Running Full Tilt

by Michael Currinder

  “No more anger issues?”

  “Nope. Running made me a changed man. How about you, Leo? Tell me about your demons.”

  “I don’t have any demons,” I lied.

  “C’mon, Coughlin. Everyone has demons.”

  “No demons in my life yet,” I assured him. “I guess when they show up, I’ll be able to kick your ass.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  Curtis turned onto a dirt road and parked at a trailhead.

  “Where are we?” I asked.

  “We’re near the boundary of one of our county’s most unique golf courses, my friend—the Landings at Spirit Golf Club,” he explained in a snooty tone. “I’m going to let you in on a little secret: for eight months of the year, this is a closely guarded piece of real estate, but for the next few months we have the opportunity to take advantage of these plush fairways for some prime training.”

  “That sounds like trespassing,” I told him.

  “Correct.”

  We parked the car and began our run. The ground was firm, and the dead grass and bare trees against winter’s gray sky provided a fantastic backdrop for the next hour. “We’ll do a little half-hour jog, then do tee to greens—running at an aggressive pace from one tee box down the fairway to the green, then a short recovery jog to the next tee box,” he explained. “Think of it as a round of golf without clubs. As far as I’m concerned, this is the only good use for a golf course.”

  It didn’t take long for us to pick up the pace and push each other. By the eighth hole we were hauling ass. The grass felt awesome under my feet, and the winter air felt clean and crisp inside my lungs. We were going flat out down the last fairway when a four-point buck darted from the forest just fifty meters in front of us.

  “Check that out,” Curtis said. “That’s why I come here.”

  The buck was in midstride when it suddenly stopped and fell to its side. The shaft and quill of an arrow were plunged deeply inside its heart.

  Two men in camouflage came hooting and howling from the woods in celebration. They were big guys with round guts and long hair, unshaven, with bows slung over their shoulders and toting a couple of Budweisers.

  Curtis and I halted. I looked at the fallen buck, its torso still rising and falling slowly, its legs still clawing at the earth as it clung to life. One of the guys pulled a pistol from his pack, ready to finish off the job.

  “What the hell!” Curtis yelled, his voice echoing in the cold air.

  The men finally realized they were not alone on the golf course. One tossed his empty can onto the grass, reached into his backpack for another beer, and popped it open with a loud hiss.

  “This isn’t your business, boy,” he told Curtis calmly. “So why don’t you and your little faggot friend just run along.”

  “You can’t just frickin’ kill a deer here on this golf course!” Curtis screamed.

  The two men just looked at each other and laughed. One reached into his pocket and removed a card from his wallet. “This here license sure seems to say that I can.” He took another sip of his beer.

  “Let me see that,” Curtis said, walking toward them. I stayed still. These guys were starting to make me nervous.

  The other guy pulled an arrow from his quill and casually ran his fingers along the shaft. “Run along now, boy.”

  “I doubt that crappy piece of paper allows you to pop a deer on this property,” Curtis said.

  “I do believe you’ve made my friend upset,” the other said. “Now before things get ugly, I suggest you turn around and run on back where you came from, and forget about anything you might’ve seen here today. We’re just a couple of honest men trying to put some food on the table for our families.”

  The guy with the arrow in his hand pointed it at us. “Go on,” he said. “You all be good little boys and go on home.”

  Curtis slowly turned toward me. “Let’s go,” he mumbled. When we were far enough away to feel safe, he couldn’t help himself. He turned and yelled, “Assholes!”

  Three seconds later an arrow whistled into the three meters separating us. We took off running, hearing rolls of laughter behind us as a final stab of humiliation.

  We reached the safety of the forest bordering the golf course and turned back to look. One man had hold of the deer’s front legs, the other guy held its hind ones, and they were dragging the deer across the fairway toward the forest. Their empty beer cans lay crushed on the grass.

  I didn’t say anything to Curtis until we were back in the car heading home. “That sure was a great place to run,” I said, trying to make light of the situation. “Maybe we can come back here tomorrow and run with bows and arrows and capture our dinner,” I suggested.

  Curtis pounded the steering wheel. “Assholes,” he repeated.

  As we rounded the bend, we saw an old pickup parked on the shoulder. Curtis pulled over. He got out of the car, opened the trunk, and pulled out a tire iron. I closed my eyes and shook my head. I heard glass shatter once and, a few seconds later, again. I heard his feet crunch gravel and the tire iron clank into the trunk. Curtis was whistling a happy tune when he climbed back into the car.

  “I thought running was supposed to help you with your anger management,” I half joked.

  “That wasn’t anger, Leo,” he calmly stated. “That was justice.”

  “So that’s winter training?” I asked.

  “Look at it this way,” he said. “It can only get better.”

  Five miles from the school, we spotted a lone figure loping along on the side of the highway. Caleb.

  “Who runs on the shoulder of a highway?” Curtis asked.

  “I think we did the same thing once. Only we were wearing swimsuits.”

  “Point taken,” he admitted before glancing out the window and realizing who the runner was.

  “Holy shit,” he said. “Is that Caleb?”

  I nodded.

  “Should I pull over?”

  I shook my head.

  “He’s pretty damn far from your house,” he reminded me.

  I nodded.

  “Are you sure?”

  I nodded.

  “Whatever,” he said. “Running must be in your family’s blood.”

  I watched Caleb’s image disappear in the rearview mirror, and I hoped that running might start to help him keep his demons at bay.

  29.

  WINTER TRAINING BASICALLY SUCKED.

  Winter training included running twice a day, four times a week. It meant waking up well before the sun appeared and logging five miles in arctic air.

  Winter training included afternoon eight-milers with Curtis, our faces covered by bandanas frosted over with ice from subzero crosswinds that pelted our bodies from every direction.

  Winter training included hitting the weight room three times a week to strengthen the upper body and core.

  Winter training included sometimes running streets and sidewalks shin deep in soft snow after another winter storm.

  Winter training included running in temperatures so frigid that even after a warm shower I didn’t see portions of my anatomy that had recently become very important to me for six hours. When I considered Mary in the equation, I wondered if it was all worth it.

  And winter training included still having to bust out the back door in the middle of the night when Caleb came at me.

  —

  On Saturday night Dad slipped me a twenty-dollar bill and asked me to put some gas in the tank on the way home from Mary’s.

  “You can have the car tonight if you fill the tank,” Dad said. He was already into his third glass of red wine, collapsed into the center of the couch watching college hoops.

  “No problem.”

  “So what’s on your agenda this evening?” he asked.

  “Just hanging with Curtis and Mary.”

  Dad took a sip of wine and shook his head. “Leo, in case you didn’t know, we call guys like Curtis a third wheel,” he informed me. “It’s n
ot a good look—for either of you.”

  I was about to make a smartass retort, but Dad had made a valid point. So I called Curtis and bailed on him, despite his insistence that Mary and I needed a proper chaperone.

  Caleb followed me out to the garage as I was leaving. He was all riled up about something.

  “WHY LEO GET TWENTY DOLLARS?”

  “It’s for gas,” I explained as I opened the car door.

  I wasn’t sure if it was the money Dad slipped me, if it was that I could drive and he couldn’t, or even if it had something to do with me hanging out with Mary all the time that made Caleb pissed. It was probably a combination.

  “MR. BAIMS TAKE YOU TO PRINCIPAL OFFICE!” he screamed.

  Oh, crap, I thought. I began to panic whenever I heard Caleb say that name. Mr. Baims was his principal, and I’d never met the guy before in my life. All I knew was that once Caleb started screaming his name, it was time to bolt.

  “Caleb, Dad paid you ten dollars for shoveling the driveway yesterday,” I tried reminding him. “You’ve got more money than I do! I’ve seen that stack of cash in your dresser.”

  “MR. BAIMS NOT LIKE YOU!”

  “Me or you?” I asked him.

  “MAKE MR. BAIMS VERY ANGRY!”

  “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Caleb!” I yelled.

  He slapped the garage wall with an open hand and started biting his fingers. I jumped in the car and slammed the door just as he began thumping the windshield.

  When I returned later that night, he was still enraged. By the time we went to bed, I was ready for him. He came at me quick and had my shoulders pinned with his knees and both hands around my neck in seconds. I thrashed and kicked. He went for my eyes with one hand, pushing two fingers deep into my left socket. I shut my eyes tightly to resist the pressure and managed to free my right hand. I grabbed the baseball bat tucked beside my mattress and smacked his shoulder blades sharply three times before he rolled off me. I flipped on the nightstand light and watched him jump up and down in the center of the room, one fist shoved inside his mouth, teeth bared and clenched on two knuckles. His other hand waved wildly. I walked over toward the closet, baseball bat still in tow, and grabbed my shoes and sweats.

  “God not punish you?” I heard him say. I turned and saw him standing in the light of the doorway. He was beginning to calm down. “God not punish you?”

  I looked at him for a moment. “Hell, I don’t know, Caleb. Maybe God will punish you!” I told him as I laced up my shoes. I figured I’d let him think about that threat for a while, and I stepped out the door into the dark and quiet of night.

  It was snowing—large, heavy flakes that fell slowly. A thin layer dusted the yards I ran across, and my footsteps made the snow crunch and creak. The neighborhood was asleep. An occasional porch lamp illuminated my path, and the moonlight reflected on snow cast a grayish-purple glow. I ran onto Brattlebrook, a side street, and made my way toward a short, steep hill I knew.

  I sprinted up it once, an explosive burst lasting just fifteen seconds. Then I turned around and jogged slowly back down the hill, watching my shadow shrink and grow on the pavement beneath the streetlight. At the bottom, I turned around and sprinted up the hill again, then turned and jogged back down, watching my shadow move through the falling snowflakes.

  I ran until I felt my anger toward Caleb wane. I ran until I felt the fear and frustration of living within the same walls as him begin to fade. I ran until I felt my guilt about having those feelings recede deep inside me. I ran that hill a hundred times, and then I ran home, dried myself with a towel in our bathroom, slipped quietly back into the room, and crawled under the covers of my bed. “God not punish you,” I whispered to him, knowing that he couldn’t help it.

  Caleb was sound asleep now. It didn’t matter any longer whether we shared a bedroom or not. I realized Caleb would come at me anytime now, anywhere inside our house, and I just needed to be ready when it happened.

  30.

  VALENTINE’S DAY FELL ON A TUESDAY, and I basically blew that one with Mary by caving to Curtis and hammering twelve miles in arctic winds. Somehow Mary seemed to get that I needed to run.

  On Friday she left me a folded piece of paper inside my locker. It was a watercolor of a boy and a girl inside a diner, the jukebox in the background telling me it was Charley’s. In black ink she’d written a note inside a light, fluffy cloud.

  I’ll pick you up at 6:30.

  –M

  We were heading to the Saint Louis Art Museum, one of Mary’s favorite places in the city. The museum was open late on Fridays, and, even better, it was free. When she tapped the horn that night, I grabbed my parka and practically sprinted to her car. It wasn’t like I was one of those people who love museums or was really into art. I mostly liked following Mary around, then finding something bizarre to look at and spacing out on it for a few minutes.

  On Clayton Road, Mary recognized Caleb’s unmistakable stride as he ran in the same direction along the narrow shoulder. “Hey, that’s Caleb,” she said as we passed him. She tapped her foot on the brake and began to move her hand toward the blinker.

  “Don’t,” I said to her.

  She glanced over at me with a confused expression. “What’s your problem?” she asked. “Let’s take him with us.”

  “Some other time,” I told her. Caleb and I had gotten into it again a couple of times already this week, and the last thing I wanted was to spend more time with him.

  She pulled into a side street so that she could turn around. “Just let me drive him home to change clothes. It will only take a few minutes.”

  “He doesn’t give a rip about looking at art, Mary. Really.”

  She wasn’t letting it go. “How do you know, Leo? I’ve seen his paint-by-numbers. I’d like to see what interests him.” We were stopped on the side street, and she took my hand. “Besides, it was my idea to go in the first place, so I get to decide who I invite. C’mon, Leo. Be a good brother and let him come along.”

  “Damn it!” I pulled my hand away from hers and slapped the dashboard. “Would you just drop it, Mary? Christ! In case you haven’t picked up on it, I really don’t want him to come. I could use a break from him.”

  Her face was flushed red like I had slapped her or something. I didn’t offer an explanation. “It would probably just piss him off,” I finally told her, trying to calm myself down.

  “Why would it piss him off?”

  “He’s running and you’d be disrupting his routine,” I said, making what I thought was a reasonable excuse. “Would you please just back off?” I finally pleaded, my voice rising in tone.

  Mary waited a moment. “I’m sorry.”

  I felt like shit. I reached over, put my arm around her, and kissed her forehead. “No, I’m sorry,” I told her. “It’s really not a big deal. Like I said, I just need a little space from him. That’s all.” I kissed her one more time before retreating to my side of the car.

  “I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I guess I really wasn’t listening, Leo. I didn’t think it would upset you so much to bring him along.”

  We passed Caleb again on Clayton Road as we continued to the museum.

  “I think it’s cool that your brother runs, like you,” she said.

  “To tell you the truth, Mary, I’m a little sick of his running.”

  “Your brother envies you, Leo. He runs because he looks up to you.”

  I watched his image disappear in the side-view mirror as the road curved.

  “My brother hates me, Mary. I don’t think you get it,” I mumbled.

  We made the rest of the trip in silence.

  The museum was nearly empty when we arrived, which surprised me. We were supposed to go see some David Hammons exhibition called Phat Free about black history, racism, and street culture. Instead, Mary took me to an exhibition of a collection of art by Max Beckmann. Mostly we wandered a network of hallways displaying Beckmann’s paintings, which were seque
nced by dates and the different stages of his career. The exhibit ended inside a large gallery with an enormous mural on its far wall. It was a portrait of acrobats from another time and place in their various poses. The colors were bold and stark, the lines thick and definite. The figures were sad, pensive, and forlorn. Mary stopped and studied the painting.

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know what to think,” I mumbled, upset over our fight about Caleb.

  We continued in opposite directions around the gallery, and I saw paintings of a large woman in a carnival mask, a trapeze artist, and a man and woman looking at their reflections in a dressing-room mirror. Not one figure was smiling. It was depressing.

  Mary sat down on a bench in the middle of the gallery, her back to me, studying the somber trapeze artist with the enormous eyes. I sat beside her and leaned into her shoulder. We were the only ones in the gallery. “What do you think he’s thinking about?” I asked.

  She paused. “That’s up to each of us to decide.”

  I turned my attention to a portrait of a man with his face buried in his hands, with a woman next to him, her arms outstretched. I felt Mary’s fingers wrap around my hand.

  “Leo,” she said after a silent moment. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  “What do you mean?” I said to her. “I’m fine, Mary.”

  “Something’s not right. And it hasn’t been for a long time. I want to know,” she told me. I could hear the frustration in her voice.

  I kept my eyes on the man with his face buried in his hands. Then I finally unloaded. I told her everything Caleb had done to me over the course of the last year. When I finished, we resumed our silence, still looking at the paintings. Then the loudspeaker crackled: the museum was closing.

  “Does Curtis know about any of this?” she asked as we drove home.