Once a Runner

by John L Parker

  The announcer: “…WALTON OF NEW ZEALAND WITH KAITAINEN SEVEN YARDS BACK…”

  His shoulders ached now with the heavy strain of lactic acid, so he pumped harder, concentrated on his form, trying to cover ground smoothly. Now was the time he wanted to be floating, covering ground with as little effort as possible, but he found himself straining just to hold pace. And Walton looked so easy! Was he of this earth? Could it really be this much of a joke to him, running this pace without a care in the world?

  Cassidy could not feel his legs but that was all right. He was flying along in the night concentrating so hard on the black-suited demon out there that he was actually surprised to hit the second turn. He cursed mentally when he found himself flung by his own momentum out into the second lane, then got it under control, leaned into the turn and got back in rhythm. A stupid mistake, he thought, and it cost me two yards.

  But coming out of the turn into the straight he felt it. He had contact. Walton had come back to him some and he had contact from five yards back. And he had the power. He knew that too as they sped down the straight, really feeling it now, the lactic acid aching through his body, but also starting the buildup, getting excited knowing that this time it would not be long, that it wasn’t going to go on forever after all.

  Down past the stands and this time Cassidy heard, unbelieving, what they were chanting as the two figures went by the white starting post: “CASS-A-DAY! CASS-A-DAY! CASS-A-DAY!”

  Even the announcer no longer played the game: “…IT’S WALTON FOLLOWED BY…CASSIDY OF SOUTHEASTERN…”

  Dick Doobey, nearly blind with rage, blood vessels standing out on his soft red face, jumped up from his seat in the officials’ section and started out the gate onto the track to do God only knew what when he ran smack into the really quite startlingly muscled arm of Mike Mobley, that was stretched across the opening, his huge hand holding the far post in a death grip. Mobley challenged him for an instant with a gaze full of contempt and pity, then the giant turned back to the race and the chant: “CASS-A-DAY! CASS-A-DAY! CASS-A-DAY!”

  His face ashen, Doobey slumped into the nearest seat he could find. Up in the press box, in icy silence, Steven C. Prigman turned to look at the gentlemen of the press, some of whom waited for his reaction; he smiled ruefully, turned back to the race.

  And Denton flashing by now: two fifty-five flat. Wait.

  Then the gun: CRACK! And the hair on the back of his neck standing up as it always did. Cassidy thought, Four hundred yards to go Jesus God what a cost just to be here and he’s slipping away if I could just hold him now he’s been flat out for…

  But Walton was not flat out at all. He suddenly looked back at Cassidy and Cassidy thought he saw a tiny flicker in those hard eyes: surprise. Not concern. Just a mild kind of surprise.

  And that followed by a little burst so powerful and quick it broke Cassidy’s heart. God, how can he do that?

  Quenton Cassidy, sadly now, was starting to tie up halfway down the back straight and all he could think was: Son of a bitch, what has he been doing running from the front? He never does that. Now Cassidy’s arms and shoulders were getting worse and worse as the orb strained and bounced around inside, trying to hold it all, Cassidy feeling now the process of his form starting to degenerate involuntarily, wanly remarked to himself that this must be how death is, and look how easy dear God he looks up there. So this is how it is, this is exactly how it is, how he beats you and beats you and beats you.

  She had stood by with everyone else the last time, and though she knew umbrella man was unobtrusively observing her reactions now, she studied Cassidy’s face when he went by and saw in it the totally dispassionate look of the runner at his toil; alert but not excited, full of strain and some unnamed misery, but so obviously showing no emotion, masking darker secrets. What was it he had said about demons? She had some idea of what Cassidy and Walton were experiencing because the other runners, some twenty yards behind, did not hold it as well as these two. Walton to her looked simply intimidating, as if he had been born at full stride; his torso was powerful for a runner and his every stride suggested merciless strength held in reserve. He was haughty in his power and it was somehow chilling to watch.

  But then she had looked at Quenton Cassidy, saw the same objective, emotionless look about him, watched the sleek, machinelike workings of legs that were longer than Walton’s. And suddenly she had seen him from a different perspective: he too looked intimidating. And something very deep inside her stirred as she realized that she was, after all, frightened for him, for this task he had taken upon himself. Her eyes had flooded and she stood there in her confusion and turmoil, not caring that umbrella man was staring at her.

  “CASS-A-DAY! CASS-A-DAY! CASS-A-DAY!”

  He was starting to get the white haze even this early; it would be very bad when it all caught up, but of course that was no consideration now. Come on, you son of a bitch, he thought, but he knew he was just hanging on. It was all going slowly downhill and Walton had about eight yards on him still. Cassidy could feel the muscles in his neck start to tighten, pulling his lower lip downward into an ugly grimace; he knew this was one of the last signs, this death sneer. So this is what happens! You just don’t get him, that’s all! The son of a bitch just keeps on going and it ends and you don’t get him ever!

  Cassidy adjusted his lean a little forward; that seemed to help some, but the neck was getting tighter and he felt his arms beginning to stiffen. By the time they got out of the turn and into the last straight, he knew they would be really bad. All down the back straight Cassidy tried to reel him in, but it was no good. Eight yards. Eight yards, eight yards! The strain was apparent to those close to the track; on the exhale breath he made little gasps: gahh! gahh! gahh! His eyes were starting to squeeze up shut but he could hardly see through the white haze anyway.

  The chant roared across the field, beseeching, hopeful, frenzied.

  “CASS-A-DAY! CASS-A-DAY! CASS-A-DAY!”

  Shut up! Shut up! I’m not your goddamn hero! All down the back straight he stared at the fleeing black suit through the wrinkled slits his eyes had become, stared at the black suit and wished they would all leave him alone. Just leave him the hell alone with his misery and defeat.

  That’s when he saw it.

  Almost imperceptible, but there it was just the same: the left shoulder dipped suddenly, then the right leg shot out a little farther than usual, and that was it: back to normal stride.

  Walton was tying up too.

  So that’s the way it is. Not so casual after all.

  Cassidy bore down, bore down, and finally began reeling him in, all during the final turn, all the way around he pulled him in, inch by inch, as his mouth was drawn more and more into the ugly grimace by the spastic neck muscles. Inch by inch the black suit came back until finally they broke clear of the turn and there it was: John Walton was three feet ahead of him with a hundred and ten yards of Tartan stretching out in front of them to the finish line. There was utter pandemonium in the stands as the chant degenerated into a howling, shrieking din.

  Quenton Cassidy moved out to the second lane, the Lane of High Hopes, and ran out the rest of the life in him.

  37.

  A Stiller Town

  ALL THROUGH THE LAST FIFTY YARDS he had looked through the two fogged slits of windows at the howling slow-motion nightmare going on around him as his body rigged up in true fashion, getting the jaw-shoulder lock and the sideways final straight fade and he began to lose all semblance of control. He peered out at all this as the orb was about to burst, letting all the poison flood out, peered at it and quite calmly wondered, When will it all end?

  He felt more than saw Walton come back up to his shoulder, entertained an idle curiosity about who would get it, but then went back to wistfully concentrating on those green inches of Tartan passing slowly, slowly beneath his feet.

  The last ten yards his body was a solid block of lactic acid, with those straining neck muscles pulling hi
s lip down and his back arched, trapezia trying to pull him over backward. And all the way Quenton Cassidy was telling himself:

  Not now…it hurts but go all the way through do not stop until you are past it you cannot afford to give the son of a bitch anything…so holdit holdit holdit Jesus Christ hold it holditholditHOLDITHOLDIT-HOLD IT…

  Finally with a scream and a violent wrenching motion he shook himself loose from this terrible force that gripped him, made himself bend into a semblance of a lean and it was over…

  …OR AT LEAST HE THOUGHT it was over if it was not all some bad dream and he is gasping simply wrenching air from around him feeling death surely imminent here beside him crying and going hands to knees, stumbling please leave me, please I don’t want, please I need to breathe…

  And then Denton has him around the waist and is lifting him up off the ground, please Bruce put me down I can’t breathe but Denton is taking him off, away from them, dragging the tall brown limp doll which apparently cannot stand on its own, holding him up painfully and saying, Remember it, Quenton, goddamn you better remember it because it doesn’t ever get any better, are you listening to me, goddamn you? and Cassidy forcing his eyes open finally and seeing Denton through the white haze and seeing that he is crying too. Oh Bruce I’m listening please let me go Jesus it hurts and Denton lets him go hands to knees to pray to the runner’s finish line god but Denton leans over and whispers: three fifty-two five, Cass. He kicked from five hundred yards out but it was you, Quenton Cassidy, it was YOU all the way. You know you beat him, don’t you, Quenton, goddamn it?

  But Cassidy can’t do anything but hold his knees and make his little gagging noises and nod, wishing everyone would just leave him the hell alone so he could see if he was going to die.

  WALTON WALKS BY and they touch hands; Walton regards Cassidy with curiosity but no fear. He nods to Denton.

  “Bruce,” he says.

  “John.”

  This is no game for upstarts or big surprises and Walton’s look is clearly more of curiosity than anything else. There will be time, his eyes say, time for decisions and revisions.

  “Later, mate,” he says to Quenton Cassidy. A respectful nod to Denton and he is gone.

  Later, Cassidy says to himself.

  When, after the countless flashes of cameras and the rude pushing, the well-wishing, and the endless questions (still wanting to know The Secret), after all of that he finally got away from them and talked with Bruce Denton quietly for a few moments; he pulled the zipper up all the way on the sweat top against the evening chill and stepped out onto the track as those remaining in the bleachers roared. Quenton Cassidy looked up, gave a little smile and wave and thought, I have nowhere to go.

  It was then that Bruce Denton turned with a sigh and walked alone toward the gate, thinking that Quenton Cassidy’s smile looked sad indeed…

  38.

  …A Runner

  THE YOUNG MAN WALKED STEADILY through the far turn, the darkest part of the track, and entered the final straightaway. Here, he thought, it is usually all over; just a matter of throwing what is left into it. It would be exciting to the onlookers perhaps, but the runners would be calmly playing it out.

  During the second and third laps he had tried to conjure up the old feeling of despair and pain, but as always could not quite get it. It had to be experienced, not remembered.

  Now he was walking the last fifty yards, unconsciously swinging his arms a little more vigorously, trying to conjure up some of that helpless frozen broth of the last few yards, when the arms and shoulders, legs and hips, all seem to bind themselves up together and the jaw locks into the tight grimace as if in supplication, and all of life is reduced to a simple desperation, a pleading for the last pathetic twitch from simple clay. How well he knew these things.

  Then he was by the post, telling himself for the last five yards, Go through it, go all the way through it. He stopped and looked around. The pain would catch you here, of course, the orb would shatter as soon as you crossed the line and it would overwhelm you for those first few seconds. That, of all the feelings, was the one that your mind protected you from the most; later you wouldn’t even be able to get a hint of it.

  But he supposed that even as bad as it was then, there must be some kind of pleasure mixed in with it, some desperate relief. Joy, perhaps, in knowing that it was over, one more time, with nothing held back.

  He took several deep breaths of the warm September air and then walked to the infield to get his travel bag. He looked around once more at the vaulting pits, the oblong sandbox of the horizontal jumpers, the concrete rings for the weight men, and finally back at the starting post. His eyes then took in the track, slowly following the rubberized surface all the way around the first turn, down the long lonely back straight past the 220 post, around the far turn, and then back up the final straight to the finish post where he had long ago beaten the great John Walton. Uncomplicated dimensions that had for some years now defined his life.

  A quarter of a mile that he knew by the inches. There was much to be left behind here, he thought. But I can live with that.

  He walked straight across the infield, across the track, and out the gate, leaving the joggers to their nightly toil. The moths still worried the streetlight.

  The young man stopped momentarily amid the dancing insect shadows and opened the small travel bag. He reached around under the passport, clothes, and toilet articles until he found it. He opened the flat, thin oblong box under the streetlight and looked at it once more.

  The heavy round disk reposed against pink satin, its thick purple ribbon curling up and behind the soft material. The writing around the edge was in Greek but the general import was clear enough.

  In the pale light the silver metal glowed dully. It no longer stabbed at him.

  This I can live with too, he thought. Primarily because I no longer have any say in the matter. He smiled faintly, closed the box, and replaced it in the bottom of the bag. He turned without looking back and walked away from the track.

  There was a very old gnarled tree somewhere he wanted to find and then he would be on his way.

  About the Author

  John L. Parker, Jr., has written for Outside, Runner’s World, and numerous other publications. He was the Southeastern Conference mile champion three times, and the United States Track and Field Federation national champion in the steeplechase, and was a teammate of Olympians Frank Shorter, Jack Bacheler, and Jeff Galloway on several championship cross-country teams. A graduate of the University of Florida’s College of Journalism as well as its College of Law, Parker has been a practicing attorney, a newspaper reporter and columnist, a speechwriter for then Governor Bob Graham, and editorial director of Running Times magazine. He lives in Gainesville, Florida, and Bar Harbor, Maine.