by Nate Haile

 

            Lake Merritt is known to all of the residents in the bay area, and remembered by all the visitors. The trail of the lake goes around like a letter U. The only difference is the middle area of the lake is much wider, hence lots of rowers. The trail is all on cement, three miles long and covered with poop every twenty yards or so from the birds and ducks that surround the entire lake. People come with their families, friends, dogs, bicycle or just themselves to enjoy all of the lake’s attributes. Some of these attributes could be feeding the seagulls, gooses, and ducks, sitting on the bench and relaxing, taking the kids to one of the three playgrounds, and of course, running. Usually on a typical Sunday morning all of these activities will be put into action. But on this Sunday morning in mid march all of lake Merritt sidewalk on Lakeshore Avenue is closed. There are seven police cars parking on lakeshore. Cones that read “DO NOT ENTER” are being placed. A person who happens to be running around the lake crosses to the other side of the street and continues. Drivers drive slower so they can catch a glimpse of the scene. The ambulance arrives and starts to move quickly. They retrieve a dead body from the lake and zip’s it up in a body bag. The dead body is wearing a black jacket and in the left sided pocket are several pictures.

 

            Kevin Hynes got eight hours of sleep and waked up at seven am. He turned of his alarm, laid back down on his bed putting both his arms behind his head. He looked down at his legs and said, “Let’s go get those miles.” Jumping out of bed he made a trip to the bathroom and handled his business. He slapped a handful of cold water on his face. He went back to his bedroom to put on his Nike compression tights, regular blue shorts, a white T, and his GT7 adrenaline Brooks running shoes. While getting dressed he looked at the calendar hanging on the wall, in front of his organized desk and said “just 51 more days” He made his way to the kitchen eating a banana and drinking 250 milliliters of water. He left the apartment jogged to Lake Merritt as an eight minute warm-up. At the lake, the bench he usually used for stretching was occupied by a homeless man. Apparently the noise from the ducks quacking and cars driving wasn’t enough to wake-him up. “Useless assholes,” He thought to himself. He went over to use the other bench about 50 yards away east. He stretched his hamstrings, quads, calf’s, groin, Achilles, triceps and hammy again. Each muscle for thirty seconds. He prepared his stopwatch and started his playlist on his iPod. Than headed for a ten mile run around the lake.

 

            Jason Wynson doesn’t want to hate Sunday morning, because that’s the day his six years old daughter, Katie and him go to church. But to him, the morning is a war zone between him and the bed. When he manages to get out of bed he goes and wakes up Katie.

            “Sweetie,” he says, gently rubbing her left shoulder. “Time to wake up. Come    on.”

            “Okay daddy,” she forces out yawning.

            Kate had black hair and black eyes, just like her mother. Jason would always tell her how she looked so much like her mother. He showed her almost all the pictures her mom took and shared almost all the memories he had of her. He folded his sleeping bag and blankets than prepared oatmeal and toast for breakfast.

            “So what do you want to do today? I mean after church of course,” Jason asked,          while giving her a plate.

            “Thanks daddy,” she said, putting her spoon in the bowl of oatmeal.

            “You welcome baby.”

            “Umm. A movie I wan ‘a go watch a movie.”

            “Any idea what movie you want to watch?”

            “No.”

            “Don’t worry, we’ll find something and if not we’ll rent a movie.”

            “Okay.”

They began to leave the house at 7:20am. “Daddy, don’t forget to bring the bread for the birdies.”

            “I won’t sweetie.”

 

            They seated themselves at the back of the church during the usual ceremony. Afterwards they went to the front of the cross, at the top of the aisle. Jason got on his knees, as soon as he was about to pray he took a glance at Kate and saw her with her eye’s and mouth opened wide, looking at all of Jesus’ pictures.

            “Kate,” Jason whispered.

She immediately got to her knees and joined him. When they were done they got the bread out of the car and headed over to the lake, to feed the birds.

            “Make sure you cut the bread into smaller pieces so the birds won’t choke on   them,” Jason suggested.”

            “I know I know.”

After about two minutes, twelve seagulls came and ruined the little ducks fun. Kate enjoyed it as usual.

            “Daddy look at that boy running,” she said pointing to a teenage boy with his     iPod.

            “Sweetie look out,” he yells grabbing Kate of the trail so she wouldn’t interfere with the boys workout.

            “Sorry daddy.”

            “It’s okay. Just be careful next time. Okay?”

            “Okay.”

            “Now go ahead. Don’t keep the birds waiting.”   

 

Why can’t they just get off the fuckin trail? Kevin asks himself after almost colliding with a little girl. He hates it when people are in his way during a run. People letting their dogs wander around, birds crossing the trail in a slow single file line and groups of people walking the opposite direction forces Kevin to make three choices. Slow down and wait for them to walk by or get on the far right and step on shit or get on the far left and fall in the lake. He usually goes with the first one. He looked at his watch, it read 24:21. He had  run four miles so far. As he listens to his iPod he began to imagine himself in the league championship meet. It won’t be my last race. I will qualify. He imagined the crowd yelling, the gun going off and him winning.

           

            He’s coming towards the end of his run. To make it a quality workout he picked up the past, slowly. He doesn’t want to force the speed to come out. He wants it to emerge out of him without trying. He focuses on his form and tries keeping his breathing smooth. He spots four corpulent ladies walking his direction. He can already hear all of their breaths from now forty yards away. He imagines them exhaling against him and blowing him into the ocean. With that in mind he forces himself to speed up. He sticks his forearms against two of the ladies in the middle forcing one of them to lose balance and the other one to fall. Still running, Kevin turns his head and sees two of the ladies helping their friend onto her feet while mugging him. He smiles and yells out, “Jenny Craig!” 

 

            “Okay first what do we do?”

            “Uuh, we separate the white ones from the color ones.”

            “Good. Then what?”

She looks at the two detergents. “We put the soap in there,” she says, pointing to the washers.

            “Yup, but which soap goes in where?”

            “The white one is for the white clothes and the red one is for the color clothes.”

            “Perfect. I’ll take it from here. Why don’t you go and color.”

She sits on a chair. Grabs her purple backpack, and pulls out “Dora and the Explorer Coloring Book”, she starts coloring while her dad adds the detergents. She finishes coloring one page and walks over to her dad and shows him. He looks at the coloring and also the title of the page. It reads family is everything. It has a picture of Dora holding hands with Bootz, Diego, some animals, and even Swiper.

            “This looks great sweetie. Great job. You should keep on coloring. You still have a bunch of pages left.”

            She looks at the ground and asks him where mom is. They talk about her on numerous occasions, but he has never told her how she died while giving birth. He figures she’s not old enough to understand. He tries telling her a story about how they first met at the bench he always takes her to. She interrupts and repeats her question softly. He finds it hard to put the words together.

“She’s an angel now. And she’s watching over you.”  

 

            “Don’t hold back on the third turn. You got that. That when you need to put on             the jets,” Sam said, while watching Kevin sitting on the field, tying the laces on his spikes. 

            “I won’t hold back. Trust me. I’ll give it everything I’ve got and than some.” Kevin said, getting up.  

            Sam just got done running the 3200 meter run (8 laps-2 miles). He beat his PR (personal record) by 15 seconds and came two places away from qualifying to state. The announcer called all 800 meter (2 laps) runners to the start. This is Kevin’s event. It’s now or never. While he’s jogging over to the start his coach approaches him. He puts his right arm on his shoulder.

            “Embrace the pain,” he said.

Kevin takes off his sweats. Gets a few jumps in. He watches the hand rise along with the gun.

            “Mark!”

Eight months of training. He gets lower and takes a deep breath.

            “Set!”

            Sunday mornings I did LSD (long slow distance) runs. Monday mornings I ran four miles. In the afternoon I ran a hard seven mile. Tuesday mornings I ran three miles and later in the day I did 20 sets of 200meter sprints. Wednesday mornings I ran three miles and in the afternoon I did hill repeats. Thursday afternoon I ran ten miles. On Friday’s I stretched like a snake. Saturdays I ran stairs. And so on. Every weekday I did pushups, sit-ups, pull ups, dips and calf raises., I felt pain in my knees. I had abdominal pain when I went to bed. I caught numerous nose bleeds and sheen splits. I went though all that pain for this race. My race. I gave away eight months of my life. Now, I’m going to get those eight month back.

            Shot.

            Kevin’s on lane three. His explosive start surprises everyone. He’s already left lane l and 2 runners and is catching up on lane 4-8. Coming off the first curve he’s tied for first place. 20 meters later he takes the lead. The first the 200 meter is a 26. He leans to his left on the second turn and shortens his stride and increases his turnovers. With 500 meters to go he sees flashing camera, hears his teammates yelling, the starter holding up the gun and his coach moving his mouth in a way that read, “Now.” Shot! First lap was a 51 the second lap is starting. He begins to accelerate on the third turn. His thigh muscles are burning. He’s coming of it and immediately leans forward, pumps his arm harder. His triceps and calves are burning. He’s coming on his fourth turn. The last 100 meter is front of him. This is what I live for, to feel pain like these. He opens up his strides, gets on his toes and lets his legs go. He crosses the finish line with a time of 1:46:18. He’s going to the state meet with a state record.

           

            Jason is taking Katie to their neighbors house so she could spend the night with her friend Emily Wilson. He tells her to have fun and be good to the Wilson’s.

 

            It’s 9pm and Jason walks over to the same bench he goes with Katie on the weekends. He sits down, thinks and asks himself questions. He thought about the question Katie had asked him about her mother. When should I tell her? Should I tell her? He takes out his wallet, pulls out a picture and puts his wallet back in his left pocket. The picture shows him and Katie’s mom, Susan, standing in front of the bench. The lake and the birds are in the background. Both of their hairs are being pulled to their right from the wind. He regrets not marrying her and hates himself for having a low paying job. I won’t let you down Susan and I won’t let Katie down either. I’m the only one she’s got. I will always be there for her. -He gets up and walks around the bench and looks up at the church. He holds the picture in front of him and looks at it.  “I’m going to be a good father…” He heard breathing and footsteps coming at him fast. He placed his right foot behind him turning around and falling. The picture left his hand and fell into the lake.

 

            Kevin was on his eight mile around the lake. His coach allowed him to have a nice long 10 mile run before they began tapering for state. He completes two and a half laps on the trail. He was wearing a black sweat pant and black sleeves. He likes running at night because there’s no one to get in his way. He gets on lakeshore and decided to pick up the past all the way to the bench, just right in front of the church. He feels light on his feet. Instead of trying to go faster he tries to remember how it feels to be moving the way he is. All of the hard work is paying off. This is my senior year. My first and last chances to win the state 800 meet. It’s my time. No one will take it away from me. He realizes he’s going faster than ever before. He’s enjoying it and is digging for more. No one. – His right ankle steps on something leaving him with an incredible amount of pain. He fell head first and his face rubs heavily against the cement trail.

 

            Jason quickly gets up and positions himself on the edge of the lake trying to recover the picture that means so much to him. Realizing it’s too dark to find it he gets on his feet and stares at the teenager. He watches him stand up slowly and turn around to face him. He sees that his face had several large bleeding cuts. The boy is about 17 years old. He’s white with dark brown hair, six foot three and 160 pounds. He looks at him not with pain that he should be feeling, but rage.

 

            Kevin is lying on his stomach with the right side of his face on the ground. He opens his eye and sees the lake. He slowly and painfully gets his face of the cement ground. As he faces about a foot away from the ground he sees his own blood. He manages to stand but find it difficult to move his right ankle without feeling pain. This forces him to lean to his left side. He turns around slowly. He sees a white male standing on the edge of the lake. He’s wearing a Shell’s gas station employee t-shirt. The man is about mid thirty, five foot nine and 140 pounds. He looks at Kevin as if he’s waiting for an apology. Kevin looks at the top left side of the church. Where the cross is and says          “I’m sorry.”

Jason looked back at the lake. His face frowning and his eyes squinting he say’s

            “My picture it fell into the lake.” He looks back at the boy and he could tell that the distance between them had come closer.

            Kevin looks back at Jason. He limbs slowly over to him. He’s eyes filled are filled with anger. His heart is beating unusually fast for just walking. He had nothing to lose. Kevin wasn’t sorry for what he did. He was sorry for what he was about to do.