nance armlong

Tucked behind some of the forest brush I keep a close eye on him. He crouches between his bike and backpack, without any fire and only a curtain of moon’s light showering over him. He eats like this— something long and limber and gangly, not near as big as the meal I saw his wife serve him last night. When he’s done he gathers some sticks and leaves from around him, strikes a fire, and then disappears into the forest. A while goes by, so I decide to approach his camp. I should have followed him, but I didn’t know he’d be gone for so long. In approaching his camp I figure I could see what he packed himself to eat and round-out his nutrition itinerary, or see what sleeping-bag he uses to maximize his body’s rehab. When I get before his things, his bike is exactly as mine is, no difference, but then his bag only contained a thermos, the same thermos I saw his wife leave outside his door last night, and a pocket knife. But no meals prepped, no sleeping bag, no second riding suit, none of that, just the thermos and the knife. Next to the fire there’s what’s left of his meal, sparse crops of bloody flesh along two long conjoined bones and a riding-glove at the end. I crouch to see what brand riding-glove someone must have been using, then his riding boot stamps right by the hand. I stumble back, embarrassed at being caught here, but he doesn’t react to me at all. He strides over to his bike and drops some objects he’s returned with. Then he grabs a stone and starts carving into the dirt around the fire. He works mindlessly, like a fiend, I get up carefully and reestablished myself back in the brush, for my own comfort. First he carves a circle, and then two triangles antipode to one another inside the circle, with the fire at the center. The fire winking off the glossy blacks of his eyes drew my attention to the fact that, not only had he not taken his riding shades off, but the flesh on his face seemed to scar around them, or like the shades grew from out of his face like eyes of something inhuman. He grabs a couple of the objects he’d just come back with, red stained ivory-white pieces, no regular shape, and places them at two corners of a triangle around the fire. He grabs another piece with the same make up and texture, but discernibly round and skull-like, and places it on the other corner. He walks to his bag and pulls out the thermos. He opens it, drops the lid, and places it at a corner of a triangle. Then he strips naked. His lean sweaty body glows like amber from the fire’s light. His hands and feet seem enlarged, different. He draws a knife from his bag. He reaches at his member, and like through a stick of butter, he lops a chunk off the end, his body tenses and a low growl crawls under the ceaseless chirping and croaking of the night. He drops the knife, peels off the fleshy outer layer off the chunk like a candy wrapper and places it at another corner of the triangle, then lays the tender bloody chunk of flesh at the last remaining corner of the triangles. With blood dripping down the bronze glow of his legs, and an object surrounding the fire evenly on six sides, he steps into the flames, sits down cross-legged, and disappears into a curtain of flames. I step out into his camp from where I remained hidden and approach the fire crawling over his figure watching the flames reach higher into the night, his flesh reeking, putrid, and through the spiky feathers of fire barring him inside, I could see the black waxy bulbs of his eyes, like two big round marbles embedded in ash.

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I fade to. I’m on the ground. There’s nothing, no trees, no forest, no moonlight. Theres a figure approaching. Limping. I try to cling to consciousness but it slips thru and I fade out again.

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Do you know where you are?

I’m… on The Tour.

Mhm, sure. What brought you here? 

Who are you? 

Who am I? Who are you, you came to me. 

Im me, i’m… to be the greatest cyclist ever. I’m meant to win this Tour. And be great.

But who is that? Who is that to be? 

Well, right now it’s Nance. Nance Armlong. That… thing. He’s the reason I come here.

Mhm.

And what a long journey it’s been.

It always is. 

My dream for me has been the most unwavering aspect of my existence, the most central building block of my being. It’s why i’m here. 

Oh, yeah? 

When I was 8 I found my mothers lifeless body floating in our pool the morning after 4th grade graduation; she was drunk and hungover the morning she fell in, it was unclear at first whether it was homicide or suicide, though not for me, I knew my father would never, then they ruled in suicide, and the matter became intentionality, whether my mom killed herself on accident or on purpose; and this seemed to me like two different sides of the same stupid blade; but you see as the fringes of my elementary life were coming undone, it was my dream that held my world from collapsing, the sky from falling to pieces to the ground. My Dad took me as far as he could as my coach, but eventually I had to find other ways to grow. That’s why I looked to Nance. Nance Armlong. A man at the top of his game— the bicycling world-champion— a legend. He has power, money, charm, a beautiful wife he raises a cute baby-boy with. I’ve got a fiancé too and all she does, all day long, is watch Kim Armlong, Nance’s wife, on Tik-Tok and Youtube— compilations with her baby, shopping with her baby, the eating plan her and her baby are on, make-up routines, skin care routines, shower routines— I see the way my wife looks at Kim and I want nothing more than to bring that life to reality for her. For as long as I can remember, I’ve scavenged the internet for videos, any snippet at all with him in it— sifting through every pixel of every frame of every video that carried him, like a fiend, for anything he did that gives him the edge. Everything i’ve done in my life is because i’ve learned it from Nance. Everything he’s done in training, everything he eaten to nourish his body, every method and routine he has for rest and rehab, I’ve mimicked them all. This is how I’ve gotten to where I am today. I believed that I had to reconstitute my being in every way to support this level of being; this, greatness.

Sure. You want to be great. Nance is great. So you want to be like Nance.

But you see I’m somewhat of an idealist when it comes to my dream and how I’ll accomplish it. I believe that one’s performance on the track has more than just to do with one’s approach to the track itself— like their physical fitness, or make-up— but had to do with the entirety of a being and how they live. Wherein certain aspects of training will have tangible influence over one’s capability, other aspects, like those that one live’s by, personal philosophies and such, could be where the edge really lies— rearing itself, perhaps, within the heat of battle where all the passion and hard-work have to collapse into something. Something real. I already knew facts about him, that he eats raw foods, and that he never removes his shades, but I wanted to see him be, I wanted to see how he orchestrated himself, how he was. That’s why I followed him and his family back to their dorm yesterday night after the banquet. I wanted to see what it was really like to lead a life as a great. How he leads his happy family, and what their night must be like. I figured they’d be different, sure, I just didn’t think it’d be how it was. When they got home his wife and child dispersed around him like mice tossed into a cage with a cat. He sat at the table like a conscious-less vessel and she brought his food: a morsel of raw flesh, still lapped in fur, bleeding over the plate, like she cut it right off a carcass in the kitchen. She served it to him and scurried back into the kitchen. Even though it was only a rumor he ate raw meat, I ate raw meat too— just for good measure— but not in similar fashion. His table etiquette was, beastly… vicious. And like mice serving a cat, the wife and the boy moved around him, handling his laundry, drawing his shower, unmaking his bed. And before they went to sleep, the wife and the boy drew blood from their palms into a thermos, and she placed it outside Nance’s room. I didn’t even recognize what the blood was for last night, but I sat before the events of his happy family like a student— the world reorganizing itself by what’s right and wrong relative to this great man and his happy family before me— I felt like I learned something that night. In the manner in which he conducted himself— the way he ran his household, or rather, the way his household ran around him, busy insect around a Queen— I liked to believe these little details, these fashions, and etiquettes entail the edge: that which makes him what he is— what I want to be. Or at least affords him the ability to actualize it.

On my way back to my dorm, I remember thinking how the events reflected to me an ideal i’ve heard Nance and plenty of people make before: having a support group behind you is vital to getting to where you’re going; surrounding oneself with people who will aid your progress and support you in your ambition.

Exactly. 

And for a moment, I wondered where Kim must have all that time to post all the Tik-Tok and Youtube videos online that Sarah was no doubt at home watching. 

So do you understand why you’re here yet?

I’m here because I want to be great. 

I think that’s part of it. 

What do you mean? 

If you really wanted to be great, then you wouldn’t be here anymore. You’ve seen what it takes to be great. You’ve seen the sacrifices you must make, the sacrifices other’s must make for you. And yet, here you are, still before me— the only type of person i’ve ever known— uncertain. 

And what makes you so certain. 

Because once a decision is made, you collapse— into something real—and away from here you go. 

I don’t think I can do it. I don’t know that I have what it takes anymore, to be great.

What happened, I thought you were solid with yourself?

I just don’t think I can anymore. Knowing what I know.

Oh yeah? And so what do you know?  

Earlier yesterday, we were sprinting downhill, Nance and I— the whole day I stayed just in stride with him— climbing, sprinting, drafting, breathing in unison with him, my exhaustion only a superficial limit, knowing that regardless of what my body’s true limit was, I had what it took to keep in stride with him— I must have what it takes— and it was around the 248 mile mark that I saw the first dead rider glide right underneath my bike, not affecting the ride at all, because of all the riders that had apparently already wore a path through the fresh carcass. I’ve always known rider’s died on Tour— most of their bodies never to be identified or recovered; But it wasn’t even the nature of the rider’s death’s that disturbed me— even now, I can’t think of any more proper way for someone like me, a dreamer, to die— but on the rode to their dream. See, but what struck me was the sight of the pulpy unconscious mess: the veins carved through the thin course flesh, hands and feet swollen through the gloves and shoes, busting their seems, the flesh on their faces scarred over their shades— like inhuman mutations— and I keep saying ‘their shades’, but i’m not too sure they even were shades, it seems like their eyes were just black. Like their being, their conscious, was empty.

So? Were they empty? 

I don’t know? I can’t tell? Nance moved like an empty conscious-less vessel. Until he got on a bike, then he knew exactly what to do and how to do it— exceptionally. 

That’s right. He was a riding machine. And nothing more. A being born to ride and and pursue the dream. The dream, that’s your dream, and his dream, and so many others. 

So many other’s, lying there as pavement for the rest to stride over in keeping the pursuit alive. 

Exactly. And hasn’t that always been the case? The nature of your dream-chase? What’s making your feet cold now? You said it yourself: the you, as you exist, has to reconstitute itself for what it means to find. Use that knife. Jump into this fire. 

But… they’re empty.

Are they so empty? They’re professionals. Greats. Exactly what you’re chasing. How can something be so full of greatness, and also, so empty? What are they missing for you now? 

They missing… They’re not dreaming. Not dreamers. They’re just… what they are. 

Yes. 

Just great. Or otherwise chasing it. 

Yes.

And nothing else. No light, no distance between them and bike riding. No room to be anything else at all; every part of myself that isn’t a great cyclist will have to go. 

Yes.

But. That still doesn’t finish my dream.

No it doesn’t. That’s what you’re looking for isn’t it, it’s what’s haunting you. What will complete the dream from there? What will make you great? What will make you like Nance? 

Yes! How will I know if i’ve made it?! Will I? Can I?

No you won’t will you? You couldn’t anymore. But here we are: at a point of no return: unable to guarantee your success but only able to secure failure. There’s more road to stride my boy, it’s time to make a decision.