Once a Runner

by John L Parker

  “Just what I had in mind, assuming you can walk. Steady there,” Denton said. Cassidy was struggling stiffly to his feet.

  “Did you run today?” Denton asked, helping him up.

  “Can a fish tread water? Hell yes, I ran today. You think I’m out here to taunt the farmers? I’m going to take a shower.”

  Denton saw the training calendar on the floor where Cassidy had been lying. He picked it up and studied it for a moment, finally letting out a low whistle.

  “What in the hell were you doing running thirty-four goddamn miles yesterday? Are you going bonkers or what?”

  Cassidy stuck his head out of the bathroom. “I ran into town last night. See, I thought my good friend and coach was going to be coming out to do a workout with me and he didn’t show up, see? Oh hell. I went in to see Andrea. It was a mistake…”

  “Okay. Fair enough. I won’t stand you up anymore. I know this is rough out here sometimes, but I thought the Andrea business was all over with, wasn’t it?”

  But the bathroom door was closed. In the shower Cassidy crooned off-key: “an’ all of us here are just more than contented…to be livin’ and dyin’ in three-quarter time…”

  Cassidy was still in a good mood as they drove into town. Denton switched on the windshield wipers as they hit a mild shower. The intensity of the rains had waned lately.

  “Now, if you’ll settle back,” Denton said, “I’ll give you a rundown on the news. It’s short, and not very pleasant.”

  Denton began telling Cassidy about the organization formed by campus athletes called Coalition of Southeastern University Athletes.

  Its express purpose was talking, negotiating, and otherwise “dealing” with the Athletic Association, Denton told him. When the group announced its formation, the media blitz that had so disrupted Dick Doobey’s life at the time of the Awesome Midnight Raid returned with a vengeance. Sportswriters rankled at the idea of an athlete’s “union” and wanted to know how conditions could be so bad as to necessitate collective bargaining in jockdom. No one, least of all Dick Doobey, was able to provide a satisfactory answer. The athletes simply told reporters that as the writers did not live in the regime, they could hardly understand the Zeitgeist. More meetings were held, statements were released, Quenton Cassidy (who had apparently disappeared altogether) was eulogized as a martyred saint or damned as a self-serving rabble-rouser. There had been editorial comment on some sports pages, Denton told Cassidy, “that would boggle your noodle.” A progressive commentator at the Pensacola News Journal suggested capital punishment for ungrateful student athletes.

  “What it boils down to,” Denton said, flipping the wipers off, “is they have scratched you from the list of competitors at the Southeastern Relays.”

  “What?”

  “That’s it. Now, please don’t ask me to make any sense out of it. I am simply reporting the facts. Apparently there is no rationale behind it except, uh, you know, getting back at you.”

  “Are you serious about this?”

  “Very.”

  “They are not going to let me run?”

  “Nope.”

  “Did they say why, for Jesus goddamn Christ’s sake?”

  “Now don’t go taking it out on me. I’m just telling you what Cornwall told me. For what it’s worth, he doesn’t like it any more than you. He didn’t even know at first how they found out you were running in the thing. Then he figured Hairlepp or one of the guys at the Sun went running to Doobey when they got the advance lists of competitors. You know how objective the old fourth estate is when it comes to sports. Anyway, Doobey himself apparently has authorized a policy that says Quenton Cassidy will not be permitted to compete on Southeastern University’s benighted track come hell or high water.”

  “My Lord in heaven.” Cassidy sat looking miserably out the window at the wet fields. “Can they do this?”

  “Who knows? They’re doing it. I asked my lawyer friend, Jerry Schackow, what he thought about it, but he said he couldn’t tell without doing some research. He said it presents an interesting question.”

  “Swell.”

  “Meanwhile, not to worry. Training goes full bore. I’m going to start coming out in the afternoons more often to keep tabs on your interval work. You concentrate on the running and let me worry about getting you onto the track.”

  But Cassidy was despondent. He sat with arms folded, shaking his head in disbelief as he watched the fields and scrub forests pass. They finally reached Art’s Steakhouse at the edge of town. Denton slapped him on the knee jovially.

  “All right now, let’s get us some dinner and try to think pleasant thoughts. I might even have an Irish whiskey myself.”

  “I wouldn’t recommend it,” Cassidy said glumly. “It seems to conjure up evil humors.”

  BRUCE DENTON rarely disclosed all he knew at one time. With Cassidy he preferred to let important information come in dribbles, as if by accident. He knew intuitively that such intelligence, invested with self-discovery, retained hard lines in a sometimes blurry world.

  But as to his courageous attempt to intervene with higher authority—no less than Old Man Prigman himself—he chose to say nothing at all. Not that he was embarrassed by the comic futility of his effort; but he now realized the true nature of his adversary and decided to keep his own counsel while considering new tactics. He schemed with the controlled joy and abandon of a supposedly reformed street fighter suddenly finding himself in a brawl not of his own making.

  He had gained his audience with Prigman in a very practical manner: he made himself an extremely good-natured pest. He sat around the waiting room reading old copies of Florida Rancher, grinning cheerfully at Roberta, cracking his gum like a blissful field hand. The secretary, who liked her office uncluttered, could not handle it; when she typed three errors in the same sentence in an obsequious letter to the governor, she calmly got up from her desk, marched into the inner sanctum, and pleasantly demanded action. Once in the door, Denton (had he not known better) might have thought Steven C. Prigman had been sitting around for hours in delightfully sweaty anticipation of his arrival.

  “Bruce Denton!” Prigman wrung his hand heartily. “Now this is a surprise!”

  “How do you do, sir?” Denton smiled despite himself. Why can’t they deal with this man? he thought.

  “I hope you received my telegram after your wonderful victory.”

  “Oh yes, sir, it was one of the first to arrive,” Denton lied happily. This was going to be easier than he thought.

  “Fine, fine. You know, I’ve been meaning to have you and Jennifer over for dinner one night, but…this job!” He tossed his hands, a man who could only hope those folks he truly liked could understand why he had such scant time for them. Denton wondered who the hell Jennifer was.

  “Of course, sir, I know how terribly busy you must be, so I wouldn’t presume upon your time unless…”

  “No problem! No problem at all, my boy. I have all the time you need.” To prove as much, he glanced nervously at his watch. “So, what is it I can do for you?”

  “Well sir, it concerns a young man named Quenton Cassidy…”

  Prigman’s face drooped so noticeably that Denton stopped, surprised. So Prigman was in on it.

  “Oh,” said the old man quietly, settling back in his chair.

  “Yes, sir. I understand that he is not being allowed to participate in the Southeastern Relays next month and—” Prigman squirmed in his chair, an adolescent movement, full of irritation and not at all in character.

  “Might I inquire,” he interrupted Denton, “as to the reason for your personal concern in this matter?” He had shifted, in the subtle manner of Southerners of his species, from diplomacy to advocacy, disguising the maneuver with such sincerity and deference as to leave the object of his charm, whether hostile witness or cautious subordinate, unsuspecting until it was too late.

  “Well sir, Mr. Cassidy is a friend of mine. I have been helping him with his training for so
me time now, and I feel he might be an outstanding competitor, perhaps even of Olympic caliber, given the right opportunities. I can’t understand what possible reason there might be—and I know about the recent, uh, difficulties—possible reason, that is, for keeping him out of the upcoming—”

  “Now, Bruce—may I call you Bruce?—this whole affair has been extremely unfortunate for everyone concerned. Extremely unfortunate. But I’m sure that you, being an athlete yourself, must understand that insubordination must be dealt with firmly. Now, I know some mistakes have been made—on both sides—but in the final analysis, rules are rules. Perhaps your sport is somewhat different, being individual and all, but on the playing field there must be a supreme commander, a leader who must make life-or-death decisions right on the spot. A game can be won or lost on a split second’s hesitation. There is no other way to function, my boy. If you had to gather a football team together to take a vote on every play, why there would be chaos! Anarchy! Pretty soon the cheerleaders would want a vote too! This democracy stuff just won’t cut it on the gridiron, my boy. Now in track and field, I don’t know—”

  “Sir, respectfully, I don’t think anyone has suggested anything of the kind. If someone had taken the time to talk with Mr. Cassidy, they would have seen he was not advocating, nor anyone else who signed the petitions, anything other than stopping petty harassment and invasion of privacy of the athletes—”

  “It’s all a matter of discipline! Following orders! Dick Doobey may not have been right all the time, but he was still Dick Doobey! The general. He gave orders. And then what happened? Petitions!” He said it as if pronouncing the name of some loathsome disease that had just claimed a loved one.

  “I suppose,” said Denton very quietly, “that I just don’t happen to subscribe to the militaristic sports metaphor. I don’t believe that a football field or a basketball court are battlefields, except to the most simplistic and unenlightened observers. Even granting the analogy, I don’t think a general at war would go out and order his army to eat shit just for the hell of it. Sir.”

  Denton had a vague notion he was no longer being listened to. Sports and religion in the Deep South, he thought. When his last remark got no discernible response, he knew his time was up. Prigman was concerning himself with the lighting of a huge cigar.

  “Well,” the old man said at last, turning slightly to the side so as to look out his window across the windswept plaza. “At any rate, such insubordination and dissension cannot be tolerated among athletes. You have no idea the damage this whole affair has caused, not just to team morale, but to this university. I’m speaking in terms of our image among the people of the state of Florida. No idea.”

  Denton stood before the giant desktop, looking across at the gray, dapper old politico behind it. He had thought that surely sweet reason could be brought to bear, that somewhere an appeal might be fairly heard. But then, Denton was unencumbered by the knowledge of Steven C. Prigman’s illustrious career as a jurist, and therefore was not prepared to meet an intellect capable of operating almost wholly in a bygone century.

  “Sir, Quenton Cassidy has represented this institution honorably and well. He has been the Southeastern Conference mile champion for two years and the captain of his team. He holds numerous school records. He has a chance to truly excel now, and keeping him out of this track meet can serve no reasonable purpose whatsoever except—”

  “I take issue with that,” said Prigman, exhaling aromatic blue smoke. “You say that the boy might become a real blue-chipper, eh?”

  “Well, we don’t use that term in running, but yes, he might very well become—”

  “Well, he shall not do so using the facilities of this university.” Very final-sounding, this last.

  “I was going to say: ‘except possibly for revenge of some kind,’” Denton said sadly.

  “Mmmm.” Prigman was shuffling papers on his desk, impatiently. Denton started for the door. “Your committee chairman, Dr. Branum,” Prigman said suddenly.

  “Yes, sir?” Prigman was looking away from him, as if distracted by something out the window.

  “Dr. Branum is very anxious for you to finish that dissertation quarter after next. You wouldn’t want to get too involved in other matters and let that work slide, would you?” Denton considered simply walking out, but decided to stop. All right, little man, have it your way. But I’m going to go to school on you now, he thought. With a crooked smile he turned back to Prigman.

  “No, sir! I guess I’d better keep my nose to the old salt mine.”

  “Fine, fine.” Prigman was relighting his cigar, his mind obviously already on other treachery.

  Denton thought, My Lord in heaven.

  32.

  The Interval Workout

  AN INTERVAL WORKOUT,” Cassidy once explained to a sportswriter, “is the modern distance runner’s equivalent of the once popular Iron Maiden, a device as you know used by ancient Truth Seekers.” Although overdistance laid the foundation, intervals made the runner racing mean. Quenton Cassidy liked them. Others preferred bamboo splinters under their nails. Cassidy figured that a natural affinity for interval work was the difference between those who liked to race and those who liked to train. And there is a difference. Racers express little enchantment with training for its own sake.

  An interval workout is simply a series of fast runs of a specified distance in a specified time with a specified rest. The variables are limited only by the imagination of the coach and the physical limitations quickly apparent in his athletes (it is one thing to write “Ten quarters in 58 seconds with a 220 jog” and quite another to carry out those instructions). While a ten-mile overdistance run might be generally thought of as a pleasant diversion, very few of Cassidy’s teammates thought of intervals as anything but a grueling ordeal, satisfying at best, horrifying at worst. It was precisely the kind of training, he knew, that tempered the body for racing. Though the distance runner is constantly striving for aerobic efficiency, the race itself is primarily an anaerobic experience. Everyone, the winner in his painful glory as well as the loser many seconds behind in his equally painful anonymity, suffers the physical bankruptcy of total oxygen debt. And since interval training is usually sharp enough to bring the runner to grips with oxygen debt very quickly in the workout, he learns to deal with the debilitating fatigue from the first repetition on. Other sports use an abbreviated form of interval training called “wind sprints,” but where football and basketball players run 30 or 40 yards and take several minutes’ rest between each, the miler will run 220 yards, 440 yards, a half mile or even three quarters of a mile at a time. Each second of his minute or two-minute rest period is sweeter than life itself.

  It was little wonder Bruce Denton took more interest in Cassidy’s interval training than in anything else that made up his 140 miles a week. At the beginning of March, Denton began to come to the cabin on interval days, sometimes spending the night; after running early with Cassidy in the morning, he would drive directly to his lab. If such a program had a deleterious effect on his marriage, he never mentioned it to Cassidy.

  “I HOPE YOU LISTENED to me and took an easy day yesterday,” Denton said as they jogged to the field.

  “Okay, consider me psyched out. What’s the program?”

  “Twenty quarters in sets of 5, 110 jog between the quarters, 440 jog between the sets, 62-to 63-second effort but no watch as usual. That’s it. For now.”

  Cassidy was surprised. It was a tough workout, but nothing he had not done many times before. Denton had been talking ominously about this one for days, and now the runner actually felt a little let down. With Denton he never knew what to expect. When weeks earlier he had instructed Cassidy to let his hair grow and not to shave, Cassidy made it a point not to act surprised. He had his suspicions, but he also knew that Denton was not about to tell him any more. If he had wanted Cassidy to know, he would have told him already. Now the sun-bleached curls were around his ears and his chin had sprouted, of all t
hings, a reddish beard which Cassidy was now becoming rather fond of. He pictured himself a gaunt Viking.

  When they got to the field, Cassidy removed his shoes and joined Denton in some striders to loosen up. It was a gloriously clear, warm day and soon the shirtless runners were wringing wet with perspiration. Although he knew few runners who did so, Cassidy loved training barefooted. Denton considered it an aberration, but since it seemed to cause no complications, he tolerated the practice.

  There had been, in fact, a few world-class runners who competed barefoot on the track and seemed no worse for it; and then there was Abebe Bikila who, incredibly, ran the twenty-six-plus miles of the marathon barefooted at the Rome Olympics, winning easily. There were arguments pro and con about whether it could be helpful in training or racing, but Cassidy just did it because he liked it. It allowed him to be closer to the grass, the soil, closer to the deepest hidden yearning of the runner: to fly naked through the primal forest, to run through the jungle.

  They began. The first two or three always seemed somehow especially bad. Actually that was misleading. They seemed sluggish because the body was shocked by such a sudden demand for sustained speed. The heart rate shot up to the hummingbird levels it would have to maintain for some time. The legs became prematurely heavy, and the central nervous system sent up the message that such punishment could not be endured. But the central nervous system is overridden, of course, the runner knowing far better by now than his own synapses what his body can and cannot be expected to do. The runner deals nearly daily in such absolutes of physical limitations that the nonrunner confronts only in dire situations. Fleeing from an armed killer or deadly animal, a layman will soon find the frightening limits that even stark terror will not overcome. The runner knows such boundaries like he knows the sidewalks of his own neighborhood.

  After the shock of the first several quarters, Cassidy settled into the pleasant, nearly comfortable rhythm of the workout, where each interval, though difficult, felt very much like the one before and the one to follow. After they finished the first set of five, the quarter-mile jog prescribed by Denton seemed almost too luxuriously long. During this time, once he had recovered his breath somewhat, Cassidy made a few remarks and generally tried to engage Denton in conversation; the older runner demurred, jogging on in what Cassidy thought a rather grim manner. They began the second set.