Right to Die

window, so that he could appreciate the view without turning his back on me. “When I took these offices, I arranged the furniture this way because I was afraid the scenery would be a distraction.” Keeping the chair stationary, he brought his head around to me. “The last few days, I find I look out often, probably more than I have the last few years. I look out on that graveyard, men and women who died before I was born. Before AIDS was born. And I realize that people have always died from something, and most before their time.”
    “Cemeteries can do that for you.”
    Bacall began to rock slowly in the chair. “As a boy, with all the doubts and conflicts I felt, there was one thing of which I was absolutely certain. I would live forever. I might never feel completely at ease with myself, but there would never be a time when there wouldn’t be a me. Then I learned that forever has just one rule.”
    “What’s that, Alec?”
    “Forever’s rule is that nothing is forever.” Turning his face to the window. Bacall seemed to sit straighter in the chair. He kept rocking, but his speech became as clipped as his beard. “Sometime, if we could, I’d like you to tell me more about life, John.”
    “I doubt I know more to tell you.”
    “Sometime we might try. But just now. I’m afraid this good day is tripping into bad. On your way out. could you ask Del to come in, please?”
    I got up quickly and left him, rocking and watching his view.

= 23 =

    “Now that we’re halfway through February, John, you’ve got to start thinking specifics, not just general stuff anymore. The distances are coming along fine, and you’re running on the packed snow like it was a groomed, gravel track. But it’s time to start planning the race in your mind. Go out and drive the course, all the way from Hopkinton into Boston . But drive her like a runner, not a driver. You’re gonna notice something. Except for some miles in the middle, you’ve got rolling hills. That means you have to run a little different. On the way up, keep your knees high to synchronize the arm and leg motion. Don’t look down at the ground unless you’ve got paper cups and orange peels to step around. Keep your eyes on the horizon. That way, you don’t get discouraged by glancing up and seeing how far you still have to climb. The idea is to run up the hill, not into the hill. So lean forward on that incline, like you’re riding a horse and coming forward in the saddle for him. On the decline, lean back, like you’re still on that horse and laying back in the saddle to balance him. Don’t let gravity help defeat you.
    “People talk a lot about Heartbreak Hill. Fact is, Heartbreak isn’t just one hill, it’s a series of them, with plateaus in between. From mile seventeen to mile twenty-one. That’s the firehouse at the intersection of Route 16 and Commonwealth all the way to the top of Chestnut Hill at Boston College . The inclines are bad, but the plateaus are worse. The plateaus, they remind your legs of how much nicer it is to run on a flat surface. Remind you just enough to take the starch out of those legs for the next incline. Then you think, ‘Well, at least I get to go downhill too,‘ but the decline is the worst of all, because it stretches the wrong muscles at the wrong time.
    “Yes, you’ve got to respect Heartbreak, John, respect it and learn it. Go out to the firehouse and run just Heartbreak, when you’re good and fresh. Run it nice and easy. See how it feels, how long it really is. Spot some landmarks and memorize them. Marathon day, it’s the landmarks that’ll tell your mind how much farther you’ve got to go after you can’t depend on your legs for messages no more. Yes, once you train a little on Heartbreak, you’ll know you have to ease off earlier in the race.
    “What I’m saying is, save some for Heartbreak, John. Save a lot.“

    Absolute temperature, five above. With the wind chill along the frozen river, nearly thirty below. Doing eight miles instead of ten, a concession to the February weather. Thanking God and Nancy for the Gore-Tex suit, I wore longjohns underneath it, wool mittens and ski mask over it. I even stuck the temples of a pair of sunglasses through the edges of the eye slits on the mask, the lenses reducing both the glare and the bite of the wind. If you’re not too cold“, you’re not too old, right?
    The temperature made the running paths icy. By the time I’d turned for home at the