The Memory of Running (24 page)

Thats gotta be great. I mean, youre really into that.

It was 80 again. The other two werent back yet. I saw that 80 had changed into a long,
heavy green plaid nightshirt, buttoned to the neck, that seemed as big as a sleeping bag
itself. Her thick hair was swept back and had comb marks on it. She had very white skin,
and the rose in her cheeks from the wind looked painted on.

A friend of mine gave me the book. She said it was really about me, but I dont know.

Girlfriend? Huh? The friend who gave you the book. Oh . . . no, no. Shes married and
everything. She makes rugs. Cool. Im Chris. Im Smithy.

Thats a funny name. Nickname? Smithson, really. Smithson. Cool. My pop named me after
Robert Smithson, who was a shortstop

on the Cincinnati Redlegs in 1884. He turned the first double play. Cool.

One day I woke up and twenty years or so had gone by, and I real- ized I never spoke
comfortably to anyone unless I had a buzz on. And even then it was always about nothing.
So here is another thing. I speak now. Im interested in people now. I want to know things.

We were just talking about how you ride. You ride great for an older guy.

I got red. I couldnt talk. I mean . . . compliments.

I mean, older guys are cool. I mean . . . am I dumb or what? You ride great.

You ride great, too.

Her friends came back, and I met them both, and they were named Rosie and Joanie. They had
a day-care center they owned and operated in Boulder, Colorado. It was called The Company
of Three. After a while they shut the big light off, and except for a scat- tering of
flashlights, most of the tent settled in for the night. Wed be off at six forty-five the
next morning, and sleep was like food, really. The girls whispered good night to each
other. Before Chris got into her sleeping bag, she knelt down at the side of my cot and
kissed my fat, balding, scraggy face right on its mouth.

Good night, Smithson, she whispered. Uh-huh, I choked, like an idiot in a bag.

Georgina Glass picked up the phone on the second ring. It was night, and I had borrowed
the number from Bethanys private address book.

Hello. Dr. Glass? Its Smithson Ide, I said deeply and formally. There was a slight pause
on the Glass end. How did you get this

number? I got it from my sister. Bethany gave it to you? No, I looked in her address book.
So then its not only a violation of my privacy, but its a violation

of your sisters as well. Its true that I was in the early stages of my dissipation, but I
was

not drunkin fact, I had not had a drink. Still, being sober could not make my words come
any smoother or easier in this difficult challenge of human communication.

Wiggys gone. I think . . . I think . . . Could my sister start hurt- ing things, Dr. Glass?

Another pause. This time I didnt feel anything. Anger or anything. Who is Wiggy? Wiggy is
Uncle Counts dog. Hes a beagle. Whenever you go over

there, hes always jumping around. He never gets tired and stuff. Aunt Paula gave Bethany a
shower, and Wiggy was all jumping around and things, and after everybody left, Count
couldnt find him.

Maybe he ran away.

Count said in dog years hes fifty-five. I dont think old dogs run away.

No, you think your sister murders old dogs. Now it was my turn to go silent. I remembered
how I would call

for a bedpan in the army hospital and the orderly telling me that I didnt really need one
because he wanted to finish his smoke.

Im just scared that maybe

Look, Mr. Ide, she said, sternly cutting me off, if there is one thing you should know
about that lovely and, yes, disturbed young woman you call your sister, it is that she
would be incapable of doing anything harmful to anyone or anything.

Good, I said. Georgina Glass had made me cry again, but she didnt know it.

More important, this telephone number is my private number, and only individuals whom I
have given this number are free to call it. I have not given this number to you. Do you
understand my meaning?

I had driven to Woodys Gas Station to call from a corner phone booth, because I didnt want
any of the Ides to know I called. I was cold, and every time a car or truck whizzed by,
the wet evening got wetter. I needed to have something to drink.

Yes, I said, I understand your meaning. Dr. Georgina Glass hung the phone up immediately.
After I had peed myself, the orderly got so angry he made me lie

in it for two hours before he changed my sheets. By then I was chapped raw.

Twenty-three miles out of Winslow, the promised flat road became a hill and then a
mountain. The road club had gotten permission, for this big event, to use Interstate 40.
Besides the hills and mountains, the hurricane-like truck winds made for a treacherous
approach into Flagstaff. Sometimes I could feel the drivers trying to get too close. I
dont know. It was a feeling. But it was another very pretty day and I stayed with 78, 79,
and 80 until I saw Bethany on top of a slow- moving oil tanker, and I pushed close behind
it as we struggled up one of the steeper climbs. The altitude no longer affected my
breath- ing. Its a curious thing, as my mom would say, but after you get used to it, the
thin, high air gives your whole body a lighter sensation.

I took my lunch at a Marriott hotel. I pulled off the road, walked my bike into the
courtyard pool area, and just sat at a table. No one was outside, because, unless you were
moving, it was pretty cold. The Seswan representatives had happily restocked our lunch
packs with juice, cookies, and huge hoagie sandwiches. I added the ba- nana, of course. It
was good sitting there at a white metal table with the cold pool water, smooth as a
morning lake. I had made good time from Winslow to Flagstaff, and Williams was probably
only an- other forty miles or so. I closed my eyes a minute and listened to my easy heart.
Sometimes these few silent, eyes-closed moments gave back more than a nights sleep. I
followed the beat of my heart away from my chest and into my head, then down to my sloping
shoulders and into each arm. By the time I had moved the beat down to my feet and into the
ground, I felt a sort of release. Being away from my- self, but being closer at the same
time. Im probably not saying it right. Im not a lousy packed suitcase anymore, I guess is
what I mean. Im only taking what I need.

When I opened my eyes, the sun had peeked behind a perfect round cloud for the first time
all day, and the pool water, so placid a

second ago, now bristled in the breeze. Bethany stood on it, and the lumps of wave licked
her feet. She was eighteen, and her prom dress and Moms jewelry made her look even
younger. She glided at first, as if on skates, and then, turning, she rose above the pool
and shim- mered in the cooling air.

Bethany, I said evenly and slowly. The word felt good to say, and I said it again.

The ease with which Georgina Glass could upset me was astounding. When I think about it
now, years later, I think that Dr. Glass knew exactly what she was doing. I was a cipher,
sort of, in a medical ca- reer that was specializing in something that, with all her
training, she knew nothing about at all. I think she knew I felt that about psychia-
trists, and why not? So she always made a beeline for my tear ducts, no matter how
important the subject or how desperate I sounded. I understand her, then, but I dont
understand her. So what else is new?

I hung up the phone and left Woodys Gas Station and drove di- rectly to Bovis Tavern. Some
of the guys I had gone to high school with were usually there, the ones who you always
assumed would be there. I sat at the least crowded corner of the bar and ordered some
Narragansett. I had four quick glasses, then switched to screwdrivers. I had six or seven,
then drove to my apartment on Newport Ave- nue. I hated this place for the whole
twenty-something years I lived there, but I hated it the most those first few months. I
never put up a picture or bought furniture that I liked or anything. I always hoped that
pretty soon Id be out of there.

I fixed myself another screwdriver and loosened my belt and pants because, I guess, of the
Bovis Tavern beer and pretzels. I sat down at one end of the old sofa Pop had let me have
from the basement. I wanted to call someone. I wanted to talk to someone. Not about
Bethany or anything, just a conversation where one person says something and you listen
and then you say something and that per- son listens.

The phone rang, and I picked it up on the second ring. Hello? I said. I thought I heard
some breathing, but I couldnt be sure. Then the

phone buzzed. I hung it up and sat back down. A few minutes later, it rang again, and I
picked it up again on the second ring.

Hello, I said, as pleasantly as a drunken man can.

This time I did hear something. Maybe breathing. The phone was connected. No buzz, only an
uncomfortable pause.

Hello. Hello, I said.

In all that silence, I felt some kind of distance, as though this par- ticular call could
have been from Russia or Australia or Vietnam. When it spoke, I couldnt tell if it was a
mans voice or a womans voice. It was like a croak from a lily pad or a yell from an escape
tunnel.

Bow-wow, it said. Bow-wow. Bow-wow. Bow-wow.

For Suzanne of the Aspens, the coming of that first great Rocky Mountain winter brought
amazing hardships. Snows that drove on day after day, herds of elk that actually ate part
of her firewood store. If it werent for this state of grace she claimed she found herself
in, there was no way this Boston woman could have survived. Yet every day she trudged out
of her wagon dressed in layers of her husbands clothing and brushed the snow from the
wagons sagging canvas top. She added to her firewood by pulling down the dry branches of
fir and aspen. She boiled the snow to drink. Above her, Indians as strange and fearsome as
anything she could have imagined, wearing deer hide and heavily armed, sat watching her.
Suzanne Bowen showed no fear. Instead, every day she would walk through the heavy drifts
of snow with a small sack of oats, or corn, or dried beans and, without looking up, would
leave the sack in plain view. In the morn- ing the offering was always gone. Often in its
place was a feather.

I twined my fingers under my head, leaned back onto my bunched-up sleeping bag, and closed
my eyes for a second. Outside Flagstaff, the road seemed to rise in a constant ascent. It
wasnt like I was riding anymore. I was a mountain climber. By Bellemont I had hit the cusp
of Bill Williams Mountain, which was ninety-two hun- dred feet high and seemed to be
placed there by rival bicycle clubs. This was a kind of low point for me.

Many younger riders didnt seem to have the trouble I was having. At one distinct point, I
was balanced on my bike but I couldnt move it forward as nine or ten happy,
orange-and-blackclothed kids shot by. I solved the problem by walking it up the great
hill. The twenty- nine miles between Bellemont and Williams were a repeat of my mountain
strategy. Walk up. Coast down. It was dark when I glided into Williams and followed the
signs to the tennis club where wed stay the night. The nets had been taken down, with the
same deal

going that we had in the tent. In fact, the mens and ladies rooms, the trucks parked at
either side of the tennis club, were the same ones as in Winslow. I washed up, ate an
enormous chicken casserole and salad at my bike, and walked into the court to pick a cot.

Smithson! Smithson!

I looked in the direction of my name, and Chris, number 80, was frantically waving.

We saved you a place! Come on!

I made my way through the lines of cots. I noticed there seemed to be fewer people than
last night. Chris was standing with her hands on her hips and a big smile. She had on bib
overalls with a green sweatshirt underneath. Her hair was combed sort of to the side with
a green ribbon bunching a handful of it together. She looked very young and not at all
exhausted, which the ride had made me.

Hi, she said, bounding over to me and standing about one inch away from my sweaty old
person.

Hi, I said, trying to sound, you know, young.

Then she kissed me. Like last night. Quickly. And happily sat on the edge of one of the
cots. I could taste her lipstick, and it lingered in my beard. She tasted like apples.

Sit, she said, patting the space of cot next to her.

I put my saddlebags down and sat. I didnt know what to do, so I started taking my stuff
out of the bags.

Know how many people made it? she asked. Made what? Made it over Bill Williams Mountain?
Without help, I mean.

Fifty-two. Thats it. Fifty-two? Thats not many. We stopped at the rest area where the
spring comes out under

the picnic table. Know the one? Yeah. About halfway up the mountain. We stopped, had the
rest of our lunch, and just couldnt get go-

ing again. Took one of the vans into Williams.

I think that its smart to know when to stop something. Cool. Chris leaned on her elbows
and threw her head back. Her small

apple breasts held on to my eyes. They were happy breasts. They were the Golden Delicious
of breasts. I turned away and pretended to be looking for something in my bag.

You made it. Youre in great shape, she said. Im tired. Im very tired, I think. Yeah, but
you made it. How old are you? I looked at my forearms as if I had to consider my age.
Actually, I

had just noticed I could see veins in my arms and a certain shape to myself.

Im forty-three, I said, still looking at my arms. Youre in great shape. There was a pause,
and I knew it was my turn to fill it, but I didnt,

or I couldnt. After a few more seconds, she said, Are you married or anything?

Im not married. You dont seem gay or anything. Im not. Youre just out here. You made it
over the mountain. Its so

cool. Bethany stood posed on a cot several rows over. Her eyes were on

me. She wore the kilt and the hair of the beautiful girl who had vis- ited me in the
Denver hospital. I would have liked to have said her name again, but I didnt.

Do you live in Gallup? No, Im not from around here. Colorado? Chris wanted to know, I
guess. East Providence, Rhode Island. Rhode Island! You came out from Rhode Island? For
this? Across the room Bethany danced above her cot and smiled at me.

I didnt know you had these things. No, I saw everybody and sort of joined up. I started
riding one night, and here I am. Im going to Los Angeles. Im going for my sister.

I watched Bethany fold into another woman and disappear. Chris was just staring at me. I
shrugged.

You rode from Rhode Island? Yes. And I told her. In the middle of my story, I excused
myself to go

to the mens room, but Chris just walked with me and waited by the truck. It didnt make me
uncomfortable at all that this lovely and, as I say, apple-breasted young woman linked her
arm in mine and clung to me and my words. She cried easily. The Red Bridge. Carl. Bill.
Norma. I liked that these things could bring up tears in her. In peo- ple. I felt kind of
right. I didnt feel as if I had to apologize. I think the only part of my story she didnt
believe was the 279-pound part. The big part. That it was me and my gasp for air and smoke
and booze. I miss nothing, but I miss it all. I told her that, too. It was a lot like
listening to my heart at poolside. It was good, and it made me refreshed.

When we got back to the cot, her friends Joanie and Rosie were there, already in their
flannel longjohns. They were so pretty and regular in a way that I suppose I never thought
girls could be. Of course, they werent girls. They were women with a business and
everything. Partners, really. But I felt, somehow, easy with them. We all talked for a
while. Not about me, because I think that Chris liked the idea that I shared that with
just her, like a secret, even though it wasnt a secret. After a while I lay on my cot and
read more Suzanne. Kate was right. I think I was enjoying this book the most.

When the overhead lights went out, some flashlights popped on here and there. I spread out
my bag and got in. It was warm inside the tennis club. I slipped off my sweatpants and
sweatshirt and slept in my undies. Man, I was pooped. The second I curled up, I was out
cold.

Im not sure how much longer I slept or what exactly woke me, but when I opened my eyes
into the darkness, I felt her body against me. She was sleeping, so she must have been
there for a while. I reached my arms over slowly, and my fingers realized she was naked.
Her face was between my chin and my chest. I could feel her apples pressing against my
T-shirt, expanding with each breath. She threw her top leg around me and raised her head
up to my eyes.

Hi, she whispered, I just unzipped you and climbed in.

When she kissed me, I felt my heart race out of its area and into my lips. She licked my
cheek, my nose. She pushed away for a fuller look at my astonishment, and her breasts, her
beautiful orchard (I really felt that), popped away from my chest and pointed up at me. I
made no bones about it. I liked them. I looked at them. After a mo- ment I touched them.
She closed her eyes and smiled. The back of her hand brushed the front of my shorts, and I
guess my excitement began to rise.

I just climbed in with you, she whispered. I dont want to bother you.

You . . . bother . . . no bother . . . no . . . uhh . . . I just . . . She pushed me over
and was on top of me. A bag of man and

woman. A hard and a soft bag. She moved against me. Her smooth- ness. Her amazing body
that couldnt climb the mountain, on me. She pulled at my T-shirt. We took it off. Me and
this young and beautiful woman, taking off my T-shirt. I remembered then that we were in
cot city. Some flashlights still glinted on and off in the dis- tance. My hands ran down
the muscles of her back and followed her spine up to her shoulders once more. One of her
friends rolled in her sleep, and I turned, startled, to her cot. Bethany lay still, her
curls falling sideways on the pillow. Her twelve-year-old eyes wide and flat. I turned
away, but when I looked again, she still watched me. A sad watch. A sad little girl. I put
my hands down to my sides.

Smithson? Chris whispered. What?

I looked from my fragile sister to Chris above me in a way that would never leave me and
be in my thoughts maybe always. Her mouth a bit open. Her eyes a lot green. Her black hair
pressed down over the milky forehead. My God, I thought, I love the girls so much.

What? she asked again.

I couldnt explain how I had lifted that heavy wheelchair. How I couldnt look at those
closed venetian blinds after the visits stopped. How the letters came every day to Smithy
Ide in many pieces. Let- ters I never read.

Its not you, I said finally. Youre so wonderful. Youre so beau- tiful. Its me, really. Its
me, Chris, thats all.

She looked at my eyes and then looked away. A tiny sigh, and when she turned back, she had
a smile.

I dont usually do this, you know. I know. I dont, really. I know you dont.

She rolled off me and sat on the side of my cot, facing away. Her hair still to one side.
Her naked body catching goose bumps from the stale tennis-court air. I wanted to touch
her, let my hand rest on her, anywhere on her, but I knew that wasnt possible. She stood
and walked softly to her cot. I should have closed my eyes, I think, but I would keep this
picture of beautiful Chris. She pulled on her green plaid nightshirt and then her white
athletic socks. She got into her sleeping bag and rolled onto her side. Dim fluorescent
night lights on either side of the tennis club lit us like the moon.

Good night, I said finally. Tortured. Stupid. She pulled the bag up to her ears.