Flanagan's Run

by Tom McNab

  He had made good use of his thousand miles of travel. The first four days had seen the sale of a hundred bottles of Chief Chickamauga’s snakeroot remedy. The first two days, in farmer’s country, he had sold it as a liniment, because farmers were always good for anything that would cure their aches and pains. He had also managed to unload ten of Dr Pulvermacher’s magnetic belts, the first he had sold for many years. The glamour and mystery of electricity and magnetism had by 1931 worn thin. He had seen the time when he could not sell enough of the magnetic belts, the answer to every ill from constipation to impotence. The odd thing was that they did occasionally work. On more than one occasion a constipation-gripped cowboy had had to make a sprint to the john only seconds after Dr Pulvermacher’s belt had started to fizz and flash round his belly. Doc’s information on the belt’s effects on impotence were less easily come by, but this had never prevented large sales to the lovelorn.

  The next two days he had sold the remedy as a tonic, with equally good results. This change of tack also involved a slight change in formula with the alcohol content lifted to thirty per cent. This form of the remedy had always gone down well in temperance towns, and many a stern Baptist maiden aunt who had solemnly taken the pledge swore by the Chief ’s answer to all ills, from the vapours to morning sickness. The remedy had an equal appeal to men, particularly when Doc described its ‘virilizing’ qualities. Doc’s audiences therefore went off with a dollar’s worth of hope in their pocket. They had also been royally entertained.

  Alas, it had not been quite like the old days. Then, Doc Cole could have swept towards Los Angeles like an avenging fury, littering the area behind him with thousands of dollars’ worth of Chief Chickamauga’s remedy and Dr Pulvermacher’s magnetic belts, to say nothing of Simmon’s liver regulator, Dr Kilmer’s Swamp Root and Perry Davis’s painkiller. Alas, federal drug controls had seen the disappearance of Dr Hercules Sanche, Doc McBride (the Great King of Pain), Doc Ennis and his universal balm . . . Dear God, they had swept through the West like a plague of locusts. No state fair had been complete without them, dressed in their fancy waistcoats and black bowler hats, their “wives” jabbering beside them as Queen Nookamookee, their sons as Prince Achmed lately rescued from cannibals in the Trobriand Islands. Still, if they had been rogues they had been damn funny ones, and no one had come to much harm because of them.

  Those days had gone for good; and Doc had spent the last ten years behind the counter at Bernstein’s Drug Store in Montgomery, Alabama, dispensing milk-shakes and homespun homilies to college kids for five bucks a week. He had, however, never stopped running. The 1908 Olympics had resulted in a four-year boom in professional marathon running, with the magic twenty-six miles three hundred and eighty-five yards race being held for money everywhere from Cairo to the Yukon. It had been short-lived, but Doc had been one of the better contenders, though never a match for the Indian Longboat, the Englishman Shrubb, or the stocky little Italian Dorando Pietri, whose running in the London Olympics had triggered off the whole mad marathon craze in the first place. They had run anything up to ten marathons a year, and this had been too much for even the best of them, who had met with illness and injury, leaving good pickings for the second rank of runners, of whom Doc had been one. By 1913 the bubble had burst. Back they had gone to their respective countries, many to surrender their fit, hard bodies to the sniper’s bullets and shrapnel of the French trenches, others simply to bland domesticity. The world of amateur athletics was closed to them, while that of professional athletics existed only in the industrial towns of Northern England and parts of rural Scotland. Thus some of the greatest running machines the world had ever seen had been broken, dismantled or simply rusted away.

  After the war there had been a delay in the revival of amateur athletics, and many state fairs and local carnivals, knowing nothing of the amateur rules, had put on “picnic” meetings for money prizes. The longest distance run had been three miles, a mere sprint to Doc, and he had won such races easily, trotting round the rough grass tracks in about sixteen minutes, far ahead of the college boys and farmers who had been his challengers. Occasionally, echoing the old days, a town would hold a marathon, usually over only ten or twelve miles, and again Doc was back in his element, slaughtering the ill-trained locals.

  In the early twenties, as amateur athletics picked up the traces, Doc had found fewer and fewer meetings in which to race, but in some ways this had been his golden period. He had gone bald early in middle-age and in his road-shows, as part of his Chickamauga spiel, he would issue a challenge to race the fastest runner in town. “Who’s your best runner?” he would shout, tearing off his jacket and pulling off the cork from a bottle of Chickamauga with his teeth. “Dear Lord, I’m fifty-five (he was then ten years younger) but give me a slug of Chickamauga and I’ll take him on.” Every town had its star athlete, sometimes a college boy gone to seed, sometimes a fit young farmer. The lad would be thrust forward, blushing and uncertain at first, but encouraged by the back-slaps and shouts of the crowd, becoming progressively more confident as he reached Doc on the stage. “If this young feller here will give me a start . . .” Doc would begin, to be drowned in jeers and catcalls. “All right,” he would say. “We’ll start even. But first let’s see some money down.” In a matter of minutes the farmers were raining dollars on the stake-holder, Doc’s “daughter”, Alice, betting five to one on their champion.

  “One moment,” Doc would then shout above the furore. “If – if anything should happen to me, I hope you’ll see me in a Christian grave.” Satisfied by the raucous assurances of the crowd, Doc would arrange a course of at least three miles and would go about a lengthy lecture on the values of the remedy. If it was being sold as liniment he would massage himself vigorously, giving little groans if it went close to his private parts. On the other hand, if it was being sold as a tonic Doc would savour the remedy in sips, like a fine wine, before allowing it to slide down his throat.

  Then the race would start. Doc usually let his challenger stay with him for the first couple of miles, always keeping a close check on his opponent’s rate of breathing. If the local boy was gasping Doc would slow down, so that the lad could finish the course in style, making a race of it. On the other hand, if the local champion was going easily, Doc would step up the pace, for he had no wish to face the sprint finish of a younger man.

  Every now and then as he ran through the crowded town Doc would give a groan and hold his side, as if suffering from a stitch. The crowd loved this, for here was their champion running this smart-Aleck medicine man into the ground. With half a mile to go Doc, rolling around, would obviously be in great pain. Then his “daughter” would rush to his side with a bottle of Chickamauga. Revived, Doc would sprint the last half mile and win easily. He always, however, seemed to have enough breath left to harangue his doting audience for another hour on the benefits of Chickamauga and of a life of exercise and moderation.

  The last years of the twenties had seen a revival in all marathon-type activity, excluding marathons themselves. Marathon dancing, pole-sitting, skipping and cycling had become popular, but this had not resulted in a revival of the marathon-madness of I908. Professional distance races did revive, however, and Doc, although now in his early fifties, had found no trouble in dealing with another generation of challengers.

  This was a new and different group of men from the “circus” of pre-war days. Unemployment was growing rapidly, and baseball, football and boxing were the only sports which offered outlets for the working-class. The ghettos of New York had spawned endless Negro boxers, but football and baseball were open to whites only. Not so running, but few Negroes had any background in distance-running and most of them were helpless after a few miles. For different reasons, it was the same for most of the unemployed white men who, in desperation, entered for local races, for they had neither the training nor the feeding to enable them to complete the distances, let alone race them.

  In this mini-boom Doc thrived. With
thirty years of running behind him the competition presented few problems. His only difficulties arose whenever an amateur distance-runner turned professional. These were young men, running as fast as Doc had done twenty years before, and there was no way he could contain them at distances less than ten miles. The mini-boom of the late twenties did not, however, provide for Doc the economic basis for a second career as a full-time athlete, as races were spread unevenly across the continent. Doc had stayed behind the counter at Bernsteins, happy with a steady five bucks a week, occasionally picking up races in nearby states.

  As soon as he heard of Flanagan’s Trans-America race he had known that this was what he had been waiting for, his last chance to set up Doc Cole’s Drug Store or Sports Emporium and live the remainder of his life in style. The other competitors did not worry him; he knew that if he could stay healthy over the distance he would be in the frame at the finish. That hundred and fifty thousand dollars was a lot of money and anyway, he was going nowhere in particular. He had therefore given in his notice at Bernstein’s and trotted off towards Los Angeles.

  Doc had reached the bustling city two days before the required assembly time, at Flanagan’s request, and had met Flanagan in his headquarters at the Imperial hotel a couple of hours after his arrival.

  “You don’t know me, but I sure as hell know you,” said Flanagan. “When I was a boy I followed all the pro marathon runners – Longboat, Johnny Hayes, Dorando. I even saw you run a marathon indoors at the Garden once.”

  “That was in 1911,” said Doc.

  “That’s right. You got beat by Shrubb and Dorando.”

  “Right again,” said Doc, accepting a glass of orange juice.

  “Well, Doc, I need your help,” said Flanagan. “I’ve set this race up, got all the organization planned down to the last tent-peg. In a couple of days I’ll hold my first press conference. But hell, I never ran marathons and the press boys will want something more than a press release for what I’m going to hand them. That’s where I need someone of your weight.”

  “How?”

  “By you having your own conference a day later,” said Flanagan. “That way you can fill them in on all the hard technical stuff. Those press boys don’t know a marathon from a fortune cookie – you can give ’em the real McCoy.”

  Doc was silent for a moment.

  “Well, what do you say?” asked Flanagan.

  “Won’t the other runners think I’m getting the star treatment?”

  “Doc, you are a star – hell, you’ve run more marathons than most of ’em have had hot breakfasts. So I’m certainly not going to be apologizing to anyone and neither should you. What do you say?” said Flanagan.

  “Yes,” said Doc, quietly.

  “Carl Liebnitz.” The thin panama-hatted journalist rose, took off his spectacles and polished them with his handkerchief. “Doc, you may recall that we first met in I904 at the St Louis Olympics marathon. Was that your first full marathon?”

  “Yep,” said Doc, smiling in recognition of Liebnitz. “The first and the worst. I had already been two months selling snakeroot at the St Louis Expedition. So I wasn’t in too good shape for that one.”

  “I seem to remember that it was pretty hot in St Louis,” said Liebnitz.

  Doc puffed out his cheeks. “Hot as hell! It must have been over ninety in the sun, and men dropped out like flies.”

  “Did you know the Cuban, Felix Carjaval?” said Liebnitz.

  “Felix?” Doc laughed. “Yes, I knew Felix quite well. He was a postman, had never run a marathon before. He raised the money for St Louis by running round the town square in Havana for a couple of hours. When he collected enough pesos he hightailed it to St Louis. But Felix lost all his money in a crap game and ended up bumming his way to the Olympics. Yes, I knew Felix. What a joker! But he finished fourth, a full ten minutes up on me.”

  “Rae here, Washington Post. Didn’t you go on to run for Uncle Sam at the London Olympics in 1908?”

  Doc wrinkled his nose. “Yes, in the Dorando Marathon. Boy! I hit the Wall at twenty miles and ended up watching the finish from the bleachers.”

  “Forrest, Chicago Tribune. Do you think the Trans-America field is too large?”

  Doc slowly brought his little brown hands together. “It’ll soon trim down. By my reckoning the field will halve in the first week and halve again a fortnight later. I don’t see more’n five hundred men making New York.”

  “And women?”

  Doc chuckled. “Any lady who makes the final five hundred to New York will receive a chilled bottle of vintage French champagne, compliments of Alexander Cole.”

  “What about a bottle of Chickamauga remedy, Doc?” chuckled Forrest.

  “She’ll have taken that already just to help her get there.” There was laughter. This was copy, what they had come to hear.

  James Ferris of The Times stood up. “Doc, how did you come to acquire your medical degree?”

  Cole grinned, wrinkling his leathery face. “I freely confess that I never actually picked up a college degree. But you fellers know the way it was. There wasn’t much in the way of Harvard doctors and hospitals back where I came from. So any coot like me who came around in pin-striped trousers with a few bottles of horse liniment, swinging a two-dollar watch was elevated to the ranks of the medical profession. Me, I always looked upon it as a sort of honorary degree.”

  Albert Kowalski rose. “Doc,” he said, after identifying himself. “You seem to have been around a coon’s age. Do you mind telling us how old you are?”

  Doc smiled. “A hundred thousand miles old,” he replied. “Seriously, fellas, I’m fifty-four.”

  “Do you think the Trans-America may have come too late for you?” pursued Kowalski.

  The smile faded from Doc’s face. “Perhaps,” he said. “But I can’t allow myself to think that way. Anyhow, in a race of this distance age can be an asset. Age means experience. That means experience of pain, of injury, of days when your legs won’t move. That sort of experience is money in the bank.”

  “In the Trans-America bank?” flashed Kowalski.

  “For the moment, yes,” said Doc, smiling.

  “What’s the farthest distance you’ve ever run?” asked Forrest.

  “In a race, non-stop, one hundred miles, back in 1912 in Berlin. Two years back I ran a hundred and eighty miles in three days at sixty miles a day, in snow-shoes, in Alaska.”

  “So the Trans-America represents a completely unique challenge even for someone like you?” said Kowalski.

  “I should say so. Fifty miles a day for three months, over all kinds of country. No runner has ever raced such distances before.”

  “What is the most you have run in training?” asked Forrest.

  “In a week, two hundred miles.”

  “So even in the first week you will be in unknown territory?” said Forrest, scribbling furiously.

  “Any way you look at it it’s unique,” said Doc. “That’s the challenge. Even old-timers like me are novices in the Trans-America. That’s what makes it a lottery. That’s why it’s pulled in two thousand runners from all over.”

  “Trevor Grove, New York Herald. Doc, would it be true to say that you are the most experienced runner in the race?”

  Doc shrugged. “Yes and no. Yes, I’ve run more long-distance races than most of the men here, except possibly the Englishman Charles Fox. No, because no one here is experienced at running three thousand-odd miles across America.”

  “Pollard, St Louis Star. Doc, will you have any special diet for the race?”

  “The secret is to carry on as usual – never take anything you wouldn’t normally eat,” answered Doc. He held up a glass of water. “The big problem will be drink, particularly in the desert heat. When you run out of water you overheat. Next thing, it’s curtains.”

  Forrest was the next on his feet. “What about race-walkers? How do you see their chances?”

  Doc pursed his lips. “Not good,” he replied. �
�Over distances in the twenty to twenty-five mile range, walkers can’t pump out much better than ten or twelve minute miles. By my reckoning it will take an average pace of inside ten minutes a mile to take the Trans-America. And I believe Mr Flanagan proposes some qualifying times in the early stages, to cut down the field. So I can’t see many of the walkers making it through the first cuts.”

  “Doc, three thousand miles is one helluva long way to race. How are you going to keep mentally sharp?” asked Grove.

  Doc’s lower lip pouted. “For me it won’t be a race till about five hundred miles out from New York. Any guy who goes out to race hard every day will blow a gasket in the first month. My aim is to run as if there’s no one else in the race. The moment I start racing against people on each stage I’ll be finished, ’cause I’ll be racing at their pace and not mine.”

  “What do you mean by only racing the last five hundred miles?” queried Ferris.

  “I mean that by that time the Trans-America will have shaken out the men from the boys. By then we’ll know who can run what. The race will probably divide itself into three kinds of runner. First, the guys who are ‘sprinters’ – these guys will win short stages up to fifteen miles. At the other end of the scale will be the sloggers, coots who can chug forever at ten minutes a mile over fifty miles. In the middle will be the marathon men. They’ll run inside ten minutes per mile. By five hundred miles out I’ll know what has to be done. I reckon if I’m within an hour of the leaders at that point then I can make up the gap in the remaining distance.”