Right To Die

31

"IF I HADN'T SEEN IT.”

Nancy wagged her head, watching perhaps thirty other people dressed just like me standing in an auxiliary parking lot off Route 495 in Hopkinton. In a rain shower, temperature in the high forties.

I said, "These conditions are supposed to be good for the race."

Nancy made an indescribable noise.

Getting out of her car, I fiddled with the green garbage bag I was wearing, my head through the hole I'd made on top. My fiddling had to be from the inside, because I hadn't cut any arm holes.

"John, please be careful."

"You'll be at the finish line, in the archway of the bank?"

"With the stretcher bearers. Good luck, you jerk."

I closed the passenger door, and she drove off.

A yellow shuttle bus arrived. We trash bags filled it front to back. Inefficient, should have been back to front. Nobody was carrying much, just wearing extra layers against the wind, rain, and cold. Nervous banter, the laughter too hearty.

It was a few miles to a school building. From a van in the circular driveway a kid read incomprehensible instructions over a loudspeaker, presumably for the registered runners. Hundreds of us bandits stood under eaves and overhangs, dodging the raindrops and trying to sound modest about what time we'd finish. A lot of the folks were my age or older, and no one mentioned not finishing.

At eleven-thirty people began moving in throngs toward the street. I followed, the throngs swelling to form their own little parade. We were pointed toward the village green and past the yellow ropes that corralled the sixty-four hundred registered runners, in numerical order, white cardboards with red numerals flapping against breast plates and spinal columns.

At the back of the pack I stripped down to shorts, a cotton turtleneck and the BODY BY NAUTILUS, BRAIN BY MATTEL T-shirt Nancy had given me for Christmas. Balling up my outer clothes, I added them to one of the ragged heaps on the sidewalk.

The crowd buzzed, and the report of the starter's pistol provoked a loud, long cheer. Nobody in my part of the pack moved for a good six minutes. Beginning slowly, I finally crossed the start line at eight minutes after noon, jogging downhill lightly and freely. There was more spring in my step than I expected, and no pain at all from the closing wound in my side.

A remarkable number of people flanked the road despite suburban, even rural, countryside and lousy weather for spectating. The elderly in lawn chairs, holding umbrellas in gnarled hands. Kids in slickers with peaked fronts like the beaks of ducks, splashing both feet in rain puddles. Middle-aged men in Windbreakers and baseball caps, John Deere or Boston Bruin logos, applauding stoically.

An oompah band had fun in a supermarket lot. A country and western group strummed from a truck dealership. Under a carport, a souped-up Dodge Charger idled, trunk lid up and facing the street, two stereo speakers booming out the theme from Chariots of Fire.

A younger woman running my pace paired up with me, and we talked in brief, grunted sentences. At one point we had to veer around a video crew in street clothes, gamely jogging beside a TV reporter who was doing her first marathon and providing the station with a "running" commentary.

There were other funny things early in the race, so many I missed a few of the mile markers as I got caught up in the atmosphere. A guy in a Viking helmet. Two women in tuxedos and top hats. A brawny gray-head in a strappy undershirt wearing a coat-hanger crown, the hook dangling an empty Budweiser can a foot in front of his mouth.

And the T-shirts. Every conceivable college and university, but also some with legends. LESMISARABLES. SAY NO TO DRUGS. NOT TILL YOU CRY, TRAIN TILL YOU DIE. One man's front read CELIBATE SINCE CHRISTMAS, the back, WATCH THE KICK.

By mile ten, however, the initial adrenaline was gone. Age ache returned to my knees and hips, and my side at the wound began to burn every other step. I found I had to concentrate. Breathe rhythmically. Maintain the stride. Drink lots of liquids. I also found I had to come to a stop to take the water, otherwise I knocked the cup from the offerer's hand and couldn't swallow properly.

My partner pulled up lame at mile eleven. I said I'd wait for her, but dejectedly she said no, it had happened before and wouldn't get better.

After that the images are a little hazy, just kind of strung together. Passing Boston's Mayor Flynn, a former basketball star at Providence College a couple of academic generations before I hit Holy Cross. I thought back to the tree-lighting ceremony and his short speech, when Nancy almost said the "O" word. Then I looked at Flynn. Hizzoner's face was red as a beet but the legs still churned, what looked like two well-conditioned cops on either side of him. If he could do it, so could I.

The rain perfect for what we were doing, neither too hot nor too cold. My clothing felt like just a particularly moist outer layer of skin.

A blind man and a sighted woman, him jogging her pace, his hand resting lightly on her forearm. Each smiled a lot, but for each other, not the crowd.

The sweet but refreshing tang of Exceed, the orange drink restoring lost chemicals. Just as Bo said it would.

Runners with numbers at the side of the road in agony, clasping blown-out knees or torn Achilles tendons. Members of the crowd put sacrificed jackets around the runners' shoulders as race officials with walkie-talkies tried to raise the sweep bus.

Wellesley College, roughly the midpoint of the race. The young women stood four deep, cheering so wildly I heard them for half a mile before the crest of their hill. Some offered liquids, others paper towels to wipe off the salt caking our legs.

On the downslope, passing a woman in her forties. Cellulite jiggled over the backs of her thighs as she muttered her way through a downpour.

Mile fifteen. The legs no worse, but my left side really throbbing now, no matter which foot was striking the ground. I probed it once with my index finger. Just a little blood seeping through the dressing. Orange rinds, scattered over the road like autumn leaves, slippery as banana peels. After nearly going down once, I began picking my way around them.

Johnny A. Kelley, eighty years young, exulting in his fifty-seventh marathon. A painter's hat worn backward on his head, he blew kisses to the increased roar he received as each section of the crowd recognized him.

Mile seventeen. Column right onto Commonwealth at the firehouse to begin Heartbreak Hill. Counting the inclines and plateaus to stay oriented, I remembered Bo's advice and kept my eyes on the horizon. Four-fifths of the field were walking, the other twenty percent of us still running, my knees feeling like I was climbing a rope ladder.

Gaining on a father propelling his son in a wheelchair. I realized the man got no rest at all, having to push on the upslopes and then drag on the downslopes. A few of us offered to spell him. The father smiled and shook a drenched head.

Mile twenty-one. Boston College and the top of Heartbreak. Exhilaration, then the incredible bunching pain in the backs of the legs from going downhill. My calves went mushy, and my feet kept tangling. My left side felt like somebody was plowing it with baling hooks.

No functioning water stations for two miles until just below Coolidge Corner, where a guy my age and his kids braved the rain outside a majestic synagogue. They poured from Belmont Springs bottles as fast as they could, all of us thanking them. I remember the daughter saying she thought I was her five thousandth cup that day, my legs warning me not to stop for too long.

The marker said "25" at Kenmore Square. Every joint below my waist had tossed in the towel, the bones sawing and grating against each other. The crowd chanted a single phrase. One more mile, one more mile.

At Hereford Street we made a right toward Boylston. The first ninety-degree turn for a while, I found I had to consciously plan how to do it. An older man in front of me took the corner too fast. His hamstring snapped like a dry branch, and he went down. Several people from the crowd pushed through police barriers to aid him.

I eased left onto Boylston Street, three hundred yards to go. The crowd was still enormous, easily two hours after the technical winners had passed. They screamed, clapped, and whistled, most of us summoning a little extra to acknowledge the encouragement.

The finish line itself was under a viewing stand. Yellow and white awning, beneath it bunting in orange, blue, and white, the colors so vivid through the rain. Crossing the line, I thought I heard Nancy calling my name, the official clock glowing 4:11:31. Not counting water stations, I stopped running for the first time in over four hours. Hands on hips, I kept walking to postpone the cramping. Scanning the crowd, I looked for an old Redskins cap and taped glasses. Not there. Other runners slumped on the sidewalk or trundled with tiny steps, wrapped in foil-like Mylar blankets to ward off hypothermia. Under the archway of the bank, Nancy waved to me, holding a little camera high with her left hand, as though she were taking a photo over the heads of people in front of her. "I got you crossing the finish line!"

In yellow foul-weather gear, the peak riding down almost to her nose, she'd never looked more beautiful to me.

I stopped and posed in right profile. Nancy brought the camera to her eye, clicked a button, and put the camera in a coat pocket. I said, "I heard you yell to me."

"I couldn't believe I could finally go inside."

"I want a hug."

"Not on your life. You're the most disgusting creature I've ever seen."

"What happened to the stretcher bearers?"

"Unionized. They went home at four."

I tried taking another step, cramped, and had to grab a signpost to keep from falling. My hand away from the hip, Nancy got a look at my left side.

She hurried over and steadied me. "John, your shirt's soaked with blood!"

"That's not the problem."

"Then what is?"

"My legs hurt."

"Revelation. Your legs should hurt after you drive twenty-six miles."

"Maybe at your age."

That brought a smile. "You're a dunce, John."

"If I can just rest my arm on you…"

Nancy took my hand and drew my arm around her shoulder.

"That's Dunce, capital D, and I'm worse for loving you."

We moved off like that, medic and soldier, through the crowd still cheering for the people still coming in.