After she leaves for work, I change into running gear and strap my watch on. Some days I run randomly around the neighborhood, up and down blocks of neatly arranged houses, skimpy lawns covered with frosted leaves that never got raked, streets lined with parked cars. Other days I run down to the river, the current gray or blue depending on the sky, along the break wall as far as the rowing club and back, timing how long it takes. Anywhere from forty to forty-five minutes.
I opt for the break wall and rowing club today because who knows how long before it gets snowed in and frozen over. I start out and barely begin to sweat when suddenly my father is there cheering, cajoling, urging me on, stopwatch in his hand, yelling at me to lengthen my stride, breathe through my nose, relax my shoulders, keep my head up. Quit being such a lazy little shit! He’d show me how if he could. He’d run my ass into the ground. When I was in high school, he always horned in on the coach’s territory, complaining to him that the team didn’t train hard enough, and that I should run the mile instead of the eight-hundred on the track. He thought I was a slow starter—a “late bloomer” he called me—not ready to kick into gear until I had a few laps under my belt.
Everyone at school knew about him because of the track meets he attended, where he’d be loud and draw attention to himself. He yelled at officials and coaches; he taunted members of the opposing team; he’d stand right by the finish line and throw up his arms in despair or victory.
The coach was kind enough not to say anything to me about my father’s disruptive behavior, but the guys would point at him and make jokes. Or they’d ask: Is that really your father?”
Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t.
I never looked my father’s way during a race, although from the corner of my eye I could see his arms flapping like flags, hear him shouting, feel him like ants on my back. I ached to win for him, but the only time I ever placed first was in the one race my father didn’t attend. It was a soggy cross-country meet under a steady downpour in Moreau State Park. A lot of runners lost their footing and fell; one kid from Glens Falls got his foot caught and broke a bone. I have a heavy stride and kept plodding, sometimes sinking up to my ankle and sucking out my shoe with an abrupt jerk of my leg. I splatted along, slipping but staying up. When I crossed the finish line first I was so ecstatic I dove into a mud puddle and slapped and rolled around. After that lone victory I got the reputation of being a mudder.
My father hadn’t been there because he’d accidentally locked himself in the attic that afternoon while looking through some old boxes and was stuck for hours until my mother got home from work.
When I told him later I’d won, he didn’t believe me until he read the results in the paper the next morning.
He said, “Did you have to win when I wasn’t there? Did you do that just to disappoint me?”
I push him from my mind. On the break wall separating the canal from the swift Niagara River, a few bundled fisherman hold their poles in the water; they’ve been here since first light, with buckets of live bait, hoping to catch a sturgeon or bass. I smell the smoke of their cigarettes and pipes as I pass.
Right now I’m between pain. The first and last miles always hurt, before I’m warmed up and after I’m worn down, but in the middle of the run I feel light-headed and high. My father recedes and I’m no longer in a race but have become a gazelle loping across the savannah; I am an Indian returning victoriously from the hunt, my moccasins padding silently along the wooded trail; I am a perfectly-tuned engine; a healthy pumping heart.
I turn around at the rowing club and when I’m almost back the pain sets in, a stab in my side, and my father is there at the finish line, waving frantically, yelling at me to pick up the pace, pick up the pace, where’s your kick! He’s gaining on you! You’re falling behind!
By the time I’m done I’m blinded by my own sweat. I’ve come in a disappointing second. I didn’t have enough kick at the end and was passed in the last hundred yards. Caught from behind, the worst thing that can happen.
Excerpt from my upcoming novel.
