26 and Change Read online

  26 & Change

  By

  Deacon Rie

  San Antonio, Texas

  26 & Change. Copyright © 2018 by Alamo Publishing, LLC

  All Right Reserved.

  Published in the United States

  by Alamo Publishing, LLC; DBA Alamo House Publishing, San Antonio, Texas

  www.alamohousepublishing.com

  Cover art by designcraftive.com

  eBook edition

  ISBN: 978-0-9995412-1-0

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters and specific incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, individuals’ experiences among public events or locales is unintended and entirely coincidental.

  License Notes

  All right reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, or by any information storage and retrieval system for the intent of resale or given to others without the prior express written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews or other noncommercial uses permitted by US copyright law.

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment and use only. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. Thank you for respecting the time, creativity, hard work and dedication of the author and their publisher.

  For

  Chaz, Dominic and Audrey Kate

  The dream of inspiration is God’s gift to the dreamer and you are the gifts which inspire me to dream.

  26 & Change

  By Deacon Rie © 2018

  “I don’t care if you go left. I don’t care if you go right. But dammit, you’d better go right now.” – Sergeant Ritz

  The Starting Line

  Beloved tales shared by generations have touted the durability of castles built on stone. Sacred parables repeatedly lift up the wise man who builds his home upon a rock. And timeless fables teach that storms are best weathered upon a solid foundation. And so it is true that since the time of antiquity, solid ground has held a firm reputation as the venue of choice for facing hardship. As Stephen Lantz pressed the toe of his shoe into the resistance of the road’s surface, he couldn’t have disagreed more.

  He hesitated. It was as if too much pressure would awaken some unseen monster beneath him. Speckled blemishes marked the jagged asphalt. It drew his attention to the apparent scarring of daily wear that had been mixed with a constant exposure to the natural elements. The battle-hardened appearance only intensified the road's seeming brutality. Breaks of loose gravel gave a false sense of weakness, but not a hint of brokenness as the road defiantly challenged him. Stephen swallowed deeply, attempting to wash away the fluttering doubts of his own readiness.

  He had made it to the marathon race location with time to spare and was now ready to begin the adventure. He tried to focus on the excitement and joy of a long awaited day's arrival. All the training, preparation and difficulty had been building up to a single event and now he was here standing in its presence. Enthusiasm and anticipation were the appropriate words for the day's planned festivities, but Stephen Lantz knew intimidation, anxiety, and self-doubt were also ready to quietly accompany him. Lost in momentary ponder, Stephen stared at the pothole to consider the subtle similarities between crumbled pavement and coarse sand. Perhaps the most monumental moments of a man's life could be recognized by the ground on which he stood.

  The draw of a deep breath drew in awareness that the pre-dawn air was cooler than normal for a February morning. A crescent moon held the darkness with a surrounding haze of clouds as if someone had taken an eraser to the rim of its illumination. A whipping breeze caused a shrug that made him erratically shake his shoulders and head, snapping him out of the mental drift.

  He tried in vain to walk off the uncontrollable shiver that seemed to grip him tighter with each step. Feeling every gust of wind along the hair fibers of his bare legs, he questioned why he had given in to wearing shorts with only a long-sleeved shirt. He had been told on numerous occasions that these marathon races always warmed up along the way. People told him he'd be glad to be in shorts. It was humorous, the number of encouraging friends who had reminded him about rapidly changing weather conditions countless times over the prior months. He found it surprising to learn just how many of his acquaintances seemed to hobby in meteorology when it came to conversations about marathon preparation. Stephen had come to learn that letting people know you were preparing to run your first marathon was a magnet for unsolicited advice. Now he reasoned that warming up along the way wasn't going to help much if hypothermia settled in well before reaching the first aid station.

  He faintly noticed the presence of other people trickling by him in the dim light. They were huddled in their own desperate attempts to cocoon themselves from the wind. Images of frozen corpses entered his mind. They were reflections of the ill prepared and ill fortuned mountaineers in a climbing documentary he had watch last week. Dismissing the mental imagery proved to be a challenge.

  You're on a beach. You're on a beach. Blistering sand burning my feet. Blazing sun scorching my skin… You're on a hot, hot beach… in the summer… at the equator… ahhh, this beach sucks. Just move, Stephen.

  Feelings of rust ground within his knees as he plodded over each step, making the concept of a 26.2 journey seem nearly incomprehensible. Doubt and hesitation tightened their grip. Attempting to settle the rising anxiety he drew in another deep breath but the bitter air only made him more aware of his increased heart rate. He violently shook his shoulders to knock off layers of imaginary ice and forced his mind to shift its focus toward that task of finding the area for the race start.

  Stephen had expected to be better prepared for the morning. Was it those missed training runs? Perhaps he had made a mistake in the training plan and hadn't really properly prepared after all. Or maybe, it was something deeper. Something inside which told him he had no business being here in the first place. He concealed his fears from himself and pretended it was just the cold causing him to shiver. He reassured himself that he had all the signs of a well-prepared runner. He had arrived on time and seemingly at the right location. He already picked up his race packet, which included his race number on a paper bib, some pre-race instructions, a pile of random advertisements, plus samples for oddly packaged liquids he wasn't even sure how to go about using. He had done well to ensure there was plenty of time to get settled in before the start. Still, he felt uneasy and a flutter of anxious nausea began to swell.

  He subtly looked over his shoulder one last time to see the tail lights of his family’s car rest at a stop sign. Even with the soft red glow breaking the dense mist it did little more than illuminate the rear fender. He took pride seeing the newly applied silver paint which dressed the aged car. Though not by any stretch new, it was new to them and something he believed to be worth taking care of. He knew that giving attention to the car's exterior would motivate him to take better care of the vehicle's maintenance. "Besides," he had told Sarah with great determination, "a high mileage car is like taking in a rescue dog. It knows when it's being cared for and it'll take just as good care of you in return." The associated enthusiasm had done more to reassure him than convince his patient wife. Stephen and Sarah knew a thing or two about making old things new again; enough to make sure the car was in the best condition possible to see them through whatever new difficulties lay ahead.

  The metallic-silver sedan lingered at the stop sign. Considering his wife had extensive experience in successfully arguing with police officers at stop signs over the permissive use of the "Califo
rnia Roll", he knew she was not so much adhering to the law, but instead staring at him through the slim rearview mirror.

  He knew her concerns. He wasn't the first man in his late thirty's to get a wild hair and sign up for adventures like marathons. But Sarah knew her husband was not the impulsive type. So it wasn't a complete shock when she had expressed in great detail, just how incredibly insane she felt he was to throw marathon training on top of a series of years filled with personal hardships. But Sarah had followed him down the path of unreason before and she promised to do everything she could to help him make it to that starting line. At the time of that conversation, he hadn't mentioned the 5:00 am wake up which would be required in order to drop him off before dawn on race day. But Sarah excelled in her role as his crew chief all the way until the last possible moment.

  Unfortunately, fretting about preparations and her own nervousness about Stephen's attempt kept her from getting even a part night's sleep. He now realized she had been more stressed than him about getting him to the race start. But under his own tensions, he woke up half an hour before the alarm with no hope of returning to sleep. Besides, he loved the way she smiled coyly before actually waking up completely. Serving as her alarm clock by bringing in a strong brew of steaming coffee, with a touch of cream and a triple-touch of chocolate syrup, he won back some points for the early wake-up.

  Stephen faced toward the car. Resisting the punishing force of the resistant wind a soft smile broke over his face and he waved into the darkened rear window. He watched the red halo of brake lights disappear and the car slowly pressed deeper into the gray wall of morning.

  Fighting onward through the frigid air which gave strength to his hesitation and nervousness, Stephen saw a large crowd standing in a series of long but well organized rows. The lines seemed to be single file as if the crowd was ready for a relay race. It looked odd and unlike the way he thought a marathon race would be structured. He gradually shuffled into a relatively short line behind a man wearing a bright yellow singlet shirt, hip-high running shorts and shoes that looked like they had been stolen from a circus clown. The shoes were unlike anything Stephen had seen before, appearing to have been made from rubber and providing spaces for each of the man's toes. He suspected that anyone purposely dressed this way in forty degree weather had to know what he was doing; either that or Stephen was about to find himself following the village idiot.

  Still not completely certain he was in the correct area; he quickly became reassured by the mass of people purposefully standing in solemn silence. They clearly had a purpose and knew what was going on. He could see no stage or any of the great fuss he had anticipated for the event. After receiving what seemed like weekly emails for three straight months from the sponsoring organization, he had assumed there would be a lot more excitement and instruction present at the start of the race. He wanted to ask the man in front of him if this was where the marathon race was being held. Giving it a second thought, he considered the guy's shoes. The last thing he wanted to do was give this guy an open door to make a joke. As if hundreds of people in running clothes casually gathered together on near freezing mornings before 6am for any other reason. He felt confident he was in the right place and gained reassurance from the assumption that this many people standing around wouldn't risk of missing the race start. Stephen had never been accused of being a shy guy but to begin asking questions of strangers half an hour before daybreak seemed a bit too presumptive. Furthermore, he reasoned with quite a bit of certainty that any conversation with the man in front of him would bring about an internal obligation to ask about the clown shoes. Stephen opted for silence.

  It wasn't until the line progressed and he came around the bend that Stephen realized he wasn't standing at the starting line of a marathon race. He felt dumb and privately let out a small chuckle as he stared at his own shoes, which he now realized held the feet of a clown. Secretly embarrassed, he leaned down and pretended to double check the tie of his laces. He truly felt like a rookie. But in one sense he was correct; it was a line for a relay race. Despite his mistake, Stephen decided to maintain his position in the line and wait his turn to use one of the several blue and white port-a-potties.

  Making his way to what he was certain had to be the starting line, the wind began to pick up again. Stephen clinched against the blades of a particularly strong gust and saw a much larger crowd fashioning a mob huddle in the middle of the street. Surveying the crowd, Stephen quickly assessed the range of emotions being expressed by the participants. He was well aware of how people responded differently to anxiety and the current environment was no exception. The pre-race jitters he had heard so much about were clearly evident among the groups of the runners which seemed to organically form around him. While some fought the frigid air with the stilled poise of an ancient statue, other people bounced up and down, not quite sure whether they were shaking off the cold or trying to get a look at the starting line a couple hundred feet ahead. Many in the crowd bent their back and head to-and-fro to perform some awkward and certainly ill-advised stretch that was sure to result in a new car for their chiropractor. The array of outstretched and gyrating necks created a never ending sea of bobble-head dolls. Several runners stood in place, stretching their arms and legs, while a few sprawled out across the concrete as though they were about to engage in an Olympic speed trial. There were several who looked like they had been too worried about missing an alarm clock and consequently spent the entire night waking every twenty minutes until it was finally time to leave for the race. These sleep-deprived runners shuffled around like the undead in short misguided steps as if aimlessly looking for some predetermined starting marker among the sea of bodies.

  There was a constant buzz from the crowd. Stephen couldn't figure out if it was the energy of the crowd or a band of bright-eyed, energetic talkers who clearly had no intention of pausing their gossip session for something as trivial as a marathon. Stephen immediately noted that this small and self-absorbed group had extensive training in the sport of endurance-gabbing; their already increasing rate suggested the chatter was bound to intensify over the next several hours. Though he was pretty sure criminal aggression conducted for the civil purpose of eliminating a "chatty-Kathy" during a marathon event was a satisfactory legal defense, he had come here for other purposes. Stephen made a mental note to try to avoid the group and casually made his way towards a concentration of caffeine-deprived zombies where he could be alone with his doubts.

  Not wanting to stand out and having convinced himself that of the ten thousand people running on this blistering morning he could not possibly be the only first-timer, Stephen reluctantly joined the bobble-head dance. He found it did absolutely nothing to ease the weather's persistent discomfort and on the third stretch he was almost certain that he had twisted something of vital importance.

  He saw the yellow-shirted man with the clown shoes again. This time the man was positioning himself among a dozen others; many also in yellow singlet shirts. They leaned in to pose for a picture when Stephen noticed their minimalist clothing, several also wore gloves. Stephen stared for a moment just trying to get his mind around the idea of dying of frostbite but having warm fingers. The group was a mix of ages but seemed to mostly know each other. Clearly, the entry ticket for this club was the right blend of yellow shirt and flat out lunacy. Continuing his stare, Stephen saw that several of their shirts had the word "Maniac" written on the back.

  "Yeah,” he reasoned under his breath, "now that makes sense."

  Stephen bent forward to stretch his back and adjusted the flimsy race bib he had pinned to his shorts earlier that morning. Looking around he realized that pretty much everyone else wore their bib on their chest. Feeling insecure and convinced that the crowd knew something he didn’t; he gave in to unannounced peer pressure and began the process of relocating the bib from his leg to his chest. He fumbled his half-frozen fingers together and squeezed the safety pin. The unresponsive fingers lost their nimble grip and
popped the exposed pin directly into the flesh of his thigh. For the first time since he had arrived, feeling came back into his leg, regrettably in a less than desirable fashion. Undaunted and unlearned, Stephen attempted the exact same repositioning with the second safety pin with surprisingly, the exact same result.

  "Hello. Yes, Mrs. Lantz? This is the race director. Yes, your husband would have finished the marathon today had he not stabbed himself fifty times before the race with an unsterile safety pin. Instead of completing the run, the loss of blood combined with an adrenaline-induced spread of gangrene caused him to drop dead at mile ten."

  With two pin pricks, shaking fingers and absolutely zero progress, Stephen subtly rubbed the tiny pin holes in his leg. He replaced the safety pin back where it started and confidently rose as if nothing had occurred. The word "rookie" slipped out under his breath.

  "You know I'm already proud of you." The man's somber voice came from Stephen's right only a few feet behind him.

  "No kidding! In thirty years have you ever seen me get up this early on a Saturday?" Stephen looked back to see the bright youthful smile of a lady speaking with a gray-bearded man and weathered eyes. She wore a flimsy pink jacket with black tights and a neon green band around her head which covered her ears. Stephen noted that she was also wearing thin gloves. The maniacs may have been onto something after all. Although it wouldn't have taken a tremendous amount of foresight to figure out that gloves would have been helpful. He was already regretting not taking that golden nugget of wisdom among the mountain of race advice which had been shoveled at him.