Runner

1/04/05

“You look like you need some water,” she said to me.

I had just run a marathon. Twenty-seven miles in just over two hours, a new record. My chest and lungs were throbbing uncontrollably. My body seemed to be made entirely out of sweat. I was like some kind of jellyfish. My long hair, certainly not runner’s hair, was matted down against my forehead. I had collapsed on the sidewalk after crossing the finish line. I could barely speak.

“Yes…” I gasped out. Even a one-syllable word seemed exhausting to pronounce. My lungs were spent. I could think of nothing better to do than lay there and wait for this beautiful woman to bring me my water. I hoped that she knew she would have to repeat this task several times for up to an hour in order for me to regain my status as a functioning human and charm the pants off of her.

She brought the first cup. I poured it all over my head and face and handed it back to her.
“More…please…” I gasped again.
She laughed like we were playing a game. She looked beautiful and childish at the same time. I felt like I knew her already. I had never met this woman before but I knew that I would marry her. Tomorrow.

My body was beginning to go numb. I’d tried hallucinogenic drugs in college, but nothing compared to this feeling. Once I took so much peyote that I began to believe my entire body was made out of nails. That I, in fact, was nails! I felt out of place so I ran out of the smoky basement that my friends had brought me to and ran all the way across town to the hardware store. It was closed, being four in the morning and all, but I knew I had to be in there. I had to be with my family. I grabbed a trashcan from the parking lot and threw it through the window. The metallic feeling still cascaded through my body. The next morning Mr. Roscoe, the owner of the hardware store, found me curled up in a bucket of nails sucking my thumb and feeling right at home.

“Maybe you should stretch, you don’t want to cramp up,” she said, handing me my eighth cup of water. Those disposable paper-cones are so ridiculous. I can never get enough water out of those things. Who is satisfied with those? Certainly not me. If the paper-cone cup company had come to me looking for money for their product I would have sent them packing. Heh…’Don’t let the door hit your paper-cone asses on the way out! Ya schmucks!’ That’s what I’d say.

“Some race, huh partner?” a large man with an even larger cowboy hat said. He wore an all white suit with rhinestones running up and down his sleeves and bell-bottoms. He had obviously not just finished the marathon.
“Yeah…” I panted, sitting up with my elbows clutching my knees. “Didn’t see you out there”
“Oh!” he burst out in laughter, “You are one funny sonofabitch! Starla…get a picture of this funny sonofabitch…Uh, what’s your name, man?”

The cowboy’s wife, decked out in an equally distasteful red vest and matching skirt with similarly annoying rhinestones on it, ran up to me with just about the biggest camera I had ever seen. At least I think it was a camera. The thing was big enough to be a bazooka. She had to load shells in it just to make it flash. She might have had rounds of ammo strapped across her chest too, but I can’t really remember.

“I’m Tom…”I gasped, “Tom Wolfe.”

The camera flashed. That was too much. I fell back down again, completely blind. Tom Wolfe was not my name. My name was Indiana Jones. I scoured the corners of the world looking for ancient artifacts that belong in museums. I jumped over snake pits, loved beautiful women, and fought Nazis. I was the greatest hero there ever was.

“He don’t look so good,” the cowboy said.

As she returned with another cup of water, Maggie saw the man she would marry passed out on the sidewalk. The eleven o’clock sun beating down on him, his sweat spilling out over the sidewalk like a river of thin paper. People began drowning in it. She tried to revive him by throwing water on his face and slapping him. Not knowing his name, she yelled “Hey! Sir! Stay with me!” over and over. He was smiling the whole time.

“Shoot…” the cowboy said to his wife, “this feller just set a world record for fastest time in a marathon and he might not live to know it.”

There was a crowd now. Lots of people with microphones, more flashing bazookas, and huge tank-like news vans. All sorts of neon-colored people surrounded us. I closed my eyes and sank into myself.