by Eric Walters
“I guess I’ll try to convince you that you shouldn’t.”
“And if you can’t convince me?” I asked.
“I’m hoping I can.”
“But if you can’t?”
He took a deep breath. “Then I’m going to have to stop you.”
I looked past Terry and toward the door. The arcade wasn’t big or wide but there was probably enough space for me to dodge by him and get out. Probably. Maybe.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Terry said. “Think you can make it?”
I didn’t answer.
“Maybe you can. You’re definitely quicker than I am. You proved that on the basketball court.” He paused. “But you also have to figure that unless you’re planning on running more than twenty-six miles tonight, eventually I’m going to catch you.”
In spite of the seriousness of the situation I suddenly burst out laughing, and Terry smiled.
“And if you do decide to run and you manage to get by me to the door, I need you to do me a favour,” he continued.
“What sort of favour?”
He nodded. “Could you at least run in that direction?” he said, pointing off to his left. “That’s west. So if I do have to chase you at least we’ll be heading in the right direction.”
Terry flashed me a big smile and I couldn’t help but smile back.
“How about if we drive you back instead?” he asked. “I’d really like that.”
“I…I don’t know if I can do it…I don’t know if I can go back right now.”
“Of course you can.”
“It’s hard…really hard.”
“I know. But I also know you’re the sort of person who can handle the hard stuff.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
“Believe me, I do know. I know you’re no quitter. You can do whatever you want to do.”
“You really think so?” I asked. I felt myself on the verge of tears.
He nodded. “How about if you and me make a deal?”
“What sort of deal?” I asked.
“You go back to the motel and then go back with your father to Toronto. You get home and you go to school—even though it’s hard—and you stay at home.”
“I don’t want to make a promise I can’t keep.”
“You can keep it.”
“You said there was a deal. What happens if I do those things?”
“Then I’ll keep doing what I’m doing. One of us will run and the other one doesn’t have to. What do you think?”
I let out a big sigh. I was fighting harder and harder not to cry.
“Well?” Terry asked.
“I can try.”
“That’s all I’m asking. There are no guarantees about anything in life. Lord knows I’ve learned that the hard way. I’m no quitter, and neither are you.” Terry reached over and put a hand on my shoulder.
“Now it’s time to go back to the motel. We both need some sleep so we can run tomorrow. Your father said you wanted to get up and run with me before you left. Are you still up for it?”
“Of course I am.”
“Good. Oh, by the way, your father said that if I found you I should tell you something.”
What did he want to tell me? My stomach tightened up.
“It didn’t make much sense to me but he said you’d understand.”
“What did he say?” I asked, though I was almost afraid to find out. Was he going to tell me how disappointed he was in me, how I’d let him down, how—?
“He said there’s going to be a hole in tomorrow’s paper because he missed his deadline.”
“He said that?” I could hardly believe it.
“Maybe those weren’t the exact words but that was the message. Do you understand what he meant?”
I nodded.
“Can you explain it to me?” Terry asked.
“I could…but I’m not going to. Can I get that drive now?”
“Sure. Although I was thinking that we could make Doug wait just a couple more minutes.” Terry reached into his pocket and pulled out some quarters. “Since we’re here anyway, could we play a couple of games of Frogger? I want to see what all the fuss is about.”
17
JULY 11, 1980
“Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?” I asked my mother.
“No, this is your time with your father and I’m not going to interfere with that. Especially when things are going so well.”
In the six weeks since we’d come back from Nova Scotia my father and I had got together every week. Well, almost every week. He’d had to go on assignment in Europe for ten days so we’d met twice the week before he left.
“But I’d really like you to meet Terry,” I said.
“I’d like that too, but not today. Maybe we can go out and meet him when he’s running out of Toronto in a few days. He’s going to be too busy to do much meeting with anybody today anyway.”
I hadn’t even thought of that. The TV and the papers had been reporting that it was going to be a massive rally and that he’d be surrounded by hundreds, maybe even thousands of people. Would he even have time to meet with me, to talk?
“Now you’d better get going. Get your shoes on and go downstairs and wait for your father.” She looked at her watch. “He should be here soon…unless of course he’s late, as usual. Some things don’t change.”
“But some things do change.”
She gave me a little smile. “Yes, some things do change.” She reached over and gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “It wasn’t that long ago that I had to bend down to give you a kiss and now I have to get up on my tippy-toes. You’re growing up…in so many ways.”
“I’m trying…as hard as I can.”
“You’re doing a lot more than trying.” She gave me a kiss on the other cheek and then released me. “Just don’t go rushing any of it. I’m in no hurry for you to grow all the way up.”
“I’ll take my time,” I said.
“Good. Now you’d better get a move on if you want to get to Scarborough on time. The news report said they were expecting an incredible crowd.”
“I definitely want to be there for the speech.”
“I’ve heard he’s quite an inspirational speaker,” my mother said. “All I’ve heard are sound bites on the news. It would be different hearing him live, but I guess I’ll have to settle for the radio. They’re broadcasting his speech today on the CBC.”
“That’s so cool.”
“Are you still planning on bringing your scrapbook?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. I’d been collecting all the newspaper articles that had been written about the Marathon of Hope. The scrapbook was now fat and overflowing. I knew that before he got to Port Renfrew I’d need a second and third and maybe even a fourth scrapbook.
“Didn’t you want him to autograph it?” my mother asked.
“I did, both Terry and Doug, but I don’t know if I want to bother them. I’m not sure if I’ll even be able to talk to Terry,” I said. “He may not have time.”
“Unless I misread those postcards he’s sent you, he’ll have time for you.”
Terry had been sending me postcards every week or so from along the route. “He was just being polite. He’s going to be awfully busy.”
“I don’t really know Terry, except for what you’ve told me and all the reports in the papers and on TV, but he strikes me as the sort of person who would never be too busy for his family or his friends. And you are one of his friends.”
I smiled. “I guess I am.”
“Good. I hear some people have been running along with him. Are you planning on running today?” she asked.
“I’m not really sure, but just in case I’m going to put on my running shoes, and I’m wearing a T-shirt and
I have shorts on under my pants…so…”
“Excellent. And don’t worry about the crowds and Terry being busy because, remember, you’ll be with your father. You can count on his personality and his press pass to get you close enough to see Terry and have Terry see you. After all, your father is important…maybe not as important as he thinks he is but—”
“Mom…” I warned her. I’d told both my parents that I didn’t want either of them ever saying anything bad about the other.
“All right, all right. I’m trying to be better too.”
The buzzer sounded.
“Looks like your father is actually on time after all. It seems like lots of things can change.”
* * *
—
“THERE’S A PARKING SPOT!” I exclaimed.
My father hit the brakes and then eased us into the space.
“I can’t believe how far away we’re having to park,” I said.
“I can’t even see the Civic Centre from here,” my father commented.
We got out of the car and joined a throng of people walking in the direction we wanted to go.
“This is going to be an incredible crowd,” I said.
“The only thing bigger than the crowd is going to be our walk. I didn’t think we’d be the ones walking halfway across Canada to get to this speech,” my father said.
“Terry’s not walking across Canada, he’s running. Besides, I don’t think a little exercise is going to hurt you,” I said as I reached over and patted him on the belly.
“How about a little respect for your elders?”
“I always try to give you as little respect as possible,” I joked. “Can we walk a bit faster? I’m afraid we won’t be able to get in.”
“Have no fear. We’ll get in no matter how crowded it is. Remember, I’m the guy with the press credentials.”
“That’s right. Mom even said that they’d never keep somebody like you out, you know, somebody really important.”
“She said that?” he asked. I could tell by the tone of his voice and his expression that he was both surprised and pleased.
I nodded. Of course I didn’t say the part that she’d added to the end about him not being as important as he thought he was.
“Your mother is a pretty remarkable woman. Bright, beautiful and talented.”
“Mom?”
“I guess the biggest mistake I ever made was letting her get away.”
As I remembered it, he was the one that got away, or ran away. I didn’t say that, though. One of the things I was learning was when to talk and when to shut up.
“No, that’s wrong,” my father continued. “That was the second biggest mistake I ever made.”
“What was the biggest?” I asked, and then instantly regretted asking. Was he going to tell me that leaving his first wife was his biggest mistake?
“The biggest mistake I ever made was not spending enough time with my boys, both while I was married and afterwards. Marriages end, and a man and woman are no longer husband and wife. But fathers and sons are always fathers and sons. That should never change. That’s one mistake I’m trying to fix. I am trying,” he said.
“I know.” I wanted to say something more, but words just wouldn’t come out. But maybe I didn’t need to say anything. I think he already knew.
We continued to move with and around the crowd. There had to be thousands and thousands of people, all of them moving toward the big building that I assumed was the Scarborough Civic Centre. Despite the crush of people, everybody was polite and friendly and smiling, and nobody was pushing or crowding against anybody else.
We came to the end of a line that was funnelling into one of the entrances to the building. My father moved along the side of the line and I trailed behind him. There were two uniformed policemen standing at the door and my father pulled out his wallet and showed them his I.D.—his press credentials. They waved him through and he grabbed me by the arm and towed me along behind him.
“One of the perks of being a reporter is that you get in to see the most important or interesting or scary things that are happening. Those officers don’t even know if I’m covering this story or if I’m just here out of curiosity. Have you given any more thought to the idea of being a reporter?”
“I’m just working on having a good summer and a good start to grade nine in the fall.” Actually, I’d mentioned it to my guidance counsellor at school and she’d said she thought that might be the job for me. I hadn’t said anything about it to my parents yet, but I was going to, when I was more sure. I knew it would make them happy. Especially my father. It seemed only fair to want to make him happy now that he was trying to do the same with me.
The inside of the building was even more crowded than the outside. There were security guards directing the river of people up a set of stairs.
“Come this way,” my father said, breaking out of the current of the crowd. He led me to an aisle. There were two more policemen guarding a door.
“Sorry, sir,” one of the officers said, “but there’s no more space on this level so you’ll have to go upstairs.”
“Press,” my father said as he flashed his I.D. again.
The officer looked at it, and then my father, suspiciously. “It looks legitimate. Go on through,” he said as he held the door open.
We entered. We were in a big chamber. It was even more packed than the lobby. I looked up at the big high ceiling that seemed to soar right up to the sky. There were levels and levels above the main floor—curving balconies—and people were hanging over the railings, packed together like sardines.
“This is where the Scarborough City Council meets,” my father said. “The mayor would normally sit right over there.”
In the centre of the room there was an open area, the only empty space in the place, and a podium. It was really just a fancier version of the back of that truck where I’d last seen and heard Terry speak. I guess the biggest difference was the half dozen microphones attached to the podium and the equal number of TV cameras that surrounded it. The thought of standing there at the very centre of all these people and all those cameras sent a shiver up my spine.
“Where are we going to sit?” I asked. It looked like, except for those few seats in the centre, every inch of floor space was already occupied.
“Stay with me.”
My father wove his way through the crowd and I followed right behind. He led me to a little area over to the side. It was roped off and there was a sign that said “ACCREDITED PRESS” in big letters. He showed his I.D. a third time and we were admitted to that section. There were still some seats.
As we started to walk to those seats my father greeted and was greeted by other reporters. Some shook hands and a couple even threw their arms around him and gave my father a little hug. He seemed to know pretty well everybody, and they knew—and liked—him. My father made sure to introduce me to each one of them—“This is my boy, Winston…named after his old man”—and they were all friendly to me. We finally settled into two seats.
“This is quite the crowd, and I heard they’re expecting at least five times as many people when he speaks at Toronto City Hall tomorrow.”
“That’s amazing,” I said.
“It is.” He paused. “The whole nation is watching Terry, following along with him as he runs across the country.”
“It just keeps getting bigger and bigger,” I said.
“I guess I was wrong,” my father said.
“Wrong about what?”
“Remember when I said that the public was going to get tired of all of this…that they’d lose interest in this story?”
“Not really,” I lied. I remembered that conversation very well. A couple of times over the past weeks I’d even thought about mentioning it to my father, but I hadn’t. Why would I want to make him feel
bad?
“You must remember. It was when we were in Nova Scotia and I was annoyed that I had to stay and keep covering the story. I said that it would only be news when he stopped running, and you disagreed. Don’t you remember?”
“Sort of…maybe a little.”
“And you said that it would get to be a bigger story with each day,” my father said.
“Yeah, I guess a remember that a little bit.”
“Well, one of us was right and one of us was wrong.” He paused. “I just want you to know that even if you really don’t remember the conversation, you had it figured out right and I didn’t.”
I didn’t know what to say. I almost felt embarrassed. Embarrassed and proud. I had called it right.
“Is that your scrapbook?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Can I have a look?”
I handed him the book and he opened it up. “Here’s the first article I wrote about Terry and the Marathon of Hope. That seems like such a long time ago.”
“It’s a very good article,” I said.
“Thanks. Do you have any of the other stories I wrote?” he asked.
“I have all of your stories. Actually, I have all of the stories anybody has written in all three of the Toronto newspapers. Everything.”
“That’s impressive. Are there some articles that you like more than others?”
“There are a few that really didn’t get it right,” I said. “I don’t like those ones. It makes me crazy when people question Terry’s motives for the run, or suggest that he hasn’t really run the whole way. I can just imagine how steamed Terry gets when he hears that!”
“And do you have a favourite article?” he asked.
“There’s a lot I like…your first article is one of my favourites.”
“One of your favourites? So which one do you like the very best?” he asked.
I took the book back from him and started to flip through the pages. “This one,” I said, handing him back the book.
“This article by Christie Blatchford?”
I suddenly realized that maybe I shouldn’t have done that—put a story by another reporter above one of his own. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. At least, I didn’t want to do that any more.