The Boy Who Runs by John Brant

Author:John Brant
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2016-08-15T16:00:00+00:00

Pushing on with life…his abandoned blessings…yours lovely…How could you resist such a letter? Summoning his own competitive will, and perhaps realizing that a journey to Africa might catapult him to a new level of involvement, Fee still said no. He threw down his own hole card. Total expenses for one person making the trip would be around four thousand dollars. Not only would the foundation pay that for Julius; Fee would personally donate that sum to the AUCF general fund.

But Julius refused to take the bait. “No,” he told Fee. “You must spend that money on your own plane ticket.”

Fee knew when he was beat. He also knew that Julius was right: The time had come for him to set eyes on Awake. By this point the AUCF had about seventy-five thousand dollars in the bank, enough to start planning construction of the clinic. Fee submitted to his six hundred dollars’ worth of inoculations and medication, and in January 2010, three years after Grace and Julius showed up at his house for dinner, Fee and Julius embarked on a journey to Uganda.

• • •

Fee traveled frequently, for both business and pleasure—he’d recently taken the family to Europe to watch the Tour de France—but he’d never been to Africa or anywhere else in the developing world. As the jetliner attained cruising altitude out of Portland International, he felt on edge. Julius, for his part, drifted back to the galley, falling into conversation with the flight attendants. Now that he’d started telling his story, started making connections and raising money toward his goal, he couldn’t stop. He handed out his AUCF business card. One of the attendants invited Julius to give a talk to her son’s high school cross-country team.

Meanwhile, back in his seat, Fee wrote in his journal, a clothbound ledger that he always carried when he traveled. He usually filled it with lists, itineraries, addresses, and other quotidian items, but tonight, outbound to Africa, he was in a more meditative mood. He wrote about the general happiness and satisfaction that characterized his life, and his one major regret: that he hadn’t spent more time with Angela and the kids. He lifted his pen, looked thoughtfully out the window to the glowing wingtip lights. He always had to work, to provide, to tick off the items on his checklists, to serve as mentor and role model to the young people in his office. On the weekends there was yard work, house maintenance, and the obligation of his long weekend run—he had to get his miles in, the weekly quota. On Sunday, after early mass, it was race day, including those fifteen marathons that blackened his toenails but made him feel alive.

As the flight droned on, as the napkins and earphones and blankets accumulated around his seat, as his mouth grew stale and his head pounded, the excitement of the adventure faded and for the first time since he’d met Julius, Fee entertained doubts. Is this man for real? he thought. What has he gotten me into?

Upon reflection, however, Fee felt reassured.

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