by Jeff Gunhus
Allison put her head down and lengthened her stride. She focused on her breathing, pushing the memories back where they belonged. She’d force them away permanently if she could, but years had taught her that was impossible. The best she could hope for was some good old-fashioned repression. There was too much at stake with her pursuit of Arnie Milhouse to get distracted now. She beat the sidewalk with her Nikes and headed over the Eastport Bridge.
As her pace quickened, she left behind the dark cloud of thoughts that had hovered around her all morning. Dark and bitter, these memories brooded about the confident woman running away from them. But the darkest memory, the worst of them all, did not worry like the others. Allison knew she could never run far enough or fast enough to get away from it completely. That memory refused to be relegated to the shadows for too long. Little did she know that it was about to be thrust back into the harsh light of day.
CHAPTER 10
The Maritime Republic of Eastport was a small batch of homes and restaurants just over a short drawbridge from Annapolis. Visitors seldom realized there was a different name for the area, but the residents sure did. In colonial times, Eastport was the center of some of the Bay’s most important boat building and also home to a large contingent of the area’s oyster and crabbing fleet. Allison ran the outer road of the peninsula, passing by the last holdouts of wooden boat manufacturers who were fighting the good fight against the fiberglass hull with high-end wood kayaks for weekend warriors. On reaching the end of the point of land, she turned south and started to run the grid, following the road to the water on the other side, moving down one street and crossing the small peninsula again.
The sun was well up over the horizon now, and the seasonal humidity mixed with the steady evaporation of last night’s showers made the air thick enough that she imagined she was less running than swimming through the streets. She wished she had worn shorts instead of the heavy sweats. She had long since soaked through her T-shirt and it now hung from her side, tucked into the belt line of the sweatpants. Her jog top still gave her plenty of support. Even though she had to put up with a few more looks from passersby, she felt it was worth the trade-off to be able to survive a little longer in the rising heat.
She stopped in at a gas station right before the bridge to Annapolis and bought a bottle of water. She felt good, much better than she thought she would. With the accident, it was probably smarter for her to take it easy. She hadn’t bothered to ask the doctor. No doubt he would have suggested a couple of days of rest, maybe a trip to a masseuse or even a chiropractor, but that wasn’t for her. No, the surety of a good run was exactly what she needed, and if the payment was being miserably sore later on, she would happily pay the price.
She allowed herself a few minutes of rest, sipping the cold water and stretching out her back. She tried to work back through her meeting with Arnie but surprisingly found herself thinking about Richard instead. Maybe it was the sheen of sweat covering her body, or the blood pounding through her system, but it was the sex she remembered. Not the desperate, passionate clawing at each other that marked their long reunions after being apart but the marathon sessions on long, lazy weekend mornings, when they could take their time exploring each other’s bodies and work their way to a shared crescendo that left them both exhausted.
She smiled at the memory, savoring it. Usually thinking about Richard turned bitter, reliving the fights, second-guessing her decision to end things between them. But not today. She wondered why.
Allison poured a little water on the back of her neck and straightened as the small stream trickled down the length of her spine. She finished the bottle and restarted her run, crossing over the bridge down by the Marriott and back through City Dock and took Prince George’s Street out.
This led her by the South Gate of the Naval Academy, but a left hook took her alongside the fifteen-foot wall that protected the grounds from unwanted visitors. Soon, St. John’s College was on her left. Even during her time at the academy, she felt it was an odd juxtaposition. A small liberal arts school, St. John’s was known for attracting esoteric thinkers. Usually brilliant and always quirky, St. John’s students liked to grow their hair long, wear sandals even in snowstorms, and sit in coffeehouses arguing about the origins of leftist philosophy. On the other side of the street, Navy midshipmen signed up for a world of structure and self-discipline. Despite the differences, there was a tradition of mutual respect between the two institutions, solidified each year by the unlikeliest of sporting events, an annual croquet tournament.
The road became narrower, and she crossed a bridge that spanned Navy Creek, home of the academy’s boathouse for the crew and skull teams. Farther on, she came to a T intersection. To the left was the road back toward Annapolis that would take her by the Navy Stadium, where she had gone as a teenager with all her classmates to cheer on the often losing but always hard fighting Midshipmen. Turning right at the intersection would take her along the road that paralleled the outer wall of the academy grounds, over to Navy Bridge, across the Severn River and then up into the million-dollar homes that lined the river.
She jogged in place, trying to gauge how far she had already run and how much longer each direction would take her. Finally, she chose to go right and head toward the bridge. A simple decision, no more than a flip of the coin really, but one she later wished she could take back.
CHAPTER 11
The midshipmen from the Naval Academy were out in force. Dozens of them, both men and women, decked out in dark blue shorts and white T-shirts with “USNA” printed across the front. On most mornings, Allison ran into at least a few runners wearing that outfit. Physical training, or PT, was part of the drill at the academy just like in any military program, and it wasn’t uncommon to see a few midshipmen out running the bridge or through town, but this morning was different. This had the look of a timed run, a regularly scheduled check to make sure there were no physical stragglers in the midst of the nation’s finest. The runners each had a number taped to their clothing, the same as a marathon or 10K race. Instructors lined the path, not barking instructions like in some bad training-camp movie, but simply eying each midshipman as he or she came by, letting them know they were being appraised, letting them know, honor code or not, there would be no shortcuts taken on this course.
Allison had been one of them once. She had run the timed course with her classmates. She had been competitive too, finishing in the top ten, not only of the women but of all finishers. She’d taken some flack for it from some of the guys, especially since the instructors used being beaten by a girl as an insult to hurl at the ones who finished after her. At the time it felt good, but the price later had been too steep, too unfair.
Even though the bridge was open to the public, something made her stop in place and prepare to turn around. She felt a rush of shame.
You’re not a little girl anymore, Allison. Run where you want to run.
She was surprised by the voice in her head. The voice that encouraged her and pushed her when she felt uncertain usually sounded like one of her parents, her father mostly. Research showed that it was the same for most people, although the word encouragement was often substituted with belittled or something similar. This internal dialogue was the subject of Allison’s senior thesis at UCLA. “No matter how well my life goes, my father is always there to shit on my parade” was the opening line of the paper, a quote from her own mother who hadn’t seen her father for more than two decades. This negativism wasn’t Allison’s experience, though. Her parents were always supportive.
But the voice in her head this time wasn’t either of her parents. It was Richard.
She hadn’t spoken to him for months now, but there he was again, in her head, pushing her along. And worst of all, she knew he was right. Which was the most awful thing about Richard to begin with: that indeterminable rightness about everything.
At least without him here, she could take
his advice without feeling self-conscious about her own identity or without the power struggle that plagued their relationship. Had plagued their relationship, Allison corrected herself. That was no longer an issue because the relationship was no longer there to be plagued. She’d seen to that.
Guilt throbbed inside of her, heating up like a low-grade fever. For all of his issues and all of his faults, Richard had done everything right. She was the one who had gotten scared and pulled back. Allison had dated plenty of guys but never allowed things to get serious. Always pulling the plug long before anyone got too close. Being with Richard was the only real, adult relationship of her life, but eventually it went too far, too fast, and became too scary. One day everything was great between them; the next he started a discussion about kids. Soon after, they were on the long slide downhill toward the abyss, Allison self-sabotaging all the way down.
Richard was patient through it all, knowing exactly what she was doing, even understanding the reasons why. But it didn’t stop her from ending things in one cataclysmic fight. At first ending it had been hard, and self-doubt had led her to pick up the phone on more than one occasion, reconciliation on her mind. But he was a good-looking, upwardly mobile guy, and he hadn’t stayed single for long. She told herself it was for the best and tried to shrug it off, but she let it eat at her. The fact that she hadn’t been in a relationship since was testament to that. But what else was she supposed to do? Besides, she had Arnie Milhouse to keep her occupied right now.
Allison started up her jog again, deciding to let her mind wander back through the minefield of her and Richard’s relationship for the next mile or so. She was reliving a trip to Napa Valley when she hit the downward slope of Navy Bridge and saw the police car in the intersection below holding traffic back for the runners to cross the street.
She slowed a little on the downhill. There was a bottleneck of people at the base of the bridge. Orange cones made some space in the road, but most of the runners stayed on the sidewalk as if the slow-down were a welcome relief from the pace. She glanced across the bridge to see about crossing, but there were cars coming in both directions. And she guessed that the cop at the intersection wouldn’t appreciate her jaywalking on the downhill side of a blind rise. So she allowed herself to filter into the group until she was shoulder to shoulder with the other runners, all of them carefully jogging forward at the same pace.
She heard the instructor’s voice before she saw him. It was a heavy, thick sound, with nasal tones that belied the owner’s southern origins. There was undeniable strength in the voice, as if a megaphone had been implanted in the man’s larynx. It rang out over the panting and heavy breathing of the group, calling them names, yelling for them to dig deeper.
Allison’s mouth went dry. Her throat constricted painfully. She tried to slow down, but the runners around her pushed her forward.
The voice called out as if moving cattle through a shallow river crossing.
No.
No, that’s not possible.
Allison felt the ground buckle beneath her feet. She reached out to the person next to her for balance.
It can’t be.
The kid beside her had her by the elbow now. She thought she heard him ask if she was all right, but the words came through as if spoken underwater. The concrete beneath her feet turned into sand. She couldn’t quite get her feet to work right.
Then she was in the air. It wasn’t a far drop, just the height of a curb, but her stomach rose up with the disturbing realization that the ground was no longer where it belonged. A quick jolt of panic accompanied the step down, as if her brain were suddenly seized with the possibility that the ground had indeed disappeared entirely and there would be nothing to break the fall.
But the ground was there and it slammed up into her foot, throwing her momentum forward into the back of the person ahead of her. She clawed at the shirt to regain her balance, but she was too far gone. She fell, making first contact on the asphalt road with the heels of her hands. Instinctively she rolled onto her shoulder, tucking her head away.
The runner behind her tried to leap over to keep from stepping on her, but the boy’s shoe caught the side of her head and he tumbled over, taking a few other people down with him. Most of the runners, well aware that the clock stopped for no one, kept flowing around them, doing their best to step around the jumble of sweaty limbs sprawled out in the road.
Allison clutched the side of her head where the boy had kicked her while the world throbbed in and out of focus. She was disoriented so that when she lowered her hand and saw the blood there, it took her a few long seconds to understand that the blood was from the scrapes on her hand and not from a head wound. It only felt like the kid had put a hole in her head.
The few runners who had stopped had melted away back into the rush of white T-shirts. Allison knew she needed to get to her feet, she needed to get away, but she couldn’t make her body do it. Chills ran through her torso. Her arms shook. Tears streamed down her face. She could only manage to push herself backward along the ground, away from the voice, away from the man. Run, Allison, run away before it’s too late.
The man with the voice pushed past the last of the onlookers. Allison was looking toward him, but the last person to move out of his way had left her looking directly into the sun. She put her hand up to shield her eyes. She needed to see the man, to verify what she already knew, holding out in the far corner of her mind that she was wrong; it was just nerves, just bad memories catching up.
The shadow in front of her moved in closer, reaching out for her. Part of her brain knew the man was reaching down to help up a civilian jogger who had fallen down in the middle of some serious young people doing a serious run. But the second the face was out of shadow and she could see the man reaching for her, that part of her brain ceased to exist. A small part of her persona, locked away in heavy solitary confinement for so many years, burst out from its cell and took over. Allison was eighteen again. Defenseless. On the ground. Out of breath from running. And the face was coming toward her. Reaching out to grab her. Leering at her, mouth slightly open, moist, pink tongue visible through the cracked lips and tobacco-stained teeth. That face, reaching out to steal something from her that could never be given back.
Allison did exactly what she had done when she was eighteen.
She screamed.
And she screamed.
Until the face was gone and someone told her it was all right to stop.
CHAPTER 12
The day started just as every July 17 had started for the last thirteen years. Arnie woke up, crossed the bedroom floor unsteadily, and threw up in the toilet. Now a different man from the loser throwing up in his two-bedroom shithole thirteen years ago, he couldn’t help but think about that poor SOB as he heaved out the booze in his system into the porcelain bowl.
In his mind, the Arnie Milhouse living in the row house in Baltimore wasn’t really him; it was someone else entirely. The Arnie Milhouse he knew today was a self-confident millionaire, the man who took a very healthy life insurance payment from his wife’s untimely death and parlayed that into a small fortune. He was self-made, beholden to no one. This intruder, this person from a parallel universe that looked like him in the mirror wasn’t a reflection of who he really was. It was just a false echo from the past, one that meant nothing to him now.
Only he knew that was a lie.
That poor bastard meant everything to him.
If it wasn’t for that skeleton of a man finally standing up to the world, Arnie Milhouse wouldn’t be where he was today.
So, no matter how much he hated the man for his weakness and his timidity, for the dozens of times he had just looked the other way when his wife had mistreated their son (mistreated, hell, it was criminal abuse, pure and simple), no matter how little a man he had been, Arnie-today took his hat off to Arnie of thirteen years ago for finally getting the cojo
nes to stand up and take charge.
Arnie gargled some Listerine to get the puke taste out of his mouth, spit in the sink, and looked up at his reflection, staring into his eyes as if he might find something unexpected hiding there.
“You OK, Dad?” a tired voice said behind him.
Arnie turned to see Jason in his boxers and a T-shirt, rubbing his eyes, hair sticking out in all directions. “What are you doing up?” Arnie asked.
The boy shrugged. That was fast becoming Jason’s answer to any question his dad asked. That and “I don’t care.” Arnie supposed it was natural for a boy entering his teenage years, but not his boy. Arnie knew he would soon have to teach Jason that I dunno and I don’t care just weren’t going to cut it around him. Not today, though. This wasn’t the time.
“I heard you throwing up. Are you sick?”
Arnie put his arm around the boy and walked him back to the bedroom. “Probably just something I ate last night. I’ll be fine.”
“So we’re still going out on the boat?”
“Hell yes. I mean, heck yes.”
Jason giggled at what a prude his dad was, and Arnie soaked up the boy’s presence. The twinge came again as he realized the days were numbered that it would be just the two of them. First would be high school and girlfriends. Then college, hopefully in-state and close by, but Jason had been talking about Harvard. Then marriage, his own kids. Soon it would just be a periodic phone call and a couple of trips a year. Life was going to take his boy away from him.
But today Jason was all his. Well, mostly his. On many days, but always on this day in particular, Arnie had to share Jason with a ghost.
