By day six, Marshall was fifty miles ahead of me. I heard, though, that he had foot problems of his own. If he was gutting it out, then so would I. I told my crew that I wanted to keep going all night. I knew closing the gap on Marshall would reinvigorate me—and help ease some of the doubt I was feeling. I pushed through that night and the next, sometimes running, sometimes walking, as I tried to soften the blow of each painful step. I moved as if in a trance, pulled forward by the blinking red lights of my crew’s RV a mile or so ahead.
Just after midnight on September 20, I realized it was my forty-sixth birthday. It was hard to believe it had been ten years since I’d celebrated with a cupcake in the fogged-in highlands of Ecuador. I wondered where I would be when I turned fifty-six. Would I ever stop moving? Would there come a time when I finished a race or an expedition and said, “Okay, well, that’s done. I’m satisfied.”
I had slowed to a walk. Clouds moved across the face of the nearly full moon, and I heard the high, wavering cry of coyotes. They seemed to be all around me in the dark. I concentrated on the broken yellow paint lines in the center of the highway, trying to keep myself on a straight course. Then I noticed something strange up ahead. A woman with wild hair stood by the side of the road. I couldn’t believe it: my mother. I’d talked to her earlier that day on the phone and she hadn’t mentioned coming out here. She must have decided to surprise me for my birthday.
“Mom!” I called to her. I tried to walk faster, but the road was being pulled backward under my feet, like a moving carpet. I couldn’t make any headway. “Mom!” She didn’t seem to hear me. I lurched forward. When I finally got to the place where she had been standing, I saw only a tall bush. Wow. I was losing it. Spooked and delirious with fatigue, I limped on for another hour or so. Then I told my crew I had to stop for the night.
Austin, Eureka, Ely: I dragged myself across Nevada. Some of my maladies improved, but a new and worrisome injury had developed on the front of my right ankle, which was now red and swollen and hot to the touch. Chuck did what he could to treat it, but it grew more painful every day. I was embarrassed by my struggles and by my inability to just suck it up and work through it. In my daily blogs on our website, I apologized for the slow pace. People commented with such kindness. They said I inspired them, that I was their hero, that they knew I could do it. Their confidence in me was both uplifting and crushing. I didn’t deserve their praise. They didn’t know that I felt only fear—fear that every day would be filled with pain, fear that I was letting everyone down, fear that Marshall was getting out of reach, and fear that I would have to stop. I questioned my heart, my ability—and my sanity.
One day during a break, one of the film-crew guys came up to me when I was sitting with an ice pack on my ankle in a lawn chair wondering how I was going to make myself get back out on the road.
“Sucks, huh?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Let me ask you something.”
“What?”
“Do you consider yourself a compassionate person?”
I looked up at him. “Yeah. I try to be.”
“Do you feel any compassion at all for yourself?”
I knew the answer was no. I asked more of myself than I would ever ask of anyone else. I didn’t want to hear my own bullshit excuses, not ever. I hated myself for even entertaining the idea of stopping.
“I don’t want to feel sorry for myself,” I said. “I asked for this.”
“Dude, you really need to cut yourself some slack.”
- - - -
Somehow, I made it to the Utah State line and my mood lifted, as it always did when borders were crossed. In the mountains, the air was cool and dry and the aspen leaves had turned yellow. Some friends came out to run with me, and with their encouragement I got in sixty miles a day for the next several days. I’d gone about 760 miles. We were almost a quarter of the way there. If I could keep this up, let my body heal a bit more, then I could ramp up to seventy-plus miles a day for the last few weeks. I could still get the record.
But as we moved farther into Utah, the ankle injury became excruciating. I’d never dealt with such pain. Even more troubling, the toes on my right foot had gone numb. Dr. Paul said that was a sign of nerve damage and warned me that I could be permanently hobbled if I kept running. I couldn’t believe it had come to this. I was used to dealing with pain, but was I willing to risk an injury that could permanently end my running career?
On October 2, the twentieth day of the run, just outside of Provo, Utah, my crew gathered at a picnic table next to the RV. I sat in a folding chair facing them. I knew what was coming. I had been to more than a few interventions in my life.
“For your long-term well-being, this has to be the end,” Dr. Paul said. “Today.”
“I’ve never quit anything,” I said.
“I know,” Chuck said. “But I’ve never seen it like this for you.”
“I’m getting e-mails every day from kids, saying, ‘Are you still running, Charlie? Are you still running?’ And I write back and say, ‘Yes, I am.’ And then I hear from their teacher how much those little words mean to them. How am I going to tell them I quit?”
“At some point, Charlie,” Dr. Paul said, “there is a limit.”
I looked at him and the glum faces of my crew.
“I’m sorry,” I said, fighting tears. “I tried hard.”
I knew then that Running America was over for me. All that planning, all that training, all that time spent away from my family—for what? What was the purpose? Maybe my father was right. It was pointless—all of this.
Ever since leaving San Francisco, I’d been blogging and tweeting about overcoming the odds, triumphing over adversity, toughing it out through pain. Any lesson worth learning comes only as a result of weathering the storm, I had written. Now I had to ask myself, Did I only believe these things to be true for other people?
I stared at the ground.
Then I had an idea. “Hey.”
“Yeah?” Dr. Paul said.
“Can I ride a bike?”
He thought about it for a moment. “It might hurt like hell, but it probably won’t do any more damage.”
I commandeered a mountain bike from one of the cameramen and began to pedal. I told myself that all was not lost. Marshall was still out there running. We were still making a good film. I was still going to cross the country on my own power.
I caught up to Marshall and his crew, which included his wife, Heather, in a few days. He was exhausted, battling his own injuries and his own fears. He said he was worried about having to continue alone, without me spurring him on. He had told me long ago that, no matter what, you should never take yourself off the course; that had always stuck with me. I’m not sure he understood this decision to stop had been forced on me. Did he doubt my commitment?
Over the next several days, tensions built between the two of us. I was frustrated by my situation and worried about our strained budget. We had lost some crew members—and those we still had were exhausted and felt unappreciated. One afternoon during a break with my crew, I was told that Heather had demanded someone get her and Marshall chicken burritos in the middle of the night and had also insisted a crew member hand-wash Marshall’s dirty underwear. They seem like little things now, but I was frayed—and I snapped. I pedaled after Marshall, amped up for a fight.
“Hey, your wife needs to back the fuck off,” I said when I caught him. “She’s running the crew into the ground.”
“Don’t talk about my wife that way. You’re just pissed because you can’t run anymore.”
“You’re right about that. I am pissed.”
“You thought you were going to be the star, and you didn’t care if I finished or not.”
“That’s bullshit! I busted my ass for more than a year to give us the chance at setting this record. You hardly lifted a fing
er to help.”
“Look who’s still running and look who is on a bike.”
“Fuck you, Marshall.” I pedaled away, boiling over with rage.
“Fuck you, Charlie!” Marshall hollered after me.
Later, I tried to patch things up. I was still executive producer of the film, and I needed Marshall to make it across the country. I shouldn’t have confronted him while he was running. More than that, we had been friends for a long time. I didn’t want it to end like that. But Marshall stayed angry.
Stung by the blowout, I searched for something positive to focus on as I pedaled across Colorado. One good thing about not running eighteen hours a day: I was better able to plan the timing of my visits to the schools that had been following my progress since day one. I focused on getting to Sidney, Iowa, and the Sidney Elementary School. I e-mailed Shannon Wehling, a teacher I had been corresponding with, to tell her I was hurt, but I was still coming.
As I pedaled closer to the Iowa border, though, I felt increasingly anxious. Did I really want to talk to these kids as the guy who quit? Maybe I should spare them the confusion and disappointment and just ride straight through town without stopping.
The day that I arrived in Sidney was chilly and rainy. My ankle was still tender, but I was able to run into town. I was surprised to spot Shannon and a group of her students standing under umbrellas on the side of the road, about a mile out of town. They were cheering and wearing bright green T-shirts that said RUN CHARLIE RUN! The kids crowded around and hugged me, then we all jogged toward their school. The downtown streets were lined with more people in the same bright shirts, and they were chanting my name. Some kids were holding banners that said WE BELIEVE IN YOU. I was overwhelmed.
In the school assembly hall, the kids peppered me with questions. They asked me if my foot hurt and if I missed my kids. They asked me what I ate—and, of course, where I went to the bathroom. I talked about the importance of being healthy, eating well, and getting exercise. I told them to go after their dreams, to never give up, to have courage, to know that if you wanted something badly enough and worked hard at it, it would come to you. Even as I heard the words come out of my mouth, though, I felt like a fraud. I had given up. The thing I wanted had not come to me.
That day, Sidney Elementary was launching a new Walking to Wellness program, timed to coincide with my visit. The goal was for the kids collectively to run or walk 3,103 miles to mirror my journey. After the assembly, we all went outside to run the inaugural mile together. Before we got going, a little boy tugged on my hand.
“Yes?” I said.
“Will you come back through here when you try again?”
“Yeah, will you? Will you?” several of the kids said.
I saw their shining faces looking up at me expectantly. There was no judgment, no disappointment—only acceptance, and love. We started to run around the playground. The kids were shrieking with delight. I remembered running like that myself as a kid—running for the pure joy of it, for the way it made me feel free.
I had set out to break a record, to go down in history, to leave my mark. But on that wet October afternoon surrounded by these kids, none of that mattered. It was one of the best days of my life.
- - - -
On November 5, just outside New York City, after more than a month and nearly 2,300 miles of pedaling, I ditched the bike and ran across the George Washington Bridge. My ankle was still sore, but much improved. Marshall would run up the steps of City Hall later that day. He’d made it all the way. A monumental accomplishment. But he had not beaten Frank Giannino’s time. The record stood.
CHAPTER 11
No one is so brave that he is not disturbed by something unexpected.
—JULIUS CAESAR
I scanned the crowd for Brett and Kevin and spotted them across the room. They looked confident and comfortable in their polo shirts and khakis with just enough of an unkempt style to still be cool. I smiled as I watched them mingling. They were doing their own thing, unaware of my surveillance, and I liked that. It was May 19, 2010, and a packed theater had greeted me in Greensboro for the world premiere of the Running America documentary. Even though I’d fallen short of my goal for the expedition, I was proud of the movie. It was beautifully shot and told a compelling story. As the screening wrapped up and I was surrounded by family, friends, and a sea of smiling strangers, I was as happy as I could ever remember.
- - - -
The next afternoon, six armed IRS agents stormed out of a coffee shop and grabbed me just as I was about to enter my apartment building.
My first thought was that this must be a case of mistaken identity. Or maybe a murderer was living in my building and these guys were trying to protect me. Before I could think of other plausible explanations, I was spun around and handcuffed. I was under arrest. As I was hustled across the parking lot, I felt a kind of surreal vertigo. Everything was spinning. I fought to keep my footing. This isn’t happening. This is just a twisted dream. Wake up, Charlie! It’s time for a trail run around Lake Brandt.
But I didn’t wake up. As I was shoved into a silver unmarked car, I looked hard at one of the agents who had grabbed me. He looked familiar. Damn, where have I seen him before? Then I remembered. Special Agent Robert Nordlander. He had shown up at my apartment building more than a year ago, asking me questions about my investments and my income. I’d answered them honestly—I had nothing to hide—and he’d left. Though I was bewildered and a little shaken by his visit, I had all but forgotten about it.
They booked me at the county courthouse. I called my friend and attorney Chris Justice, and he said he’d come down as soon as he could. I waited for him in a locked interrogation room.
“They sent a SWAT team?” Chris said as soon as he came through the door. His face was red.
“Yeah.”
“That’s absurd. Outrageous!”
He said those tactics were usually reserved for dangerous criminals. I was no Al Capone; I was a middle-aged, middle-class guy who lived in a modest apartment and drove a ten-year-old car in the suburbs of North Carolina. I’m sure Chris said some things to reassure me and promised he’d get to the bottom of it, but all I heard was “Charlie, they shouldn’t have done this to you. But I have to tell you, man—this is really bad.”
I asked Chris to call my dad and tell him what had happened.
After Chris left, I was taken to a crowded cell where men were lying on every flat surface—including the floor. Some were snoring, some were staring at the flyspecked ceiling, and a few were crying in that viscous, blubbering way only drunks can cry. No problem, I said to myself. I have slept in plenty of uncomfortable spots before and maybe with people even more screwed up than these guys. I will think of this as the world’s worst frat party. I’ll get through this night and straighten this mess out tomorrow.
Around 5:00 a.m., a guard called out, “Engle!” My hands were cuffed, my ankles shackled, and I was taken across the street to the federal building to wait for what I was told was an early-morning arraignment. I was placed alone in a holding cell with a steel toilet and one long, hard metal bench. Remain calm. Breathe, I told myself. You can handle this.
A guard waddled in and handed me a stack of official-looking paperwork. I began to sort through the papers, hoping to understand why I was here. At the top of the first page were words that I never expected to see: UNITED STATES of AMERICA v. Charles R. Engle. I was holding a fifteen-count federal indictment against me. I read and reread the indictment with equal parts dread and fascination. Most of it was nearly indecipherable, filled with legalese. Finally, I figured out that the US government had arrested me for allegedly overstating my income on a home-loan application—and for that I could be sentenced to thirty years in prison. My stomach rolled.
Trying to make some sense of this unimaginable situation, I thought back to that day when Special Agent Nordlander had bu
zzed the intercom to my apartment from downstairs, identifying himself as a Greensboro police officer and asking to be let in. I assumed there must have been a break-in at the building or a fire-code violation, so I pushed the button to unlock the ground-floor entrance and waited for him to reach my third-floor apartment.
I opened my door, expecting to see a cop in uniform. Instead I was met by a short, round man in a plaid sport coat and tie. Another man, a head taller and three times as wide, stood behind him. Nordlander said they were with the IRS Criminal Division. They flashed wallet badges at me in such sync I thought they must have practiced it. As Nordlander returned his badge to his waistband, he revealed a holstered gun and looked at me to be sure I saw it.
I was puzzled by Nordlander’s identification of himself as an IRS agent and not the Greensboro police officer he claimed to be from the downstairs intercom. I guessed his assumption was that I might not welcome the IRS into the building. He may have been right. Having been raised largely in the South, I was inclined toward politeness, even with IRS agents who had fibbed their way into my apartment. I offered the men a place to sit, which they accepted, and something to drink, which they declined.
Agent Nordlander wanted to ask me some questions about the mortgages I’d taken out four years earlier on my properties in Cape Charles, Virginia. I couldn’t imagine what could be interesting about those old loans but I answered every question. He also asked me about my income and assets and debt, about the hail-repair business, about Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, about losing my savings on a bathroom-remodeling business, and, finally, about running.
Running Man Page 19