* * *
—
When the others all went to bed, Clay and I watched the movies I’d borrowed, we read the small crowd of books. We watched films about the Olympics, and endless documentaries. Anything to do with running.
My favorite was Gallipoli, recommended by the librarian. World War I and athletics. I loved Archy Hamilton’s uncle—the tough-faced, stopwatched trainer.
“What are your legs?” he’d say to Archy.
Archy would say, “Steel springs.”
We watched it many times over.
For Clay it was Chariots of Fire.
1924.
Eric Liddell, Harold Abrahams.
He loved two particular things:
The first was when Abrahams first saw Liddell run, and said, “Liddell? I’ve never seen such drive, such commitment in a runner….He runs like a wild animal.”
Then his favorite Eric Liddell:
“So where does the power come from, to see the race to its end?
From within.”
Or as the actor Ian Charleson delivered it, with the amazing Scottish accent:
From wethun.
* * *
—
As time went by, we wondered.
Should we place an ad in the RQT, for a lost but annoying tabby?
No—we would never do anything so logical.
Instead there was Clay and me.
We’d look at what remained in that classifieds section, which culminated, always, in the mule. When we ran he’d be steering us over there, and I’d stop and call to him, “NO!”
He’d look at me, disappointedly.
He’d shrug, he’d go, come on.
To ward him off, I softened when something else arrived, in an ad that was placed by the pound:
A female, three-year-old border collie.
I drove there myself and picked her up, and came home to the shock of my life—for there, right in front of me, on the porch, they were all out laughing and celebrating, and between them, the Goddamn cat. The bastard had come back!
I got out of the car.