CHAPTER FIVE

Sunday, June 10
University of Manitoba
Pembina Highway—five kilometers short of
University Stadium

8:45 AM
Temp: 27 degrees Celsius
Humidity: High enough to make you wonder
if you showered in your clothes by mistake.

When Lee insisted on getting off the bus at the thirty-seven kilometer marker instead of five kilometers later at the finish line, Rhonda started to whine. “We’ve come all this way on a stinkin’” (here she shot a glare at the garlic lover sitting across from her), “sweaty old bus, and we’re not even going to see them finish the race?!” Ever since he could remember, Lee had been at the finish line of the Manitoba Marathon with thousands of other onlookers, watching the runners fly across the finish line, victorious arms raised high in the air, and for sure, that had its own appeal. But seated comfortably in the stands of the university stadium, watching the runners enter the grounds and run their last loop around the asphalt track, already sure of their victory, already knowing they’d made it, was not what Lee had in mind this time.

“I’m looking for blood and guts this time,” he said.

Rhonda stopped dead. “What are ya, some kind of a wacko sadist or somethin’?” She had to run to catch up to him.

“Maybe,” said Lee, hurrying toward the crowds lining the street where the runners slogged by, “and maybe not.”

As they squeezed their way through, Rhonda caught her first glimpse of what Lee meant by blood and guts. One of the runners on the far side of the road began to slow down to a walk, then stopped, bent over, and heaved, bringing up what seemed like gallons of water, probably everything she’d had to drink since the beginning of the race. Then, of all things, she wiped her mouth, took a deep breath, and kept on running. She kept on running. “That’d be it for me,” said Rhonda. “You upchuck, you go straight to bed, where I come from. This is stupid.”

Several other runners went past, looking exhausted but still in one piece. Others stumbled as they passed, clearly using every ounce of energy to take just one more step, and then another.

“Look at that,” said Lee, pointing to one man who had obviously pulled a muscle along the way and was now wincing with every painful half-hop-half-limp. “Suffer like that, and you know you’re alive,” said Lee.

“Or half dead,” muttered Rhonda. Lee took a sideways glance at her. He could see she was uncomfortable, as if, for her, witnessing people with their pain showing was too much like seeing them run by in their underwear. Like it was none of her business, and she wanted no part of it. Lee knew it was his business, though. He craved the intensity, the rawness of it all, and if that made him a wacko sadist, so be it. He liked to think that his own blood and guts would be put to the test one day and that, like these aching, sweating winners flying and limping past him, he’d pass with flying colors. No C-minuses then. A-plus, all the way. If that day ever came.

“Oh, man,” said Rhonda, looking through her fingers at a runner coming straight toward them. Well, “straight” wouldn’t exactly be the word. The young muscular guy was weaving and meandering like a drunk on a bender. His long wavy hair hung in his eyes, but Lee could see that this guy didn’t need his sense of sight any more—he was running purely on instinct. When he stumbled onto the boulevard and just about knocked Rhonda over, she clung to Lee’s arm as if only he could save her. Then she realized how it looked and shoved his arm away as if it were Lee, not she, who had placed her hand on his skinny arm. Lee was already too busy being irritated to be irritated. Some bozo on a bike rode slowly along the sidelines, yelling stupid things at the delirious runner, like, “You can do it, you’re looking great, you’re looking great!” The poor guy wasn’t looking great, not by a long shot, and Lee wanted to slap that biker’s trap shut with a wide piece of duct tape.

As the runner passed them, Lee could hear him mumbling something half-familiar. Holy Ronald McDonald, thought Lee, when he recognized the runner’s slurred chant: “Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bum.”

He turned to Rhonda. “The guy’s starving. He needs something to eat.” For the first time in his life, Lee wished he’d listened to Agnes and brought along a bleepin’ banana. He grabbed Rhonda’s sleeve. “You got anything on you?”

Rhonda’s hand went protectively to her back pocket and she shook her head. “Nope.”

“Come on,” said Lee, “this is important—what’ve you got?”

“It’s a Mars Bar, if you must know,” said Rhonda, “and you’re not getting your hands on it.”

Lee screwed up his eyes and gave her a piercing, “you greedy little scum” look.

Rhonda sighed and handed over the half-melted Mars Bar. “There goes my allowance,” she moaned. Lee snatched it and ripped the wrapper with his teeth. He ran a few steps next to the delirious runner who hadn’t given up the chant: “… pickles onions on a sesame seed bum …”

“It’s bun, bro, not bum,” whispered Lee into the runner’s ear, hoping to save the guy some embarrassment. Gad, wasn’t it bad enough that he was staggering around like a zombie after one too many martinis? Lee shoved the Mars Bar into the guy’s limp hand. “Here. You need this, dude. Go on, eat it. It might give you the strength you need to finish.”

Although Lee’s asthma was already acting up, he stayed with the runner long enough to recognize a change in his chant. At first the words weren’t clear, but with every step the runner’s voice became stronger. “I think I can, I think I can …”

Lee’s face opened into a broad smile. “I know you can, buddy,” he whispered.

Whether you think you can or think you can’t—you are right.

– Henry Ford