The Memory of Running (18 page)

Me: Norma? Are you busy? If youre busy, I can Norma: What happened? Me: I know its been
five days, but . . . Norma: We were talking, and then we were not talking. Me: Everythings
been so crazy, but I wanted to call earlier. . . . Its

so weird. I wrote you a letter, but I didnt send it. Norma: You wrote me a letter? Me:
Honest to God. Ive got it right here. Norma: Read it.

Me: I dont know. Norma: Please read it to me. (I was in the middle of Indiana now. A pay
phone in a drugstore. I

opened my letter to Norma.) Me: Okay. Dear Norma. Carl is dead. He was a very nice man,

and even though I did not get to know him very well, I think of him as a friend, kind of.
. . . That sounds stupid.

Norma: No, it doesnt . . . dead? Me: Im so stupid sometimes. Norma: Read. Read. Me: Why I
didnt call you before is because Carl dying caused

some problems. First I had to take care of Carl, and then Dr. Donna Trivitch, Carls friend
from the hospital, came to the house with a policeman and he beat me up.

Norma: Smithy!

Me: Im all right now, Norma. Honest to God. Should I keep reading?

Norma: Please read, Smithy. Its my letter.

Me: After I got beat up, Carl told the doctor that I was not a bum, and she put me to bed
on the second floor of Carls really

beautiful, beautiful house. OhI didnt write this, but Norma, Carl grew flowers for a
living, and his house is surrounded, absolutely sur- rounded with roses and flowers. Every
color in the world. You would love it.

Norma: I would. I would love it. Read, Smithy.

Me: And his house was truly beautiful. All wood and smelling like wood.

Norma: Ooooh. Read.

Me: Okay . . . After a while I felt better, so I went downstairs, and Carl died. It was
actually all right, that part, his dying, I mean. Dr. Donna Trivitch, his friend, sort of
held him until he stopped breathing. It was peaceful, but then the doctor started crying
and couldnt stop. There was a letter Carl had given her with stuff he needed done, when he
couldnt do it anymore, but she was crying and she gave the letter to me and said I had to
do it because she couldnt. I felt funny reading Carls letter. He had about ten names, and
next to each name was a phone number and what he wanted to say. Most of it was okay, but
some of it was awful, and I didnt want to do it, but I did do it. I saved the three awful
calls for last. Awful is not fair. Hard is fair. They were hard things, and I knew that if
Carl asked Dr. Donna Trivitch to make these calls, then she should. When I told her they
were hard, she started crying again. I had to call his brother, father, and a man named
Renny Kurtz in New York. All his brother kept doing was shouting at me over the phone. He
kept saying, Who the hell are you? Who the hell are you? and then he said, Are you . . . ?
Norma?

Norma: Read. Im here. Me: I know, but it was easier to write some of this than speak it.
Norma: Its all right. What did he say? Me: Are you some old faggot, is that what you are?
Norma: No! Me: Well, yes he did. He said that. Carl was homosexual.

Norma: Oh.

Me: So he figured I must be homosexual. Carl was his brother. Jeez.

Norma: Read.

Me: Lets see . . . Every time I tried to read to Carls brother, he kept calling me names.
Carl was saying things about how much he loved him and how he set up something to give
money to his brothers kids, and his brother kept saying to me, You faggot. You old queen .
. . like that.

Norma: That bastard . . . that bastard.

Me: So I told him what Carl wanted me to tell him, and I called his father. I probably
shouldnt have, but who else would? And Dr. Donna Trivitch was still crying hard, only now
she had gone out onto the porch. I told his father that Carl had died. He said thank you
and hung up.

Norma: Bastard.

Me: I wanted to call him back, but I would let the doctor do that later. There was
something that seemed to be urgent about the calls. Is death urgent? I dont know. Maybe it
just gives a feeling that things have to be done quickly. Calls have to be made. My last
call was to this Renny Kurtz.

Norma: Who was Renny Kurtz? Me: He used to be in Carls business. Norma: Where was he now?
Me: He was in New York now. Norma: What did he say? Me: Let me see ... okay ... My last
call was to this Renny

Kurtz. I had to try three or four times, but finally I got him. I told him. For some
reasonI dont know whyit was a lot harder telling Renny Kurtz than anybody else. I didnt
hear anything on the other end of the phone, so I read what Carl had written. Except for
things Carl was giving to his family, he was giving everything else to Renny Kurtz. Renny
Kurtz made a sound I had never heard before and

never wanted to hear again. Then he started screaming. He was screaming Carls name. I
thought he would stop, but after a few min- utes, I sort of gently put the receiver down.
Dr. Donna Trivitch had Carl taken to an undertaker and took me to get some clothes. I had
no clothes because of when Carl hit me with his truck, but I wasnt passing blood so I was
all right. I boughtor she bought for me, because she felt bad she had me beaten upsome new
shorts and socks and sneakers and knapsack and hat and sunglasses and chino pants and a
belt and two sweaters and underwear and water and some fruit and stress tablets and a
brand-new English ten-speed touring bike, and the guy adjusted the seat and handlebars
perfectly. Also new nylon saddlebags. She bought me a little cassette player with ear-
phones, and she gave me some tapes, and I bought a book. I bought a book called Ringo by
the same guy who wrote Iggy. . . . Then . . . then I say . . . I say, Good-bye, Smithy.

Norma: Thats a nice letter. Thats a sad letter.... You say good-bye?

(I look out through the glass door of the phone booth where I sit holding Norma to my ear.
A red-haired girl is pushing a stroller up the aisle toward me. When did I become so
turned in on myself that I swallow feelings like fast food and everything tastes the same
salty way? Shes waiting. I feel her patience and power. Jesus, I want to be more. I want
to be more than I am. The baby is reaching at the pass- ing shelves. The girl smiles, and
they wheel away. Im the one with- out legs.)

Me: I say . . . I say . . . you know, Love, Smithy. Norma: I love you, Smithy. Me: So . .
. so I left Providence, Indiana, on my new bike, and I

went through . . . oh, Seymour and North Vernon and Bedford. . . . Im still on Route 50.
And Im in Huron, Indiana, now. Ive got a beard.

Norma: A beard? Wow. Id love to see you in a beard. Me: I dont know.

Norma: I bet you look great.

Me: I dont look great.... Well, I should go so I can put up my little tent. . . . She
bought me a tent.

Norma: I love you. Me: Hey, Norma? Norma: Yes, Smithy? Me: Did I get fired from Goddard?
Norma: Yes.

Me: Bye, Norma. Norma: Bye, Smithy.

We never found out where Bethany had been those months before I came back. I suppose she
might not have known herself. I did know it wasnt a gentle place, because some teeth were
knocked out, and Bradley Hospital, on top of her madness, found a cracked thighbone and a
broken rib. Bethany stayed in Bradley for two weeks while they adjusted and then
readjusted her medicine. Pop had gotten her a new psychiatrist, too. A woman named
Georgina Glass. Dr. Glass was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. She
probably had the thickest black hair in the world, and she was tall, and she had gigantic
breasts. They gave Dr. Glass an aura, I guess. I really respected her, and whenever
Bethany had an appoint- ment at her office on Blackstone Boulevard in Providence, I would
go with her.

Dr. Glass was divorced. I knew this because she told Bethany everything. She told her
everything, and she expected Bethany to tell her everything, too. She had a couple of
boyfriendsa doctor, of course, and a football coach at Brown University. She was lovely,
and to see her with my sister was a sort of miracle. She would let all of Bethanys great
things out. They would hug after every session.

I had started my job at Goddard. I was on the SEAL Sam line. I hadnt gotten up to
supervisor yet, and so most of my day was spent in assembly. Assembly is easy, but after a
while it becomes hard. I never got angry, when I was a supervisor, if one of the line
people put a leg on where an arm should be. I understood from working the line for seven
and a half years that by eleven-thirty in the morning, the arms and the legs looked the
same.

On days that Bethany would see Dr. Glass, I would race homeI was still at home thenand
take off my red Goddard jumpsuit with the SEAL Sam face on the back and dress up in my
charcoal suit

from Anderson Little and Co. I was gaining weight by then, and my forty-long jacket
wouldnt button, but if I left it unbuttoned, it didnt look too bad. Also, I always put on
my Purple Heart pin.

You like driving me to the doctors, dont you? Bethany said, as I drove Pops car across the
old George Washington.

I guess. Why? No reason. Bethany was quiet for about a minute. She stared out over the

black Providence River. Im going to go back to work in the thrift shop, she said, sort of
matter-of-fact.

Good.

Old people come in. Sometimes people that are bums. Its hard to tell if they are, but I
can pretty much tell. They want shoes and warm coats. Sometimes they want them and they
dont have any money at all.

I turned onto Waterman Avenue and cut over toward Blackstone Boulevard. What do you do if
they want some shoes and they dont have any money?

I give them to them. Nobody minds? Schnibe, she muttered. Schnibe, callop, disper. What?
What? You just said something. No I didnt. Schnibe or something. No I didnt. Dr. Glasss
office was in her brick home near the Brown Univer-

sity campus. The football field was above it, and I parked alongside the concrete
bleachers.

Callop, she said louder. What?

Its the football field. One of Dr. Glasss boyfriends is a football coach.

I know, I said. I pretended I wasnt interested, but I was. I liked Dr. Georgina Glass. I
liked her name. She was the only Georgina I had ever met. Every time I saw her in the
office with Bethany, it was like the first time, because she never remembered me, and so
she would always stick out her hand and say, Hi, Im Georgina Glass. She was, of course, a
lot older than me, but I found her very attractive.

She gives him blow jobs, Bethany said. Cmon, I said. Quit it. Really. She told me before
they have sex he likes her to give him

blow jobs. Her doctor boyfriend just wants to have the sex. We walked up the steps to the
office portion of her house. I put all that stuff out of my head. I didnt understand why
Bethany felt she had to throw all these lies at me, why she had to try to make me feel

bad at the expense of Georgina Glass. Dr. Glass met us at the red mahogany door. She
looked amazing,

framed by red. I stood to the back right of Bethany, my Purple Heart pin just over my
sisters shoulder.

Hi, Dr. Glass said, and hugged Bethany. She extended her hand to me. Georgina Glass, she
said.

Smithson Ide, I said in my loudest voice. I followed them, as usual, into the hall, picked
up an Outdoor Life from a magazine rack, and sat in the small waiting alcove. They walked
into the office.

In the doorway Bethany stopped and turned to Dr. Glass. Oh, I almost forgot.

What, honey?

Tell him, she said, pointing to me. Tell him you give blow jobs to the coach.

Georgina Glass laughed and threw up her hands. Bethany, you knock me out. Then, still
laughing, she looked over at me. I give blow jobs to the coach.

Schnibe, my sister said, looking at me. Schnibe, callop, disper.

Two days after I read my letter to Norma, I rode the new Moto tour- ing bike across the
Wabash and into Illinois. I still had a few residual pains from the cop Tommy and from
Carls pickup, but my breathing was easier and the new clothes gave me a sort of clean
feeling. It was good to be fresh and on the road. Route 50 still did not disappoint me. It
moved through pure farm country until just outside of East St. Louis. I loved the smell of
the road. The hay and manure, and pollen from the corn, and even the hard smells of pigs.
They were like living smells. I know it sounds stupid, but they were smells with muscles.
Each morning the smells were crispy and separated from each other, but as I pedaled into
the afternoon, the wet heat of the Midwest mixed all the odors together. Both times of day
were wonderful.

The new tent Dr. Trivitch had bought for me was actually quite a bit better than the old
one. It was easier to pitch and kept the rain out. The truth was, all the stuff was better
than what Id had. Dr. Donna Trivitch took me to the best outfitter, so that the people who
worked there could fit me up for my needs. Two things, though, that shocked me. First, in
my new clothes, my belly didnt hang very much, only a little; and second, the Moto bike.
See, I didnt notice my belly getting smaller until I put on biking shorts. It was like it
just happened. Dont get me wrong, I was still a porker in biking shorts, but I was getting
curious to see what I weighed from the 279 that first rolled those flat Raleigh tires down
Brightridge Avenue.

The Moto bike was another thing altogether. When did this hap- pen? When did bikes become
things like this? This was a jet plane of bikes! This was a happy dream of bikes! It was
dark blue, and it looked so solid you would think it weighed a hundred pounds, but you
could literally pick it off the ground with one finger. The seat was padded with lambs
wool, and the handlebars curved wide and

down and had a soft foam cover. It was a bike that could make me forget my Raleigh (but I
would never forget my Raleigh).

I slept exclusively in cornfields while I rode Illinois. Because it was hot during the
day, I stayed pretty much to cold tuna sandwiches for lunch and dinner, and lots of apples
and bottled water, although in Ryan, Illinois, I treated myself to a steak dinner at
Angies on Main Street. What I did was clean up at a gas station, trimmed my beard, and
changed into the chino pants. It was nice to be around folks. There was a couple who sort
of reminded me of my mom and my pop, but they had a table full of grandkids with them,
and, of course, me and Bethany never had any kids. At night I read Ringo. I didnt have to
get in reading shape or anything since Iggy. I enjoyed Ringo very much. Like Iggy it was
the story of a guy who has a good and interesting life despite all the odds that are
stacked against him. Ringo was a cowboy in 1900 Wyoming who had lost his left leg and
right arm in an accident. Even though some of the other cowboys made fun of him, he
relearned to ride as well as anybody and fell in love with an Indian girl named Doris
Redleaf who had gone to Car- lyle Indian College in Pennsylvania and had come back to
Wyoming to teach little Indians English. It was, I guess, a heartwarming story. I
wondered, if I were Ringo, could I have taken all he did? I thought about this through
most of Illinois.

I also was thinking hard about Bill Butler. Not about how he propped me up and gave me
those three morphine shots and saved me, but I was thinking about Bill and East St. Louis.
I knew he was from there, because I used to think he said St. Louis and he was al- ways
correcting me.

Not St. Louis, muthafucka. East St. Louis. And East St. Louis was straight on Route 50. I
used a pay phone in Mascoutah, Illinois, to call information. There were no Bill Butlers
in East St. Louis, but there was one William Butler III on Landham Street. I let the phone
ring eight times, then got on my bike and headed into the city.

Now, this is important. I do not feel sorry for myself, and if there

was any way to tell about the East St. Louis part of the Bethany trip without having me in
it, I would. But there isnt any way that can happen. I even thought maybe I wouldnt tell
this part, but Im going to because it happened, and Bill Butler happened, too.

It was late afternoon when I flew through Fairview Heights and into East St. Louis. East
St. Louis happens slowly. Cut fences. Build- ings spray-painted with numbers and names.
Bags of garbage left even on road islands. Pretty soon you see that the little stores are
boarded up and thingseverythinglooks like they were burned up. Or at least touched by a
lot of heat.

Theres a scorched feel about the wide sidewalks and metal- clamped stores. It was
September 17. I had been riding for twenty- one days, and even though the sky had a soft
sun going into blue and the weather was very comfortable, I was feeling discouraged for
the first time. For the stretch of a mile past the vacant stores, I didnt see anyone. A
dog chased me for about a hundred yards or sothats it. At the next intersection, I found a
self-serve gas station and stopped to use the phone. The attendant sat in a concrete
bunker with eye slots made of thick Plexiglas. There was a drop for money for the gas
machines, which he could operate from inside. One sign read exact change required. Another
sign read anyone messing with pumps will be shot by attendant. I spoke into the little
voice box.

Hi, I said. The attendants eyes stared out at me. Listen, Im trying to find a pay phone.
The eyes kept staring at me. They seemed more concrete than the

little square building he was in. Pay phone, I said, mimicking dialing. After a few more
seconds, I walked to my bike and pedaled on.

About ten minutes later, I found a small variety store in the middle of an abandoned
block. Its signs were in both English and some Asian language. There were some young black
kids, boys and girls, standing

around on the sidewalk. I asked them if there was a pay phone around, and a girl pointed
to the store.

An elderly Oriental man sat on a rocking chair in front of a display of Campbells Soup,
and a young woman, also Oriental, stood wait- ing behind the counter.

Pay phone? I asked. There. She pointed. Im going to buy something, too. Im just gonna use
the pay

phone first. A woman picked up on the second ring. Uh-huh. Yes. Yes. Im trying to reach
Bill Butler. I guess William Butler. You tryin for Bill Butler? Yes. Im Smithy Ide. You
Ide? Yes. There was a long silence, and it wasnt good and it wasnt bad. It

was a nothing kind of silence. Is this the Bill Butler that was in Vietnam? He was in
Vietnam. Uh-huh. Who this? This is Smithy Ide. Ide. Bill saved my life. He never said
nothin bout savin anything. Is he there? She laughed. Will he be around later? Im in East
St. Louis, and Where? Where am I? I yelled over to the standing woman. You are in
Great-Full Sunrise Food store. Great-Full Sunrise Food store, I said into the phone. Chink
store? Uhhh . . . okay. Go two blocks more into the city, and on the corner they be a

bunch of brick buildings. Each building got a number. Butler num- ber be eleven. We be
apartment 417.

Number eleven. Number 417. Okay. Uh-huh, she said, and hung up. I bought some chewing gum
at Great-Full Sunrise Food store. I

probably should have bought more, because I promised and every- thing, but I wasnt hungry
at all, having eaten four bananas for lunch. I found number eleven, and then I stood
outside door 417. I thought about my sister. I thought hard about her, because, besides
being the most filthy, dirty place I had ever stood, even in-country, the halls smelled
like Bethanys hippie commune, where they used their own fertilizer. It was that awful. How
could people live here? What could they do to make it all right? Its true, thenpeople can

take anything. You Ide? Yes. She was an enormous human being with straightened hair dyed a

sort of yellow-orange. The skin was brown and smooth, but there was clearly a lot more of
it than a person should have.

Im Theresa. Where you parked? Im on a bike. Its downstairs by the elevator. Dont use the
elevator. Didnt I tell you that? No. Get your bike and bring it up here. I went back down
by the stairs and got my bike. I didnt want to

take it back up the stairs because it smelled actually worse than the rest of the
building. She held the door open so I could wheel my bike in.

Inside, Theresas house was perfect. A nice smell of sudsy ammo- nia came from the kitchen
floor. Yellow curtains hung gracefully, covering the window bars. A rug of great beauty,
light brown, with a ring of woven blackbirds, lay under a blond dining-room table. A pi-
ano was in the living room, an old upright that shined under a coat

of blue lacquer. The living room had a maroon wall-to-wall carpet, a curved green corduroy
couch, a recliner with a side stick control, and a black John F. Kennedy rocking chair
with green cushions. A large TV was turned on, and a little boy, maybe four, watched a Tom
and Jerry cartoon.

I never seen a white man here. Never. Thirty-two years. My mamas place, now mine. Never
seen one. Even send the black po- lice. You police?

No, maam. Im Smithy Ide. Bill saved my life.

She threw her head back and laughed again. A high and complete laugh.

That Bill, oh, yes, that Bill. He save lives. He dont say nothin.

I saw Bills picture. He was in his uniform, and he smiled out of the glass set on the
piano. Next to him was an arrangement of differ- ent black people in different periods of
an American time.

This Bill, she said, pointing and smiling, so that her beautiful teeth shined out of her
mouth.

And this Bills father, Bill, and this Bills boy Bill. Your boy? Uh-huh, she said
seriously. And Moona, thats what we all called him. Our gramps. A man with close-cropped
hair, comfortable in a World War I uni-

form, sergeant stripes on his sleeve, stared into the room importantly. And this Bills boy
Alvin. Yours, too, I said happily. Uh-uh, she said, shaking her head. And my mama, and
Bills

mama, who died a young girl, and my girl, Lorraine, who not Bills, and Grandma Butler, who
wrote a history book and was a dentist. Im not foolin. She go out of St. Louis in 1921,
and she come home from Boston, and we got the papers. She had her office on Brook- mayer,
and Bills gramps and his grams lived by the mayors. Thats true.

I believe you.

Sit. I did. Bill saved your life? I told her. Theresa was silent for a little bit. Tom and
Jerry music

played in the background, but her difficult breathing pretty much drowned it out. She
straightened some things on the upright and sat down on the piano bench. She wasnt old.
She couldnt have been much more than forty, but she was as tired as anyone I had ever
seen, and it made her seem old. Very old.

Bill, he just fill up a place with Bill. He so happy and so . . . fill- ing, you
understand. He always, never ever not, happy. He think he win with that smile and that
laugh and the way he touch people, and I mean even the ladies, which sometime make me cry,
but it nice to see how he get everybody laughing and such. That big smile. His big face.
And he good. That thing that good about folks, so big in Bill. Big. Dancin and singin and
laughin. Too bad, too bad. That Bills thing. That what Bill does. He pick up people. He
get people up. Im not surprised he save you. You understand? He savin them all with that
laugh and that smile, but nobody miss it till they push him away. And till he have to make
Bill laugh himself. Bill dance for him- self. Wine do that. More and more of that dancin
for himself.

Theresa looked into the room at the little boy. You put that lower, hear! she shouted.

Bill sometime come, but not for a long time. He out there. You seen them. He a wine man
now. Bill a wine man.

Theresa stopped talking. She looked at me passively, a matter-of- fact look, but something
happened in that big body and that flat face. She began to cry. I reached over to touch
her hand, but she pulled away as if I were something hot.

That it. Nothin more. If I ever see him again, I say the man who you save be here. If I
see him.

Theresa didnt have to tell me that she didnt feel very good about

having me in her house, her apartment. I said thank you and went over to my bike. I had
turned it facing the door, when it opened and a young man, nineteen or twenty, walked in.
I never say things like this, but I promise you he looked more like Bill than Bill did. We
stared at each other.

Im Smithy Ide, I said.

He know Bill. He know your father, Theresa said, almost apolo- getically.

Your father saved my life. He Bills boy Bill, Theresa said wearily. I reached out my hand.
In one fluid motion, as fast as I imagined

the old gunfighters were, Bill slapped my hand away and brought a small blue metal handgun
up to my face. Theresa let out a scream and fell onto her knees praying to God. The little
boy ran in and stood next to his enormous mother. My mouth went dry. I felt dizzy.

He gonna be shot, Bill? the little boy asked.

Bill took a deep breath and seemed to suck all the energy from the room. His torso
expanded out as if challenging the world.

Sure Im gonna shoot him. Shit. The white man know the drunk. He know the drunk.

Theresas prayers and exhortations for mercy for me had dropped to a soft, sobbing mumble.

He know the drunk piss himself. He know the down drunk. He know the clown drunk. The clown
drunk save his white ass.

Baby, no, baby, baby, sobbed Theresa, crawling, really crawling on her hands and knees, to
her son.

Mama, stop! Mama, get up! Charles, get your mama out of here.

I cant get Mama anywhere, Bill. Mama too big. Baby, no. Baby boy, no. Stop! Bills eyes
were wet at the sight of his mother prone in front of

him. What had happened between him and my Bill, or white people or anything for that
matter, didnt seem important. I could feel the barrel now pushed into my left eye. Theresa
was grasping at his pants.