by Mark Slouka
“Gene’s stayin’ with my aunt, in Yonkers.”
We ate quietly for a while.
“You must be careful, both of you,” my father said, sounding almost angry. “I don’t want you going to this place anymore—this ice pond.”
“Let them eat, Samuel,” my mother said.
WE DECIDED on that Thursday—it was as good a time as any. Karen would drop us off with the empty suitcases a block away—just in case, Ray said—and the three of us would pack up his stuff and bring it to the car. She could keep it at her house—nobody would know a thing.
We’d be back for dinner, we told my parents—we were just going out to meet some friends.
My father looked up from his book; he’d been coming home early all week. “You’re not going near that place?” he said. My mother appeared in the door to the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dishcloth. “No, nothing like that,” Ray said, “just around the corner.” We’d put out the garbage when we got back.
We found Karen and Frank parked just around the block.
Ray kissed her through the open window. “Thanks, baby.”
“I don’t like this.”
“Frank, man—you good?” They clasped hands.
“This doesn’t make sense, Ray,” Karen said.
“It definitely makes sense.”
“It’s just stuff—”
“My stuff.”
Nobody said anything else while she drove the few blocks, and then she pulled over and we got the suitcases out of the trunk and Ray kissed her and we started off, walking side by side into the dark like traveling gunfighters.
A wet snow, a soggy dusting on the tops of the bushes and the leaves. He couldn’t wait to get his boots back, Ray said—he’d been sucking up puddles all week.
“Your old man have a gun?” Frank said. He’d started smoking since the Sunday school boycott, grown a dirty beard that made him look tougher.
“He’s a fuckin’ ex-cop,” Ray said.
We could see the house now. There was a small light upstairs. No car.
“You think maybe that’s a problem?”
“Wanna go back, go back.”
“Not what I’m sayin’.”
“He’s not gonna shoot nobody. Besides me, anyway.”
“I’m just sayin’, you know, considering we’re bustin’ into his house and all.”
“We’re not bustin’ into his house,” Ray said, turning into the yard. “We’re not even bustin’ into my house. We’re just gettin’ my shit and closin’ the door behind us.” He put down the suitcase and pulled his keys out of his pocket. “There’s not a goddamn thing he’s got that I—what the fuck?”
We walked around to the back, letting ourselves through the door in the fence hanging off its hinge. It was the same thing there. Ray had stopped talking. “You sure it’s the right key?” we kept saying. “Try again.” Wilma and the puppies had been barking for some time. It was like walking around a kennel.
We had come around to the front again when Frank noticed the piece of paper halfway down the porch. It was wet so it tore but he peeled the two halves off the boards and brought it back and we made it out by the light from the street. “You want your shit?” it said. “Try the weekend.”
Ray balled up the note and threw it down the porch. “Fuck him,” he said. The dogs were still going, Wilma’s mixed in with the thinner yaps from the pups. “Fuck him—that’s my stuff.”
“It’s OK, man,” Frank said.
“No, it’s not. It’s not fuckin’ OK.” He looked at me. “Your thing’s on Saturday, right? You good for Sunday?”
I nodded.
“How ’bout you, man?”
“Sure,” Frank said, and then: “Sure it’s worth it?”
“Oh, yeah,” Ray said. “It’s definitely worth it.”
We met Karen walking down the street in the dark to find us. Which didn’t surprise anybody. She’d been worried, she said.
It never occurred to him to tap a pane, let himself into his own house. Which makes sense, because it wasn’t. And we didn’t think of it.
THE THUNDER IN THAT HALL. The fear you felt walking in from the bus and up those greasy stairs through the smell of the hot dogs and the heat rub, every step pulling the shell closer to your ear, the roar growing like a coming wave—it’s amazing you could breathe at all. I keyed off of him, watched him going through his ritual—his hands tying the headband around his hair, his lean face calm as water, every movement deliberate, measured, unmoved. Who knows? Maybe he keyed off me as well. Truth is, I’d barely slept.
It had never scared me more. Never meant as much. I was ready. If anything, the flu had done me good, made me rest.
We put down our stuff in the bleachers. Falvo returned with the schedule. The two-mile relay was event seventeen. We had three hours. Relax, he said. Pretend you’re taking a nap. You know they’re watching you. He grinned. Have some fun, he said. Stretch their heads.
We looked around that sea of bodies, trying to find them, pausing at every patch of red. Everyone looked pretty much the same, but somewhere in that crowd was a medium-sized white boy with John Lennon glasses whose legs and heart and lungs could endure what most people couldn’t imagine enduring.
“You all right?” Kennedy said.
I nodded.
He grinned. “Gotta throw up, do it early.”
“I’m not gonna throw up.”
“There he is. Don’t sit up.”
He led me to him without pointing—second row, three groups down from the purple sweats. “Got him?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Glasses, drinking something.”
“That’s him.”
“Didn’t he have some kind of beard last time?”
“Maybe. This is this time.”
He stretched his leg out to the wooden railing and I lay down on the bench.
“Hey, Peter, man, you gonna run me a 2:08 today?” I heard him say. The crowd roared at something happening in the pit below, drowning out the answer.
Three hours. The week before, on a calm day on a dry track, I’d run a 220 in 23.6. Without sprinter’s blocks, wearing sweats. I had the speed, I told myself. I could inflict it when I chose. I closed my eyes. He didn’t look like much.
Minute by minute we filled up the time. Like dropping pennies in a jug. Mr. Kennedy found us, sat down a little ways off, unzipped his jacket. When I looked, he smiled and put his fists up like a boxer and bobbed his head a little and I smiled back. John went over to talk to him, then came back. “My dad says to break a leg—the other guy’s. His idea of a joke.”
“Might be on to somethin’,” I said.
We talked a little, tried to sleep, took a walk down to the basement past the food stalls and down some corridor with locked doors, passing groups of other runners in their sweats, their racing flats in their hands or tied over their shoulders. We tried watching the races for a while but it didn’t feel right, like we were running down some kind of battery, so we stopped. Moore had brought a radio. When “Fortunate Son” came on, somebody yelled to turn it up but as soon as we did the guys from Archbishop Molloy a couple of rows over turned up “I Can’t Help Myself” so for a while it was like a beer milkshake till Falvo yelled at us to turn it down and the Four Tops took over, Fogerty’s voice falling down a well, defiance to pleading, “It ain’t me, it ain’t me …”
It was time, Falvo said.
FORTY-FIVE MINUTES OUT he sent us to the warm-up corridor, a long hallway in the basement where runners in sweats jogged, loosened up, then ran quick wind sprints as best they could down the hard floors, then jogged some more. “A twenty minute warm-up, gentlemen,” Falvo said. “I want a fifteen-minute jog after you stretch, then repeat fifty’s. I want your heart rate up. I want to see some sweat. When you’re done, meet me here.”
I didn’t look at him when he passed, the sheen of sweat on his face, the glasses under the hood making him look like some kind of studious monk, didn’t think about the tigh
t little mincing jog, the arms held high like he was worried he might break—it didn’t fool me. I’d seen those choked-off little steps on runners lining up for the Olympic final in the 1,500 meters, knew you could hold it in tight as a fist, then open it when the gun went off, unleashing something overwhelming. He nodded to Kennedy as we passed, just a tip of the chin, then jogged to the end of the hall, turned and accelerated so smoothly you could barely tell he was moving except for the posters on the wall flying past his head like windows on a train.
He came by again, looked right through me like he was hypnotized. No nod, nothing. He didn’t know who I was. He’d know, I thought. I’d make him know.
We found Falvo in the bleachers, scribbling on the clipboard. Their second-best was leading off, he said—Balger would be anchoring. Their idea was to break open a lead, hold it, then have him finish it off. They expected us to do the same, to put me in lead-off, Kennedy at anchor. We weren’t going to play, he said. He tapped his forehead with his pencil. We’d mess with them, he said, we’d stretch their heads: We’d give them the lead. He wanted Peter running lead-off, then Moore.
Peter started to protest.
Falvo gently shut him down. “Listen to me—are you listening? You play to your strength. Some runners, mentioning no names, need the competition—it’s personal for them. You don’t. This guy has nine, maybe ten seconds on you. You’re not going to see him. It doesn’t matter. I know you. You won’t get sucked into something you can’t handle. You’ll run against the clock.”
“Coach is right,” Kennedy said.
Falvo put his hand on Peter’s shoulder. “My boy, you give me a 2:09 or better and I don’t care if we spot them twenty yards, or thirty.”
Moore would cut it down, he said, then hand off to me. I’d get us the lead, and Kennedy would tie it off. He grinned, cowlick bobbing, then beckoned us closer like a sorcerer in a fairytale.
“Banzai,” he said.
FUNNY WHAT NERVOUSNESS can do. Or fear. The runners, the timers, the coaches milling around the end of the track fall away, the crowd is like a highway at night. It’s like you’re not really there. You can feel the sweat, the drops of pee escaping your dick, even answer when they talk to you—handing you your number, confirming your name, saying “Gentlemen, you will only be allowed to step out for the handoff in the order that your team is coming in”—but you’re not really there. You’re sitting down to pull off your sweats because you’re too nervous to trust your balance, you’re watching your lead-off man walk to the line like a lamb to the slaughter, adjusting his shorts, fiddling with the baton, but you’re not really there. You’re huddled in a cave with your heart, listening to it boom. The noises from the outside world are coming from somewhere far above you.
And then the gun that starts things instead of finishing them cracks and they’re off, seven runners, seven teams, racing flats pounding on the wooden boards and he comes by, already five yards down, concentrating on his pace. He comes around again and you yell even though you know he won’t hear you and then he’s there again and Kennedy is standing next to you. “Sixty-five quarter,” he says, because he knows you know what it means, that Mr. Time Tunnel is right on pace, watching the boards ahead of him, beginning to bear down, and then he’s there again. This should’ve been your race, you think. Their guy came through in 59. You could’ve taken him. You know that. You could’ve run him down like a dog. It doesn’t matter. He’s there again, a lap to go, his face changed now, his legs like weights, twenty yards behind and beginning his push. Moore is standing by the handoff line, shaking it out. You wish him luck and the North Salem guy gets the baton and goes and Moore barely nods, waiting, waiting, waiting, and Peter staggers in and slaps it in his palm and he’s off.
Five laps to go till it’s you. Four laps. Three. You squat down quickly to double-check your shoes. Breathe, breathe. Kennedy’s standing there next to you, cool, watching. “Peter pulled a 2:08.5,” he says. “We’re in it.”
“Their guy ran 1:59,” you say.
“I know,” he says. “We’re in it anyway.”
Two to go. Moore’s working hard now. You can see Balger off to the side—strong, pale legs, big calves for a runner. Moore comes by, already hurting. In second place, maybe fifteen yards down. Balger looks slowly around the crowd, lenses winking white—like a camera panning by. Use it. Make him see you. Make them all see you.
One to go. You’re on the line, Kennedy still there, standing by the outside rail. He looks up at the clock. “Might need a little help on this one, Jon,” he calls, starting to pull off his sweats. And he smiles and you know what courage looks like. “Just get me that stick, OK? Kill this one for me.”
Their guy walks out, arrogant prick, grabs the baton and he’s gone and you wait, wait, not feeling your legs, not feeling anything and then Moore’s staggering into the infield and that aluminum tube is in your hand and you switch it to your right and go. You want to burn him down, now, immediately, make him pay for those seconds you had to wait but you can’t. You can’t.
Somewhere there’s a crowd, four thousand people yelling, Falvo with his stopwatch, Kennedy’s dad punching the air, but you don’t hear them, see them. One down and he’s coming back to you. Peter’s face flashes by. Balger’s out there somewhere, that squat little fuck. He thinks he can take it. That it’s his. He doesn’t know you, doesn’t see you. He’ll see you. Two down and the alarms are going off in your chest, your gut. It’s fast—too fast. Three laps to go. Your legs feel heavy, the snap isn’t there. Save it, save it.
Two laps to go and you don’t hear your split. He’s strong, leaning into the curves five yards up, maybe six, and then the pain starts to come on and you know he’s yours because he’s feeling it too now and because you know this fire better than anybody, because the hotter it burns the higher you’ll build it, because you’ll walk into that furnace and sit on the couch.
You’re right on his shoulder. He knows you’re there. And then you go, leaving him like a bullet leaves a gun. This is everything. Everything you have. First they ignore you, motherfucker, remembering what Herb Elliott’s coach said before the 1,500 in Rome: Don’t pass them, bury them. Destroy their spirit. Go, go, go—don’t let him back. Pull away. Leave him behind. Kill him. This is yours, by God. And the track is unwinding and there’s nobody there, just boards and air, and you pour it on like fuel, more, more, more, and you know you’ve never felt speed like this at the end of a half mile and suddenly Kennedy’s there, his hand reaching back, something like wonder on his face, and you slap the baton in his hand. “There you go,” you say, and he’s gone.
And so you win. Because he’s John Kennedy after all, because he takes that twelve-yard lead and pays it out like rope as Balger comes on in the last lap, letting it slip to ten, to eight, then stops it right there and goes through the tape, parting it with his left hand. Moving it aside like you’d move a girl’s hair from her face.
And for a while it matters. It matters even after you hear that Balger was sick that morning, that he insisted on running even though he’d thrown up twice before the race, that the wet skin, the glassy look, weren’t what you’d thought. It doesn’t matter. So what if it took balls for him to get off his knees in that overused bathroom and rinse out his mouth and run? So what if he ran a 1:57 half mile with the stomach flu and then, still in pain, took his hand off his knee just long enough to shake yours and say “Good run, fellas—see you at States, yeah?” Still. You run the race you run—there’s always going to be something.
It’s quiet on the bus. By Katonah it’s night and the snow is coming down, busy in the taillights, lightening the sky. The reservoirs are like puzzle pieces lifted out of the woods. Falvo has the trophy next to him—a foot-high runner welded to a tombstone, one leg back, one arm up like he’s racing for a bus. They’ve given you a medal—you can feel it under your t-shirt, like a welt between your ribs.
You run the race you run.
THE NEXT MORNING Karen drove
us over and let us off and we walked down the street to Ray’s. Again. The two of them had been living at the motel; she’d stay till midnight, like Cinderella, then hurry home. He’d worked out a deal, Ray told me—odd jobs for a room that would be empty anyway.
“WELL?” they’d said, when they picked me up that morning. “So?” They hadn’t been able to make it. When I told them Karen screamed and Ray grabbed me and swung me around and then they got me in a two-way hug.
“What’d I tell you?” he kept yelling. He punched Frank in the shoulder. “What’d I tell him, right? Never fuckin’ listens to me.” He pointed at me. “We get back I wanna see the medal. I can’t believe we fuckin’ missed it.”
“I just couldn’t get the car,” Karen said.
“States is Saturday, right? I’ll make that if I have to crawl,” Ray said.
He looked around, the smile slowly pulling back into his eyes. “Fuck it, let’s do this thing,” he said.
IT WAS DIFFERENT, knowing he’d be there. We took the suitcases, started walking. A dull winter day, the sun just a thin spot in the blanket. Somebody was chopping at the ice, then scraping it up with a shovel.
We turned the corner. Mr. Cappicciano’s Pontiac was in the drive.
“Let me do the talking, alright?” Ray said.
“No problem,” Frank said. I looked over at him—the scraggly beard, the big neck. I was glad he was there.
“You OK?” I said to Ray.
“Fuck it, what’s he gonna do?” He licked his lips. “All I want is my stuff, right?”
The dirty snow, the dull little houses—it was like the world had been rubbed with an old eraser. We followed him up the steps of the porch. It smelled like ashes and wet wood.
Mr. Cappicciano answered the door on the second knock. He had Gene in his arms. He smiled, then raised Gene’s wrist and flopped his hand up and down like a puppet waving goodbye.
“Say hello to your brother,” he said.
