Part 8 (1/2)
”They're bike riders.” Mack shook his head in disgust. ”What the f.u.c.k is that?”
Beside him, Caleb smiled. They were driving a back stretch at dawn, under protection of full blue firs which lined the sides of the road like riot police. Last night they had been at the Rocking Horse Tavern, whose flat screens had been showing coverage of the Tour de France.
”They go up really steep mountains,” Caleb offered helpfully, ”for three weeks.”
”On bikes. They only ride six hours a day. Surrounded by teammates to s.h.i.+eld them from the wind. They have cooks. This s.h.i.+t gets you famous? Lance Armstrong is a national icon, but Scott Jurek works at a shoe store?”
”It's a global event.”
”We should fly over there and run that whole course. The month before they ride it.” Mack turned to him mischievously. ”Might show people a thing or two.”
”That would be fun.”
Thursday night at the Rocking Horse was a Happy Trails ritual. Friends from their jobs, intrigued running aficionados, and people who just enjoyed drinking with the freaks met them there. The gathering had turned into a standing party, a night for them all to get loose; things could become rowdy.
The first time that Caleb had attended a Rocking Horse Thursday, he had been confused by the Happy Trails runners' ability to put down so much alcohol. Pints of microbrew and shots of Beam flowed like air.
The bartender had explained, ”These guys' metabolisms are insane. Their bodies process food so fast, the alcohol gives them a buzz, then evaporates from their systems. No matter how drunk they get, they're sober two hours later. They don't even get hung over.”
But Caleb enjoyed Thursdays less than the rest of his housemates. Drinking had never interested him. More than a few of his housemates had been addicts of one sort or another though, and for them this ability to imbibe without consequence was a sort of superpower.
Mack forced the Jeep over a pile of igneous rock. ”How many people you think started biking because of Lance Armstrong? That's how many people will start ultrarunning because of the Yosemite Slam. Once they see you.”
”Is that what having the Yosemite race on TV is for?” Caleb asked carefully.
”We shall spark a holy fire. A network of Happy Trails groups, all around the country, thousands of people creating kinetic energy. Can you see what would happen? There would be enough healing energy in the air to close wounds instantaneously. Cancer would end. Emotional trauma would heal like skin. You would fill your lungs with air and be whole.”
A jarring transition from the dirt road to concrete bespoke the entrance to Superior. There the endless sky was replaced with strung traffic lights and gray billboards for attorneys-at-law. Mack swerved suddenly into a short driveway, throwing Caleb against the side door.
”It's time to go ma.s.s, brother.”
Caleb opened the door to a small, ancient storefront gym. Inside he encountered the musk of a century of sweat, walked past old weights, first-generation exercise bikes, ancient metal machines, red mats with exposed yellow padding, on which measureless sit-ups had been performed.
In the back by the lockers he took off his s.h.i.+rt, leaving on his small blue running shorts, socks, and an old pair of gray and blue sneakers. He took measure of his long thin torso in a mirror, as Mack unzipped a gym bag and started pulling out bottles and placing them inside the old sauna. He opened each of them; later Caleb's hands would be too wet to do it.
The sauna was the size of a large closet; it smelled of cedarwood and fungus. Caleb opened the door and stepped inside, heard its hiss and crackle as it fired up.
Mack raised a fist. ”'Oh to struggle against great odds. To meet enemies undaunted. To be entirely alone with them. To find how much one can stand!'”
He nodded and closed the door, and Caleb began to jog in place.
Sweat filled his shoes within seconds. Each lift of his legs came with a deep intake of hot, oxygen-starved air, which scorched his lungs. His pores opened. His brain unleashed torrents of adrenaline, its pain receptors warned his body to stop.
Blend with the air. Blend with the air.
His discomfort grew into a sharp pain in his sides. His kidneys, he knew. Caleb found a spot on the cedar wall and stared at it. In his little spot, Caleb found the void. Here he experienced a sort of hypers.p.a.ce; he registered discomfort, but distantly, the way a pa.s.senger inside a train registers landscape.
But the void held a tricky duality: awareness that he was inside of it made it disappear. And then he was thrust into his body's miseries. Mack had trained them to develop an unconscious muscle memory to block them from snapping out. This time the void carried him long enough that he did not notice finis.h.i.+ng two water bottles as he pounded against the steaming cedar floor.
Mack tapped on the narrow Plexiglas window and held up four fingers; somehow, he was only a quarter of his way through. Abandoned in a searing agony, Caleb searched for that spot again but saw only a haze of heat. Sweat burned his eyes. Desperately his mind flailed for something to grab onto.
During a race, he would have goals that would accomplish this: the next aid station, the next climb. Now, there was only depletion, as his sneakers slipped in puddles of his own sweat. Here he was training for anguish.
Where was Shane? It had been three weeks, and there had been no word at all. He tried to recall his brother's exact words: Had he said he would help, had he promised? He could not remember.
Caleb grabbed for another bottle; the water was hot in his throat. He turned around to face the bench; there was a chance that its long slats of wood might take him on a hallucination for some length of time. But before he could slip into one, Caleb heard a tap on the gla.s.s door; Mack was holding three fingers now. He knew they signified some code, but he could not recall its meaning. His kidneys were swelling against his skin.
If not the wood, if not the void, if not a visualization, then memory might take him from his suffering. He thought of June's soft face, there, that felt right. He reached out a hand to feel her skin. Bluebird, he smiled. He tried to recall the first time he had seen her.
He had been on breakfast s.h.i.+ft on a windy March morning, simmering the grains in the kitchen, when he had heard a rare knock upon the front door. The house was two miles' dirt drive from the nearest paved road, and visitors did not appear often. Rae had opened the front door to find a thin woman, her hair like wheat, her eyes wide and blue. She had asked for Mack. In her hands she gripped a dark blue plastic car seat, with a sleeping infant.
Mack had been out leading a group of twelve through the chilly trails. Rae invited her to sit with them and wait.
”So cute,” Rae had exclaimed, staring at the baby. ”What's her name?”
June had smiled shyly. ”Lily.”
”Lily. Beautiful.”
”How old is she?” Leigh had walked over asking.
”She's three weeks.”
Caleb had stood in the kitchen doorway, squeezing a dishtowel, watching in the way he had watched girls from a high school cla.s.sroom. The thin woman met his eyes across the expanse of the room and smiled. The energy between them felt as real to him as a rope line.
”We drove from Taos to see Mister McConnell. I hope that's okay?”
John walked over and sat down. ”Are you a runner?”
”Yes. I read his book.” She looked extremely nervous.
”You want to run with us?”
”Oh, yeah, but . . . that's not why we came.” She had hesitated, looking at them all. ”I need healing. My daughter does. Do you hear?”
Caleb walked across the wide room, the scent of pines pouring in through the open windows, to the long old couch. Arriving he heard a sound like a mountain train coming with her every exhaled breath. That was when he noticed how small the baby seemed.
”Does she have pneumonia or something?” Leigh asked, her eyes narrowing.
June shook her head. ”They thought it was asthma? But none of the medicine works. It just makes her heart race and race. They don't know what all it is.”
”Doctors don't know much,” John commiserated.
”But I was watching a cable show, and Mister McConnell was on. He was talking about how you build up this energy by running, and it heals you? And I thought, I run. I just thought, I think he can teach me how to help her.”
”How far do you run?” Rae asked gently, prepared to explain.