Runner in Red

by Tom Murphy

  “I want to show them,” she said. “I will show them all.”

  I told her I was proud of her, to have a goal like that.

  Bridget came to see me at the hospital three days in a row. “It’s not your fault,” she said, using the same words as Ellen, but that didn’t settle the issue for me, or assuage my guilt.

  Then one night a week later, we got some good news. A doctor came out to the waiting room and he had a smile on his face.

  “We’re out of the woods,” he said, and Rosemary collapsed in my arms.

  “Tell me,” I said to the doctor.

  “He’s out of the coma, and he’s going to make it. Do you want to see him? He’s awake.”

  I walked behind Rosemary who ran to the room and she collapsed on the bed, hugging Kenny, as I stood in the background smiling. I watched him caress the back of her head, and it felt so good to see him move his hands again.

  “Hey, bro! Whatcha been up to?” he said to me as I lay full across the bed and hugged him, too.

  “You had us scared there for a while,” I said.

  “It was only a little bullet.”

  “More like three bullets, buddy!”

  “That’s not enough to take me outta the game.”

  I felt a huge burden lift from my chest and over the next few days a sea of cops poured in and out of the room bringing Kenny their good wishes—with more than few good-natured digs as well (“Hey, your fast twitch muscles are gettin’ slow in your old age”).

  Feeling relieved, I decided to take a walk, but as I headed out the lobby through the Emergency Room, an alarm went off and an ambulance pulled up to the dock in a rush. The back doors of the ambulance swung open and I saw a young blonde woman on a stretcher get lifted out of the back. A small boy wearing a baseball hat gripped the stretcher so tightly his fingers turned red.

  “Clear the way, clear the way!” one of the doctors shouted, but as the boy ran beside the stretcher his baseball cap fell off and bounced along the ground.

  In another moment the stretcher with the woman had been wheeled into an operating room, and the boy and the woman were gone. I reached down to pick up the baseball cap and handed it to the receptionist at the front desk.

  “Hold this, please,” I said.

  “Hold it? For who?”

  “For the little boy with the blonde woman.”

  I walked out into the quiet of the night thinking of Kenny, Ellen, Bridget, Pop—and thinking about the blonde woman and her little boy, too. I thought of all the ways the world crashes in on us unexpectedly and the imperative that creates for us to form connections with others to buffer ourselves against the blows.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Kenny continued to make progress. By the end of the second week he was sitting up in bed, while copies of the Daily News piled up on a chair, all with headlines about the “Hero Cop.”

  He was generous. As I sat beside his bed giving him the latest on the Mets including prospects for their pitching rotation now that pitchers and catchers had reported to spring training, he did not bring up the point about the security firm, and I was grateful.

  Rosemary filled the room with baked goods, which a legion of cops reduced to crumbs, and there was lots of laughter in the room, especially while the cops, along with the Mayor, poured in and out.

  “Better get word to the bad guys that I’ll be outta here soon and they better get on the run,” Kenny joked to the Mayor, while the cops teased him that the bad guys were advertising in newspapers across the country to send reinforcements.

  Each day I had a chance to catch up with Ellen, who told me she’d been making progress with Pop also, and that at least he was starting to eat soup.

  “But I make him get out of bed to get the soup,” she said. “I don’t want any more moping around feeling sorry for himself. He said he wants to rectify things.”

  “Rectify?”

  “I told him he and I will kick butt at Boston and that will be our way to banish the demons. We’ll rectify things.”

  “I like it,” I said, and we started making plans to see each other again.

  “When do you think you can get back up here?” she said.

  “In another week or so. Things should settle down by then and I will feel comfortable enough to leave Rosemary and the boys.”

  “Great,” she said. “Can’t wait to see you.”

  “How’s your mom doing?” I said.

  “Haven’t talked to her.”

  “Come on, Ellen!”

  “You can talk to her. I won’t.”

  “Now, now! This thing wasn’t her fault, and you know that,” I said, but she continued to protest.

  “I’ll go for my run tonight and think about it.”

  “Yes, you do that.”

  “Lately, I’ve been able to get out earlier at night now that the vultures on the front lawn have thinned out.”

  “There’s a kid on a bike. Wait for him to go home and that will be your all clear.”

  “What kid on a bike?”

  “Don’t worry about it. Enjoy your run!”

  Later that night, I returned to the hospital after taking Kenny and Rosemary’s boys back to Hicksville to get them into bed for the babysitter. I was sitting in the hospital cafeteria grabbing a sandwich when I saw the 10 o’clock news on the TV.

  I wasn’t paying attention until I saw a clip of Ellen running in the New York City Marathon with Nita and Turgenov and I wondered, why are they showing a clip of Ellen on the NY news?

  “It’s a family that has been visited by sorrow as Ellen Maloney’s grandfather and trainer, Pop Gallagher, was shown to have lied about circumstances involving the first woman to run in the Boston Marathon…” I popped up to stand in front of the TV as the screen showed photos of Pop and his D.A.A. boys from 1951.

  “What the…” I said, aloud.

  “Now Ellen Maloney who captured this city’s heart in November with her spirited run in the New York City Marathon has been visited by tragedy. Earlier this evening she was hit by a car in Boston while out for a practice run.”

  “Oh, my God!!!!!!!!”

  “All we can say is our hearts go out to the family and we pray that she makes a speedy recovery.”

  “Oh, my God!” I shouted as I spun in place and my fingers fumbled with the numbers on my phone as I tried to call Ellen, but I got a voice message, “Hi, this is Ellen….”

  Next, I tried Bridget, but I couldn’t get through to her either, then I tried Stan.

  “Yes, she was hit by a car tonight, Colin. We don’t know how badly she’s been hurt but I know Bridget is at the hospital, at the Carney on the Dorchester/Milton line.”

  I called Rosemary from a cab to tell her the news and that I would get in touch once I got to Boston.

  The cab at Logan took me to the Carney and I ran into the lobby of the Emergency Room, getting there at 3 am, when a nurse stopped me.

  “Wait!” she said. “You can’t go any further.”

  “I need to see Ellen Maloney!” I said, but she put both of her big hands on my chest and pushed back against me.

  “Only family allowed upstairs.”

  “You don’t understand, I’ve got to see her.”

  “You can’t go any further. Only family allowed. Her mother gave strict instructions.”

  “Call upstairs, talk to them!”

  “We can’t disturb them. The mother left instructions.”

  I tried to get Bridget on the phone, but no luck. I tried to argue again with the nurse, then changed to pleading, but she would not budge and she pushed me back toward the lobby where camera crews and news reporters had begun to form a pool.

  Still, I tried to work my way around her, trying another corridor, but before long the nurse called security and three burly security guards led me ou
t the doorway to the parking lot.

  I tried to find a back door, and I was rushing about when I saw an ambulance driver standing against a rear wall of the building having a cigarette.

  “You know how I can get into this place?”

  “You here to see the girl?”

  “Yes. The runner. I’m her boyfriend.”

  “Girl like that, I’m sure she has lots of boyfriends.”

  “How do I get in to see her?”

  “You don’t. The mother left instructions. But don’t worry, she’s going to be OK.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I brought her in. It coulda been worse, but she was sitting up in the ambulance by the time we pulled up to the door of the Emergency Room.”

  “Thank God.”

  “I agree,” he said, and he took a long drag on his cigarette. “Tell all her boyfriends the good news.”

  It started to rain as I took a cab to my apartment to get my bat, and then I took another cab to Fenway. It was raining buckets by the time I got to the ballpark and the security guard yelled at me as I banged on the front gate in the dark to let me in.

  “Hey, pal, what’s all the racket?”

  I showed him my Press Pass. He said he didn’t know what story I could possibly be doing at that hour, but nevertheless, he couldn’t argue with the Press Pass. Finally, he complied and I unlatched the gate by the third base dugout and stepped out onto the clay runway in the heavy downpour.

  Pound, pound, pound! I began to bang away in the rain at the clay in front of rail on the third base side where I had caught my ankle ten years earlier, and I only half noticed as the guard got on the phone and made a call asking for “someone official” at Channel 6.

  Bang, bang, bang!, I continued to pound away with my bat hitting the ground hard enough to shake the sky in China on the other side of the world. Then I turned my bat on the rail, shouting out loud as I swung away, “You fucker, fucker, fucker!!!!!!!”

  I have no idea how long I stood there pounding as the rain soaked me, until I heard a voice call to me from the seats near the rail, “Colin!”

  It was Bridget, as the sour-faced security guard stood behind her. I could barely see her through the rain and sweat that poured off my forehead into my eyes and clogged my vision. “Go away!” I said.

  “Colin, what are doing to yourself?”

  “If this rail had not been here I’d be an All Star by now.”

  “If Pop had not been there, I’d be on a Wheaties box. Life does not come with any guarantees. Come home with me, please.”

  “I ran with you, Bridget, but you didn’t run with me.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You wouldn’t let me see Ellen. You told them to keep me out.”

  “I didn’t tell them to keep you out.”

  “You said ‘only family’ allowed.”

  “I was thinking of Ellen.”

  “You were thinking about you, Bridget. Bridget thinks only about Bridget,” I said, and I began to pound away again at the rail, my bat a mass of splinters by this point.

  “Stop it, Colin, please,” she said, as she stepped down to the rail and reached out to grab my bat before I could take another swing. “I’m sorry. I really am.”

  “I wish I could hear you say that one time and believe there was real emotion behind it.”

  “I’m sorry if I hurt you.”

  I dropped my bat and I stood soaked, staring at her, my eyes trained directly at hers. “Why did you hire me, Bridget? Why did you bring me into this god damned mess?”

  “So I could learn from you.”

  It was not the answer I expected and I didn’t know what to say. Rain poured off my hair and into my eyes. It streamed under my jacket and onto my skin. I was soaked.

  “You’ve been my teacher, Colin. You’ve taught me how to be a better human being.”

  I stopped and stared at her.

  “Watching you, seeing how you feel the pain of others—knowing the depth of loss as you do—yet still you act to save others from getting hurt. You’ve been a powerful teacher for me, Colin. I have my lapses, as I did at the hospital, but I love you thoroughly, from my head to my toes. We all love you. Ellen, Jack and I. The Maloneys, we love you, and I hope you will give us a chance to welcome you into our family.”

  I stood there a long time, drenched, but I no longer felt the cold as I had. The first shoots of light broke through the clouds and the rain had stopped, I realized, as I stared at her and I saw in Bridget’s eyes what I had been waiting for, true emotion.

  Dawn broke behind the bleachers, as she said, “Come to the hospital with me.”

  I said, “Yes,” as the security guard stood in the background scowling, thinking, I’m sure, about how much it was going to cost to repair the clay and repaint the rail on the third base side.

  Morning light slanted across the dusky streets as Bridget drove to my apartment so I could change into dry clothes. The ambulance driver had been right. Ellen’s injuries were not as severe as everyone feared. At the hospital Ellen hopped out of her bed and gave me a huge hug when I walked into her room.

  “Whoa!” I said. “Careful.” I led her back to her bed, as Jack and Bridget assisted, and I told her to take it easy.

  “The car only clipped me,” she said, showing me a bruise on her left thigh, with a railroad track line of stitches. “The doctor says it will heal quickly.”

  “Thank God,” I said, and all was bright in the room, to match the sunshine that poured through the window, until Pop—who stood in the background by the door—said, “Can I say something?”

  Slowly, everyone stopped their amiable chatter, and we turned as a group to face Pop.

  “All this is my fault,” he said.

  Ellen was the first to respond. “No, Pop, it was an accident.”

  “I’m not talking about the car that hit you, Ellen. I’m talking to Bridget now.”

  The room went quiet, the only sound was the sound of the air conditioner as everyone stared at Pop.

  “It’s OK, Pop,” Bridget said. “Ellen’s going to be fine.”

  “Bridget, I owe you an apology and I want to offer that to you.”

  We all looked at Bridget, me especially, since I knew this was the moment she had been waiting for her whole life, and suddenly I understood “rectify.”

  “Yes,” she said, softly. “If you want to say something to me, Pop, please do.”

  “I’ve lived with shame for what I did to you,” he said. He stood in the corner, frail from having been in bed so many days, but his voice was strong as steel. “Tim Finn brought the young girl by the house after the Hyde Park race. Finn broke the rules, but, boy, could she run! We beat Semple at Hyde Park because of her. Then Finn convinced me to let her run in the Boston Marathon. Bailey was back from his injury, but Finn said if I wanted him to run on the team I had to let the girl run, too, since he had promised her, and we all know Finn is loyal.”

  “Pop, you don’t have to do this,” Bridget said, but he waved her off.

  “I agreed to Finn’s arrangement. But I had one condition. She could run Boston, as an extra on our team, but she had to wear a disguise, and she could not cross the finish line. I would bend the rules, but I would not break them.

  “But I didn’t know if she would keep her promise. You can never be sure, the excitement to cross the finish line when you get that close can be a strong urge.

  “She was true to her word, though. She ran the race, good enough to be in the top twenty, but she stepped off the course at Commonwealth Avenue before making the turn onto Exeter Street where she might have been spotted. She found me in the lobby of the Lenox Hotel later, and I told her I was pleased with her.

  “‘Thank you for the chance. I did what I wanted, to be the first,’ she told me.


  “There was something special about her, a quality that’s rare. She had integrity. I went to East Boston the next morning where they made our medals for the Marathon, and I had the man make a copy of the winner’s gold medal. I paid for it myself, even though I had a row with Semple over the expense, and I called Finn to find out where the girl went to school. She was a student at Dorchester High, and I waited for her. I took her aside after school and presented her with the gold medal in the schoolyard below a tree. She looked at me with big wide eyes.

  “‘For me?’ she said. ‘A gold medal?’

  “‘Yes,’ I told her. ‘Because you did the right thing.’

  “Then she got in trouble with a boy. I knew her father, old man Delaney, from Knights of Columbus, and I knew he was desperate for a solution. Mrs. Gallagher asked me if I would go over and speak to Delaney, who was about to banish the girl, his youngest daughter. ‘Don’t do anything if the girl doesn’t want our help,’ Mrs. Gallagher said, but I knew Mrs. Gallagher wanted a girl, more than anything. I had spent my whole life with my boys, and Mrs. Gallagher had no one. We couldn’t have children, and she blamed me, I felt, though she would never say anything. That’s what gave me the idea that if I could bring home a little girl it would ease the burden for me with Mrs. Gallagher.

  “I went to Delaney’s that night. He was the talk of the firehouse that his daughter had gotten in trouble, and he was pleased that I offered to take his problem away.

  “You were tiny, just six weeks old, and your mother’s sisters supported her to keep her baby, if that’s what she wanted. But old man Delaney had made up his mind. The baby was going, and the girl was going next. He had made plans to send her to a convent like her elder sister Josephine, and I think after all that happened, he decided to send the other one, Delia, to a convent, too.

  “So I took you that night, before old man Delaney could change his mind, and we agreed to do the paperwork later. But what I did next has been my great shame, and I could not have expected you to forgive me if I had ever told you this to your face.