling on his chest (it contained several nearly melted ice cubes and probably no coffee, Denton surmised).

"So ..." Denton let the word hang.

"I thought you were coming out here yesterday, jerk," Cassidy said, pleasantly.

"Ah yes, well sorry about that. Jeannie got to feeling bad and I ran her by the infirmary. We are, uh, waiting for word on the rabbit or whatever it is they do these days. When I got back it was dark, so I decided to come today."

"Oh. Pitter patter of little spikes around the house ..." Cassidy yawned, did not appear very interested.

"So. What's the occasion? Or am I being too personal?"

"Occasion? Since when does a fellow have to have an occasion to bend an elbow?" Cassidy asked. Denton knew that Cassidy drank a lot of beer, but had never seen him take anything harder. He was partially amused, partially alarmed, but only the amusement showed.

"Doing a little reading, eh? What's this?" He picked up the paperback folded open beside Cassidy and turned it over to look at the cover.

It showed a young man sitdng on a bench in a locker room putting on Tiger training flats; behind him an older man stood, towel around his waist as if he were about to yank it off with a cry of Lookey here! Cassidy giggled at him.

"That, my friend, is a book that explores a much overlooked and steadily growing athletic minority, the homosexual distance runner."

"Oh yeah?" Denton was leafing through the book. "What's the main... I mean, what do they, uh, you know... do?"

"I can see, sir, that you are a man of little sophisticadon. These fellows train themselves to a fine edge while maintaining dalliances with their ex-marine coaches, they fatten themselves up on yogurt and walnuts, and then they go out and run fantastic races despite the, overwhelming social pressures brought to bear. Oh yes, they also 'rip off 57-second quarters in morning workouts. But mosdy..." He got up on his elbows so he could look Denton in the eyes. "... mostly they kind of lay around the locker room admiring each other's tawny hamstrings." He giggled again.

"Hmmm. Is this some latent prejudice of yours finally making its way out of the closet? I thought you were one of those put-it-into-whatever-you-want-or-whoever-you-want kind of fellows."

"Look, my view of sexual matters is that consenting adults should be allowed to run over each other with haybailers, if that's their fondest desire. So long, of course, as they don't do it in front of children. Or lovers of harvesting equipment."

Denton nodded, but he seemed engrossed in a passage in the book. His forehead wrinkled as he read for a few moments. Finally he tossed the book back on the floor.

"Whew!" he said.

"See what I mean? Now really, what does how you get your rocks off have to do with anything? So what if I'm out here whipping my wire 15 times a day? Who cares?"

"Yes, well, I see you're a little overwrought about this..."

"Overwrought hell. I'm drunk as a skunk." He giggled again. "I'm so fine tuned I get blipped from a tumbler of Dr. Pepper." Denton laughed.

"How about The Hem's Michigan stories I brought?" he gestured back towards the spool table.

"Yes, I liked them pretty much. Except for all the stiff upper lip crap. But the guy went out and did things, you know, I mean you could tell he really did those things,
knew
about them before going out and shooting his mouth off. He just sat down and tried to tell it as honestly as he could. That's a shit load better than sitting around New York with a bunch of other artistes diddling each other and writing about the state of being Jewish, or how anguishing it is to be an anguished writer. But then again..." His elbows were tiring, he flattened out on the floor again.

"Who cares?"

"...who cares indeed?" Cassidy sighed. Denton thought: Here is a man who's been thinking by himself a lot lately.

"Christ, Bruce, I've got to get out of this hole. Take me to some food, to a place with people I can snarl at, waitresses in pantyhose, a place with that hallmark of civilization, a salad bar with fake bacon bits ..."

"Just what I had in mind, assuming you can walk, steady there," Denton said. Cassidy was struggling stiffly to his feet.

"Did you run today?" Denton asked, helping him up.

"Can a fish tread water? Hell yes, I ran today, you think I'm out here to taunt the farmers? I'm going to take a shower."

Denton saw the training calendar on the floor where Cassidy had been lying. He picked it up and studied it for a moment, finally letting out a low whistle.

"What in the hell were you doing running 34 godamned miles yesterday? Are you going bonkers or what?"

Cassidy stuck his head out of the bathroom. "I ran into town last night. See, I thought my good friend and coach was going to be coming out to do a workout with me and he didn't show up, see? Oh hell. I went in to see Andrea. It was a mistake »»

"Okay. Fair enough. I won't stand you up anymore. I know this is rough out here sometimes, but I thought the Andrea business was all over with, wasn't it?"

But the bathroom door was closed. In the shower Cassidy crooned off-key:
"an* all of us here are just more than contented... to be livin' and dyin' in three-quarter time..."

Cassidy was still in a good mood as they drove into town. Denton switched on the windshield wipers as they hit a mild shower. The intensity of the rains had waned lately.

"Now, if you'll settle back," Denton said, "I'll give you a rundown on the news. It's short, and not very pleasant."

Denton began telling Cassidy about the organization formed by campus athletes called Coalition of Southeastern University Athletes.

Its expressed purpose was talking, negotiating and otherwise "dealing" with the Athletic Association, Denton told him. When the group announced its formation, the media blitz that had so disrupted Dick Doobey's life at the time of the Awesome Midnight Raid returned with a vengeance. Sports writers rankled at the idea of an athlete's "union" and wanted to know how conditions could be so bad as to necessitate collective bargaining in jockdom. No one, least of all Dick Doobey, was able to provide a satisfactory answer. The athletes simply told reporters that as the writers did not live in the regime, they could hardly understand the current
Zeitgeist.
More meetings were held, statements were released, Quenton Cassidy (who had apparently disappeared altogether) was eulogized as a martyred saint or damned as a self-serving rabble rouser. There had been editorial comment on some sports pages, Denton told Cassidy, "that would boggle your noodle." A progressive commentator at the
Pensacola News-Journal
suggested capital punishment for ungrateful student athletes.

While all of this was going on, Dick Doobey schemed in the heady fog of his whirlpool, aided and abetted by a bitter beehived trollop who counseled sweet revenge and moaned in false ecstasy.

"What it boils down to," Denton said, flipping the wipers off, "is they have scratched you from the list of competitors at the Southeastern Relays."

What?

"That's it. Now, please don't ask me to make any sense out of it. I am simply reporting the facts. Apparently there is no rationale behind it except, uh, you know, getting back at you."

"Are you serious about this?" "Very."

"They are not going to let me run?" "Nope."

"Did they say why,
for jesus godamn christ's sake?'

"Now don't go taking it out on me. I'm just telling you what Cornwall told me. For what it's worth, he doesn't like it any more than you. He didn't even know at first how they found out you were running in the thing. Then he figured Hairlepp or one of the guys at the
Sun
went running to Doobey when they got the advance lists of competitors. You know how objective the old fourth estate is when it comes to sports. Anyway, Prigman himself apparently has authorized a policy that says Quenton Cassidy will not be permitted to compete on the Southeastern University tartan come hell or high water."

"My lord in heaven." Cassidy sat looking miserable out the window at the wet fields. "Can they
do
this?"

"Who knows? They're doing it. I asked my lawyer friend, Jerry Schackow, what he thought about it, but he said he couldn't tell without doing some research. He said it presents an interesting question."

"Swell."

"Meanwhile, not to worry. Training goes full bore. I'm going to start coming out in the afternoons more often to keep tabs on your interval work. You concentrate on the running and let me worry about getting you onto the track."

But Cassidy was despondent. He sat with arms folded, shaking his head in disbelief as he watched the fields and scrub forests pass. They finally reached Art's Steakhouse at the edge of town. Denton slapped him on the knee jovially.

"All right now, let's get us some dinner and try to think pleasant thoughts. I might even have an Irish whiskey myself."

"I wouldn't recommend it," Cassidy said glumly. "It seems to conjure up evil humors."

Bruce Denton rarely disclosed all he knew at one time. With Cassidy he preferred to let important information come in dribbles, as if by accident, counting on the act of discovery to serve as sauce for the meat of knowledge. He knew intuitively that such intelligence, invested with self-discovery, retained hard lines in a sometimes blurry world.

But as to his courageous attempt to intervene with higher authority—no less than Old Man Prigman himself—he chose to say nothing at all. Not that he was embarrassed by the comic futility of his effort; but he now realized the true nature of his adversary and decided to keep his own counsel while considering new tactics. He schemed with the controlled joy and abandon of a supposedly reformed street fighter suddenly finding himself in a brawl not of his own making.

He had gained his audience with Prigman in a very practical manner: He made himself an extremely good-natured pest. He sat around the waiting room reading old copies of
Florida Rancher,
grinning cheerfully at Roberta, cracking his gum like a blissful field hand. The secretary, who liked her office uncluttered could not handle it; when she typed three errors in the same sentence in an obsequious letter to the governor, she calmly got up from her desk, marched into the inner sanctum and pleasantly demanded action. Once in the door, Denton (had he not known better) might have thought Steven C. Prigman had been sitting around for hours in delightfully sweaty anticipation of his arrival.

"Bruce Denton!" Prigman wrung his hand heartily, "Now this is a surprise!"

"How do you do, sir?" Denton smiled despite himself. Why can't they deal with this man, he thought.

"I hope you received my telegram after your wonderful victory."

"Oh, yes sir, it was one of the first to arrive," Denton lied happily. This was going to be easier than he thought.

"Fine, fine. You know, I've been meaning to have you and Jennifer over for dinner one night, but... this job!" He tossed his hands, a man who could only hope those folks he truly liked could understand why he had such scant time for them. Denton wondered who the hell Jennifer was.

"Of course, sir, I know how terribly busy you must be, so I wouldn't presume upon your time unless ..."

"No problem! No problem at all, my boy. I have all the time you need." To prove as much, he glanced nervously at his watch. "So, what is it I can do for you?"

"Well sir, it concerns a young man named Quenton Cassidy..."

Prigman's faced drooped so noticeably that Denton stopped, surprised. So Prigman was in on it.

"Oh," said the old man quietly, settling back in his chair.

"Yes sir. I understand that he is not being allowed to participate in the Southeastern Relays next month and ..." Prigman squirmed in his chair, an adolescent movement, full of irritation and not at all in character.