Ironman (16 page)

He is a quarter mile into the race when he remembers to reach behind him and punch play on the Walkman. “I knew you be forgettin' in the heat of the moment of the bang.” Shuja's voice is like a Lionel Richie melody in the earphones. “But don't worry 'cause I made time allowances for jus' that. I been researchin' this cycling game a bit, an' soon as you get up to speed, kick this sweet thing into whatever gear gives you eighty rev-o-lu-shuns per minute, uphill, downhill, however the land may go.

“Now this may cause you pain, but these nex' three tunes give you the perfect beat. They rap, man, so they elegance may be lost on you, but
get…the…beat
.” The music plays about fifteen seconds before Shuja's voice again cuts in. “An' don' be reachin' for the forward button, my man. This whole piece of art be
timed
.”

The tape blasts out music Bo has never heard before, but he falls into cadence with the powerful bass and clicks into the corresponding gear on the bike. The front-runners have gone out hard, and the bike feels powerfully smooth beneath him as he settles in with the
leaders of the second grouping. Ahead, he glimpses a fluorescent orange stripe the length of Gerback's back as he pulls slowly but steadily ahead. Lonnie must have allowed Hudge to spray one on him, too. “Keep you eye on the orange, Ironman,” Shuja's voice croons to him over the music. “Eye on the orange.”

Though the bike leg of the race is certainly Bo's weakest, he pushes to finish among the top quarter of competitors. Yukon Jack was right: The long swim at the end of this race weeds out weekend triathletes. This group will be composed of better-than-decent swimmers, and he needs to stay as far toward the front of the pack as possible.

The third song in Shuja's set is a repeat of the first. “Sorry, Ironman,” he says at its conclusion. “Only fin' two songs with the perfect beat. Turnin' it over now. Rap with you later.”

The next two songs are driving pieces by Waylon Jennings and Emmylou Harris, followed by Nak's easy Texas drawl. “When they told me to put somethin' on this here tape I thought might speed you along,” he says, “I figured if you're like most kids I know, a good shot of this hard-core country music will make you hurry so you can get the damn earphones off.” A short pause is followed by “An' seriously, Beauregard, we're
all in your head here, but this race belongs to you. Now you hustle up an' make yourself proud.”

Nak's voice is followed by more country tunes as Bo pedals into a long, steep climb and the river falls away to the right. The elite group of riders is out of sight about a half mile ahead around a hairpin turn now, led by Lonnie Gerback, and Bo is temporarily unable to keep his eye on the orange.

Bo pedals into the riverside park area serving as the transition area between the bike and the run to the soft strains of the
Moonlight
Sonata. He has held a position toward the middle of the second pack, far from sight of the leaders but in the top thirty percent overall, a little behind his projected status. His wind is good, and he feels generally strong but for the burning in his thighs from the uphill finish.

“What the hell?” The
Moonlight
Sonata is not exactly pump-up music.

Hudgie voices over, struggling for a soft, sleepytime tone. “Hey there, Mr. Ironman guy, relax.” Bo hears Elvis in the background, coaching. “Follow up your nice leisurely ride with a little jog.” There is a brief pause while Hudge takes instruction, then, “Your girl
friend, that muscle lady, said if you lose to those dumb college kids, she's mine. So take your time, Mr. Ironman. Stretch out.” Pause. “Pull off to the side of the road and take a little snooze. You can live the rest your life in cebalcy—what? What'd you say? Cebilacy?—cebilacy.” In the background, Elvis says, “
Celibacy
, you idiot. Celibacy.” Hudgie says “Cebilcy” and pauses. Then, “No sex, sucker.”

Elvis from the background: “Good.”

Bo laughs as he racks the bicycle, flipping off his helmet and readjusting the earphones. Shelly and Shuja stand in the support team area, she with a banana, he with a stopwatch. Shelly hands him the banana, peeled. “Looking good, big boy.”

“Three minutes, fifty-eight seconds,” Shuja hollers, giving Bo the length of Kenny Joseph's lead. Pick up a half minute per mile, Bo thinks, and I'll be close enough for a shot at Wyrack. It's possible. He's seen Kenny run, and though Kenny is easily a sub-seven-minute miler, Bo doubts he can hold it much under six and a half. Bo himself should be right at, or a little under, six minutes.

Depending on how long it takes to get his legs back. They are, at the moment, like rubber at the knees—a phenomenon with which most triathletes are familiar—and a crucial part of the race for Bo is leg recovery speed.

Running out of the transition area he holds a short stride and tries to relax, mentally alerting his legs that their task has been altered. He'll lose valuable time in the first mile that must be made up later. Because he didn't bike, Kenny Joseph did not go through this.

Bo turns the first wide corner of the run, about a quarter of a mile out of the transition area, as the
Moonlight
Sonata draws to its quiet close and Hudgie says, “Only foolin', Mr. Ironman, the muscle lady didn't really say that. Wish she did, though.”

The host of Yukon Jack's radio extravaganza returns. “You best be runnin' by now, Beauregard. If you ain't, you damn well better be peddlin' like Redmond got your honey tied to the tracks, 'cause you got you some serious catchin' up to do.” Pause. “But I'm bettin' you're runnin'. Now I'm gonna give you a little ol'-time white-bread music, like what Rock 'n' Roll like. Hate to do that to you, but I was badly outvoted. Hard for a African-American to win an election in these parts.”

Bob Seger's “Old Time Rock and Roll” pounds into Bo's ears, and he hits a stride to fit that urgent beat, willing his biking muscles to give over to the run.

Seger hammers to a close, and Shuja is back. “Okay,” he says. “Legs should be good by now. Got to
get you back in this a little at a time. You down twenty points, you bring 'em back one hoop, then another. Don't start firin' three-pointers like a man in panic. Lock your eyes on some wobbly fish up there about a hunnerd yards.” Pause. “Now start reelin' 'im in. Good an' solid, jus' reel 'im in. When you got 'im in the boat, they's plenty more fish where he from. Reel 'em in.”

Bo focuses on a runner in a bright red shirt about a football field ahead of him, and steadily increases his cadence.
Here we go
.

He pulls alongside the red shirt to the tune of Bryan Adams's “Summer of '69” and searches the waters in the distance for another fish.

The ten-kilometer run winds along a wide, calm section of the river, through rugged and starkly beautiful country. Across the river craggy bluffs reach toward a crystal blue sky. Identical bluffs climb straight up from the two-lane highway, and the fifty-nine-degree temperature allows the contestants to kill themselves in near-perfect conditions.

Bo is renewed as he passes runner after runner whose strong leg was the cycling. Heading into the final three kilometers, he watches less conditioned athletes show early signs of fading, all the time searching for Hudgie's fluorescent orange stripe down the back of
Kenny Joseph's running gear to tell him he's got a clear shot at Ian Wyrack once he hits the water. A glance at his Ironman wristwatch tells him his per-mile average is right at six minutes, and he ever-so-slightly increases the pace, set on forcing it a few seconds under. He's reeling them in one by one now, feeling that powerful second wind he's been building for all winter long.

A sexy whisper drifts into his ear: “If you win this, we'll have sex.” Shelly. Bo knows she's kidding, but the thought throws fire into him. It will be fun watching her back down. He makes a note to tell Redmond he was wrong about having to give up girlfriends prior to or during peak athletic contests. Old myths die hard.

“Bo Brewster is a quitter.” The familiar, grating voice of Keith Redmond, over the Beach Boys singing “Be True to Your School.” “When given the opportunity to perform for his school, a chance to do his best for the glory of the Blackhawks and himself, to really show what he was made of, he quit. Pure and simple, he quit.”

“There you go, Beauregard,” Shuja says. “Could have put my black ass in a sling for at least eternity gettin' that one for you. But call me Shaft; Coach Death don't even know I be wired when he said it. Don't stop to thank me, just run you ass off.”

Spectators line the roadway now, cheering, telling Bo he is within a half-mile of the run-swim transition area. He catches a quick glimpse of Kenny Joseph's bright orange stripe seconds before Kenny disappears around the final sharp curve, and adrenaline runs through him like a river. Two down and one to go, and he's within striking range.

And then somebody pulls his plug. His feet turn to anvils, and air squirts in and out of his lungs like molasses. His cadence drops as if someone has released his throttle and jammed his brakes to the floorboard. Terrible hunger gnaws. Within fifteen seconds of his adrenaline high, Bo Brewster is being fitted for a lead suit.

Can't panic
. He knows these sensations from other overextended runs.
Too far too fast
. Did he misread his initial energy? Pay too much attention to the tape and not enough to his body? Try to do it all too early?
It passes. It gets over. Hold on
. As if by summons, Lion is in his headset. “You got nothin' to prove to anybody but yourself, big man. Stotanism is a state of being, and you're there. All you have to do now is celebrate it. I've watched you in the water for the better part of a year now, and I have
never
seen you back off. Never. Go down into the part that drives you, Bo, into the engine
of your soul. Enjoy this. You own it.”

You own it. You own it. This gets over
. Shit.

Lion is followed by Elvis. “Hey, Ironman. Jury's still out on you, man, but you got a chance to strike a blow for every ragin' beat-up son of a bitch in our group, and maybe in the world. That's a chance not many guys get. Don't screw it up.”

Bo pictures his friends, his fellow Stotans, the members of Nak's Pack running with him. The truth is, their lives will go on—pretty much unchanged—whether he wins or not. He could give in to this evil vacuum sucking his life out, and time will march on. But then there's Hudge. What must it mean to Hudge to participate in this? To belong, to have a hand in someone striking a blow for
him?
Each time his voice comes over the headset, there is a childlike, barely contained giddiness. How many times in Hudge's life will he have a chance to walk the edge of something this powerful? The thoughts are complete, but they flash into Bo's brain in split seconds.

Tell somebody who cares. I've still got two miles in the river
. Bo rounds the final curve breathing deep, deep breaths, sucking oxygen into his bowels.
I've never seen you back down. Not once
. Three hundred yards ahead, Shelly and Shuja stand waiting, bananas and Gatorade at the ready, waving him in. Beyond them a blur of con
testants strip to their swimming suits, dashing into the cold river. He slows, relaxing his legs for the switch and the possibility of leg cramps. He overloaded with potassium and calcium and salt this morning, but the nature of the flutter kick—toes down, feet extended—is a written prescription for knots in the calves. He will swim with only his arms for the first four hundred yards or so, then add legs as his body accommodates the conversion.
If I can just get past this wall!

His overheated body and brain are thrilled at the sight of contestants hitting the cold water, and the possibility of new life presents itself.
God, don't let me be drained. Let it pass. Let it pass.

And suddenly it's four-thirty in the morning. Familiar theme music bounces into his head, followed by “Bo Brewster, this is Larry King. I read your manuscript, but I can't make a decision until I see the final chapter. You've got some girlfriend there; says you didn't even know she read it. Don't be mad at her for sending it; it's good. I want you to know I passed up the parts you said were confidential. I, of all people, respect privacy. At any rate, you hurry up and kick this Wyrack guy's butt, and we'll book a program about Stotans and Gladiators, or maybe fathers and sons. They tell me you should be looking at the river as you hear this, so I'll
shut up, and you get on your way.”

Larry King theme music fades, and Bo Brewster, laughing like a maniac, grabs a banana and his goggles from Shelly, takes a long swig of Shuja's Gatorade, pulls the plug on the earphones as he drops the tune belt to the dirt, sails the Stotan hat toward his father—standing near the shore beside Keith Redmond—and charges into the Columbia River in pursuit of Ian Wyrack, who's about to fall five hundred green ones into debt.

JULY 17

Dear Larry,

Hey, Lar, you saved my life. I came stumbling into the run-swim transition area running on empty, and your voice resurrected me. I did as you bid, Lar. I kicked that Wyrack guy's butt, finished well above the middle of the pack. I caught a glimpse of Hudge's fluorescent orange stripe down the back of his suit about a half mile from the finish and I played “Larry King Live” theme music in my head and just swam him down.

I would have written sooner, Lar, but the final chapter didn't end with the race, and until today I couldn't have wrapped it up in any way that would have made sense. Now I can.

I haven't decided where I'll go to school next year, or
even if I'll go to school. The night after Yukon Jack's, Shelly and I drove back up the river to the place I camped the night before, and we laid our sleeping bags together and stared at the stars and had our dreams. She said she knows people laugh at her idea of being an American Gladiator sometimes, but she doesn't care; it's going to happen. “You can't know what it's like to be completely disregarded, Bo,” she said. “Maybe some of it has to do with being female in a culture where women's voices don't have volume, but when you lost football, it was a blessing. When Redmond took basketball from me, he stole my soul. I was young then, I was small. But I'm big now, and I can get it back.”

I love her, Lar, I really do. Enough to have enrolled in a high-impact dance aerobics class with her that is going to test the Ironman in me, as well as my ability to keep my eyes on the instructor and off the thong leotards well within reach in front of me, but out of reach if you know what I mean.

Dad was nowhere to be found when I rose out of the water like King Neptune at the finish of Yukon Jack's, so I didn't get a chance to say all the things I wanted to say that I'd have to take back later. But Mom and Jordan were there—along with the rest of the Angry Management Brigade—and Mom just ran and threw her arms around me
and soaked her blouse against my dripping body. Jordan said he liked riding down with Mr. S, because he doesn't like girls either. I think I need to clear that up. At first I thought Dad was being a poor loser, but later I thought maybe he split because he saw me on the Ultra-Lite and didn't want to discuss where it came from. From race day until graduation we avoided the topic like
E. coli
.

But then he asked what I wanted for a graduation present, and I told him I wanted him to go into counseling with me. I didn't really want that, but Mr. S told me I did and I believed him. When I asked, Dad said no way, but he walked up to me in the high school gym the night of the ceremony and handed me an appointment card.

We went to a guy named Dr. Jorgensen in Spokane—a guy Mr. Nak recommended—and he was something else. Sometimes we went together and sometimes we went separately, but when we entered his room, there was no right and wrong, no good guys or bad guys, no judgment. We simply told our stories. Turns out Dad fought his father the way I fight him, and I think I got a true glimpse of my dad as a boy, and I'm afraid we're a lot alike.

That scares me, Lar, because it means I could end up like him, and I don't want that; I believe my father leads a desperate life. In our last session he told a story of his dad punishing him for leaving a corral gate open, allowing some
cattle to roam free. Their bull was hit by a semi out on the interstate, and it cost Grampa several thousand dollars. He made Dad brace his back against the kitchen wall in a sitting position—with no chair under him—for more than a half hour. Sweat poured off Dad's forehead as he recounted his story, and his voice choked nearly into silence. He screamed at Grampa that he hated him and would never close another gate on the whole goddamn ranch, and Grampa whipped his trembling legs with a willow switch. Dad didn't give in, though; he never sat down.

Dr. Jorgensen turned to me and asked if I ever felt about my dad the way Dad had just described his feelings about Grampa, and I started to say yes, but one look into his face made me cut it off. He saw my response in my eyes, though, and he stood, shook Dr. Jorgensen's hand, and said he wouldn't be coming back. He said, “This is too hard.” I haven't seen him since then, and I don't know how I feel about that.

Mr. Nak is leaving. He's going back to Texas. In what has to be one of the most significant nights of my life, Mr. Nak pulled this all together for me.

A week or so after graduation he asked all the members of the anger management group to come to another evening meeting. I recorded everything said that night, Lar, because Mr. Nak's words have come to mean a lot to me, and I
wanted to remember everything right.

Mr. S was with him when he walked into the room wearing his customary denim shirt and Levis, boots clicking on the hardwood floor, in that easy manner I've come to feel so safe with, and he asked everyone—including Mr. S—to sit in the same circle we've been in all along, and he sat up on his desk, like always, and said, “I'm gonna be movin' on, so I thought I'd get ever one together an' say my piece.

“I been doin' this anger management thing for years, an' it's probably the most important thing I do in the world of education. Hell, anybody can teach you how to fix a busted engine or build a damn shoebox. This here last anger management group was different than all the rest, an' I need to say that. I feel honored to have watched some of your work.

“I know your stories a lot better than you know mine, an' I want you to know, no matter where I go, those stories are safe with me. But I'm gonna even things up a little this evenin' an' tell you mine.” Then he told us a story that I can't detail right now, Lar, because I just don't want to feel as bad as I'd have to to tell it.

It boils down to Mr. Nak driving drunk one night when he was a young man, and he killed his kids.

When he finished his story, he said, “I don't tell y'all
that for sympathy, because ain't no sympathy in the world gonna make it one bit different for me. I tell it because there seems to be a tendency for my groups to walk away thinkin' I got a bunch of wisdom, an' I dispense it like some kind of cowboy god. Well, I ain't no god, not even a little bit, an' I don't want nobody thinkin' that, because it cheapens what I have to offer.”

He said, “I always kinda wanted to be a preacher, but I ain't never had no particular religion to preach, an' that leaves me at a disadvantage in that regard. But I got something to preach about anyway, an' since I tricked y'all into comin' tonight, I'm gonna let fly.” He paused a minute and looked around the group. “This group has taught me more about the nature of mercy than I've learned since the night I sat in a dark room upstairs in my house and decided not to end my own life like I done my children's. I think not many people understand the nature of mercy, because it gets misnamed a lot—hooked up with organized religions when there ain't no call for that—but I see it as the only medicine available for what ails us, so I need to prescribe it. It is the only medicine for our anger, it is the only medicine for our hurt, it is the only medicine for our desperation.”

Mr. Nak rose, put a finger in the air, and said, “The nature of mercy allows for all things. It excuses nothing, but it allows for all things. It allows for a young man full of
drink to push his luck and explode his universe, it allows for a son to stand in disobedience before his father, an' it allows for a man's meanness in trying to break that son's spirit in the name of fatherhood.

“It allows an anger management guru the mistake of tryin' to get some unsuspectin' kid to let a skunk into his house, an' it allows the insensitivity of an educator to steal a young girl's athletic dreams. It allows a man to molest his daughter an' desert his family.” He looked directly at Mr. S. “An' it allows for a boy to jump out of the boat.” He nodded. “It does, Lion, man.”

Shelly shook her head. “Mr. Nak, what about Hudgie's burns? How can anything allow for that?”

Mr. Nak smiled. He said, “It allows for all things, Shelly. Remember I said it don't excuse any of 'em.”

I don't think everyone understood all Mr. Nak was saying, Lar. I know some of it was unclear to me, but the group was almost reverently silent. Mr. Nak sat back on his desk and said, “Ya know, I've heard folks say ‘Life's not fair' in this group a lot. I've even said it myself when the occasion seemed to call for it. But that ain't correct. Life is exactly fair.
People
ain't fair, but life sure as hell is. Most of us just ain't willin' to accept it. Life has Ironmen an' Stotans an' American Gladiators, an' Charles Mansons an' Jeffrey Dahmers. Life has ever kind of holy man an' devil. If
you're ever gonna beat all the anger an' hurt inside you, you're gonna have to learn to offset the awful with the magnificent. But that requires allowin' for both to have their place in the world. An' whether you allow it or not, it's there. The truth don't need you to believe it for it to be true.

“I said earlier I'm hittin' the trail. Let me tell you why. I'm goin' back to Texas. They got a senior rodeo circuit down there I can join up with. I'm goin' because of what I saw at Yukon Jack's. I been payin' less attention to the physical world than I should, gettin' outta contact. When I saw young Brewster here workin' his way through that hellish event, it got me to rememberin' what it was like to be on a bareback bronc, how it felt to know exactly where that thunderous devil was goin' next, just from the tension in his muscle against my knee. I been payin' attention to other folks' lives—an' learnin' some while I was at it—but now it's time to start payin' attention to my own agin. I wanna thank you folks for teachin' me that. I owe ya, an' I'll stay on a bronc one second longer in each of your names.”

Then he got up and walked out of the room, Lar. I've never seen him again.

So there's your last chapter. Mercy allows for all things. Today I rode my bicycle over the back road to Spokane and
out the Centennial Trail toward Idaho, and on the way back I passed the building where Dr. Jorgensen has his office. I saw my dad's Lexus parked outside.

I don't know what will come of that—hell, Dad might have been there arguing about the bill—and I don't have any expectations. But no matter what happens, I'll survive, and I won't lead a desperate life, because the eight months I spent with that posse of ragamuffin Stotans led by an undersized Japanese cowboy gave me the power to let the world be every bit as goddamn crazy as it is.

Be well, Larry King,
Beauregard Brewster