Harlan's Race

the stiff breeze.
    She parked right by my truck, and slid from the driver’s seat, eyes guarded.
    How would we get through the first awkward moments?
    As always, her clothes were tasteful. But this time, in haste, she’d pulled a sport jacket over flowing tunic and pants that were more keyed to dining. Hair unkempt, no makeup, she showed the years of strain and nursing.
    “Hi, sis,” I said quietly.
    My windbreaker blew open, and she glimpsed my stick rigged on my left suspender. All around us, the strong wind hissed and shushed in the tall shrubby chaparral around the lot. Perching on top of a tall dead yucca stalk nearby, a mockingbird poured his song onto the wind. I was learning the names and songs of California birds.
    She touched the stick.
    “Things are still that bad?” she asked.
    “Yeah.”
    Her unsmiling eyes met mine.
    “I apologize for the cruel thing we did to you,” she said. “I’m not just sorry — I’m embarrassed.”
    “I was as loco as you were,” I said.
    We walked slowly down the weathered flight of steps. It was a weekday, so we were the only people on the beach. The wind was on-shore, surf noisy, and a fine mist blew against us. We left a sedate double line of prints in the sand, with Jess’ galloping prints looping back and forth crazily.
    After I’d updated her on everybody, including Vince and his planned comeback in the Memorial 5-K, she said, “God, sometimes I feel like we’ve all lived forever.”
    “Has Betsy been in touch with you yet?”
    “No.”
    “Me neither.”
    “I think of Betsy every day,” said Marian. “Marla’s death must have absolutely crushed her. And I think she’s still terrified that someone will hurt Falcon.”
    A wave came sweeping up close to us.
    “You ever see Chino?” I asked.
    “Now and then. He’s been a ... a close friend.”
    I thought of my best friend in my sister’s arms, and felt just a twinge of spurious jealousy. Poor Marian hadn’t let herself have sex for years. She was looking away, eyes suddenly haunted.
    “Harlan,” she whispered, “this is a terrible thing to say. I feel so wicked. But... I wish Joe would die. He’s almost completely paralyzed.”
    “It’s not wicked to want mercy for someone you love.” The tide caught up with us, so we moved higher up the beach. The wind was getting colder, and some Pacific storm-front clouds loomed on the horizon.
    “What are you going to do when Joe goes?” I asked. “Get involved again. Politics, maybe.” She gave a small sad smile. “When a GOP brat like me starts worrying where the country is heading, America’s in trouble. I don’t like this new wave of rightist fanatics who want to shove their values down everybody else’s throats.”
    “The gay and lesbian vote is becoming important... in California, anyway.”
    “Indeed,” she said with a starchy tone coming into her voice. “I wish that Joe —”
    Suddenly, unbidden, her tears welled up, and she put her hands over her face and began to sob. I held her tightly against my stick, arms all the way around her as she shuddered with grief. A big cold wave gushed up past us, wetting our feet.
    “So many women today have horrible marriages,” she said against my windbreaker. “I was so lucky. Joe is one of a kind ...
    If anything ended the sting of that whiplash that drove me away from Prescott, it was that hug.
    An hour later, we were in the intensive-care unit at Century Hospital. Joe was propped up in bed and fumblingly tried the old basketball game that he and I always played in my Prescott office. With his one functional hand, he tried to flip a wadded Kleenex in the trash-basket. He missed again and again, and looked profoundly depressed. But when I told him about the Memorial 5-K, his tired old eyes lit up briefly.
    “Teh Vis t’ b’n ‘m,” he mumbled with his drooling halfparalyzed lips.
    Marian wiped away the drool, and translated sadly. “He says, tell Vince to burn l em.”
    January 1981 became February.
    I checked the publisher’s copy edit of my book.
    Vince and I were training with teeth-bared fierceness, coming back to racing trim fast. As my lungs got 100 percent functional again, we wore a groove across town to Griffith Park. That urban forest became home, like Sherwood Forest was home to Robin Hood’s outlaws. Chino and Harry joined the Front Runners, patiently went to the brunches and other drills, so they could logically be seen running with us, spending time in the park,