Running Loose

by Chris Crutcher

  “Wait,” Madison said. “How about this then? Louie won’t work out with the team, and he’ll travel to meets separately. The only time anyone on the team will even see him will be at meets. You can make sure everyone knows the story, so no one thinks he’s getting away with anything. You can call it therapy or something. He won’t have any influence on any of the team, except possibly to make them run faster.”

  Jasper was quiet for a second. Then he frowned and said, “Coach, you’re walking on thin ice. I said that was all I had to say. Now why don’t you two take off before you’re late for fifth period?”

  Madison shrugged and stood up.

  I stood, nodded at both of them, and gratefully disappeared behind Madison.

  “Boy,” I said when we got out in the hall, “I don’t think I could stand too many more swell things being said about me without getting the big head.”

  Madison just smiled and said to consider the source. “That’s not the end of it,” he said. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead, and his shirt was soaked under the arms. “Those guys don’t own this place. This is a public school paid for with public money.”

  I took a deep breath. “Man, you’re looking to get your butt in a sling. Lednecky’s already gonna be on you like stink on poop.”

  “It’ll be worth it,” he said as we walked into his room and closed the door, “if we can pull this off. Damn it, that makes me mad.” He snapped his fingers. “Hey, your dad’s on the school board. What do you think he’d think about this?”

  I told him about how Norm wouldn’t agree to bar me from all extracurricular activities back when Jasper let me back in school.

  “Well then, we have an ace,” Madison said. “I won’t use it unless we have to, and I have one trick I want to try before I do.” He looked at his watch. “Bell’s gonna ring. Get yourself to class. I’d hate to see what would happen if you had to show up in the office for a tardy slip now.”

  CHAPTER 17

  Coach Madison had one more trick all right. He really didn’t want to go to the school board because he didn’t want to put Norm on the spot. Norm wouldn’t have cared; in fact, he’d probably have enjoyed it, but Madison didn’t know him.

  What he did was call Fred Sanders to see if there was a possibility that what Jasper and Lednecky were doing was illegal—like making some kid cut his hair or something. I couldn’t believe it when he caught me between sixth and seventh periods to tell me what he’d done.

  “You mean, take it to court?”

  He nodded. “Sure, why not? A principal is allowed only so much power, just like anyone else. As near as I can tell, Jasper’s taking way too much. And Lednecky shouldn’t have any.”

  I was pretty willing to go along with anything. What could I lose? I suppose Lednecky could have flunked me in government, but that would look pretty fishy since I still had a strong C going in there. Besides, that would mean they’d have me back next year, and I had a feeling they were as tired of me as I was of them. “What did he say?” I asked.

  “Said he’d look into it and get back to me,” Madison said.

  I just shook my head. I’ve never seen a teacher stand up to the principal before. Over anything. I was trying to imagine how Madison would look wandering the halls without a head.

  “You have to draw the line somewhere,” he said. “A man’s position only allows him so much room. After he uses it all and grabs for more, it has to be brought to someone’s attention. Jasper’s like the rest of us. He has to face up to his responsibilities, too.” His face was flushed. There was a lot more riding on all this than just me running.

  The bell rang. “Go to class,” he said. “I’ll see you after school.”

  Kathy Collins came into my last-period journalism workshop with a note that said I was to report to the office when the bell rang. I immediately abandoned an article on the drill team’s bake sale, so I could concentrate on worrying. By the time the bell did ring I was sure those two bastards were going to tie me to Jasper’s desk and beat the bottoms of my feet with hot spoons.

  When I got there, Madison motioned me inside. Jasper and Lednecky looked like they hadn’t moved since lunch. Jasper nodded. Madison stood in front of his desk.

  “I had a phone call you two might be interested in,” Jasper said. “From Fred Sanders.”

  I looked at the floor. Madison stared directly at Jasper.

  “He said he had a long talk with you after Becky’s funeral, Louie, and you two had ironed everything out.”

  “I guess so,” I said, completely confused. “What does this have to do with me running track?”

  “Nothing,” he said, “except that he also said he thought you were aware of any mistakes you’ve made in the last year and felt it might do you a lot of good to get back into the mainstream of things. He asked if we could do anything along those lines.”

  Madison said, “Can you?”

  “I see it this way,” Jasper said. “If he can forgive Louie for that outburst at the funeral, we might at least be able to make a compromise.” Boy, sometimes that man’s logic amazes me. “Coach Lednecky and I have talked it over at length and have decided we’ll let Louie run under the provisions you set down this noon. He doesn’t practice with the team, and he has to get to meets some way other than on the team bus.”

  “He can ride with Floyd,” Madison said. That’s Floyd Fowler. He used to throw the discus and run the low hurdles, kind of a legend around Trout. Now he sort of acts as trainer at meets. He likes track, and it gives him a chance to get out of town once in a while. He has a hauling business, so he can pretty much call his hours.

  “I don’t care how you work it out,” Jasper said, “but I’ll hold you to it. Louie does this all on his own.” He looked at me. “Is that agreeable with you, Banks?”

  I nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  He pointed his finger at me and said in a low voice, “Mess this up once, and it’s all over.” Then he turned to Lednecky. “Anything to add, Coach?”

  Lednecky shook his head. “Only that it’s a lot farther than I’d have gone, but you already know that.”

  Jasper stood up. “Okay, that’s it then.” He paused. “You know, the thought crossed my mind that you two had something to do with this, with Fred calling. He swears you didn’t, and I’m pretty sure you didn’t have time. If I find out different—”

  Madison raised his hands. “Would never have thought of it,” he said. “Besides, I was in chem and basic math.”

  “Okay,” Jasper said. “One other thing: There’ll be an article in this week’s school paper explaining why we’re letting you turn out, Louie. We want it very clear that this is an exception to the rule. I thought you should know that before it happens. I like to treat people fair, let them know where they stand.”

  I nodded. “Okay, thanks.” Boy, those guys were covering themselves every step of the way, but I wasn’t about to argue. One thing I was starting to learn is that you zero in on what you need, and if you have to eat a little dark brown one to get it, open wide. You got to take care of yourself.

  Out in the hall, Madison slapped me on the back. “We did it!” he whispered. “Damn it, we did it! Forget all that crap about the team and the newspaper. We went in there to get you running, and you’re running.” He put his arm across my shoulder. “Fred played it just right. I could kiss that guy! If we’d have done it my way, we’d have spent the rest of the season getting it solved. We’re in the clear!” He punched me. “Head out to the gym. I’ll be out in a minute to check you out some gear.”

  “Okay.” I started down the stairs, feeling the best I’d felt since the weekend at the cabin.

  Actually track season didn’t start officially for another week, but the distance runners were already working out. You can’t run two miles on talent alone, which I haven’t got even if you could. You have to train. And train. And train. I didn’t know it then, but I was up for anything.

  I sat down in Madison’s office, which is acr
oss the stage from Lednecky’s, and waited. Within a few minutes he was there rummaging through the boxes of sweats. He decided to give me two sets, one medium and one extra-large. That way if we got more snow—or just cold—I could put one set over the other and go. He said we couldn’t let anything slow me down, that we didn’t have that much time.

  All of a sudden a horrible thought struck me. “Coach,” I said, “what if I can’t do it? I mean, what if I’m not any good?” I felt like I owed him.

  He was ahead of me. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not expecting anything but for you to go out and run the best two-mile you want to. That’s it.”

  “Sounds fair,” I said, relieved, and continued digging through the used jocks and socks. “I’m not used to that kind of coaching.”

  “I’m not used to coaching that way either,” he said, “but here’s the way I figure it. You got into shape for football by yourself. No coaching, just desire. If you have the same desire for this, I won’t have to coach you at all, just sit around waiting for you to make me look good. I want you to forget about the Cougars and school records and points and all that and just concentrate on pushing yourself.

  “Look,” he said, pulling an old discolored magazine article from his clipboard. It was from a Sports Illustrated clear back in the middle sixties. “I was really young then, but this guy was my hero.” There were pictures of a guy from Kenya, Africa, named Kip Keino, training for the 1500 meters, which was considered a distance then. “The writer asked him how far he ran every day, and he just smiled and shrugged. No idea. You know what he did? He just hauled across the countryside until he couldn’t run anymore. That’s when he figured he’d gone far enough. Trained alone.” Madison turned the page. “And look at these other pictures. This maniac is smiling. He loves it!” Sure enough, there was Keino striding over the crest of a long, steep hill with a great big grin on his face.

  Madison slapped the article down on the taping table. “That’s what athletics is all about. This guy was a world record holder.” He boosted himself up onto the table. “I remember when Keino was at his peak; it was during the time when good Americans everywhere said that Negroes were great at sprints but they’d never take the whites in anything over a four-forty. Too lazy.”

  I said, “Someone ought to tell Henry Rono that.”

  “They probably did. That’s why he’s so fast.”

  “You going to run your whole track program that way?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “You kidding? I’m going to run their butts off. Some of that desire is lacking in the general population. You got shoes?”

  “Unh-unh,” I said. “Not here. Got an old pair of high tops at home.”

  “What size?”

  “Nine.”

  He dug through some boxes and tossed me one. “Don’t say I never gave you anything.”

  “Adidas!” I said. I love Adidas.

  “They’re top of the line,” he said. “Treat ’em good. They cost the taxpayers fifty bucks, and that’s at a discount. Go ahead and get dressed. Since Lednecky and Jasper don’t want you mixing with the team, you’ll have to use this room and the coaches’ shower, though I wouldn’t recommend you shower while Lednecky’s around.”

  I stripped and stuffed my clothes into Madison’s locker.

  “Here’s the setup,” he said. “I’ve laid out three courses for you to start with.” He handed me three mimeographed maps. “The first two are about four miles apiece, and the third is seven, in case you want to keep track. You don’t have to run those if you don’t want to; you can run anywhere you’d like. But remember this: In this sport you get back exactly what you put in. If you’re in good shape, you’ll hit good times. If not, every race will be a miserable SOB.”

  Before I left, Madison said he didn’t want me to run for time except in meets because he didn’t want me creating psychological barriers for myself. Just run the way you feel, is what he told me; find the outer limit and push against it as long as I could. “Remember,” he said, “you can always take one more step.”

  Boy, was I psyched. I spread analgesic on my chest and legs—it was about thirty-five or forty degrees out—and headed up toward the four-mile course that ran alongside the lake. On the way I stopped outside Mr. Sanders’s office downtown. He was on the phone, so I just knocked on the window and pointed to the Cougar on my sweatshirt. He got a big grin on his face and gave me the okay sign. Then I headed on up.

  About halfway through the course the first time I stopped and threw up. I hadn’t done a lot of working out since football, except for cross-country skiing, and everything hurt. But throwing up doesn’t mean a heck of a lot. Mostly it makes you feel better, so you can keep going and make yourself feel worse. I finished the course and ran it again. When I stopped, my head hammered with pain, and both sweat suits were soaked completely through. I jogged back to school, took salt, vitamin C, and about a half hour’s worth of hot water.

  The next couple of days were worse because it took the first mile and a half to work the soreness out, and I felt drained all the time. Madison said just to stay with it, and by Friday I began to get strength back and was even able to add a little mileage, proving I wasn’t in as bad shape as I thought.

  By the end of the second week I didn’t run any of the mapped courses anymore. I’d just pick a direction and start running. Madison never asked how far I ran or got on me about anything. He just asked if I was satisfied with my workouts and gave me tips on how to relax my upper body when I ran and how to lengthen my stride.

  Some days I’d go into the woods, where there was still lots of snow on the ground, and run through drifts and heavy brush and across meadows, never stopping for fear of freezing my legs. I wore old shoes on those days so I wouldn’t wreck my Adidas. Other days I’d go down to the station and ride out into the valley with Norm, who was back to delivering stove oil and diesel in my absence, and run back.

  One day I even went down to the bridge where Becky was killed. I started running upstream from where her car went in and ran all the way back to the spillway. Then I turned around and ran back to the bridge. When I finished, the sun was setting behind West Mountain, and the bridge was silhouetted against the sky from where I stood below it. I wanted to talk to her, tell her how I was doing. I wanted somehow to go back, to be standing there as her car plunged into the water, so I could stop it. Or save her. Or go with her. But the river just ran quietly under the bridge, and the sun sank lower and lower behind the mountain, and I got cold. So I jogged back home.

  CHAPTER 18

  I stuck to Madison’s plan of not running against the clock except in meets and won my first three races going away. I ran both distances—mile and two-mile—but I concentrated on the two. Eight laps didn’t seem like all that much after all the miles I’d put in getting ready, and there wasn’t a whole lot of competition because no one around the league was training the way I was. It felt good. I paid very little attention to time. That wasn’t hard because I didn’t know a good time from a hot rock. Madison was still convinced that I’d never run into those seemingly unbreakable barriers if I didn’t know what they were.

  I didn’t get a chance to compete in Trout for the first month because there are never any home meets scheduled for the beginning of the season on account of the snow. Regular track workouts were still being held on the back roads. Two of our shot-putters were swallowed up by jelly rolls and never heard from again. At least that’s what Carter said.

  I wasn’t all that anxious to perform at home anyway because the final count wasn’t in on who thought I was just a mixed-up kid and who hated my guts, and I didn’t think too much of the possibility of running my best two-mile only to be booed by the few people watching.

  I rode to the meets with Floyd just as we’d planned, much to the envy of most of the team, but I was never really alienated at meets. At the first one, in Riordon, I found an empty spot on the infield; but Carter came over, plopped his spikes down on the ground be
side me, and said, “Hell with Jasper. Word has it we’re going to have to think for ourselves when we get out of here.”

  Pretty soon about half the team was there, and things were a lot like old times. Even Boomer came over. He didn’t say much, but at least he’d given up the idea of cramming a banana down my throat and then reaching down there to peel it. Since the funeral he’s given me a little room. I guess there was something in my agony that rang a bell in his own life. I wouldn’t push it, but it feels like the extreme danger may be over.

  The fourth meet of the season was scheduled to be run here, and a streak of luck and good warm weather teamed up to melt all the snow off the track. It wouldn’t be fast, but at least we wouldn’t have to wade around it. Madison borrowed a pickup and brought extra dirt in to fill in the potholes and raked and dragged it every night after workout until he had it looking pretty good. The meet was a league invitational, involving all eight teams. Actually all the meets are league invitationals—I mean, they call it an invitational, but everyone gets invited—so by this time I’d run against the same guys three times and beaten them three times. Trout had by far the best team. Lednecky scares all the football players into coming out, so we have a lot more depth. Besides, four of the schools that don’t have as much snow as we do have baseball, so that cuts considerably into their track personnel. Anyway, we were scheduled to win all the meets. We couldn’t take the sprints or the long jump, though, because Washington had those events covered like a blanket. He’d grab a big lead in the first ten yards, then pull away. Carter had never been shut out so many times in a row, and they ran all the same events. And that put Boomer third. Naturally it just served as proof of what he’d said all along: Niggers are fast and therefore stupid and yellow and will knife your old man in service station rest rooms.

  The Friday morning of the meet I stopped to pick up Carter on the way to school. Through the year we shared that little bit of tradition, and sometimes I think I’d never have gotten through without it. He’s one of the most constant things in my life. Doesn’t always back my position, but he never tries to take it away from me either. It’s one thing to have adults helping you out and giving you direction, but it’s another to have someone like Carter who’s going through a lot of the same things you are and holding it together with some style.