Once a Runner Page 10

  “Do you know any of these guys in the mile?” he asked Denton. The older runner took the list and studied it as they ran.

  “Well, Marcel Philippe you know. He’s a Fordham guy, can’t be in real good shape yet. O’Rork I’m sure you remember; Kerry Ellison, Texas El Paso: tough cookie. Those guys get in shape early like we do. I’d say he’s the man to watch.”

  “I didn’t think he—”

  “He doesn’t run on the cross-country team, is why you didn’t see him at nationals. They have a bunch of true six-milers, so he doesn’t have to. No, he’ll be in shape. Wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

  “Yeah, but what about old—”

  “Liquori is scratched.”

  “Scratched? Jeez…”

  “Breaks your heart, doesn’t it? I talked to him a few minutes ago. He is in pretty good shape but he sprained his ankle a few days ago. I hate to say this, but it looks like you might have a chance to take all the marbles.”

  “Bruce, I…” His forehead wrinkled with concern. “Bruce, the Wanamaker Mile…”

  “Look. This is the way it happens. You keep at it hard, just like you’ve been doing. You hang around the fringes waiting for your chance. When it comes you go for it, hard. You do good, that gets you psyched. You go back, work even harder…” He stopped for a moment, reflected, then laughed. “Hell, I don’t know. Who the hell knows?”

  “The Millrose mile…”

  “All I know is that you could win the thing. Your best races are the ones where you just relax and let it flow. You’ve got great speed, Cass. Jeez, I wish I had it. All you have to do is keep from fretting it away early. It doesn’t do any good anyway, indoors especially. Avoid hassles; when you make a move, go around the problems and stay around them. You can run behind just fine so long as you don’t get lulled into a bad place late in the race. If you’re in a good spot, don’t panic even if you’re a little crowded. Hang in there and hum a little tune, talk to yourself, look at the girls, anything…just stay in contact and get yourself to a good position with two laps to go. Don’t wait until it’s too late to get to your spot. You just don’t make up really big gaps indoors, especially on this track.”

  “Yeah, it’s a little slow, isn’t it?”

  “It’s pretty bad for the sprinters, but okay for us. A little spongy is all. I don’t think it will affect you that much, but since you push off strongly from your calves you might try to get a little more float out of your stride, instead of trying to get oomph from the track. It doesn’t have it to give.”

  “Got it. Want to do some striders with me?”

  “Striders? Striders? Hell, I just did an 8:32 deuce and you want me to do striders with you just to keep you company?” He took off down the concrete hallway in a sprint, scattering runners in all directions. Cassidy smiled; it was always a great feeling to have it over with.

  “…FOUR LAPS TO GO and it’s O’Rork of East Tennessee, Philippe of Fordham, Ellison, Cassidy, Wheeler, and Hector Ortiz of Western Kentucky…”

  Cassidy tried to make his mind work. Eleven laps to the mile, two and three quarters equals one regular lap. Unaccustomed to gauging fatigue versus distance remaining on an indoor track, he had to make conversions as he went along. A runner is a miser, spending the pennies of his energy with great stinginess, constantly wanting to know how much he has spent and how much longer he will be expected to pay. He wants to be broke at precisely the moment he no longer needs his coin.

  He calculated: outdoors it would be the third lap. For the time being he was content to tuck in with the middle of the pack and wait for something to happen. The pace had not been impressive; Cassidy felt comfortable with it. They had gone through the half in 2:02 in a bunch. Each time he went by the far turn, Bruce Denton, archfan, was one voice among fifteen thousand who called just for him. Denton yelled things that were not in the least irritating like most of the things you hear during a race (things like “pick it up, pick it up” or “faster, faster, don’t let them get away”), things that make the runner think: If you think it’s so damn slow, why don’t you goddamn well get out here and “pick it up” yourself.

  Instead, Denton said: “Good pace, Cass, hang right there!” Or: “Good position, stay alert…” To the runner, traveling at a dizzying fifteen miles per hour around a tiny oval track, entranced by pace concentration, the idea of staying alert seemed positively brilliant.

  With no warning and but two laps to go, Kerry Ellison surged powerfully. His brown legs flashed smoothly as he let out a burst of brutal speed. Cassidy responded immediately by pulling out, but he had to wait for a straightaway to pass the two runners in front of him. Damn! Then he realized with a sinking heart what Denton had said to him on each of the last two laps: “Move up now. Move up now.”

  But he had not heeded. Now he was just where he didn’t want to be, in a bad position late in the race.

  The gun went off as they banked into the penultimate turn. By now Cassidy had pulled back to within ten yards of the flying Texan. With growing confidence he crept steadily up to Ellison’s shoulder, using the entire far straight to do it, but feeling—though fatigued from the pace—that he had spirit left. He had gotten out of the jam by responding immediately to Ellison’s bid and he seemed to have something left to throw into it. He was excited and just as curious as the spectators to find out what was going to happen. The crowd, on its feet since the crack of the gun, didn’t seem to care who won. They just wanted a race.

  The excitement of the approaching finish yarn, as always, caused a little prickly feeling at the back of his neck. Cassidy started to pass on the final turn, but just as he pulled up and began the effort, he heard Denton through the din: “NO!” That was all he said. This time Cassidy heard.

  He hung on Ellison’s shoulder all through the tiny turn and with a gasp flung himself out and into the final straight. Ellison was not finished either; he pumped smoothly and leaned into his final sprint. But Quenton Cassidy was by far the faster kicker. He easily gained seven yards on Ellison in the last straight. From the crowd came a subdued roar that signified the anticlimax. Denton jumped up onto the track and trotted up to where Cassidy was bent over in the familiar gasping position.

  “Don’t grab those knees, boy,” he shouted above the din. “Here are your sweats, get ’em on. But don’t you grab those knees, though, because you got to run a little of that off. You have just become the Wanamaker Mile champion and you got to let them know…”

  Cassidy’s face was the old fire-engine color and his breathing still desperate.

  “Know. What?” He tried to jog, but it felt as if his spine were made of bamboo. Nothing worked properly, lactic acid bound him into a solid block. He could not swing his arms.

  “That it feels GOOOOD!” Denton seemed much happier at the moment than his young friend.

  ON THE PLANE, Cassidy was a zombie again, smiling vacantly but apparently unable to assimilate what was going on around him. They had gone out to eat and hadn’t gotten to bed until two in the morning. Denton insisted they take a token morning run, so they clomped around stiffly in the gray Manhattan morning. Denton assured him most muggers did not work early.

  Cassidy barely made it to his seat. The stewardess woke him to ask if he wanted breakfast—he did—and woke him again a few minutes later when she brought it. When they arrived in Philadelphia, Denton woke him again.

  “Hey, champ, end of the line. All milers off.” Cassidy mumbled something and then snoozed while the other passengers slowly departed. He nodded off gently while Denton got a cab and then slept soundly all the way to the hotel as Denton sat in the front seat and chatted with the driver.

  “Whatz wrong wid yer buddy?” the driver asked.

  “Wanamaker’s Syndrome,” Denton said. “Subclinical. Real pity is, the guy used to be a fine athlete.”

  “Too bad,” clucked the driver.

  “HEY, RIP! Time for grub. Let’s get it on.” It was Denton again.

  Cassidy thought: H
e’s enjoying himself, there’s no doubt about it.

  “I don’t think I’m going to live,” he told Denton.

  “They’ve got great clam chowder at this place only a couple of blocks away,” said Denton, as he dressed. “Also a nice little rib-eye steak that I, for one, would not miss on a bet.”

  “What the hell is that?” Cassidy pointed out the window.

  “That, my boy, is snow. White stuff that falls from God. It won’t hurt you actually, as long as you don’t swallow any or carry it in your pocket. Some people claim it has magical powers. Try to put on long wooden planks and slide on it. Personally I don’t think it will catch on. Come on! Get your ass in gear, I’m starving.”

  Despite himself, once they were out in the cold air walking to the restaurant Cassidy started to feel better. After he had some tea, he tried to snap out of it altogether.

  “I don’t understand how I can have jet lag in my own time zone. How do you do this all winter?”

  “This?” Denton crumbled some crackers into his chowder. “This, my boy, is fine. This is your reward for getting into good shape early, because these Northern sharpies won’t fly you in from the coast or Florida to run in their shows unless they know you can produce. Hell, they could get a fairly respectable field in the mile or deuce from the New York–Boston area if they had to. We furnish an element of the exotic. You’d best get used to the idea if you keep winning. A 4:01.3 is not a bad time, indoors. Especially on that sponge-cake track in the Garden. That might be worth, oh—”

  “Come on, Bruce…”

  “That might be worth a three—”

  “Cut it out, Bruce!”

  “A 3:58 or so, Cass.” He looked up seriously from his chowder.

  Cassidy sipped his tea morosely. These things were not to be bantered about lightly. It was bad luck to put your mouth on times your feet couldn’t reach. Denton got up to talk to someone at the cashier.

  “Who was that?” Cassidy asked.

  “Someone who is going to make your evening interesting.”

  “Come on…”

  “Just don’t try any of that last straightaway kicking crap like last night or you’ll hear someone behind you snickering.”

  “Bruce, who…”

  “Sammy Bair.”

  “Shit.”

  THE PHILADELPHIA MEET was a classic second-meet-of-the-weekend letdown. Denton won in 8:44 from an undistinguished field and Cassidy ran 4:05.2 for second. Sam Bair didn’t laugh at him but he might as well have.

  By the time they were seated on the plane the next morning, Cassidy was back in his walking coma.

  “You gonna have breakfast?” chirped Denton as they strapped in. “I mean if you don’t want her to wake you…”

  “Bruce, you can have my goddamn breakfast. Why don’t you just try to cheer up a little?” He dropped off into a sleep that didn’t abate until they reached Atlanta, where they changed planes.

  He didn’t dream.

  15.

  Casualty

  THE SPLENETIC FIREPLUG OF A NURSE turned the page of her Cosmo juicily, saw it was going to get pretty good, and elected to take a pit stop before going on. The article was entitled: “Your S[exual] Q[uotient]: Rating Yourself in the Boudoir.”

  As soon as she toddled off, the vigilant Quenton Cassidy tossed aside his National Geographic (“I Lived With the Bagharack Mountain Apes” by Dr. Jane Tully-Wells, one for the neo-Freudians, he thought), grabbed the aromatic flat box, and sprinted for the stairwell. This was past visiting hours. This was illegal. This was keeno neato fun.

  He sashayed into Mizner’s room with the box on his upturned fingers, singing in a lusty though muted voice: “Cara mia whaaay…”

  Mizner: “Shhhh!”

  Cassidy moaned: “There’s a village called Surrentohhh…”

  Mizner: “That goddamn old bat of a—”

  “In the can.”

  “Oh.”

  Mizner sat up in bed, pale in his old sweatshirt, a faded dusty purple job with the traditional winged foot and the nearly illegible legend: POMPANO BEACH TRACK. Cassidy scurried around setting up. He stuffed a towel in the crack under the door. He pulled up a chair and produced with considerable flourish the two cans of beer, one from each pocket. Mizner applauded quietly. Had Cassidy stood still for just a moment and really looked at his friend, real tears might have slid down his fleshless cheekbones. Mizner was what they called a “Hurtin’ Swamp Dawg.” But he told Cassidy: “You brang sich joy into mah hort.” In a dreamy, nearly dopey voice this was.

  They attacked the disk, which—although containing mostly squashed tomatoes and fermented animal parts—the Italians will scarcely claim. Even after Mizner threw in his napkin, Cassidy kept on eating, primarily because he wanted something to do. He was still unstable here.

  “So tell me about Millrose, dammit. Every detail. Do not stint. Do not leave out a spike hole or a careless elbow,” Mizner said impatiently.

  “The Kernsville Sun captured it quite well actually,” Cassidy said, “following their normal tradition of printing straight wire copy, despite the fact two local heroes did good. Let’s see, Liquori scratched, bless his little heart. No furriners, for some reason—maybe immigration rounded ’em all up or something—just me and Ellison in the last lap. I kind of slipped up on him after the bell and when we got to the last straight I pulled the trigger. For a second I didn’t think anything was going to happen. Then it caught and I blew by him. I actually ended up getting him by seven, but he probably eased off when he saw I wasn’t going to come back to him. Bruce was beside himself. I think he has decided that he, you know, discovered me or something. Despite the fact that I had to run a 4:00.3 last year before he hardly said more than hello.”

  “How did his race go?”

  “Oh, he just blew them right off the track. Art Dulong, Drayton, and that guy from Minnesota. They were never even in it. He ran 8:32 like it was a workout.”

  Mizner shook his head. “It would have been great to see. Both of you.” But Cassidy knew what he was saying.

  “So what is the word here? Is it confirmed?”

  “Shit yes. They think maybe three, four months of no training. Even then it’s touch and go because of the possibility of relapses. But at least I get out of here pretty soon.”

  “Well, hey, at least you didn’t blow your eligibility. Except for cross-country.” Very quietly, this last.

  “Hey, listen. I already have a complete list of the silver linings. It’s the goddamn cloud that’s killing me.”

  “Yeah.” Cassidy looked at his feet. There were no good words for this one, he thought. A runner who could not run was out of his element. He would not even think of himself as an athlete; ridiculously there would be a kind of guilt about it; that was the worst part. He would begin to feel uncomfortable around his training comrades and the feeling would be mutual, like a newly wounded soldier among the embarrassed whole ones, who would not wish to be reminded of certain roll-the-dice aspects of life. Cassidy was not surprised when Mizner told him he was going to move out of Doobey Hall for the next quarter. This was getting them both down. Mizner sensed it and changed the subject.

  “What’s happening with all the yelling and screaming on the haircut rules?”

  “Hmmm. I wish I knew. It seems they are really serious about the thing. I hear they’ve been cracking down around Farley Hall, measuring sideburns with little rulers, making guys change shirts before they let them eat, stuff like that. Real, you know, brilliant stuff from the football minds over there. Even the football players are mad as hell. Nothing has happened at Doobey yet, but everyone figures they just haven’t quite gotten around to us.”

  “Jeez. And me stuck in the infirmary.”

  “Consider yourself lucky. That goddamn Hosford volunteered my room for some kind of rabble-rousing meeting tonight.” He looked at his watch irritably.

  “I guess I’d better go. They might set fire to my Kip Keino poster or something.” He tossed his
beer can into the trash can and winced as it clanged. He had forgotten.

  “Is there anything I can—”

  “Naw. I’ve got everything; the guys brought my books and stuff. You better take off. Thanks for the pizza; I’d kiss you but…”

  Cassidy laughed. “Then I’d catch it too and we could be roommates in here. Look, you take care of yourself, yuh hear? I know…I know, this is a pretty rough deal…”

  “Well, the tour was getting to me a little, you know? I mean Akron one night, Utica the next. Now at least I can take the time to work on my steps and follow-through.”

  “And coming over the ball, don’t forget to come over the ball…”

  Mizner laughed. “No doubt. Hey Cass, really, congratulations on Millrose. I think it’s just great. You should have heard me when I read the paper Saturday morning. They thought I had slipped and broken my ass on the way to the john or something.” Cassidy nodded, smiled at him, and turned for the door just as it opened brusquely. The white-stockinged fireplug stood glaring at him.

  “You!” she cried. Cassidy leaned over and solemnly kissed her on the forehead, then sprinted out the door dodging a relatively serious swat with her rolled-up Cosmo.

  On the way back to Doobey, walking along with his hands jammed in his pockets, away from the chilly evening, he was filled with loss and an off-brand of nostalgia for events that were supposed to become part of his past but now wouldn’t at all. In the mind’s special processes, a ten-mile run takes far longer than the sixty minutes reported by a grandfather clock. Such time, in fact, hardly exists at all in the real world; it is all out on the trail somewhere, and you only go back to it when you are out there.

  He and Mize had been through two solid years of such regular time-warp escapes together. There was something different about that, something beyond friendship; they had a way of sharing pain, of transferring hurt back and forth, without the banality of words.