Gary Braver - Elixir

As they sat there smiling into each other's eyes over champagne and trout amandine with white asparagus, Wally had to remind himself that although Sheila was a delightful young woman, there were many other delightful young women in the world-and so much time.

It was hard to comprehend, but Wally Olafsson's life was becoming an infinite moment.

Suddenly Wally saw himself from afar, sitting in this elegant room full of other couples sipping from each other's eyes, and it occurred to him just what a strange and wondrous thing he was becoming. They were mere mortals, while he was experiencing an apotheosis. He felt like an extraterrestrial sitting among them. No, like some kind of secret deity.

"Well?" Sheila said.

Wally giggled to himself. "I've never had a problem converting to metric."

She frowned. "I don't follow you."

"You asked my age."

"Yeah?"

"Twenty-nine Celsius."

Sheila laughed and dropped the subject.

Something told Roger that he was being watched. Call it a sixth sense or psychic powers or conditioned paranoia, but he was like one of those delicate seismographic devices that picks up tremors just below the threshold of human perception.

It didn't go off very often, but when it did he knew it-like that time last month when the two Feds had put the shop under surveillance. They dropped out of sight a couple days later, probably convinced they were tailing an innocent all-American family going about its business of being unremarkable.

Now the needle was jumping again while he and Brett stood in a line of other runners at the registration table for the 7K Town Day Charity Race.

He looked around, trying to determine the epicenter. Lots of people milled about-runners, spectators, photographers-but nobody seemed to be paying them particular attention. No one but Laura who waved from the gallery at the start and finish line.

False alarm, he thought.

It had happened before in crowds. And this one was alive with nervous energy. Runners were jumping in place, pacing, stretching, getting in some last carbo kicks from PowerBars and O. J. Just the collective electricity of the mass, Roger decided, and got back to the moment.

As Brett exchanged his form for a numbered bib, Roger quietly admired his son. He had grown into a handsome, well-proportioned young man with sculpted musculature, a wasp waist, and hard round glutes. He looked like a young Greek god.

I love you, beautiful boy, Roger whispered to himself. The registration form asked for the usual data: Name, address, past running meets, and the like. It also asked to check off your "Age Group" because at the end they gave out trophies for each category: Twelve to eighteen years, nineteen to twenty-nine, and so on. Like weight classes for wrestling. The idea was to keep victory relative and not embarrass older runners. But it always created a dilemma because he felt like a cheat-like Rosie Ruiz, who in the 1980s took the women's first place in the Boston Marathon until it was discovered that she had ridden partway on the subway.

Roger was riding Elixir. He checked the 30-39 box and was given a number.

Roger liked to run. On weekends he and Brett would do some miles on the track at Pierson. Brett once commented how cool it was to have an athletic dad. Lots of other kids' fathers were out of shape and did little more than return a baseball. But his dad could wrestle, ski, lift weights, and run a six-minute mile.

They did their stretches and took their places. There were maybe three hundred runners. Because it was a charity race, the protocol was a matter of etiquette. The faster runners were up front, while kids and older joggers took the back field.

Brett and Roger took places about three or four deep from the front string, made up of members of the track teams from North and Memorial High and the UW campus as well as people with no body fat and all legs who took town races very seriously.

At the gun, the front wall bolted away, Roger and Brett stayed in the field just behind, keeping up a steady and comfortable pace. This was for fun, so there was no need to push themselves.

The weather was cool and overcast, perfect conditions for the race which would make a large circle from the head of Carson Park, along the river and down some streets, then back to the starting point.

By the end of the fourth kilometer, many who led the pack had fallen back, letting Brett and Roger through. Older runners felt the distance and the younger ones lacked the stamina of a steady high pace. In fact, Brett himself was becoming winded. So Roger slowed down.

As they passed the sixth kilometer mark, the feeling was back-like a magnetic tug at the rear of his brain. Roger looked over his shoulder. A few runners were scattered behind them-a young couple in identical running outfits. A wiry black male. Two white women. All looking intensely absorbed in their running.

His attention fell on a white male. Number 44. A tall guy, in his twenties, who wore a headband, white tank top, and blue shorts and who held steady about ten paces back. He had been pacing Roger and Brett since the beginning.

Then it came back. At registration. Roger had first dismissed it as idle curiosity. But suddenly Number 44 did not seem like just another runner gauging the competition. He was studying him and Brett. Roger caught his eye-an eye made for watching-but he looked away. From all appearances he wasn't struggling. He could easily take them, but held his place instead.

Then Roger remembered something else. Earlier he had spotted him milling about the registration area with an older man in a windbreaker and shouldering a camera with a telephoto lens. Roger didn't like cameras, especially ones with big zooms.

They rounded First Avenue to River Street with less than a kilometer left. Brett was tiring, so Roger cut his pace even more.

Immediately 44 pulled ahead with a hard glance. Roger felt better. He wasn't a cop after all, just a runner with an attitude. Trying to give you the Evil Eye. Whatever it took to psyche down the competition.

Brett didn't like Roger dropping his pace. "Keep running," he cried. "Don't slow down."

Roger shook his head. "I'm fine."

"No. Do it!" Brett was struggling, but he wanted Roger to open up.

"You sure?"

" Yes!"

But he didn't want to leave Brett behind. Brett must have read his mind because he gasped, "Burn him, Dad. Burn him!"

That was all Roger needed. For you, Brett, he whispered, then kicked into a sprint that no other fifty-six year old could possibly summon-and very few thirty-eights.

In a matter of seconds he closed the gap on 44. Someplace behind him he heard Brett let out a howling "Yahoo!"

At about a three hundred meters before the finish, Roger pulled to approximately five paces behind 44, so close he could see the shamrock tattoo on his right shoulder.

Roger kept that up for several seconds as he readied to pull away. Then he moved until he was neck-and-neck with the guy about ten feet on his left. Ahead the road was wide open. They ran in formation like that for awhile. A couple times the guy looked over to Roger. Roger hooked eyes on him, and in that flash something passed between them. Roger didn't know what it was, nor did he care. All his concentration was on that bright yellow finish line a hundred meters ahead.

Cheers from the huge gallery rose up as a small knot of local track stars crossed the finish line first.

At about sixty meters, Roger pushed his throttle to the limit. Straining with everything he had, he moved past 44 without a glance and pumped down the road to the fat yellow finish, crossing a dozen paces ahead.

The crowd went wild not because they knew Roger, but for his breakaway. From over a hundred meters they had watched the two run in perfect stride until Roger made his stupendous sprint to the finish.