The Invisible Runner Meets Your Best Friend’s Father

“I’ll say it again, boys. Don’t do what they tell you. Don’t stay and fight. Get up and run, or you’ll never run again,” and with only his arms, he lifted his hips from the couch and, somehow balanced on his crutches, he dragged the decisions of the command structure all the way to the kitchen. “C’mon, follow me,” he said. The blur of acceptance is how young boys often must see the world, even if it leads them away from it. The eyes of the apartment were dark, burned by time under the midday sun. You fell into step, not seeing what was beneath your feet, and it’s this acceptance that haunts me, for I existed only to run. When you needed me to run, I ran. Station to station. Base to base. Command to command. And when you needed me to stay, I stayed. Yet this father preached disobedience as our only hope. Safely in the kitchen, we found that on this afternoon, obedience would not cost you your legs. You were too young to wonder why, but still you wondered, why were they here, so far away from a home in Oregon? Certainly, there were VA hospitals in the northwest. Tanks roll over the infantry at every latitude. Bombs explode at all longitudes. Why here? Why did your friend’s father move him here? But the rules cleared no space for questions in this family’s game of cards. So, you sat down to drink homemade root beer. You listened to the sweetness of the rules as the cards were being shuffled. You sank into a hard kitchen chair like you were sliding into a hole. A weary mother sat down next to you. The father with no legs dealt from across the table, and the little sister stared at the spiral patterns in the Formica laminate. You and your best friend picked up your cards. You would both stand pat (for now). You both sat still, while outside the apartment, the engines of our acceptance were running: cars, condensers, trucks, politicians all running hard (heating up) (spewing) (spinning as if their centers would not hold) (unstoppable momentum and noise) sticking to the blood running from your ears. Even the gummed-up creek that separated the sheet metal factory from the apartment buildings was running. Doing as it was told.