Liam pressed his lips to Riser’s forehead and whispered the word good-bye. He would call Zane or Matthew or Gary after he left the hospital and inform them that they should visit. It felt important that Riser not be left alone. As he made his way toward the elevator bank, Liam ran into the officious nurse who seemed always to be consumed by hospital protocol. She smiled sadly at him.
“It’s been a long morning,” Liam said.
“I can imagine,” she replied. “You’re a good kid to come stay with your friend overnight.”
“I’m his emergency contact.” Liam chuckled uncomfortably. He didn’t want to talk about Riser anymore and pushed the button to call the elevator a second time.
“That’s quite a responsibility,” she said and paused. “In this disease, there is a loss of perspective. You are going to be key in helping your friend regain his.”
Liam looked to the ground in silence. He did not know why people felt a need to offer unsolicited advice.
“I know it’s not my place,” she continued. “But if you work in a hospital long enough, you feel like you can see into people. Your friend is a sensitive soul. I think he’s lost. Someone he trusts—like you—can set him on the right path again.”
“You try telling a gay man he needs to pack on ten pounds,” Liam said. “No matter how obvious it is to us, he’s just programmed not to hear that.”
“Just promise me you’ll help your friend by treating this like a disease and not a dieting fad.”
The nurse stood waiting for a response as Liam entered the elevator. The woman peered at him for another moment before consulting her chart and walking down the hall to her next patient. She scribbled down notes as she strolled off. Liam filled with anger and fantasized about storming after her and pulling all the bobby pins out of the tight bun of her hair.
“My friend is strong!” he yelled to no one as the doors to the elevator closed shut.
As Liam made his way through the hospital corridors and onto Seventh Avenue South, the bolt of early afternoon sunlight punched him squarely between the eyes, and he had to hunch over for a minute to let his vision adjust to the daytime. The day had grown unusually warm for October. Liam slunk under the shade of a little florist’s awning on the corner of Greenwich, where he dialed Gary’s phone number.
“Liam!” Gary’s urgent tone was jarring. “Liam, Liam, Liam! Where the fuck have you been all morning? I’ve only tried your cell phone about eight times in the last two hours. You know I’m not a patient man.”
Liam remembered the incident with Mitch at the Brooklyn Half Marathon—the scorn, the tears, and the bitter accusations—and smiled at the understatement. It amazed Liam how easily Gary could laugh at his own zealous lunacy.
“It’s been a crazy blur of a morning, G … ”
Not waiting for Liam to finish his thought, Gary launched into the news that had prompted him to call so many times in the last few hours. Fast Trackers had obliterated the Urban Bobcats in the half marathon that morning. And that wasn’t even the news that was going to knock Liam off his feet. No, there were several other surprises, Gary teased. He pressed Liam to guess, but the exhaustion of the protracted hospital visit had robbed Liam of any playful enthusiasm.
“C’mon, I’ll give you a hint. Who do you think came in first for the team?”
“Well, I would have said Zane, but clearly the only answer I can be sure of is ‘not Zane.’ ”
“Fine, Mr. Grumpy Pants. I’ll just tell you. The big shocker was that someone who normally would have been one of the top scorers for Urban Bobcats was the top scorer for Fast Trackers New York this morning.”
There was silence on the line.
“Speechless, aren’t you? I told you it was good, Liam. Now, I never lie … I may embellish, but I never lie.”
Liam could not believe it. After all this time. And he wasn’t even there to appreciate the beautiful gesture. Liam was overcome with emotion and quickly thanked Gary for the phone call. Before hanging up the phone, he mustered a few rah-rah words for the team. After the long year of ups and downs, they just might make it. The marathon would still be a huge test of their collective will, but they would actually be toeing the line with the Urban Bobcats knowing that this competition was anyone’s to win. Maybe the exhaustion had caved in on him or maybe it was the immenseness of the news, but Liam could not bear to deflate Gary with Riser’s sad tale. Liam crumbled into a crying jag after he hung up the phone.
Liam knew that he had to call Didier; he wanted to call Didier. But he hoped not to sound fatuous and fawning. Their roller coaster of a relationship these past few months had made the prospect of easy rapprochement seem foolhardy. Though his gesture was grand and romantic, Didier’s racing for Fast Trackers did not necessarily mean that he had cast aside his other life. Who knew how long he had been married and the ties he had to his wife. Who knew what the cryptic “loose ends” that Didier had referred to in his e-mail really entailed. Did Liam feel strongly enough about this beautiful “Parisian” to risk … what? … What was it that he was risking? As soon as he considered the question, he dialed up Didier. Liam began to walk briskly to ease his nerves. He had made it almost all the way down Fifth Avenue where the foliage of Washington Square Park glittered like a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Didier answered after only two rings; he sounded groggy and far away.
“Sorry if I woke you … I can call back later… .”
“Are you shitting me, Liam? The race this morning may have knocked some of the wind from my sails, but I have been waiting for your call as impatiently as a five-year-old on Christmas Eve Santa Watch.”
“That’s pretty wound up,” Liam said with a laugh.
“Where were you this morning? You never miss a race.”
“Look, Didier,” Liam began but was unsure how he wanted to finish. The story was too much to rehash. “There has been a lot going on for both of us. Should we really be doing this?”
“I have no choice in the matter, Liam. I’ve missed you more than I knew was possible this last month. I can’t continue to be on-and-off with you.”
“Come meet me downtown for a late lunch—at Otto on Eighth and Fifth.” Liam would be able to sort this out better face-to-face. “The restaurant is just north of Washington Square.”
“Of course, I know it. Isn’t pizza and wine a little heavy for midday?”
“You’ve just run a half marathon, Didier; I think you deserve it.”
Wrestling with a bad case of overtiredness and anxiety, Liam drank two and a half glasses of Barolo while waiting for Didier at the bar. The day had cooled a bit since the early afternoon and had begun to feel more like autumn; the red and yellow trees outside the bar window helped Liam romanticize the season. Liam loved these early sunsets after the stretch of long days through July, August, and September. He knew that he would tire of the cold and the gray by the depth of winter, but now, here in this moment on this day in mid-October, he could fool himself into thinking that the perfection would last. The bartender came by with the bottle again and filled the wineglass quickly and without asking Liam’s permission. At $15 a glass, Liam bristled until the man motioned that this one was on him. Liam knew that the free booze meant that he had already had more than his share. He strove for a toasty buzz, not a drunken stupor.
In a cloud of contemplation, Liam leapt out of his seat when Didier sidled up beside him at the bar.
“Glad you started without me, sport. There is nothing more depressing than sitting at a bar without a drink in your hand. I mean, can you think of anything more thoroughly useless?”
“Please join me then.” Liam smiled from under the delightful veil of alcohol. “I have been waiting here for the better part of an hour to toast the great feats of our newest Fast Tracker.”
“I did pretty good, didn’t I? I only wish that you had been there to witness it.”
“So you could have whipped me too? I hear you beat Zane. That’s not an everyday occurrence at Fast Tra
ckers.”
“I really just went out there and ran my own race. I focused on feeling fresh and loose.”
“And how did the Bobcats take your mutiny?”
“I don’t care, Liam.” Didier paused and dropped his voice into a low, deep whisper. “I just want to move forward. Onward and upward.”
The dim light drew out the severity of Didier’s features, exaggerating the soft fullness of his lips and the height of his cheekbones. Liam gulped two large swallows of wine to steady his racing heart. His phone rang and everyone at the bar turned to look at him; he laughed at again neglecting to heed the signs prohibiting cellular devices.
Liam excused himself and headed toward the exit as he answered the phone. It was the hospital, and he did not want to send the call to voice mail.
“What? What is it? What?” The lady on the other end kept asking if she had received Riser’s next-of-kin.
“They don’t live in the U.S. I am his emergency contact. That’s why you have my number and that’s why you’ve called me. Now please, what is it? Is something wrong?”
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Mr. Walker.” She paused for a moment. “But your friend has passed on … He went so peacefully in his sleep, looks just like a baby, really. I am so sorry to be the one to have to tell you.”
“You must have the wrong person. My friend is Riser Kolz. And Riser Kolz is a twenty-six-year-old runner. He isn’t dead.”
“You’re upset. I understand. These things happen. Sometimes we do things to ourselves that our hearts can’t take. If you would like to come to the hospital to talk with me or the doctor, please feel free.”
“No, thank you,” he said. “I’ve heard enough.” Liam hung up the phone in disbelief. The ruby-orange halo of dusk lit up the brick buildings like fire, and a man and woman in heavy cable-knit sweaters clutched each other’s arms to fend off the slight chill of the coming evening. A group of teenage girls asked a burly man in a tweed jacket to take a picture as they posed on the street. Perhaps this was the beginning of their first vacation to Manhattan or perhaps it was their last evening together before some life-changing event. The city was getting ready for another night filled with adventure and disappointment.
Liam pressed his face to the window of Otto and exhaled. A huge circle of condensation formed. Looking through the glass, Liam could see Didier smiling back at him, fidgeting at the bar and motioning wildly for him to come back inside.
MILE 26
Matthew wanted to run through the slides one more time, but Liam convinced him to relax and have a cocktail before the guests started to pour in. The bar looked sad and dusty with no one in it. The mild, coppery stench of Saturday night lingered in the air, making the cool, gray October Sunday feel even lonelier.
Liam quickly downed a tall pint of Sierra Nevada and ordered another. He had to quell his nerves and stop his hands from trembling. Matthew shuffled through some index cards between sips of Stoli cranberry. In the hour that they had spoken the night before, Liam told Matthew that as Riser’s best friend he should give the eulogy. Matthew clearly wanted to do the honors and to share his impressions of Riser, but he realized his limitations as a public speaker. Just sitting and looking at his prepared notes caused him to sweat profusely.
“He’ll have another drink,” Liam said to the bartender and pointed to Matthew’s glass. “Throw it back, Mattie,” he whispered. “Trust me on this one.”
With no time to plan anything formal and no sense as to the rules of decorum governing the death of a good friend, Liam and Matthew had decided to host an open bar at Riser’s favorite watering hole—the Gym Bar on Eighth Avenue. When the owners heard about Riser and his untimely death, they agreed to give Fast Trackers the entire bar from four to seven o’clock with drinks at half price. Matthew had been up for days scanning all the photos that he had of Riser and putting them to a suitable audio track. The slideshow presentation had caused Liam to sob the first time he saw it.
“I don’t know if I can do this.” Matthew looked as though any action, the touch of his hand or even a nod of commiseration, might vault him into tears.
“You have to, sweetie. You’ll regret it forever if you don’t … plus you’ll help all the other guys in the club. They don’t have all these great memories, all this beautiful detail about Riser’s life at their disposal.”
A tentative squeak at the front entrance announced the arrival of the first two guests. Gary and Monroe walked in at an odd distance from one another, as though neither was ready to commit to the idea, now plain as day, that they were a couple. Hugs were exchanged and Matthew handed each man a copy of the brief program that had been prepared for the service. A beautiful photo of Riser running in shorts and a tank top, taken a year or more before his body was ruined by starvation, graced the cover with two lines of text underneath: the years of his life (1986–2012) and a quotation from one of his favorite songs “Long May You Run.”
“You men are doing a great, great thing,” Gary said.
“I remember when I used to have to go to these memorial things every fucking month.” Monroe’s voice cracked, and he wiped a tear from his cheek. Gary reached over and rubbed his shoulder and kneaded the base of his neck with his hands. “Guess you never escape the past completely. And twenty-six will always be too young to die.”
“Thanks for coming, G,” Matthew said. “I know, given what you’ve been through with death this summer, the opening of unhealed wounds can’t be feeling too good.”
“I may never be a father, but I feel like I’ve lost many children through the years … never as senseless as this, though.”
The door swung open again and a larger group entered the bar. Liam saw Zane and Mitch along with some older faces that looked familiar but which he couldn’t quite pair with names. He looked up at the clock; it was 3:55. The quiet time had ended and now it would be a procession of greetings that would extend until the bar ushered them out at 7 o’clock.
“I never thought it would come to this.” Zane placed his head on Liam’s chest as he hugged him. “We should have known. It was our responsibility as his friends to watch out for him. That’s what gay guys do for one another.”
“There was no way any of us could have known, Zane. So many runners get so thin. It’s the badge of honor in this sport, isn’t it?” Liam stopped and reflected for a few moments. “Well, that didn’t come out exactly right, but you know what I mean.”
“How do we go on now?”
These were the banal and unanswerable questions left for the living to grapple with, but Zane stood before Liam and looked into his eyes as though he expected a real answer from him. It occurred to Liam that during the last year almost no one in the club had patience for the fits Riser would pitch and the drama that he had caused. The club was like that, part of what brought people together was their annoying differences, and the more nettlesome or gossip-worthy someone’s behavior became, the more Fast Trackers understood and embraced them. There was a humanity to the club that made people forget their gripes and forgive their shortcomings. No one expected, or even wanted, you to be perfect at Fast Trackers.
By a quarter past four, more than fifty Fast Trackers had crammed into the back room of Gym Bar. Most had used the sad circumstance as an opportunity to drink judgment-free while the sun was still out on a Sunday afternoon. People laughed a little self-consciously as they shared stories about the club. Liam nudged Matthew to corral the group around the pulpit of his bar stool. As he fumbled through the cards one last time, Matthew patted some sweat off his brow with a damp bar napkin and cleared his throat.
“Thank you.” He paused before starting again, much louder this time. “Thank you all for coming! Thank you.”
The conversation in the crowd trailed off into murmurs and then to silence. Once all eyes were glued on Matthew, Liam thought he actually heard his friend’s stomach growl beneath his pinstriped shirt. He looked Matthew in the eye and nodded. Matthew placed the index cards on
the bar and spoke from memory.
“Riser Kolz was a good friend to me.” He stopped and looked around the crowd as though he might identify someone to corroborate the sentiment. “I know that he wasn’t easy to know and at first blush he rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. It’s funny to me that he could come off as abrasive. The poor guy had no defenses against the world. He was so open that he just let everything in and that kind of poisoned him, in a way. I know that when Riser left his family back in Bosnia, he redefined himself in New York. This club helped shape who he was, and he loved, envied, and even worshipped so many of you in this room. I just wish he could have lived to see how much he meant to you guys. I wish he had let himself see that reality while he was here with us. We can all honor his life by spreading a little of that joy and love and admiration among each other today—and from today on.”
Liam had anticipated a shaky and awkward speech, but Matthew had hit just the right pace and had punctuated the words joy, love, and admiration so that at least half of the men in the room now rubbed tears from their eyes. As soon as everyone had a few moments to digest Matthew’s speech and to applaud his astonishing delivery, Liam walked over and hit the play button on the laptop to start the slideshow.
As the skipping, sultry beats of Fatboy Slim started to boom through the bar, photographs of Riser were projected onto a movie screen in the middle of the floor, where a pool table should have been. Matthew had strung together a few baby and childhood shots he had found while cleaning out Riser’s apartment, but the bulk were from the last year or so. The transformation saddened Liam as he saw it play out to the catchy dance music. In a group photo from the club’s New Year’s Eve party the previous December, Riser and Matthew sported Depends as the babies ringing in 2012. Riser had the sinewy build of a lifeguard. His body would have inspired envy in almost anyone, the leanness of his frame looking natural and effortless. The lyrics “I have to praise you like I sh-ou-ou-ou-ou-ou-ould” pounded as winter moved to early spring, and Riser dashed long and healthy toward the finish line in several races. So many Fast Tracker events had taken place in the last year. Liam puzzled to think of what he did with his time before joining the club.
The Miles Page 23
