The Ambassador of What Read online

  ~

  Falling asleep, he twitched and flailed, swore in slashing whispers. I lay rigid on my back, thinking he would wallop me, maybe even strangle me. At last came his snore. I nodded off, but woke with a clench and ache in my guts. Slow as a hostage, I eased out of bed, and on the way to the toilet, let slip a fart. The shock of it. The burst. I bolted the rest of the way, and barely got sat down. Soft shit blasted out of me. Then a spray of muddy flecks. Dollops of Grey Poupon in my ginch. I stared at them aghast. Didn’t flush. Stuck my head out and listened. He hadn’t wakened. A bag lined the wastebin. Maybe ten minutes I took on the stairs. Every creak an agony. Gently out the side door. Feet cold against flagstone. Wind on my bare and burbling arse. I threw the bag like plastic parachute army men. It landed plop on the roof next door.

  ~

  I made a bed of the bathroom mats. Aunty Ag had great towels, very soft and thick. One I folded and made my pillow. The other was my blanket. Every ten minutes for the first while, I was up and on the crapper, farting out my dregs. Then it got better. I thought stoats should be stoats, not sporrans, and finally, I slept.

  ~

  My body was its own alarm. I heard him yawn and stretch.

  Son?

  Shot up and turned on the light. Flushed away the thick shit pudding.

  Can I get in?

  Minute please.

  I sorted the mats and one of the towels and wrapped the other around my waist. Gave my face a splash.

  Come on, boy. I’m bustin.

  Gaped my eyes as wide as I could and pasted on a grin.

  Morning!

  Shh. Not so loud.

  Sorry.

  I ducked by. In he went for his number two. I put on my shorts and lay on the floor, one leg extended, the other pulled toward my chest. Dad shaved. To clean his razor of bristles and cream, he slooshed it in the steaming sink and then tapped it on the edge. Usually three. Tap-tap-tap. Today it wasn’t like that. Today it was idiot Morse. Denny lent him styptic.

  ~

  We lined up well back in the field and pinned our numbers on. Dad was 1454. I was 1456. A short man right in front of me had curly hair like McEnroe, and the back of his light blue T-shirt said, Warning: I spit left. The Labatt logo was everywhere. A cop on a horse, its rippling rump. Denny had taken our photograph beside the statue of Edward VII, but I forgot until I saw it later. The stink of portable toilets. I remember that. Anything solid, I would have sicked up, but breakfast had been electrolytes, dissolved in a glass of water.

  Calm now, lad. Big deep breaths.

  Vicious wind, I said.

  Find someone. Tuck in behind.

  Up ahead, the gun went off. A lot of the other runners cheered. We inched along. Then a slow jog.

  Remember what I’ve telt you. Nine minute miles.

  Nine minute miles.

  Fluids.

  Every station

  Two cups at least.

  Two cups at least.

  Here now was the START.

  This is us, he said.

  This is us, I said.

  Look for me out the Leslie Spit.

  I will.

  He pulled away.

  ~

  I put one foot in front of the other, but it was bad as dreams. Hardly any grab. In the shadow of these buildings. Then I saw my uncle. He was taking film. Pumped his fist. I found my legs. Felt the crowd. Five deep and cheering. In front of the Hospital for Sick Children, a gaggle of Brazilians in yellow and green saw me and went bonkers, waving their big flag. My downtown splits were eight minutes per. I couldn’t help it. Total strangers, stretching over the barricades, telling me way to go, wanting me to touch their hands.

  ~

  At the end of University, we veered left, past the Royal York hotel, then down and along the lake. A different city here, all rust and blackened concrete, oil drums and cargo ships. Not so many spectators. The stink of sewage and exhaust. I remember a street called Cherry. Then a left on Unwin. Thumping wind blew cold off the lake. I squinted against the grit and tucked in back of a tall bald guy.

  Making me do all the verk.

  We can change it up next mile.

  Stay. Vind is bitch. You are from Brazil?

  No. It’s my shirt.

  They go crazy seeing you.

  Gave me a lift.

  Attention. Long vay to go.

  ~

  Around the seven mile mark, we turned onto the Leslie Spit, a bare flat finger of two-lane road. Water cups rolled and skittered. A cap went wheeling past. Somebody yelled, This is fucked! Waves rammed the breakwater. BOOM, the spray blew in my eyes. Then the bald man barked in pain and hobbled off the road, clutching his cramped hamstring. I leaned into wind like a hill and remembered Calgary, where my longest run was a lazy five, every day a different mall.

  ~

  Dad saw me first. He had made his turn at the end of the Spit and now was coming back the way, shouting my name, clapping hard.

  That’s the way, boyo! Head up, now!

  In a blink he was by, but I felt brand new, fully fuelled, and started passing people. Whapped the top of the orange stanchion when I made my turn. Now the wind was at my back. It gave me a couple of freebie miles, 7:40 per. I shouted You can do it to runners still coming down the way, but not so many heard. I was still alto. A single twist of pubic hair.

  ~

  About mile nine I felt my nipples, tender and raw. I tugged and tented my T-shirt. Come the eleven-mile mark, I was cursing it and wishing I had worn the Bill Rodgers singlet, its soft blue band. I poured cups of water down my neck. Then in the crowd near mile twelve, I saw a boy, older than me, with a black buzz cut and headcase grin. He said, How long did you train for this? It was odd, but I answered him. Four months. He shouted after me, You’ll never make it. The breath in me fled. I stumbled. He may as well have thrown a stone, a spear, a lightning bolt. It scrambled all my circuitry. Only the foulest Glanisburgh bams would ever had said a thing like that, the dropouts and the potheads, the juvies and the brawlers. I looked back, and there he was, still leering at me. Into my head rushed all the things I could have shouted back at him. Fuck you. Pugface. Idiot. I told myself settle—a stitch coming on—and did what dad taught me, lengthened my stride, deepened my breath. Extend your wrists, breathe in. Flex your wrists, breathe out. It’s a way to remind yourself. Extend, in. Flex, out. The side-stitch faded, but a sludge of fatigue was filling my legs. I had gone out too fast, and ahead of me now was the Don Valley Parkway, miles of steady, sapping incline. I looked down my T-shirt. Both nipples bled.

  ~

  There were patches of autumn to the left of me, and a gigantic black-girdered bridge. Mostly I remember road. Every mile harder now than the one before. Ten yards up and to the right, a woman in purple shorts kecked. Then it came, a stringy yellow soup, swinging from her bottom lip. She tried to keep going, but wobbled. Two volunteers ran over to catch her. I heard one say, Did you see that boy? She meant my shirt, the bloodstains. I peeled it off and kept on slogging, hoping for a second wind. Gremlins and devils and genies of pain were escaping their caves way down in my body. They gnawed and rammed. They howled. I thought to try and sing songs in my head. The only one that came to me was “Message in a Bottle.” I sang it anyway.

  ~

  Don Mills Road, the blue sign said. It was another turnaround point. A volunteer was gesturing like ground crew at airports. To make the hairpin round the stanchion, I had to slow right down, and very nearly stopped. Not because I thought to. My legs were giving out. My heartbeat was arrhythmic. I wondered was it possible—can someone eleven die?—but I didn’t stop. I thought, Next streetlight, and made it that far.

  Now, one more.

  Come on.

  One more.

  ~

  Ahead of me, a runner laughed.

  Another one said, Look.
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  I lifted my head, and blinked.

  Up on the giant black-girdered bridge, a man and woman in white were waving. The woman had wings, tinfoil wings, and a big blond cloud of curls. The man held a shepherd hook and grinned through a bushy Godbeard. He pointed the hook straight at me and said something to the woman.

  She blew me a kiss.

  I had run under and well past the bridge before I even heard the bus.

  ~

  It rolled along beside me, a boxy green-and-white old thing. In the windows, faces. I remembered some from the Leslie Spit. Then the folding doors opened. A silver-haired man stood in the stairway.

  Hello, he said.

  His accent was English, and his smile an effort. The eyes on him, blue infliction.

  Could you board the bus, please?

  No thank you. I’m fine.

  Afraid you must. Regulations.

  What regulations?

  We’re picking up the stragglers.

  I’m not a straggler.

  He tapped his watch. Oh yes you are.

  No, I said.

  Pardon me?

  I have to finish.

  Now, look here.

  Someone on the bus said, Leave him alone.

  The Englishman wagged his finger. You haven’t seen the last of me, and waved the driver on.

  I winced through a wall of diesel exhaust.

  ~

  He picked them off one and two at a time. A few hung their heads. Others looked happy. Now the bus waited in the middle of the road.

  Listen you. They have to re-open the freeway.

  I pointed to the shoulder. Lots of room there.

  I have strict instructions.

  No.

  Don’t make me—

  Bugger off.

  Tell him, kid!

  You will get on—

  I WANT TO FINISH.

  He rushed at me like a blindside flanker, but I am good at fending, and got an elbow up. BANG, right in his gob. The bus went Brazilian, and my body had wrung its adrenaline makers. I ran hard ahead and checked my shoulder, but the Englishman wasn’t chasing. He was bent nearly double, face in his hands. I nearly went back to tell him sorry, but something stronger sent me on.

  Here came the bus.

  It passed me, doors closed.

  Out an open window came a curly head. It was him with the T-shirt, I spit left. He gave a thumbs up, and said, Fuckin A!

  I tried shouting Stop, but my voice was tiny.

  The bus became a speck. I was out here alone.

  ~

  The world disappeared. I disappeared.

  Became an It.

  It didn’t think. It didn’t run.

  All It did was just not stop.

  One It foot in front of the next.

  ~

  He was big, noseguard big, a wide wet V on his brown T-shirt, brown shorts too, and (I looked twice) a pair of North Stars. Heavy pronation. The face on him red as Ragú and round.

  Hi, he said

  Hi.

  We the last?

  There was a bus.

  Limey prick.

  He tried to grab me.

  I saw that. Nice move.

  What if he comes back?

  Countin on you to whup him.

  What if he brings cops?

  I’ll tell ’em he assaulted you. Then sue his bony ass.

  You’re a lawyer?

  Don’t hold it against me.

  You look like you play football.

  I eat too many crullers. Christ, this is hard.

  How many miles left, you think?

  Five, more or less.

  They took away the water.

  Let’s not stress the negative. What’s your name?

  I told him. What’s yours?

  Casey.

  We knocked the backs of our hands together, his left hand, my right hand, and we kept on plodding. His thick upper legs along the inside were purple-red and bleeding.

  ~

  Still with me?

  Yeah.

  Where you from?

  Glanisburgh.

  I know that town.

  Pretty small.

  The park.

  Harris?

  He nodded. Camped there once.

  My dad and me do hills in it.

  He in this?

  I nodded ahead. Finished now.

  Nice to have someone there at the end.

  I said, Casey?

  He said, Yeah.

  I don’t know if I’ll make it.

  Wanna stop?

  No.

  Okay then.

  ~

  Ready? he asked.

  You, I said.

  Jeremiah. Was. Bullfrog.

  Was. Good friend. Mine.

  Never un’stood.

  Word. He said.

  Helped him.

  Drink. His wine.

  Always had.

  Mighty. Fine wine.

  We forgot the second verse, but kept on with the chorus, doing what we could with the breath we had.

  ~

  Queen’s Quay. Downtown was on our right. There were no more spectators, and nothing to mark the route.

  Casey.

  His head was lolling.

  Casey. Where do we turn?

  He could hardly point.

  Spadina? I said.

  He nodded.

  The hill ahead was short but steep. Casey waved me on.

  No, I said.

  Can’t, he said.

  Casey, look at me. You have to breathe. Look at me.

  I showed him how, the wrists.

  Do it, I said. Do it.

  Okay.

  Head up.

  Okay.

  We crested the hill. He pointed right. The CN Tower. A small, dry sound escaped me.

  ~

  No banner said FINISH. They had taken it down. The marshals had gone, the spectators. There was a line, but I ran past it, just to be sure.

  Denny said, It’s over, son.

  I wasn’t proud. I didn’t care. Dad had been filming the last fifty yards. Casey told me, Go.

  I pulled away from him.

  He said, I’ll be the one with bragging rights. Ran the Toronto Marathon. Finished absolutely last.

  ~

  Dad and Denny took an arm each and helped me up the stoop. Aunty Ag gaped.

  God in Heaven, son. What have they done to ye?

  Away she went and had a wee greet. I gagged down electrolytes and then filled the glass with plain cold water and took it to the washroom, where Dad was slooshing Epsom salts all around the tub.

  Give that a try.

  Can’t lift my leg.

  Sit on the edge?

  I tried, but could hardly bend my knees.

  Right, he said. Togs off.

  It embarrassed me some. My pubic hair. He pretended not to notice.

  Put your arm around my neck. One, two, hup. Gaw you’re an awful size.

  He had run a marathon in three and one half hours, but he held me, and he tilted me.

  Stick your toe in. Is it too hot?

  I shook my head.

  He stood me in the water, and took hold of my wrists.

  Lean back, he said. Go on.

  Bit by bit, he lowered me in. Stripped and got in with me. Top to bottom and back again, he massaged my legs. I dunked my head and lathered with Breck.

  ~

  The inside of the Herald building smelt like Ditto fluid. A man in an apron sent me upstairs. There was only one reporter. He was on the phone, taking notes in shorthand. An autographed photo of Stan Mikita was on the wall above his desk. Pens and pe
ncils in a mug. An IBM Electric. He thanked the Reeve very much for his time, then hung up.

  Arsewipe.

  Lit a Number 7, and swivelled in his chair.

  You the marathon?

  Yes, I said.

  Have a seat.

  The story when it came out was in a box in Sports, smaller than times-table flashcards. He put in how before the race my furthest run was fifteen miles, but nothing else of what I said. Vind is bitch. Three Dog Night. That woman in purple shorts.

  It Does Not Control You

  Ten clicks out of Glanisburgh, he turned off River Road and drove deep into farm country, raising plumes of dust. Sunday afternoon. The car was a Gran Torino, reddish brown, a station wagon, fairly new as well. He still painted houses, but had got his EMCA badge, was full-time on the ambulance. I wore brand new Nike Stings, and he had brand new teeth, top and bottom rows, white as a fresh-flush toilet bowl.

  Where we goin, Dad?

  He pulled over. Out you get.

  Here?

  Time you learned.

  To what?

  Drive.

  I’m fourteen.

  Sooner you start.

  Illegal.

  Eh?

  I spoke up. It’s illegal.

  He pointed at the empty fields. Think we’ll see a copper here?

  I walked round the back of the car. He walked round the front. Corn stood tall as me, bright sun, blue sky, but I was clench and goosepimples, like 10K into stiff wind on dark December mornings.

  Wrong wi’ you?

  Nervous.

  You’ll be all right. Belt.

  I dragged it over me, and fumbled with the clasp.

  He said, Ten miles an hour. That’s all it takes.

  I know.

  Listen. Forty and that’s you through it. BANG, he thumped the windscreen. Strawberry fuckin jam o’ you. First thing, always. Belt.

  He taught me hands on ten and two and how to use the parking brake, then the mirrors.

  Okay then, start her up.

  I cranked the key—it caught—and my hands came off the steering wheel. The car felt alive and barely tame and very, very long.