6—old folks
Will ran. He ran gently and long. He ran easily and gracefully and rhythmically and assuredly. He ran about, away, along, but no longer amok. He ran for fun, for freedom, for fancy, for finding that freaky fleeting feeling only flying feet could foment.
He ran like the wind, breezing by earthbound people with his strengthening lungs pumping power to his lean muscles and his blood coursing through his veins like a river.
He ran, in fact, like a river, flowing along the path of least resistance, energy backing up within him on uphill stretches like a lake behind a dam before bursting over sure as flood.
Will ran like the running fool he was.
*****
Vasona Park was one his most frequently paths. It lay nestled in between Highway One on the east and University Avenue on the west. Blossom Hill Avenue hemmed it in on the south side, and the dam at the north end of the little lake ended the park’s northward sprawl.
On weekends the park was a beehive of activity as people of all ages, nationalities, and lifestyles vied for the choicest heavy wooden picnic tables and barbecue pits. Even early on the weekend mornings, the coils of smoke that peeled away gently from the dozens of charcoal fires bore enough tantalizing smells to send any runner’s empty stomach into growling conniption.
They were a pretty friendly lot, these Californians.
Oh, the occasional obese redneck would vent his own insecurities on a trim runner-by, but usually in a mostly harmless manner, with a look of disdain or a cutesy wolf-whistle. Never had Will been provoked to respond.
Of all the people he saw in the park, the old folks were the best. No doubt about it.
Will had a deep respect for the elderly. Anyone who had made it into the present day, through all that past, with any degree of sanity, had earned Will’s unbridled admiration. It was theirs to lose. He had only one surviving grandparent, a sharp-witted octogenarian Granny who lived in Nashville, and he thought the world of her.
He sometimes wondered if he would be able to make it into his own old age with any sense of humor left. If, that is, the world itself survived that long, a dubious possibility at that.
One of his favorite songs was John Prine’s “Hello in There,” a haunting ballad that Will himself performed often, and with deep feeling:
“You know that old trees just grow stronger
And old rivers grow wilder every day.
Old people just grow lonely
Waiting for someone to say
Hello in there,
Hello.”
Will never ignored an old person even if he was ignored by them, which was a rare occurrence in his experience. He was convinced that Prine’s song was really true, and determined not to make anyone, ever, feel lonelier.
There were a hundred twenty some-odd units in his apartment complex; and since the apartments were mostly small, the rents were reasonable for the area, and downtown was only five or six blocks away. It was a popular place for the elderly to live.
Most of them were friendly and generous. Much of Will’s furniture had been given to him by old people whom he’d met casually; and his tomcat, Boomer—big, fat surly Boomer—had also been a gift. A little old lady down the hall had received the critter from a well-meaning grandchild, only to find herself allergic to furry felines. Will had answered a notice on the mailroom bulletin board and had been presented with a rather large gray “kitten.”
“Looks more like a cat to me,” he quipped.
“My granddaughter, bless her sweet heart, tells me he’s only three months old. No, I think he’s just a little big for his age, Lord knows, his main activity is eating, why he sleeps a lot, but I really do think he eats even more than he sleeps, would you like another little cookie, young man?”
In the park, Will often saw the same faces when he ran. One old fellow seemed to be there always, at least for the first couple of months Will ran. Wearing a pair of dark wool trousers and an old-fashioned tweed touring cap, lost inside a plaid greatcoat, the elderly guy would be slowly making his way along the bicycle trail, cane in hand, gazing about him as if taking in the entire world at once through his own finely woven filter of experiences. He would always smile but only once did he speak.
The old man had just crossed the wooden span over Los Gatos Creek, from the Oak Meadow Park side into Vasona Park; and he stepped aside, off the narrow trail (which also bore the vestigial narrow-gauge track of the Billy Jones Railroad) to allow the approaching runner passage over the bridge.
He smiled, and Will realized for the first time the man's incredible old age. “He must be near a hundred,” Will thought to himself. “I hope I’m that together, hell I hope I’m even alive.”
“I wish I could do that,” said the old man. Not enviously, not at all bitterly, just a simple statement of fact as he continued to smile and gestured with his walking stick toward Will’s gently loping legs.
Will felt that a response was not really called for. He smiled back and gave a little wave as he passed.
He only saw the old man a couple of times after that; but a few weeks later, when he trotted across the little bridge again, he realized that he missed him a little. Will was aware that anything could be keeping the man from his daily constitutionals, and he pointedly refused to speculate further on the matter.
Another old man pedaled his bike around Los Gatos every day. His checked pants were tied with rubber bands at the cuffs so as not to catch his trouser legs in the cycle’s chain. The beaten wire basket attached to his handlebars bore an obviously handmade wooden box, an all-weather luggage bin, upon which were pasted assorted vintage bumper stickers of the “Make Love, Not War” ilk.
Another dapper gent with a long white ponytail could be seen on the streets of town at almost any given time. He often wore a brown bowler hat, which smartly complemented his neatly tailored three-piece suits. From a distance one thought one saw a man of elegance and distinction. But as one drew nearer, more often than not, the whole effect would be spoiled by numerous fresh abrasions distributed willy-nilly about the man’s face, accompanied by the asphyxiating odor of days-old cheap gin.
The elderly ladies were numerous and individual one and all. The most flamboyant was the aged French aristocrat who frequented the library and was fond of ratting on the old bicyclist.
“Pardon moi, thees old fart in the corner? He ees using the pen knife to cut out the newspapier article. I see heem, what weel you do about thees? I seeeeee heeeeeeem,” she hissed.
No one likes a fink. Especially an arrogant one. None of the library attendants ever took any action, beyond a little warning or two, against the old man; but the high and misplaced royalty found herself the frequent focus of close scrutiny by the entire staff.
C’est la vie.
Not all the senior citizens of Los Gatos were strange. The vast majority of old folks were robust and normal and friendly, and they seemed to glow with an appreciation of life gleaned from living out their wan years, at least, in what has been described as “the perfect climate.”
As Will’s California days fell one upon the other, his routine became set, and it was everything he wanted. It began to seem as if he might always pass his days and nights in this easy California mellowness, say goodbye to showbiz, and, daily, say hello to day-to-daying it.
It felt right. It felt good.
Until the dreams began.
It was late October when the first waking one came to him. Running through the park in the cool windy morning after a very civilized night on the town with Sarah.
She and Will were practically living together now. Their relationship was becoming what might be called “serious.” Who would propose first was a question unto itself.
Will had fully intended to do so the night before, and he had wined and dined her in the best of styles with The Question on the very tip of his tongue. All the beer and dancing had led to some wild lovemaking, which had been quickly followed by deep sleep, and The Question had gone unasked.
Now he ran through the fall morning with some difficulty, counting his footfalls to clear his mind, and taking in the autumnal visual drama with a deepening sense of wonder. He allowed himself to ponder the meaning of a half bare tree which stood in the lawn in the northeast corner of the park. He watched the flock of coots edging toward the lake. They were funny birds, cartoon critters, the lot of them. He headed for home and became further lost in his thoughts as he ran.
The runner’s high is a wonderous sensation that the body is conquering miles without effort. It is a state akin to the most advanced level of meditation, only locked into the smooth repetition of active physical movement, so far from the calm repetition of a meditation’s mantra. Images familiar to him began to filter through his euphoria. The sailing of a child’s hand in the wind out the automobile window. The horse he had once loved and ridden daily. Eagles he had admired in flight. Ocean mists.
Without warning the completely alien image of a fire burning out of control intruded upon his mind’s screen, shattering his pleasantly altered state into a million lost and excruciatingly painful emotions, focusing all his being upon fear. His body halted, his pulse outdistancing it dangerously. Instinctively, he allowed it all to flow over him, within him, through him, and, ultimately, away from him with a weird tugging sensation.
The beginning, it was, of what could only be the end.
7—dreams
He was alone in a small pitch-black room. He had been there a long while. A very long while. He felt unnaturally accustomed. Time was cold. Time was smell. The smell of earth, the sound of martial drums, always three beats of a kind. Sets of three beats. Boom. Boom. Boom. Clatter. Clatter. Clatter. Thud thud thud. Silence. The pervasive odor of earth. Dull roar of time. Click-pat Click-pat Click-pat. Silence. The dull roar of time. “It’s very tight in here,” he ached to cry aloud. Only he knew. There was no one to hear. “It’s very tight,” he longed with all his heart to cry out, to weep aloud, “very tight,” but his lungs would not expand to take in air, “very tight,” or to expel the words, “very tight in here.”
“Willum, Will honey. Baby. Wake up,” Sarah was shaking him at first gently, then with increasing urgency.
“Verynithenr,” he whined, then shouted “VERYNIGHTENEEEEEER.” He was awake.
Sarah was sitting up. She had him enfolded in her soft but strong warm arms. She rocked him gently until his labored breathing steadied.
“Wow,” he said quietly.
“Another heavy?" It was more a statement than a question.
“I guess,” he responded, adding, “Hey, I’m...sorry.”
“What for,” Sarah grimaced, pointing to the ceiling as Tub-o-lard thumped heavily across it, “I’ve been awake a while.” She sighed, turning her attention back to Will. She studied his tired face with concern.
He began, “Boy, maybe...,” then hesitated, but he pressed on, serious enough to really say it, “maybe I should see a shrink, Sarah. I mean, you know I’m pretty together, and I know I’m pretty together, but whatever is conjuring my dream life seems totally ignorant of my basically good old boy character.”
She hugged him gently.
“I mean,” he continued, “some fucking thing in my head is doing a number on it.” He sat up in the dim light of the little tensor lamp. He looked at it for a while and it seemed to stare patiently, doing its job, as if waiting like everybody else for the nighttime to get back to its own business. “What do you think, baby? Is your sweetheart a quarter bubble off plumb?”
Sarah missed a beat. She looked him straight in the eyes as if to speak, but something about Will's eyes gave her pause. She recovered. “Oh, Willum, I don’t know. This has been going on for weeks now, though. All I do know is that you have got to get some rest somehow. Or stop running. Between being up half the night with nightmares and getting up at six a.m. in the morning to run, and working eight hours a day, you’re not going to hold up for long.” She smiled unconvincingly, “You know?"
He did know. But despite the lack of restful sleep lately and despite having just this week sneaked up to his four mile a day goal, he had not felt better in years. He hardly drank alcohol at all these days, and to his mind that was the best development of all.
Or almost the best.
Will stole a glance at Sarah’s right nipple, which peaked sleepily over the edge of the clean white bed sheet. She noticed his look, and his expression metamorphosed into a lustful leer which yielded its sought-after reward: The nipple hardened almost instantly.
“Oh not?” he whispered huskily, “I’ll bet I hold up. Long enough.”
His left hand moved to her pale round breast, brushing the nipple ever so slightly. It hardened even more as his hand traced in its cup the curve of her shapely bosom. His own naked body shifted to allow his lips access to that prize.
As his tongue, followed by the soft moist embrace of his lips, found that treasure, she sighed and laughed a quiet little chuckle. He knew he would hear that laughter the rest of his life, whatever happened between the two of them. She lay back a little, her hands softly smoothing out his lean, muscled arm, rubbing the strong arc of his back.
After, they lay together in silence for a long while until he looked her and laughed. For a moment Sarah just stared at him, certain that he had stripped his final gear, until Will managed to point a finger at the ceiling. Before long that laughter was doubling both of them up and bringing tears to their eyes.
It wasn’t really all that funny.
The pounding noise from above had stopped. Completely.
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