Chasing the Wind

“I read this article…in the paper…it said over 100,000 runners get hit by cars each year” my dad relayed to me at our last dinner date as he wiped the remnants of ketchup on his plate with a giant steak fry. 

Air whips past me now as a faded blue F150 flies down the road, my pace steady and unbothered. The bottoms of my shoes hit the pavement in perfect rhythm as the road starts to angle downwards, my body shifting with the earth beneath me. 

It’s funny because my father was the one who encouraged me to start running. Well maybe "encourage” isn’t quite the right word, it was more of a “go outside and run or something” at 6 years old when Ben and I would spin around our two-bedroom like Tasmanian devils who got into a bag of pixie sticks. 

Ben was 10, the two of us always took the comment as an invitation to leave the apartment. He and I on our own running up and down the boardwalk disturbing birds perched on each plank, the Chesapeake Bay our perpetual playground. 

Running down Bayside Road now, sitting slightly above the world as I cross the overpass, the bay gleams to my right. The water was perfectly still on this quiet morning. The regulars are all out as I pass Ms. Betsie in her reflective vest and matching wristbands. Her matching tracksuit and perfect posture are on display as she gives me a wave and I return with a nod. There’s this giant lab walking his owner who looks frightened the thing may jump into the bay based on the death grip he has on the leash.  I move to the left to avoid a collision with the slobbering fluff ball and look down at my watch to check my pace. Moving well. Heart rate at 120. Pleased with my progress I keep moving and cross the street, the desolate water park, drained of water now to my left. 

When I was 12, Ben and I snuck into the water park at night. It was March, the town bracing for the quick switch from Winter to Spring with the humidity of Summer lurking not too far behind. He was determined to ride his skateboard up and down the lazy River and I, his faithful companion, was going to film his stunt. He got one drop in before Calvert County’s finest found us and drove us back home. The sheriff told my father that we were “asking for a trip to the ER” and “Don’t let me catch you two sneaking around there again”. 

I peek my head through the iron fence looking at the empty pools. Remembering the first time I went down the looping slide recalling Ben pushing me as the lifeguard yelled at him. The fall breeze pulls me forward as I take a breath, the salty air mixed with the fumes of scrapple and sausage seeping through the gas station behind me. 

I decide to head towards the trail passing the playground on my right, quiet this early in the morning and make my way onto the boardwalk by the pier. 

I have been thinking a lot about Ben lately. The last I spoke with him was around six months ago. He was attempting to convince Dad to send him some money. 

“Come on, I just need like $300,” he said pleading on the phone, his voice echoing on speaker in our childhood kitchen.

“Ben, I want to see you…come home first” Dad begged him, his hands clenched into the remaining strands on his balding head.

“ I’m busy…I have this new job, and I can’t just take off, you know?” Ben said as I wondered why he needed $300 if he had a job.

“Let us bring it to you, where are you staying?” I blurted out, my dad looking up at me from the kitchen table. 

Silence fell as Ben now realized I was there. He could convince Dad, but me, that was a different story. I could tell he was high from the moment I heard his voice.

“Forget it,” he said with anger in his tone and hung up.

I couldn’t tell you when he first started using. I mean he was smoking pot and sneaking beers from the fridge by the time he was 13. But opiates…I’m not sure. He didn’t break his ankle and get prescribed too many oxys or anything. I think it’s just one of those things someone else was doing and so… he did too.

It started getting bad in his early 20s. He was going to the community college and had stopped going to classes. One day I found him sitting in his car parked outside the apartment building after school. I thought he was napping and snuck up under the driver's side window crouched down prepared to scare him. I shot up and screamed “boo” knocking on the window, when the smile on my face immediately subsided realizing he hadn’t moved a muscle. I attempted the door handle and it was locked. I banged and banged but he didn’t budge. 

I never went anywhere without Narcan again after that day. 

I can still remember the EMTs prying open the door, the look on his face when they shot him with naloxone, the anger in his eyes that they ruined his high…not thanks that they saved his life.

He didn’t say thanks when we found a treatment center for him to get into two days later. He didn’t say thank you when Dad bailed him out of jail after he was caught with two heroin baggies. He yelled at me when I cleaned his room after his second time in rehab and threw away all the paraphernalia. He threatened to kill himself when my dad wouldn’t give him money. He would disappear for weeks and return as if we hadn’t been on edge the entire time praying he was alive. It was hard to keep that revolving door of love and compassion going. At some point, we had to put on a chain lock and install a barrier between us. 

The thoughts pass me as I run the plank of each board beneath me as my eyes follow the creek on either side thinking of Ben and I racing down this path as kids. I feel the air through my hair and watch the birds move as I do when I feel my phone buzzing through my leggings and stop running. It’s my dad. I pick up and hear the sadness in his voice as he says “Where are you hunny?”

“I was just out for a run on the trail, what’s up? ”I ask as I lean over on the railing looking down at the murky water below.

The silence grows as I hear him breathe.

“ I got a call from the hospital”

“It’s Ben isn’t it,” I say.

“Yes, but…”

“What does he want? Is he okay?” 

The silence falls again and I can hear the sudden breath my dad takes. 

“He overdosed”

I stand up staring straight ahead, a boat swaying in the water catching my eyes. “Is he okay?”

“No, he’s…he’s not okay,” my dad says. 

I drop to my knees, the phone to my ear, my head pinned up against two slats as my eyes well with tears. 

“ He’s dead?” I let out as my dad and I cried the tears in my eyes falling into the creek below the boat still swaying in front of me. 

When I end the call, I stay there for a moment, my eyes already swollen with pain, and begin to stand wobbling as I find a bench to sit down on behind me. I wonder when Ben and I last ran this path when a small bird landed in front of me. It was a black bird with red wings, also known quite literally as a red-winged blackbird.  He looked at me and I at him. I thought of all the birds Ben and I had scared as we ran over this creek. I shot up and ran, the bird flying away immediately and soaring through the trees as I ran and ran and ran. 

I knew the call would come one of these days. When weeks started turning into months, it felt like each time I saw him could be my last. But you hold on to hope. You hope that maybe things will change. You hope that maybe he will finally stop. You pray for the phone call because even though you won’t give him money, and you won’t let him stay in your house, you want to hear his voice. You want to know he’s still there. You want to let yourself believe that he might want to get help, or that he might want to talk, or that he may still be your Ben underneath all the drugs. Grief’s a funny thing. I think I had been preparing for Ben’s death for many years, but it’s different when it really shows its face.

 “Over 100,000 people die of an overdose each year” I read that in an article last month.  I think as I run down the road cars whipping past me now, as I try to avoid being a second statistic.