The Shoes of Baltimore (NaNoWriMo Day 6)

Charlie tore his ACL. It would take him six to nine months to recover. He would have to wait until he was 26 to compete in the next trials.

Jeff didn’t make the cut. He told Charlie he was going to hang up his shoes and stop racing.

“I’m going to miss it,” he told Charlie after visiting him in the hospital before his surgery. “But it’s tough. I just don’t think I would make it in the next four years, and I don’t want to be a broke college student forever. We had some good times and it was a great ride, but I think it’s time for me to move on. I’m going to start working as the assistant manager at my dad’s furniture store back home. Decent paycheck right now, and if I show I know what I’m doing, he’s going to put me on track to run that place one day.”

Charlie was disappointed Jeff was giving up. But he knew Jeff was good because he worked hard, not because he had natural talent.

He just couldn’t get to the next level to make the team, and Charlie knew that.

“But,” Jeff said. “You should totally continue. I mean, it sucks now. But what is it? Seven or eight months? You’ll be recovered and can start training again. Then you got three years to get ready. By then, all those guys running the long distance will be in their late or early 30s. You’ll be the young pup out there. And you’ll be more experienced then guys right out of college. It sucks now, but maybe this will help you be even more prepared. It would have been tough to beat Mclaroy’s time. He beat his time from for years ago.”

It was true. The silver-medal winner four years earlier had significantly beat his trial time from four years earlier.

It would have been a long shot for Charlie to have beaten that time. He still thought he could have. But it would have been a long shot.

Julie told Charlie something similiar.

She stuck with her sage advice that everything happens for a reason. Doors closing, windows opening.

That deal.

Because he wasn’t able to work while he was recovering, Charlie had to move back home to Baltimore.

Julie was just in a one-bed room apartment at this point, and it was tight quarters.

Charlie slept on the couch.

He started to get depressed early on. He couldn’t run. He didn’t have any money. And Jeff and Stan were back in their hometowns, living new lives.

During his time in Florida, Charlie had mostly lost contact with the people he talked to in high school. Charlie spent time with them his freshman and sophomore year when he went back home for breaks, but he found he didn’t have much in common with them anymore.

Charlie was focused on his track career. They were focused on what the bar special was that night.

So he spent most of his days on the couch, watching television.

He also started to put on weight because he couldn’t partake in his daily running routine.

This went on for eight months.

By the time Charlie was scheduled for a checkup to see how his leg was healing, he gained 25 pounds.

The doctor told Charlie he was good to go, but he was worried about his weight gain. “That’s going to put extra pressure on your legs and body. Once you start moving around more I’m assuming the weight will start coming off, but you’ll need to lose some of that weight before you start running.”

Charlie looked down at the tiny belly that had formed over his normally taught midsection.

“Got it doc,” Charlie said.

Normally, Charlie would have just started running right away. He knew that the doctor was covering himself if Charlie went out there and had any setback.

Since he had something to focus on, it was easier to maintain a healthy diet. He started just doing long walks, past the M&T Bank, past Fed Hill, past the Inner Harbor, to Mt. Vernon and back to Pigtown.

He also got a part-time job as a stocker at a grocery store a few days week. The hours were rough, from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. for four days a week.

But it allowed him to help his mother out with a few of the bills.

It also helped him in his training. When he had lost the majority of the weight he gained, he began to lightly jog.

He always liked running in the morning the best, and he liked doing it when most people were sleeping or just getting ready for work.

Charlie stayed at his mom’s house for the next three years.

He was able to get a full-time work schedule, but he was still doing stock. He hated getting up at 2 in the morning, but he knew it helped his mom out. And he needed to help out more because she had gotten sick.

It started out with Julie just feeling like her strength and energy was drained. She attributed it to the cold weather when it first happened.

But as she had to start calling out for work (which she had never done), Charlie began to get worried. He pressed his mom to go to the doctor.

When she finally did, it turned out she had cancer.

The doctor thought they could fight it if they were aggressive. But the medical bills were wracking up, and Julie had to work less.

So for three years, Charlie’s routined consisted of waking up for work, running, going back to take care of his mom, and going to sleep to wake up and do it all over again.

That was it.

Things got bad for Julie. When it came time for Charlie to compete in his trial, she wasn’t able to watch him.

Charlie was going to fly down a few days early to Oregon. Before he went, Julie asked him if he ever knew about polar bears.

Charlie couldn’t tell if she was thought it was all those years ago when he was racing as a kid, or if she had forgotten she told him that story.

But he humored her.

“No mom, what do you want me to know about polar bears?”

She preceded to tell him the story of how polar bears cover their noses with their paws to completely blend in with the snow.

Before Charlie could respond to tell her how interesting that was, Julie told him she hoped he wasn’t nervous about the race.

“I remember all those years ago when you were so nervous,” she said. “I didn’t think you’d get your knees to stop shaking before that first race. You always work so hard Charlie. I’m so proud of you. Give them hell.”

They hugged each other for a long time. Charlie tried to be as gentle as he could because he knew the cancer had made Julie’s body week.

But she held on to him as tight as she did when he was a little kid.

Charlie was all business the day of the race. He got in early, got his number, and waited in the stand until it was his time to race. He had his headphones in and didn’t interact with any of the other runners.

An announcement indicated that it was time for all the runners in Charlie’s race to gather at the starting line.

This was it.

Last time was just a fluke, Charlie told himself.

The horn signaled to run.

For Charlie’s second attempt at making the Olympic team, everything went perfect. He had a great pace and maintained it throughout the race. And when it came time to get into his next gear to push ahead, Charlie separated himself from the rest of the pack.

He easily won.

Charlie was happy things worked out this time around, but he didn’t publicly celebrate his win.

That isn’t to say he was conceited about winning. It was just what he had expected to happen.

The coach and some key brass for the team talked to him after and told him they would be in contact with him in the next few days.

A news crew even asked him for a quick sound bite as he was leaving.

Charlie called his mom as soon as he was back in the hotel room.

“Hey mom.”

“Charlie,” she said coughing a little. “What’s new?”

“Oh nothing really. Things are kind of boring you know?”

She knew that by the way he was joking he had good news.

‘So?” she pressed.

“I finished in first mom. I’m going to compete in the Olympics.”

“Oh Charlie, I know this was the year! I never had any doubts. This is going to change your life!”

Not waking up at 2 a.m. to put peas in a freezer was what Charlie was looking forward to the most.

Money from endorsement deals would be nice, but the most important part of that money was that it bought Charlie freedom. It would allow him to train and focus purely on running.

If he could place in the Olympics, he could also start thinking about revenue sources after. Books, hosting television shows, and other ventures that may present themselves.

Unfortunately, Julie would’t be able to watch him. She passed away just a few weeks after he told her he would be racing in the Olympics.

It was a small funeral. But Jeff and Stan were both able to make it up.

Charlie couldn’t remember the last time he had liquor, but he found himself passing around a flask with Jeff and Stan at her grave.

“She was really so nice Charlie,” Jeff said. “I remember how she always use to fill our fridge whenever she visited. It would kill me with all that pasta she always made, but it was so delicious I could never stop eating it.”

“I always thought she was so kind for asking me and Jeff to always go out and eat with you guys whenever she visited,” Stan said. “I know you said she didn’t have a lot of money, and when we tried to offer to pay, she always turned us down.”