Once a Runner (20 page)

"Drop out of school?"

"You're a bright boy, you can do that diploma business any time. But I've been watching you since last year, Quenton, watching you very closely. Ever since you ran that four flat..."

"Four flat point three."

"All right, four flat point three. I've been watching you, your training, the way you handled breakdowns, everything. I've been watching, Quenton, and I can tell you that physically you are getting close. Very close. Do you know what I mean?" He didn't wait for an answer, but strode to the big picture window that took up most of the front of the structure.

"People conceptualize conditioning in different ways," he said. "Some think it's a ladder straight up. Others see plateaus, blockages, ceilings. I see it as a geometric spiraling upwards, with each spin of the circle taking you a different distance upwards. Some spins may even take you
downwards,
just gathering momentum for the next upswing. Sometimes you will work your fanny off and see very little gain; other times you will amaze yourself and not really know why. Training is training, it all seems to blend together after a while. What is going on inside is just a big puzzle. But my little spiral theory kind of gives it a perspective, don't you think?"

"Yes, but I don't see ..."

"You've been in that momentum-gathering phase, Cass, is what I'm telling you. You've been in it for quite a while now and I think that—physically again—you're due. That four flat in San Diego was only the tip of the iceberg..."

"Four flat point one."

"All right, four flat point one. But your sights have been too low, Cass. You've always wanted to break four minutes so you could be a respected college miler. You wanted the other guys to look at you and say, hey, there goes Cassidy, the guy from Southeastern that runs four minutes." "I'm not so sure that's such a ..."

"Hell, forget about all that.
Go
for it, Quenton, is what I'm telling you, go for the big time, right now, at this precise point of your life, make up your mind to do it and do it.
Take your shot."

"But dropping out of school, Bruce. I'd feel like a quitter, like I was running away ..."

For the second time this morning Cassidy thought Denton looked really irritated, impatient with him.

"Let me tell you something about winners and losers and quitters and other mythical fauna in these parts," Denton said. "That quarter mile oval may be one of the few places in the world where the bastards can't screw you over, Quenton. That's because there's no place to hide out there. No way to fake it or charm your way through, no deals to be made. You know all about that stuff. You've talked about it. It's why you
became
a miler. The question now is whether you are prepared to live by it or whether it was just a bunch of words."

Quenton Cassidy thought about it a few moments, and then very quietly asked Denton exactly what his personal stake was in the whole affair.

"Let's say I am chronically attached to the underdog..."

"Bruce..."

"Let's say I am an ardent fan of that classical footrace, the mile run, that I have never had enough speed myself to ... "Bruce..."

"Let's say I'm angling for a percentage of the take and..."

"Naw." Cassidy waved that off as well.

Denton sat beside Cassidy, removed his shoes and socks and sat looking at his boney feet. Then he took a deep breath, and leaned over and pressed into the swollen skin of his bulbous red heels with his thumb. The surface remained indented, as if in modeling clay.

"They're full of lymph!"

"Yeah. They aren't as bad today as usual. Doc Stavius says the achilles sheath will become involved shortly and then it will be just a matter of time ..."

"Bruce, I'm real sorry, I..."

"The hell with it. I would have liked another couple of seasons, I suppose, before hanging 'em up for good, but the hell with it. Connective tissue, Quenton, that's what gets everybody in the end. Pound around asphalt America long enough and you're going to wear something out for real. We can mold the muscles, you see ..." He looked down at his knees sadly.

"We can strengthen the mind, temper the spirit, make the heart a godamn turbine. But then a strand of grisde goes pop and presto you're a pedestrian."

"Can't they do anything?"

"Oh, you know how those things go. With a football player you can drill a hole in a bone and tie the godamned things all over the place; but a distance runner gets so much as a stone bruise, he limps a thousand miles ..."

"Bruce?"

"I'll probably hang around at meets ..." "Bruce?"

"...wearing my old USA sweats, pretending to be warming up for a deuce or a 5000. What?"

"You tell me win one for the Gipper, I quit immediately." "Deal!"

24. Moving Out

There was nothing special about the room, but it was said that even a prisoner in the Bastille would wax sentimental over his cell after languishing in it many years. Leaving the third floor of Doobey Hall filled Quenton Cassidy with both nostalgia and foreboding. Mike Mobley came by and watched for awhile, occupying nearly the whole door frame sadly as Cassidy puttered around with cardboard boxes and suitcases. Finally the weight man took a deep breath and held out his huge paw.

"Well, Captain Cassidy," he said. "I want you to know, I've always appreciated your... I mean, it's always been great the way you ..." His big shoulders slumped wearily.

"Yes indeed, Captain Mobley. I appreciate it, really I do. You take good care of that heaving arm, you hear?"

Mobley lumbered out shaking his head. Cassidy smiled. He would miss the harmless rituals. Soon others began dropping by and finally it got so distracting Cassidy closed the door and put up the litde sign that said: The King is not RECEIVING. No one really had anything to say anyway, they just sat around shaking their heads and trying to make small talk.

When Cassidy had nearly finished packing, he sat down on a trunk and looked out the window at the leaves that glistened with the dusty orange glow of sundown. But even as the room grew dim he did not bother to get up to switch on the light. Most of the others were soon downstairs at dinner, but he didn't feel like joining them. He decided he would take his posters with him. One showed Jim Ryun in agonizing full color running his world record mile at Bakers-field in 1966; another was a black and white blow-up that Cassidy had specially made, showing the classic moment in 1954 when Roger Bannister, his long hair flying straight against a gray August sky, passed John Landy as Landy looked to the inside to see how far back the Englishman might be, thereby losing in the final straight. I wonder how often Landy thinks about that moment, Cassidy mused. Maybe once a day?

The third poster had a sunflower on one side and a flowery message down the other: "War is Harmful to Children and Other Living Things." By asterisk it contained a typical Cassidy addendum:
*Not to mention Young Draft-Aged Males.

There was a slim profile shot of Kip Keino at full stride somewhere in his native Kenya, looking right into the camera and just grinning outrageously. Cassidy loved that one.

On the floor were various cardboard boxes and suitcases containing the effluvia of several years spent in a type of vortex; one box contained several fright wigs, a rubber chicken named Cletus, an Ella Fitzgerald mask, and a disappearing cane, A mesh bag held a diver's mask and snorkel, heavy jet fins, Hawaiian sling handle (the stainless steel shaft leaned in a corner) and several large conch shells with the hinges knocked out. There was a rolled up Wanted Dead Or Alive poster containing mug shots of the former President and Attorney General of these United States; there was an eight-by-twelve glossy of seer Jeanne Dixon, a speaker on campus during his sophomore year, that contained in suspicious-looking handwriting the message: "Quenton, someday you will meet a tall, rich, and well-dressed stranger. He will put on a lab coat and replace your blood with embalming fluid. I practically guarantee it. Love, Jeanne."

There was a cigar box full of cards, letters, and mementos of his time with Andrea, a box he did not have the gumption right now to go poking through. There was a brace of frisbees and a collection of various sized noses. One box held his record collection, which included the
Original Buttoned-Doum Mind of Bob Newhart,
some early Shelley Berman, Mort Sahl, Vaughn Meader, et al. There was a sound-effects record offering exploding dynamite, grinding winches, breaking dishes and assorted animals in varying stages of distress (a popular cut was the turkey section). There were anti-war crooners, and Kingston Trios gone cloudy with the scratches of time, A scrapbook was fat and sloppy with plane tickets, pages ripped out of meet programs, newspaper clippings. The photographs were mostly of Denton or some California sprinter or vaulter; Cassidy's appearances were generally in agate type. Though there were two large cardboard boxes filled with trophies, medals and meet watches that did not run well, most of his booty was quickly sent home. There were stacks of paperbacks by Vonnegut, Mailer, Roth and the little-known Richard Stein. There was a collection of columns by one Ron Wiggins entitled The
X-Rated Hen Suit.
A shoebox held the entire output of Harry Crews in paper.

One suitcase contained practically nothing but t-shirts: DRAKE RELAYS, Run For Fun, PUMA, Speed Kills, I'm With Stupid, and Thin power.

There were two large boxes full of track shoes of every description; there were Adidas Gazelles in varying stages of decomposition, Puma interval trainers, several pairs of Tiger Cortez, one pair of indoor pin spikes, an old pair of long spikes still dark with vaseline and the mud of Chicago, road racing flats, nylon mesh Tigers for the steeple (still brand new) and beach hack-arounds with no real mileage left in them. He thought: I have measured out my life in worn out rubber.

He sat for a long time studying a pair of Adidas 9.9's that he had worn winning the conference mile the year before. Denton had given them to him one day in the locker room. He had tossed them over casually and said: "You might like to have these, seeing as how we're the same size and all. But I want you to know these shoes have never been second." Then he had winked at Cassidy.

Three days later at the exact moment of truth, Cassidy had thrown up his fingers in the victory sign and made himself grin right at Denton, who was standing by the finish line. Not at all like himself, Denton had jumped in the air and whooped. The shoes still had not been second.

Cassidy sighed, tossed the 9.9's into the box with the others. They had all seen a lot, had their own decrepit personalities. He sighed; the Trial of Miles, Miles of Trials. Sometimes it seemed sad to him and he really didn't know why.

A timid little tap at the door turned out mercifully to be Mizner, who was now living on campus. He plopped down on the bed and quietly helped observe the sentimentality of the moment. It finally made Cassidy nervous.

"How do you like civilian dorm life," Cassidy asked.

"Three major water fights in four days if that tells you anything. I try to stay away as much as possible."

Cassidy nodded. He was sitting in his usual chair, feet propped up in the window sill. Finally Mizner spoke.

"Are you really going to do this hermit thing?"

"I suppose. You know how we were always saying, what if a guy were to really shut everything out..."

"Yeah, well, when the nearest civilization is the town of Newberry, I don't think you have to worry about shutting out much of anything, except watermelon farmers, and I understand they're not all that rowdy. The question is, is this some kind of big push, for Pan Am, or maybe the, uh, Games?"

"Who the hell knows? It sounds silly to even talk about, doesn't it? You might as well say you're building a rocket ship to go to Mars but it won't be ready for a few years."

"And when it is, it may not fly."

"Right now I'm selecting the upholstery. Say, how have you been feeling anyway? Will they let you do anything yet?"

Mizner gave him chapter and verse of his medical situation. They talked on until it was nearly dark in the room and both of them began to realize it wasn't going to get any better. Mizner stood and held out his fine brown hand. Cassidy took it self-consciously.

"It has all turned out so differently," Mizner said. Cassidy lowered his eyes.

"Really something, isn't it? Last summer we were talking about going to Drake this year and how maybe we'd both try to learn to hurdle so we could run the steeple together, and then later in the summer for the hell of it we'd jump in a marathon somewhere ..."

Mizner took a deep breath, slowly let it out. "I guess I'd better be going. Listen you hang in there. And you better be tough next cross-country season because I believe we have some old business."

"I knew it! I knew Chicago really got to you, but you didn't want to let it show!"

"Nah," Mizner said, laughing. "Well, I guess I'd been due for that one for a long time. You don't know how many bad dreams I've had about Quenton Cassidy being with me with a quarter to go." He shook his head, smiling sadly.

"Yeah, well..."

"Hey listen, Quenton—I never call you that, do I?—anyway, Cass, there's something I was to say that I guess I wouldn't get around to except for a deal like this ...

"Hey Mize, you don't need to ..."