On the Beach
It wasn’t about the money. Even back then, five dollars wasn’t a lot.
“To the end of the beach and back. You getta head start.” Him, forty-nine years old, fit, white tennis shorts, white T-shirt with a red collar, white hair. Me, ten years old, brown curly hair and a bit of a belly, blue corduroy shorts. Both of us barefoot. An early morning fog sat on the Monterey coast. It was just us and the seagulls.
“On your mark . . . go!” He took off in a sprint, ignoring his own suggestion of a head start for me. He thought it was hilarious, hoping the funny trick would throw me off, but I wasn’t playing around.
A burst of adrenaline quickly got me twenty yards ahead, but knowing nothing about pacing, my working lungs started to slow me down before the turnaround. I was told I was born with small lungs, though I don’t know how anyone knew that for sure. I could sense him behind me, sizing me up as my feet sunk into the wet sand. When I turned 180 degrees to catch a look, he was closer than I thought. Soon after, he passed me with a don’t-forget-who’s-boss smile. No one had taught me yet about negative splits.
Now I was mad. When he overtook me I went from leader to chaser. And I was chasing my grandfather. A new motivation filled me. I didn’t care about the money, the tingling in my chest, the heavy legs. All I wanted to do was beat him. Something beyond me, which I had yet to recognize, kept me on his tail when I was past the point of fatigue. He may have had more endurance at his age, but I believed I could best him with my raw kid speed if I could just stay close enough to tap into it at the end. I started to see stars. I wondered if the seagulls were yelling at me. The finish line seemed to be moving away from me faster than I could reach it. But as I started to reel him back in, I tapped into that hunger for a win that felt beyond me. I passed him back and collapsed in victory beyond the finish line we had drawn on the beach, spent and satisfied. I lay on my back on the cold sand, chest heaving, staring up at the gray sky.
“I beat you,” I said between big breaths. He didn’t respond but I knew he wasn’t upset. There was no one else in the world I wanted to beat more than my grandfather. It’s curious to me now—not being a competitive person—that I made the man who introduced me to distance running, a man I came to love, the most important opponent in my childhood. Beating him in anything became an itch that had to be scratched.
Still breathing hard, I wanted to make it official. “When do I get my money?”
He laughed. He loved it all.
“Some day,” he said with a laugh. “When you’re big
and strong like me.”