Once a Runner (28 page)

You feel like an animal? Denton had asked. Just what Eliot told Cerutty when he wanted to quit. (As if that were some kind of answer.) But there was a day, Denton said, when Cerutty had been caught in a rip-tide at Portsea, and Eliot had grabbed the old man by his white hair and just swam. He swam and swam, not going anywhere at all, just there in place, for what seemed like hours,
until thefucking ocean just gave up.

Animal's exactly right, Denton had said, but
Jesus what an animal.

Then Denton had looked over at him and said: let's go run.

And Quenton Cassidy, having not a thing else in the world to do, said okay. So ended the great intellectual revolt of March.

It was shortly after that Cassidy began to notice something very strange in his training: It was nearly impossible to make himself hurt. His ten miles in the morning left him only flushed and hungry; in the afternoon he thrashed himself through his distance run or interval workout and finished feeling somewhat itchy, as if something were up. This night he told Denton about this strange sensation of invulnerability. Cassidy admitted to being very puzzled.

But the Olympian just settled back against the porch step, sipped on his coffee and smiled warmly at the miler.

"How nice," he said, "for you to have arrived right on time."

Now, within 48 hours, he would be lacing very tightly those thin kangaroo skin slippers with pin spikes and he would attempt to overtake the most locomotively efficient
homo sapiens
to yet trod the earth, at the distance of one mile, that is. Among all the swift messengers of the Hellenistic era, among the Masai warriors of the plains of Africa who laughingly run game to ground, among the mustachioed old professional runners of the lunatic marathon dance age who ran for large purses, among all these there was not one who even approached this modern, black-suited New Zealander; the first human to run faster—not than four minutes—but than three minutes and fifty seconds, a barrier without quite the symmetrical poetry for mankind perhaps, but one with such a terrible message for other runners—those who knew best how to interpret such messages—that they wobbled. Some gave up in despair, some sought refuge in other events. Liquori, it was said, went to 5000 meters.

Bruce Denton, sipping his coffee quietly, knew well the carnivorous nature of prerace fears. He sought to relieve what he felt was an ominous silence. The one thing he did not yet know about the miler was his control. Denton feared that during the next few hours the runner, like an aging automobile on a country road, might simply rattle himself to pieces.

"There was the Englishman Oates," he said, "on an expedition to one of the poles, I forget which. Out of supplies and fuel, the men were sitting around in a tent while a deadly blizzard raged and held rescue teams at bay. Several, I believe, had already frozen to death. Oates, tiring of it all, rose and announced: 'I'm going outside. I may be some time.'"

Cassidy smiled over the top of his mug, the coffee now going lukewarm in the chill of the evening, and counted that as the moment he most loved Bruce Denton.

"It's all right, Bruce," he said. "Really. It's all right."

35. The Orb

Saying something about walking off his macaroni and cheese, Cassidy escaped to the evening. There was a bit of marital uneasiness in the air, a strain that he may have had more than a little to do with, but for now all he could think of was closing the glistening, seamless orb, receptacle of his fiercest yearning. In the afternoon they had gone to a deserted high school track for the last session, a nearly lightheaded tune-up; for the first time in months he was completely rested and strong and when Denton walked over and held up the watch grimly it said: 24.8. That was the fourth and final 220. Denton shook his head disgustedly.

"I couldn't help it," Cassidy said.

"Okay," Denton replied; he would have liked to have been able to show a litde genuine anger at such a reckless display, but he knew how it felt and so remained quiet as they jogged a final slow mile around the battered old asphalt track.

During dinner there was none of the usual banter and Jeannie, after trying several times to relieve the tension, finally clammed up, allowing everyone to stew in the awful clink clank, chomp chomp of non-conversing diners who, when the pressure is on, cannot seem to keep their silverware and their own mastication under control. It was nerve-wracking for Denton and his wife, but Cassidy hardly noticed.

Now he was walking quickly, inexorably, towards the place he would complete the orb, set it gently adrift and leave it hard and shining until it was time.

It was one of the early balmy spring evenings when no one wanted to go inside. The campus was bustling; the lighted tennis courts were full and other players sat around waiting patiently, talking and laughing. Groups of three or four made their way to the nearer taverns, loaded cars roared to and fro, cyclists whirred by like mechanical butterflies, with books and Italian sandwiches strapped onto luggage racks.

It was the kind of scene Cassidy would have reveled in before, but the roar was now a tiny faraway buzz, growing by the minute, and as he walked on consumed by it, he was aware only that scenery was moving by as always, steadily and without apparent effort. He walked with the light, brisk, slighdy pigeon-toed gait of an athlete, and though he walked very quickly, his breath would not have troubled the smallest candle. He took in even, deep measures of cool air with mechanical regularity, disinterestedly feeling inside his chest the huge heart muscle thumping its slow liquid drumbeat. His legs coiled and uncoiled with rhythm; sacks of anacondas. That part of it was done as well as he could humanly do it. Now he would see to the rest. He had made this pilgrimage many times before and though he would probably do so many times again, he never quite got over the eerie feeling that each time could be the last. Soon he was on the far side of campus where there were few dormitories and hence less activity, fewer lights, and none of the happy spring weekend noise.

Moths fluttered around the single streetlight as he went through the gate, and though the rubbery smell of winter-green and sweat was as familiar to him as the musky woodi-ness of his room at Doobey Hall, his heart still jumped. The usual night joggers were out, and if they cast haughty glances at this mere stroller on their turf, the stroller paid no attention. He walked clockwise around the curve to the starting post at the beginning of the first turn, and stood there a few feet behind the parabolic bend of the starting stripe. He looked around and tried to imagine, in Hollywood-style flashes, the skeletal bleachers full, the now dark klieg lights burning down, the pageantry of the multi-hued sweatsuits from a thousand schools flashing by as athletes warmed up. He would be part of that faceless panorama too, until the announcement over the loudspeaker that never failed to twist his heart around with a spurt of adrenalized fear: FIRST CALL FOR THE MILE RUN. The all-consuming roar, the overwhelming psych would begin then and would build up until he stood ready on this line, at once controlled and near lunacy, fearless and terrified, wishing for the relief of the start, the misery of the end. Anything! Just let the waiting be done with! Cassidy toed the starting line there in street clothes and was able to get some of it: A few of the runners would run back and forth in their lanes, some would jiggle their lingers, some would jump up and down (all this more nervous than therapeutic). The orange-sleeved starter would walk among them with his pistol, saying, all right gentlemen, all right. He would talk gently, trying to somehow ease it for them, hoping to prevent a false start by calming them with the soft modulation of his voice. They were not as bad as sprinters, he knew, but they were still pretty skittish. The runners would gather nervously at the starting line, taking care not to look each other in the eye.

The starter would say: "There will be two commands, gentlemen, 'take your marks' and then the gun. All right, gentlemen, stand tall. Stand tall, gentlemen." He would sound a little like an executioner.

And Cassidy stood tall there in the dark, while a cool breeze ruffled the ragged lock of hair on his forehead, knowing that for that one instant there would be a kind of calm in the midst of all that pounding, roaring furor, a moment of serene calm before an unholy storm. There would be a single instant of near disbelief that it would finally be happening in a fraction of a second; finally happening after the months, the miles, the misty mornings; finally happening after the eighth or ninth now forgotten interval along the way somewhere that broke your heart once again. He would be leaning over tensely with the rest of them while the white lights burned down on them and for an awful split-second he would feel as if his legs had no strength at all. But then his heart would nearly explode when the pistol cracked. Cassidy felt a little of that now. He took a deep breath and began walking into the first turn, counterclockwise, the way of all races.

The first lap would be lost in a flash of adrenaline and pounding hooves. They would crash into the first turn in a bunch; the technical rule was that with a one-stride lead, a runner could cut in front. As with many such rules it was honored generally by the breach; the real-life rule of the first turn is exactly this: every man for himself. He would run powerfully into this turn, Cassidy thought, just like always, and he would use his elbows if he needed to make some space. Cassidy walked the turn, trying to imagine the sudden rasping of heavy breathing, the flashing of elbows and spiked feet all around. You had to be calm in the heavy traffic, he knew, hold back your impatience and control the panic; wait for opportunities. The first lap would be like that the whole way: fast, scary, with no pain or serious effort. The rampaging adrenaline and pent-up energy did that. The first lap was a process of burning it off; no one ever won a mile race on the first lap. Cassidy walked the far, dark straightaway. On the opposite side from the main bleachers, it was the loneliest part of the track. This was where the race-acute senses picked up the single calls of encouragement (usually from teammates), sometimes the idiotic suggestion called out by those who knew no better ("pick it up, pick it up"). There would be the occasional giggling of moronic teeny-boppers who did not quite know what they were laughing about. But those were the peripheral toys of a frenzied mind; the real work of the shining orb was monitoring the steadily droning pocketa pocketa of a human body hurtling along at a constant fifteen plus miles an hour. He walked through the far turn and up the straight to the starting post. Someone would be reading out times, probably around 57 or 58; assuming that no one went crazy during the first quarter. You'll hear the crowd again along here, he thought, particularly after we go through under 60; they won't be cheering for some godamned Finn, but you'll hear them just the same.

Whether a psychological thing or not, the second lap was when it always hit him, either right at the post or as they rounded the turn. The shocking enormity of the physical effort descended on him then and he knew from there on in it would be pretty grim business. At this point the carefully nurtured mental toughness, tempered by hours of interval work, would allow him to endure the shock to his system with relative ease and race on. He would be ready for it and he would know it was going to get far worse. He could be the best-conditioned athlete in the world but if his mind was not ready to accept the numbing wave at the start of the second lap, he would not even finish, much less hope to win.

Cassidy walked through the turn, and again into the lonely back straight. By this time he would be concentrating on pace, not allowing himself to become frightened by the first hint of numbness and discomfort. It wouldn't be "pain" exactly, not at this point, but it would not be altogether pleasant either. It was here the pace might tend to slow, something he would have to watch, something he would damned well
prevent
if he had to. He would now go into his floating stride, the long ground-eaters, and he would think to himself: cover territory.

No one ever won a race on the second lap either but plenty of people lost them there. This would be the time for covering distance with as little effort as possible. Through the far turn and into the home straight again he tried for the feeling and thought he got it pretty well. Finally around at the starting post again he tried to get the awfulness of the start of the third lap, but could not. He had seen the drawn haunted look on his own face in mid-race photographs and still he could not get that feeling; it was contained there somewhere in the glistening orb, he knew, and would never get out. Denton was right about it, you could think about it all you want but you couldn't feel it until you were there again. He knew only that here, at the halfway point, he would be once again
in extremis.
It would flabbergast him to think (so he would do so only for an instant) that he was only half way through it. He would have run the first half-mile faster than he could run a half mile flat out in high school (1:59.2) and he would have a long way to go.

He walked into the turn of the third lap. Here the real melancholy began, when the runner might ask himself just what in the hell he was doing to himself. It was a time for the most intense concentration, the iciest resolve. It was here the leader might balk at the pain and allow the pace to lag, here that positions shifted; those whose conditioning was not competitive would settle to the back of the pack to hang on, the kickers would move up like vultures to their vantage points at the shoulders of the front runners. It was a long, cruel lap with no distinguishing feature save the fact that it had to be run. Every miler knows, in the way a sailor knows the middle of the ocean, that it is not the first lap but the third that is farthest from the finish line. Races are won or lost here, records broken or forfeited to history, careers made or ended. The third lap was a microcosm not of life, but of the Bad Times, the times to be gotten through, the no-toys-at-Christmas, sittin'-at-the-bus-station-at-midnight blues dmes to look back on and, however weakly, laugh at if you can. The third lap was to be endured and endured and endured.