4.

I WENT FOR A RIDE. I GOT MY BIKE OUT FOR THE FIRST TIME THAT spring, pumped up the tires, oiled the brakes and the Derailleur, and loaded it onto the rack on the back of my old Saab. I drove east on the Mid-Cape Highway to Exit 9A and turned south. In half a mile I was at the Rail Trail.

This time of year there were hardly any vehicles in the parking lot, and within minutes I had the bike off the rack, my helmet secured, my shoes locked into the pedals, and I was cruising the smooth pavement that covered what had once been a railroad corridor. This was not a hard ride. In fact, it would be difficult to find an easier one, but I could go twenty-two miles to Wellfleet, turn around and ride back, and feel I had a pretty good workout.

I cruised past river swamps, cranberry bogs, an abandoned lumber mill, ponds that would soon be teeming with swimmers and small sailboats. I rode faster and faster because there was virtually nobody else on the trail: an inline skater, a woman with a dog, a man with some sort of baby carriage affixed behind his bike.

It was good, I told myself, to be doing something other than thinking. And then I realized that was exactly what I was doing. But I wasn’t brooding. No. I was doing something positive. Yes. That’s what I was doing. I was preparing myself for something in the future. The Pan-Mass Challenge, 110 miles from Sturbridge to the Cape Cod Canal the first Saturday in August. Preparing meant going forward, and that was good. Go forward, George. That’s good. That’s good. Keep pumping. Get in shape. Raise money. Children’s cancer fund. The Jimmy Fund. Pump your legs, raise money. Forget old man Telford and the Gregorys and Mitch White and your lost wife and anybody else you can think of forgetting.

Except I wasn’t really raising money, was I? I was contributing it. I had pledged $2,500 back in January, the minimum for the one-day ride that I was planning to do. Riders were supposed to get sponsors, send out solicitation letters, hit up friends and relatives, but I hadn’t done that. I didn’t have anybody I thought I could ask. Try my colleagues at work, maybe; make things awkward for everyone, those who gave and those who didn’t. The guy in the basement wants me to give him a hundred bucks. Look out for George, he’s asking people for money.

How much would I raise? Whatever. It wasn’t worth it. If I was going to pay $2,000 of my own money, I might as well pay $2,500. Pump, George, pump.

I was beginning to tire as I reached Nickerson State Park. Drop down. Pass through the tunnel beneath Route 6A, go back uphill and head toward Orleans Center. It wasn’t much of a hill. I pushed myself harder. Go faster, George. What are you saving yourself for?

Guy my age ought to have friends he could call on. I had dozens of friends in college. A whole fraternity full of friends.

And I hadn’t seen a single one of them in twelve years.