The memory of running: a novel by Ron McLarty

Author:Ron McLarty
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Death, Psychological fiction, Action & Adventure, Humorous, Travelers, Sports & Recreation, Fiction, Psychological, Sisters, Loss (Psychology), Life change events, Middle aged men, Middle-aged men, Cycling, Overweight men
ISBN: 9780670033638
Publisher: Viking
Published: 2004-12-29T08:00:00+00:00

33

In the morning I could hear rain pelting the red metal roof. I rolled onto my back, but the cut above my shoulder blades put me back onto my side. I had fallen asleep in one of the stuffed square chairs in the center of the big room and somehow made my way to the floor, where I spent the night. I looked over to the bookcase corner. Carl was still asleep—or at least amazingly still.

It was day outside, and some of that gray light spilled onto my head from a large bay window. As I became more awake—and it was hard, because I slept solid and didn't even dream—I could sense an ache that pinched all over me like a lot of tiny pins. My hands and arms were black and blue. I looked at my chest and my stomach and the rest of me, curled, swollen, and discolored. Using the square chairs, I stood, feeling as if I were balanced on a ball. It was a high-wire shuffle to the bathroom, where I ran a hot-hot bath and soaked in it until at least the little pins disappeared. My shorts had a big hole in the thigh part and the heel of my Father Benny sneaks had been ripped clean off. I pulled on my clothes and my paper shirt. I took four more aspirin.

When I pushed open the bookshelves and walked out of the bathroom, Carl was sitting up in bed. He had brushed his damp hair back with a brush from his night table. Even in his illness, he looked young, almost like a child. I felt embarrassed in my green paper shirt.

"You're all messed up," he said quietly, pushing out the words in a kind of puff.

"I don't know."

"You are. God. Look at what I did."

"No, no. I shouldn't have been stopped there."

"You were on the grass. You were twenty feet off the road." Carl raised his arms and dropped them. His fingers were pink skeleton fingers. "I was out of it at the hospital."

"That's okay."

"I'm out of it. Even my doctor says I'm out of it." I remembered something about the doctor but not much. Pony-tail. Protein. Food. "Food," I said.

"Check the fridge. There's food. I'd eat."

I made things I could make. I could make scrambled eggs and toast and tea and pour apple juice.

"I can't drink apple juice," Carl said when I put the tray on his lap. "I drink it and actually piss it out as apple juice. Right away. I'm out of it."

I pushed one of the square chairs over and ate, too. Eggs have a lot of protein, but for some reason I only ate a little.

"Good," he said, chewing. He put some egg on the corner of his toast and said it again. "Good."

We were quiet while he ate. My family was quiet while we ate, too. Some families have loud meals, and food is only a part of the loudness. My family was quiet with food. Respectful, really. Almost as if our meal was a ceremony we had just learned and were trying to get it right.

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