by Eric Walters
* * *
—
I SAT UP, startled by a noise, and for an instant I didn’t have a clue where I was. The only light in the room was the glow of the television, which was showing a test pattern and buzzing. The station had gone off the air for the night. What time was it?
I climbed off the bed. I was still wearing my clothes. I walked across to the dresser and picked up the clock. It was after one in the morning and my father still wasn’t back! He’d left just after eight o’clock. Gone for a little while…sure. I wasn’t surprised, but it didn’t make me feel better to be right.
I clicked off the television and the room was dark. The only light was the Halifax night coming in through partially drawn curtains. I was edging across the floor when my attention was caught by sounds coming from the hall. Was somebody having a fight or…? It was singing. I recognized the voice.
I ripped back the covers on my bed, jumped in and pulled them back over top of me. As I turned over, the singing became louder and then stopped altogether. I heard the sound of a key fumbling for the lock and the door opened. Light from the hall flooded into the room. I closed my eyes tighter and tried to at least pretend I was asleep.
5
MAY 22, 1980
I slumped down in the seat and stared out the window. If nothing else, the car certainly had big, comfy seats. If only I’d kept the earphones from the airplane I could have blocked out my father humming along to the music blaring on the radio. How did he always manage to find a station playing Frank Sinatra? Even worse, why couldn’t he just let the man sing by himself? Frank Sinatra was bad. Frank Sinatra and my father singing was almost more than I could handle.
He’d already been through his third coffee of the trip and more cigarettes than I bothered counting. He said the combination of the two was the only thing that kept him awake, which I guessed was good, since he was driving. He obviously hadn’t had much sleep the night before. I hadn’t had much either after he’d arrived home. I’d tried to sleep but couldn’t get my head to shut off.
“Could we turn that down a little?” I asked.
“What’s wrong, don’t you like Sinatra?”
“You have to be joking. I doubt there’s a teenager in the whole country, in the whole world, who likes Sinatra.”
“That’s probably because they haven’t given him a chance.” He reached over and turned the volume up instead of down. “They call him the Chairman of the Board, Old Blue Eyes. The man has style.”
“Old-fashioned style maybe,” I countered.
“He defined style for a whole generation.”
“Not this generation.”
“So what singers do you like?” he asked.
“I don’t like singers. I like groups. Like Yes, King Crimson, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd.”
“Pink Floyd…I think I’ve heard of him.”
“It’s not a him, it’s the name of a group,” I said with disdain.
That shut him up for a minute. Now, if only Mr. Sinatra, the Chairman of the Board, would do the same. I had no problem with him doing it “his way” as long as he did it more quietly, or someplace where I wasn’t.
“Now that I’ve given it a chance, can you turn it down?” I asked.
“Sure,” my father said as he reached over and adjusted the volume. “You ever been to Nova Scotia before?” he asked.
“Never. You?”
He laughed. “I’ve been everywhere before, but Nova Scotia is where I’m from.”
“It is?” I asked.
“I’m surprised you didn’t know that.”
Clearly, there was a whole lot I didn’t know about him. “I remember you telling me something about you being born out East but I didn’t know where…or at least I don’t remember.”
“I was raised in Halifax from the time I was ten.” My father laughed. “Where did you think I was from?”
“I never really thought about it. You said the East but it just always seemed to me like you were born and raised in Toronto…maybe the east end of Toronto.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he said. “Although many people wouldn’t.”
I didn’t mean it as anything, but he could take it any way he wanted.
“I was brought up no more than a five-minute walk from where we stayed last night.”
“You said you were raised in Halifax. Does that mean you weren’t born there?” I asked.
“Nope. I was born in a small town. Jerkwater, Nova Scotia.”
“Jerkwater!” I exclaimed. “You’re joking, right?”
He chuckled. “I am. That’s what we used to call it when we were kids. It’s actually called Millwater.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“No surprise there. Nobody’s ever heard of it. It’s just a little nothing dot on the map.”
“How many people live there?”
“A better question is how many people survive there. It’s tiny. One store, a gas station and a smattering of houses hanging on for no apparent reason. The only good thing about the town was that we finally left it.”
We drove along in silence—well, silence except for the music on the radio. Mr. Sinatra had been replaced by some cheesy-sounding trumpet blaring out of the speakers, and my father had turned up the volume again.
“It would be hard for you to understand what it’s like to live in a place like Millwater because Toronto is the only place you’ve ever lived. It’s a pretty exciting city.”
“I like it.”
“It’s not like London or L.A. or New York—actually, no place in the world is like New York—but it’s still a big city, and people can get in a lot of trouble in a big city.”
I was smart enough to know where this was going.
“So tell me, what do you do when you’re on the run?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“You’re saying the last time you were on the run you did nothing for two days?”
“That’s right.”
“You must have done something. What did you do?”
“Hung around with friends…ate…saw a couple of movies…slept at friends’ places.”
“Hanging around usually leads to trouble.”
“I didn’t get into any trouble.”
“Then why did the police pick you up?” he asked.
“It was the middle of the night and they saw a kid. That was the only thing I was doing wrong.”
My father leaned over and popped in the cigarette lighter. He then fumbled around in his pocket and pulled out his package of cigarettes, took one out and put it in his mouth. The lighter popped out and he put the end to his cigarette, puffing until it caught. He replaced the lighter and then exhaled a puff of smoke.
I pushed the button and the window on my door glided down slightly. I would have preferred the car to be filled with Sinatra than with smoke.
“I got in my fair share of trouble when I was a kid,” my father said.
I knew this trick. He’d tell me something and then hope I’d tell him something in return.
“Did I ever tell you about the times I was a kid around fourteen and tangled with the police?”
“I don’t think so.”
“There were more than a few, but let me tell you about one that happened when I was about your age. Maybe a little older. Maybe a little younger. Anyway, my friends and I were walking down this alley in Halifax when we found a whole pile of old car tires that were being thrown out, and we started to play with them…you know, rolling them around.”
“Gee, that sounds like fun,” I said sarcastically.
He ignored my jab. “So now that you’ve seen a little of Halifax you have to realize that the whole city is on a hill, and this alley was right at the top of a very high hill. We started wondering what would happen if we aimed thos
e tires down that hill. So we pulled them all out—there had to be twelve, fifteen tires. And were just getting ready to let them go when we saw a car coming up the hill…a police car.” He paused. “Do you know what we did then?”
“Ran like crazy?”
“We did that…after we pushed the tires down the hill toward the police car.”
“You didn’t.”
“We did. We took aim and then let those tires go shooting down that hill! You should have seen them! Some just fell down, but most of them gathered speed and went faster and faster and faster and BAM! A couple of them bashed right into the front of the car. One jumped over the bumper and then hit the hood and rolled right up the windshield and over the car!”
“Wow, that must have been amazing!”
“It was! And then we ran like crazy!”
“Did the police catch you?”
“They tried, believe me, they tried! They called in other cars and there were police zipping all over the neighbourhood! We hopped over fences and got back to Danny O’Mallory’s place and spent the rest of the day hiding under his front porch where we could see the street but nobody on the street could see us. Do you know what those cops would have done if they’d caught us?” he asked.
“I can imagine.”
“They would have beaten the tar out of us. That’s what cops did in the old days. Very different from today. Police have to be downright gentle today.”
I could still feel that cop’s hands shoving me up against the wall of the elevator. Some things apparently hadn’t changed as much as he thought.
“So…what sort of things have you done that have got you into trouble?”
“Nothing,” I said, shaking my head. “Nothing at all.”
I had to fight to keep the smirk off my face. That wasn’t even a good try. Either he was losing it or I was getting smarter. Maybe both.
“Can I ask you a question?” he asked.
Could I stop you if I wanted? I was thinking, but I didn’t say anything. He took my silence as a yes.
“Why do you run away?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. That was maybe the first completely honest and truthful thing I’d said to him this whole trip. I had no idea why I did it. I just did.
We continued to drive along in an uncomfortable silence. Maybe he’d give up and leave me alone now.
“You haven’t even asked me about the story I’m covering,” my father said, again turning the conversation around. “Aren’t you curious?”
“I figured you’d tell me sooner or later.”
“There isn’t much later left. We’re almost there. So, do you want to hear about it?”
“Sure…I guess. Can we turn down the music?”
My father hit the volume button again. I could still hear it, but the engine noise and the rush of air through my window almost drowned it out.
“We’re going to be meeting with a young man named Fox, Terry Fox. He’s running across Canada to raise money for cancer research.”
“Hasn’t that been done before?” I asked.
“The running across Canada part or the raising money for cancer part?” my father asked.
“Both.”
“I don’t know, but there’s a slight twist at work here,” he said. “This young man…he’s twenty-one…he’s a survivor of a bout with cancer. A bout that cost him one of his legs.”
“One of his legs?” I questioned. “Do you mean he’s hopping across Canada?”
“Not really hopping. He has an artificial leg. You ever known anybody with an artificial leg?”
I shook my head. I knew that my father was going to tell me some story about somebody he used to work with when he was a reporter at some newspaper who had a false leg or—
“I used to work with this guy who had one leg,” he began.
I almost laughed out loud but stopped it halfway up my throat.
“He lost it during the Korean War—stepped on a land mine. Well, anyway, he always used to complain how much that stump hurt, how it got sore and infected sometimes, and how much work it was to do things like climb stairs or even go for a long walk. I remember once he and I went out after work one day and we went to this bar and…” He paused. “Maybe I should save that story until you’re a little older.”
As far as I was concerned he could save that story as long as he wanted. “Yeah, so what about this story you’re covering?”
“Oh, yeah, so this Fox kid is trying to run across the country. Every day he’s running an average of twenty-six miles—that’s forty-two kilometres. It’s the equivalent of a marathon every single day! Quite an accomplishment, don’t you think?”
I shrugged. “Depends on how long he’s been doing it.”
“He started in early April in St. John’s, Newfoundland, so he’s already put in over seven hundred miles in the last five weeks.”
“He’s travelled a long way,” I admitted.
“Of course that’s only a fraction of the distance he’s planning on running, less than 15 percent of a trip across the country.”
“Do you think he can do it?” I asked.
“I don’t think anybody can do it, even on two legs. That’s why it’s important to interview him now…before he quits.”
6
“So, where are we meeting this guy?” I asked.
“We’re going to have lunch with him and his friend…I can’t remember his name…Doug something. This is basically a two-man operation. The one kid runs and this other guy drives the van and organizes things.”
“I hope whatever restaurant we stop at knows how to make a decent club sandwich,” I commented.
“Actually, we’re not eating at a restaurant. We’re meeting them on the road when they stop for lunch.”
“And what are we going to eat?”
“We’re brown-bagging it. Lunch is in the back,” he said, gesturing over his shoulder. A fairly large cardboard box sat in the middle of the back seat. “And if I’m not mistaken, that’s them now.”
He pulled the car over to the shoulder. Dust billowed up behind us as he slowed it down and brought it to a stop right behind an almond-coloured van parked off to the side of the road. On the side in large letters it said “Marathon of Hope, Cross Canada Run in Aid of Cancer Research.” Shouldn’t it have said “Trying to Run Cross Canada Run”?
My father pulled down the visor of the car and took out a pad and pen. He never, ever went very far without them.
“How about if you get the lunch,” he suggested.
He climbed out his door and I was startled by the sound of a car whizzing past on the road. I grabbed the lunch, pulled it over the seat and got out on my side.
I turned around to see two guys sitting at a picnic table set off the road and under a tree. My father walked toward them. I hurried to catch up.
“Hi!” my father called out.
“Hello,” one of the men said back. “Are you Winston MacDonald?”
“Actually, we’re both Winston MacDonald,” my father replied. “Father and son.”
Both of the men stood up. It was obvious which one was Terry Fox when the artificial leg became visible. He had a head of curly brownish hair and he was wearing a T-shirt with “Marathon of Hope” printed on it. He looked young. Both of them looked young.
“I’m Terry. Pleased to meet you,” he said as they shook hands. “And this is my friend, Doug Alward.”
“Good to meet you,” Doug said, and he shook hands with my father as well. He was wearing a pair of old jeans and a shirt like Terry’s.
“Pleased to meet you, too,” Terry said, and he stuck out his hand to me.
“Um…me too…um, Mr. Fox,” I muttered, shaking his hand.
“Terry, it’s just Terry,” he said. “Have a seat.”
My father took a
seat opposite Terry Fox as the other guy, Doug, shook my hand as well. I took a seat on the bench beside Terry.
My father pulled out his pad and flipped it open. “I hope you don’t mind if I take notes. I always try to make sure I have my facts and quotes right.”
“Sounds good to us,” Terry said. “Not all reporters do that.”
“The taking notes, or the getting it right part?” my father asked, chuckling.
“Both,” Terry answered with a grin.
“Must be dealing with TV reporters. So, how long are you taking for this break?” my father asked. “How long have we got for the interview?”
Terry looked at Doug, who looked at his watch. “We have about twenty-five more minutes before we should be on the road again. Is that enough time?”
“It should be,” my father said. “I have some background already. Let me just run it by you to make sure all the facts are correct.”
“Sure,” Terry said.
“Your name is Terrance Stanley Fox. You were born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and raised in British Columbia. Parents are Betty and Rolland. Two brothers and one sister.”
“So far so good.”
“My notes say you were diagnosed with cancer back in March of 1977.”
“A form of bone cancer called osteogenic sarcoma,” Terry explained.
“And a few days after making the diagnosis they took the leg off.”
“Five days later,” Terry said.
“Your right leg,” my father continued.
“I’m pretty sure that’s the one,” Terry said with a smile as he reached down and knocked on the artificial limb.
“So when did you think up this whole idea of walking across Canada?” my father asked.
“I’m not walking across Canada, I’m running,” Terry said. I could hear the annoyance in his voice and he sat up stiffer. “Anybody could walk across the country. I’m running.”
What was the big deal? Could he really be running on one leg anyway?
My father nodded. “Yes, of course. Running, and raising money for cancer research.”