Once a Runner Read online

  It was the kind of scene Cassidy would have reveled in before, but the roar was now a tiny faraway buzz in his skull, 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, slightly 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 rubdown smell of wintergreen and sweat was as familiar to him as the musky woodiness of his old 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 multihued sweat suits 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 job back and forth in their lanes, some would jiggle their fingers, some would jump up and down (all this more habitual 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 things 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 one another 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 in 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 teenyboppers 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 fifty-seven or fifty-eight, 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 sixty; they won’t be cheering for some goddamn 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 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 halfway through it. He would have run the first half mile faster than he could run a half mile flat out in high school (1 9.2) 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 times to look back on and try to laugh about or just forget. The third lap was to be endured and endured and endured.

  Cassidy reached the home straight again, thinking, No matter how bad it is, I can’t let it lag here, whatever the cost. If I have to lead the whole mothering thing, I can’t let it lag here. Then he was walking back by the post for what would be the gun lap. As soon as the pistol cracked, he would feel a tingling on the back of his neck and the adrenaline would shoot through his system again. A quarter of a mile to go and he would become a competitive athlete again, looking around to size up the situation, leaning a little into his stride and once again, even through the numbing haze then gripping his body, feeling pride in his strength.

  Cassidy walked through the turn, pumping his arms a little, thinking of the nervous crowd noises as the pace began to pick up. Perhaps there would be only a small group left in it now; three, four maybe. But they would all have ambitions; no one ever ran down the back straight of the gun lap with the leaders without thinking he had a shot at it. On Cassidy walked, along the lonely straight imagining the bristling speed as the pace heated up; there would be some last-second evaluations, some positioning and repositioning, and then finally the kicks, one by one or all at once, blasting away for the tightly drawn yarn across the finish line. Into the turn with only a 330 to go, everyone would be into it by then, everyone still in contention. Walton was known to kick from more than a 440 out, so surely his hand would be on the table. Coming out of the final turn just at the place Landy turned to look for the elusive Bannister, Cassidy walked into the final 110 straight and thought, Here, as they say, it will be all over but the shouting; you will fight the inclination to lean backward, fight to keep the integrity of the stride, not let overeager limbs flail around trying to get more speed, just run your best stride like you have trained ten thousand miles to do and don’t for God’s sake let up here until the post is behind you. The die would be cast here, and no praying or cheering or cajoling or whimpering would change it. He had lost in this final straight before, but not as much as he had won here; neither held much in the way of fear or surprise once you were there. Such matters, as Denton had often said, were settled much earlier: weeks, months, years before, they were settled on the training fields, on the ten-mile courses, on the morning workout missed here or made up there. Other than maintaining and leaning at the tape, Denton had told him, there is not much you can do about it. Heart has nothing to do with it. In the final straight, everyone has heart.

  Cassidy walked on past the finish line, across which someone would hold the taut yarn and blink as the runners flashed by. It was still more than twenty-four hours away, but standing there in the calm anonymous night five yards past the familiar white post, Quenton Cassidy knew at that instant the depth of his frenzied yearning to feel the soft white strand weaken and separate against his heaving chest.

  The demons were now in control; it no longer made him afraid.

  36.

  The Race

  THE NOISE from the stadium carried out here but Cassidy didn’t pay much attention. He liked doing most of the warm-up ritual out on the cross-country course where he could think. The routine itself was automatic: four miles easy; then long, flowing striders, another mile easy, faster striders, then on with the spikes, some sprints on the track, then jog until time. It was the roar in his head he had to fight.

  It had to be contained, suppressed, released only in that slow crescendo of calculated frenzy that would crest when the pistol cracked and he unleashed it all. The orb now floated gently in his mind, glistening, peaceful, hard as spun steel. It would hold all grief, all despair, all the race-woes of a body going to the edge; it would allow him to do what he had to do until there was nothing left.

  Yes, he had decided long ago it was better to get ready out here, where things were quieter, more normal, more like his everyday routine. Trying to warm up in the stadium, being close to the crowd, would make him jittery, causing the roar in his head to build in spurts, getting him there too early. It might upset the orb and when the despair descended on him he would have no place to put it. Or he might be in such a lunatic state as to turn the first 220 in twenty-five seconds out of sheer screaming hysteria. No, it was better out here, where it was quiet, where he could get ready in the same way he had done all the rest; it gave some comfort, this last bit of tranquility.

  He jogged slowly by the married-student housing area, watching little children play under the trees. It was the eerie, almost magic, postdinner hour when time stands still for a child, when all existence floats in a cool gray bath of dying day and Order is mercifully drawn from a chaotic infinity by a mother’s come-home call.

  “Erica! Jeremy!” Two little figures scuttled away in the shadows. He was getting farther and farther from the stadium, but he had plenty of time. Some other runners passed in pairs and threes, but no one spoke. One nodded at Cassidy but looked puzzled. What would they be thinking about this bearded Finn with the ragged blond hair?

  Would they think they recognized him from some Track & Field News photo?

  Cassidy jogged on. It was early-May warm and subtropical flowers ruled the air dizzily: the kind of evening so heavy with promise as to make him wonder if his life could ever be quite the same again as it was now, while he was so vital, so quick, so nearly immortal; while his speed and strength were such that he could be called out by only a handful of men on earth. Surely there could not be that many of us walking around like this, he thought.

  He felt a strange brand of nostalgia now that it was so close; a nostalgia for this moment, for this next hour. The present was so poignant he had begun to reminisce already. He thought of Michelangelo’s David pondering the stone: David wondering too if life would ever be the same.

  He was about to go to the edge, had every bit of the wherewithal to get to the edge. The inevitability of his journey there was never very far from his mind now; he knew that before too very long he would be in mortal distress.

  The time you won your town the race, we chaired you through the marketplace, he thought. Then a burst for twenty yards just to enjoy the sensation of sudden unleashed speed. He felt both flushed and tired. That was common. You never really know how you feel, he thought, until the second lap. Sometimes not even then. Sometimes you don’t even know until the last lap, the stiller town.

  When he reached Lake Alice, he slowed to a walk and then stopped altogether. He stretched out on the grass and did hurdles and butterflies. Stretching was always a pleasant indulgence.

  Then he undid the vertical zippers along the legs of his warm-ups and felt up and down both Achilles tendons. All the knots and lumps were gone. Soft trails, he thought; goddamn Denton and those beautiful soft trails. He had made it through the winter okay, only two colds and no real injuries. He was a man without an alibi.

  Two runners in Villanova sweats went by, but he didn’t recognize either of them. From far off the crowd yelled as someone cleared a height or broke the tape in a sprint preliminary, and his own body responded by dumping a shot of adrenaline into his system. He caught it quickly. Not yet, he thought, not even close yet.

  It was a time for daydreams; the roar in his head was far off now and building, but it would grow on its own. The problem now was control.

  There had been a local race
a long time ago, a five-miler late in the summer. As the runner tooled along the bicycle path on the Palm Beach side of Lake Worth he was sweating profusely; it flew off in arcs on every stride. True, he was not in very good shape yet, but it was far too early to worry about it. It was still summer and deathly hot.

  The child stopped him right in his tracks. It was about a mile after he had made the turn at the Sailfish Club. The kid could have been no more than six or seven, and as he walked toward the runner, it was apparent there was something wrong with him; he moved without flow, all angles and juts. The runner thought: he’s so pale. But the child was just beaming. Wispy hair fell back into place as the hot wind blew through it, clear blue eyes stared at Cassidy without fear or self-consciousness. Cassidy stood gasping, dripping puddles of sweat onto the asphalt. He tried his best to beam back. Through his gasping he couldn’t help chuckling at how silly this was.

  “Hello,” Cassidy said.

  “Hello,” the child said happily. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m running a race. What’s your name?”

  “Allan.” The child laughed, put a small hand to his mouth, so thin as to seem transparent. The runner looked over his little legs for braces but saw none. The left shoe, however, seemed bulkier on the bottom than the other.

  “A race?” The child laughed again, obviously wary of being teased. “But where are your opponents?” He said it “oh-po-nuts.”

  “Oh.” The runner gestured back toward the Sailfish Club. “They’ll be right along.” The child cocked his head in a very curious, nearly feminine manner, but he was still beaming.

  “You,” he said, “run like a big cat.” The runner swallowed.

  “You,” Cassidy said, “are the finest fellow I have run across all morning, Allan. And I guess I’d better be getting along before my oh-po-nuts come along.”