Once a Runner Read online

  How polished mahogany could have such a debilitating effect upon the individual spirit, Cassidy could not figure, but that it did there was no doubt, for here beside him sat this quaking leather-fringed buffoon, sweating like a field hand and looking for all the world like he would leap straight up and grab on to a light fixture if someone so much as said “boo.” In fact, when the chancellor’s gavel went down with a thwack Nubbins popped up like overdue toast. Cassidy reached over with a reassuring lawyerly hand.

  “All right, next matter. What is this case?” said the chancellor.

  “Case number 72-3689, Your Honor. Student Body versus Jack Nubbins. Three witnesses. WAC of ninety-eight percent.”

  The judge looked up from the papers he was studying and made a low whistle, obviously impressed.

  “Ninety-eight percent, why, that would be a…”

  “That’s right, Your Honor, a…”

  “…record, wouldn’t it?”

  “Record, yes, sir. We checked.”

  They brought if off with such pristine sincerity, these volunteer thespians, that Cassidy swelled with pride. He had written all the lines himself for this far-Off-Broadway production and his people were doing him proud. They all (except Cassidy) had scripts in front of them in legal folders, but no one seemed to need them.

  The script at this point called for the judge to request the prosecutor to approach the bench. This gave Cassidy a chance to lean over and inform Nubbins that this judge was not the one he usually dealt with. There was mention of illness. They would have to feel their way along but not to worry because—

  “Mr. Cassidy,” the chancellor was interrupting. “I think it only fair to inform you that I will not allow you to get away with the kind of monkeyshines that I understand are your very trademark.”

  “Judge, I’m just a simple country lawyer and I’m sure that the Court knows I would never stoop to—”

  “You know precisely what I mean. Just watch it!”

  “Yes, sir!” Cassidy leaned over and whispered to Nubbins: “I was afraid of something like this.”

  As the hearing went on, Cassidy did not look at any of his confederates around the room. If their eyes locked for more than a split second, great uncontrollable quakes would start deep in his diaphragm and, if unchecked, very quickly the whole mad, delicately balanced façade would crumble in premature hilarity. To cover himself, a few times he feigned coughing spells. He needn’t have gone to the trouble, actually, for Nubbins, sensing things were not going well for the home team, was staring straight ahead in a melancholy trance. He now knew his lawyer, brilliant though he might be, was out of favor with this particular judge. Even as Cassidy rose to voice his objections, he was being overruled. And Nubbins could not remember having stumbled upon a human being, a total stranger at that, who obviously felt such open and hostile loathing for him as the natty prosecutor. It was hard to imagine that the fellow did not have some grave mental problem, such was his rancor. It seemed as though he might at any moment leap across counsel table and come at Nubbins with a hidden dagger. But apparently this cruel and clever antagonist had no need for such weapons; his objections were universally taken under consideration and just as universally sustained by the smiling judge. With each such telling point the prosecutor would look over, resplendent in his ensemble, and openly sneer at Nubbins and his obviously overrated attorney. Nubbins was going deeper and deeper into a kind of shock. He had never been in a situation where the cards had been so obviously, so inexorably, so uniformly stacked against him. His attorney, he now realized, was fighting a holding action against implacable odds; he was simply outmanned by the same immutable stars that had brought Nubbins into this courtroom in the first place.

  Everyone was due for an unmitigated shitstorm at some time in his life, Nubbins figured, and this was clearly his turn.

  Attorney Cassidy, struggling valiantly in this lost cause, was making motions that the entranced Nubbins could not have possibly paid any attention to, else he would have detected the faint but unmistakable aroma of rotten halibut on the breeze.

  “Your Honor, I would like to make a motion e pluribus unum—”

  “I object! He can’t move for e pluribus unum in this proceeding. There isn’t even a jury empaneled!”

  “Sustained.”

  “Well then, Judge, I would like to request a quid pro quo in order to—”

  “Objection! Clearly improper before the defendant takes the stand.”

  “Sustained. Mr. Cassidy, I must warn you, sir! Please sit down!”

  This went on long enough for Nubbins to clearly get the drift. Then Cassidy requested a recess in order to discuss something important with his client. Even this request was only grudgingly granted. As a group, all the court personnel, the spectators, and even Nubbins’s timid girlfriend (sensing somehow that it was the thing to do) rumbled out of the room leaving lawyer and client alone in the large chamber. Cassidy, his borrowed horn-rims cocked up on his forehead, rubbed his weary lawyer eyes.

  “Well, Jack, I guess you can see things aren’t going so hot.”

  “Yeah, that judge doesn’t like you one little bit. And the prosecuting one! What’s he got against me anyway? I don’t know him from Adam’s nephew.”

  “Just doing his job, Jack, doing his job. But the chancellor. I think we may have a chance with him. He seems perturbed that we’re dragging this thing out with a full-blown trial. Another lawyer told me once he likes to see people come in and lay it on the line. Otherwise, if you go through a trial and he still finds you guilty, he really throws the book at you.”

  “What do you think we ought to do?”

  “I’m thinking we ought to go ahead and plead guilty and throw ourselves on the mercy of the court.” Steady, he thought. Burst out laughing now and you’ll blow the whole thing.

  “Well, you’re the boss, you know that. We’ve come this far…”

  “Listen, Jack, I want you to know—”

  “Hey, I know. Listen, I thought you were doing a great job. Some of those motions, man…”

  “Yeah. I should have won a couple of them at least. Anyway, let’s give it a go. And Jack…”

  “Yeah?”

  “Remember, no matter what happens, I was there when you needed me.” They shook hands solemnly. Nubbins was still sure he had a fine lawyer. Cassidy notified the bailiff and everyone was called back in. Defense counsel advised the Court that his client wished to change his plea to guilty as charged, and to ask for the mercy of the Court. He could barely get the words out. He dared not look at anyone as he spoke; they were all holding it together with sheer willpower.

  The judge seemed relieved by this announcement and thanked Cassidy for sparing the Court a “long and arduous trial.” He then thanked the court personnel for their hard work. He requested that Nubbins rise with his attorney while he pronounced sentence. Since Cassidy had put several hours of work into the sentencing speech, he was gratified to see it delivered with the loving attention of a fine performer.

  “Mr. Nubbins,” the chancellor began, removing his spectacles, “I must admit that I have often wondered why we so seldom see athletes in here, what with all the speculation that goes on about the ethics of those who reside in Farley Hall. I know I should not let my personal feelings become involved, but I’ve always sensed that you jocks think you run this institution. Now, I’m not a varsity athlete myself, Mr. Nubbins—oh, in high school I played a little basketball and was conference champion in the two hundred butterfly, but I guess when they got around to handing out the scholarships…Oh well, that’s neither here nor there. What I’m here to tell you this evening, Mr. Nubbins, is that I am now a serious student here at Southeastern, and there are many of us serious students here, Mr. Nubbins, students who don’t get their way paid by rich uncle over in Farley Hall, read me? It’s too bad that you have to bear the brunt for all the ones who have done the same thing you have and gotten away with it, but I don’t know any other way to bring the message
home that you jocks don’t run this campus!”

  He paused, as if regaining his composure somewhat, and added as an almost understood afterthought: “We politicos do.”

  “This is your sentence, Mr. Nubbins: you are hereby suspended from this university indefinitely.”

  There was a perfect silence in the courtroom.

  Such was the demented sincerity of this last diatribe that many of the onwatchers, though they knew it was a farce, were actually a little mortified at the chancellor’s rancor. There was much sullen gaping going on, as if no one knew exactly how to end the whole ordeal. Nubbins just stood quaking, his mouth a small, dark cave. He stared unbelieving at the still-bristling judge.

  Suddenly the “court photographer” ran out of the spectator’s section, snapped a flash picture of Cassidy and Nubbins, and scurried back. Cassidy could no longer control himself. Weakly, he bent at the waist, held his stomach with both hands, and began making deep, resonant yelps not unlike the fierce mating call of the male peacock. Nubbins looked over at him; his own lawyer found the penalty so harsh he could not keep from laughing!

  That broke the dam, of course, and the entire courtroom was quickly engulfed in a giant spasm of raucous laughter. With a wild clamor, the teary-eyed actors and half-paralyzed spectators began stumbling over feebly to shake hands with the defendant and pound his back gleefully.

  The little runner’s wide eyes did not blink as his head swiveled back and forth, a berserk lighthouse. He thought, How can anyone be so cruel as to actually enjoy seeing me get booted out of school? And my own lawyer is still laughing; did he find it amusing too?

  Even the judge, black robes flowing, came down and threw his arm around Nubbins’s shoulders, barking all the while.

  Betty Sue sat amid the considerable confusion with a vague smile on her face, wondering what in the bejesus was going on. She knew one thing: old Jack had done something wonderful and she was very proud.

  14.

  Indoors

  WINTER ARRIVED in the Panhandle in its usual desultory fashion; a time of bright, cool days, chilly rains, fading landscapes. The harsh glare of those cloudless days muted the grass, the moss-draped oaks, and sometimes the higher callings of the spirit.

  “It is easier to train hard up North,” Denton told them. “Snow is snow. You either run in it or you don’t. It gives you something to go against, an irritant. But also a stimulus, if you know what I mean. Down here the freezing rain runs down your neck one day, next day you’d think spring had sprung in January.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” Cassidy asked.

  “Such a winter is always getting your hopes up.”

  But winter was the indoor season and for Cassidy it was a time of renewed hopes. He had had his cross-country drubbings; now he longed to turkey-trot a victory lap.

  “I’ve just had an odd thought,” said Cassidy, looking out the oval porthole, enjoying the crisp, heady vacuum of jet flight.

  “Do tell.” Denton looked up from his botany journal.

  “Here we are flying several miles high across the Eastern seaboard—look, that must be Savannah—flying across the Eastern seaboard a couple of thousand miles at a cost of several hundreds of dollars so that we can take off our street clothes, put on little kangaroo-skin slippers that weigh about three ounces each, and shag ass around a little board track for exactly one mile—two in your case. And there are these people, thousands of them, who live in skyscrapers of block and glass, and who will pay money to come and watch us do it. This is the culmination of man’s technology, zipping us along at six hundred miles per hour…”

  “Maybe it just means that civilization has progressed to the point where it can afford even the most esoteric of specialties, even in sports. We are the athletic equivalent of pickled bees knees in the gourmet section at the Winn Dixie.”

  “Hah.” This last took Cassidy by surprise. He looked over and Denton smiled back sweetly, letting Cassidy know once more that there are some people you do not take for granted, even for a second.

  Cross-country had ended surprisingly. At the AAU National Championships in Chicago’s Washington Park, Cassidy, to his own great surprise, kept the leaders in view almost the entire race, finishing with frozen slush halfway up his calves in fifteenth place, four ahead of Mizner. He had never beaten the younger runner at any distance over two miles. Denton won the race with such ease that the other top cross-country men, stacked up in the finish chute, simply shook their heads in discouragement even as they bent to their knees still gasping from the effort. Denton seemed more delighted with Cassidy’s finish than he was to win yet another national title. He even did a little jig as Cassidy, sprinting through the mud to edge out an Oregon runner, sailed into the chute with a grimace. A few seconds later they were all standing around in the slush, laughing though still out of breath, kicking mud at one another. Even Mizner, disappointed as he was, seemed to have a good time, though Cassidy could see he was worried.

  Cross-country, to Cassidy’s immense relief, was over for another year.

  “IN LANE SIX, wearing number 278, from Southern California, the PAC champion…”

  The announcer was going into the introduction for the two-mile, the longest running event in the Millrose Games in Madison Square Garden. Cassidy jogged out onto the track to take Denton’s sweats from him. The other two-milers milled around with constrained nervousness; some trotted back and forth in their lanes, some bounced up and down. It was a time of cruel stress. One race represented months of training; each step the product of many miles of preparation. They would have thought of this race countless times, some of them running it in bits and pieces during interval training or overdistance. They would have thought of creeping up to Denton’s shoulder with a lap to go; that sort of fantasy could get them through long hours on the roads at night. But with the starting gun only seconds away, their heads were roaring with anticipation and anguish. They wanted to be into it. They wanted to be over it. The race itself was bearable, for that they had trained. The waiting, however, was hell on square wheels. Denton handed Cassidy the navy blue sweat top with USA in red and white piping, a status symbol, the sign of a member of a national team. Two other runners in the field wore the same kind of sweats; this would not be a stroll.

  “Hang in there,” Cassidy said quietly.

  “Yeah.” Denton was glazed over in concentration, even for a race that he surely couldn’t consider very important. He was not a classical indoor runner; both he and Cassidy were too tall to maneuver the banked turns as easily as the shorter runners. And Denton never, never took a race for granted. Though he said little, Cassidy knew he was appreciative of having someone there to offer small comforts.

  “In lane three, two-time AAU six-mile champion, one-time three-mile champion, twice a member of our Olympic team…”

  They were getting into the heavies now. Cassidy took the sweats, swatted Denton on the rear, and jogged to the infield to watch.

  “And in lane one…”

  The crowd was already beginning to rumble.

  “…representing Southeastern University Track Club and the United States…” It was difficult to hear now. “…ladies and gentlemen, the Olympic gold medalist in the five-thousand-meter run…” Bruce Denton trotted forward in his lane with a serene little wave even though he had not heard his name. No one had. This was what that one perfectly executed race and the thousands of miles of training it required had earned him: the right to have his name lost in the uncontrolled frenzy of this crowd. Denton was thinking: I only won by three yards.

  Such adulation had roared down for him many times since he first heard it sprinting down the straightaway in the Olympic stadium. He would surely hear it many times again in his life. But as Denton trotted out and wistfully accepted it once more, Quenton Cassidy thought his smile seemed sad indeed.

  “…and entering the final lap now, ladies and gentlemen…” The starter’s gun went off with a loud crack: gun lap. “…Gold medalist Br
uce Denton followed by…” It was all meaningless. The pack was a full half-lap behind, running for places. Denton cavorted. He ran wide up on the banked turn and zipped back down onto the straightaway, playing roller coaster. Cassidy shook his head. Here he was racing some of the best distance men in the country, and he was playing around.

  When Denton crossed the finish line, Cassidy trotted up alongside and handed him the sweats. Denton, despite the ease with which be had won, was in no condition to talk; he took the sweats, grinned at Cassidy, and jogged on. He occasionally waved as a section of the audience stood to cheer when he passed beneath them. Cassidy shook his head, ran slowly to the outer hallway to complete his warm-up; his race was in thirty-five minutes, according to the almost universally unreliable schedule.

  Cassidy had ripped the order of events out of the program and was careful to check his watch often. By listening to the announcer, he would be able to tell how far behind the meet was running and thus time his warm-up accurately. The large cold hallway did not make a complete circuit, but it was roomy; brightly colored sweat suits flashed by at various speeds. Cassidy had jogged the elliptical half-circle three times by the time Denton came out to find him. Even now his face was red, his voice hoarse from the harsh smoky air.

  “Want company?” It was a rhetorical question. Here in this chilly, foreign environment, with so many talented athletes everywhere, it was easy to get psyched out. Cassidy knew no one here except Bruce. He was already beginning to ask himself the eternal self-doubt question: What Am I Doing Here? But now he wasn’t just some nobody in a Southeastern University sweat suit jogging back and forth, he was “the guy with Bruce Denton.” His stride took on a proud bounce.