Once a Runner Page 18

  “Cass, what in the world are you doing?” She gestured in a general manner, taking in the rain, the night, the silliness of it all. She seemed amused.

  “Thought I would come to see you.”

  “But you’re drenched. You’ve been standing—”

  “I saw your light wasn’t on, so I decided to wait for a while.”

  She tilted her head in amusement, like she used to do all the time, and finally put her arms around him. He seemed not to know what to do. She was getting drenched now too, but seemed not to notice.

  She thought: He’s harder now, even than before, all cartilage and bone and skin. She wondered if he was eating right; perhaps he would make himself sick. Something moved deep inside her and she had to stifle it willfully.

  “I, uh, guess I was missing you,” he said with his chin on her wet forehead, “and I suppose I got sick and tired of it all and just bolted on in here…” Something occurred to her and she leaned back away from him.

  “You ran here!” It sounded like an accusation. He was puzzled.

  “Yeah, I—”

  “You ran into town from out there, twelve miles. And it’s been raining like crazy all—”

  “I don’t have a car out there and—”

  “Cass, you ran twelve miles in the rain to get here and you’re going to have to run twelve miles back unless you call a cab or something…” He appeared unconcerned.

  “It’s my overdistance day anyway. Listen, Andrea, I wanted to talk to you because…are you listening?” She was shaking her head.

  “Yes,” she said softly.

  “The last time we seemed to be like strangers. I’ve been feeling so horrible about the whole thing, I just get so frustrated that we can’t seem to get anything straight…”

  “Cass, I thought we had been all through that.”

  “I just keep thinking there must be some way to put it, some way that would allow you to understand.”

  “I think I understand.” She looked into his eyes and thought that though once they seemed to balance the hardness of the rest of him, now they added to it.

  “I think I’ve always understood,” she said. “I just don’t think I can live with it. Sometimes it seems too much for you too.” He looked down, shook the rain from his forehead. She was nearly drenched now too.

  “Don’t you want to come in?” she asked.

  “No. I’ll be going, I guess. I’m starting to get chilled.”

  “Cass,” she said, pulling him to her again. “What is this all going to get you? You’ve dropped out of school, you’re not going to graduate with your class, you—”

  “I ran a 3:58.6 mile the other night.”

  “What?”

  “No race or anything. Just Bruce out there with a stopwatch and me, at ten o’clock at night. I had to go around the joggers even. Funny, I always dreamed how it would be going under four the first time, lining up, the pace, how the crowd would get excited when we came through the three quarters under three minutes…” He looked at her with a sad little smile. “But there it was, just me and Bruce—and a bunch of joggers wondering what in the hell was going on. Just another goddamn workout…” There was something that sounded vaguely like satisfaction in his voice.

  “Quenton, why don’t you come back into town? Where does it say you have to live like this, make yourself miserable like this?”

  “It will all be over soon anyway. I’ll be running Walton next month.”

  “And then what? You’ve already said you can’t win. Even your exalted Bruce Denton says that. So then what do you do? Go back to your little cave and keep driving yourself until you are the one they talk about, the one they are afraid of? Is that what’s important to you? Or maybe you’d be content to just go crazy trying? Then no one could say you compromised, could they? If something inside you just snapped?”

  He looked down. She knew then he would not fight with her.

  Then she did something that was not quite her and that did not work very well. It was a mistake and she knew it right away but it was such a precisely feminine gesture that it was perhaps dictated by some ancient genetic pattern she was helpless to control. With a pained little toss of the head she wrenched free and ran toward the porch; it was one of those shabby you’d-better-come-after-me-now gestures and she knew by the time she got to the porch that it was a bad show all the way around.

  She turned to call, to try to take it back, perhaps.

  But the runner had disappeared in the darkening rain.

  30.

  Whirlpool

  MARY LOU HUNSINGER sat in the gurgling whirlpool, checking her eyeliner in a small mirror; outside it still rained like a bitch. At that very moment somewhere out in the glistening night, a homeward-bound Quenton Cassidy came upon, was startled by, and hopped over a poor black snake trying to keep from drowning by crawling up to the high ground represented by State Road 26. Cassidy was just about halfway home.

  Mary Lou’s frown, of late an almost permanent fixture on her otherwise attractive face, was now a pouty badge of impatience at Dick Doobey, whom she thought rather a clod. On the home front her mother would be getting dinner for her two slope-headed sons, which meant that by the time she finally arrived, they would be as mean as a pack of starving blue jays (Mary Lou knew very well that as evil as the boys were, her mother was a shrew in her own right; she didn’t even mean well).

  She considered these bubbly interludes more or less in the line of duty. Not that she didn’t take some basic carnal pleasure in them, but they required massive revetting of her expensively maintained hairdo. For all of its architectural integrity her beehive tended to sag in this steamy sanctum in much the same way as Mary Lou’s own flagging hopes.

  In this surreal chamber he brought her all manner of world-weariness, from his cold, church-crazed wife to the latest technical esoterica of his chosen profession. She bore it all with goodwill and no small effort to comfort and counsel. But what, after all, was she supposed to know about the weakside linebacker’s responsibility in defensing the quarterback option out of the wishbone? As to the other, she had no difficulty whatever in flatly recommending that Doobey drop his “dry-hole little bitch” in order to take up with Mary Lou herself in some kind of more widely sanctioned arrangement. It was a scenario she had come to think of as the only nonfelonious way she would ever get out from under those killing monthly payments to five trusting department stores, two “friendly” small loan companies, and “the Master Charge,” all of which her former mate—a two-fisted, bourbon-crazed paint and body man—had been so thoughtless as to leave as his only enduring legacy.

  “Paint and body men’s like a nationwide brotherhood, hon,” he would warn ominously. “I could be in Tucson on Wednesday pulling down a hunnert and fifty dollars a day like that!” He would snap his stained fingers cockily. “Like doctors,” he would say. “Always in demand.” When he finally did take off, he had sense enough not to go to Tucson.

  The powdery pink flamingo on the front lawn now seemed a mocking reminder of more opulent days when she had nothing better to do than to hop in the station wagon and go shoppin’ to her heart’s content. She never looked at the sun-faded little plaster bird standing forlornly on its rusting pipestem leg without wondering where it was exactly she had gone so wrong. They never mentioned this in Home Ec.

  Wrestling with the viscous mathematical intricacies of 18 percent per annum interest, compounded monthly in accordance with federal statutes, she was driven first to secretarial work (she hated waitressing) and thence to Dick Doobey’s private whirlpool.

  The head coach finally arrived and let himself in with his own key. The strain of his staff meeting was still on his face. He apologized with the profuse sincerity of a man unquestionably willing to debase himself in order to maintain a good thing.

  “That’s all right, honey,” she said. “I got nothin’ better to do but sit here and get my little love button parboiled.”

  A flash of uncomplicated lus
t shot through Dick Doobey’s loins as she giggled at her own line. Doobey noticed that she had brought a quart bottle of Southern Comfort, which now sat on the moist floor beside an open can of ginger ale. He made a grimace.

  She watched him undress with contained distaste. He had long ago lost the trimness that was a by-product of his athletic days; his arms and neck were unattractively sunburned to the edges of his short-sleeved shirt, much in the manner of a gas station attendant.

  His stomach rolled around loosely, the result of his long afternoons on the high pyramidal coaching tower, looking stern while drinking Budweiser (hidden in a Styrofoam Gatorade holder!), ostensibly surveying his minions scattered about the twenty-five-acre practice fields—a general watching his field commanders through powerful binoculars—but in actuality keeping a rather dutiful eye on Simmons Hall, the nursing school dormitory, where one could (were one extremely diligent) catch an occasional flash of nubile young breast or mouthwatering young thigh.

  Dick Doobey loved his work.

  He simply couldn’t understand why some critics would wish to cause him anguish by suggesting that he was not doing a good job and should go away. He sincerely suspected communist influence of some kind.

  When he had finally shed his damp garments and was settling his white bottom slowly into the scalding water opposite Mary Lou, he had managed to put out of his mind the distress of his latest staff meeting, where he had unhappily discovered once more that his staff was almost as much in the dark as he was. Football was becoming a damned complicated game and Doobey figured there was probably some foreign influence behind that as well. Some people were suggesting that they get soccer players to kick field goals. It was madness.

  “How did it go, hon?” she asked, shifting around to allow room for his considerable bulk. He was almost settled now, leaning back and heaving a sigh of relief.

  “Aw shit, honey, I don’t know. I wanted that stumpfucker Erickson to read up some on this new wishbone formation—’member the one I tole you about where they can shift from weakside to strongside and run a option off the…no? Honey, I just tole you about it last week.”

  “Well, goddamn, angel, you know I don’t remember that kinda stuff very well.”

  “Oh, well, it don’t matter anyway,” he said, sinking now to his neck in the roiling water. “I’ll just have to do it myself, like everything else.” He smiled at that, and began probing for her with his big toe.

  “Now, honey, don’t you want a drink or somethin’?” she asked.

  “Of that sweet horse piss?” He continued probing. She dodged with precision, as her sex learns to do at an early age in the republic. A thought struck her.

  “Hon, I finished typing that talk for tomorrow, it’s on your desk if you want to take it home tonight.”

  “Christamighty. I forgot about that altogether.” The misery he had almost shed now settled on him again and Mary Lou was sorry she had said anything.

  “I wish I had some way to get outa that thing,” he said mournfully.

  “Why do you have to do it?”

  “Old Man Prigman, uh, required it. Told me I’d never make conductor until I could face my own music. But Lord, standing up there in the plaza while a bunch of them snippy long-haired twats ask a bunch of asshole questions. Most of ’em don’t even go to football games!”

  “I thought that stuff was over.”

  “Over, hell. They still got that whatever they call it, Conscription of Athletes or whatever the hell they call themselves. Prigman said there wasn’t a goddamn thing we could do about it except ignore it. Can you beat that? Here in America, and you can’t do anything about people getting together to bad-mouth football!”

  “Why can’t you get rid of ’em?”

  “Prigman said if we didn’t nip it in the bud with that damn track guy, we would have to learn to live with it. Said we couldn’t start throwing all of ’em out, it’d look too bad in the press. But boy, if I was runnin’ the show…”

  He rubbed his hands over his bristly head as if in some deep pain. “They keep issuing these mother-lovin’ press releases. Jeezus!”

  “Aw, honey,” she said, taking his left foot, massaging gently. Slowly she worked her way up the hairy calf.

  “There’s gotta be something to do. I cain’t keep up with all this stuff and operate a goddamn 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 softly, still working upward. “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 softcover 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 stack of 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 sitting 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 Lookee 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 sophistication. 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’ fifty-seven-second quarters in morning workouts. But mostly…” 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-whate
ver-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 hay balers, if that’s their fondest desire. So long, of course, as they don’t do it in front of the 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 jollies have to do with anything? So what if I’m out here whipping my wire fifteen 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 couldn’t help laughing. “How about the Hem’s Michigan stories I brought?” he gestured back toward the 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 shitload 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 alone too long.

  “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 panty hose, a place with that hallmark of civilization, a salad bar with fake bacon bits…”