“I am late to meet a friend… .”
“Come meet us. It’s a diner right off the park. Breakfast in under an hour—easy. Pretty please. Just sprint over here. You’re a speed demon.”
Liam’s slight pause was quickly interpreted as a yes, and Zane hung up the phone. As a teammate committed to the competition against Urban Bobcats, Liam really wanted to hear more about what had happened at the race and to be a part of things. He wanted to fit in. Surely Monroe wouldn’t mind moving their plans an hour; Liam would call him and make something up about train delays. Quick and easy.
“I almost didn’t recognize the number when it popped up on my phone—it’s been something like a century since you’ve actually dialed me.” Monroe’s sarcasm traveled very well over the phone lines. “I worried my baby’s finger had broken.”
“And conversation starters like this one are going to engender many more phone calls from me, babe. Look, I have had a helluva morning running around and doing errands and the New York City transit system has had it in for me. I need an extra hour to prep for our shopping extravaganza. I can’t go into Marc Jacobs looking like a bedraggled panhandler. You understand, right?”
“If they are out of the cashmere hoodies that I have been coveting all month, I will snap that toothpick frame of yours in two. Ca-piche!”
“You’re a doll. See you at two—on the dot.”
Click. It was so easy that Liam wondered why he didn’t concoct little white lies more often. And then he felt a slight rumble in his stomach. The lying clearly did not fit his constitution and had already left its mark on him. But it was just an hour. Monroe probably could use the extra time to primp for their outing. Liam heard himself justifying it all and felt even guiltier. Sometimes he wished he could just shut off his brain for an hour or two and enjoy life.
Liam began to jog west across the park and noticed the day was growing prettier. The temperatures still huddled in the midtwenties, but the winds had slowed and the sun seeped through the once lowery skies. The gorgeous landscape of the park rolled out before him like still shots from a movie scene. In about an hour, parents would descend on the park with children and sleds streaming along behind them. Knowing the mayhem down the bend, Liam appreciated, even more, the complete absence of anything as his feet crunched through the winter setting.
Even Broadway had been more or less deserted, except for the few homeless people who dotted the median of the avenue. The diner glowed on the corner in the most inviting way. Its chrome countertops and checkerboard tiles created the feel of another time. The Fast Trackers—there appeared to be six or seven in total—were a study of hi-tech gear. The window of the diner showcased a mosaic of Spandex tights, multilayered Windbreakers, and aerodynamic hats and headbands. Liam paused at the door for a minute and admired the colorful group enjoying one another while waiting for a table in the busy restaurant. Everyone bellowed his name as Liam entered.
MILE 10
“Ley, hey, hey! You can’t just sit there.” Zane swatted Gene off the chair he was about to lounge into. “I prepared a seating chart.”
Gene rolled his eyes and stepped away to the bar where the bartender poured bottomless pitchers of margaritas and daiquiris for the Fast Tracker crowd. Zane may have kept dry, but he was not begrudging anyone else a good time. Liam downed three icy drinks and had begun to flirt with the Brazilian guy tending the bar. He would have preferred a longer happy hour to the dread of a tedious dinner where he didn’t even get to choose his own seat. Assigned seating seemed overdone for a Mexican restaurant.
“Don’t worry,” Zane whispered. “I have you seated right next to me at the center of the table. Gene will be quarantined to the far end—that chair right next to the entrance.”
Liam looked at the area in which they would be eating and thought Zane grandiose for referring to it as one long table, as though the group were a big family who had put all the leaves in the dining room set so that service for sixteen could take place around the Danish modern furniture. The restaurant staff had, in fact, pushed together a series of ill-fitting two-person tables to accommodate the oversized party.
“I don’t know why Gene has to ruin every event by attending. Just once it would be nice to have an evening free of his ickiness.”
“It’s your birthday party, Zane. Why did you include him on the guest list?”
“Don’t be stupid, Liam. Not inviting him wasn’t a choice. Be real, please. Oh! Oh! Oh! Let’s try to guess what cheap, inappropriate stunt he’s going to pull tonight. That’s always fun.”
Liam understood the need for groups of friends to have an enemy within. Human nature and the evils of collusion forced cliques to align against an outsider, someone about whom gossip and bad will could be generated. And it helped to fuel the fire when the outsider was actually an insider. It would be pointless if the pariah were someone whom no one knew, some person foreign to the scene. How could anyone become appropriately invested in a stranger? What would be the fun? By inviting the maligned one in and making sure he is at every event, the clique assures itself a constant arsenal of vinegary anecdote. While Liam knew that a more mature person might not cave to the group pressures, he had to quench his own very real thirst to fit in. And he seemed to be doing just that quite beautifully with the Fast Trackers these days. Every once in a while Liam was, however, saddled by a nagging thought—what if the winds shifted and he himself blew into the crosshairs of the group’s scrutiny and displeasure? He was all too aware of the vagaries of gay men’s tastes and predilections. There were no guarantees in these types of petty games.
“Fine.” Zane pushed Liam away coyly. “Don’t play the game. See if I care. You go refill your drink. I’m going to do a rotation before telling people to take their seats.”
As he ordered another frozen margarita with salt, Liam noticed Riser sulking on a bar stool, massaging his face between his hands and moaning quietly. While Liam had not yet developed a one-on-one rapport with Riser or Matthew or Ferdinand (the three seemed to travel as a trio), he felt moved to make the effort now that one of his teammates appeared glum.
“Everything good?” Riser lifted his head at the question. Upon closer inspection, Riser appeared more angry or sullen than sad.
“Good? Sure.” He shook his head in disgust as he spoke. Liam had no sense of where this conversation might go. “I’m so completely nauseated with myself. I already ate about half a bowl of guacamole, and we haven’t even sat down to dinner yet. I’m going to look like a bloated buffoon dancing tonight.”
“Dancing?” Liam realized that he hadn’t responded to the part of the statement that Riser was angling for.
“Yup, anytime we go out in Williamsburg on a weekend night, you can count on a trek over to Sugarland for dancing.”
“But Zane didn’t put anything about dancing in the invitation. It only mentioned dinner.”
“You’re cute. Here’s what will happen. After dinner—it will be around ten thirty or eleven o’clock—Zane will cry that he doesn’t want to go home yet. He’ll shout that he needs to be around his friends come midnight—or something like that. Then someone will have to suggest the trip to Sugarland, as though it has never been suggested before, as though it isn’t suggested every time we go out to eat in Williamsburg. It’s like a fucking script.”
Liam nodded as Riser dug deeper into the diatribe. For some reason, Liam placed his hand against Riser’s cheek and caressed it gently, in a way that was meant to be comforting. Riser pulled away quickly.
“I’m not a charity case. I’m just fat,” he retorted.
“You look fantastic. You’re incredibly lean.” Liam was not mollifying Riser. In fact, Riser probably had less body fat than Liam.
Riser pulled the tight sweater he wore up a few inches to reveal his concave stomach.
“See, these rolls just drip off my sides.”
“That’s just because you’re sitting. That happens to everyone.”
“Sure, you’ll
see later at the club just how much fat everyone has dripping off their six-packs. I appreciate the sentiment, but you don’t know what you’re talking about. You’ll see for yourself soon enough.”
“I think that the boys will be buzzing around you like bees to the hive, my friend.” Liam smiled as broadly as possible and made sure that he looked Riser right in the eye as he spoke. Riser attempted a grin of recognition back and then excused himself, trotting over to the restroom.
While Liam understood that runners had an often single-minded focus on enhanced performance and the never-ending quest for “perfection,” he sometimes wanted to shake some sense and perspective into his new group of friends and let them know that they might not want to miss the forest for the trees. After all, sometimes, it can be really fun to just enjoy the guacamole and still have dinner and even take your shirt off on the dark dance floor. Sometimes just going on a run and not clocking the time can be a boatload of fun. Liam sensed a deep sadness in Riser and hoped that he would come back from the bathroom and enjoy his good friends and a good meal.
Just then Zane pulled everyone from the bar to the dining table. He sat each person individually according to the cards he had propped up on the place settings. As he had intimated, Zane placed Liam directly to his left, with the rest of the guests situated in proximity to Zane based on his taste, or distaste, for them. Gary dined to the right of Zane, and Ben was directly across from the birthday boy, flanked by Mitch and Riser. Some non-club members were strewn about, including a heavily tattooed black man who trained Zane at his gym on Astor Place, as well as the Laotian woman who ministered to his massage needs twice per month. Gene huddled for warmth by the restaurant door that kept brushing in gusts of winter.
Liam found himself eating around the heavy lip of melted cheese that oozed from his burrito. He touched the area of his abdomen between his waist and his navel and it felt soft and untoned; he needed a good tempo run to jump-start his metabolism. Never one to shy away from the spotlight when shirts started to fly off, Liam knew that if they did go dancing, he would want to have as empty and taut a stomach as possible.
“Looks like we have another light eater on our hands,” Gary said through a series of boyish giggles. He quickly lifted his icy margarita glass. “I’m with you, Liam. Save the calories for the liquids!”
“You’d lose more weight if you cut out the alcohol.” Marvin had craned his head and projected his voice loudly enough so that everyone could hear the wisdom he meted out from his perch next to Gene. “Not only is that concoction riddled with calories, but it also slows your metabolism.”
“Well, Liam and I don’t need to lose weight.” Gary winked at Liam, and they clinked glasses in an alliance against Marvin’s attempts to kill their buzz.
“The clocks don’t lie,” Marvin said, waving his hand directly at Gary and Liam. “Look at those guys who came in ahead of Liam in the five-mile points race. I can tell you for certain that they were almost all thinner than he is. I’m not talking twenty pounds, but if Liam dropped four or five pounds, he’d be a much greater asset to the team.”
“No one named you coach, Marvin,” Zane spoke emphatically, looking at Liam instead of the subject of his censure. “When that happens, you can put us all on diets. But for now let’s enjoy my birthday.”
“Liam, next time you go for a jog, carry a five-pound weight with you and let me know if it slows you down.” With a snicker, Marvin returned to his chair and shared what appeared to be a final rejoinder with Gene, who then patted him on the back.
While Liam appreciated the intensity of elite runners—that discipline that hollowed their cheekbones and drew every millimeter of fat from their sunken bellies—he also loved the fact that he got attention for his biceps and chest. He never considered the gym a mecca and only lifted three or four times a week, for tone more than bulk, and did not want to give that up to run faster. Had it been any other Fast Tracker at the table, with the exception of Zane, and Liam would have swung back with a reminder that his five-mile time had been faster.
When Gary pulled out his laptop at the diner after the last race, Liam’s jaw dropped to learn that he had managed to finish the run with a 5:30 mile. He clocked 29:30, breaking 6-minute pace for entry into what Zane referred to as the “high-five club.” Only a few members of the team had ever managed to race at sub-6-minute pace and the only others to have achieved that feat at the last 5-miler were Marvin and Zane. Both had beaten Liam handily. Marvin had clocked 28:25, which was astounding for a forty-one-year-old, and Zane placed first for the team with a 27:55. It was a tight race for the fourth and fifth Fast Tracker spots, with Gene coming through fourth in 30:18 and Riser crossing the line in 30:21. Ferdinand, Mitch, Ben, and Matthew followed in 30:29, 31:09, 31:20, and 32:06, respectively. Every runner had come close to his personal best, but Zane still failed to edge out the tenth-place runner from the Urban Bobcats, and so the Fast Trackers team had not only failed to best the Bobcats, it had failed to even make them sweat. A pep talk ensued at the next track workout, with Fabio insisting that the team had only scratched the surface of its potential. By May, those who stuck to the program would be lopping off minutes from their five-mile time. Nothing but the boundaries of their imagination and their spirit could contain them.
“Don’t pay any attention to him,” Zane whispered into Liam’s ear as he began to open his presents. “You have more natural speed than Marvin—no matter what the scale says.”
“I want to beat him.” The words surprised Liam as he heard them trail from his mouth. The internecine competition with Fast Trackers had turned him off at workouts. But he smarted over Marvin’s smug tone.
“Are you willing to do anything it takes to beat him?” Zane asked, barely suppressing a Cheshire grin.
Liam nodded, curious to hear what was coming next. The question had been asked with a gravity of tone, making Liam imagine the handing over of a firstborn son or the sacrifice of his most favored possessions.
“Good.” Zane paused for effect. “You will be my protégé. I can slice your race times down. I believe that if you believe in yourself, you can take him.”
“Okay.”
“So you promise to do whatever I say?”
“Yes. Okay.”
“It’s a deal. I’ll call you tomorrow. I have to finish opening the gifts. Otherwise, the crowd gets bored!”
After unveiling seven different combinations of running shorts and tank tops and three different gift certificates to athletic stores throughout the city, Zane cleared all the presents off the table and tearfully thanked those who had taken the time to shop for him.
“It’s all over.” Zane sighed. “Nothing left to open, but I can’t bear to see the night end. You all can’t let me go home yet!”
It was as though a script had been prepared, and now the audience waited for someone who had forgotten a line. Finally, Mitch piped up that given that it was still only eleven o’clock on a weekend night, they should all go dancing at Sugarland. The suggestion came out so innocently that Liam almost doubted that Mitch had witnessed this scene play out a dozen times prior.
A small line greeted the pack of Fast Trackers as they approached the outside of the club on Ninth Street. The man monitoring the door glanced in a wide, swooping S over the group and waved everyone inside without saying a word. An orange-haired man in a striped polo shirt and his mousy female companion shot an accusatory look at each and every Fast Tracker who waltzed by them and through the club’s velvet rope.
Liam had never been inside Sugarland. As the gay scene crept across the river into Brooklyn’s Williamsburg in recent years, Liam still preferred to frequent the East Village hot spots along the corridor of Avenue A between Houston Street and Fourteenth Street that housed Detox and The Phoenix and Eastern Bloc. But this gritty wonderland where the club owners blasted patrons with classics from Madonna along with the best remixes of songs by Lady Gaga and eighties gems like the soundtrack to The Breakfast Club had flown und
er his radar. The interior of Sugarland matched the desolation and grime of the street outside, with the main bar recalling the seediness of Times Square’s heyday. A few hundred meters from the club’s entrance, music blared and two or three groups of two or three people danced halfheartedly.
“It’s still the warm-up music,” shouted Zane, motioning for everyone to settle along some stools that flanked the dank bar. A trio of emaciated hipsters still sporting remnants of adolescent patches of acne self-consciously rolled and unrolled the sleeves of their flannel shirts. They twirled the skinny straws in their mixed drinks while discussing the distinctions between Verlaine and Rimbaud. The bartender flipped through the copy of Honcho he had resting on the knicked and worn surface of the long bar.
“Tequila shots for everyone!” screamed Mitch, throwing down a hundred-dollar bill on the bar before anyone had the chance to protest.
The bartender jolted awake from the centerfold of a furry farmhand pitching hay while stroking himself off, and he quickly lined up more than a dozen shot glasses. Liam despised tequila shots. All the sane people he knew felt the exact same way when sober, and yet it seemed to be the rallying cry of drunk people everywhere—the first and last resort in barroom camaraderie.
“To victory!” Mitch yelled as he raised his glass up high. His voice echoed through the mostly empty bar.
With the exception of Zane, everyone downed their shot quickly and quietly. Mitch snatched the shot out of Zane’s hand and gulped it down while the others still cringed from the repulsive burn of their first shot.
“It’d be a shame to see four bucks go to waste,” Mitch said, wiping a dollop of drool from his lip.
Gary threw his arms around Mitch and Liam and yelled at Zane to come over for a group huddle.
“Let’s always remember the way the four of us are right now,” Gary said. “The Four Musketeers! We can do anything if we band together.”
Liam wanted to drink in the syrupy sweetness of Gary’s words but felt that he had not paid the dues of friendship that such a sentiment required. As they all emerged from the stranglehold of the group hug, Zane announced that they needed to hit the dance floor. Mist from a dry ice machine snaked through the room, roping the shirtless torsos on the dance floor. “Kids in America” thumped overhead.
The Miles Page 9
