Running Full Tilt

by Michael Currinder

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “We’re trying not to get too far ahead of ourselves at the moment,” Dad said as he reached for Mom’s hand. “Maybe we should save this conversation for later.”

  Mom snatched her hand back and pulled away. She wasn’t going to let this go. She took a moment to compose herself, looked me in the eye, and spoke slowly. “All I was trying to explain to your father is that it’s very possible it might not be safe for Caleb to do some of the things he’s done in the past.”

  “For example?”

  “Well, swimming, for one.”

  “Yeah, right,” I said, with a nervous laugh. “Have you thought about how you’re going to explain that to the human fish?”

  Dad scoffed as well. “Yeah, good luck on that. Do I need to refresh your memory, Elise, about what happened the last time the pool closed?”

  Mom raised her arms in exasperation. “So now it’s two against one!”

  “Elise,” Dad pleaded, “let’s wait for the facts and let’s try to stay positive.”

  Mom closed her eyes and nodded.

  The doctor finally appeared and told us Caleb was stable at the moment. The episodes probably had been seizures, and they were going to keep him at the hospital to run some tests.

  Mom drove me home while Dad stayed with Caleb at the hospital. “I thought he was going to die,” I half whispered to Mom in the car.

  “Your brother is going to be all right, Leo,” she told me. I really wanted to believe her, but when I glanced up at her she was staring through the windshield shaking her head slowly, her eyes wet and glazed.

  “Leo, I used to fight with Caleb, too,” she said, suddenly shifting the topic.

  “What are you talking about, Mom?” I had a pretty strong hunch what she meant, but this didn’t seem like the right time or place.

  “I’m worried about you, too.”

  “You don’t have to worry about me,” I assured her, thinking about Caleb back in the hospital.

  “I’d fight with him when he was a little boy when he didn’t want to put on his clothes,” she continued. “I’d fight him when he’d have a temper tantrum if a thunderstorm closed the pool. I’d fight him in the grocery store when he was hell-bent on opening every box of breakfast cereal to get the prizes inside.”

  “Oh, I remember, Mom,” I answered, wondering where this conversation was heading. “I remember the time you ran into a neighbor at the grocery store and started talking. Caleb slipped away from us and emptied ten boxes of Lucky Charms to get the Matchbox cars inside.”

  “It was twelve boxes, Leo.” She laughed softly. “The manager of that store was a saint for not making us pay.”

  “And for letting him keep the prizes,” I reminded her.

  “Leo, for all your brother’s successes, most of the time I feel like an absolute failure. People hear the word autism and they think of these amazing children who sometimes go off to Ivy League colleges. He’s got a lot more issues he’s contending with besides autism.”

  I felt guilty for taking advantage of her guilt, but I allowed myself to vent. “Mom, just when I thought things were getting easier with him, it’s getting harder. Way harder.”

  Then Mom just started crying. “All I want to say to you, Leo, is that I wish I were still the one he was fighting with—me rather than you.”

  She needed a hug, but we were strapped into our seat belts, so I simply reached over and put my hand on her shoulder. “Mom, if it has to be one of us, I’d rather it be me. I think I’m stronger than you, and I’m faster, too.”

  Her sobs turned into those awful sniffle-snort sounds that waver between crying and laughter.

  “I know he can’t help it, Mom, and I know that you and Dad don’t know what to do,” I told her. “But it does suck.”

  “I just don’t know why he does it.” She sighed. “I used to think it was to get a reaction, or because he wanted something.”

  “All I know is that he’s angry, Mom.”

  “At what?” she yelled. “Caleb has come so far. He has accomplished so much. He has so much. What’s he so angry at?”

  “Christ, Mom!” I looked at her and offered a smile. “I don’t know. I’d give anything to know what trips his wires.”

  “He’s going to be okay,” she assured me.

  —

  They ran tests on Caleb the next day. He stayed in the hospital again the next night, and finally he came home the following day.

  I didn’t sleep too well those two nights Caleb was in the hospital, because I kept wondering if he’d had any more of those seizures. Seeing his body thrash and his face turn that strange shade of blue was the scariest thing I’d seen in my life.

  So I moved back downstairs with him.

  “Medicine make me sleepy,” he told me when he finally came home.

  Caleb was strong as an ox, though, and he rebounded quickly. In a few days he was the same old Caleb. Caleb’s seizures had freaked me out, but he didn’t seem to have a clue that he’d come within a breath of dying.

  14.

  GORSKY GAVE US STRICT INSTRUCTIONS to take it easy, because our first race of the season was the next day. So we took a break from the superblock and headed out the back exit of school for an easy five-miler. Passing the swimming pool, Curtis spotted five nylon flags hanging from the latches of the open windows, flapping lazily in the warm breeze.

  “What are those things?” I asked.

  Curtis snatched one from the window, unfurled it, and examined it more closely. He buried his nose in it and inhaled deeply. “This, my friend, is a female swimsuit.” He held it up against his body. “Practical,” he whispered, and winked, “yet alluring.”

  Rosenthal took a moment to consider his assessment. “I have to agree,” he finally decided.

  Curtis removed his T-shirt and struggled to step into the swimsuit. “How the hell do girls get these things on?”

  We watched him wiggle himself into the bottom portion of the suit and then manage to pull a strap over each shoulder. Satisfied, he tucked what was still visible of his running shorts beneath the swimsuit’s lining. “How do I look?” he asked. He was dead serious.

  I took my pointer finger and swirled it in a circle. He didn’t understand. “Turn around,” I said.

  He twirled his body, an exaggerated spin, and we pretended to evaluate his modeling potential. That’s when a custodian burst through the back door of the building, lugging two large garbage cans toward the dumpsters. He furrowed his brow but pretty much just kept walking and shaking his head. I rewarded Curtis with polite applause.

  Curtis plucked another swimsuit from the window and tossed it at Stuper. “Put it on,” he ordered. “We’re running in these today.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Stuper asked.

  “They’re formfitting, and I think you’ll find them quite comfortable,” he informed him matter-of-factly. “In your case, Stuper, I think you’ll appreciate that they provide virtually no chafing.”

  Stuper examined his legs, which were still a little pink and rashy from the poison ivy, then nodded and stepped into the bathing suit.

  “Rosey, I think you’ll fill this one out nicely,” he said, tossing him a red suit with green and black swirls. Unlike Stuper, Rosenthal slipped into the swimsuit willingly.

  “That leaves you, Coughlin, with this one,” he said, holding up a simple black tank suit. “It’s a timeless classic, and the high-cut sides will elongate your legs,” he joked.

  “You seem to know a lot about women’s swimwear,” Burpee commented, clearly unsettled but putting on a suit.

  “I study my mother’s catalogues,” Curtis explained. “They make excellent bathroom reading.”

  “I’m really not sure about this, Curtis,” I said, looking to the others for some support.

  “Consider it a character-building exercise, Coughlin,” he said with conviction.

  “Yeah,” Stuper agreed. “Now quit wasting our time and put the suit on.�
��

  I took off my shirt and squeezed into the swimsuit. Lately I’d fallen into this pattern of following Curtis’s orders. Most of the time his advice was keeping me on track and helping me adjust, but I didn’t know where this was going. We jogged to the other end of the parking lot, tossed our shirts into the bushes, and began our afternoon run.

  The first few cars that passed us slowed a bit as they went by, but the drivers didn’t offer much of a reaction—just mild curiosity.

  “See? If you act natural, it’s not such a big deal,” Curtis assured me. “Gentlemen, we might very well be setting the next fashion trend in men’s running.”

  “I doubt it,” I said. “This is ridiculous, not to mention humiliating.”

  “Nonsense, Coughlin,” he said, laughing. “Chest out, men! Run with confidence!”

  That was when we heard several long honks from behind us. I looked over my shoulder and spotted a white pickup hauling landscaping equipment. It pulled up beside us, the guys inside whistling and yelling crap about our “fine asses” until they realized we were guys too. “What the hell?” one yelled before the truck sped away.

  Stuper waved and blew a kiss. Apparently that was going a little too far. The truck pulled over onto the shoulder, and the two burly dudes climbed out of the cab and started charging toward us.

  “Split!” Curtis yelled. “Stuper, Burpee, and Rosey, go right! Coughlin and I go left!”

  Curtis and I made a quick detour through a few backyards before popping out on a side street where the coast was clear. I was tempted to pull off the swimsuit and just run shirtless, but Curtis would have none of it. Every time a car honked from behind, he provided a little wiggle of his hips and flashed a thumbs-up to the driver. The reactions varied from amusement to confusion, embarrassment, anger, and outright harassment. When we headed down another road and hit less traffic, the swimsuits hardly seemed worth the trouble and discomfort. We were just a mile and a half from school, our mission thankfully almost over, when Curtis decided to change the route.

  “Follow me,” he ordered.

  “Where are we going?”

  “It’s a shortcut,” he assured me.

  We ran another quarter mile down the road to a traffic light, where Curtis veered right onto the entry ramp of Highway 40. We merged onto the shoulder of the interstate just in time for early-rush-hour traffic. I hesitated, but when I contemplated running back to school alone—forgetting that all I needed to do was remove the swimsuit—I panicked. I followed Curtis, and soon enough I was running on the shoulder of the highway in a girl’s Speedo.

  Even worse, he’d lied. The highway sign said our exit was a little over a mile away. Fortunately, cars were still moving at a pretty good clip.

  “Isn’t this illegal?” I yelled anxiously as I caught up to him.

  “Only if we get caught,” he said, laughing. “We’ll be back at school in ten minutes, tops. What are the chances of running into a cop?”

  Cars buzzed by at sixty miles an hour, and all I could hear was the drone of their engines. There was an occasional loud horn blast from an eighteen-wheeler, its driver probably confusing two young male runners with slight figures for the opposite gender, but mostly we attracted little attention.

  Then a couple of hundred yards up ahead I spotted a silver car pulling onto the shoulder. A man opened the door, stepped out the driver’s side into oncoming traffic, and quickly ran over to the passenger side. While the car looked familiar, it took me a moment to recognize the head of hair on the man standing beside the freeway.

  I stopped dead in my tracks. “Oh, crap.”

  “What?” Curtis finally realized I’d halted, and turned toward me. “What’s the problem? We’re almost there, Coughlin. I promise.”

  “That’s my father,” I said, nodding up the highway.

  Curtis turned toward my father just as Dad pointed his finger directly at me, signaling me to come and face the consequences. Curtis stood studying my father from the distance. “Did your father do something with his hair?”

  I jogged slowly toward Dad while Curtis ran beside me, proudly snapping the shoulder straps of his swimsuit against his bare chest. “These are the great father-son moments, Leo, that you and your father will talk about years later. You’ll be able to tell your children all about it,” he assured me. “And it’s all thanks to me.”

  “I’ll be forever grateful,” I muttered, already feeling a flush of shame rolling beet red across my face.

  My father just stared at us when we finally reached him. Thankfully, the passenger side of his car blocked us from the view of oncoming traffic.

  Dad looked us over. “Well,” he finally said, “what do we have here?”

  We didn’t answer.

  “Well, young man,” he said to Curtis, “you certainly look different from the last time we met.”

  I looked at Curtis and prayed he could read the situation, but to no avail. “You certainly look different as well, Mr. Coughlin.”

  I buried my head in my hands.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked. It was all I could muster.

  Dad shook his head in disbelief, and I noticed his new hair didn’t move at the powerful blast of wind from a passing truck. “What the hell, ‘What am I doing here?’ The question, young man,” he yelled angrily, “is what in the hell are you doing here?”

  “I’m running,” I offered sheepishly, looking at the gravel beneath my feet.

  He lifted his arms in disbelief. “Christ! I can see you’re running,” he continued yelling. “What’s with the swimsuits?”

  “Those were my idea, sir,” Curtis interrupted. “I take complete and total responsibility for our attire.”

  “I’m not talking to you,” Dad snapped. “You!” He pointed at me. “Get in the car!”

  I opened the passenger door, climbed in, and put on my seat belt. Curtis reached for the back door.

  “Not so fast, pal,” Dad said. “I think you can find your own way back to school in that little number you’re wearing.”

  Dad walked around the front of the car, and when there was a quick break in the traffic he dashed to his door. As he accelerated down the shoulder, I saw in my side-view mirror Curtis standing alone in his swimsuit on the side of the highway. When we merged into the driving lane, his image disappeared.

  “You mind telling me what’s going on?” Dad asked.

  By the time I gave him the whole story, we were sitting at the stoplight a block from school. I thought the story was pretty funny, but Dad was pissed.

  “Let me ask you something. If this guy Curtis told you to take a flying leap off the Eads Bridge, would you do it?”

  “That’s stupid, Dad. Curtis is a good friend.”

  “Some friend,” he muttered.

  It had to be the longest stoplight in the world.

  Dad drove to the far side of the high school parking lot, the farthest point from the main building and, more important, from the locker rooms. He looked over at me once more and scowled. “Now, get out of the car. I’ll see you at home for dinner in a little while.”

  The girls’ field hockey team was breaking from practice, and football players were passing by the car as they headed toward the locker rooms.

  “Really? You’ve got to be kidding. You’re going to drop me off right here?”

  “That’s correct, my boy,” he affirmed. With a dismissive flick of his wrist, he ordered me out of the car. “I figure a little humiliation might help you think twice before you pull a stunt like this again.”

  “C’mon,” I begged.

  “Out.”

  I made my best attempt to slip out of the car without being seen. Just when I thought the situation couldn’t get any worse, I spotted Mary sitting on a bench outside the gym, waiting for a late bus. She gave me a strange look, but she also waved.

  A police car then rolled into the lot and drove directly toward me. Curtis was in the backseat. The officer rolled down his window and winked. “
I think I found your friend,” he said.

  The cop and Curtis exchanged a few words, then Curtis climbed out of the back, still in his swimsuit. The officer tipped his hat at us as he drove away.

  “Relax, Leo,” Curtis told me. “I told the cop the whole story. He actually thought it was pretty funny but strongly discouraged us from doing it again.”

  We removed the swimsuits in the parking lot and gathered our shirts from the bushes. On the way to the locker room we made a detour to the swimming pool and put the swimsuits back on the window latches exactly as we’d found them.

  After we changed I walked alone to my bike and saw a small plastic bag attached to my handlebar, fluttering in the breeze. There was a little yellow flower poking from the opening. Inside was a folded piece of paper. It was an ink sketch of two runners in bathing suits—a simple silhouette, a few swashes of watercolor painted for depth. The paper was still damp.

  Beneath the drawing:

  You look cute in your swimsuit. 314-901-1512.

  Mary

  I liked her handwriting. It wasn’t that wide loopy writing like a lot of girls’, but small and pointy, the kind that’s hard to read.

  15.

  THE FIRST RACE OF THE SEASON was the University City Invitational. Curtis and I nabbed the back seats of the bus and he gave me a rundown of what to expect in the race.

  “This is a tricky course,” he emphasized. “If you don’t get out quick, you’re going to find yourself up shit’s creek without a paddle.”

  “Suddenly I feel nervous,” I mumbled to Curtis.

  “You’re also going to want to piss ten times between now and when that gun goes off,” Rosenthal said, looking over his shoulder. He and Stuper were in the seat in front of us and eavesdropping on our conversation.

  “Rasmussen sometimes pisses thirty times before a race,” Stuper announced loudly. “And Burpee can verify.”

  “He once pissed forty-seven times,” Burpee confirmed.