One college coach was so heartsick over April’s death that she launched a foundation in her honor even though April never played for her. Suzy Merchant was recruiting April for Michigan State when she heard about the tragedy. Now, every year on April’s birthday, Coach Merchant gathers hundreds of young women on Michigan State’s campus for empowHER, a weekend retreat aimed at preventing the loss of another struggling young woman. April’s mother leads them in singing “Happy Birthday” to her daughter and reminds them they have to look out for one another. “Just because you’re feeling better one day doesn’t mean it’s gone, doesn’t mean you’re healed,” Allison Schmitt reminds young athletes. “It’s something you have, and have to live with for the rest of your life.”
* * *
—
Andrea felt her heart sink. The more she learned about the possibility of the dopamine-depression connection, the more she was wracked by guilt. She was the Tiger Mom who pushed her kids to swim. She was the one who insisted they get their butts in the car when they wanted to skip a day. And now look at what the Bonn researchers were reporting: hormone levels were being jacked up by a two-hour workout. Two hours—the same as Zeke’s and Ashling’s practices. For roughly half their lives, they’d begun and ended every day with a blast of a powerful mood enhancer.
Okay, Andrea decided. Enough. Beating herself up wasn’t going to help her kids. She had the rest of her life to worry about blame; right now, she had to focus on remedies. One thing that had helped Ashling was getting her a cat, and now Andrea understood why: pets are a great way to spur the release of oxytocin, a hormone that functions much like dopamine. The Cooks found the perfect oddball cat for Zeke—a one-eyed creature he instantly named Schrödinger, after the father of quantum mechanics—but Andrea knew that with Zeke’s restless energy, he needed more than a plaything.
In her gut, Andrea knew her son should be out there exercising again, feeling the sun on his bare back and coming home happily exhausted, but the prospect filled her with dread. What if he pushed himself back into dopamine dependence? And did she really want him disappearing into the woods for hours at a time on his own? She wasn’t even comfortable letting him go to therapy by himself. “I don’t know if he knows, but I followed him down to his first outpatient treatments,” Andrea told me. “I went to make sure he was going, making the right choices. You always worry because he’s smart enough to know what to say. Anyone with depression has the ability to hide their underlying feelings.”
One day, Andrea and Zeke were taking a walk together when he asked if it would be okay if he called her friend Chris. Did she think I’d mind? Because as long as he was going to be home for a while, maybe I could take him on a run and talk about how diet and fitness affect depression. Andrea was so excited, she had her phone out of her pocket and was texting Mika before Zeke even finished his thought.
“For the first time, I felt he was on the right path,” Andrea says. “He was finally getting outside himself.” She was a little jolted the next day when they came to the house and suddenly learned that the kind of running we had in mind involved an animal with hooves, sharp teeth, and a seriously troubled past. But when Andrea saw her boy loping alongside this damaged creature, the weight on her chest finally began to ease. “Once he started hanging out with you guys, it filled my heart with joy,” she later told Mika and me. “Sherman became his purpose. He’d found someone else who needed healing.”
* Before going on to battle intergalactic evil as a member of the Avengers, Dr. Bruce Banner (aka the Incredible Hulk), was an undergraduate at Penn State in the original Marvel comic series.
18
Plan C
Sports don’t build character. They reveal it.
—CURTIS IMRIE, burro master and cowboy philosopher
“Shit,” I muttered. “He’s here.”
“Already?” Mika joined me at the kitchen window, where I was watching a red MINI Cooper rumble up the driveway. It was miserable outside, a dank March morning with a hint of something wetter and worse on the way. Mika and I had just decided that all of us, donkeys included, would be a lot happier if we bagged our run and stayed inside. It was only eight thirty, which I thought was plenty of time to wave off Zeke before he was due to arrive at nine, but as I got up for the phone, he was pulling in.
“Wow,” Mika said. “Even if he was just getting out of bed now, he’d be early.”
I rapped on the window and waved for Zeke to c’mon inside, then slid a frying pan onto a burner. Zeke loved a second breakfast, as we’d learned over the past few weeks, and his cast-iron belly let him run immediately after packing one away. While he was on the porch saying good morning to the cats, I cracked two eggs into the pan, sliced a tomato, put a fistful of bacon under the broiler, and reheated a triple espresso with a thick dollop of fresh cream from our neighbor’s Jersey cow. I reached for the rye bread to toast him a slice, then remembered and put it back. Zeke was cutting out all processed carbs and sugars to see if lowering his blood sugar would help stabilize his depression. Ketogenic diets had proven effective for epileptic seizures, and while as yet there wasn’t much hard science behind their usefulness for depression, Zeke was making himself his own lab rat. For a young guy with a roaring appetite who lived in the heart of Amish sticky bun country, he’d been amazingly disciplined. And even though we didn’t talk about it much, I knew why.
How many times have we been shocked when someone strong, successful, and adored is suddenly snatched away by depression? David Foster Wallace, Anthony Bourdain, Kate Spade, Robin Williams…they all had family who loved them and access to the finest resources in the world, yet the disease still overwhelmed them. April Bocian, the young basketball star, was lost even though her extraordinarily attentive parents had already sought psychiatric help for her by eighth grade. “She would start off with school doing very well and excited about basketball, and by October, November, she would be exhausted and it would be very hard to get her up for school,” April’s mother, Amy, has said. “Then it would just snowball from there.” No matter what you try, Amy learned, no matter how excellent the care, depression is a black wave that can surge when you least expect it and sweep your loved ones away.
Zeke got the message. I don’t know how he learned it, whether from his own generosity of spirit or the shock of waking up on the floor with a noose around his neck, but he was smart enough to grasp that he didn’t have all the answers, and neither did his doctors. Zeke knew he was trapped in a dangerous maze, one that had almost killed him already, and if he was going to find a way out, he couldn’t stop searching. “I’m trying everything,” he’d told me. “This is the second time I’ve been thrown from this horse.”
“So,” he asked, after the scent of fresh eggs snapping in butter had lured him away from the cats and into the kitchen. “What’s up for today?”
“Until you showed up we were thinking about a day off, Sarge,” I said. “Now that we’re going to get wet anyway, we might as well try some creek crossings.”
It was a little early in the game to be worrying about water hazards; I knew that. We’d talked with Zeke only about maybe going to Colorado, and maybe he’d like to come, and that’s as far as we’d gotten. Actually, we were backsliding; my half-assed plan from a few months ago had crumbled so much, it was now barely a quarter-ass. One by one, the things I’d thought I could count on were falling apart. Could we still use Tanya’s stock trailer, and would she drive? Was there any way Sherman would race on his own, or did we have to haul two donkeys? Or three? Would Mika seriously step up for thirty miles of high-mountain hill running? Would Matilda? I had no idea. But one thing I knew for sure: somewhere on that racecourse, cold-water creeks were waiting. If we ever got to the World Championship, we had to be ready.
“Okay. Be done in a sec,” Zeke said, standing up with half the food still on his plate, shoveling forkfuls into his mouth as he headed t
oward the sink.
“Relax,” I said. “Sit and chew.” So far, my initial concerns about Zeke had proven completely misguided. No matter what I suggested for that day’s workout, no matter how cold or muggy it was outside or how ball-breaking the donkeys were that day, Zeke never kvetched or second-guessed. Maybe it was his swim team training kicking in, but he seemed to have looked around at the three of us and decided if Mika and I were the coaches, he must be team captain. When I made a point of complimenting him for never showing up late or missing a workout (even when we wanted him to), he replied, “Yes, I realized you were relying on me to supply the punctuality and consistency.” He wasn’t being snotty; he was being Zeke.
* * *
—
Sherman came right to the gate, not put off a bit by the nasty weather, while Flower and Matilda lingered in the shed before reluctantly schlumping along behind him. Flower fussed while we haltered her up, but only when we started jogging up the road did she really make us pay for coaxing her out into the rain. We were running in a tight pack, with Zeke sandwiched between Flower and Sherman, when Flower unclenched her butt for a few bugle calls. Her farts were long, loud, and rhythmic, each one a human-rights violation timed to the tempo of her stride. Poor Zeke was trapped in the blast zone, caught between Sherman on his left and an electric roadside fence on his right.
“Hoo, mama,” he winced, waving his hand in front of his nose. “Crop duster.”
Zeke didn’t escape the line of fire until we reached the turnoff onto the gravel road. As soon as he could wiggle free, Zeke dropped his rope and sprinted in front of Flower. He raised a hand in warning—incoming!—and uncorked a face-melter of his own. When it came to guerrilla ops, that second breakfast really paid off.
Zeke flashed Flower a peace sign. “Truce?” he offered.
“Oh my god,” Mika groaned. “We need more women in this group.”
Personally, I was elated. I’d been scared to death about making a mistake with Zeke, like pushing him too hard or missing a sign that he was in trouble, but if he was playing Call of Duty in a hit-and-run fart war with a six-foot donkey, I had to believe he was on solid ground. Not to mention, hilarious.
“My man!” I applauded. “Now holster that weapon.”
Zeke scooted back to Sherman and picked up the rope, and the six of us settled into our pace again. At the end of the gravel road, a break in the brush led to the creek, and that’s where I called the gang to a stop. I led Flower through the trees and down to the edge of the water. We didn’t have an emotional-support goat with us, the way we did that time we got Sherman to wade in behind Chili Dog, but I was banking on getting the same results by using the same body language: I’d stride straight into the creek, never looking back, using confidence and purpose to transmit my Alpha Dog Authority up the rope to Flower. If she kept moving, the other two donks should fall into formation behind her.
The creek was only shin-deep and flowing smooth, no more than six strides across. I walked in, calm and easy. Just to be safe, I gripped down tight on—
Air. Nothing but air. The rope was gone, whipping out of my hands as Flower backtracked up the bank, scuttling behind Sherman and Matilda for protection until Mika stomped on the dangling rope and brought her to a stop.
“How about I try?” Zeke asked. Sherman was still next to the stream; he’d never budged when Flower zoomed off, watching her go as if they’d never met before. Hmmm…Did that mean our Chili Dog water-skills course had really sunk in and the new, all-terrain Sherminator now thought Flower was acting like a wuss? Or was he just pooped from the run and taking a little Sherm-time? I weighed our options: Zeke had no experience in taking donkeys into water, but at the moment, I had no donkey.
“Yeah, give it a go,” I agreed. “Plow on through and see if he follows.”
Zeke was perfect. Somehow, he sensed exactly how much force to put on the rope and where to position himself alongside Sherman’s head. I couldn’t have done much better myself, and told him so—right after he got yanked off his feet. Sherman butt-squatted and jerked his head, tugging Zeke into a desperate, staggering dance and into the drink. Zeke scrambled up and tried again, this time straining on the rope like a rock-snagged sailor and resorting to the one word that never works with anyone: “C’mon, Sherm,” Zeke implored. “C’mon, c’mon. Come on!”
“Mika,” I called. “You’re up.” To Zeke, I said, “Don’t turn it into a fight. You’ll lose, and you’ll only teach him how to beat you. On to Plan C.”
Mika handed me Flower’s rope and led Matilda to the bank. “Here we go, baby,” she crooned, wading across. Matilda hesitated, then splashed in behind her. Sherman was still busy defying Zeke and hadn’t uncoiled from his on-this-hill-I-die crouch, so I brought Flower on deck. I was still double-wrapping the rope around my fist when I heard Zeke say, “No, no, no. Oh, no. Watch out!”
I whirled just as Flower launched, blasting off the bank in an attempt to clear the stream with one giant leap. Everyone could tell right away that it wouldn’t work—everyone, that is, except Flower, who only had eyes on Matilda, and Mika, who wasn’t looking.
“MOVE!” I yelled.
Too late. Six hundred pounds of flying donkey came crashing down in midstream, missing Mika by inches. Mika, stumbling, managed to find her footing and recover. Not Matilda. She ripped out of the creek, galloping for her life, probably assuming only a she-bear on the loose could make Flower freak out like that. Hot on her heels came Sherman, who didn’t know what was going on but was afraid all the commotion meant he was about to be abandoned. Mika and Zeke instantly released their ropes and got out of the way, not keen on being dragged across the rocks. When the three donkeys made it to dry land, they stopped and looked back, as if the three soggy humans were the ones holding up the operation.
“I hate to say this,” I said, as we slogged across. “But we should take them back across right away, so the lesson sinks in.”
“Hold on to Flower this time,” Mika replied.
“It’s not that I’m not—”
“Yeah, okay. Just hold on to her.”
“Definitely.”
And I tried, but Flower cannonballed again anyway. This time Mika was ready and sidestepped out of the way before Flower was even in the air. On our third trip, Flower pawed the bank nervously a few times before wading in cautiously. By our fifth crossing, Flower and Sherman were both traipsing behind Matilda with barely a tug.
“We got this,” Mika said.
“At least until tomorrow,” I agreed, ready to call it a day. We’d been out for nearly two hours, and even though we hadn’t run very far, we’d had a huge day. When we set out, I wasn’t sure how Zeke would handle his first stressful challenge. I remembered a parkour coach who once told me that every group of guys he taught had three types: the joker, the show-off, and the explainer. Zeke was none of those. He stepped up when needed and back when not. He didn’t get upset when he failed and didn’t lay blame, not on himself or us or even Sherman. We were tired and soaked to the skin, but all of us—humans and donkeys alike—had tested each other and discovered we could be trusted.
“Ready for lunch, Zeke?”
“Starving.”
We clambered out of the creek, shoes squishing, and gave the donkeys plenty of slack so they could race one another up the gravel road toward home. As soon as they were through the gate, they headed for the barn, scattering the sheep and goats, who were gazing out at the rain, thrilled, I’m sure, that they weren’t tapped anymore for donkey training. While Zeke and Mika stowed the ropes and halters, I went inside the house and got bacon started for BELTTS (bacon, egg, lettuce, tomato, and Tabasco sandwiches).
Mika and Zeke came in while I was dialing the phone. “I’m going to find out a little more about those Colorado creeks,” I lied. Really, I just wanted to brag. In the years since my first and only burro race, I’d beco
me friendly with Hal Walter, the legendary champion who was still winning races in his fifties. In his day life, Hal was a reporter and freelance editor who wrote about his adventures on Colorado’s Front Range, and he’d been extremely encouraging when I first reached out to tell him what I was attempting with Sherman. When I originally ran into him in Leadville, I thought he was cold and kind of a dick, but I’d discovered that was just Pre-Race Hal, who’s still so serious about the sport that thirty-five years of winning hasn’t calmed his nerves. Post-Race Hal, on the other hand, is a teddy bear.
“You getting your miles up yet?” Hal asked when I got him on the phone.
“Little bit. Today we were focusing on stream crossings.”
“Good,” Hal said, approvingly. “Good for you. All that roaring water can just kill your race.”
“Roaring water?” I repeated.
“Roaring water?” Mika and Zeke both blurted.
“How much, um—how big are these creeks?” I asked. Mika and Zeke were now both staring at me intently.
“Depends on snowmelt and weather,” Hal said. “You can get ’em waist-deep, and I’d say, oh, thirty, forty foot across.”
“Thir—” I began, before feeling Mika and Zeke’s eyes on me. “Okay! Looks like we’ve got a little more work to do.” I thanked Hal and hung up, then hurried over to pull the bacon and toasting bread out of the oven. “Whew, just in time,” I said, but Mika wasn’t falling for that dodge.
Running with Sherman Page 19