Excerpt..Ghost Runners

“Naatsédlózhii , teach me, it looks like fun,” he said, pushing his strong arms on the sides of the iron chair, a shawl around him and a woven blanket draped around his knees.
‘Naatsédlózhii’ was the name of a Roadrunner, the State bird of New Mexico. It was also a perfect name for him. Capable of flight, the long legged creature preferred to walk. A member of the Cuckoo family, it could run up to twenty miles an hour. Nevertheless, it was a bird that did not choose to fly, as he was a runner who would never run again. The name fit and he let the natives have their way with him.
He liked to teach sports other than running to lame children, or children who couldn’t walk. They didn’t believe him, anyway, when he said he was a runner when he was younger. He had even been on the Olympic squad during the ’36 Games, but he wouldn’t prove to them otherwise, not at the beginning when he was very young, and not as he aged, even when they taunted him.
“Naatsedlozhii léi' chxóóh bi íísaal!” The roadrunner is really speeding off, throwing up dust!
It was easier to teach his small group the skills of basketball, baseball and volleyball because they could extend their arms and use upper body strength without the need for limbs.
“No, Pilgrim, I want to run,” Berry said.
His living room had an odd assortment of useless items that held no meaning to anyone but him. Rummaging among the metal works, he searched for a book that could help him explain running as concept to his friend.
Berry kept a cane under his arm so that he could be guided in dark spaces. His sunglasses followed the Coach, no matter where he walked, by some uncanny process.
“What are you searching for, teacher?” said Berry.
There was an old punch card machine, some tangled electrical wire, a dead battery from an old model T Ford, a piece of aluminum. He stored early model phones, a tin of motor oil, a Fanta coke bottle, and in later years, vials of methadone. He had a Luger in a black holster, and an officer’s pocket watch. During the war was the only time he left Gallup, and using his knowledge of German, interrogated Nazi prisoners.
What could he teach to Navajo children in wheelchairs? What did he know about the joy of running, or the whimsical journey of a long distance marathon run? To feel leaves crackling underfoot or dust left on the side of a mountain trail. Kicking limbs and spreading the arms with only the afterthought of finishing. The marathoners had so much more fun. They had time to reflect about life or about a lost love.
At the strangest times, he would think about Rachel. If she lived, she would write about running for she loved the sport in a way he could not. He was geared only for speed, for the electricity of the race, the burst from nothing to flight, to tear the lungs, to test the boundaries of heart and limbs until he’d burst.
Did she reach Palestine, or go into the ashes? he wondered, holding the old peace of tin, the electrical wires, the punch card machine, the jangled metal, and an old battery.
“Yes?” asked Berry, his head eager, and to the side.
“Yes,” he said, he would. He would try to teach him how to run