@ Pacer Steve (left) and his charge, huffing it around the last bend of track at Placer High in Auburn.

or, as it was this day, the angry howl in spite of it.

We had one mission left to us, me and Steve. As we were cresting the hill above Robie Point, I told him I needed to run hard. Steve flipped a switch and hurtled off with me tumbling behind his tracer’s arc with all the grace and malice of an unrifled bullet. This was my anger mile. I missed my silver buckle. Imissed my chance toruna well-executed race. I had broken in the one place I had trained not to—the canyons. I had left only this last raced mile. I kicked at it with my torn feet in all my frustration. It started rough, well below pace, but we kept at it, picking up. Just before we entered the Placer High track, we startled a spectator wandering across the street with the easy waltz of a person accustomed to being avoided rather than avoiding, and she said something not altogether friendly to our backs. We hit the track, still pressing; rounded the track, lungs bursting; gasping yes, but now across the finish line. 27:58:38. Brother followed shortly after.

Laban ended up getting even a few more years out of Jacob, but Jacob finished up there in Haran and left with the gals, only to find Laban chasing after him, all angry and whatnot. Jacob got away, though. He got away after all that.

Throughout the previous 28 hours, I’d periodically imagined the finish line, wondering about the buckle I wanted versus the buckle I’d earn. During Saturday’s daylight hours, the thing was about that buckle. Somewhere in the middle of the night, it ceased to be a matter of a buckle. I love ultramarathoning because it distills a person to some basic needs. Taxes are a hard thing to worry about when you are having a religious epiphany about a glass of cold water. And as magical as cold water can be, it pales to insignificance next to the sight of the most beautiful woman in the world, waiting for me just the other side of the finish line after 100.2 miles. Hell with buckles. That’s the prize, you know. Right there. A woman named Deanne. a

Tattoo

If You Decorate the Skin, Make It Mean Something. A Short Story.

think I’ll get a tattoo.”

It was a straightforward, reasonable answer to my question about what she planned to do after high school graduation. But it did surprise me! I had never seen any sign of rebelliousness from Wesley—only proper behavior, bordering on conservative. But what do I know about women?

One thing I did know about this one—she was beautiful. Even now, seven miles into a 10-mile run, I’m touched by her beauty. What pleasure to watch her as we run, to listen to her labored breath as we tackle the hills. lam a lucky man, and I sometimes wonder why life has turned out so well for me. To run with her, at least occasionally, is a pleasure few fathers—much less grandfathers—are lucky enough to experience. I have watched her grow from an infant to a spindle-legged adolescent, to a teenager, and now into a beautiful woman. At age 15, she blossomed like March jonquils. One day there’s only promise, and the next day brilliant yellow is transforming winter into spring. So it has been with her. I noticed it even before the Jeeps, the Explorers, and the Jimmys began lining the curb near her home, leaving colorful oil rainbows sparkling on the asphalt. She’s so much like her mother that I sometimes call her by the wrong name. Being around her makes me feel decades younger.

Somehow, even with the multigenerational age gap and the peer pressure she likely feels, she and I have done the impossible—stayed close. We have maintained the same nearness a 9-year-old has with her grandfather. Public hugs, audible statements of “I love you,” and other normally taboo signs of affection between young people and older family members are OK with us. Maybe it’s the running! Certainly, you cannot take a man who runs the streets clad in shorts and singlet—practically in his underwear—too seriously. Or maybe it’s the marathons I continue to run, long past the time men normally succumb to—as they are prone to blame—a bum knee. Or more likely, to that horrible, girth-widening disease so prevalent these days: biscuit poisoning.

Now, I have to respond to her, and I do so, boldly, using the time-honored stalling method: “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“D, you heard me. I said I might get a tattoo,” she replied playfully.

Precious time. I bought some precious time, but now [ had to think fast.

Long-distance running is afunny thing. Sometimes the miles clear your mind and allow brilliant, lifechanging ideas to surface, ideas so thought provoking and innovative that you are horrified that you will forget them before you get home. But often the opposite is true. A thick cloud covers

your thinking like a green Wal-Mart tarpaulin, and answers for kindergarten questions are impossible to extract from your brain. Such was the case now.

At the last moment, an idea bubble escaped from under the tarpaulin.

“What will your Momma say?”

When I asked the original question, about postgraduation plans, we were at the top of the big hill, the one we call Dolly Right, adjacent to the second big hill, Dolly Left. I was fishing for a clue as to where she wanted to go to college or what she might be considering for a career. The tattoo thing came screaming out of nowhere, like a bottle rocket at a family picnic, surprising me. She and her mother have a special relationship, and momma baiting is not her thing, so I knew she would have taken into consideration her mother’s opinion about the tattoo.

“T dunno,” she said. “Maybe I won’t get one.”

Wow, could I have been so lucky as to avoid that issue? Maybe the hills were having an effect on her; maybe she was tired, glycogen depleted, too tired to hassle me about a tattoo. Whichever, I was pleased that we were going to avoid that one. No such luck.

“D, did you ever want a tattoo?”

Uh-oh. I have lived several lives during my life, and we were heading for a place that I did not want to visit.

“When I was your age, people didn’t necessarily want tattoos. Sometimes they got them, but it was like . . . filling a need, rather than making a fashion statement.”

I thought it was a good answer. I was rather proud of myself for coming up with it so fast.

“So, did you ‘fill a need’””? Her voice was teasing, but the question was serious. She was too much like her mom and her Gran.

Direct questions demand direct answers. “Well, I made a decision a long time ago that I’ve questioned in the decades since, but, yes . . . I once filled a need.” Between the running and the steep hill, the answer did not come out sounding as direct as I intended.

“You have a tattoo? I don’t believe you. Gran would’ve killed you!”

Gran had had every right to “kill” me. I made a lot of questionable decisions in those frightening days. Our country, as we had known it, was turning upside down. We managed to survive the nuclear-annihilation period (“duck and cover”), and then when we crawled out from under our desks, we found ourselves in the middle of the dissident era, where everyone was dissatisfied about something (many rightly so), and the threat of anarchy from within took over. It made us nostalgic for the Cold War. Everyone was a dissident, just on different issues, myself included.

I think I was reacting to a weird professor I had had the previous semester. Professor H. Lancaster Forrester, Ph.D. He was teaching an English course, but he spent the entire semester discussing and condemning the war. At first, I agreed with him, but he kept on and on, and he lost me. Also, it didn’t help that he gave me a C- in the course.

I joined up soon after I said good-bye to H. Lancaster Forrester, Ph.D. I did not have to. I was married, and LBJ had recently stopped drafting married men. Not a single friend was volunteering. Vietnam was not a war that people understood, and lots of guys my age were doing anything possible, including migrating north, to stay out of it. Not me! Three weeks after my brilliant idea of signing up, I was struggling to assemble an M14 and learning close-order drills at Fort Jackson, leaving a young wife, “Gran,” pregnant with Wesley’s mom, at her parents’ home. Then, eight months and eight days later, I was in Southeast Asia, sweating and wading through a rice paddy.

It was a typical seek-and-destroy mission. Soldiers like me—E-2s and E-3s— just tried to keep up the pace and, usually, did what we were told. Our officers and NCOs were the ones responsible for carrying out our mission, and most were even younger than I was. Our orders were simple: when the chopper touched down, we were to jump out and follow the lieutenant. No explanation was given to us as to what quadrangle we were in, or what province. We were not even certain what country. It was supposed to be Vietnam, but we doubted that. Half the unit guessed Laos, the other half Cambodia. Either way, we weren’t supposed to be where we were. And since it wasn’t Vietnam, nothing was official, and since it was unofficial—and unauthorized by the higher-ups—it did not happen, officially. But I did end up with a tattoo, so something happened.

“You are kiddin’, right?” said Wesley. She was hoping I was kidding. She was still young enough to think that things should be reasonable and understandable. A grandfather with an undisclosed and unseen tattoo was neither.

“Uh, well, uh, no!”

“Wow!”

I’d hoped the dreadful incline of Dolly Left would slow the conversation, but no. Like a beagle on a scent, she was not giving up.

“What does it say, ‘Mom’?” Was that a snicker, or was she just breathing hard?

“Tt doesn’t say ‘Mom.’”

“Well, what does it say?”

“Tt says ‘Hien.’”

“Hind?”

“No, ‘Hien,’ without the ‘d.’”

“Where in the world did that come from?”

“Well, it came from an idea I had. Actually, it’s a man’s name. It was supposed to be a tribute.”

“A tribute to what, to Hien?”

“Yeah.”

Peaceful silence. Then she erupted again.

“D, you can’t stop there! Why do you have a man’s name tattooed on you? And where is the tattoo?”

The second part of the question was easier, so I decided to answer it and hope the other would disappear.

“High on my chest. Actually, on my shoulder.”

“Is that the reason you wear a T-shirt when we swim?”

“Guilty. But I do wear singlets when I run, as long as the shoulder straps are wide.”

“Keep going.” She meant with the story. I had not missed a beat running, even with this increasingly involved conversation going on. 4

But I was pretty much at the end of the story, or at least the part I was willing to tell. Truth was, the tattoo was just under the scar. The scar, of course, was caused by a wound. The wound was caused by a bullet, 7.62 caliber, fired from a rifle. The rifle

had been issued by his government to Hien. He had shot me. There was nothing romantic or heroic about it, and but for my near negligence I likely would have escaped the entire incident. It was another steaming, stifling day, and I was crossing yet another rice paddy with my platoon. We were moving in a loose line, and I was way out on the left flank. Too far out. I was practically isolated. We had nearly made it across when I saw the muzzle flash. About the same time, I felt the bullet graze the top of my shoulder. I immediately knew it was not a serious wound. I slogged the few remaining meters to the protection of some trees and knelt down. Instantly I saw my near assassin, coming right toward me. Stupid! The rest was instinctive. The only time my shoulder hurt was when the recoil of my M-14 slammed against it.

Ireached the guy before my buddies even knew what was happening. He was a kid, no more than 16, about the same age as Wesley was now. He wore sandals and shorts and a too-small, four-button, patterned cotton shirt. There was a small spot of blood just to the right of the second button. I felt the saliva fill my mouth just before I threw up the C rations I had gleefully eaten an hour before. (Meal, Combat, Individual, Meat Balls with Beans in Tomato Sauce B-2 Unit.) I was still gagging when Sergeant Jeanes arrived.

We were able to find, from his papers, that his name was Hien. Later I looked up the meaning of the name “Hien.” It translated as “nice, kind, gentle.”