Ironman

by Chris Crutcher

“What?”

  “This bike. You want to try it out?”

  Bo shakes his head. “It’ll just make me jealous for the race.”

  “No, I mean use it in the race.”

  Bo stares at the bike a moment. It is a flawless piece of technology. “What’s the catch?”

  Lonnie smiles. “The catch is, I’ll beat you anyway. I’m a racer, man. I don’t need space-age technology to run down a plodder. That’s what I consider you multi-sport guys. I’m a purist.”

  “You’re serious?” Bo says. “You’d let me ride this?”

  “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  Bo stares again at the bike, not knowing how to feel.

  Lonnie slides his index finger under the crossbar and lifts the bike off the ground. “Defies gravity.”

  “Why you doin’ this, man?”

  “Truth?”

  “Truth.”

  “Two reasons. One, you gave me a good push through the swimming season. While you were over there battling it out with Wyrack, I was using you as a standard for my own times. I’m not as fast on repeats as either of you guys, but I never back off. I like that about you, too, Ironman; you never back off. Gave me something to shoot for. When you weren’t there, Wyrack was so inconsistent I’d even beat him on two or three. Hell, I picked up a couple of consolation bracket wins at Nationals because of you.”

  “That right? Cool. What’s the other reason?”

  “My old man.”

  “Oh, yeah? What about him?”

  “Well, first he asked whether I was sure I wanted to be part of whatever war you were having with your dad.”

  “Did you tell him what that war was?”

  “I’ve never met your dad.” Lonnie says. “He and Wyrack cut the deal.”

  “But Elvis said he saw two guys talking with him in the store.”

  “That was Kenny Joseph, our runner. I like to think if I’d been there, this would have never happened, but”—he shakes his head—“I don’t know. This is a hell of a bike.” He reaches for a folded paper tucked into the back of his biking shorts, handing it to Bo. “Bill of sale,” he says. “Your dad wanted it legit. Take it.”

  Bo holds up his hands, palms out. “Tell you what. You let me ride this thing today, I’d feel right if you kept it. Hell, biking is my weak leg. You’re the real thing. It wouldn’t be right for the likes of me to own a bike like this.”

  Lonnie smiles. “That’s fair,” he says, gripping Bo’s bicycle by the handlebars, examining it quickly. “This ain’t bad,” he says. “I can kick your butt on this.”

  “Go for it,” Bo says. “I’m coming after Joseph and Wyrack. One question.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You said first your dad asked you whether you wanted to get into this war. What was second?”

  “My dad and I get along good,” Lonnie says. “He’s always let me find my own way. He asked how I’d feel if the tables were turned—if some stranger stepped between the two of us. Then he said if I ever want to see how something works, look at it broken.” He shrugs and turns to walk away.

  Bo watches Lonnie walk his bike across the lot. Look at it broken.

  Lonnie waves, looking back over his shoulder. “The next loud noise you hear will be Wyrack grunting his drawers when I tell him. By the way, nice hat. What’s a Stotan?”

  “You’re about to find out,” Bo yells back.

  Hudgie looks as out of place in the Yukon Jack’s River Resort parking lot as he does anywhere else in the world, resplendent in a pair of three-sizes-too-large Boy Scout hiking shorts and calf-high riding boots with gray-and-red striped wool socks peeking over the top and a T-shirt sporting a likeness of Elvis Presley with rhinestones for eyes and the caption THE KING. He carries what, from Bo’s distant vantage point, looks to be automatic sealant for inner tubes in an aerosol can. Bo is aware that Hudge likes to keep symbolic things around him, whether he’s participating in a particular event or not.

  At the opposite end of the lot from Hudge, Elvis—in jeans and an identical Elvis Presley T-shirt—mills around the equipment area where individual contestants bag their gear to ready it to be transported to the transition areas and relay teams make final arrangements to make the exchange. Bo swings his leg over the Ultra-Lite and pedals it toward the highway to get a feel for the ride. He sees his mother’s car drive into the parking lot as he coasts toward the two-lane. Forty-five minutes until start time.

  On the open road, he runs quickly through the gears, noting the smooth precision and responsiveness, and a sharp mix of sadness and anger fill his chest as he ponders the idea of his father giving someone something this wonderful in order to beat him.

  It ain’t gonna happen, Dad. It ain’t gonna happen.

  Yukon Jack is in his splendor. Decked out in the formal uniform of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, he fires his starter’s pistol at the deep blue Columbia Basin sky to call the contestants to the starting line. He gazes out over the field of fewer than two hundred individual contestants and twenty-three relay teams. “Welcome to Yukon Jack’s!” he booms. “I see by the scarcity of human bein’s present that we’ve once again weeded out the weak sisters by puttin’ the swimmin’ last and doublin’ the distance. Good, ’cause we got beer-guzzlin’ an’ snake-throwin’ and cow-pie-eatin’ contests for those folks. What I see here in front of me is the cream of the crop, I reckon. Now I hope you all got your support teams in place to pick up your bikes an’ your runnin’ gear at the proper transition areas. Remember, this race don’t double back, so you’re gonna finish a ways on down the river.”

  A loud skirmish breaks out just behind the group of contestants, and Bo whirls to the shrill resonance of Hudgie’s voice. “Let me go! Let me go, you bastard! I’ll kill you! Let me go!” Bo works his way quickly to a small rise that allows him to see Wyrack gripping Hudgie’s arm as the aerosol can Bo thought was tire-repair equipment clangs to the pavement. Elvis is sprinting across the parking lot, booming, “Let him go! Let him go!”

  “Son of a bitch is spray painting my tank suit!” Wyrack yells back. “And Kenny’s runnin’ stuff!” He shakes Hudgie like a stern father. “What the hell is the matter with you, buddy?”

  Elvis reaches them, and Bo expects big trouble. Ian Wyrack is a big, strong athlete, but that is no match for Elvis’s history. But Elvis simply says, “It’s okay, man. He’s my brother. He’s not right.” He points to his head. “Does crazy shit like this all the time. I’m sorry, man, really sorry. I’ll pay for the shirt.”

  Some of Wyrack’s steam subsides. “Forget it. Just keep the creep away from me.”

  “No sweat, man,” Elvis says. He grabs Hudgie roughly by the arm. “C’mon, little brother. I told you to stay out of trouble. I told you…” and they walk out of range. Bo sees Hudgie dance a quick little twist and shout, and Elvis’s hand patting his back.

  “Okay, folks,” Yukon Jack says. “Just a little distraction, part of the festivities. It’s all over. No harm done, ’cept you’ll know exactly where that team is at any point in the race. That’s a fine bright orange. Everything okay back there now, boys?”

  Wyrack waves and shakes his head in disgust.

  Yukon Jack continues with the race instructions. “Now you support-team folks remember, you cain’t help your man or woman in the transition areas in any way that involves physically touching ’em. I mean, you can hand ’em a banana or a quick shot of whiskey, but don’t be rubbin’ down their shoulders or havin’ sex or anything.

  “You pansies—by that I mean all you relay team members—start with the individuals, and remember, you got to make physical contact with your teammate on the relay. Okay, you all know the rules, let’s get out there and kill yourselves. An’ have a real nice day.”

  Bo pulls his bicycle helmet—a triathlon requirement—tight over his STOTAN hat and moves into an advantageous position for the starting gun. Seconds ago he watched Wyrack, scowling, jump into his Storm and head off to drop Kenny Joseph at the run
ners’ transition area before continuing on to his own, down the river several miles. He flashed his middle finger to Lonnie Gerback on his way out of the lot, and Gerback waved and yelled at Wyrack to swim fast. Bo smiled and adjusted his helmet, then felt a hand on his arm. “You got a nice butt in those cycling pants,” Shelly said, and slapped it. “Go get ’em, Ironman.”

  Space is tight at the sound of the gun, with cyclists sprinting toward the narrow parking lot exit. Bo turns the corner onto the two-lane with the leaders and is forced wide to the other side of the road, where he finds himself staring at his father’s face through the window of his gold Lexus, parked on the shoulder. Riding shotgun is Keith Redmond. Bo looks away and pours it on.

  He is a quarter mile into the race when he remembers to reach behind him and punch play on the Walkman. “I knew you be forgettin’ in the heat of the moment of the bang.” Shuja’s voice is like a Lionel Richie melody in the earphones. “But don’t worry ’cause I made time allowances for jus’ that. I been researchin’ this cycling game a bit, an’ soon as you get up to speed, kick this sweet thing into whatever gear gives you eighty rev-o-lu-shuns per minute, uphill, downhill, however the land may go.

  “Now this may cause you pain, but these nex’ three tunes give you the perfect beat. They rap, man, so they elegance may be lost on you, but get…the…beat.” The music plays about fifteen seconds before Shuja’s voice again cuts in. “An’ don’ be reachin’ for the forward button, my man. This whole piece of art be timed.”

  The tape blasts out music Bo has never heard before, but he falls into cadence with the powerful bass and clicks into the corresponding gear on the bike. The front-runners have gone out hard, and the bike feels powerfully smooth beneath him as he settles in with the leaders of the second grouping. Ahead, he glimpses a fluorescent orange stripe the length of Gerback’s back as he pulls slowly but steadily ahead. Lonnie must have allowed Hudge to spray one on him, too. “Keep you eye on the orange, Ironman,” Shuja’s voice croons to him over the music. “Eye on the orange.”

  Though the bike leg of the race is certainly Bo’s weakest, he pushes to finish among the top quarter of competitors. Yukon Jack was right: The long swim at the end of this race weeds out weekend triathletes. This group will be composed of better-than-decent swimmers, and he needs to stay as far toward the front of the pack as possible.

  The third song in Shuja’s set is a repeat of the first. “Sorry, Ironman,” he says at its conclusion. “Only fin’ two songs with the perfect beat. Turnin’ it over now. Rap with you later.”

  The next two songs are driving pieces by Waylon Jennings and Emmylou Harris, followed by Nak’s easy Texas drawl. “When they told me to put somethin’ on this here tape I thought might speed you along,” he says, “I figured if you’re like most kids I know, a good shot of this hard-core country music will make you hurry so you can get the damn earphones off.” A short pause is followed by “An’ seriously, Beauregard, we’re all in your head here, but this race belongs to you. Now you hustle up an’ make yourself proud.”

  Nak’s voice is followed by more country tunes as Bo pedals into a long, steep climb and the river falls away to the right. The elite group of riders is out of sight about a half mile ahead around a hairpin turn now, led by Lonnie Gerback, and Bo is temporarily unable to keep his eye on the orange.

  CHAPTER 16

  Bo pedals into the riverside park area serving as the transition area between the bike and the run to the soft strains of the Moonlight Sonata. He has held a position toward the middle of the second pack, far from sight of the leaders but in the top thirty percent overall, a little behind his projected status. His wind is good, and he feels generally strong but for the burning in his thighs from the uphill finish.

  “What the hell?” The Moonlight Sonata is not exactly pump-up music.

  Hudgie voices over, struggling for a soft, sleepytime tone. “Hey there, Mr. Ironman guy, relax.” Bo hears Elvis in the background, coaching. “Follow up your nice leisurely ride with a little jog.” There is a brief pause while Hudge takes instruction, then, “Your girlfriend, that muscle lady, said if you lose to those dumb college kids, she’s mine. So take your time, Mr. Ironman. Stretch out.” Pause. “Pull off to the side of the road and take a little snooze. You can live the rest your life in cebalcy—what? What’d you say? Cebilacy?—cebilacy.” In the background, Elvis says, “Celibacy, you idiot. Celibacy.” Hudgie says “Cebilcy” and pauses. Then, “No sex, sucker.”

  Elvis from the background: “Good.”

  Bo laughs as he racks the bicycle, flipping off his helmet and readjusting the earphones. Shelly and Shuja stand in the support team area, she with a banana, he with a stopwatch. Shelly hands him the banana, peeled. “Looking good, big boy.”

  “Three minutes, fifty-eight seconds,” Shuja hollers, giving Bo the length of Kenny Joseph’s lead. Pick up a half minute per mile, Bo thinks, and I’ll be close enough for a shot at Wyrack. It’s possible. He’s seen Kenny run, and though Kenny is easily a sub-seven-minute miler, Bo doubts he can hold it much under six and a half. Bo himself should be right at, or a little under, six minutes.

  Depending on how long it takes to get his legs back. They are, at the moment, like rubber at the knees—a phenomenon with which most triathletes are familiar—and a crucial part of the race for Bo is leg recovery speed.

  Running out of the transition area he holds a short stride and tries to relax, mentally alerting his legs that their task has been altered. He’ll lose valuable time in the first mile that must be made up later. Because he didn’t bike, Kenny Joseph did not go through this.

  Bo turns the first wide corner of the run, about a quarter of a mile out of the transition area, as the Moonlight Sonata draws to its quiet close and Hudgie says, “Only foolin’, Mr. Ironman, the muscle lady didn’t really say that. Wish she did, though.”

  The host of Yukon Jack’s radio extravaganza returns. “You best be runnin’ by now, Beauregard. If you ain’t, you damn well better be peddlin’ like Redmond got your honey tied to the tracks, ’cause you got you some serious catchin’ up to do.” Pause. “But I’m bettin’ you’re runnin’. Now I’m gonna give you a little ol’-time white-bread music, like what Rock ’n’ Roll like. Hate to do that to you, but I was badly outvoted. Hard for a African-American to win an election in these parts.”

  Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock and Roll” pounds into Bo’s ears, and he hits a stride to fit that urgent beat, willing his biking muscles to give over to the run.

  Seger hammers to a close, and Shuja is back. “Okay,” he says. “Legs should be good by now. Got to get you back in this a little at a time. You down twenty points, you bring ’em back one hoop, then another. Don’t start firin’ three-pointers like a man in panic. Lock your eyes on some wobbly fish up there about a hunnerd yards.” Pause. “Now start reelin’ ’im in. Good an’ solid, jus’ reel ’im in. When you got ’im in the boat, they’s plenty more fish where he from. Reel ’em in.”

  Bo focuses on a runner in a bright red shirt about a football field ahead of him, and steadily increases his cadence. Here we go.

  He pulls alongside the red shirt to the tune of Bryan Adams’s “Summer of ’69” and searches the waters in the distance for another fish.

  The ten-kilometer run winds along a wide, calm section of the river, through rugged and starkly beautiful country. Across the river craggy bluffs reach toward a crystal blue sky. Identical bluffs climb straight up from the two-lane highway, and the fifty-nine-degree temperature allows the contestants to kill themselves in near-perfect conditions.

  Bo is renewed as he passes runner after runner whose strong leg was the cycling. Heading into the final three kilometers, he watches less conditioned athletes show early signs of fading, all the time searching for Hudgie’s fluorescent orange stripe down the back of Kenny Joseph’s running gear to tell him he’s got a clear shot at Ian Wyrack once he hits the water. A glance at his Ironman wristwatch tells him his per-mile average is r
ight at six minutes, and he ever-so-slightly increases the pace, set on forcing it a few seconds under. He’s reeling them in one by one now, feeling that powerful second wind he’s been building for all winter long.

  A sexy whisper drifts into his ear: “If you win this, we’ll have sex.” Shelly. Bo knows she’s kidding, but the thought throws fire into him. It will be fun watching her back down. He makes a note to tell Redmond he was wrong about having to give up girlfriends prior to or during peak athletic contests. Old myths die hard.

  “Bo Brewster is a quitter.” The familiar, grating voice of Keith Redmond, over the Beach Boys singing “Be True to Your School.” “When given the opportunity to perform for his school, a chance to do his best for the glory of the Blackhawks and himself, to really show what he was made of, he quit. Pure and simple, he quit.”

  “There you go, Beauregard,” Shuja says. “Could have put my black ass in a sling for at least eternity gettin’ that one for you. But call me Shaft; Coach Death don’t even know I be wired when he said it. Don’t stop to thank me, just run you ass off.”

  Spectators line the roadway now, cheering, telling Bo he is within a half-mile of the run-swim transition area. He catches a quick glimpse of Kenny Joseph’s bright orange stripe seconds before Kenny disappears around the final sharp curve, and adrenaline runs through him like a river. Two down and one to go, and he’s within striking range.

  And then somebody pulls his plug. His feet turn to anvils, and air squirts in and out of his lungs like molasses. His cadence drops as if someone has released his throttle and jammed his brakes to the floorboard. Terrible hunger gnaws. Within fifteen seconds of his adrenaline high, Bo Brewster is being fitted for a lead suit.

  Can’t panic. He knows these sensations from other overextended runs. Too far too fast. Did he misread his initial energy? Pay too much attention to the tape and not enough to his body? Try to do it all too early? It passes. It gets over. Hold on. As if by summons, Lion is in his headset. “You got nothin’ to prove to anybody but yourself, big man. Stotanism is a state of being, and you’re there. All you have to do now is celebrate it. I’ve watched you in the water for the better part of a year now, and I have never seen you back off. Never. Go down into the part that drives you, Bo, into the engine of your soul. Enjoy this. You own it.”