Elixir. Part 28

"What's a Datsun?"

"They're called Nissan now."

"It looks pretty old. What year is it?"

Laura looked to Roger for help. "I think it's a '72 or '73. My friend collected sports cars."

Brett accepted that. But with a shock Laura made out the license plate and the green-on-white Ma.s.sachusetts registration. Wisconsin plates were yellow. Gratefully, that hadn't registered with Brett. But something else had.

"What's Darby Pharms?"

Laura felt as if she were sinking in quicksand.

"My hat. It says 'Darby Pharms.' I can just make it out, but they spelled it funny."

Roger squinted at the photo, pretending to make sense of the letters. "Oh yeah. But I'm not sure what that was exactly."

"Here, have some cake, honey." Laura felt desperate.

"Mom, you're crying."

She made a dismissive gesture. "You know me," she said with a forced smile.

"No, you don't like it," Brett said. His face began to crumble.

"No, I do. I love it. It's just I'm such a sentimental sap, you know. It's been so many years. You'll understand when you're a parent."

Brett's shoulders slumped. "You don't like it." His eyes filled up.

"No, honey, I love it.... I do, I really do," she insisted. "It's getting late. I better get ready." And she ran upstairs leaving Roger to console Brett, who stood there wondering what had gone wrong with his big surprise.

"'Younger than springtime am I. Gayer than laughter am I, blah blah blah blah blah BLAH blah blah blah blah am I... with youuuuuuu.'"

Wally stepped out of the shower. It was March twenty-second, and he felt every bit of it.

He toweled off, then stepped on the scale. "Yes!" he hooted.

One hundred ninety-nine point four.

The first day of spring, and the first time in sixteen years Wally Olafsson had tipped in at a weight below two hundred pounds. That made it a twenty-one pound loss in six weeks. It was also the first time he could read the scale without his gla.s.ses, or sucking in his gut. Still naked, he bounded out of the bathroom and examined himself in the floor mirror he bought a few weeks ago.

It was happening: His belly had lost that explosive bulge, his thighs had shrunk, and his neck had reappeared. No longer did he look like a giant pink bullfrog. Even the beer wings had begun to melt despite the suspicion that he had been born with beer-wing genes.

All the weight machine activity had given definition to his arms and shoulders. His b.r.e.a.s.t.s began to give way to pectorals, and, remarkably, he could make out the physique he had inhabited as a younger man.

Even more remarkable, he could fit into 36-waist pants-down three inches. In another month he'd be a svelte 34. And maybe by summer, a das.h.i.+ng 32-his college waistline. The speculation sent a thrill through his loins.

There is a G.o.d! And He/She dropped Roger Glover into my lap.

The best part was how he felt: confident, light-hearted, funny, and quick with the old wit. He had also stopped thinking old. In a word, Wally felt happy. Happy, as he hadn't known since the early days of his marriage to Marge. Or even earlier, because this form of happiness was the kind reserved for the young who drank life to the lees from bottomless cups. When friends and colleagues remarked how good he looked, he simply told them that he'd joined a health club and gone on a diet.

Of course, only Roger knew the truth-and Roger's wife. Wally wished he could see Wendy again; it had been thirty years. Roger admitted it would be fun to share old times, but it was dangerous. Even though the Feds had apparently called off the investigation, were they to spot the three of them whooping it up in a bar, they would smell a rat. You don't accuse a people of ma.s.s murder, then retract your claim only to become drinking pals.

Wally opened the window. Cool just-spring air flooded in. Amazingly, it even smelled different-the way it did when he was a kid. Elixir was like a transfusion of new blood. Heightened vision, brighter eyes, smoother skin, higher energy level. And a blazing libido. "A couple more injections," he had told Roger, "and I'll probably grow another p.e.n.i.s."

Last week Wally had leased himself a second car-a shameless look-at-me-red convertible Porsche Boxster. And next Tuesday he had his first appointment at a hair transplant clinic. He also put his lonely-guy divorce house on the market and planned to move into a city condo next month. And that afternoon he had converted three hundred thousand dollars in bonds to aggressive-growth mutual funds.

Life was good. And getting better by the day.

He got dressed. Although he had designs on the kinds of outfits old rockers wore to the Grammys-a black pullover under an unstructured black sportcoat-he needed to drop another few pounds. Soon enough, he told himself-Keith Richards, Paul McCartney, and Wally Olafsson.

Tonight he would suffer tradition in a dark pin-stripe by the Brooks Brothers. As a concession to impending youth, he shocked his white s.h.i.+rt with a here-I-come polychrome Jerry Garcia tie. The final touch was an expensive pair of slick black dress boots. He hadn't had a pair since the Roy Roger specials when he was nine.

When he finished, he looked in the mirror and in his best Jack Palance voice said, "Shane, this town ain't big enough for the two of us!" and he snapped off the light.

He headed out to the garage and hopped into the Porsche. He checked himself in the mirror then drove across town feeling like Tom Cruise in Top Gun.

They were going to dinner. Le Bocage, the fanciest new restaurant in town. He and Sheila Monks, aka Wonder Woman.

"So you like older men? Heck, you had me fooled."

"It was a bad day. I had just broken up with a guy and had sworn off the entire male race."

"You mean that densely wadded dude I used to see you with?"

"Yeah, that's him. Tory. After we broke up, he joined another club."

Tory: The beefcake Alpha with the baseball biceps, b.u.mped by middle-aged-but-on-a-comeback Wally Olafsson. "If you don't mind me asking, what exactly came between you and old Tor?"

"His s...o...b..ard."

Wally looked at her blankly. "His s...o...b..ard," he repeated, as if taking an oath.

"Yeah, and his Roller Blades, tennis racket, golf clubs, shotgun, and mountain bike."

"This guy some kind of sports-equipment fetis.h.i.+st?"

Sheila chuckled. "Kind of. All we ever did was some form of athletic compet.i.tion. He was a nice guy, but he was more committed to his hunting dog than me. When he joined a rugby team, I cashed in. I lacked the leather b.a.l.l.s."

Wally smiled and sipped his champagne. Beauty, brains, and wit to boot. Sheila was the producer and host of a local cable TV program with dreams of moving to the networks. Her latest show was on the failure of America to adopt the metric system. It wasn't a barn-burner, but next week she was interviewing Mikail Gorbachev who was coming to UW Madison to accept an award.

"I know how corny this sounds, but, frankly, I prefer older men. Men in their forties."

Wally smiled. Thank you, G.o.d. December-May rapidly becoming November-May. It crossed his mind that if things continued with Sheila, they would eventually reach May-May.

Yikes! Then what?

But Wally was savoring life from moment to moment. And at the moment, it was very sweet.

"So how old are you exactly?"

Wally had expected that. Even though this was their first official date, they grew friendly at the club and had gone for coffee. He looked about ten years younger. But he couldn't lie because if their relations.h.i.+p continued, she would meet his friends and son and learn his real age. If they became "serious," he'd have to explain the "cell plateau" down the road. Fifty-seven would shock; forty-seven would be a lie. Already he was sensing dilemmas.

As they sat there smiling into each other's eyes over champagne and trout amandine with white asparagus, Wally had to remind himself that although Sheila was a delightful young woman, there were many other delightful young women in the world-and so much time.

It was hard to comprehend, but Wally Olafsson's life was becoming an infinite moment.

Suddenly Wally saw himself from afar, sitting in this elegant room full of other couples sipping from each other's eyes, and it occurred to him just what a strange and wondrous thing he was becoming. They were mere mortals, while he was experiencing an apotheosis. He felt like an extraterrestrial sitting among them. No, like some kind of secret deity.

"Well?" Sheila said.

Wally giggled to himself. "I've never had a problem converting to metric."

She frowned. "I don't follow you."

"You asked my age."

"Yeah?"

"Twenty-nine Celsius."

Sheila laughed and dropped the subject.

27.

Something told Roger that he was being watched. Call it a sixth sense or psychic powers or conditioned paranoia, but he was like one of those delicate seismographic devices that picks up tremors just below the threshold of human perception.

It didn't go off very often, but when it did he knew it-like that time last month when the two Feds had put the shop under surveillance. They dropped out of sight a couple days later, probably convinced they were tailing an innocent all-American family going about its business of being unremarkable.

Now the needle was jumping again while he and Brett stood in a line of other runners at the registration table for the 7K Town Day Charity Race.

He looked around, trying to determine the epicenter. Lots of people milled about-runners, spectators, photographers-but n.o.body seemed to be paying them particular attention. No one but Laura who waved from the gallery at the start and finish line.

False alarm, he thought.

It had happened before in crowds. And this one was alive with nervous energy. Runners were jumping in place, pacing, stretching, getting in some last carbo kicks from PowerBars and O. J. Just the collective electricity of the ma.s.s, Roger decided, and got back to the moment.

As Brett exchanged his form for a numbered bib, Roger quietly admired his son. He had grown into a handsome, well-proportioned young man with sculpted musculature, a wasp waist, and hard round glutes. He looked like a young Greek G.o.d.

I love you, beautiful boy, Roger whispered to himself. The registration form asked for the usual data: Name, address, past running meets, and the like. It also asked to check off your "Age Group" because at the end they gave out trophies for each category: Twelve to eighteen years, nineteen to twenty-nine, and so on. Like weight cla.s.ses for wrestling. The idea was to keep victory relative and not embarra.s.s older runners. But it always created a dilemma because he felt like a cheat-like Rosie Ruiz, who in the 1980s took the women's first place in the Boston Marathon until it was discovered that she had ridden partway on the subway.

Roger was riding Elixir. He checked the 30-39 box and was given a number.

Roger liked to run. On weekends he and Brett would do some miles on the track at Pierson. Brett once commented how cool it was to have an athletic dad. Lots of other kids' fathers were out of shape and did little more than return a baseball. But his dad could wrestle, ski, lift weights, and run a six-minute mile.

They did their stretches and took their places. There were maybe three hundred runners. Because it was a charity race, the protocol was a matter of etiquette. The faster runners were up front, while kids and older joggers took the back field.

Brett and Roger took places about three or four deep from the front string, made up of members of the track teams from North and Memorial High and the UW campus as well as people with no body fat and all legs who took town races very seriously.

At the gun, the front wall bolted away, Roger and Brett stayed in the field just behind, keeping up a steady and comfortable pace. This was for fun, so there was no need to push themselves.

The weather was cool and overcast, perfect conditions for the race which would make a large circle from the head of Carson Park, along the river and down some streets, then back to the starting point.

By the end of the fourth kilometer, many who led the pack had fallen back, letting Brett and Roger through. Older runners felt the distance and the younger ones lacked the stamina of a steady high pace. In fact, Brett himself was becoming winded. So Roger slowed down.

As they pa.s.sed the sixth kilometer mark, the feeling was back-like a magnetic tug at the rear of his brain. Roger looked over his shoulder. A few runners were scattered behind them-a young couple in identical running outfits. A wiry black male. Two white women. All looking intensely absorbed in their running.

His attention fell on a white male. Number 44. A tall guy, in his twenties, who wore a headband, white tank top, and blue shorts and who held steady about ten paces back. He had been pacing Roger and Brett since the beginning.

Then it came back. At registration. Roger had first dismissed it as idle curiosity. But suddenly Number 44 did not seem like just another runner gauging the compet.i.tion. He was studying him and Brett. Roger caught his eye-an eye made for watching-but he looked away. From all appearances he wasn't struggling. He could easily take them, but held his place instead.

Then Roger remembered something else. Earlier he had spotted him milling about the registration area with an older man in a windbreaker and shouldering a camera with a telephoto lens. Roger didn't like cameras, especially ones with big zooms.

They rounded First Avenue to River Street with less than a kilometer left. Brett was tiring, so Roger cut his pace even more.

Immediately 44 pulled ahead with a hard glance. Roger felt better. He wasn't a cop after all, just a runner with an att.i.tude. Trying to give you the Evil Eye. Whatever it took to psyche down the compet.i.tion.

Brett didn't like Roger dropping his pace. "Keep running," he cried. "Don't slow down."

Roger shook his head. "I'm fine."

"No. Do it!" Brett was struggling, but he wanted Roger to open up.

"You sure?"

"Yes!"

But he didn't want to leave Brett behind. Brett must have read his mind because he gasped, "Burn him, Dad. Burn him!"

That was all Roger needed. For you, Brett, he whispered, then kicked into a sprint that no other fifty-six year old could possibly summon-and very few thirty-eights.

In a matter of seconds he closed the gap on 44. Someplace behind him he heard Brett let out a howling "Yahoo!"

At about a three hundred meters before the finish, Roger pulled to approximately five paces behind 44, so close he could see the shamrock tattoo on his right shoulder.

Roger kept that up for several seconds as he readied to pull away. Then he moved until he was neck-and-neck with the guy about ten feet on his left. Ahead the road was wide open. They ran in formation like that for awhile. A couple times the guy looked over to Roger. Roger hooked eyes on him, and in that flash something pa.s.sed between them. Roger didn't know what it was, nor did he care. All his concentration was on that bright yellow finish line a hundred meters ahead.

Cheers from the huge gallery rose up as a small knot of local track stars crossed the finish line first.