Flanagan's Run

by Tom McNab

  Willard Clay was typing furiously. He stopped and looked up at his employer.

  “It’s a great start,” he said. “Paramount will have the finished film to use by the time we reach Vegas. Doc Cole, that Scots guy McPhail, Lord Thurleigh, Eskola the Finn, the little Mex Martinez, the Kraut team, the All-Americans – they all finished well up. And that little doll, Sheridan, was a real bonus . . .”

  “Doll?” asked Flanagan.

  Willard ran his finger down the list of finishers. “Kate Sheridan from New York. She came in at seven hundred and twenty-nine, fresh as paint and pretty as a picture.”

  “Pretty?” said Flanagan. “Real good-looking?”

  “See for yourself,” said Willard, pointing out of the caravan window. A barefoot brunette was coming out of the press tent accompanied by Pollard and Kowalski.

  Flanagan eyed the girl carefully. Like most athletic women, she had small breasts, but the nipples showed sharp and clear beneath her vest. The girl’s main physical quality lay in her lean-hipped athleticism, thighs long, toned and muscular, ankles neat and well-shaped. However, these qualities alone did not add up to Kate Sheridan. The runner exuded a vital, glowing sexuality that derived from a complete certainty of who and what she was. Flanagan turned to face Willard.

  “Ask Miss Sheridan to come and see me,” he ordered.

  He watched Kate Sheridan for a few more moments as she stood chatting to a journalist just outside his caravan. She smiled as Willard approached her, and Flanagan noted that it was a warm, womanly smile. He had seen a few female athletes in his time, most of them hairy, thick-thighed viragos. But Sheridan was a woman all right – perhaps even a star? Together she and Willard walked towards the caravan.

  When Kate Sheridan entered Flanagan beckoned Willard to leave, but his deputy stayed by the door, fascinated.

  “Sit down, Miss . . . ?” said Flanagan.

  “Sheridan,” said Kate. “Kate Sheridan.”

  “Care for some refreshment?”

  Kate nodded and looked around her at the lush furnishings. Finally she sank into a soft armchair. Flanagan passed her a glass of lemonade.

  “What do you think?” he said, turning towards the back of the caravan. “Classy, eh?”

  The girl looked around her and nodded. Flanagan flushed as he caught sight of her tiny feet and her neatly painted toenails, wondering how such perfect feet had survived the first stage. She trapped his glance.

  “Your feet . . .” said Flanagan.

  “They’re fine,” said the girl, enjoying his embarrassment.

  “I’ve trained for a year for this race. They can take it.”

  “Were you a track and field athlete at college?”

  “No,” said Kate. “Never even went to college. Never ran track either. That’s for female jocks.” She returned to her lemonade.

  “Then – then how come you’re here?”

  “Simple: money. This time last year I was in burlesque at Minsky’s. Three shows a night, twenty bucks a week. Then I read about the Trans-America, and about you putting up two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for staying on my feet for three months – ”

  “But only if you get in the frame,” interrupted Flanagan.

  “Yes. Only if I win,” said Kate, crossing her legs. “At first I couldn’t run the length of the block, but after a month’s practice I could run eight miles without stopping. Not fast, mind you, but then the Trans-America isn’t a dash either. At the end of nine months I could cover over fifteen miles in two hours. So here’s the way I see it. No man runs much more than fifteen miles in training or more than twenty-six miles in competition, so why shouldn’t I have a chance?”

  “But . . .” Flanagan began.

  “But what?” asked Kate. “But I’m only a girl. That’s what you’re really trying to say, Mr Flanagan, isn’t it? Well, let me put you straight, sir. I’ve taken a little trouble to set myself up for this race. I’ve been to the library and I’ve checked all the anatomy books and there’s no physical reason why a woman shouldn’t be as good as most men over three thousand miles. Mr Flanagan, when it comes to taking pain we women have had plenty of practice.”

  “No offence meant, Miss Sheridan,” interjected Willard. “It’s just that we ain’t ever heard of no lady running in long-distance races.”

  “Well, you sure got one now,” said Kate, standing up and turning to the door. “Anything more, Mr Flanagan?” Flanagan shook his head. Kate winked at Willard and went out.

  Flanagan flopped back in his red velvet rocking-chair, and reached to his desk for a cigar.

  “What the hell do you make of that?” he said, spitting the plug into the waste-bin.

  “I’ll tell you what I think,” replied Willard. “I think we got a star, boss. If she can just stay on her feet.”

  “We got to make sure she stays on her feet, Willard,” said Flanagan, lighting his Havana. “She’s money in the bank, man, money in the bank: so is any good-looking broad. Just make sure you take real good care of those ladies.”

  “Okay, boss,” said Willard. “Back to business. The marshals have completed the first day’s count.”

  “How many finishers?”

  Willard sucked on his pencil. “At the last count, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-one,” he said. “One hundred and eighty-one picked up in the trucks or disqualified, thirty still out there somewhere.”

  “Jesus!” said Flanagan, looking out of the window into the gathering gloom.

  “It might not be so bad,” said Willard. “They might have flunked out way back in L.A. Hell, some guys gave up after about three miles. Our first pick-up trucks lay five miles out from the Coliseum, so anyone dropping out before that . . .” He shook his head.

  “Jesus,” said Flanagan again, chewing on his cigar.

  “But what about those guys, the ones who can’t go on?” asked Willard.

  “How do you mean?”

  “I mean, what do we do with them? How do they get back?”

  “How the hell do I know?” exploded Flanagan, throwing out his arms. “They all knew the rules when they started out. Sink or swim, kill or be killed, that’s the name of the game. If you drop out in a track race you don’t expect the referee to see you back home.”

  “But this ain’t no track meet,” Willard persisted. “Some of these people are hurt bad. Some are back with the medics, sick as dogs.”

  “No!” said Flanagan. “I don’t want to hear about it. They got here, they can find their way back, and there’s an end of it.”

  There was a knock at the caravan door. Willard opened it. One of the runners, a balding man in late middle-age, timidly entered.

  Flanagan swore under his breath.

  The man’s feet were a mess, one toenail ripped off and another dangling. He had obviously fallen more than once, for both elbows and chest were badly grazed. His right temple bled and his right cheek looked as if it had been rubbed with emery paper. He looked more like a losing prize-fighter than a runner.

  “My name’s McCoy,” he said. “County Limerick. The guys who were picked up in the trucks, they’ve asked me to speak for them.”

  “Yes, Mr McCoy,” said Flanagan quietly.

  “Some of the boys back in the tent are in a pretty bad way. We was wondering how we’d get back to Los Angeles.”

  “Where do you hail from, Mr McCoy?” said Flanagan, beckoning the uncertain athlete to a seat and uncorking a bottle of whiskey with his teeth.

  “You probably never heard of it, Mr Flanagan,” said McCoy. “A little place name of Kilmoy, County Limerick.”

  “Yes,” said Flanagan. “I’ve heard of it.” He handed the Irishman a glass of whiskey. “And how did you get all the way out here to Los Angeles?”

  McCoy’s face relaxed and he gulped down the whiskey, its rawness bringing tears to his eyes.

  He sniffed. “Back in March last year. The Limerick Star set up a trial race over fifteen miles.” He sniffed again and laid down his glas
s. “The winner got the trip out here to the Trans-America.”

  Flanagan slowly poured out two further glasses of whiskey and drew one to his lips.

  “So you travelled out all this way, and now it’s all over for you in the first day?”

  McCoy nodded, picking up his glass again and looking down into its contents, before swallowing the remainder. “Still,” he said, “we didn’t have much back in Kilmoy. At least I got to see California. Man, in this life you’ve got to take a chance, haven’t you?”

  “Yes, Mr McCoy,” said Flanagan. “You’ve got to take a chance.”

  Flanagan sipped his own drink slowly. “How many people do you reckon need transportation back to Los Angeles?”

  McCoy shook his head. “Difficult to say, Mr Flanagan. Must be over a hundred. The rest have had friends and relatives pick them up and take them back.”

  Flanagan nodded, detaching a loose flake of cigar from his tongue.

  “Let me ask you one final question, Mr McCoy,” he said, looking the Irishman straight in the eye. “Coming all this way, then out of the race on the first day – was it all worth it?”

  “Definitely,” said McCoy standing up as he drained the last of his drink. “If I had my chance, I’d do it again, only better.” Flana­gan smiled and looked at Willard, who looked back blankly.

  “The trucks will take you back to L.A. in the morning,” said Flanagan. “Anyone requiring hospital treatment will be treated for the first seven days entirely at my expense. Does that answer your question?”

  McCoy finally lost his shyness and smiled. “I told the boys you wouldn’t let us down, Mr Flanagan.”

  “But . . .” said Willard. “You just said – ”

  “Willard,” said Flanagan. “You just heard what I said. See to it!”

  Next morning the first casualties of the Trans-America were taken by truck back to Los Angeles, while the remaining runners made their way past San Bernardino in two twenty-four mile stages, out on to the edge of the Mojave Desert, leaving one hundred and ten competitors to be returned to Los Angeles. The Trans-America was shedding fat.

  7.30 a.m., 24 March 1931. One hundred and twenty-six miles on; the town that Flanagan had built was being dismantled for the third time.

  The athletes’ tents had come down at seven o’clock and only the massive refreshment tent still stood erect. The last of the trucks taking the sick and disabled back to Los Angeles was disappearing over the brow of the hill. Madame La Zonga and her colleagues had left early and were now ten miles up the road, nearing the Mojave, moving towards Barstow. The runners were either finishing breakfast, washing at the river or chatting in small groups.

  The German team stood away from the others in a tight semi-circle, listening to their coach, Volkner.

  A couple of hundred yards away the Williams’ All-Americans sat on an upturned log. Their irate coach’s admonitions could be heard all the way across the flat, cactus-stubbled field.

  At the river a number of runners, clad only in their underpants, were washing themselves down.

  “Hell,” said Doc, pulling open the top of his pants and pouring water down into his genitals. “No profit in being Casper Milquetoast here.”

  Kate Sheridan came over by Doc’s group and McPhail and Morgan made desperate attempts to retreat across the pebbled brook to their shirts. Doc stood his ground, holding open his shorts and continuing to splash water down between his legs.

  “Don’t fret on my account,” said Kate, hands on hips. “You boys aren’t going to give me any big surprises.” Her eyes settled for a moment on Morgan, his body wet and shining in the weak morning sun.

  “My name’s Doc Cole,” said Doc, proffering his hand. He gestured towards the others. “That’s Hugh McPhail, a Scotsman. The little un’s Juan Martinez – he’s Mexican. The gabby one,” he wryly noted her interest in Morgan, “he’s called Morgan.”

  The girl nodded, then introduced herself.

  “You the last lady in the race?” asked Doc.

  “No. Some came in after me last night. I don’t know if they’ll stay with it, though.”

  “Sponsored?”

  “Nope. New York City backed two men but wouldn’t put a cent on a woman. The pair of them finished up in the truck yesterday, so maybe I got the last laugh.”

  “How far’ve you ever run at one time?” Doc persisted, drying his chest vigorously with a rough towel.

  “Fifteen miles.”

  “We reckon two and a half times your training distance, then it’s Good night Vienna,” said Doc.

  “How do you mean?” asked Hugh, finally stepping out of the brook and pulling his towel from the top of a yucca tree.

  “It’s just a rule of thumb guide we use in marathon running,” said Doc. “If your normal training mileage is, say, twelve miles, then you should just be able to handle a twenty-six-mile marathon. It’ll be tough over the last six miles, but you should make it if you take it steady. If you’ve run fifteen miles regularly, then you might be able to handle thirty miles, with an outside range of forty-five miles. Whether or not you can do it day in, day out for three months – well, that’s another ball game.”

  “Are any of you really sure of that?” asked Kate, glancing from Doc to the others.

  “A good question,” said Doc, rubbing the back of his neck. “And the answer is ‘no’ – sure as heck we ain’t. That’s what makes it all so interesting. What do you think, Juan?”

  The little Mexican spread out both hands and showed his white teeth in a childlike smile. “You right, Mr Doc. I sure never run no fifty miles in a day, not six days a week.”

  “Well, that’s reassuring,” said Kate, feeling suddenly embarrassed. The men found it difficult to avoid staring at her, a slim feminine intruder in an all-male group of runners.

  “Well,” said Doc at last. “You certainly do have the legs for it.” He was using the cloak of his age to put words to what the other men were feeling. Morgan and McPhail stood by uneasily, towelling themselves down.

  “Yes,” she said. “Six hours a day at Minsky’s burlesque.”

  “You really danced at Minsky’s?” asked Doc, as he accompanied her back towards the Trans-American centre, the three other men following.

  “If you can call it dancing,” said Kate. “Running fifty miles a day can’t be much worse.”

  “It can,” said Doc quietly. “You can lay bets on it.”

  “You mean you don’t think I can do it?” asked Kate sharply.

  “Don’t get me wrong, lady,” said Doc, raising his hands to placate her. “You made nearly thirty miles in under seven hours on the first day. Ma’am, that’s fancy running in my book. Every day completed in a race like this is some kind of victory. But, lady, it’s early days yet. None of us knows who’s going to see Madison Square Garden in June.”

  “Sorry I barked at you,” said Kate conscious of her quick temper.

  “No offence taken,” said Doc, smiling. “Looks as though we may travel together quite a piece. We all swim in the same water. May as well get to like each other.”

  They were now some yards ahead of Morgan and the others. Kate nodded back towards the Pennsylvanian.

  “Where does that guy Morgan come from?” she asked, trying to appear indifferent.

  Doc simply shrugged. “Don’t rightly know,” he said. “He can run some, though. Back at training camp the other guys called him the ‘Iron Man’. Not an ounce of fat on him. Morgan’s made for running. He’ll take some beating.”

  “Not much of a talker, though, is he?” said Kate.

  “Not much,” said Doc. “But then this ain’t no debating competition. Still, we’ve got over ten weeks on the road together. One way or the other, we’ll all get closer in the next three thousand miles.”

  Kate hoped so. She looked back and saw McPhail and Martinez in earnest conversation, with Morgan walking a few yards behind them. She wondered if these men felt as she did. They all looked so lean, so strong. For her even
the first hundred and twenty miles had been tough, and now she faced the start of the fourth stage, on the fringe of over two hundred miles of desert: endless stretches of sandy road, hills, cacti, Joshua trees and brown dust. Already she seemed to be among the last women in the race, for she could not see many of the whimpering, broken ladies from her tent reappearing to take on another forty miles of punishment. Earlier that morning she had looked beyond the hill out into the desert. It was almost completely flat, stretching endlessly towards distant brown hills. She felt the same flutter in her stomach as she had that first night at Minsky’s when she had danced, spangled and half-naked, exposing herself to a thousand strangers. Kate bit her lip. She had beaten that. She could beat this.

  Men were being slowly sucked towards the Trans-America centre, drawn by Willard’s amplified voice. Before long most of the eighteen hundred-odd survivors had seated themselves on the rough broken ground in front of the loudspeakers.

  “Can you all hear?” shouted Willard.

  “Yeah, but I’m sure willing to move somewhere where I can’t,” shouted back a thin white-bearded man. There was scattered laughter.

  Flanagan stood at a microphone beside Willard and in front of the Trans-America caravan, dressed in his favourite Tom Mix cowboy outfit.

  “This is Charles C. Flanagan again. My congratulations to all of you for qualifying for the next stage.” He paused and scanned the crowd. “May I offer my particular compliments to our leading lady competitor, Miss Kate Sheridan, from New York. Could you please stand up, Miss Sheridan?”

  Kate Sheridan stood up and was greeted by scattered applause and wolf-whistles.