“For Angela” – Short fiction, excerpt

Ever since she was a young girl, Angela was fascinated with the night. One particular night at bedtime, when she was four, Angela asked her mother a question that she would ask again and again until her mother would become worried the day Angela stopped asking.

“Will the sun come back tomorrow?” she asked, gazing out her second-story bedroom window. Over the leaves of an elm she could see that the night was clear and a string of stars dotted the sky.

“Of course, honey. It always does.” Her mother pulled the covers up to Angela’s chin.

Angela turned her gaze to her mother. “Why does it go away then?”

“The sun needs to sleep. Just like little girls.” She brushed Angela’s frizzy brown hair out of her eyes.

“Why does the sky turn purple and orange and green when the sun goes to sleep?”

“That’s called dusk.”

“What’s dusk?”

“It’s when night and day touch hands and, just for a moment, dance together and light up the sky.”

“Do you think one of those stars is Susan?” Angela pointed out the window.

“Yes, honey.” Her mother gulped, looking away from Angela, toward the window. “Yes. I do.”

Angela squinted her eyes at her mother. “Then where does Susan go during the day?”

Though Angela couldn’t see it, tears welled in her mother’s eyes. “Flies around the world and makes sure that all little girls stay safe.”

Angela crawled out of bed and grabbed a lone purple candle from the Advent wreath on her dresser across the room. She brought it over to the bed and laid it next to her mother.

“Can we put this in the window, Mom?”

“For what, Ang?

“Just so Susan knows which house is ours.”

Her mother nodded. She walked over to a drawer and pulled out a pink-tinted glass candle holder. Arranging the candle on the sill, she lit the candle and sat back on Angela’s bed. Angela smiled and crawled back into bed, pulling the covers up to her head.

“Goodnight, Mom.”

A Brotherly Bond

This weekend marked the birthday of Brother John. Rather than trying to wax poetic about a brother whom I consider a hero, here’s one of his published pieces that says volumes about the nature of our relationship. Written with his usual grace and wit, it’s a piece about the Chicago marathon that I hope one day to read to my own son after he and his old man go on a run together. Happy birthday, John.

———–

“As we passed the United Center and aimed for Greektown I summoned the ghost of Michael Jordan to lead me to the miracle I’d need to sustain the torrid (for me) pace we’d set for the first 15 miles. Clank! Off the rim.

When I told my brother to go, Brian, who stands 6’-2”, has legs to his shoulders, and weighs slightly more than an iPod Nano, didn’t flinch. So I cut that imaginary leash I clutch to stay behind faster running partners and watched the 22-year-old glide into the sea of marathoners ahead and melt into the future. Quick and painless: Good!

Exactly one year ago, this was the same point in the Chicago Marathon course where Brian had abruptly fallen off the pace. By mile 19, he was leaning over on the side of a Pilsen street inhaling the aroma of greasy tacos, trying not to toss his mix of lemon lime Gatorade and Power Gels, massaging his cramped hamstrings, and questioning if he’d finish his first attempt at 26.2.

Like Nick Carraway gazing into space and wondering where it all went wrong with Jay Gatsby and the American dream, we stared in disgust as the runners in the pace group we had worked so hard to pass stormed through. Brian told me to go get them, but I had promised myself and our parents, too anxious to watch their baby run (“We’ll do more good praying for him at Mass.”), that I would be his escort. They especially wanted me to remind him “he didn’t have to finish.” Right.

“Let’s walk for a minute and see how you feel,” I suggested.

Soon Brian had collected himself, gritted his teeth as all marathoners must through that last merciless 10K, and, with me “one-stepping” him, forced himself into a rhythm that carried his legs through Chinatown, past what I’ll always call Comiskey Park, and north along Lake Michigan to the finish. He beat the Battle of the Bonk and did it with a time placing him in the top quarter of all runners: somewhere between Evans Rutto’s winning mark and Oprah’s PR. After 26.2 side-by-side miles — no small feat in that mammoth crowd — we crossed the line together and life was sweet.

The next day I was back in St. Louis when I received Brian’s email: “Thanks for doing the race with me. I’m not sure what I would have done if I would have been alone. Those first 16-18 miles and the last 8-10 were both rewarding in completely different ways. I guess that means I’ll be back again in 2005.”

On the August 1983 night he was born, I was annoyed that I had to switch off a cool new cable TV channel called “MTV” to head the hospital to meet baby Brian. My 17-year-old, self-centered world had no room for a whiny newborn who would interrupt my time with Martha Quinn and Nina Blackwood, not to mention important phone calls with my non-existent girlfriend.

But over the next two decades, this odd-smelling little guy morphed into a combination of my brother, son, and best friend. Running became part of our bond. If grade-school Brian was staying at my place on a Saturday night sleepover, I’d drag him along to a local 10K the next morning. Of course I’d always present him with my finisher’s medal or the occasional hard-earned “Age Group 4th Place” trophy. We eventually began running together. By high school I found myself breaking down the day’s race with the other track or cross country parents.

Our regular runs together ended in August 2002 when Brian moved 300 miles north to attend Loyola University in Chicago. In each of the next two Octobers, though, he jumped in and ran the final 10K of the marathon with me. In 2004, inspired by the energy and electricity he had felt, Brian opened his arm to the marathon needle and went the full distance.

So it was that just before 8:00 A.M. on October 9 of this year I found myself standing in the Preferred Start corral with Brian, who this time was ready to attack Chicago with a vet’s wisdom. “You’re on your own this year,” I warned, as Sammy Van Hagar’s “Right Now” blared. “Neither of us waits.”

Right now,
Catch a magic moment, do it
Right here and now
It means everything

We’re a good team. Early in the race, just coming out of the Lincoln Park Zoo, Brian pointed out the hospital he had visited for a pre-race exam. As I looked up at the high-rise, my Oakleys flipped off my hat and started rolling down my chest. I envisioned losing my third pair of $100 sunglasses of the season. No! Attempting to stop and turn around against that sea of jumpy marathon runners would be like fighting a latte-fueled crowd swarming the Michigan Avenue Nordstrom’s for a post-Christmas sale. In seconds they would be crushed.

My only chance was to buy time by kicking the glasses in front of me. Amazingly, I managed to do this. But I was too shocked at my success to carry out the crucial “pick them up” part of the plan. Before I could ask my 39-year-old old back to bend over while sustaining a 7:45 pace, Brian swooped down like a plunge-diving pelican and, without breaking stride and in one graceful motion, reached out, nabbed the glasses, and gently placed them into my hand.

Over the next several miles, until Brian broke free during mile 16, I pretended to be in control and barked out advice, much as I had back in St. Louis all summer during our Wednesday track workouts, neighborhood tempo runs, and long, slow Sunday runs: “Grab water up here on the left, not Gatorade! Open your gel now and get it ready! That last mile was about 20 seconds too fast, so let’s rein it in, Khalid!”

“Where’s Brian?” asked Chicago Tim as he jumped in to run with me at mile 17. “I saw you guys together at 13.”

“Pace was too fast.”

“We’ll catch him before the finish,” said Chicago Tim, doing his best job as an illegal pacing partner to crack the whip. “You’ll see him again.”

“I hope not.”

Over the next nine miles, despite Chicago Tim’s valiant efforts to keep me focused and moving, I suffered more than in any of my previous 10 marathons. I saw stars. I saw a joyful, marathon-less future. I saw visions of using discarded cups to build a comfy bed alongside the Mile 23 aid station. In an epic St. Louis Cardinals postseason-type meltdown, I managed to let eight minutes and a new marathon PR slip away over the last few miles. But, dragged along by Brian’s fast pace-setting, I had clocked my best time in five years.

I didn’t see Brian again until I was hobbling through the finisher’s area. There he was, chatting with Diesel, my long-time St. Louis training partner, as the two sipped Mich Ultras. They looked like they had just finished an easy 10K. Were they even sweating?

That’s when I found out the student had become the master: Brian had not only maintained our pace, but gutted out a negative split. He had slapped 13 minutes on me over the last 10 miles.

I pictured Diesel and him trotting through the course in Negative Split, 3:20s-Land, where surely runners must sip Gatorade from champagne glasses and use silver spoons to nibble on tasty fresh fruit gels. “Jeeves, another sodium tablet and strawberry-banana gel, pronto.”

“About time, man,” said Brian. “Let’s get a picture. Hey, you don’t look so good.”

That night I opted to flop down in the hotel room bed with an ice bucket full of Guinness and a remote control in-hand when Brian and his 19-year-old marathon-running girlfriend (crazy kids!) headed to Navy Pier for the finisher’s party. “You guys don’t need me.”

I’m not one of those philosophical, George Sheehan-disciple runners who finds the postmodern meaning of life in a pair of Nikes or who can point to apparitions of the Virgin Mary in the swooshes. I just do it because it feels good. I just do it because I’m addicted to the adrenaline. I just do it for the camaraderie. Finally, I just do it because the pain and effort feel real in a reality-TV, virtual world too-often lacking in authenticity. And the feeling of guiding your kid brother from his first steps through the day he sprints away from you as a damn good marathoner is about as authentic as it gets.

Now I have my own four-year-old son, Joe, who still believes I won the race when I bring home my finisher’s medal. See you in Chicago in 2023, little man. Gimme your best shot.

frozen tears

dropping down your face
icy night wind blowing through you
whipping around the corner toward a dark place
where it’s going god only knows
dropping down my face
icing over the bloom within
stopping up the telescope ahead
immediately, somewhere, a heart breaks

(Untitled): Part III

Part I

Part II

The phone in my pocket buzzes to life. A text flashes across the screen: RUNNING LATE. SORRY. Oh, great, that explains everything. I signal the bartender for a fresh pint. Maybe she knows what’s coming and can’t decide what to wear. Ten bucks and my right nut says she’s even more gorgeous than she was the last time I saw her. That’s just usually how it works.

Outside the storms are really lighting up the sky, but the soulful yearnings of the guitarist are maintaining the tranquil mood on the inside. My hands dance between the black beauty in front of me and the black box resting peacefully in my pocket. The door opens — for the first time in nearly an hour — and in walks a dark figured cloaked under hefty rain gear. The form looks feminine, but I don’t recognize the rain coat or umbrella as Mary’s. When the figure reveals herself, my mouth falls and an audible gasp escapes me.

I’ve never believed much in love at first sight. It’s just that I find the word love to carry a far greater weight than a lone glance can capture. To love someone, you have to be okay with dealing with that person in all their range of glory — yes, that means also in their bad, annoying moments. Sure, maybe you can have a crush on someone right away, but I just don’t see how that moment can possibly tell you she’ll never rinse the peanut butter off her knife before leaving it in the sink for three days, or that she’ll always drink a little too much when you have people over because she’s afraid of coming over as quiet and uninteresting, or that she’ll snore in bed after she’s had pepperoni pizza. These are the things we deal with over the course of a relationship. I’ve never been able to see all this with a glance across the room. But maybe that’s my own shortcoming.

You know that scene in Casablanca where Ingrid Bergman stares wistfully off to the side of the camera? The shot where every heterosexual male on this planet can’t help but wish he was not only alive in the 40s, but that she was in actuality gazing at him? I can’t remember the context of the scene — she’s probably talking to that lucky S.O.B. Humphrey Bogart — but God, what a woman (and what a movie!). Analogies are always tricky, but that’s the look I got from the strange new woman at the door. Except, this one wasn’t in black and white — it was in living color.

Though I was only looking toward the newcomer because I anticipated it would be Mary, the intensity of my stare only amplified once I saw her face. Immediately, her gaze wandered around the bar and locked firmly into mine. Shaking the renegade water off her wavy blond hair, she gave me a coy smile. Her eyes, basked in the blue of a thousand emeralds, shot lasers through the hazy pub. Breaking our impasse, she walked toward my table and took the empty seat across the booth: Mary’s seat.

I offered her a drink; she declined. I offered her a smoke; she declined. I offered her my name; she accepted. Pleased to meet you, she said. The next words out of her mouth: do you believe in love at first sight? I sipped on my pint and gazed out the window. We’re on foreign ground, I thought. This beautiful woman — I don’t even know her name. Mary will be here any minute. She persisted, the weight of her stare penetrating deeply, softly: well, do you? I changed the subject for a moment. Are you meeting anyone? She quickly came back: I just moved into town, I don’t know a soul. Can’t I just sit and talk with you? Again she smiled. A current of electricity shot through my body. She’s on her way. Any minute. Tell me about yourself, she said. Powerless, I started in on my story. Where is she, I thought? I pleaded with myself. Be sensible. I shot my hand through my pocket, feeling something begin to slip away. The woman laughed, twirling her golden hair, hooked on my every word. Get out of her seat. I must wait. She’s coming. I know she is. She has to. But in the meantime, maybe I’ll have another pint. She said: you know, maybe I’ll take you up on that drink after all.

-end-

Three of the Many Reasons Why My Mondays Don’t Suck