The Memory of Running by Ron McLarty Read Free Book Online Page A

used to it.
    I mean, she said as if correcting herself, you look great. I . . . I got to go back in
     now, Norma. My aunt and uncle . . . Oh, yes, yes, youd better. Im so sorry. They were
     really won-
    derful, wonderful people. I walked back into the funeral home. I was numbed from the
    bourbon and beer, and I kept getting a distracting little pain and rac- ing in my heart,
     but I could still feel her, its true, feel her looking at me walk, as if she were behind
     those venetian blinds in the dark.

The Memory of Running
    8
    Mom and Pop were at their best when it was worst. There was a kind of calmness, and it
     would settle over our house. Wed spend so much time waiting for the bad part that it was
     almost a relief when it came. We didnt have to wait in that edgy, nervous zone, because
     what we waited for had come, and for a while we were rescued from it. From the waiting, I
     mean.
    I was sixteen when Bethany jumped off the Red Bridge. It was two days after Christmas, and
     shed been great. Really. Church was wonderful, and Bethany had helped plan a caroling
     thing with some of the other choir members. I didnt go because I went to Diamond Hill in
     Cumberland, Rhode Island. Some kids I knew were going there to ski on the little hill. I
     didnt ski, but Linda Overson was go- ing, and I just had to go because she was so
     good-looking, and I wanted her to like me, which she never did. Bethany climbed to the
     very top of the bridge, which connected East Providence with Prov- idence, adjacent to
     Swan Point Cemetery, where the Ides go when they die. What I know about it comes mostly
     from the Providence Journal, but some information I got from my pop, who didnt see it, but
     some of the boys in the Brown crew who were rowing under the bridge at the time told him.
    It was snowing and cold, but as long as the oily Providence River was open, the Brown crew
     rows. They take rowing very seriously, which is good because of the timing of Bethanys
     jump, but I think its stupid. But what do I know? I never went to college.
    So it was snowing and pretty gray out. It takes a tremendous cold spell to freeze the
     Providence River because of the oil and dry- cleaning fluid and crap that has poured more
     or less relentlessly into it for two or three hundred years. This day, while it was cold
     and snowing, it wasnt part of a prolonged cold and the crews were whipping through their
     workouts, beginning with a two-mile run
    from the campus on the east side to the boathouse a half mile up from the Red Bridge.
    Bethany had a part-time job at Grace Church working in the thrift shop. The old ladies who
     volunteered there were members of our church, and the work was pretty easy, so my parents
     thought it might make a nice transitional situation for Bethany, either to a more real job
     later on or maybe even another try at college. She also took a dance class at the YMCA,
     and I think that later, the work she did in that class showed itself in the ever-growing
     intricacies of her poses. They became amazing, not only in the absolute stillness she made
     for herself but also in the astounding whirls and leaps. A madness almost forgivable.
    My sister drove her little Renault Dauphine out of the church parking lot, through
     Weybosset Square, and headed home via the Washington Bridge. We never can be sure of what
     happened exactly, but it seems pretty likely that somewhere between the square and the
     bridge, Bethanys voice got hold of the car and headed her away from the old Washington
     Bridge and toward the rust red of the Red Bridge. She parked on the shoulder of the road.
     The passenger door was open, but for no apparent reason, and Bethany could not give us one
     either. The trunk was also open. It was a front trunk, as the en- gine was in the rear of
     the car, and Bethany had taken off all her clothes and folded them neatly on the spare
     tire, as if part of the plan was to return to get