The Miles (2 page)

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Authors: Robert Lennon

BOOK: The Miles
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MILE 2
“I
t said the Daniel Webster Statue, Liam. Why do you insist on questioning me? I knew I shouldn't have let you drag me along with you.
Your
honor doesn't need any protecting, babe.”
Whenever Monroe turned sassy like this, Liam would tease him by simply answering “Yes, Miss Marilyn” to whatever complaint he voiced. Today Liam resisted the temptation because Monroe was going above and beyond friendship's call of duty by agreeing to tag along on a 9:30
A.M.
Saturday morning fun run.
“I believe you. But are you sure this is the right transverse? We've been up and down it twice and I don't see any statue. Maybe we should jog up to 102nd Street.”
“Liam, which do you think is more likely? Really? On the one hand, you have Seventy-second Street, the center of residential life on the Upper East and Upper West Sides, and on the other, 102nd Street, which is simply too far uptown for a bunch of Chelsea queens.”
To distance himself from the story lines that Monroe was spinning, Liam had begun to pick up his pace and was now practically out of earshot. The light, wet snowflakes that had drifted aimlessly through the park all morning finally found their destination. The bark of the bare trees that lined the park roads was becoming mottled with snow. Liam watched his feet press wide and flat against the newly dusted asphalt.
“Over there!” He finally heard Monroe's winded scream from behind him. Liam turned to see his friend clutching his side with his right arm and pointing due west with his left. “That group of queens in the tights and funny hats ... those are for sure your boys.”
“Good eyes! Sorry I doubted you for a second,
Norma Jean
.”
“It's still too early in the morning for me to be amused by your antics, so be careful.”
They made their way into the semicircle that had formed on the edge of the large loop that cuts through the entire park—all the way from Fifty-ninth Street up to Harlem Hill at 110th Street. Liam had never noticed this particular intersection before and was still searching for the statue that had been designated as the meeting spot. As he met Monroe's gaze again, Liam caught sight of a rotund figure looming behind the pack of runners, enshrouded in the skeletal embrace of some old, leafless elms. Now he wondered,
Daniel Webster?
The statesman was large and bronze and imposing, just a few feet from the transverse. Why was Daniel Webster here watching over the pageantry of Central Park? The assemblage of monuments and tributes and honoraria throughout Manhattan had puzzled Liam ever since he was a little kid and his father pointed out the Garibaldi statue in the then grimy paths of Washington Square Park.
“Okay, okay, everyone! Let's get this party started.” The voice boomed from a swizzle stick of a man with thick graying hair. “Everyone introduce yourself. Let us know if you're a first-timer or visitor from another city, and we'll hook you up with a buddy who runs your pace.”
Liam could feel Monroe's eyes on him. After scanning the club's website, Liam assured his friend that things would be incredibly casual and that Monroe wouldn't even have to run with anyone if he didn't want to. This should not be the end of the world. Monroe had always talked about how he ran on the treadmill three times a week. Surely he would be able to keep up with some of the roly-poly guys gathered here.
“And you there! Yoo-hoo! I know you might have been out at Therapy until the wee hours, but wake up and tell us your name!”
“Sorry. I'm Liam. Sorry.”
“You're too cute to apologize, hon. Now tell me, is this your first time?”
“Sort of ... I have been racing here and there, but this is my first fun run with the group.”
“Gary, this is the dude I was bragging about. Zoomed right past me at Van Cortlandt during the 5K Championships.”
Without this pronouncement, Liam would have never pegged the pale face under the moss-colored hoodie as Gene's. After giving Gene an acknowledgment so cursory it bordered on rudeness, Liam looked over at Monroe. No words needed to be exchanged. That's what Liam loved about their friendship. Monroe just had a sense of things, a wisdom of situations.
“Well, Gene. You've had an opportunity to meet Liam. Let's have Marvin run with him this morning. Marvin can give him a nice fast run.”
The wiry man leading the announcements pointed toward a red-haired man with a splash of freckles across his nose. His legs were short but their muscle-thick definition popped through the black tights he wore.
“Okay, last and I hope not least.”
“It's Monroe.”
“Love the name! Now what pace, hon?”
“Oh, I don't know. How fast is real damn slow?”
“Don't you worry, Monroe. We leave no runners behind here. Horace will run with you.”
A lanky man in neon-blue warm-up pants and a violet Windbreaker waved over toward Monroe. Clutched in both hands, Horace had bronze weights that looked to be a few pounds each. His thick seventies mustache had yellowed with age or bad habits.
“God, do you owe me,” Monroe muttered through clenched teeth. “Start saving your lunch money, bitch.” He then dashed off without looking at Liam.
Marvin could not have been more different from Gene. During their run, he offered almost nothing in the way of small talk and answered Liam's questions in a manner suggesting that he wasn't looking to make a new best friend. Liam did learn that Marvin taught astronomy at a fancy Upper East Side school for boys and had raced seriously since competing as an All-American for his college cross-country team. As they finished their five-mile run, Marvin asked Liam if he planned on going back to the church for brunch. While Liam had read about the Saturday ritual online, he had not been sure what to make of the whole affair and told Monroe that they would play each step of the morning by ear. Despite his being quiet during their run, Marvin now enthusiastically insisted that Liam go to brunch. It was apparently what made the whole morning, the whole run in the park, worthwhile. And when Liam suggested waiting for Monroe to return with Horace, Marvin snickered and claimed that they would both freeze to death by the time those slowpokes got back.
“Everyone heads back to the church,” Marvin repeated. “Horace hasn't skipped bagels since the Pointer Sisters started burning doing the Neutron Dance.”
It all sounded logical enough. Surely Monroe would want some food after running out in the cold. Even as he supplied himself with this cast-iron logic, Liam could imagine his friend's pursed lips and could hear Monroe's curt reassurances that he had managed to fend for himself just fine despite being abandoned. There would be snide innuendo and passive-aggressive back-and-forth, but nothing that Liam had not encountered—and successfully handled—before. After six years of friendship, replete with dramatic fights, Liam had learned how to maneuver the minefield of Monroe's sensitivities but still often chose to live dangerously.
When Monroe rescued Liam from an aggressively drunk hanger-on at Starlight Club on Avenue A back in the early 2000s, Liam sensed it to be a more than auspicious start to their relationship. Not having had a lot of gay friends at Amherst College, Liam had to learn how gay friendships differed from straight ones. He chose to ignore the undercurrent of sexual tension at play in his encounters with Monroe and believe there was a tacit understanding that theirs was a platonic connection—nothing more, nothing less. It sometimes saddened Liam that gay men seemed to place a much lower premium on relationships of this ilk in favor of those centered around the ephemeral pleasures of the flesh. Over the years, Liam and Monroe had strengthened their bond, despite the entrance of petty jealousies here and there.
“Looks like we're the first runners back today. Bravo to us,” Marvin said, patting Liam firmly on the shoulder. Liam puzzled over the wide chasm between mid-run Marvin and post-run Marvin.
There were about a dozen men assembled in the gym-like basement area of the church that they had just entered off of Broadway. The bright primary colors of the mats that lined the walls and part of the floor imbued the room with the childlike simplicity of a third-grade PE class. Two men in matching sweater vests split bagels in half while a cluster of chatty men in street clothing assembled chairs in a half moon on the gymnasium floor.
“That's the judging circle. You'll learn all about them in due time. There are volumes for you to learn. You're in for a trip if you stick around. And it is worth the price of admission. Ah, to be a newbie again!”
As Marvin reeled off club factoids and fodder, Liam eyed the men who were so methodically setting the stage for breakfast. One gentleman in suspenders and a maroon and green plaid dress shirt spread a plastic tablecloth over a long rectangular card table and then placed jars of cream cheese, peanut butter, and jams and jellies at equal measure along its periphery. The man would place a jar on the table and then step away to see how it looked before positioning something new on the surface. Watching the slow Balanchine-like precision of each man's moves, Liam stopped to think about whether anyone young would be at the breakfast. Sure, there was Monroe. Liam liked to think of Monroe as his own age, even though the twelve-year gap made him more like a much older brother. But the non-runners working in the room right now had to be fifteen years Monroe's senior. Of course, there were also Marvin and Gene. But their age was difficult to decipher; they had the boyish style and affectation that keeps gay men looking young until one day, out of the clear blue nowhere, they look silly and sad—and old.
“So I'm going to rinse this run off me.” Marvin had gathered up a towel, Dopp kit, pair of jeans, and a crewneck sweater. “Beat all those smelly bastards to the showers.”
“I had just planned on running home.” Liam offered the words like an apology that came too late and did nothing other than fill in an awkward silence.
“Please, lots of runners skip the showers. If you want to use the bathroom or wash your hands—whatever!—just come this way.”
The hot water from the faucet hurt Liam's numb hands, but he turned the yellow hunk of soap over and over, letting it slip faster and faster through his fingers to cast his mind away from the pain. He noticed a ridge of salt across his forehead leading down through his sideburns and tossed a handful of the scalding water over his face. As he turned around to dry off with some paper towels, Liam saw that Marvin had stripped down for his shower. Marvin now stood naked, fumbling through his Dopp kit, just two feet away from Liam. Finding it impossible not to stare at the long arc of Marvin's penis as it swung back and forth, Liam dried his face with his shirt and darted out of the bathroom.
Outside, the gymnasium floor had filled with new constellations of people, some who had been in the park for the run and others who had clearly foregone exercise this morning. Liam scanned the room for Monroe. A quick apology and they could both leave. Horace in his electric blue and purple ensemble was nowhere to be found. Neither was Miss Norma Jean.
“Come, come. First-timers eat for free.” The voice had approached from behind but by the time Liam turned, Gene's sweaty hoodie was bunched up in his face. The bear hug made Liam cringe.
“I'm just going to wait.” Liam didn't know how to finish the sentence. “My friend's going to get back here in a few minutes.”
“And what? He's going to begrudge you starting without him?”
The way Gene framed the question caused Liam to blush, like he was an adolescent tethered to his best friend. Liam often resented the way Monroe got stuck on the details and could never let anything go, and he hated the predictability of the diatribe that would be delivered now that the morning had diverged from their original plan. But Liam also loathed the juvenile lure that Gene now coaxed him with, particularly since it was working.
As he spooned some fruit salad into a bowl and took a quick sip from his coffee, Liam noticed Horace and Monroe entering the room. Horace pumped the little weights in his hands belligerently, as though he could wring out some torment they were causing him. Monroe nodded to fend off the barrage of Horace's words. A skinny man with a wicked Boston accent approached, and Liam indulged the man's banal questions to avoid the probing glances that Monroe now shot at him.
In no time flat, this beefy man in the Boston College T-shirt managed to bolt through all the standard questions that everyone in the running club seemed determined to find answers to. While Liam did not mind sharing his favorite distances to race and his best times at different events, he did wonder whether people in the club had anything more to offer. As Joey, who had moved to New York just three months ago from the Beacon Hill section of Boston, finished telling of his hamstring injury from the fall, a young guy dressed in black pants and a purple V-neck barreled into the room in a flurry of hellos. Those gathered around the floor looked up eagerly with changed expressions, delighting in this young man's arrival. Liam decided this must be a surprise cameo from someone who had moved away.
“Zany Zane ... that boy definitely knows how to make an entrance.”

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