8—lunches
Every workday at one o’clock Will would take a lunch break. Most days he would sit outside in the deliciously, simultaneously cool and warm, Northern California air, with his cheese and celery or his leftover chicken or his PBJ, and he would read a book or a magazine.
The only times he would resort to the library staff room were when it was raining, and this autumn and early winter had been—so he had been told—unusually dry. Will had never before lived in a place where people actually complained about a surplus of clear, warm, blue-sky days.
Back behind the south edge of the Civic Center building, a vacant lot—overgrown with scrub vines and ivies, littered with broken bricks and unnamable wildflowers—was his retreat of choice. The remnants of a long-crumbled cellar wall backed up snugly against the hill which formed the lot’s back edge. It was here that Will, with a rarified sense of security and ease, would often pass his daily free hour.
Sometimes he would dig beneath his sweater and pull from his shirt pocket a little spiral notepad. A stubby, eraserless library pencil would appear in his hand, and he would scribble song lyrics across a page in his tumbling longhand:
It’s the middle of December
And roses still upon the vine
Bid my thankful heart remember
It's on Pacific Standard Time.
California isn’t heaven
But it’s as close as earth does get:
Lord, our accounts may not be even
But what you owe me I’ll forget.
Do you still remember
When it was cold, and I was cryin’?
It was only last September
And not Pacific Standard time.
And so on.
Early in his new “career,” Will considered taking his run at lunch time. But there was no shower at the library, so he stuck to his early morning runs and built new lunch habits of relaxed reading, writing, munching, and meditating. Also, by early afternoon on most of these warm autumn days, the smog level was so pronouncedly high that he doubted the wisdom of inhaling any more California carbon monoxide exhaust fumes than were absolutely necessary.
The brisk mornings were the ticket.
Besides, the Italian ice parlor was only a block away from work.
The absolutely, positively, most incredibly marvelous side effect of regular running is this: One can eat the goodies that without the running would otherwise balloon one’s belly and buttocks, render flabby one’s flatulent fanny, and engender the jumboest of jowls. A runner can dine profusely. A runner can pig out at will. Or at Will.
Will had always enjoyed good food, but he had been an overweight child until age fifteen. After he grew tall and slim, he knew that he never wanted to be fat again. So, after years of minor league neurosis about his weight, after years of avoiding desserts, and after years of intermittent fasting or fad dieting, he had found the Way. And the Way was Running.
There was a little spot on North Santa Cruz Avenue that made its own chocolate flavored frozen yogurt. A cookie shop in the basement of Lyndon Plaza produced giant peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. A person could not stand in the center of Los Gatos and throw an empty box of See’s Chocolates in any direction without hitting a restaurant serving up exceptionally good cheesecake.
And, yes, there was the new Italian ice shop on Main Street, just a block away. For a dollar, the Dolce Spazion served an eight ounce paper cup containing two scoops of the richest, creamiest ice cream on the face of the earth, and in the center of that luscious mound of frozen frivolity there stood a tiny white plastic spoon, its small size designed to slow the shoveling process so that one might better appreciate the exquisite delicacy.
Will had read that the famed marathon champion Bill Rodgers habitually arises at 3 a.m. for his fourth meal of the day, to feast on cola, cookies, “and mayonnaise, which he will eat out of the jar with a spoon.” Rodgers, at 5 feet 8 ½ inches tall, weighs in at 128 pounds.
That is the Way, and the Way is Running.
9—running together
On the rare mornings when Will’s work schedule and Sarah’s sleep schedule did not overlap, the two might run together.
In the beginning Will was hesitant. He had been slowly and sometimes painfully building his endurance and his distance until, after two months of work, he was running four miles a morning every morning of the week. Mindful of his own beginnings, he knew that running with Sarah was going to a) cut his mileage, b) slow his pace, and c) probably prohibit his “double stride” counting, by which he often both measured his distance and quietened his thoughts as he ran.
The self-centered side of his brain said, “Uh-uh, no way.” The friendly side said, “Aw, come on, you will enjoy the company.” The loner in him told him, “Discourage her.” The lover said, “Bend.”
After a couple of runs with Sarah, Will’s self-absorbed loner showed signs of taking the contest. He was getting a little grumpy. His record keeping was going to hell in a bucket since he could no longer count accurate mileage, and frequent walking breaks made timekeeping inconsequential anyway. In a metacognitive irony, he felt like an asshole for feeling so selfish.
The lover was fighting dirty though.
It all came to a head, as it often will.
Will entered his apartment after a long day in the Children’s Library wing. A million kids had wanted a million books that absolutely no one could find. Everyone who came through the turnstile had a unique problem that could only be solved by one or another extraordinarily imaginative interpretation of library policy. His glasses frames had snapped, calling for the application of a wad of scotch tape that made him look like a nerd with a wart on the side of his head. Three employees had been out sick. A billion kids had returned a billion overdue books.
Some fun.
As he closed the door on his darkened Dungeon, the familiar sound of cat paws scraping the glass patio door. The monster wants in for dinner, he thought. Then he caught a whiff of cat shit. Kitty poop, feline bonbons. But if Boomer were outside, then how…
He switched on the kitchen light and moved into his living room. On the floor, clearly carefully placed, was a display. Sara, he cleverly deduced, had wanted his attention.
He had left her in his bed that morning after a solo run and a shower. They had talked about running together but he had been careful not to wake her, telling himself he was just being considerate.
Now his blue and white running shoes, his fifty-dollar pride and joys, his new blue podiatric pals, were side by side. There on the carpeted floor.
Each shoe was filled, like a little canvas candy dish, with a neat pile of litter coated kitty turds.
*****
“Gee, Sary, thanks for using the tissue paper. You made your point without ruining my shoes.”
Sarah smiled insincerely through the screen window of her upstairs apartment. Silence.
“You made one hell of a point, yessirree you did.” Will shifted his weight and glanced around. Thank God no one was watching this little scene. He had rung her doorbell once, waited, and had rung again. The window by the door, the south facing window which accounted for most of the extra light that distinguished Sara’s bright apartment from Will’s Dungeon, had slid open. There, standing at her kitchen sink, she stood, fake smile out of place on her beautiful face.
“Um, only one question, then I’ll go, okay?” More silence. “Okay,” he hesitantly responded to himself. “This is just a little thing, but it’ll help me to understand fully all the more subtle and far-reaching ramifications of the point you so eloquently and odoriferously made tonight.”
Sarah’s smile vanished. She knew what was coming. Before he could ask, “What’s your fucking point, Sarah?” she slammed the window with a bang and disappeared from the kitchen. Her bedroom door shut within with a muffled thud. That sound replayed in his memory well into the lonely evening until Will was fairly sure he understood the problem.
The problem was not that he felt like an asshole. The problem was that he was acting like one.
The next day on his lunch break Will walked out to the Running Shop and bought the pair of blue running shoes that Sarah had coveted but for which she had been unwilling to pay the steep price.
He couldn’t be accused of a cheap ploy. An expensive one? Maybe.
That night they had a long talk during which reluctance to discuss the matter gave way to rational conversation, which lost ground to heated argument, which produced apologies, which brought tears and hugs, which led to bed and tender lovemaking.
Ever since, they ran together more often and enjoyed the experience thoroughly. From the complex, they would run out University Avenue and into Oak Meadow Park, through it on into Vasona Park, over the wooden bridge near the lake’s edge, then home via the Blossom Hill park entrance. Sarah’s endurance guilt quickly and steadily. Will gave up, several times a week, his preoccupation with miles and minutes, and he learned to truly enjoy the gentle pace, the smiling conversation, and the occasional kiss.
He had loved running and now, thanks to Sarah, he could run loving.
God, she was a beauty. Beside him in the early morning California sunshine, her breath visible in light puffs as it merged with the morning air, her cheeks aglow with the first flush of exertion, her blue eyes twinkling with mischief; she ran.
They shared chat about what was sore this morning, what muscles felt better, how beautiful were the late autumn leaves, and how funny the sleeping ducks looked with their iridescent green necks tucked around under their wings. They made plans for the day or the night, talked about Christmas, which was bearing down on the world, and they traded family secrets.
They sometimes held hands and ran as one.
Sometimes Will was certain he would have to scoop his heart out of his shoes at the end of one of these runs, he was so sure that it had melted and oozed out his toes.
Never, on a run with Sarah, had one of the weird, alien visions occurred. That was perhaps the most immediately therapeutic effect of running with her. The time was approaching when Will would consider curtailing his beloved solo runs altogether: Things were getting spooky during those.
***********************************************************************************************
Please stay tuned. One or two chapters of this 26 chapter novella will be published right here on scottmerrickdotnet every Monday until we're done here. Pop back up to the top of the blog and type your email to subscribe for reminders! Coming up next Monday, Chapter 10, "los gatos creek trail" and Chapter11, "decision"
