Resolve

by Hensley, J. J.

  “You have to properly refuel or you’ll keep fading down the stretch. If you want to finish strong, you have to refuel!”

  At least once a week we went through this routine. Jacob heard me unzipping the small pouch on my waist belt, dig into a crumpled-up plastic baggie, and pull out pieces of a broken-up Pop-Tart. It drove him crazy, so I kept doing it. He bought the state-of-the-art silver gel packs that are full of carbohydrates, vitamins, protein, jet fuel, PCP, or some combination of substances that helped to replace some of the calories he burned during a long run. He converted Aaron and Randy long before I arrived on campus. On every one of our runs, they greedily squeezed the gooey red, blue, or brown ooze out of the packs and into their mouths every few miles. It’s disgusting if you ask me.

  “I guess I’m still a kid at heart. Besides, guys your age need all of the advantages you can get.”

  A collective moan came from the pack.

  “Oh, here we go,” Aaron chimed in. “We take the young Dr. Keller under our wings, accept him as one of our own, and he treats us with utter disdain.”

  Aaron Caferty was a professor in the School of Business; which is to say that he taught mostly real estate and basic marketing classes to the region’s future slumlords and telemarketers. Don’t get me wrong. I liked Aaron. But he sometimes acted as if he were going to produce a modern-day Adam Smith, when he was more likely to produce the next Adam Sandler.

  “Come on guys, leave Cyprus alone,” said Randy Walker, my colleague in the Criminology department. “Obviously, any boy who carries the name of an island is bound to hold on to his independence. Besides, you can’t expect a man from a non-academic background to trust a bunch of old intellectuals.”

  Ouch.

  He liked to take these jabs at me. The fact that I looked ten years younger than I was had always meant that I’d fallen victim to labels like boy and kid. I’d gotten used to it over the years, so it didn’t usually bother me. However, Randy’s suggestion that I wasn’t a true academic was his way of putting me in my place. Normally, I would have fired back some witty retort, but to be honest, I was pretty winded and the frosty air hitting my lungs was getting the best of me.

  What he was referring to was the fact that after I finished my undergraduate work at the University of Maryland, I was a Baltimore city police officer for a while. After accumulating some hefty student loans while at U of M, I found out that Baltimore PD had a great student loan repayment program. All I had to do was work as a community police officer in some of Baltimore’s more troubled areas for four years. Translation—Send the skinny college boy into the hood. If he lives, we’ll shell out some bucks. So that’s what I did. For four years and one day.

  I fell in love with Criminology while at U of M. Everything was so neat and logical. There were rational theories for absolutely everything. I completely immersed myself in theories with cool names like differential association, anomie, and hedonistic calculus. It all made perfect sense. The inexplicable became understandable. Then I took that knowledge to the streets of Baltimore where I saw levels of depravity that books couldn’t describe. I saw people who never had a chance and would never have a chance. In four years I was a changed man, and it wasn’t for the better. I found myself on a treadmill of apathy and distrust that I couldn’t escape. I had to try to identify some way of finding a glimmer of hope in the system and in humanity.

  After the Baltimore experience, I decided to return to my hometown in southern West Virginia and become a probation officer. I had seen the worst of the worst and I suppose I was looking for some evidence that criminals could be rehabilitated. So I looked toward probation work as one way to help some people turn their lives around. I guess I had some successes, but in that poverty-stricken area surrounded by hopelessness, I soon found myself back on the treadmill and in a cycle of depression.

  At first, I stopped socializing with my coworkers. Then I started finding reasons to avoid old friends. I followed that up with not exercising, taking sick days from work, reading two or three pages of a book and angrily tossing it aside. Movies—nope. Hikes into the woods—nothing. Relationships with women—infrequent and forgettable. Alcohol—more than I should have had, less than an alcoholic.

  Some days I sat. Just sat in my apartment staring at a television I wasn’t watching and that pumped out sounds I didn’t register. Other days I went to work, went through the motions, moved a few papers around my desk, started getting short-tempered with clients, and departed no better off than I arrived.

  I had no idea where my life was going and no idea where I wanted it to go. I was completely off course, and the worst part was that I didn’t even know what course I was looking for.

  “Cyprus, you keep eating your kid’s food. Don’t let anybody rob you of your childhood,” Randy crooned with mock sympathy.

  As our three-person running cabal turned past the green athletic fields toward the three-story recreation building where warm showers awaited us, I noticed a black sedan with a red bubble light on the dashboard parked in front of the main entrance. One of the student employees who usually checked university IDs at the front desk stood next to two men who were wearing dark slacks and dress shirts with subdued ties dangling from beneath somber jackets.

  I wondered why city detectives were here instead of the usual campus security guards hired by the school. If there were a theft or an assault, campus security would respond and call the police only if they were needed. There should have been a TRU security patrol car there too.

  As we approached the front sidewalk my question was answered when the student employee’s eyes widened upon seeing the four of us and with a penetrating point aimed at my chest said, “That’s him. That’s Dr. Keller.”

  Mile 3

  Having backtracked through the Strip District, the still continuous line of runners makes a hard right back across Smallman Street onto the 16th Street Bridge. This is the first of five bridge crossings that we’ll make during the course of the race. I’ve already fallen back from the 3 hour 30 minute pace group, and I expect that I’ll be seeing the 3 hour 45 minute group shortly. The elevation increases slightly as I work my way up the bridge, and it will drop off after the midway point. I can already detect hints of separation between the vibrantly colored shirts decorated with the dangling cords of iPods. It’s usually this first hill when you see the gaps form and the seamless stream of durability starts to rip apart. It doesn’t take much and it doesn’t take long. This early in the contest it’s more psychological than anything. The key is to keep your faith when things get difficult. You have to remember that even the smallest of climbs can shake your confidence to the core and cause you to question your resolve.

  “Dr. Keller? Dr. Cyprus Keller?” said one of the detectives cautiously. He was expecting one of the older-looking men in the group to step forward.

  Detectives are pretty easy to pick out if you’re accustomed to seeing them. It doesn’t take superhuman observation skills to key-in on the obviously unmarked car, cynical expressions, worn shoes, and unbuttoned coats with foreboding bulges near the hip. The fact that I saw detectives’ badges displayed on their belts may have helped too.

  “Please. It’s just Cyprus.” I answered.

  Cops hate pompous titles. For that matter, so do I.

  “What can I do for you detectives?” I asked.

  Then, my thoughts raced to the point where they should have already been.

  “Is my wife okay?”

  The smaller of the two detectives, the one wearing the black leather jacket, said, “I’m sure your wife is fine. This isn’t a family matter or anything like that. Do you have a minute?” He gestured to a picnic table that was away from my colleagues and any roaming ears.

  My colleagues told me they would catch up with me later as I walked—slightly out of breath and covered with sweat—with the detectives over to the table. I’m used to being around cops, and as a rule they don’t make me nervous, but I was certainly concerned about wh
at they could have wanted from me.

  None of us had bothered to sit when the detective began again.

  “I’m Detective Shand,” he announced, “and this is Detective Hartz.” Shand gestured to his partner who dipped his head at me while pulling his coat tighter around him as a breeze shot by. “We need to ask you a few questions.”

  “Um . . . sure.”

  I get paid to talk for a living.

  Shand was in his early thirties, shorter than me, and personified the city of his employment. His rivet neck looked like it belonged on the end of a socket wrench, and his torso was that of a man who enjoyed a good beer. He completely filled out a leather jacket that was just short enough for the bottom of a holster to be visible on his right side. His light complexion was characteristic of the area, and his squared-off hair screamed former military. His movements betrayed a hint of shrouded agility. The fact that he was home-grown was also abundantly clear after the first few words he spoke. His distinct Pittsburgh dialect leapt from his amplifying presence, and it was easy to imagine him throwing out a yinz in place of the more common you all.

  He pulled out a small notepad and asked, “Do you know a student named Lindsay Behram?”

  Son of a bitch.

  She must have made some harebrained, outlandish accusation against me. In the back of my mind I was afraid she might accuse me of coming on to her or harassing her, but it never occurred to me that she would call the cops on me. What the hell for? She could have said anything. Sure, Steven was there when I shot her down, but she could say that something happened between us anywhere . . . anytime! How do you defend yourself against something like this?

  I didn’t allow my expression to betray my anger.

  “Yes. She’s a student in one of my classes.”

  Now it was Detective Hartz’s turn. “Do you know her well?”

  Did his tone carry just a touch of condescension?

  Hartz was the older of the two and the polar opposite of his partner. Standing six feet five inches tall and weighing at least 230 pounds, his skin was dark brown and his voice baritone. His dark coffee-colored suede coat that he kept pulling around his massive shoulders by the lapels matched his experienced eyes. I noticed an enormous ring on his finger that prominently displayed a perfectly placed silver “Y” on top of a red stone. The word “National” arched above the garnet with “Champions” providing the cradle. I surmised that more than a quarter of a century prior he had played football at Youngstown State and made several quarterbacks pray for a quick death.

  Determined not to react to any subtle insinuations, I calmly replied, “As well as you can know one out of twenty students in a class. I guess I’ve only known her for about three months.”

  It was Shand’s turn now. They must have been partners for a while. They had a smooth back-and-forth tennis routine down.

  “During those three months, have you . . . socialized with her? Seen her outside of class? Maybe become close with her?”

  “Like I said, she is just a student in one of my classes. What’s happened? What did she say?”

  Ignoring my questions, Hartz asked, “Just one class?”

  “Yes. Victimology,” I answered a little too quickly.

  “Victimology?” Shand bounced back to me even more rapidly.

  The two detectives exchanged a quick glance. I understood they had a job to do, but I didn’t like being the mouse batted around between two predatory cats. I especially didn’t like having to wait for them to tell me what the accusation was when I could probably guess from a list of deviant forms of behavior. These two were not rookies, and I knew they weren’t going to give me anything without some prompting. Show what you have to and keep the rest to yourself. That’s the rule when you are questioning someone.

  I was shivering uncomfortably from the rapidly cooling sweat trickling under the collar of my black and gold Pittsburgh Pirates sweatshirt. The glacial stiffening of my body contrasted with the incendiary activity smoldering in my mind.

  My God! Was she accusing me of rape? I should have picked up on this the first time I thought that she might have been flirting with me. I should have taken precautions. I should have bolted out of the classroom after class. Carried a tape recorder. Something. Anything!

  I wasn’t going to play this game.

  Letting them know that I caught the look they shared, I blurted out, “Is there a problem I should know about? What the hell is going on?”

  Shand looked at me without the slightest trace of irritation. He calmly said, “It’s nothing. It’s just ironic considering the course name. She was killed last night.”

  Mile 4

  As we come off the bridge, the street changes to Chestnut and carries us into the North Shore and East Allegheny neighborhoods. This residential area is where we’ll see spectators sitting on their porches, drinking their morning coffee, and smiling at the production in front of them that has disrupted their usually monotonous Sunday morning routines. There is sporadic clapping from block to block, and we dash by the police cars that block intersections for us. Nobody is cold anymore. Fifty-seven degrees may seem chilly before the start, but after a few miles your body is warm enough. Anything warmer than the low sixties and you’d be shocked how the atmosphere can drain you.

  In the 1982 Boston Marathon, Dick Beardsley and Alberto Salazar provided the most memorable finish in that race’s history. Maybe the sport’s history. The race has been immortalized as the “Duel in the Sun”; and one of the main storylines involves the ridiculously high temperature during the race and how it both mentally and physically depleted the runners. The way the meteorological conditions have been made part of the legend, you would think the heat of that April day would have been comparable to an August day in Savannah. The high temperature that day was only about seventy degrees.

  I’m not tired at all, but I feel like throwing up. I’m thinking about the ancient maxim, “The fear of death is more to be dreaded than death itself.” There’s something to that, I suppose. I think if you know death is imminent then there may be a certain solace in that. It’s inevitable. It’s going to happen regardless of what actions you take. Just submit and accept. However, when the outcome is less than certain—even if all of the data tells you that death is highly likely, but not absolute—then the ambiguity of the outcome can overwhelm your senses and cause your psyche to overheat.

  When you think about it, dying in this environment is fitting. Legend has it that the marathon’s origins date back to 490 BC when a Greek soldier named Pheidippides ran from the battlefield of Marathon all the way to Athens to announce news of the Greek victory over the Persians. He did it. Then he dropped dead. He didn’t even get a doughnut or a finisher’s medal.

  The left turn onto East Ohio Street is ahead, meaning the brigade of the insane will get corralled westward into a series of parks lined by townhouses and duplexes. I’m coming up on signs posted on the sides of the road that have a big red “4” staring down at me.

  Rushing at me is the first of five points where it may happen. I shouldn’t have come today, knowing what I know, but I can’t hide from this. Whatever happens today is a result of my own actions. My hands are anything but clean.

  I’m not moving that fast, but I’m feeling a little dizzy. I suddenly realize it’s because I’m holding my breath. I’ve got to keep it together.

  Got to see this through.

  I’ve never been one who enjoys the rush of uncertainty. I really haven’t had that sensation since I was drifting around in my professional life, trying to figure out who I wanted to be. Despite having done nothing wrong, the detectives’ questions put me back on my heels. When you’re used to being the authority figure in nearly every conversation you have, feeling defensive is pretty rare. But when it does happen, you feel your world’s axis tilt just a little. Not enough to topple you over, but just enough to remind you that your perception of control is a tenuous illusion, and that you have spent a large part of your life talk
ing yourself into believing your dominance is real.

  It was obvious to me that the transition from a cop to a probation officer did not fix the underlying condition that caused my professional crisis of faith. It temporarily treated the symptoms, but then the disease came back with a paralyzing vengeance. I needed something to give meaning to my life and put me on track. I needed something to keep the millstone of my disillusionment from compressing me into psychological rubble. That’s when I met Kaitlyn.

  On the days I managed to shake off my anguish enough so that I could force myself into going to work, I spent most of my time interviewing, listening to, and re-arresting every type of criminal offender southern West Virginia had to offer. Culturally speaking, it was a different world down there. Criminally speaking, not so much. You could substitute “Baltimore crack dealer” for “West Virginia Oxycodone-pusher” and the story was basically the same in the end. Those who demanded the drug found those who could supply. Competition was eliminated by law enforcement activity, self-destruction, or rival conflicts. Black, white, Hispanic, male, female—it didn’t matter. All of the players eventually got locked up or killed. The final tally for everyone in the chain was always zero. Nevertheless, the game would go on with replacements for the fallen; and when the courts decided that somebody was going to get a chance at redemption through the probation system, then I was there to show him how to avoid the stumbling blocks. Or, if he did happen to fall down, it was my job to throw him back into the jaws of the prison system. And everybody eventually falls. It’s just a matter of degree.

  I had all kinds of offenders on my client list. Most were involved with oxy or meth, but there was an assortment of others as well. I don’t have a lot of positive memories about the job, but I did get one good thing out of it. Not every guy can say that the state correctional system helped him meet the love of his life.

  Kaitlyn entered my life when the courts had ordered one of my stellar-citizen clients to attend one-on-one anger management counseling a couple of times a week. As part of a new community-friendly initiative, I was basically supposed to hold his hand while I took him to some office complex and introduced him to his counselor. I took Mr. Grumpy up to the fifth floor where I had been told the counselor’s office was. After a few minutes in the waiting room, Kaitlyn Richards came out to meet me—I mean Mr. Grumpy—or whatever his name was.