I’d hurt my ankle so, after a week on the disabled list, I decided to go for a gentle three mile run on Saturday to test things out. To my relief, there was no swelling afterwards. Besides, I needed to start running a calorie deficit in order to gorge myself at my wife’s reunion later that evening. But, when I was carrying a plate of wagyu sliders and a beer back to my wife’s class table, my left knee buckled.
“Ow,” I cried, almost falling down.
“You alright?” my wife asked.
“I must’ve hurt my knee running today,” I said. “I think I need new sneakers.”
“Why don’t you buy some Hokas? I wear then all the time.” Since Annie struggles with back pain, she swears by those clunky well-padded kicks.
“I’m more of a Brooks kind of guy,” I said. “They’re good for my flat feet.”
“Try something different.”
Despite two beers and a shot of Jameson’s, I was still in pain by the time we left. When I got home, I popped a couple of Advil, elevated and iced my knee and then slapped a compression wrap on it before hitting the sack. The next morning things had improved somewhat, but I still had to grip the railing going down the stairs. “Jesus,” I said. “I’m getting old.” Aggravated, I figured I’d be on the DL yet another week – and I’ve noticed I get cranky when I don’t get my miles in. So, on Tueday morning, I decided to give it the old college try.
The uber rich burg next to mine has a lovely walking path which used to be a trolley track that delivered bankers and stockbrokers to trains bound for Manhattan over a hundred years ago. Torn up during the Great Depression, it was now a pleasant two mile car free asphalt trail ribboning past the huge mansions lining the main boulevard. Parking my car by a Catholic church at the head of the trail, I did some stretches, activated my fitness gizmo, and started my run. Almost immediately my knee sparked in protest. “Goddammit,” I muttered.
Walking back to my car, I was annoyed with my frailty. My body craved exercise but, truth be told, the slothful part of my mind was rejoicing at my joint’s distress and the promise of spending a day on the couch. “Injury is part of the game,” a seasoned runner once told me but, ever since I’d started running ten months ago, I’d never had to lay off for more than a few days. Groaning back at my car, I popped the trunk, fished a knee brace out of my gym bag, pulled it on, and set out again. What a difference a little support makes. After a couple of hundred yards my knee settled down and I committed myself to prudent 5K.
They say the first and last miles are always the worst but, as the coolness of the autumn air wicked my sweat away, I felt loose and began to enjoy my run. Not having to worry about cars was also a plus. During the humid heat of summer, I’d been forced to run during the early morning or evenings – the most dangerous time to be on the road – and had a few close calls. Now free from vehicular danger, I could zone out to the running playlist on my phone and focus on my breathing and form. And, as I passed mansion after mansion, my mind began to free associate.
“Doesn’t my cardiologist live around here?” I thought to myself. “Yeah, he does.” I guess that’s what he gets for not taking his address off those out of date magazines he supplies for his waiting room. Knowing he was a runner too, I fantasized about the look on his face if he saw me passing him on the trial. Then again, if I had a heart attack, having him around could come in handy. As a vision of myself collapsing while gripping my chest filled my mind, I felt a sudden spurt of anxiety. Middle aged guys die like this all the time. “Good thing the hospital’s a mile away” I thought to myself.
Shaking my head to exorcise those morose thoughts, I did what my therapist told me to do whenever my hamster wheel of doom starts spinning – “Replace bad thoughts with good ones.” Easy in theory, but difficult in practice. “You’ve been cancer free over three years,” I chanted internally as my lungs powered meditatively in and out. “You passed your cardiac stress test with flying colors, run fifteen miles a week your mid-fifties, have a beautiful wife and daughter who love you, and a job where you do a lot of good. You are a very lucky man. Chill the fuck out.” Then, as my hamster wheel slowed to a crawl, I let my mind wander once again.
Passing by an elegant stone Episcopalian church, I looked at its stained glass windows and remembered the priest stationed there was an ex-Catholic cleric around my age who defected to the to what we uncharitably called the “The Church of What’s Happening Now” in seminary. Knowing the vicar was married with small children like mine, I wondered I would’ve jumped ship like him. Then again, it must be tough to preach the Gospel in a town filled such wealthy people. I wondered if he skipped the whole building up treasure in heaven thing preaching from the pulpit.
As bespoke manse after bespoke manse slipped past. I found myself thinking about money. While I’m not hurting, my house is small and, as my daughter gets bigger, my wife and I have thought about decamping to bigger digs or expanding our home. But after housing prices skyrocketed during the pandemic, coupled with insane building costs and the fact we don’t want to ditch our 3% mortgage, it’s out of reach for now. Then again, after a long history dealing with batshit monied folk, I’ve never been impressed with wealth or felt the need to chase the almighty dollar. Pacing past a home with expensive automobiles parked on its expansive circular driveway, I noted the makes and models and felt a niggle of envy. No one needs a Ferrari, but hey, it’d be nice. Thinking about my fiscally responsible four year old Japanese ride, I wondered when I’d ever be able to motor around in European livery. My dad bought his antique Porsche 911 when he was younger than I am now. Maybe when I’m seventy.
Or how about a nice watch? Annie grew up in a house near this boulevard of dreams and during her reunion I saw classmates sporting Rolexes and discretely expensive Patek Phillipes. Having been raised in a blue collar burg, I suspected these talismanic displays of success would be on full display and, instead of wearing the nice watch I inherited from my dad, opted for an antique Bulova with a tropical dial instead. Maybe a I’ll treat myself to a Rolex Explorer when I turn sixty. No, I have to put a kid through college. I guess I’ll have to pin my horological hopes on winning the lottery – which means never.
Feeling unsettled once again, I wondered where this uncharacteristic bout of envy was coming from. Was I a good provider? Then again, what does that mean? I know too many guys who missed their kids’ childhoods because they were chained to demanding, albeit lucrative, desks. I got to be with my daughter through her innocent years, that had to count for something didn’t it? But she wants bigger house I cannot provide. Maybe I should have sold cars instead of doling out food to the poor. I might be building up treasure in heaven but that doesn’t pay the bills. Not for the first time, I remembered my indifference to mammon was both a weakness as well as a strength.
Then my mind shifted to the fiction book I’ve been working on for a couple of years. Not a detective novel or about the restaurant industry, it’s unlike anything I’ve ever written. Dealing with matters both sacred and very profane, I told a friend, “It’s kind of like if Morris L. West and Phillip Roth had a baby” and my wife chuckles whenever I let her take a peek at the pages. Culled from experiences I’ve had over a lifetime, I’m fifty thousand words in with both the beginning and ending in the can. Now I just have to write the middle and puzzle all the pieces together. I’ve done it twice before; I can do it again. Then maybe I can get that house. Or maybe not – but I can dream, can’t I?
I have a cop friend who works in a town that made wealthy enclave I was running through look like the daughters of the poor. None of the houses he protects are visible from the street and, because the residents are so famous, his officers are forced to communicate via cellphone in case some reporter from TMZ is listening in on the police band. When I kidded him about the mean streets he patrols, he told me, “All I deal with are OD’s and domestics. These guys love beating the shit out of their wives.” Starting in on my last mile, I wondered what nightmares were hidden on this boulevard of dreams.
But was a psychological dodge to make myself feel superior and I knew it. I know several rich guys who are wonderful people with nice families and free of raging psychopathology. And how about that lovely couple that donates tens of thousands of dollars to my food pantry every Christmas? No, nightmares can be found on every street in every neighborhood rich or poor. I know because I’ve watched them up close and personal amongst every member of every class. “The only real danger that exists is man himself,” Carl Jung once said. “He is the great danger, and we are pitifully unaware of it. We know nothing of men. Far too little.” Pacing beneath the boulevard’s elegant tree canopy I remembered the human heart is rent by sin and the path to hell is wide. Finally reaching my car, I remembered I knew nothing about man too.
Leaning against my unremarkable ride amidst Mercedes and BMWs, I stretched my quadriceps and watched as the faithful shuffled their way into the church for morning mass, noting most of them were old. It’s always irked me how people become spiritual when death draws close after having ignored the transcendent most of their lives – like they were hedging their bets playing Pascal’s odds. Doesn’t God see right through that kind of shit? Then again, he probably doesn’t care. Perhaps, after a long life of unfulfilled desires, these oldsters have realized they only dream worth having is one which moths and rust cannot destroy, and no thief can steal. That’s a good dream when you think about it – but is it my dream? Some days it is, some days it isn’t.
Showered, changed, caffeinated, and fed, I opened the door to the food panty I run and prepared for another day of listening to dreams gone awry. “I never thought I’d ever have to come to a place like this,” is refrain I often hear from first timers. Those encounters are always delicate and, whenever I feel myself getting judgmental – because people never, ever, tell me the whole story – I remember what a good friend of mine told me years ago. “If you can help people without wanting anything from them,” he said, “One day they might remember they met at least one person who was kind to them just because of who they are – and you never know what dividends that might reap.” That may be very true, but almost never knowing what those dividends might be is what keeps me awake at night in my small house, wondering if I’ve just been a fool tilting at windmills.
Then again, dreams always require faith. Somedays I have it, somedays I don’t but, like running, it’s all about lacing up, getting your butt out the door, and putting in the work – especially when you don’t want to. I’ve stumbled many times, gotten hurt, succumbed to the siren call of my bed, and have miserably plodded through cold, heat, rain and dark only to wonder if the effort was even worth it, knowing one day I will stop running forever. Leaning back in my office chair as a new client told me their story, I knew what kept drawing me down that boulevard of dreams was something I could not see or even hope to understand. “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run?” St. Paul said, “But only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it.” Translation? It’s not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game. Some days are just tougher than others.
Maybe I do need to try different shoes.
