The Runner

by Cynthia Voigt

  He dialed, and waited through the long ringing: The phone was on his father’s desk. Finally, his mother picked it up. “It’s me,” he said. “I’m calling to say I won’t be home until later.”

  “Bullet?” she asked.

  “Yeah. I’m having dinner in town.”

  She waited a few seconds. “That has nothing to do with me,” she said.

  “I know that,” he answered, irritated.

  “Just so you do,” she snapped.

  Then Bullet grinned into the phone. He knew what it was. The old man was right there listening, and she was making it clear to him, and to Bullet, where she stood. “Are we alone?” he whispered loudly into the phone.

  She didn’t know what to say, he could hear that. He waited. He could almost hear her thinking.

  “You,” she said.

  “Me,” he agreed. They hung up.

  CHAPTER 16

  Patrice set two plates on the table: pieces of chicken, a mound of white rice with the butter yellowing it, the bright red tomato halves baked until they were just browned on top and the little green peas. The chicken tasted crisp with bread crumbs, tangy with mustard, sweet with meat. “Good,” Bullet said.

  “Superb,” Patrice corrected him.

  They ate without speaking for a few minutes. Then Bullet said, “You were a guerilla. I didn’t know they had guerillas back then.”

  “Oh, the American education,” Patrice cried dramatically, without breaking the rhythm of his knife and fork. It was one of his favorite themes, how much Bullet hadn’t learned. “You have such ignorance.”

  “I wasn’t even alive then. How am I supposed to know?”

  “It is history, history and common sense. Perhaps you might not know history, but you should expect of yourself common sense. What does the Bible say? There is nothing new under the sun.”

  “So what?”

  “So you should know that guerilla warfare is as old as man. It is the method of the weaker side against the stronger. The Israelites used it to take Canaan, small bands of fighters, striking swiftly at a single objective, then withdrawing. Armies,” Patrice theorized, “are a modern development.”

  Bullet thought about that. “Un-unh,” he said. “That won’t hold. Alexander the Great used an army, with elephants, I remember that.”

  Patrice agreed with him.

  “And that Persian you told me about, with his ten thousand deathless soldiers.”

  “The anthanatoi, yes. Well, you are correct. So tell me, my friend, why you are no longer running.”

  “I am running.”

  “You are so precise. Let me rephrase it: Will you tell me why you are no longer running in the school races?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It is a change. And I think it does matter to you because you do it well. To me also, because I liked to think of you doing excellently well. And to read about you in the paper, which they send me free in the mail.”

  “The coach wanted me to train one of the other runners,” Bullet explained. “I told him I wouldn’t. He threw me off the team. That’s all,” Bullet said. “I’m still running.”

  “Do you mind this?”

  “Not really.” Bullet ate steadily.

  “Curious,” Patrice said. “Why didn’t you want to work with this other boy? You wouldn’t fear the competition, that I know. Did you think you weren’t an adequate trainer?”

  “I never thought about that side of it. No, the guy is colored is all. I probably could show him some stuff.”

  Patrice looked across the table at him, surprised. “Colored?”

  Bullet shrugged. He guessed they’d just never talked about coloreds, he and Patrice. The question never came up between them, and why should it? “I don’t mix with them, that’s all.”

  Patrice’s face, his eyes especially, looked amused.

  “What’s so funny about that?” Bullet demanded.

  Patrice bent his face to study his plate, hiding his expression. He cut the last of his chicken off the bone but did not lift his fork. “Your coach, what did he say to that?”

  “Just what you’d expect—about the team and winning.”

  “Ah. He wouldn’t know how little you think of those.”

  “Nope,” Bullet agreed, getting back to his food. He was looking forward to his second helpings. Patrice’s shoulders were shaking. “What is so damned funny?”

  “I am, myself, colored, as you call it.” Patrice looked up, laughing.

  “That’s not funny.” Sometimes Patrice’s sense of humor irked him. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “But I am. Well, in part. In an eighth part—”

  No.

  “—an octaroon. What is the phrase for it? A nigger in my woodpile?”

  Bullet got up and walked out of the room. He strode across the dirt yard and jumped the fence. Angry, so angry he couldn’t contain it all in his body. Patrice . . . colored.

  He stopped at a loblolly and slammed his fist into it.

  But Patrice was just . . . French?

  No.

  Stupid. Blind.

  He turned around and looked back at the little house. He liked Patrice.

  He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t even, he recognized with helpless fury, know what he wanted to do.

  Bullet walked back over the fence and across the yard. He stood in the doorway, not entering the room. Patrice had gotten up to serve himself a couple of pieces of chicken, a wing and a thigh, with some rice and tomato. He turned around at the sound of the screen door slamming into place.

  “I assumed that you knew.”

  “How could I know?”

  “As everybody else does.” At least he wasn’t laughing now. He seemed to have figured out that it was serious, and he looked solemn, solemn and sad. “By my features, my hair, my pigmentation.”

  “Pigmentation?” Bullet demanded.

  “Skin color.”

  “I thought you were just tan, you know that.”

  “No, I don’t know that. I am tanned, too, as well.”

  “You lied to me.”

  “No, my friend, I didn’t do that.”

  Bullet left the room, the house. He got as far as the fourteen-footer, where he sat down. He leaned his back against the curved wooden side. Aw, Patrice.

  He leaned his elbows on his knees and locked his fingers behind his neck. Night fell over his shoulders. He stared into the impenetrable earth, calling himself names.

  When he looked up, he saw the little house, painted bright white and set back from the water, in the fashion of watermen’s houses. The square, uncurtained windows shone yellow. He saw Patrice, sitting at the table, not eating.

  He knew Patrice, he’d worked with him, eaten with him, he respected him. Well, he did. He liked him. It wasn’t as if he even liked that many people. His mother, underneath it all, yes. Tommy he used to. And Patrice.

  About himself, Bullet knew that he could make his choices and pay the price. But this time—he guessed it was what Patrice had called his heart—whatever it was, it was rising up against him, refusing to compromise this time. Not willing to lie.

  Yeah, but—

  But, what, stupid. You didn’t know; there’s a lot you don’t know.

  A lot I do, too.

  Okay, I’ll give you that, but a lot to learn.

  I’ve been looking at things wrong?

  Find out.

  Yeah, but—

  Bullet got up and went back inside again. He sat down in his chair, at the table, his fists in his lap.

  Patrice’s face was almost comical in its seriousness. “I am sorry. If I had ever considered it, I would have thought. Perhaps—although perhaps not.”

  “I don’t understand—” Bullet mumbled.

  “My mother’s grandmother, from Martinique, was a mulatto—half black, half white. It was all written down, in the records of the province, it was no secret, there was no shame. It was not my negro blood which marked me as a child,
but illegitimacy. I knew my mother’s name, but she had emigrated after my birth, and her family wanted nothing to do with me; I was shame to them. I knew all this, the French have a passion for records. This was why I was given to the childless couple in another village. The shame came from my birth, not my blood.”

  “What does illegitimate matter?” Bullet demanded.

  Patrice shrugged. “There, it did. Every people has its own prejudices. When the Germans came, then my blood mattered. Had they looked, the records were all there. And to be sent to a camp—I could not have withstood that, I think. Had I thought about it, about you, I would not have thought you felt like that. You see? I would not have thought you were like that.”

  Bullet looked at the man. “What would you have thought I was like?”

  Patrice’s face creased into a smile, but not from laughter. “That is easy, because it struck me even when I first met you and you were still a boy. You were even then like some few men I had known, two men, both dead. Strong and hard—in your spirit—pitiless and ruthless, that too. Alone. They were men of bronze. I thought, when I first met you, that it was curious to meet such a man when he was a boy. In a different time of history—do you know? You captured my imagination, to see how you would grow.”

  Because Patrice understood him.

  “I never intended to cause you pain,” Patrice said.

  I know. “It’s not,” Bullet said. “I know that,” he said.

  They sat for a long time, silent. Finally, Patrice said, “I don’t have a dessert ready, but I can offer you seconds.” He picked up his fork and knife and started to eat again.

  Bullet knew that if he picked up his plate, got another piece of chicken and sat down to eat it, he was making promises. Promises he would keep, because he kept promises, like his mother, like Liza. Promises to take Patrice as he was, with the colored thrown in. But the colored had been thrown in long before he knew. The colored had always been thrown in—only Bullet didn’t even know that until now. Patrice was what Patrice was. Once you got past the colored—which was where Bullet had always been, up until just that night—Patrice was just himself. Just the man he was. Which was all Bullet was, too, or all anyone was. The only thing that mattered was the kind of man you were.

  Bullet stood up. Patrice didn’t look at him, but his hands stopped moving.

  “How is that chicken cold?” Bullet asked. He picked up his plate and went to the pan on the counter.

  “It is as good cold as it is hot, I promise you,” Patrice said. He turned around in his chair to watch Bullet.

  “That’s okay by me then,” Bullet told him, “because it was pretty good hot.”

  * * *

  The next day, Bullet stood by the door to the cafeteria, leaning against the wall, watching. People moved past him, leaving the lunchroom, occasionally glancing sideways at him and then away. He waited.

  When Tamer came by, Bullet called to him. “Shipp.”

  Tamer halted, wary. His friends moved on a little way, standing by. “Yeah,” he said.

  “Do you want to do some work?”

  The heavy eyebrows raised, questioning.

  “Running,” Bullet said.

  “What, with you?”

  Bullet nodded. Tamer dismissed his friends with a glance, and they moved off into the throng. He studied Bullet, who studied him right back.

  “What is it, you miss the glory?”

  “No,” Bullet told him.

  “Don’t you have any sense of humor?” Tamer demanded.

  “Yes,” Bullet told him.

  Tamer chuckled. “You could have fooled me, Whitey.” Bullet didn’t say anything. “What did the coach say?” Tamer asked. They stood four feet apart, and the crowd gave them room.

  “I haven’t said anything to him,” Bullet answered. “He’ll say that he knew I had team spirit. That I had him worried. That my heart is in the right place.”

  “It isn’t, though, is it,” Tamer said.

  Bullet shrugged.

  “Then what are you up to?” Tamer asked.

  “Nothing,” Bullet said. “Do you want to do some work? Or not.”

  Tamer thought. “It can’t do any harm. Okay, Tillerman, you’re on.” He moved away.

  Bullet went to class.

  They didn’t approach the coach together, but Tamer was there when Bullet trotted up at the start of practice. The coach came to greet Bullet and shook his hand. “I knew it,” he said happily. “I knew you had some team spirit, kid. It’s good to see you.” He clapped Bullet on the shoulder.

  Bullet didn’t say anything.

  “You had me worried, I’ll tell you.”

  Bullet flicked a glance toward Tamer’s face. The guy was trying not to smile.

  “But your heart is in the right place, just like I thought.”

  Tamer coughed into his hand.

  “So. You two guys made up a schedule or anything?” the coach asked.

  “No,” Bullet said. Tamer was still choking away in the background.

  “I’ll leave it up to you, kid. We’re gonna have ourselves one hellava team. One sweet hell of a team,” he repeated. “All right, let’s get going,” he called. “You okay, Shipp? You got a cold or something?”

  CHAPTER 17

  Okay,” Tamer said. He and Bullet stood warily together, facing one another. Practice was over and everybody else had gone back, to cars and buses; the sun was lowering, the air growing sharp. “What do I have to do? Don’t expect me to enthuse, Tillerman.”

  Bullet wasn’t expecting anything. “There’s speed and there’s stamina,” he said. He looked at the big colored guy: “What are you, six two? Weight one ninety?”

  “One seventy.”

  He had a dark shadow, too, over his jawbone and above his lip. He looked full grown.

  “Twenty in the spring,” Tamer said, bored. “Blood type O-positive. C’mon, Tillerman, let’s hear it, I’ve got other things to do.”

  “Nobody’s making you,” Bullet said.

  “We going to work out or not?” Tamer insisted.

  “Stamina first. I usually run ten miles.”

  “Ten?”

  Bullet nodded.

  “Every day?”

  Bullet nodded.

  “No wonder you outclass us.”

  Don’t kid yourself, it isn’t just the practice time.

  “You would anyway, though, wouldn’t you.”

  Bullet knew when he was being baited.

  “So these races are diddly squat to you.”

  Bullet just went on with the business at hand. “You want to be able to run seven or eight, but you’ve got to work up to that.”

  “It’s already the second week in October, I don’t have much time. I’ve run four miles.”

  “Once. And barely,” Bullet reminded him.

  “Every day since then,” Tamer answered. “I don’t get caught in the same trap twice, Whitey. What’s the longest these courses get, at our level?”

  “Five miles and that’s only the championship course.”

  “So I’m looking for six, six easy. Correct?”

  Bullet shrugged. He was looking for seven or eight, but if he wanted to know better and shave it down to six, if he needed to feel like he was making all the decisions himself, that was no skin off Bullet’s nose.

  Tamer continued: “So I should do this course, once more around.”

  “It’s no good unless you do six consecutively.”

  “Yeah, well, I can see that, but I can also see the sun getting lower. Let’s get this over with.”

  Tamer chugged steadily along the cross-country path. Bullet kept back just behind him, feeling like he was barely moving at all. About halfway around the course, the colored guy fagged out—he leaned even further forward, his arms hung at his side, his feet just barely got off the ground. Dogged, he stumbled through the last mile. Then he collapsed full length onto the grass.

  Bullet waited for him to catch his breath.

&nb
sp; “What a way to make your name in athletics,” Tamer groaned, rolling over and sitting up.

  “You’re big for a runner,” Bullet pointed out.

  “You’re not exactly small,” Tamer answered. “I was going to go out for football, but—” He looked back to the course he had run. “I never saw you running this five times. How do you get in ten miles?”

  “I’ve got a course I run, at home.”

  Tamer stood up. Sweat ran down his cheeks and stained his gray T-shirt. “I’ll run that with you.”

  Bullet shook his head. “Nothing personal.”

  Tamer looked at him without pleasure.

  “My old man would probably take a shot at you. He won’t have coloreds on the place.”

  “Blacks,” Tamer said.

  “Nothing personal,” Bullet said. “We could do the job quicker and better there. But he’s a crack shot.”

  “You aren’t kidding,” Tamer said.

  Bullet didn’t answer. Of course he wasn’t kidding.

  “Like father like son, huh? Just a chip off the old block, the old white block. Save your breath, Tillerman, I don’t need to hear it.” He got up. “Okay. I’ll do this one again. You can go home, Tillerman, you’ve made your point. I’ll make it around fine without your company. Better without.”

  “Fine by me, Shipp.” Bullet turned around and jogged back toward the school. Behind him he heard the heavy feet start off again.

  After a couple of days, the colored guy didn’t start fading out until just after the fifth mile. Tamer ran the cross-country route three consecutive times, every day, staying for an hour after practice let out. Bullet hung around and ran the third lap behind him. He could almost predict where the big legs would start to run sloppy. On the third day of this, when Tamer collapsed at the finish, Bullet told him, “You’ve got to run through it.”

  “Shut up, Whitey.” Tamer lay stretched out on his back, his big chest heaving.

  “Suit yourself.” Bullet started off. Suiting himself.

  “Hey!” The colored guy yelled after him.

  Bullet turned around. Now what? Tamer was sitting up, his legs out, rubbing his calves.