Transition

by Henry Charles Mishkoff

“Well, ummm… I suppose you’ve thought of this yourself, babe, but it seems to me that maybe it’s time you learned how to swim.”

  He makes it sound so simple, she thinks. Just go learn how to swim. Sure. Sometime in the next couple of months, I have to learn how to swim well enough to keep up with some of the best long-distance swimmers in the world. Piece of cake.

  And maybe I don’t even have a couple of months. There’s bound to be some drafting going on at the trials, and they’re only… my God, they’re less than two weeks away.

  Maybe I won’t have to worry about the Russians after all. Maybe I’ll watch the first Olympic Ironman on TV.

  “Jill, where’d you go? Hey, babe, come back. I didn’t mean to piss you off.”

  “No, you didn’t piss me off.” Jillian sighs. “I pissed myself off. I should have learned how to swim a long time ago. It’s just that… well, running and biking just come so easy to me. Swimming’s such a pain, it’s like I don’t have any feel for it at all. It’s not natural. I really have to work at it. I guess I’m just lazy.”

  “Well, hey, don’t be so hard on yourself, babe,” he says, brightly. “And for God’s sake, don’t get discouraged. You’re not dead yet. Isn’t there anyone on the whole state of Texas who can give you a rush course on swimming? Hell, you’re in great shape, and you must be pretty strong. If you really work at it there’s no reason why you shouldn’t see some pretty serious results in a few weeks. If you can find a swim coach who knows what he’s doing.”

  “I guess you’re right,” Jillian says quietly.

  “I thought you were working with, what’s his name, the Russian guy, Danski, something like that.”

  “Danziger, Jago Danziger,” Jillian says. “He’s Czech.” It has quickly become painfully obvious what she’s going to have to do.

  “Well, shit, Jill, he’s supposed to be a real hot-shot swimming coach. I don’t get it. How come you never made him teach you some of his swimming magic?”

  “Like I said, Nick. I guess I’ve just been lazy.”

  “Well, hey, Jill,” he says, “just between me and you, I think that maybe it’s time you got off your butt and asked the man for some help. I think that maybe it’s time you learned how to swim, babe.”

  He’s right, of course. She’s going to have to swallow her pride, crawl into Jago’s office, plead for forgiveness, beg for his help. She shudders as she imagines the scene. He’ll be haughty and insulting, and she’ll have to bite her tongue to keep from getting pissed off at him all over again.

  But as badly as it rubs her the wrong way, she knows that she can do it. She’ll do anything to win the race. She’s the best in the world, this victory belongs to her, and by God, nobody is going to take it away from her. Nobody.

  Not without one hell of a fight.

  Transition

  Book 2: Conflict

  Part 3:

  The Attack

  2.3.1: Sturdivant

  Jnana was right. Running at night is kinda creepy.

  Of course, she hadn’t really intended to be out here after dark. But she’d been having so much fun with the gardening – weeding the flower beds, fertilizing the vegetables (organic fertilizer, of course), pruning the shrubs, everybody working together, chanting, singing, laughing – that she simply lost track of the time. She hadn’t even begun to change into her new running outfit until after seven. A dreary dusk was already settling over the rolling hills by the time she suited up and hit the road.

  And she hadn’t really meant to run this far. Although she’s not exactly sure how far she’s run. Eight, maybe ten miles?

  She has to admit that running has been much more enjoyable since she started wearing her new outfit. It was new, it was hers – and it was a present from Nathan.

  He had made a ceremony out of presenting it to her, and she was overwhelmed with joy to have been singled out for such an honor. At first, when she learned about the triathlon trials, she had been more embarrassed than anything else by the unaccustomed and unwelcome attention. But when she discussed it with Nathan, he led her to admit that, deep down, she was excited by the possibility of going to the Olympics – an admission that had surprised her, but which Nathan had seemed to expect.

  At his suggestion, she began to run regularly. She still swam and rode her bicycle every day, but that was fun, part of daily life at the ashram, not something that she did for a special purpose. Even after her discussion with Nathan, she was still ambivalent about the idea of competing, she constantly had to fight the urge to apologize. And running every day – not because she enjoyed it, but because she wanted to get better at it – well, that just seemed so blatant, so calculating. So unnatural.

  But all that changed with the ceremonial investiture of the new running suit.

  Suddenly, everybody started to give her advice. It turned out that a surprising number of The Disciples used to run regularly to stay in shape – “back when we used to be concerned with silly things like that,” as Jnana had observed with a smile. She had been flooded with tips about how to pace herself, how to hold her body, how to breathe, how to place her feet on the ground, what to think about.

  But Jnana, as always, had given her the most practical advice. Be yourself, she had said. You have good instincts, and you’re a natural athlete. Don’t clutter your mind with so much nonsense about technique. You don’t worry about technique when you’re swimming, do you? Of course not, it just comes naturally. You become one with the water. You move through it so quickly because you don’t fight with it, you don’t offer any resistance to it. You merge with it, and it propels you like electricity through a copper wire. I know, I’ve watched you.

  And you’ll feel that way about running as soon as you get used to it, Jnana had predicted. Right now it’s new to you, and you’re fighting it, struggling with it. Once your body becomes accustomed to its rhythms, once you relax and let the energy flow through you unimpeded, you will float over the roads just as you now slice through the water. Don’t force it. Just let it happen.

  And don’t run alone, Jnana had warned. It’s never a good idea for a woman to run alone, especially around here where many people don’t like us. You probably think I’m being paranoid (and Sunshine had blushed, because she had been feeling that Jnana was perhaps being a little overprotective). You’re so innocent. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But look at it this way: There are people out there who want to do bad things to you. And if you’re not concerned for your own safety, well, that’s okay. But if you put yourself in situations where you make it easy for other people to hurt you, you’re helping them create bad karma for themselves.

  And although the convoluted reasoning made her head spin, she had to admit it held a kind of stubborn logic.

  And whatever you do, Jnana had added, imparting her final words of wisdom, whatever you do, don’t run alone at night. It’s never safe for anybody to run alone at night.

  Especially a woman.

  Especially around here.

  ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍

  But now it is night, and Sunshine is running, and she is alone. And there’s nothing she can do about it. She ran farther than she had expected to, much farther than she usually runs. It had just felt so good that she hadn’t wanted to turn back. And when she finally had turned around, reluctantly, and headed back to the ashram, it was already dark. And so now she has no choice but to keep on running.

  It’s the only way to get back home.

  And even if it is a little spooky, she thinks, it’s not so bad. There’s maybe a quarter moon, so it’s not like it’s pitch black. If Jnana hadn’t planted the thought in my head that there was something wrong with running at night, it probably wouldn’t bother me at all. Actually, it’s kind of peaceful, she tries to convince herself. The back roads are pretty much deserted at this time of night. When she runs during the day, she has to contend with the traffic and with the whistles and catcalls of the men who drive by.

  And that probab
ly wouldn’t bother me either, she muses, if it hadn’t been for Jnana. Don’t look at them, Jnana had advised, in her most practical, motherly tones. Don’t even acknowledge their presence at all. And whatever you do, don’t make eye contact with them, it only encourages them.

  She has tried to follow Jnana’s advice, but it’s so difficult, and she’s not really sure that it makes any sense. Sure, some of the men are looking for trouble. Some of them drive back and forth past her, shouting lewd and obscene suggestions, before they finally tire of the game and drive off. Jnana was probably right about them – giving them any sign of encouragement might lead to trouble. And, in a cosmic sense, trouble is not good for the receiver or the giver.

  But most of the men just honk and wave. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see their smiling, friendly faces as they whiz past. Some of them are probably runners themselves, and some are just trying to be neighborly. Maybe some of them are even trying to break the ice, trying to improve the strained relations between the town and the ashram. By ignoring them, by turning a cold shoulder, she may actually be exacerbating an already difficult situation.

  It’s so hard to know what to do. Every action we take, Nathan teaches, spreads vibrations in waves throughout the universe, like when you throw a rock and make ripples in a quiet pond. It is simply a karmic law. It’s unavoidable. Even if you choose to do nothing, you do something just by making that choice.

  Life has consequences.

  Being alive has repercussions.

  2.3.2: Sturdivant

  The biggest problem with running, Sunshine decides, is boredom.

  Swimming is fun, and bicycling is a good way to get from one place to another quickly. But running is just putting one foot on the ground after another, over and over and over again.

  Rather than let the repetition grate on her, she tries to use it to her advantage by developing new meditation techniques. First, she concentrates on each footfall, feeling the intricate sensations of each foot hitting the ground, rolling and twisting, springing off into the air. Then she watches the pattern of her breathing as air flows in through her windpipe and lungs and out her nose and mouth. Then she clears her mind of conscious thought and focuses her attention on listening, not trying to separate distinct sounds, letting the unfocused auditory sensations fill her head, just noticing them all in a kind of half-trance.

  And that’s what she’s doing when she first hears the car wheezing over the hills, sullying the cool stillness of the New England night with its metallic rumble.

  She hears it coming from an indeterminate distance, its drone gradually drowning out the muffled sounds of the evening. At first, she can’t pinpoint its direction. But then she sees headlights approaching her, head-on. She’s running down the left side of the narrow road – facing traffic, as Jnana had cautioned – but now she crosses the road to put a safe distance between herself and the car before it gets too close.

  The harsh sound grows louder as the car approaches. She hears the blare of a radio mixed in with the throaty engine noise. And then, in an instant, it’s upon her and past her in a blur of motion and an off-pitch whine. Through the spread fingers of the hand that she raises to shield her eyes from the glare of the headlights, she sees that it’s actually a battered pick-up truck, rattling and creaking unsteadily down the narrow road.

  But it doesn’t get very far. It hasn’t driven a hundred feet past her when she hears it come to a skidding stop with a shrill squeal of brakes.

  A shock of adrenalin floods into her bloodstream. She’s instantly alert. Her heart begins to pound. She can actually feel her hands begin to sweat. She fights the sudden urge to dash off into the fields that line the road, to outrun whatever trouble is turning around to make another pass at her.

  There’s no reason to panic, she reassures herself. This has happened before. Lots of times.

  But never, of course, at night.

  She hears the truck whine slowly in reverse, then forward, then reverse again as it struggles to turn around in the narrow road. Then it pulls up several yards behind her, slows down, matches her speed. The music is impossibly loud, a thumping, steady bass beat, but then in a flash it’s gone, and then the only sound is the sputtering of the truck as it shadows her, its harsh headlights illuminating the road in front of her with an eerie glow. The driver switches on the truck’s high beams, bathing the road and the surrounding fields with a surreal whiteness. The world looks pale, washed-out, as far as she can see.

  They proceed like this for what’s probably only a few minutes, but it seems like an eternity. Why doesn’t he do something? She grasps at straws. Maybe he doesn’t really want to give me a hard time, maybe he’s just being friendly. Maybe he’s lost, and he’s going to pull up and ask me for directions. Maybe he recognized me from my photo in the Times-American, and he’s going to ask me for an autograph. Maybe…

  But why doesn’t he do something?

  She knows that she shouldn’t do it, but she does it anyway. Forgive me, Jnana, she thinks; I can’t help it. Still running forward, she looks back over her shoulder. But it doesn’t do any good, all she can see in the glare of the high beams is the dim outline of the truck, a shrouded hulk enveloped by the darkness. She squints, tries to make her eyes focus. Then, after a few seconds, she gives up and turns her head back again.

  Off in the distance, twin dots of bouncing light mark the approach of another car. Maybe this will scare off the truck, she hopes. Maybe the car will stop to ask me if everything is okay. (What would I say? Is everything okay?) Maybe I should wave my arms, flag it down, ask for a lift back to the ashram. Maybe it’s someone from the ashram coming to look for me.

  The headlights grow larger and larger… And with surprising speed, the car is upon her. A whoosh, a blur, and it’s already gone.

  Why didn’t it stop? Surely the driver could see that I’m in trouble. Or maybe he thought that the truck was helping me, lighting my way through the night. Or maybe he figured that it was none of his business. Or maybe he was a she, and not about to get involved in a dangerous-looking situation in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night. Or maybe the driver figured that if I needed any help, I would have done something to attract his attention – waved my arms, jumped up and down, shouted. Something. Anything.

  And why didn’t I do anything? Is it because I’m afraid to admit that I’m afraid? That I’m not as unconcerned for my own welfare as Nathan would want me to be?

  Suddenly she wants to cry. It’s all just so frustrating.

  This is foolish, she thinks. I can’t handle the situation, so I’ll simply remove myself from it. I’ll just run off into the fields, and…

  And just then, the truck revs its engine and grinds into a lower gear. The headlights swerve to the left. With an enormous sigh of relief – almost disbelief – she realizes that the truck is going to pass her, that it has finally tired of its nerve-wracking game.

  And indeed, she hears the truck picking up speed, and its headlights swing out into the road. And then it’s beside her, and it’s accelerating rapidly. And this time she manages, with incredible difficulty, to resist the temptation to turn her head to try to catch a quick glimpse of her tormentor as he flashes by.

  And as the truck starts to pull past her she actually smiles to herself, mostly from nerves, but partly from embarrassment, as she realizes how silly she’s been to be so afraid.

  It’s over, she thinks.

  It’s finally over.

  2.3.3: Sturdivant

  Meanwhile, in the small cab of the old truck, Eddie Sweeney feels nearly as nervous as Sunshine does running down the road.

  They’re on their way back from Lake Winnetaska, where he and Billy Barton spent the better part of the afternoon sitting in the bed of the pickup, legs dangling over the open tailgate, drinking beer, checking out the titties that bounced by, listening to the radio, soaking up some rays. Eddie wanted to leave much earlier, but Billy either fell asleep from the sun or passed out from
the beer, and Eddie’s occasional attempts to rouse him produced no reaction whatsoever. Finally, well after sunset, Billy jolted awake, lurched out of the bed of the truck, and staggered into the passenger seat, where he now sits in a semi-dazed stupor as Eddie drives back into town.

  Eddie doesn’t spot the woman running by the side of the road until just a few seconds before they pass her. Surprised, he almost blurts, Hey, Billy, it’s that Sunshine chick! But he thinks better of it, no reason to get Billy started on that again. But somehow, although he seems to be barely conscious, Billy spots her just as they drive by, and the effect on him is astonishing. He literally jumps in his seat, his eyes open bug-wide, and he screams at Eddie to stop the truck and spin it.

  Eddie follows Billy’s instructions, of course. Flipping on the high beams, he follows a few yards behind Sunshine as she runs down the road. Billy turns off the radio and sits almost motionless, staring at Sunshine. He leans forward, rests his hands on the dashboard, rests his chin on his hands, and he just sits there, as if he’s lost in deep thought.

  “What should I do, Billy?” Eddie asks, more than once. “You want me to just keep following her?” But Billy doesn’t respond, he just sits there, his chin on his hands, staring at Sunshine like he’s hypnotized.

  What are we doing? Eddie wonders, as his anxiety rises. Are we just going to follow this chick all the way back to the Phillips place? And then what? Why doesn’t Billy say anything? Is he just going to sit there and stare out the windshield and not say a word? This is spooky, real spooky. I don’t like it.

  So what am I going to do?

  Suddenly, without breaking stride, Sunshine turns her head and looks straight at them. Holy shit, Eddie thinks, she’s seen us. Then he realizes how dumb that is. So what if she’s seen us? We’re not even doing anything. And she probably can’t see us anyway, staring straight into the headlights like that.

  There’s something about the look in her eyes that seems familiar, something that strikes a responsive chord in the far reaches of Eddie’s brain. But before he can place it, she turns back…