I'm Not Gonna Lie (16 page)

I sniffed. “They're, you know, good, real good, little snug—”

“Snug?”

It was over.

What was I supposed to say?

“Yes, Brianna, those thirty-sixes are too tight. Bring me a forty, will you? And throw in a forty-two for insurance, too, will you?”

That's not going to work.

How's this?

“Hey, Brianna, you know what? I'm gonna forget pants for today. They're too tight. I'm just gonna starve myself and use laxatives every hour until I drop the weight. I'll be back in three weeks. I will fit into those thirty-fours and you and I will be tooling up the coast.”

“Are you okay in there?”

She was just outside the dressing room door, but she sounded a million miles away.

“Yeah. I'm fine.”

“Sounds like you're crying.”

“Yeah, yeah, no, I love these pants so much. I get very emotional when I try on a wonderful pair of jeans. I get overcome. But you know what? I remembered I left my sunglasses in the car and I'm just gonna run down to the garage—”

“I can ring these up for you so when you get back—”

“That's okay, no, thanks, but I'll be right back. I'll come right back.”

“Whatever.”

I heard her high heels clacking out of the dressing room area and out of my life.

“Yeah, whatever,” I said.

I stood up, pulled on my old pair of jeans, and looked at myself in the mirror.

Which was when that day got even worse.

Looking in the mirror I saw
It
.

The one thing I'd been dreading I'd see when I turned fifty. I knew it was a matter of time.

“No,” I said. “It can't be. Not here. Not now.”

But there it was, plain as day, glaring at me from the back of my hand.

A liver spot.

My first one.

The little brown dot just showed up. Just like that.

I suppose I was glad that it appeared on my hand and not on my forehead or on my nose.

I had a plan for this, too.

Before I left the house, I would put some M&M's on the back of my hand and let them melt. Then if somebody saw my liver spot and said, “Hey, whoa, what is that? Is that a . . . liver spot?”

“No, man, that's just some chocolate.” And I'd start licking it off.

No way I was accepting a liver spot.

I jammed my hand into my pocket, walked out of the dressing room, and got the hell out of that department store.

After that humiliating afternoon in the men's department, I went to work. I cut back on my calorie intake and started to eat a lot of salads. I also started walking the stairs inside my house. I knew it wasn't enough. I had to do more. But what?

One afternoon I got a call from RJ. “I'm running a marathon,” he said.

“You're what?”

“I'm running a marathon. Twenty-six miles, consecutively, all at once.”

“I know what it is. And I heard you the first time. I just wanted to hear you say it again, because it sounds so funny.”

“That's not the funny part. Here's the funny part. You're gonna run it with me.”

“You're right. That is funny. That's hilarious. I don't run. I hate to run; you know that.”

“You have to.”

“Really? And why is that?”

“Because if I can do it, you can do it.”

“That's not a good reason, RJ. That's a terrible reason.”

“How's this? You got heavy.”

He had me there.

I really didn't want to run—I do hate running—but I thought that maybe in this case it might be worth it. And since I'd crossed off everything else on that “things to do when you turn fifty” bucket list, I thought maybe I should try at least one thing.

“You know what? I'm gonna do it.”

“All right! I'm holding you to it. We begin training tomorrow.”

“Training?”

“Yes. This is serious. You won't regret this.”

“I regret it already.”

I went to the Nike store that afternoon and decked myself out with some cool running clothes. As long as I was gonna run outside, where people could see me, I had to make sure I looked good. Because you never know. Somebody might see me and get interested in something more physical and fun than running.

I bought some cushy, expensive cross-trainers, some very hip T-shirts, a pack of sweatbands, knee pads, and some salve to rub on my nipples in case they chafed. Hey, that's what I heard. You run too hard in the heat, your nipples get sore, crack, and chafe. I couldn't imagine anything much worse than a couple of chafed nipples. I wanted to avoid that. Not taking any chances. I also took a peek around the store and behind the counter to see if they sold dick-chafing cream. I figured if your nipples chafe, your dick might, too.

I also bought several pairs of flashy running shorts. The great thing about these was the elastic waistband. After my horrifying jeans-buying experience, I loved the idea of pants with a waistband that stretched. One size fit all. I didn't want to worry about whether my running shorts were gonna be too big or, God forbid, too snug.

I left the store feeling pretty good. I dug my look. This running thing was turning out all right.

RJ and I met the next morning at a nearby high school track for our first training run. It was early, around seven, and neither one of us looked that excited to be doing this.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” I said.

“Nice shorts,” he said. “What are those, like a size forty-two?”

“Let's just do this.”

“Hold on,” he said.

RJ exhaled slowly and bent over slightly.
Very
slightly. Almost imperceptibly.

“What is that?” I said.

“What?”

“That.” I bent over slightly to show him. “What are you doing?”

“Stretching,” RJ said. “I don't want to pull anything.”

“Pull this. That's not stretching. That's nodding. You look like you're nodding.”

“You're right.” He straightened up. “Screw it. Let's just run.”

We hit the track and started jogging. We huffed and groaned and sweated for a good twenty minutes and then we pulled up. We had made it almost halfway around one lap. Neither of us could catch our breath. We couldn't speak for a long time.

“This was good,” I said finally.

RJ held up his hand like he was ordering a beer at a Lakers game. “Great,” he said.

At least, I think he said, “Great.” What came out of his mouth was a wheezing noise that sounded like “Grrrbrrahahflgmah.”

“We gonna do this again tomorrow?” I said.

RJ held his hand up again.

I was pretty sure that meant yes.

He called me that afternoon. “I was thinking. Running a marathon might be pushing it.”

“You think? What gave you that idea? Was it that we ran for twenty minutes and barely made it a hundred yards?”

“That had something to do with it, yeah.”

“Look, man, we're not kids. And we're a little out of shape.”

“A little?”

“Yes. A tad.”

“So let's be realistic about this,” RJ said. “Let's forget about the marathon.”

“Thank you.”

“Let's just do the half marathon. Thirteen miles.”

“Brilliant,” I said. “That'll be much easier.”

After training like we were in boot camp every morning for the next two months, we gave up on the half marathon, too. We decided that for our first official race we should go for something a lot shorter: a 5K, which was 3.1 miles. We hadn't been able to make it quite that far yet in our training, but we figured our excitement and adrenaline would push us through the other 2.9 miles we needed to finish.

We signed up for a race in the San Fernando Valley on a mild Saturday morning in October. We showed up that morning along with about two thousand other eager runners. I said something about going back home and sleeping in, but RJ reached over and grabbed the keys before I could start the car up.

“We're doing this,” he said.

We got out of the car and found a position twenty or so yards from the starting line. We jogged in place to get loose, and then someone counted down the last few seconds through a megaphone and the crowd started to chant, which scared the hell out of me. It sounded like the running of the bulls. Then the gun went off, scaring me even more, and all two thousand of us runners shouted and surged forward.

Make that 1,998 of us.

“We gotta pace ourselves,” RJ said, huffing as we jogged slightly faster than a walk.

“Absolutely,” I said, as every other person in the race passed us. “We don't want to burn out too soon.”

“Right. Let's slow it down.”

“I don't think we can go any slower,” I said.

“Tough course,” RJ said, bellowing out some air.

“Tough course? We've gone ten feet.”

He coughed and shot his hand in the air like he was ordering a beer at a Lakers game.

We plowed forward. Time slowed. We kept pushing ourselves, forcing one leg in front of the other. At one point we looked at each other. RJ seemed to be running first in slow motion, and then in stop-action. I started to laugh and then I realized that I was running right beside him, which meant that I was running in slow motion and stop-action, too.

Somehow—miraculously—we passed the first mile marker. Spectators on the side of the road cheered and ran alongside us, shouting, “You can do it!” and, “You're looking great!” I waved and they applauded.

I don't know how I looked, but I felt like crap. My bottom lip cracked, and sweat poured out of every pore. I made a mental note to go back to that running store after the race, because my nipples felt fine but my dick was starting to chafe.

I thought of picking up the pace, but I was afraid that if I moved any faster, my shorts would fall down. Suddenly, my side started to hurt. I slowed down to slightly more than a walk. I glanced over at RJ. If possible, he looked even worse than I felt.

“How you doing?” I asked him.

He groaned and shook his head miserably.

“Yeah, me, too,” I said. “Remind me never to do this again.”

“Do . . . you . . . want . . . to . . .
stop
?”

“I don't know. Do you?”

“I don't know. Do you?”

“Do you?”

I looked around. I could see no one else in the race. The road around us was empty, deserted. All 1,998 runners had passed us and were somewhere way ahead of us. We were the last two runners in the race.

“Oh, yeah, oh,
yes
.” RJ held up his hand like he was ordering a beer at a Lakers game.

“What?”

“I think I'm getting a second wind,” he said, and then one of us farted.

We both started to laugh.

Then RJ jogged a little faster, challenging me. He grinned at me as he started to pull ahead.

“Hey, what the hell?” I said, pushing out a breath and moving to keep up with him.

Suddenly I heard a clicking noise behind us, as if somebody was hitting the concrete with a stick.

Click, click, click.

The clicking came closer.

And closer.

And closer.

Click.

Click.

Click.

“What is that?” I said to RJ.

I turned and saw a blind guy running to the side of us, tapping the road in front of him with his cane.

Click.

Click
.

Click
.

“It's a blind guy,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said.

“He's beating us.”

“Yeah,” RJ said, wheezing.

“He's gonna pass us. A blind guy is smoking us. A
blind
guy.”

“I don't think I have anything left in the tank,” RJ said. He sounded as if he'd just entered a world of pain.

“RJ, this is the worst. Everybody is beating us. Little children, old people, really old people, and now the sight impaired. With a
cane
.”

He grimaced. His face was frozen in one big frown.

“This is embarrassing,” I said. “We're not only gonna finish last; we're gonna finish last behind a sight-impaired person. It's humiliating.”

RJ moaned. “I can't help it. I can't go any faster. I'm not sure I'm gonna make it.”

“I can't do this,” I said.

“You gonna quit?”

“No. I'm gonna tell the blind guy he's going the wrong way.”

“What?”

“Just this once. I'm gonna send him over there, toward the mall. He'll be fine. He'll have a good time.”

“I want to go on record. This is not a good thing to do.”

“I know.”

“We may go to hell. Well, you, anyway.”

“You're right.” I turned to the blind guy. “Excuse me, sir?”

The blind guy turned in our direction. “Yes?”

Click
.

Click
.

Click
.

“Well, see, I want to tell you . . .”

Click
.

Click
.

Click
.

“Yes?”

RJ looked at me. I looked at RJ. I shrugged and turned back toward the blind guy. He kept running, leaning forward. He edged past us, tapping the road in front of him with his cane. He tilted his head toward me.
“Yes?”

“I wanted to tell you,” I said again, “that you're going . . .”

He tilted his head toward me. He grinned.

“Great,” I said. “You're going
great.
You're looking good and you're going great.”

I gave him the thumbs-up.

“Thanks.” He beamed at me and shot past us.

“Running,” RJ said after a while, slowing to a walk. I slowed down, too, and began walking next to him. The
click-click-click
of the blind guy's cane echoed off the empty street in the growing distance between us. “This is not for me. If the sight impaired are passing me, I'm out.”