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Authors: Ron McLarty

The Memory of Running

BOOK: The Memory of Running
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The Memory of Running
The Memory of Running

The Memory of Running

The Memory of Running
1

My parents Ford wagon hit a concrete divider on U.S. 95 outside Biddeford, Maine, in
August 1990. Theyd driven that stretch of highway for maybe thirty years, on the way to
Long Lake. Some guy who used to play baseball with Pop had these cabins by the lake and
had named them for his children. Jenny. Al. Tyler. Craig. Bugs. Alice and Sam. We always
got Alice for two weeks in August, because it had the best waterfront, with a shallow,
sandy beach, and Mom and Pop could watch us while they sat in the green Adirondack chairs.

We came up even after Bethany had gone, and after I had become a man with a job. Id go up
and be a son, and then wed all go back to our places and be regular people.

Long Lake has bass and pickerel and really beautiful yellow perch. You cant convince some
people about yellow perch, because perch have a thick, hard lip and are coarse to touch,
but they are pretty fishI think the prettiestand they taste like red snapper. There are
shallow coves all over the lake, where huge turtles live, and at the swampy end, with its
high reeds and grass, the bird population is ex- traordinary. There are two pairs of
loons, and one pair always seems to have a baby paddling after it; ducks, too, and Canada
geese, and a single heron that stands on one leg and lets people get very close to
photograph it. The water is wonderful for swimming, especially in the mornings, when the
lake is like a mirror. I used to take all my clothes off and jump in, but I dont do that
now.

In 1990 I weighed 279 pounds. My pop would say, Hows that weight, son? And I would say,
Its holding steady, Pop. I had a forty-six-inch waist, but I was sort of vain and I never
bought a pair of pants over forty-two inchesso, of course, I had a terrific hang, with a
real water-balloon push. Mom never mentioned my weight, because she liked to cook
casseroles, since they were easily prepared

ahead of time and were hearty. What she enjoyed asking about was my friends and my
girlfriends. Only in 1990 I was a 279-pound forty-three-year-old supervisor at Goddard
Toys who spent entire days checking to see that the arms on the action figure SEAL Sam
were assembled palms in, and nights at the Tick-Tap Lounge drink- ing beers and watching
sports. I didnt have girlfriends. Or, I suppose, friends, really. I did have drinking
friends. We drank hard in a kind of friendly way.

My mom had pictures set up on the piano in the home in East Providence, Rhode Island. Me
and Bethany mostly, although Moms dad was in one, and one had Pop in his Air Corps
uniform. Bethany was twenty-two in her big picture. Shed posed with her hands in prayer
and looked up at one of her amazing curls. Her pale eyes seemed glossy. I stood in my
frame like a stick. My army uniform seemed like a sack, and I couldnt have had more than
125 pounds around the bones. I didnt like to eat then. I didnt like to eat in the army
either, but later on, when I came home and Bethany was gone and I moved out to my
apartment near Goddard, I didnt have a whole lot to do at night, so I ate, and later I had
the beer and the pickled eggs and, of course, the fat pretzels.

My parents pulled their wagon in front of cabin Alice, and I helped load up. They were
going to drive home to East Providence on the last Friday of our two weeks, and I would
leave on Saturday. That way they could avoid all the Saturday traffic coming up to New
Hampshire and Maine. I could do the cleanup and return the rented fishing boat. It was one
of those good plans that just make sense. Even Mom, who was worried about what I would
eat, had to agree it was a good plan. I told her I would be sure to have a nice sandwich
and maybe some soup. What I really was planning was two six-packs of beer and a bag of
those crispy Bavarian pretzels. Maybe some dif- ferent kinds of cheeses. And because I had
been limiting my smoking to maybe a pack a day, I planned to fire up a chain-smoke, at
least

enough to keep the mosquitoes down, and think. Men of a certain weight and certain habits
think for a while with a clarity intense and fleeting.

I was sitting in the Adirondack chair, drunk and talking to myself, when a state trooper
parked his cruiser next to my old Buick and walked down to the waterfront. Black kid about
twenty-six or -seven, wearing the grays like the troopers do, fitted and all, and I turned
and stood when I heard him coming.

Great, isnt it? What? he asked, like a bass drum. I had leaned against the chair for
support, and it wobbled under

my weight and his voice. The lake. The outside. Im looking for a Smithson Ide. That would
be me, I said, a drunk fighting to appear straight. Why dont you sit down a second, Mr.
Ide. Im not drunk or anything, Officer . . . Trooper. . . . Im really

fine . . . not . . . Mr. Ide, theres been an accident, and your parents are seriously

injured. Outside of Portland. Mr. Ide was taken to the head-trauma unit at Portland
General, and Mrs. Ide is at the Biddeford Hospital.

My mom? My pop? I asked stupidly. Why dont you come with me, and Ill get you up there. My
car . . . You come with me, and well get you back, too. You wont have

to worry about your car. I wont have to worry. Okay. Good. I changed into a clean pair of
shorts and a T-shirt. The trooper

tried very hard not to look at me. I was glad, because people tended to form quick
opinions of me when I stood there fat and drunk and cigarette-stained in front of them.
Even reasonable people go for an immediate response. Drunk. Fat. A smoky-burned aroma.

The trooper, whose name was Alvin Anderson, stopped for two coffees at the bake shop in
Bridgton, then took Route 302 into Port- land. We didnt talk very much.

I sure appreciate this. Yes, sir. Looks like rain. I dont know.

Pop had already been admitted when Alvin let me out at Emergency.

Take a cab over to Biddeford Hospital when youre done here. Ill be by later on.

I watched him drive away. It was about five, and a rain began. A cold rain. My sandals
flopped on the blue floor, and I caught my thick reflection stretched against the shorts
and T-shirt. My face was purple with beer. The lady at Information directed me to
Admitting, where an elderly volunteer directed me to the second-floor trauma unit.

Its named for L. L. Bean, he said. Bugger had it, and he gave it. Thats the story.

A male nurse at the trauma reception asked me some questions to be sure that this Ide was
my Ide.

White male? Yes. Seventy? I . . . About seventy? Yes.

Artificial valve?

Oh, yeah . . . about ten years ago, see. . . . It really made him mad because

Okay. Take this pass and stand on the blue line. Thats where the nurse assigned to your
father will take you in. There are thirty trauma cells, glass front, usually the curtains
are drawnbut some-

times theyre not. We ask you, when your nurse comes to take you in, to promise not to look
into any of the units other than yours.

I promise, I said solemnly.

I stood on the blue line and waited. I was still drunk. I wished I had put on a baggy
sweater and some sweatpants or something, be- cause fat guys are just aware of the way
things ride up the crotch, and theyve got to always be pulling out the front part of the
T-shirt so little breasts dont show through.

The nurse was named Arleen, and she was as round as me. She had on baggy surgical green
slacks and an enormous green smock with pockets everywhere. She led me to my pops cubicle.
I didnt look into any of the other ones. I could hear a man saying, Oh, God. Oh, God, over
and over, and crying, but mostly there was a hushed tone, and when the nurses and doctors
hurried about, they sounded like leaves on the ground in the fall with kids walking
through them. I was very drunk.

Pop lay out on a tall, metal-framed bed. His head, chest, waist, and ankles had heavy
straps over them. Except for a sheet, folded to reach from his belly button to his knees,
he was naked. When the nurse closed the door, leaving me alone, I remember thinking that
this was the quietest room I had ever been in.

I could hear my heart in my head. The bed had an engine that tilted it very slowly. So
slowly, really, that even though it moved Pop from side to side, it didnt seem as if he
was moving at all, even though he was. I looked under the bed for the engine, but I
couldnt see it.

Pop had some bruises around his eyes and the bridge of his nose, and a Band-Aid over a
small hole in his forehead that the nurse told me had been bored to relieve some kind of
pressure. Pop used to brag about not knowing what a headache felt like, since hed never
had one, so I thought it was odd he needed that little hole.

I put my hand on top of my pops. It was a little silly, because Pop was not a hand-holder.
Pop was a slapper of backs and a shaker of

hands. But putting my hand on top of his seemed all right, and felt strange and good.
Later on, after I had some time to think about it, I guessed that when these awful kinds
of things happen to you, it helps to find a lot of things to feel good about. They dont
have to be big- deal things, but more like the hand business or combing Moms hair, those
kinds of things. They add up.

Id been alone with my pop for twenty minutes when a doctor came in. He was about my age,
only trim and sober. He had thick red-gray hair, and for some reason I used my fingers to
comb my own thin and shaggy head.

Mr. Ide? Yes, sir. Thank you. Im Dr. Hoffman. We shook hands. Then he moved close to Pops
head. I put this hole here to relieve the pressure. Thank you so much, I said sincerely. I
would have given my car to anyone, right there, if I could have

been sober. He kept himself pretty good, didnt he? he said. His little flash-

light moved from eye to eye. My pop walked and stuff. Pop swayed imperceptibly on his bed,
to the left. The doctor was

right. Pop had a great body, and he had a routine to keep it that way. Mom sometimes went
up in weight and then got on some diet to lose it, but Pop was really proud of how he kept
the old weight at 180, his playing weight.

Do you know what blood thinners he took for the valve? Dr. Hoffman asked.

No. Sorry. It pissed him He was mad about the heart opera- tion. He worked out, and one
day the other doctor said, You have to get a new valve in your heart. But it was because
of something that, you know, happened when he was a kid.

Rheumatic fever.

Thats it. Is it bad? Did it break? Was I a huge alcoholic trying to be helpful? His heart
is fine, and I think under normal circumstances your

father probably wouldnt be in bad shape right now, except the blood thinners he took to
ensure clot-free flow through the heart cham- bers, and, of course, through the artificial
valve, allowed the blood to hemorrhage violently inside his head when he hit the
windshield.

I see. I nodded again, stupidly.

Blood is one of the most toxic entities known. When it gets out of the old veins, well . .
.

I didnt realize that.

Do you have anyone else in the immediate family I need to talk to?

Bethany, but you cant talk to . . . well, no . . . me, I guess. Well . . . He really looks
good. Just those bruises. He does push-ups, too.

Walks and stuff. What lets do is this. Why dont we watch what happens tonight,

and Ill see you tomorrow, and well see. Thats great, Doctor. And thank you. Thank you so
much. I said good-bye to Pop, went down to the main lobby of the hos-

pital, and took a cab to Moms hospital in Biddeford. It was about fif- teen minutes away.
A four-cigarette ride. It was pretty cold by now. Usually I dont mind cold nights, but I
did this night, and for some reason my hair hurt.

The hospital in Biddeford was new. It was set in a little forest of fir trees and looked
nice, not all big and really nervous-making like Portland General. You got a sense of
something bad in Portland. The way it smelled. The way you sounded in the crowded
corridors, and the way all those people whispered into the banks of phones. Bidde- ford
Hospital was different. There were plants in the reception area, and the retired
volunteers seemed happy to see you. You got this good feeling that everything was going to
be all right.

Mom was in the third-floor trauma unit. It was small, and, again unlike Portland, the
walls were painted in a hopeful blue-sky color. Portland was green. Old green. Reception
had called that I was on my way up, and this pretty black girl met me outside the units
door. She wore standard green pants bunched around her ankles, and run- ning shoes. Her
blouse was white, with happy faces on it.

Hi, she called out. Hi, I said. Are you Jans son? Yes. Im Smithy Ide. Im Toni, Im one of
her nurses. Cmon. She didnt tell me about not looking into the rooms, but she didnt

have to. Jans in five. Shes on a waterbed that tilts. My father is, too. Hows he doing?
Well, he takes these blood thinners. Arent you cold? she asked as we walked. I wasnt cold
a little while ago. Mom was amazingly tiny on this big bed. She was tilted away from

me, and I walked over so she could see me. Her eyes were half open. Hi, Mom, I said very
quietly. Im here now, Mom. We dont think Jan can hear you. Shes on a big morphine drip.

But were not sure; maybe some things get through. You can keep talking if you want. Dr.
Rosa is Jans attending physician, but Im go- ing to give you the rundown, and maybe you
can link up with the doctor later.

Thank you, I said. Thank you so much.

I pulled the T-shirt away from my sticky breasts and kicked my leg out to loosen my
riding-up underwear. I needed a smoke, so I fin- gered my Winstons.

Theres no smoking, of course, the pretty nurse said. Oh, I know that. Sure. Its important.
I was just

At first we were going to keep both of your parents together here, but Portlands head unit
is state-of-the-art, and, frankly, we were not comfortable moving Jan. Her lungs
collapsed, which is why we are inflating them artificially. Later on well wean her from
the machine. Both hips are broken, multiple crushed ribs, bruised tra- chea, dislocated
right shoulder. The good news is, no head injury.

BOOK: The Memory of Running
7.01Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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