by Eric Walters
My father walked up the highway ahead of the van, puffing away on his cigarette.
“I hope he understands,” Doug said.
Terry had been in the van taking one of his breaks when my father had lit up a cigarette. Doug had asked him to smoke outside instead.
I was happy to get him out of the van. He’d been a pain all morning, short-tempered and grouchy. When he did talk, it was to ask me another question about school or home or something else I didn’t want to talk about. I knew that he didn’t want to be there covering the story—heck, did he think I wanted to be riding in a smelly van?—but that didn’t give him the right to be difficult with me.
“It’s just that it’s hard enough with all the fumes from the cars without the cigarette smoke in here too,” Terry added.
“I hate it when he smokes around me,” I agreed.
“I take it you don’t smoke,” Terry said.
“Never. Not even one puff. It causes cancer.”
“Yeah, I think I heard that somewhere,” Terry said.
“Um…yeah…I guess you’d know about all that stuff.”
Terry and Doug started laughing.
“I’ve got a phone call to make,” Doug said. “I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”
Doug left the van and walked toward the gas station.
“So, you live in Toronto,” Terry said.
“Yeah. How did you know?”
“Your father writes for a Toronto paper, so I figured you’d probably live there.”
“I do live in Toronto, but I live with my mother. My parents are separated.”
“I didn’t know. How long ago?”
“A long time…more than two years.”
“But you’ve stayed close to your father.”
“He’s on assignment a lot. He travels all over the place.”
“Does he take you with him like this very often?”
“Not often,” I answered. Never before was actually the truth, but I didn’t want to say that. Maybe we weren’t that close any more, but somehow I still wanted people to think we were…maybe because that’s what I wanted to believe myself.
“It’s nice that you get to spend time with him like this. I always enjoyed doing things with my dad, even little things.”
“Yeah, it’s okay,” I agreed, although so far this morning it hadn’t been.
“So what do you do for fun in Toronto?” Terry asked.
“I guess the same as anybody. You know, watch TV, hang around with friends, go to the arcade and play video games. I love video games.”
“What games do you like?”
“Pac-Man, Frogger, some of the car-racing games.”
“How about Donkey Kong?”
“I like that one too. Actually I like them all. If I had enough money I’d spend all my time at the arcade. There’s this really great place on Yonge Street just north of Dundas. Do you play video games?” I asked.
“I never really got into them. My little brother Darrell likes them. I see people play and I’ve played a game or two, that Donkey Kong game, but I never really had the time for stuff like that. And since I started training for the run I haven’t had time for anything, not even playing sports.”
“You play sports?” That took me a bit by surprise.
“Of course I play sports,” he said, sounding offended. “Any reason I shouldn’t?”
“No, not really,” I said, although obviously he’d thrown me for a loop. Then I remembered. “That’s right, you said something about wheelchair basketball.”
“I played on the Cable Cars, three-time national champions. Ever see a wheelchair basketball game?”
“Never.”
“You should. It’s physical, tough. It makes the game kind of interesting when nobody can dunk and everybody is about the same height. Do you play any sports?”
“I used to. I ran some cross-country, like I said. And I was into soccer and basketball…but I don’t play so much any more. Just in gym class. That’s about it.”
“By the way, what happens to school when you’re away like this?”
“Nothing really.”
“Do they give you extra work to do to make up for what you’re missing?” he asked.
“No.” I hoped he’d drop the subject. I had no intention of telling him about getting suspended. It wasn’t something I was proud of. Even now, it didn’t seem like something that could ever happen to me. I used to be a good student…well, I guess before.
Terry looked as though he was studying his artificial leg. He was running his hands up and down the side and flexing it back and forth.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
“I think the spring is a little bit off. It’s not snapping back as well as it should. It makes it harder to run. Ever seen an artificial leg before? It’s actually an interesting thing. Here, I’ll show you.”
Without warning Terry reached down and started to undo some straps. Before I even knew what he was doing he was holding his leg and handing it to me! I turned my head just a bit—the thought of looking at the stump where his real leg used to be made me feel a bit sick.
“Here, take it.”
I drew back.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Terry said.
“I’m not afraid.”
“It’s not like it’s going to bite you…it has toes, not teeth.” He smiled and held the leg out again. Tentatively I reached out and he handed it to me. Gingerly, carefully, I took it from him. I was holding his leg…shoe and sock and everything. I was amazed at how light it was.
I turned it around slowly, looking at it from every angle. It looked so strong, powerful, like something the bionic man would have…except for the sock. The sock was dirty and worn and I thought it even smelled. I looked at Terry’s other foot. That sock was much whiter and cleaner.
“I think you need to change one of your socks,” I said.
“You’re right. I need to…but I’m not going to.”
I gave him a questioning look.
“That’s the sock that was on my artificial leg when I dipped it in the Atlantic in St. John’s, and it’s going to be the sock that will be on my foot when I dip that leg into the Pacific.”
“You’re not going to change it?”
“Nope. I don’t even wash it. It stays right there. Do you think that’s strange?”
I shrugged. “I once wore the same T-shirt for twenty straight days without washing it.”
Terry laughed.
“I thought it would weigh more,” I said.
“You mean your unwashed shirt or my leg?” he asked and smiled again.
“The leg.”
“It’s metal and fibreglass, especially constructed to be light but to take a pounding. It’s a lot lighter than the artificial legs they used to have. It wasn’t that many years ago that an amputee couldn’t have even attempted what I’m doing because the artificial legs were downright primitive. I think people didn’t even consider that somebody could lose a leg and still want to be athletic, want to play sports and compete.”
“Here,” I said, handing him back his leg. He began strapping it back into place.
“Do you have an extra if this one isn’t working?” I asked, grateful that he was wearing the leg again instead of me holding it.
“A couple of spares. When I was training for the run I once had one of my legs snap in two…fell flat on my face…hurt like hell.”
“What did you do then?”
“Picked myself up, grabbed the pieces, hopped over to the side of the road and started to hitchhike home.”
“You must have got some strange looks from the people in cars driving by,” I suggested.
“A few, but not many drove by. I got picked up pretty quick.”
“At least y
ou had an excuse to cut your training short that day.”
He shook his head. “Got home, clamped the two pieces back together and finished my run.”
“You’re joking, right?”
He shook his head, and I realized, just from the little I already knew about him, that was what I should have expected him to do.
Doug reappeared at the door of the van. “You ready to go?”
“Is it time?”
Doug nodded his head.
“Then I’m ready.” Terry put down his drink and climbed out. He turned back around. “I’ll see you in a mile and we’ll continue our conversation then.”
Terry did a few stretches and then started up the road.
“We better get going too,” Doug said.
“What about my father?” I asked. He was well up the road, still smoking.
“We’ll pick him up on the way by.”
Doug put the van into motion. We quickly caught up to my father, but by then Terry had already passed him. Doug pulled over to the side of the road just ahead of my father. I opened the door, climbed out and walked back.
“So this is pretty exciting, isn’t it?” he said sarcastically.
“Not the most,” I agreed.
“The only good thing is I’ve had some time to think.”
“About what?” There was something about his expression that made me feel hesitant.
“About you and where your life is going…or not going. I hope that we can use some of this time to talk.”
What more did he have to say that he hadn’t said to me the night before? Or in the van this morning? Then again, I wasn’t listening then, so I guessed I could not listen again now.
“You must be tired of just sitting there in that van and making small talk,” he said.
“You’re right,” I agreed.
“That’s good because we could have more than small talk.” He climbed into the van.
“I’m tired of sitting in the van, so I think I’m going to run for a while,” I said.
“What?”
I was pretty tired of sitting in the van, and the smell was something else. It would be good to be away from the odour. And away from my father.
“I’ll just run for a mile or so,” I said. I looked at Doug. He didn’t look any more thrilled with the idea than my father did. “Is that okay?”
He didn’t answer right away. “People do sometimes run with Terry,” Doug said.
A couple of people had run a section with him earlier that day.
“Just try not to get too close,” Doug said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“People running with Terry sometimes don’t realize that his stride is different and they get tangled up. He’s been knocked over a couple of times.”
“I won’t get that close,” I promised. “I’ll be careful.”
Terry was way up the road already. I doubted that even if I wanted to I could catch him before the mile mark. I slammed the door of the van closed. I did a couple of stretches and then, suddenly, I felt very nervous…almost scared. That made no sense. What did I have to be scared about? I would run a mile. If I wanted to run more I could. If I didn’t, I’d just get back in the van and pretend to listen to my father. There was nothing I could do to stop him from talking at me, but there was also nothing he could do to make me listen or talk back. I started running.
I began at a nice slow pace. My legs came up and down, slowly, the gravel crunching under my feet with each step. Within fifty yards the van passed me by, and in that split second it was passing I caught a glimpse of my father staring out the passenger window. He didn’t look happy. Then again, why should now be any different than usual?
The van drove away up the highway, going wide into the left lane as it passed Terry. He was still way ahead of me, almost at the very top of the long, gradual slope that I was just starting to climb. I could feel the hill in my legs. Why hadn’t I decided to start running at the top? It was too late now, though. The van had disappeared over the top and was headed downhill. Part of me wanted to just stop running and walk. Part of me wanted to dig in deeper and get to the top faster. In the end I just kept running, going no faster or slower.
Terry reached the top of the hill and disappeared over the crest, leaving me completely alone on the highway. I looked to one side and then the other: dense brush and trees. There was no telling what was in the forest—maybe bears or wolves or whatever. Maybe I wasn’t alone. I started moving faster. I wanted to at least have Terry in sight. I could feel it in my lungs and my legs, and I was incredibly grateful when I reached the top of the hill and the road flattened out and then started going downhill.
Terry wasn’t as far ahead any more. He turned around and looked at me over his shoulder. I knew that he saw me but he didn’t wave or nod. He just turned back around and continued running. That same strange stride…over and over and over again. Was I just imagining it or was he moving faster now?
I wondered how many steps he’d taken today, and how many more steps he still had ahead of him before bed. And that was nothing. How many steps had he run since he’d left St. John’s, and how many more steps before he got to the Pacific?
I heard the sound of something coming up from behind. I looked over my shoulder. It was a gigantic truck, the trailer piled high with logs. As it got closer the sound got louder and louder…it was barrelling down the road at a tremendous clip. I moved farther onto the shoulder and away from the blacktop. As it roared past me, I felt myself being shoved farther to the side by a gush of air, and then my face was stung by a blast of little stones and gravel as the truck thundered along the highway. Within a few seconds it came up to Terry and I saw the rush of wind push him slightly to the side.
I looked beyond Terry. The van was now parked on the side of the road. It still wasn’t close—and it was at the top of another hill—but at least I could see how much farther I had to go before I could stop.
How could Terry do this mile after mile, day after day? What was it he said he thought about when he was running? Going home…running toward home…that was it. That didn’t help me. I didn’t want to think about that. The only thing worse than being at home was having to listen to my father talk about why I was having problems at home. All of last night he’d kept talking and talking and talking, and I’d just sat there listening, not knowing what to say. He kept saying he wanted answers. I would have liked some of those too. It wasn’t like I knew why I kept running off and just wasn’t telling him. I was still trying to figure it out myself, and the little I thought might be right didn’t make any sense. It just seemed like the only time anybody noticed me was when I wasn’t there.
I quickened my pace. Terry, Doug and my father were all leaning against the back bumper of the van. I was almost there, almost at the one-mile mark. I came to a stop a dozen paces behind the van and started walking.
“How did that feel?” Terry asked. He was taking a drink of water, and he didn’t look half as tired as I felt.
“Okay, I guess. Those trucks can be a bit scary though,” I said.
Terry smiled. “I hardly notice them any more.”
“You have to be joking. I was almost blown off the road by that big lumber truck,” I said.
“You just brace yourself when you hear them coming up behind you. How are your legs feeling?”
“No problem,” I said.
“That’s right, you used to run some cross-country.”
“Yeah, last year at school.”
“But not this year?”
I shook my head.
“Didn’t you make the cut?” Terry asked.
“I could have made the cut,” I snapped. What I didn’t say was that I hadn’t been allowed to try because of the problems I was having in school.
“Take it easy,” Terry said. “I wasn’t tr
ying to give you a hard time. There were a few teams I made in school where nobody gave me a chance. Some people didn’t think I was good enough even when I had two legs. What grade are you in?”
“Grade eight.”
“You’re a lot bigger than I was in grade eight. How tall are you?”
“Around five-eight.”
“In grade eight I was about five-foot-nothing.”
I laughed before I could stop myself, and it didn’t help that I could see Doug trying to hide a grin.
“I’m glad you think it’s funny. It was no laughing matter for me. Do you know how hard it is to make the school basketball team when you’re only five feet tall?”
“It would be impossible!” I said.
“Not impossible. I made the team. I was a Mary Hill Cobra. It was hard, really hard. I worked my rear end off but I made it.” He looked over at me. “Nothing is impossible…nothing.” Terry took another sip of water and then handed the cup to Doug. “See you in a mile.” He started up the road once again.
“You need something to drink?” Doug asked.
“Yeah, thanks.”
He poured some more water into a cup and handed it to me. I took a big sip. It was cold and fresh and tasted very good going down.
“You going to run some more or ride in the van?” Doug asked.
“I thought I’d ride.”
“That might be better,” Doug said. “Terry usually likes to run on his own. You have to understand, he really has to concentrate pretty hard on the running. It takes a lot out of him, so he doesn’t usually do much talking.”
“I definitely understand that. In fact, I’m not in the mood to talk to anybody either,” I said, hoping my father would get the point.
We climbed into the van and started off once again. It wasn’t long before we caught up to Terry. Doug gave a slight tap on the horn as we passed by and Terry’s arm shot up and he gave us a little wave. I looked back at him as we continued to drive and then leaned out the window slightly to keep him in view. Terry ran, eyes straight ahead, step after step after step. That awkward, graceful, mesmerizing gait—stride…skip…step…stride…skip…step. Stride after stride after stride. Mile after mile after mile. I craned my neck to keep him in view as long as I could. He finally disappeared from sight.