Born To Run
It is a beautiful, crystalline Saturday morning, early, 8:00 a.m. I pull on my lilac-colored capri pants, the ones with the pocket for my phone so I can listen to my music. I put on my spongy, perfect black socks and the running shoes I love so much, cushioned from every sidewalk crack by a substance like clouds.
And then I’m out the door.
I’ve been a runner since I was thirteen years old. I am particularly bad at it. When I ran cross-country in high school, the girls who could move the fastest looked like gazelles, like greyhounds, long-legged and smooth-shinned, lean and light. If we were on the African savannah, they were the ones who would flee predators, who would silently pounce on prey.
My natural build is not one of a gazelle, but that of something a little slower, a little less graceful. I pound my feet into the pavement, checking to see if it is still there. I scamper over curbs, my short arms jutting out like chicken wings. If there was a critter between a hamster with arms and an elephant, with its heavy, lumbering feet, people might notice a resemblance.
It doesn’t matter because I am still called, compelled, to do it anyway.
My normal route on Saturday morning is three times around a loop through our neighborhood. I sprint past houses with their blinds drawn against the prying fingers of sunbeams, recovering from Friday night revelry, cars parked at irregular angles. I run past that fool whose house has been on sale for months, who’s asking for a half million dollars and hasn’t crossed paths yet with the fool who will give it to him. I run across the street from the apartment complex where many of my students live, hoping they are still asleep. I run past the appliance store, across from the upscale grocery store with the handmade soaps and organic fruit, past the bank that holds the terms of our thirty-year indentured servitude. Next, I run up the Street of the Seven Deadly Sins, beginning with the greed of the corporate gas station that plunders the planet, past the gluttony advertised by the fast-food places—the KFC, the Taco Bell, the Chipotle—and past the lusty Lovers Superstore, the cannabis dispensary, and the pizza place where the homeless guys stash their carts in the alley. Then I turn, dodging the walnuts on the sidewalk, the house with the nasty dog that often escapes, and the house that burned down and was replaced with a McMansion. When I get to the tree across the street from my house, I start again. Three times around is nearly four miles.
On my first lap, I see a boy, maybe eleven or twelve years old, sitting on the stairs in front of an office complex. I watch him carefully as I approach. It is unusual to see a child out alone so early. He’s wearing a lime green shirt and earbuds. His dark hair and eyes and bronzed skin remind me of so many of my students, from places far away.
“Hey!” I call out. “Good morning!”
He smiles and gets to his feet.
There are reasons I continue to run, although my right ankle lets me know some days that I need to slow down. There is a gritty pleasure in doing something you don’t want to do, and then realizing afterwards that you’ve enjoyed it. My father, who spent years in the Army, told me once that there are no problems people face that can’t be solved with self-discipline. I hold onto that comment years after his death, watch it reflect the light, test the durability of its truth.
The sound of self-discipline is the sound of footsteps, one step at a time, one foot in front of the other. I don’t run because I’m being chased. I run because I’m going somewhere.
As I come onto the side street during my second lap, I see him again. He’s walking towards me, the boy in the lime-green shirt. When he sees me, he starts to jog, just a few steps.
“Hi!” I yell and wave. He smiles and we pass each other.
I round the corner, passing the bus stop where I see the same woman each Saturday, waiting. I pass the gas station, where a man with a sign sits across from the upscale grocery store. I pass the fast food, the Lovers superstore, the cannabis dispensary. We all want things to be faster, more intense, more passionate, more relaxed. And we want these experiences to cost less than they do. We want freedom for free, or as close to it as we can get.
Now past the house with the cactus garden, past the McMansion, over and through the maze of squirrels and walnuts. I’m listening to Creedence now, “Fortunate Son.”
And, as I come up this last time on the office complex, I see him. He’s really jogging now. He’s moving even before he sees me, one foot in front of the other. He’s not a natural. He’s like me, a hamster escaping his wheel. Not born for it but called by it.
“Hey!” I call to him, delighted. “You’re doing it! Keep going!”
He smiles. A little pride, a little sweat. We pass each other the third time.
I want to tell him he’s almost there, but how do I know that? How do I know how far this kid will go?
I run for the last time today on the Street of the Seven Deadly Sins, my little friend on my mind. I wish him protection against the delusions and distractions. I hope he can embrace what’s hard, practice a little self-restraint. The alternatives cause even bigger problems.
He is a fortunate son, although not in the way Creedence meant those words. We are both fortunate, out here in the sun and the light, greeting this new day on our own two feet.
-Heather Bartos
Heather Bartos writes both fiction and nonfiction. Her essays have appeared in Fatal Flaw, HerStry, McNeese Review, LitroUSA, and elsewhere. Her flash fiction and short stories have appeared in Baltimore Review, Ponder Review, Orca, Relief: A Journal of Art and Faith, and elsewhere. She is working towards an online MFA in Creative Writing at the University of New Orleans.