The Miles (25 page)

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Authors: Robert Lennon

BOOK: The Miles
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In a cloud of contemplation, Liam leapt out of his seat when Didier sidled up beside him at the bar.
“Glad you started without me, sport. There is nothing more depressing than sitting at a bar without a drink in your hand. I mean, can you think of anything more thoroughly useless?”
“Please join me then.” Liam smiled from under the delightful veil of alcohol. “I have been waiting here for the better part of an hour to toast the great feats of our newest Fast Tracker.”
“I did pretty good, didn't I? I only wish that you had been there to witness it.”
“So you could have whipped me too? I hear you beat Zane. That's not an everyday occurrence at Fast Trackers.”
“I really just went out there and ran my own race. I focused on feeling fresh and loose.”
“And how did the Bobcats take your mutiny?”
“I don't care, Liam.” Didier paused and dropped his voice into a low, deep whisper. “I just want to move forward. Onward and upward.”
The dim light drew out the severity of Didier's features, exaggerating the soft fullness of his lips and the height of his cheekbones. Liam gulped two large swallows of wine to steady his racing heart. His phone rang and everyone at the bar turned to look at him; he laughed at again neglecting to heed the signs prohibiting cellular devices.
Liam excused himself and headed toward the exit as he answered the phone. It was the hospital, and he did not want to send the call to voice mail.
“What? What is it? What?” The lady on the other end kept asking if she had received Riser's next-of-kin.
“They don't live in the U.S. I am his emergency contact. That's why you have my number and that's why you've called me. Now please, what is it? Is something wrong?”
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Mr. Walker.” She paused for a moment. “But your friend has passed on ... He went so peacefully in his sleep, looks just like a baby, really. I am so sorry to be the one to have to tell you.”
“You must have the wrong person. My friend is Riser Kolz. And Riser Kolz is a twenty-six-year-old runner. He isn't dead.”
“You're upset. I understand. These things happen. Sometimes we do things to ourselves that our hearts can't take. If you would like to come to the hospital to talk with me or the doctor, please feel free.”
“No, thank you,” he said. “I've heard enough.” Liam hung up the phone in disbelief. The ruby-orange halo of dusk lit up the brick buildings like fire, and a man and woman in heavy cable-knit sweaters clutched each other's arms to fend off the slight chill of the coming evening. A group of teenage girls asked a burly man in a tweed jacket to take a picture as they posed on the street. Perhaps this was the beginning of their first vacation to Manhattan or perhaps it was their last evening together before some life-changing event. The city was getting ready for another night filled with adventure and disappointment.
Liam pressed his face to the window of Otto and exhaled. A huge circle of condensation formed. Looking through the glass, Liam could see Didier smiling back at him, fidgeting at the bar and motioning wildly for him to come back inside.
MILE 26
M
atthew wanted to run through the slides one more time, but Liam convinced him to relax and have a cocktail before the guests started to pour in. The bar looked sad and dusty with no one in it. The mild, coppery stench of Saturday night lingered in the air, making the cool, gray October Sunday feel even lonelier.
Liam quickly downed a tall pint of Sierra Nevada and ordered another. He had to quell his nerves and stop his hands from trembling. Matthew shuffled through some index cards between sips of Stoli cranberry. In the hour that they had spoken the night before, Liam told Matthew that as Riser's best friend he should give the eulogy. Matthew clearly wanted to do the honors and to share his impressions of Riser, but he realized his limitations as a public speaker. Just sitting and looking at his prepared notes caused him to sweat profusely.
“He'll have another drink,” Liam said to the bartender and pointed to Matthew's glass. “Throw it back, Mattie,” he whispered. “Trust me on this one.”
With no time to plan anything formal and no sense as to the rules of decorum governing the death of a good friend, Liam and Matthew had decided to host an open bar at Riser's favorite watering hole—the Gym Bar on Eighth Avenue. When the owners heard about Riser and his untimely death, they agreed to give Fast Trackers the entire bar from four to seven o'clock with drinks at half price. Matthew had been up for days scanning all the photos that he had of Riser and putting them to a suitable audio track. The slideshow presentation had caused Liam to sob the first time he saw it.
“I don't know if I can do this.” Matthew looked as though any action, the touch of his hand or even a nod of commiseration, might vault him into tears.
“You have to, sweetie. You'll regret it forever if you don't ... plus you'll help all the other guys in the club. They don't have all these great memories, all this beautiful detail about Riser's life at their disposal.”
A tentative squeak at the front entrance announced the arrival of the first two guests. Gary and Monroe walked in at an odd distance from one another, as though neither was ready to commit to the idea, now plain as day, that they were a couple. Hugs were exchanged and Matthew handed each man a copy of the brief program that had been prepared for the service. A beautiful photo of Riser running in shorts and a tank top, taken a year or more before his body was ruined by starvation, graced the cover with two lines of text underneath: the years of his life (1986–2012) and a quotation from one of his favorite songs “Long May You Run.”
“You men are doing a great, great thing,” Gary said.
“I remember when I used to have to go to these memorial things every fucking month.” Monroe's voice cracked, and he wiped a tear from his cheek. Gary reached over and rubbed his shoulder and kneaded the base of his neck with his hands. “Guess you never escape the past completely. And twenty-six will always be too young to die.”
“Thanks for coming, G,” Matthew said. “I know, given what you've been through with death this summer, the opening of unhealed wounds can't be feeling too good.”
“I may never be a father, but I feel like I've lost many children through the years ... never as senseless as this, though.”
The door swung open again and a larger group entered the bar. Liam saw Zane and Mitch along with some older faces that looked familiar but which he couldn't quite pair with names. He looked up at the clock; it was 3:55. The quiet time had ended and now it would be a procession of greetings that would extend until the bar ushered them out at 7 o'clock.
“I never thought it would come to this.” Zane placed his head on Liam's chest as he hugged him. “We should have known. It was our responsibility as his friends to watch out for him. That's what gay guys do for one another.”
“There was no way any of us could have known, Zane. So many runners get so thin. It's the badge of honor in this sport, isn't it?” Liam stopped and reflected for a few moments. “Well, that didn't come out exactly right, but you know what I mean.”
“How do we go on now?”
These were the banal and unanswerable questions left for the living to grapple with, but Zane stood before Liam and looked into his eyes as though he expected a real answer from him. It occurred to Liam that during the last year almost no one in the club had patience for the fits Riser would pitch and the drama that he had caused. The club was like that, part of what brought people together was their annoying differences, and the more nettlesome or gossip-worthy someone's behavior became, the more Fast Trackers understood and embraced them. There was a humanity to the club that made people forget their gripes and forgive their shortcomings. No one expected, or even wanted, you to be perfect at Fast Trackers.
By a quarter past four, more than fifty Fast Trackers had crammed into the back room of Gym Bar. Most had used the sad circumstance as an opportunity to drink judgment-free while the sun was still out on a Sunday afternoon. People laughed a little self-consciously as they shared stories about the club. Liam nudged Matthew to corral the group around the pulpit of his bar stool. As he fumbled through the cards one last time, Matthew patted some sweat off his brow with a damp bar napkin and cleared his throat.
“Thank you.” He paused before starting again, much louder this time. “Thank you all for coming! Thank you.”
The conversation in the crowd trailed off into murmurs and then to silence. Once all eyes were glued on Matthew, Liam thought he actually heard his friend's stomach growl beneath his pinstriped shirt. He looked Matthew in the eye and nodded. Matthew placed the index cards on the bar and spoke from memory.
“Riser Kolz was a good friend to me.” He stopped and looked around the crowd as though he might identify someone to corroborate the sentiment. “I know that he wasn't easy to know and at first blush he rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. It's funny to me that he could come off as abrasive. The poor guy had no defenses against the world. He was so open that he just let everything in and that kind of poisoned him, in a way. I know that when Riser left his family back in Bosnia, he redefined himself in New York. This club helped shape who he was, and he loved, envied, and even worshipped so many of you in this room. I just wish he could have lived to see how much he meant to you guys. I wish he had let himself see that reality while he was here with us. We can all honor his life by spreading a little of that joy and love and admiration among each other today—and from today on.”
Liam had anticipated a shaky and awkward speech, but Matthew had hit just the right pace and had punctuated the words
joy, love,
and
admiration
so that at least half of the men in the room now rubbed tears from their eyes. As soon as everyone had a few moments to digest Matthew's speech and to applaud his astonishing delivery, Liam walked over and hit the play button on the laptop to start the slideshow.
As the skipping, sultry beats of Fatboy Slim started to boom through the bar, photographs of Riser were projected onto a movie screen in the middle of the floor, where a pool table should have been. Matthew had strung together a few baby and childhood shots he had found while cleaning out Riser's apartment, but the bulk were from the last year or so. The transformation saddened Liam as he saw it play out to the catchy dance music. In a group photo from the club's New Year's Eve party the previous December, Riser and Matthew sported Depends as the babies ringing in 2012. Riser had the sinewy build of a lifeguard. His body would have inspired envy in almost anyone, the leanness of his frame looking natural and effortless. The lyrics “I have to praise you like I sh-ou-ou-ou-ou-ou-ould” pounded as winter moved to early spring, and Riser dashed long and healthy toward the finish line in several races. So many Fast Tracker events had taken place in the last year. Liam puzzled to think of what he did with his time before joining the club.
The music slipped into the mellower and more contemplative chords of Van Morrison's “Into the Mystic” as the photologue traveled into the months of May and June. With the warmer temperatures, Riser's outfits switched from long sleeves and tights to shorts and singlets and, finally, to no shirt at all. Looking at the photos now, Liam realized that the undressing was a cry for help, a way for Riser to show his wounds. His torso bore the vacancy of a carcass. The thinner he became, the more focused and intense Riser looked. If he were being honest with himself, Liam would have admitted a certain respect and even a jealousy in seeing Riser strain harder and harder to achieve what he so desperately needed.
“So sorry that I am so late.” Droplets of rain glistened through Didier's hair. “I couldn't decide whether I should let you have the afternoon with your friends.” Liam had told Didier not to trouble himself given his limited knowledge of Riser but felt so relieved that he had not listened. It scared Liam to think of how happy it made him to have Didier here.
“It's amazing,” Didier whispered, and Liam nodded.
Didier reached under the bar stool and grasped for Liam's hand. Feeling the cold, bony fingers clutching at his palm, Liam grabbed a strong hold of Didier's hand. A photo of Riser from a long run in early August popped up on the screen. His drawn and runneled face smiled amid a small group that included Matthew, Ben, and Mitch. Having run many miles before the photo was taken, Riser's body appeared breakable in its gauntness. That was only ten weeks ago, not enough time to receive a furniture delivery and yet enough time for a friend to slowly kill himself. Each photo brought the pointlessness home.
“I can't believe it's over.” Ferdinand choked through his words as he embraced Matthew and Liam in a group hug. “You just don't prepare ... ”
“You don't need to say anything. What can be said? The best we can do is to remember and to rejoice in him.”
“Life is for the living, eh? I know you're right on that, Liam,” Ferdinand spoke tentatively. “This has scared me sober. No more fun escapes—no coke, no ecstasy, no anything. I'm going to let life ride through me like a speedball. Nothing could be more of a trip, more of a fucking trip, than taking this all in sober. I'm so grateful I have you guys.”
Liam had expected some of the members who were older—perhaps Gary and some of his friends—to weep over the loss. The memory of the AIDS epidemic and the heartache it wrought still stung those who were members of the club in the eighties. But having one of the more self-absorbed and carefree members of the club break down overwhelmed Liam.
“Ferd, it's going to be okay. We're all going to miss him, but we can make it so he lives on in us.”
“Oh, that's so trite, Liam. Are you listening to yourself?”
This began to sound more like the Ferdinand whom Liam knew and loved.
“We can help him live on by getting our act together and running like we believe in ourselves next Sunday!” Zane had sprung from out of the crowd to re-purpose the team.
“It would be an awesome distraction,” Ferdinand mused. “I would love to have something else to focus on.”
“We can do it!” Zane now exhorted an impassioned group that included Matthew, Ferdinand, Gary, Ben, Gene, and Liam. “Beating the Bobcats might be the last thing anyone would want to think about at a time like this. But we can't do anything to save Riser. This, this we can do. We can attempt greatness. If we're all willing to focus and face our fears, we can annihilate the competition.”
“I'm in!” screamed Didier, much to the surprise of the other Fast Trackers. “This is why I came aboard. Let's do this!”
A rousing chorus of “Let's do this! We can do this!” ensued, and even the bartenders had begun to cheerlead along with the raucous chant. Didier excitedly bent over to kiss Liam, but Liam withdrew. He had butterflies over the Bobcat challenge and could not relax. It seemed like putting a lot of eggs in one basket. Who had appropriately trained for the marathon in Fast Trackers? How many more people would the Bobcats have? How far could faith and camaraderie take you? Liam breathed deeply and swallowed his doubts. Maybe he had never yielded to the workings of faith before, but this time he wanted nothing more than to believe in something greater than himself and to accept that something impossible could happen. He would run the marathon unfettered from the silly training laws that predicted performance. He would push himself harder than he ever had before and pray that he would finish strong. For the first time in many months, Liam
wanted
to race.

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