The Memory of Running (19 page)

Please. Oh, God of the righteous, please save my boy. Render his heart . . . oh, baby. Oh
God, please.

Bill turned from his mother and glared at me. Tears were now pouring down his black face.
The wet lines of rage shone, and his terrible hand shook. Slowly he lowered the gun.

White man, he groaned at me. White, white man.

He looked down at his mother. I could feel some blood flowing into my legs. I pushed my
Moto out of the apartment and ran down the stairs. There were lots of young black men in
the dirt front yard. No one seemed older than thirty. There were no women either. I walked
my bike past them. The sun was sinking red.

Red sky at night, sailors delight, I said stupidly, stupidly, stupidly.

I couldnt take a full breath. I got onto the bike, and for the first time since my pop ran
around behind me while I tried to balance without training wheels, I had to concentrate on
the act of pedaling. I turned onto the first street I came to, then took another turn,
con- vinced that young Bill just might change his mind.

Interlude

Dear Smithy, This is my own letter to you, only I wont send it. Im writing this by a
window in my room, and the window is open. Out- side, the maple in your yard is
fluttering, and Im just going to let that breeze carry this to you, because it can and
because I truly believe that words can float.

I have done everything, or started everything, right here. My things comfort me, my work
sustains me, my reading informs me, the music Ive gone in and around with colors me and
adds texture to it all. So it was not only good to savor or learn to sa- vor whats mine
but somehow right to arrange things so I wouldnt be broken by my experience. Do you
understand that? Not can you, but do you? I know you can understand everything because I
see you still bringing her back again and again, whis- pering to her, books in your back
pocket. You.

And I know you stopped understanding, because it was easier, only you cant anymore. Youre
needed, and you have to arrive. And I have to arrive, too. Because Im needed. You tell me
over and over that you dont know, but you do. As much as anybody can know. Its all
pretend, Smithy Ide. Its all how we construct the world. I refuse to believe that you dont
see that. We have to get through, and if were really lucky, we can find somebody to get
through with. To share the map. To make the good choices and the bad choices.

Maybe I have been a fool. I dont think so, but I dont care if I was. The sky and my dreams
all mix together. For so long I couldnt get back to me. I couldnt sense if it was warm or
cold or snowy or anything. And it wasnt my body, which in so many ways hasnt failed me.
Has been there in its incomplete- ness and at the same time made me complete. Yes, I know
you

can understand that, too. Maybe you shake your head and say you dont know, but that just
wont work anymore. You need more, and people need more than a head shake.

Im cold now. My arms are getting goose bumps, and my breath is fogging. Id better close
the window. Id better finish the draft of the yacht and move on to the new Fleet Banking
Center Im doing the drawing of. But before I close it, I have to throw one more thing into
the wind. When I was twenty-two, I cut my foot somehow and, of course, couldnt feel it.
Didnt notice it until it started to swell, and I had to get it drained at the hospital.
They almost took it off. Yes, they almost did. I cried and cried, and they didnt
understand that. They said my feet were just in the way. They honest-to-God said that. Be-
cause of the infection and the medication and really because I hadnt yet started to work
out and take responsibility for myself, I sort of went into a five-day, hospital-room
dream. And in that dream I walked with a boy all around East Providence. Every- where I
remembered. We walked holding hands, and we both wore our hair long, and it kept bouncing
onto our shoulders. And then we were walking in other places. Past rivers with mountains
in the distance and flowers in high meadows. Indian paintbrushes and mountain lupine and
asters and columbines. And he said, I hope you will think of me. I dreamed that. But I
believe it happened. And I believe that boy was true and very beautiful.

Im closing the window, Norma

I sat in my pops den looking at the phone. I wanted to call Bethanys new doctor, Georgina
Glass. If I called, I could say, Id like to come over, maybe discuss Bethanys progress,
maybe take a walk while we talk, maybe you could tell me about those blow jobs. I know. I
look at things, always look at things, wrong. Id just like a date. I could say something
like, Hi, Im not sure you remember me, but Im Smith- son Ide, war hero, scars all over the
place, and not yet all turned to shit, and I was wondering if maybe youd like to go out
with a young guy. But there was the coach, and there was the doctor, and Im fresh from the
SEAL Sam assembly line. Why couldnt she just call me? Hello? Is this Mr. Ide? May I call
you Smithson? Do you think my breasts are too large or just about right? Could you come
right over so we could discuss it? I wish things would happen like that.

Calls not made. Opportunities missed. I dont want to dwell on that right now.

Bethany.

I picked Bethany up at the Thrift Center at Grace Church. She came out still wearing her
apron. She was now seeing Dr. Glass, Georgina, every Tuesday and Thursday. We were all
still pretty psychiatrist-shy at the Ide house, but we had to admit that Dr. Glass was a
definite step up from the golfer, as my pop had taken to call- ing Glenn Golden, who still
refused to even consider the reality of Bethanys voice and insisted instead that she was
just sort of a nutty girl.

I had bought a 1968 VW Beetle. It was gray and ran good. I dont think I could squeeze into
one of them now, but then it was easy. My sister got into the passenger side.

Drive slow, she said. I always drive slow, I said. How was work? Its not work. Its not
really work. Dont be a fuckoff.

I was quiet. I guess work was not good. I watched the road. She watched me.

Fucking asshole, she said. Stop, jeez. Stop, jeez, she said, mimicking me. I didnt say
anything. I took the fastest route to the east side of

Providence. We took the Red Bridge. I jumped off this bridge. I almost died. I ruined
everything.

Thanks a fucking lot. Thanks for reminding me. Maybe I ought to do it again. Maybe then
youll be happy. I hate you.

I didnt look at her. The Red Bridge. I took it without thinking. Maybe I deserved this.

Maybe you ought to die. Maybe you ought to jump off the bridge. Maybe I ought to grab the
steering wheel and put us both out of our misery.

Bethany punched me in the arm. Im not kidding, she said. Stop. Stop, she mimicked.

I turned onto Waterman Avenue, then onto Blackstone Boule- vard, and parked near the Brown
Stadium. Bethany didnt speak at all as we walked down the sidewalk to Dr. Glass. She met
us at the door. She had on a blue skirtpleated and hanging just an inch or two be- low her
kneesa silky white blouse, and a string of large pearls that rested happily on her chest.

Hey, sweetie, Dr. Glass said, giving Bethany a kiss on the cheek. Hi, bubbled my sister. I
would have felt a lot more comfortable if the name-caller had

shown up for Dr. Glass, but I had the feeling Mr. Voice was too smart for that and was
getting smarter.

Hello, Mr. Ide, she said, shaking my hand.

She remembered my name! She knew now that I was connected to her patient.

Hello, Dr. Glass, I said. I felt she may have held my handshake a split second longer than
was necessary, but I couldnt be sure.

Bethany and Dr. Glass went into the office, and I read, as usual, in the waiting alcove. I
read an old Outdoor Life, I remember, until a shaken Georgina Glass came out about fifteen
minutes later.

Mr. Ide? she whispered urgently. Can you come in for a second?

I knew immediately what had upset Dr. Glass. She was always so light and airy with us all,
it was obvious she had never seen the things the voice could do. The poses. The stillness.
There, by the corner of the doctors delicate black antique desk, Bethany had thrown out
her left arm, brought her shoulders into a hunch, and frozen.

She is not moving. She is not moving, Dr. Glass said anx- iously but softly. Even, even .
. . is she breathing? Can she not be breathing?

No, shes breathing. Its happened enough so I know shes breathing.

We stood next to Bethany and watched her closely. There is an- other thing about the pose.
Its mesmerizing, hypnotizing. Its terri- ble because it seems so utterly unnatural, but at
the same time it is amazing and beautiful.

Ive never seen anything like it. Can she hear us? I think the voice hears us. The voice? I
looked at the doctor and stepped away from my frozen sister. Theres something inside of
Bethany. Always has been. It ruins

things. It tells her things and tells her to do things, and she does them. I hate it.

She hears voices? Dr. Glass asked, very surprised.

She hears a voice, the voice. I tried to tell the other doctor . . . Glenn Golden. . . .

I know Glenn. . . . He wasnt interested. He didnt believe it. That was before I had

to go to Vietnam, where I was wounded and became a sort of hero and came home without a
girlfriend or anything.

You went to Vietnam? You poor boy. Well . . . you know . . . Im a lot older than I look.
She stared again at my motionless sister. Why wasnt I told about

any of this? Why wasnt any of this in her case report? Dr. Glass had none of that formal
sort of pleasant stiffness that she had when shed meet us at the door. She was so put off
by Bethany that she had dropped the doctor stuff. She moved more sensually, if

thats the word, as plain old Georgina Glass. I took a deep breath. Well, Georgina, you
told me and Mom and my pop that you wanted to get all the dope from my sister herself. And
a lot of the stuff, the voice stuff, wouldnt be in any reports, because Dr. Golden didnt
believe it. I wasnt around long enough while he was treating her, because I had to go to
Vietnam, where I was wounded eighteen

or twenty times and won the Purple Heart. You won the Purple Heart? Now, some people might
think I was being a little prick talking

about myself with Bethany stuck right there in her pose, her still life, but there is
comfort in knowing where she was at any given time. Sometimes, especially when I was
younger, I used to wish there was a way she could live forever in a pose, so we would
always know the voice couldnt take her away.

Listen, I said, I know this looks like a stupid time to ask, but How old are you? How old
am I? Now? Yes.

I was gaining weight. I was working a job. I was twenty . . . soon Id be twenty-one.

Im twenty . . . six. You look younger. A lot of people tell me I look younger, too. Im
thirty-nine.

She smelled, and I will not lie about this, like peaches. Really. Peaches. The skin on her
cheeks and forehead was moist. Her breasts easily supported the hang of pearls around her
neck.

What do you think about thirty-nine? she said, watching my eyes.

I think thirty-nine is wonderful. I think theres something about thirty-nine thats
fantastic.

She laughed. I said thirty-nine, not sixty-nine. Sixty-nine? Did she say that? Did she? So
what do we do? Do you call an ambulance? How long does it

last? Are you sure she cant hear us? I called my pop, and he drove over with the station
wagon. We

put the backseat down and spread some blankets and laid Bethany inside.

Will she be all right? Will it last long? Maybe we should take her to the hospital.

I told Georgina that shed sleep in her room and tomorrow shed be fine. We made another
appointment for Bethany to make up for this lost one, and I followed Pop home in my Volks.
I felt pretty good about myself, I will admit. I felt I had put my best foot forward with
Dr. Georgina Glass and in the very near future I would, maybe, be out with her. And maybe
Id take her to the Grist Mill in Rehoboth and get a table near the waterfall and order a
nice wine with my earnings from the SEAL Sam assembly line. I was very hopeful.

But in the morning Bethany did not wake out of her pose, or the next morning, and by the
weekend we had to get her back to Bradley Hospital for liquid food. Something new was
happening, and we knew it.

We never talked about it, but we knew it.

The longer you wait and put off the nice things you should do on a regular basis, the
harder it is to do them, until finally you have to force yourself to be nice, to be
thoughtful, and it isnt easy, because youre embarrassed about not having done those easy,
nice things in a natural kind of way. Also, the people who youre nice to come to ex- pect
your regular niceness. Thats it in a nutshell.

It was raining hard in the middle of Missouri. An autumn rain, and cool. I had given up
trying to stay dry. It was the fifth straight day of hard rain. The cornfields had gotten
so muddy I was sleeping only in rest areas and small-town parks. My gear was so soaked
that for the last two nights I hadnt even bothered setting up my tent. What was the point?
Man, I was feeling sorry for myself. Thinking about things. Talking out loud. Id go along
on that wonderful bike, those touring tires firm on the slippery road, and Id just talk.

. . . and youre a genius, too. You get on a Raleigh, and your fat ass all hangs out of the
seat, and Shad Factory and people all laughing at you. Whos gonna visit the graves? Why
are you on the bike? I hate you, you goddamn slob. . . .

I talked for hundreds of miles and ate bananas in the rain. Now I had gotten myself sick,
right here, in the middle of a Missouri mon- soon. I had lost my energy, and I had a
terrible headache and even the runs, which I hate in the rain especially. I had to walk
the Moto maybe the last fifteen miles to this rest area. There was a restroom, a soda
machine, and a phone bank with six phones. Some truckers had pulled in and, Id say,
fifteen or twenty cars, to sleep until daylight. It was past one in the morning. I used
the toilet and a forest of pa- per towels. I rummaged for change, but if I had any, it was
at the bottom of my pack, so I settled for water and, of course, a banana. When I leaned
my bike against the phone bank and picked up the receiver, I was shivering so hard I had
to push the number four sepa-

rate times until I got it right. Even at this hour, she answered on the first ring.

Hello. Hello, Norma. I tried to sound relaxed and comfortable, but an arctic wind blew

my words to East Providence. Youre shivering! Youre sick, arent you? Arent you? Norma,
Norma, Im sorry, Im sorry about not calling. Im Youre all shivering! Im always screwing
things up, and whos gonna visit them, I was

thinking, whos gonna, I dont know, put the flowers and Smithy . . . prayers and stuff. Its
just raining and raining. I feel Smithy, dont . . .

Ifeelso...oldallof asudden.

That was it. That was what I felt. I was so tired and so old. My long hair made the bald
spot much clearer, and my beard came in with heavy strips of gray. But what was wrong with
a guy crying to poor Norma?

Smithy. Will you listen? Will you listen? If you dont think enough of me to listen, then
tell me so and Ill hang up! Now!

Norma never had one emotion working alone. Never. It was as if some mad scientist mixed
all of the feelings into different combina- tions. Norma was very complex. But she always
said what she felt.

Dont hang up, Norma, I whispered, probably in a voice as pa- thetic as had ever traveled
fifteen hundred miles. I heard Norma fill her lungs and exhale.

I wont hang up, Smithy. Ill never hang up on you.

The rain sheeted down heavier than before and drummed onto the metal roof of the phone
bank.

Is that the rain? she asked.

Uh-huh, listen. I held the phone stupidly in the direction of the metal roof. Can you hear
that?

Its a heavy rain.

Its been raining for five days. Im so wet I dont even pitch my tent anymore.

You should pitch your tent. I want you to. I wanted to call. I . . . Its okay. No, its not
okay, because I wanted to talk to you about Bill and

Bills boy. I got saved in the army. Did you know that? And now Bill is one of those
homeless people, and his son wanted to kill me.

Norma didnt say anything, so I leaned against the rain and told her everything. And
telling everything made me feel good and less ashamed.

Thats so sad. Poor Bill and poor Theresa, and even though he had that gun, poor Bills son.

I know. I wish we could help them. I know. Do you think we could? I think, I think later
on, Im going to try. I dont know. I know a

nice priest who has ideas about being strong. I dont know. The rain had lightened into a
mere downpour, but it still pinged

loudly against the phone bank. You know what Ive been working on, Smithy? Ive got it spread

out right here on my drafting table. Ive been working on the blue- prints of a new yacht
that Blount Shipyard is building. Its going to try to race in the Americas Cup.

I bet its beautiful. Its like a rocket ship on water. Do you need money? Im all right. If
you need money . . . Im hardly spending anything. Ive got about two hundred dol-

lars. Really. Would you tell me if you needed money?

I would. I love you, Smithy. Another truck pulled into the rest stop, a couple more cars. I

wonder what they thought about me, in the rain, on the phone. Whats your room like, Norma?
Is it . . . do you have all your fa-

vorite stuff around? I mean . . . I spend most of my time here, working and all, so really
its my

domain, I guess. Lets see, I bought a new, very good Persian rug in Providence, and it
covers all but about a foot around the edges. Its red and gold, very intricate design.
Soft. Ive got my business things on either side of the drafting table. My table is blue,
usually the draft- ing tables are brown or blond, but I had them put a nice robins-egg
lacquer on it. . . . Theres my fax machine and two computers with design capability and
CD-ROM and things, and the phone and printer and rolling side table that I keep my pens
and paper on. Ive got a Mary Cassatt print of a mom and her daughter. Ive got an au-
tographed picture of Teddy Ballgame

Ted Williams? Really? Pop gave it to me. It was Pops. I remember. I miss them, Smithy. I
miss them so much. Pop . . . Through bad weather all across the states, Norma fought off
her

tears. I liked that she missed them. I missed them. Sometimes now, when I see Bethany in a
field or a cloud, I see Mom and Pop, too. Pop always has his uniform on. He always has his
baseball bat.

There . . . theres my library, too. . . . I call it my library. I have one whole wall
filled with books. Reference books, novels . . . and then I have my big old brass bed. I
have it on the corner of the rug next to the bookshelves. Its a huge bed. It was made in
1844. I bought it at an estate sale in Barrington.

My headache was not going away, and now my ear, my right ear, was hurting, but it was
better than aspirin to hear Norma describe her dry, sweet room.

If you were here, Id put you to bed and keep you warm all night. Id just hold you and hold
you and, and . . . and you could . . .

I could hold you, too, Norma.

Somewhere between the middle of Missouri and East Providence, Rhode Island, were our
words. And the words hung on the line like soft pajamas. And we hung, too, even in the
rain.

After a while Norma said, Pitch your tent. Okay. Promise? Okay.

Okay . . . go do it now so you can get out of the rain. Okay . . . bye, Norma. I love you
so much. . . . Bye. I pitched the tent next to the picnic table. I didnt use my wet

sleeping bag for anything more than a pillow, but I managed to sleep some. I woke up to
sun and spread all my things out over the picnic table to dry. I had the rest of my
fruittwo bananas and a pear went to the bathroom, and waited for my clothes to dry. I read
my book, Ringo. My ear didnt hurt.