Run for My Life

 The many promises I had made to myself and my friends and relatives during my troubled youth included a vow to get into better financial and physical condition. On this beautiful Sunday morning, I continued the daily running routine I had begun about a month earlier.

       As I gently jogged in the fresh air along the road, deserted for the time being except for me, I began to clear my brain of the disturbing sounds from the night before, punctuated by random gunfire, police chases and loud screaming from violent family feuds.

          Worn down by life in the dangerous Townsley section of Salisbury, I long ago had seen the need to move up from the rundown Section 8 Lakeview apartment forced upon me because of my meager salary from the local Wendy’s.

          I wound up in this situation because of a few minor scrapes with the law, following a series of bad decisions, including putting little effort into finishing high school. This came about partly because I saw education only as an escape from an abusive household with an alcoholic father and a drug-addicted mother.  I finally did manage to force myself to get the passing grades I needed and to scrape together tuition for Salisbury University from working three low-wage jobs at the same time. Some of the old habits did creep in, and this led me to flunk out in my freshman year. It looked like I might travel down the same road that ended in a deadend for my parents.

        Somehow I managed to survive thanks to my fast food joint manager who stayed in my corner even in the worst of the bad times and helped me get into the apartment.

           Then, late one night, as we prepared to close, I saw the manager, Sam Smith, standing in the back of the store with his hands up and shaking. When I got closer, one of the two thugs holding the Wendy’s had a .9 millimeter pointed at Sam’s head. 

          Before I could react I heard a shot and my manager and mentor laid at my feet in a pool of blood. The robbers escaped with the night’s receipts and Sam died, in another of the great tragedies of my youth.

           I resolved after the killing to lead others out of the trouble of this place as he had for me. Shortly after saying a sorrowful goodbye to the man who I had seen as one of the keys to my salvation, I began busting my hump 10 hours every day tossing hamburgers. I picked up where he had left off, leading reading programs for the kids in the neighborhood, followed every afternoon by coaching and refereeing in the basketball league he had founded.

        I had come to love what I did for my area, even though I hated the extras that came with the territory.

         Along with a firm resolution to go back to Salisbury U and earn my degree, I had taken up running to help me clear my brain every day.

         My workout always took me along the same route, far away from center city to keep me out of danger, yet close enough. If my neighborhood pals called me with another one of the crises that seemed to plague the lives of every one of them, I’d come running to lend a shoulder to cry on or to rescue them from the many fights that seemed to spring up every night.

        My jogging routine always took me past the same abandoned lots. When I did get past the lots I did come upon some decent-looking working class homes. In my wildest dreams I hoped that one of these would one day free me from the confines of Lakeview.

        Then, early one morning it happened, where once one of those abandoned lots seemed to be destined to live forever, the beginnings of a new home suddenly appeared where nothing had existed two days before.

      As I came closer I read a sign that hit me like a ton of the bricks workers cemented into place on the foundation of the new home: A Project of Wicomico County Habitat for Humanity--Under Construction with Local Volunteer Labor and Financed Through the Goodwill and Support of Local Businesses.

        Although the dream seemed far out of reach, I started to map out in my mind how my life could finally take a turn for the better, if only I could become the proud owner of this humble abode that to me looked like a castle. For the time being, though, it continued to slip away from me, just as I thought I could close in on it.

       Then, one day, after one of my runs, lost in my thoughts of a more hopeful future, I stumbled into the garbage-strewn entrance to my Lakeview hallway. To my surprise, I found a confidential message waiting in my mail slot.

       It looked very official, which always scared the hell out of me, but it wasn’t a summons to appear in court or an arrest warrant. Instead, I stared in disbelief at a Notice of Acceptance for Ownership of a Habitat for Humanity Home, and the address as the formerly-abandoned lot on my daily running route.

      After a series of secret fundraisers, the parents of the kids who had benefited from my reading program and afterschool basketball had pooled what little they could afford from their meager savings. They had lumped  them with generous contributions from the small business sponsors of the cage program on a Go Fund Me Page. They used the proceeds to apply for a mortgage on the new home under my name. 

      I just had to keep up the monthly payments, and the businesses gave me a lift up with that and they sponsored a part-time position for me with the Salisbury Recreation Association as a basketball coach.  This could lead to a full time gig when the current coach retired later that year. 

      Looked like that strange-looking, partially-completed home that suddenly appeared on my jogging route had not suddenly materialized overnight. It now had turned into a reality because my friends appreciated the fact that my decision to continue to bring new hope to the kids in my neighborhood. This provided the key that led to my journey out of the dark days of my youth.