Time of the End of the Season Part Three

By Bob Hodge

Bob Hodge grew up in Lowell and went on to graduate from Lowell High (1973) and University of Lowell (1990). He was (and still is) one the greatest runners to come out of this region. He’s also a writer whose 2020 memoir, Tale of the Times: A Runner’s Story, is available at lala books in downtown Lowell and in Kindle format from Amazon. The following is an excerpt from his novel-in-progress.

Already published:

Time episode 1

Time episode 2

****

The thrill of victory agony of defeat .

Van on drive home radio station plays….

“Lou can you get something besides this hillbilly stuff”

Somewhere around my third beer Uncle Lou popped this 8 track…

“Chick music Lou?” “Not just any chick Willy.”

We all clapped and slapped  the sides of the van a natural high where I felt this moment was never to be forgotten going from monumental low to high with my broken arrow brothers

Going home.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NGTyNA0nI90&t=24s&pp=2AEYkAIB

Great music makes everything better. We had Lou play it again and again as we rolled over the highway and byways.

I am some body…

National

I started getting together with Broken Arrow more often even though Jack preferred that I train on my own. Axel called a team meeting to decide who would go to nationals. The Arrow’s were very good at running as a team working together and did not necessarily choose the fastest runners. They automatically included me on the team as a favor to Jack. That meant they would choose only six other athletes from the thirteen currently eligible.

Axel brought up my name first and asked if there were any objection and there were a few jokes about me but no objections. They then chose the rest of the team and it was a tight battle for the sixth spot which made me feel bad given that I was taking a spot.

The college athletic department let Broken Arrow use one of their vans through some community outreach program. That’s right, we were going to drive to NC in two days and would only stop to run and re fuel. Jenn packed a couple of coolers for us with good food and drinks.

I met with Jack the night before we left. He tossed a copy of Track & Field News on the table and we perused the NCAA cross country regional results together plus other assorted invitationals. The AAU National would be a mix of older athletes from clubs like the Florida Track Club that had won the team the last few years. I was eager to see how I would fare against both the collegiate and the older dudes.

“Willy, just get out well– I hear the course is a bear and becomes narrow after the first half mile.” “But don’t go crazy these are most of the best distance guys in the country, rookie.” Jack had begun to call me rookie and his general behavior around me had changed, so I was worried he knew about Jenn and me.

“Jack, after nationals I’m gonna be leaving but I hope you will continue to coach me.”

“We’ll see Willy.”

The Arrow’s picked me up at six A.M. There would be nine of us in the van, Axel brought another driver who everyone called “Uncle Lou” It was nice having time to just sit and think and watch the country roll by. Everyone was pensive and quiet as the miles rolled by. Axel had mapped out the route with ideal places to stop for a run and it was nice to break up the monotony of the road going for easy group runs.

We ate nothing but sandwiches but Axel promised us a good meal the night before the race. The first day was easy but the second day after not getting much if any sleep in the van sitting upright we were all beginning to feel washed out.

We arrived in Durham in the afternoon of the third day and went straight to the race course to have a run over it. It was a tough one lots of hills but the ground was dry so it would be fast. We only got two rooms for all nine of us at the hotel. Axel slept in the bathtub and Uncle Lou slept out in the van to give the rest of us room.

It was getting late and we all needed some sleep so I suggested to Axel that we just get some pizza and a few six packs and everyone agreed, Axel said only one beer each. While we ate I told the guys the story of my high school race at Franklin Park when I ran off course. They thought that was hilarious and started calling me Mr Magoo. I was anxious but I slept well and was up early out for a walk while the others still slept I sat in the coffee shop and looked over the local sports page with a story about today’s race.

I started feeling like I was in way over my head.

We got into our running gear, packed up and hit the road. We would be leaving immediately after the race heading back west. We did a short warm up, found our start box and stripped down to our shorts and singlets with the Broken Arrow logo, made by Axel’s wife and daughter white singlet and blue shorts. The logo was black just the arrow not lettered.

A guy in the next box with an Oregon singlet took a close look at mine and said, “nice singlet, righteous.” Turned out it was Billy Hernandez the NCAA Champion recently crowned. Uncle Lou was our official photographer with a couple of disposable cameras. Axel was making notes throughout the race and would be trying to identify as many finishers and their places as he could.

There were over three hundred on the start line, I had never run in a race this large. As I stood there in those last moments before the sound of the gun, I knew I would remember this moment forever. I figured to stick with Hernandez, and I was off to battle.

I sure got off the line and as we hit the end of the open field about a half mile in things began to thin out. Something snapped in me though and I just kept the hard running going leading the pack through the mile where through the crowd noise I heard four something teen. Had to be wrong too easily on the other hand how am I leading? Jack would be pelting me with rocks if he were here.

When it came to racing, I was a born leader too much of a rook to even think about the consequences over your head. I felt good and was committed now and just could not slow down. We entered the wooded section with few if any crowds and I heard no footfalls or breathing. I was out in front by a good margin waiting for that two-mile split, not that it mattered but eight fifty something.

“Just relax Willy it’s only running, and you know running, we all know running.”

I hit the halfway mark still out front. I was getting caught up in it felt so good I wanted to shout back at the spectators, the ones with the quizzical looks “hey, this is what I do, this is who I am, how you like me now, how you like these apples!”

I loved this course, made for me and one minute a big crowd and next minute back in the woods, silence and my mind floated away, I thought of Jenn and Jack how he got me primed and I snuck a look at the sky and clouds because I never look back and down, down, down, I hit the ground and lay in shock.

Twisted my ankle badly on a tree root, got up slowly, tried to get back in gear as the pack came streaming by and I cursed, the rook lost his concentration and focus at the most important moment. One-minute Cinderella boy on the cover of “Track & Field News “next minute a chump.

I limped it in a couple of my Arrow teammates slowed to encouraged me and I urged them on worst I let them down greatest mates I would ever have with my stupid rookie mistakes. I finished and lay on the ground and Axel and my mates walked me over to the medical tent for some treatment.

As I lay on the cot in the tent, I could hear some conversation outside. “Who was that guy leading at four and a half miles? He had this race in the bag.” “His name is Willy Desmarais, probably a Canadian.”

I got a chuckle over that in my pain not physically but just overwhelmed, humbled and not sorry for myself but grateful to have had the good fortune to even have this experience whether everything went sideways or not, counting my blessings.

But I did feel the need to get drunk and get drunk I did.

The Broken Arrows finished tenth and would have been fourth if I had held on, I was not even sure what place I finished.

Axel wrapped my ankle in ice, and we got in our ship and sailed west home to talk it over with my captain and his spouse whose impossible love broke me like a walnut.

My ankle swelled like a baseball, Axel said “Willy you should get an x-ray. Go to the trainer at the college when we get back.” “I’m sorry Axel, I messed up.” “Hey Willy, you gave us the thrill of a lifetime seeing someone in our singlet leading the National.”

Axel got me a six pack of “that skunk piss beer you like” and I sat back and slugged em down. Uncle Lou came over for a chat “Willy, I know you are planning to leave but if you change your mind you can stay with me.” Uncle Lou’s wife had died recently and his son was incarcerated.

“I appreciate that Uncle Lou, I need to give my running a chance or I know I will regret it when I’m older, also I just love it, the feeling I had leading that race with a shot at winning.”

My ankle was still very swollen when the guys dropped me off. Jack and Jenn came out to greet me, Jenn giving me a hug. Jack squeezed my shoulder, “Willy, Axel called me with the blow by blow and he was so excited talking a mile a minute boy you put on a show.”

“Ya, until I lost my concentration, rookie mistake.” “Willy, I thought you would be doing well to make the top twenty-five and you were on your way to winning the whole thing. Let’s go to the trainer first thing tomorrow and maybe you can get in the pool for some water running.”

The next day Jack handed me a slip of paper with a phone number, “It’s a writer from “Track & Field News” would like you to call him.” I didn’t want to talk with him and I threw away his number.

I did not run for ten days, an eternity for me but my ankle would be okay. I just needed to be careful, continue my treatment and not get impatient. My Dad was excited that I might come home for Christmas but I wasn’t ready. I had a few more mentors to visit.

“Track & Field News” had a photo of me leading with the caption “Desmarais nearly steels the race.” There was also a story about a new club that had just formed in Boston called the Beantown Bombers and that caught my interest a club for mainly post collegiate runners.

I continued to stay at Jack and Jenn’s but spent more time on my own in my room reading and planning out my next hobo time on the road. I spent most of Christmas day with the Broken Arrow’s at Uncle Lou’s. Lou had some good pictures of Nationals and he gave me one of me in full flight.

Now an old man I cherish that black & white photo three inches by five inches. It is framed and sits above my writing desk, sometimes arousing a state of melancholy at all that went down.

I gave notice at the college and finished up my course in Human Anatomy getting a B. The professor didn’t like me too well because there were a few instances when I had to leave the room when he was using very graphic examples of say, bleeding and I nearly passed out.

He made a case about it in front of the class that was just embarrassing for me.

On New Year’s Day I went for a twenty-mile run and my ankle felt fine thanks to the treatment I had been getting and after not running for ten days and then holding back for a few weeks I was like a caged animal. I then packed up my rucksack and headed for the bus station. I didn’t want to face Jack and Jenn and so I wrote a long note of thanks and left it for them to read and then I slinked out and was gone.

I was heading for Atlanta where I had a few running acquaintance’s but first I wanted to visit New Orleans and maybe spend a couple of days there but where? I would look for a cheap room with my meagre funds saved working at the college. I had read “A Confederacy of Dunces” and Got it in my head to visit New Orleans where the book is set.

Today, all these years later I remember the lost and lonely feeling of leaving these people who had become my family on New Year’s Day on a bus and I cried and a young woman came over to console me. One of only four people on the entire bus. I got over it.

Jude was on her way back to Houston where she went to college and the miles went by quickly as we shared our stories. I showed her the picture of me leading the National from “Track & Field News” “Willy, you are almost famous.”

At one of the many stops we made I bought some Mateus Wine and we drank it on the bus from little paper cups and had some snacks. We found seats way in the last row and cuddled up and went to sleep.

In Houston Jude showed me around and said she would invite me to stay but her roommate would not like it. I went for a run from her dorm and showered quickly before the roomie got back.

Adios girlie, it has been fun for the ride. I made my way to the Galveston- Bolivar Ferry and took the short ride with some great views, giant tankers and shrimp boats, the Bolivar Lighthouse and Dolphins.

When I got to the other side I decided to hitchhike and eventually got a ride with a van full of hippies smoking weed. They were students at Tulane University and they were going to be camping out the next few nights as they made their way back. They said it was fine if I wanted to tag along.

The first night I went for a run from the campground “Hey Willy, how far did you run?” “Ten miles.” “What? That’s crazy man.” I then went for a nice swim in the lake and slept in my bag under the stars.

I dreamt about all my myriad experiences since leaving home and I thought about my family, mostly my Dad. I had written him a long letter and sent him a copy of the “Track & Field News” article and photo.

I felt like I had made much progress, might I have done as well if I stayed in college? I thought not, rather be out here hoboing around a learning experience you don’t get at any college.

I dreamt about all my myriad experiences since leaving home and I thought about my family, mostly my dad. I had written him a long letter and sent him a copy of the “Track & Field News” article and photo.

I felt like I had made much progress, might I have done as well if I had stayed in college? I thought not, rather be out here hoboing around a learning experience you don’t get at any college. Lo and behold I had a visitor with me in my bag that night. “Summer of Willy” continues into winter.

In my youth, a voracious reader with no agenda but just only following my instinct I had come across some writing that knocked me sideways realizing that there was something to this life and I was not the only one trying to understand and survive and thrive and deal with whatever hand I was dealt.

John Kennedy Toole for no exact reason and his posthumously published “Confederacy of Dunces” made some powerful impressions on me. I think just the weirdness, the language of the place, the honesty is not barred. It is a weird story with highlight comedic moments and sad so sad.Well, anything can have a powerful effect if it captures you at the right time and place.

The hippies and I got along okay, I mean really, I was just like them just not so overt about it. We had another night like the last and then arrived in New Orleans where they dropped me off on the banks of the Mississippi and I met a few Navy men who were singing sea shanties. I sang along.

Well known Gun

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HEORrdw150w