I Did It

My alarm goes off and for once in my goddamn life I don’t hit snooze. The motel room is dark, and I unroll my yoga mat, kneeling below the chipped ceiling mirror. The carpet smells of ointment and cigarette smoke and the broken mini fridge buzzes next to the T.V. that has three amateur porn channels and this is where I’ve chosen to spend my last moments before running a marathon.

I stretch. I’d planned on relaxing, but I’m already calm. I knew this was coming: The day last spring my sister-in-law mentioned the Long Beach Half Marathon. ‘I want to do it, but I’m running the full. I’m only doing this once.’ The vacations I packed running shoes for, the mornings with sunscreen dripping into my eyes, the nights on Sunset with a motorcycle crew beside me chanting  ‘Get it girl! Get it!’ The blogs, the books, the breathing.

My mom calls.

It’s time to go.

In the car, my mom and her best friend feed me bananas and ibuprofen. ‘That’s all you’re going to have is a banana? Come here. Let me pin your number on. Have another banana.’ My mom is forever trying to get me to eat more breakfast and do some variation on letting her braid my hair.

The streets are blocked off. They drive me as far as they can.

I walk to the start line alone.

The sun is up. The harbor is damp.  A woman with meaty belt finishes the national anthem on a P.A.

The road ripples with strangers. All of us are numbered. I’m 4080.  I find myself a little pocket to stand in.

An air horn blares. The first wave goes. Then the second. My stomach drops. Third wave. Wait. Shit. But – the horn wails. My wave starts.

Crossing the start line is passing a border. Now I’m really here. I’m really doing this. I kick off with Jay-Z’s Run This Town. Shut up. It’s my marathon and I’ll be cliché if I want to.  The weather is perfect. Handmade signs tell me I’m awesome. My legs are children on their first recess after a week of rainy days.

I’m addicted to the thrill. It’s a dangerous love affair.

I had planned to take a shot of tequila before my first time doing stand up. I drove off anonymously into the night and arrived at an art gallery that sold only tea. Signed up, crossed the street, and drank a forty alone in my car. When it was my turn, all I could see was bright light in my eyes. My knees knocked. I squeezed out my jokes through throat spasms. In the black beyond the lights, people laughed. Whoa. I can do this.

Whoa. I can do this.

I round out mile six near the Queen Mary. More strangers. More banners. Even the guy with the Romney sign is rooting for me. Today, they’re all on my side. My boyfriend waits by himself in the sand. When I see him, I run faster. He kisses me but won’t let me stop. ‘Keep running!’

I do. Six and a half miles. That’s a half of a half marathon. Three and a half to ten and then just sixteen after that. Just sixteen. Just sixteen? Plus three. So, nineteen. I become aware of the tape holding my big toenail on. (Sorry boys, I’m taken.) This tape won’t stop rubbing.

Keep running.

I always knew I’d struggle in my twenties. I even looked forward to it. I’d wait tables and substitute teach. I’d have other starving artist friends to practice improv and drink Two Buck Chuck with. I’d live in a shithole and blow too much money on headshots. I would also have a pilot read by a big production company and lose sleep before the meeting where a barefoot Buddhist executive would tell me I wasn’t edgy enough. I’d buy new shoes for a meeting with a cable channel who would tell me that women could either be funny or pretty and wonder if they were calling me ugly or unfunny. I’d sell an idea that would give me enough money to finally quit my day jobs and tell all of my friends and family about it before learning that the economy had tanked and the deal had been aborted. I’d hang up from learning said news, and look into the eyes of one of my students who didn’t mean to make me cry when she asked, ‘Ms. Barker, will you be a substitute teacher forever?’ Jesus Christ. How much longer was this going to last?

Nine miles.

I’m at nine miles. A little sore, but this is what I signed up for. Last mile of the single digits. Nine miles is nothing. I eat nine miles for breakfast. This isn’t my normal nine miles, though. I’m running a marathon right now. I said I’d do this and here I am. The beach. Look at the beach. Powerade. These wonderful people keep giving us Powerade. Thank you. I said I’d do this and here I am. Thank you. Keep running. Ahead, they’ve made a real song and dance out of the ten-mile marker. A big ass inflatable ‘0’ we’ll run through. Double digit time, brought to you by Cliff Bar. So clo--

Fuck.

Ouch.

Goddammit.

No.

My right knee.

It’s a sharp, searing pain. Keep running.

I hobble, deflated, through the inflatable ‘0.’ This isn’t how this was supposed to happen. I have so much further to go. Keep running. I falter like a gunned down animal. Why. Why. Why.

I stretch on the side of the path. People pass me.

So many people have passed me. She got that job? He’s doing late night? I know jealousy isn’t healthy, but neither is a cold, and I get those sometimes too. The race is long, and only against yourself and you lose yourself when people won’t stop passing you.

Why?!

I have to finish. I’m already ten miles deep. It’s not broken. You can do this. I run-limp, focused on the pain that shoots up and down my leg. I’ve lost my rhythm. At least I’m moving forward. A woman holds up a sign:

Someday you will not be able to do this. Today is not that day.

I was not a good chair aerobics teacher. In my offense, I didn’t really try. How hard could it be to move around in a chair? We met in the common room of the nursing home. They were sweet people with transparent skin and joints that moved liked rusty gates. ‘Okay. Let’s start out with some…uh…lift up your arm. Great. Lift up the other one.’ They complied. I checked the clock. One minute down, fifty-nine to go. What the hell had the last teacher done for an hour? ‘Lift up your arm again?’ A respirator gurgled. A student in the front row snored.

Today is not that day.

The pain in my legs are the braces Forest Gump wears and as I run I separate from them and they break and fall by the wayside. A fork in the course. The half marathoners veer off. Thirteen miles. I only have to do what I’ve already done. To my left, the course has turned around. I watch the faster runners pass mile twenty-two. How are they so far? Eventually you’ll be there. Just worry about right now. More Powerade. Thank you. A high five. Thank you. You’re lucky to be here. Thank you. This is bitchin’.

The last time I ever drove with my step dad he picked me up from the airport. I had come home from New York, where I’d done the first staged reading of my musical. ‘Hey T!’ He’d bounded toward the baggage claim in his long shorts and sneakers. Jim bounded everywhere. He’d had a brain tumor before we knew him. One they told him he wouldn’t survive. After he proved them wrong, we wouldn’t stop smiling about it. Not for anything. Nothing could make him as annoyed as the simple act of being alive made him happy. He never bitched, but everything was ‘bitchin’. ‘ He and my mom saw The Stones. ‘They were bitchin’!’ They got a DVR to record his cop shows ‘This is bitchin’!’ He hurled my suitcase into the bed of his pick up. ‘We’re so proud of your play. It’s just… bitchin’.’ Four months later, he would lose his license to seizures. Two years later, we would lose him to the same.

Guess my ankles are sore. Guess my knees are throbbing. Can’t think about that. Just short mantras to match the fall of my heels: I can do this. This is possible. Mom and Jim run beside me. The three of us alternate phrases in rhythm. ‘Go T!’ ‘This is bitchin’!’ ‘Go T!’ ‘This is possible.’ They get me to mile sixteen.

My siblings run up next. Seventeen. My boyfriend. Eighteen.

Water. Thank you. Banana. Thank you. You’re awesome. Thank you.

Dad. Nineteen.

I have no body and I am only a body. A robot made of muscle. A streak of light that pulses with every shot of encouragement.

A little hill. Push harder. Pain so normal now it doesn’t hurt.

College kids line the course. Their magic marker enthusiasm surges as I pass.

‘Yeah! This guy is the man!’

Guy?

Oh. The seventy year old man in front of me.

‘Woohoo! You’re amazing!’

Thank y—Oh. The guy in the wheelchair. Also in front of me.

‘Yay! You’re great too!’

Okay. This time they mean me. Somehow, I’ve managed to run a marathon and still get pity cheers.

Keep running.

I’ve been saving Uncle Mike for nineteen to twenty.

We sat on the deck overlooking their farm: berry vines and wild grass and a ’72 Chevy tucked into the arms of an oak tree. ‘I always wanted to be a pilot. To me, that’s closest you can get to God, being up there.’ He ran his hands across the controls on his wheelchair. ‘I got to drive a glider plane over the Sierras last month. Go to hold the steering wheel. That kind of control…when you spend most of your life in one of these…’ We both looked back out at the sky. ‘I didn’t know this would happen to me. I’m glad I got to be pilot before it did. Got to live my dream. I don’t look back and wish I’d worked in a cubicle. You’re following your dream. You’ll be okay.’

Knees. Thighs. Ankles.

You’ll be okay.

One foot in front of the other. Uncle Mike runs next to me. Runs. He smiles. He’s not in his wheelchair. When you spend most of your life in one of these. Just keep running. You’ll be okay.

Mile twenty. Oh my god. Mile twenty. The homestretch. You’re really going to do this. I switch to a mix one of my best friends has made. This will get me through. This will get me through.

‘Tess Barker, this is all you, baby! This is me and Eric, and we just have one piece of advice. Keep going! Go Tess Go!’ My own homestretch song! They sing Britney Spears lyrics and chant ‘Go Tess, Go,’ and now it’s my friends who run with me. The ones who did drugs on the Price is Right with me, the ones who’ve rode bitch in the backseat to Albuquerque with me, the ones who I’ve shared countless flasks and pizzas with. Some to my left, some to my right, some run behind me and push. And push. I’m so lucky to have people to push.

Mile twenty two. You said you’d be here, here you are. You said you’d be here, here you are. I run with my mom again. This time just her. She chants to keep my feet moving, ‘I’m always rooting for you. I’m always rooting for you.’ That’s a lyric in my musical.

Opening night in New York, the new dress she wore. The way she cried all the way through. The champagne she let herself have at the reception.

I’m always rooting for you.

At the end of the mile, she’s there in real life. Like she knew. She and Mary scream and thumbs up and take pictures. Moms are so good about pictures. ‘You’re almost there! You’re almost there!’

I’m almost there. I’m almost there.

This phrase alone gets me through the next two miles.

Bigger crowds. More signs. Holy shit.

Last mile.

A firefighter hollers ‘Looking good, 4080!’

I go back to Jay-Z.

Victory’s within the mile. Almost there don’t give up now.

I’m about to finish a marathon. You said you’d do it, here you are.

Ocean. People cheering and cheering: the best kind of paparazzi. Everything in slow motion. I could stay in this mile forever, but the finish is close. Where’s Sean? There The finish gets closer. Closer.

And I’m done. Done.

The end happens fast.

I did it.

I just ran a marathon.

I take out my headphones. Time and sound return to their normal speeds. Sean runs up and kisses me.

‘Congratulations!’

Oh yeah. English. Normal conversation. Say something.

‘Thank you. Now let’s get a fucking beer.’

(...and I'll probably do this again)