Each step drove bolts of pain through my calves, but I pushed on. I had smoothed my socks when I put on my shoes, but now with each step I could feel wrinkles beneath my toes that felt like razor blades. My shirt tugged across my burned shoulders and my back like sandpaper, but I knew that if I threw it off the sun would burn deeper.
Everyone looked wasted, stretched out on lawn chairs at the edge of the track. I was the only one moving. But if I stopped, I knew my dreams—and theirs—would end. The record we were seeking would elude us. I had to keep running, despite the pain.
• • •
We were fifteen years old and anxious to be famous. Unfortunately, we had nothing going for us: There was no genius among us, no superstar athlete, no child actor, no heir to a huge family fortune. So we turned to the same thing that most people without identifiable skills think of: the Guinness Book of World Records. Certainly we could be the best at something!
Some records in the book demanded more talent than we had: doing 46,000 push-ups in a day, jumping 15 miles on a pogo stick, throwing a grape 327 feet to someone who catches it in his mouth. Those were beyond us.
So we tried to think of categories that weren’t listed. For example, we would unroll cassette tapes and measure the length of an Aerosmith tape versus one of Mariah Carey’s. For a couple of weeks we went on a measuring binge—toilet paper, paper towels, duct tape….
Then for a while we counted: the number of raisins in Raisin Bran, chocolate chips in ice cream, Pringles in a tube, in a case, in a truckload. How many crinkles in a crinkle-cut french fry? We would go where no man had gone before. We would answer the questions that burned in everyone’s mind. One weekend we pooled our money and bought a whole truckload of watermelons. How many could fit into a phone booth, into my mom’s Toyota Camry, into a bathroom stall?
Maybe, we thought, we could collect our results into a book. We could write a column for a national magazine: “How Big, How Far, How Many?”
All our meetings were held at Bob Davidson’s house. His mom always kept it stocked with snacks and drinks, as if this were her favorite activity. We were glad to give her the chance to fill the refrigerator again. Davidson—Bobby D was what he insisted we call him—assumed that since we met at his house, he must be the boss of our group. He always sat in the same tall-backed chair with his baseball cap pulled backward, wearing shades even in the house. Although his arms and legs looked like pipe cleaners, he tried to act macho and talked like he was in a Spike Lee movie. The only place he needed to shave was a spot on his chin, but he let that grow—a dozen greasy black hairs, half an inch long—and it made him look younger and sillier than if he had just cut them off. He shouted out directions that we ignored. He claimed we needed a name.
“We gotta have our colors,” he said, tossing his closed pocket knife from hand to hand. The gesture lost some of its dangerous effect, as it was a Swiss Army knife. “Every gang got a name and colors. If we don’t have ’em, people be dissing us.”
“Bobby D,” I said. “We’re not a gang. We’re barely even a club.”
“Oh, may-an!” He shot me a glance that suggested he was embarrassed to be in the same room with me.
He proposed naming us the Counting Crows, after the band, but no one except Bobby D really liked them—their lead singer always sounded constipated—so we dropped the r and made it the Counting Cows, whatever that meant.
We had a name. The Counting Cows. We would be famous soon!
“This is awesome,” gushed Bobby D. “The Counting Cows!” “Awesome” was his favorite word. We mocked him pretty bad whenever we left his house. “Awesome!” we’d roar about a fly buzzing around our heads. “Awesome!” for a crack in the sidewalk. He thought he was buying our friendship with chips and root beer. We let him think that.
Bobby D complained whenever he could about Danny Daniels being in the group. Danny didn’t belong, he’d say; he was fat, he was gross, he wasn’t as cool as Bobby D. We let Danny stay partly because it pissed off Bobby D. And it was Danny who came up with our ultimate idea. The most incredible project imaginable: a hundred-mile relay.
• • •
A mile relay was common—four guys who each ran a quarter mile. And Danny, who knew every track record ever set, gave us figures for the American record, the Olympic record, the high-school record, the world record—every year since 1950. We had heard of four-mile relays, one runner per mile. Danny had the figures for that, too. In 1981 a hundred guys from Baltimore ran a hundred miles in a little less than eight hours. This would be more of a challenge. Much more. This would be more than anything in the Guinness Book of World Records. Ten miles per person, one mile at a time, a hundred miles total. Whatever we ran would be the world record, but we wanted to get as good a time as possible, so we wouldn’t find out in a month that the record had been broken. We didn’t want to have to do it again. This would be a record for the ages.
We wanted the fastest guys possible: Matt Feldman, the best miler on the team, even as a sophomore. Jim Luther, the best sprinter, who could run any distance. Since Daryl Wagner’s accident, I was the best half-miler. Some of the guys—like Bobby D—weren’t the best at anything, but they were willing to try, and we needed ten guys who would knock themselves out in hopes of getting one line of recognition in an eight-hundred-page book. We set the date for the first weekend after school let out. We called it The Assault on the Record, though it was a record that didn’t yet exist.
Danny wouldn’t run. He said he’d be the timer, the recorder. I thought he should run, since it was his idea, but some of the other guys were relieved, since his times would slow down our total. Bobby D, of course, made a big deal of it. “Good idea, Danny boy,” he said. “You just keep your hand on the clock and leave the hard work to us. Keep that thumb loose so you can click the stopwatch, that’s all you need to do. Think you can handle it?” Danny didn’t pay him any mind. Bobby D was a distraction that deserved no attention and Danny gave him just what he deserved.
• • •
Most of us could run a mile in under six minutes. During the season, Feldman had done it in less than 4:30 in all of the meets, but we knew he couldn’t continue that pace for each often miles. Eventually even he would slow down to six minutes, and the rest of us would be up around seven minutes or worse. We tried to figure how long this would take. Say we averaged seven minutes for a hundred miles; that would be seven hundred minutes or—we all scratched wildly on paper—more than eleven hours of running. We looked at each other anxiously.
“We could plan it so we ended at midnight when the clock strikes twelve,” suggested Luther. His mother was a librarian and he sometimes got lost in all the books and stories that he read.
“What clock?” I asked. “There’s no clock around here that strikes twelve. You’re thinking of some Sherlock Holmes story.”
“Oh, man, I got it!” shouted Bobby D. He slapped his head with both hands as if he had to hold back the brilliant ideas. “We could run all night! Start about eight at night, end right after the sun comes up in the morning. We’ll light up the track with spotlights! Carry torches! It’ll be like the twenty-four hours of Le Mans, like the start of the Olympics!”
“It’ll be like a hospital ward,” said Feldman, who was always so cautious he seemed boring. But this time he was right. There were no lights on the track, and we all knew the odds were pretty great that in the dark we would kick the inside border and stumble all over the track. Not to mention that we’d fall asleep at three A.M., waiting for our turn to run.
We’d have to do it during daylight. So we planned on starting about seven in the morning—during summer vacation, when we should have been sleeping!—and ending about six P.M. People could come and cheer for us throughout the day, we’d make the evening news, and we’d get home in time for dinner. It would achieve the maximum audience. The time was set.
“I’ll check with the Guinness people,” said Danny, “to be sure no one has a previous record.”
He took out a sheet and began plotting the order of runners. Feldman would be the anchor.
“I’ll be the leadoff,” announced Bobby D.
Danny didn’t even look up. “No, we should save you for a later spot,” he said, penciling him in for the number nine position. “Between Curt and Feldman. We need you there for a strong finish.”
“Well, anyway, you need me,” agreed Bobby D. He had the refrigerator open and was handing out cans of pop. “As long as you remember that. You need me.”
• • •
The day of the race, I got to the track half an hour early, but lots of the guys had already arrived. Andy Berlinsky was the first runner, and he was already stretching. I saw Bruce Hecht, a junior wrestler who really wasn’t much of a runner but who wanted in on a world record, and Roger Martell, the number two quarter-miler, a rich guy who wanted you to know he had money. We weren’t all best friends, but for this goal we’d work together. There were about a half dozen parents. People had brought lawn chairs, coolers, a sign with hooks to hang numbers on for each mile finished, and, of course, a red, white, and blue ribbon to hang across the finish line for the end. The night before, we had met at Bobby D’s to paint a sheet:
“The Assault on the Record”
100 MILE RELAY
By the Counting Cows
We had each signed it in marker, ten runners and Danny.
Bobby D saw me as soon as I started to walk up. “My man! My man!” he shouted, like a big-city hipster. “Now The Assault can begin!” He held out his fists for me to slap.
“How you doing, Bobby D?” I asked. “You got all the media here?”
We had given him that job, and he and his dad, who ran a restaurant in town and knew lots of reporters, had spent days on the phone. I doubted anyone would come. I mean, we were only ten high-school kids running around a track. It couldn’t be that slow a news day, could it?
He nodded with his usual smug look. “At least two TV stations, and the paper is sending a photographer.” A wide grin split his face.
“No CNN, huh?” I shook my head. “Pm disappointed, Bobby D. Disappointed.”
“Some damn summit in Geneva,” he said. “I don’t know what the big deal is. But, you know, I wonder if we did this like a walkathon—you know, pledge so many dollars for each mile, raise money for starving kids or homeless shelters or some other crap—I think we could get them. I thought about delaying the whole thing a week, but then I thought, ah, the guys are ready; I don’t want to let them down. Besides, my dad’s gonna videotape a lot of it. He’ll be able to sell the tape to CNN for millions. You know how much that guy got for taping that beating in L.A.? We could all go to college, thanks to this.”
I patted him on the shoulder. “Good, Bobby D. Get me a dorm room with cable and a view.” I walked away. I wondered how much of his hype was real. TV camera crews? For us?
Luther arrived with three pairs of shoes—long spikes, short spikes, and sneakers. Feldman was rubbing sunscreen on his legs and arms. Danny was lecturing to a group on the closest comparable races that he had discovered. He had posted a notice on an Internet bulletin board and people everywhere were now aware of it.
I pulled Danny aside. “Why’d you announce our race like that,” I asked, “before we even do it? What if someone sets the record before we do?”
He looked up at me and smiled. “No one would set this record but you, Curt,” he said. “No one’s crazy enough!”
Danny had a starter’s gun in a leather bag. It looked like the real thing. He pulled it out of the bag, slipped in the blanks, and held it down as if it were loaded with slugs. Everyone gathered around the starting line. Andy was ready, with a big paper “1” pinned to the front of his running jersey. A picture of a cow cut out of a magazine peeked around the side of his number. Andy scowled for the video cameras four of the parents held, but redheads with freckles have a hard time looking tough.
“Are you ready for the start of The Assault on the Record?” shouted Danny. “The World’s Record Hundred-Mile Relay?” Everyone but Andy cheered. He tried to look as serious as if he were starting the Olympics 1500 finals. Danny held up his arm with the blank gun. “Runner, take your mark.” He had a huge grin on his face, like he was doing just what he had wanted to do for years. “Get set.” Andy leaned out over the line, his fingers curled so his thumbs touched his middle fingers. “Go!” The gun went off and Andy sprinted away. Everyone cheered. Bobby D punched the air, as if he had just won a championship ring, though he hadn’t done anything yet.
Luther and I sprinted across the field to meet Andy at the 220 mark and play rabbit for him for twenty or thirty yards. We had to hurry. He wasn’t jogging slowly, he was giving his all. We got there right when he did, stayed with him to the curve, and then let him go. Everyone else was lined up at the homestretch—runners and parents, and finally some girls had arrived. “Assault on the Record!” they chanted. “Assault on the Record!” Andy picked it up for the stretch, then eased up a bit at the turn. He’d get a good time, starting us out right. And Feldman, our fastest runner, would anchor it, so we’d end right, too. In between were some weak links. I just hoped I wouldn’t be one of them.
Luther and I ran back to the 220 mark to lead Andy around again on his second lap. “How you feeling?” we asked when he got to us. “Good, good, only nine miles to go after this,” he puffed. “This won’t be so bad.” His face was becoming streaked with red.
We ran with him to the curve and let him go. The fans were gathered again at the homestretch. Then Luther remembered that he was the third runner and had to do some more stretching. I still had about half an hour before my turn, but I decided to start loosening up, too.
• • •
Our first ten miles, one for each of us, went smoothly—good times and cheers for everyone (though I noticed that the crowd at the homestretch was pretty thin after the first four runners). Girls arrived in groups of three or four. They talked with the guys who lounged in lawn chairs, and they rubbed our shoulders. Most of us— not Feldman, of course—had our shirts off. We were ready to catch some eyes, turn brown in the sun, maybe line up some dates for the summer. I had been disappointed when Mariella told me she’d be out of town the day of die relay, but that meant she couldn’t complain if I was friendly with some of the other girls. As he started the final lap of his first mile, Luther threw off his Tigers baseball cap. We all cheered for that. “Kip Keino,” we chanted, “Kip Keino.” Danny had explained that a long time ago a Kenyan miler of that name had tossed off his cap as he started his final laps. I think he set a world’s record doing that.
My first mile was a pretty decent 5:05. As I handed off the baton to Bobby D, everyone was lined up with their hands raised for me to high-five. “Looking good, looking good,” they shouted. Danny pointed to the mileage marker. “You get to turn it over, Curt,” he said. Then he turned back to the track. He had two stopwatches, one with my time to be recorded, one for Bobby D. He was directing things like a general, a strange role for a fat kid who was usually picked on by some of the other kids, but everyone knew they couldn’t match his knowledge of track history and details. I looked over as he marked my time on a huge chart, his pale puffy white legs sticking out of his shorts, and I smiled. At last other people were realizing he wasn’t just a tub.
• • •
My time turned out to be second best on the team, after Feldman’s unbelievable 4:25. Hecht was almost seven minutes, even for his first mile, but we had expected that. The big surprise was that Bobby D—an okay athlete, though he hadn’t even gone out for the track team— turned in the third-best time, just ten seconds slower than mine.
Danny aimed the chart out at the street so passersby could see how we’d done. Hecht, whose time was slowest, thought that was a dumb idea. Andy Berlinsky, whose name was first on the list, thought it was great. Bobby D thought the names should be listed in order of times, not running position, so he would be third instead of ninth.
My second mile was 5:15, ten seconds slower than my first, but still a good time. Feldman was still way under five minutes. Somehow Bobby D kept up the pace, this time with a 5:30. I went up to him afterward and asked how he could run such strong times. Had he been working out? Running distance in the spring without telling anyone? He turned away from me and faced the other guys on the team as they sprawled in the lawn chairs, trying to chill out. “Hey, guys, listen to this! Curt’s getting nervous! He knows who the power in this race will be! Check out Feldman—he looks a little tense, too. The mighty Bobby D is running up their backs and they don’t like it one bit!”
Everyone laughed. I turned away. I was just trying to be friendly, pay him a simple compliment, and he had to grandstand with it. I realized my fists were clenched. Danny came up and leaned his head toward mine. “Don’t worry,” he said softly. “I think he’ll take care of himself I looked at him closely, but he turned back to the track, where Luther was coming in for the second lap of his third mile.
• • •
Each mile my time slowed. Everyone’s did. Some guys’ times went up a lot, like Hecht’s, which rose twenty or thirty seconds each mile. Feldman’s times hovered below five minutes, then climbed to 5:10 on the sixth mile. I added about ten seconds each mile, though twice I went up twenty seconds.
Around noon we had a big crowd. My folks brought a cooler of juice and candy bars—“Quick energy,” said my dad with a smile. A TV station came by and shot some film of us. We tried to get the cameraman to stay for Feldman’s turn, so we’d look as good as possible, but he shot Hecht instead as he struggled around the track. He talked with Bobby D (who did the interviews with his shades on and his shirt off, his muscles flexed the whole time) and left. We just shook our heads. This was our chance for fame, but on TV we’d look slow and arrogant.
We figured out that we could eat or drink during the laps of the first two runners after our turn. That would leave us about an hour to digest stuff before we had to run again. About the fifty-mile mark most of us realized our skin was being burned to a crisp, and we finally covered up. It was too late.
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