107 Degrees Fahrenheit
by
Barry Rachin
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Published by:
107 Degrees Fahrenheit
Copyright © 2011 by Barry Rachin
This short story represents a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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107 Degrees Fahrenheit
Kissing his sister goodbye in the lobby of the Bonanza Bus Terminal, Nicholas Holyfield was blind-sided by a wave of emotions. He hadn’t seen the tears coming, didn’t even have time to avert his puckered, soggy face. “Sorry.”
Mary Beth only smiled and wiped the wetness away with the heel of her hand. The visit to Providence lasted two days. The bus to Boston was boarding now. She pulled him close for a final hug and said half-jokingly, “If you meet a pretty coed at college, bring her along next time.” She nuzzled his cheek with her lips, turned and limped away, swinging her crippled, left leg in a sweeping arc as though the errant limb had a mind of its own.
Nicholas boarded the bus and sat next to a fat black woman, poorly dressed and smelling of body odor laced with Jean Naté. As he slumped down, the woman, who had been reading, looked up and smiled. One of the front teeth was capped in gold. Nicholas leaned slightly forward and peered out the window. Mary Beth was a good two hundred feet down the road headed in the direction of the East Side, her body bobbing up and down like a cork on rough, tidal water. The way she moved gave the false impression she was careening at a diagonal when, in fact, her forward progress was straight ahead.
More tears came and, this time, Nicholas couldn’t shut the spigot. Like a toddler bereft of its mother, he was sitting on a Boston-bound bus crying inconsolably. His shoulders heaved, the breath caught in jagged spasms. The black woman glanced up curiously, opened her mouth but then closed it without saying anything. She turned her attention back to a pamphlet printed on cheap, grainy stock. The driver shut the door and threw the shift into reverse. Moments later, they were leaving Providence, Rhode Island, heading north in the direction of the interstate. Nicholas felt something soft and fluffy rubbing insistently against his wrist. The black woman pressed a Kleenex into his hand and discreetly turned away.
The bus passed the statehouse exit; the ivory dome of the capitol building materialized and was gone in a blur. They entered Pawtucket with its grimy factories and mills. The mayor had been indicted for extortion and racketeering the previous year and was now somewhere out of state at a country club prison for white-collar criminals. His biggest regret wasn’t betraying the public trust but being careless enough to get caught. “My sister was hit by a car.” Nicholas spoke, not so much from a need to unburden himself, but to justify his lack of restraint.
“Dear God!” The black woman threw the pamphlet aside and stared at him. Her sympathy, though slightly theatrical, was genuine, not driven by idle curiosity. “She isn’t in a coma or on life support?”
Nicholas frowned and felt the skin on his cheek draw tight where the salty moistness had evaporated away. “No. The accident occurred last winter while jogging. A car skidded on black ice. Broke her leg in three places.”
“Driver drunk?”
Nicholas shook his head. “Not hardly. Just an old lady returning from church at twenty miles an hour in a residential area. The car skidded on the frozen road. No one was at fault.”
The black woman directed her eyes at her hands which were large and formless, devoid of jewelry except for a simple, gold band on the third finger of her left hand. “Why was your sister jogging in the middle of winter?”
Nicholas reached into his breast pocket and located a wallet from which he removed a newspaper clipping. Underneath a picture of Mary Beth dressed in a sweat suit with a medal hanging from her neck, the caption read: Collegiate track star places in first, NCCA professional meet. “That’s my sister.”
The black woman took the tattered paper and held it to the light. For a woman with hands like Stillson wrenches, she was remarkably gentle with the parchment-thin clipping. “I’m trying to recall,” she chuckled, “last time I was that thin, but my mind don’t travel quite that far back.” She handed the article back to him. “Where’d she run?”
“The track meet was in New Jersey - East Rutherford. Fifteen hundred meters.”
Nicholas had been to East Rutherford in February of 1990. He was twelve years old but still remembered the competition vividly. The athletes, especially the runners with their unwieldy, long legs - calves hewn from rock maple, bulging, muscular thighs. Glistening, sexless, sinewy bodies primed for one task: outpace the echo of the starter’s pistol from the sprinter’s block to finish line. Mary Beth’s curly brown hair was tied back with a single strand of blue ribbon, a matter of convenience rather than aesthetics. Her tanned, lightly freckled face pivoted to one side as the women settled into their respective lanes. On your mark! Get set!
“Mary Beth didn’t actually win. She came in third behind the Romanian, Doina Melinte, and Mary Slaney. The Romanian ran the 1500 meters in four minutes, seventeen seconds and set a new world record. My sister was only 8 seconds off the winning time.”
“Eight blinks of an eye!” The black woman said with a earthy grin. “Since the accident, she don’t race no more?”
“No,” Nicholas said softly, “she can hardly walk much less run.”
“My nephew, Delroy, got a club foot.” She held her paw of a hand up with the fingers skewed stiffly at an odd angle. “Like this.”
Looking at the stubby fingers made Nicholas slightly nauseous, and he regretted sitting next to the garrulous woman. “The bum leg taken aside,” the black woman rushed on, oblivious to Nicholas’ distress, “Delroy done good with his life. Works in an upholstery shop. Got married a few years back and has two healthy children.” She smoothed the front of her dress with the massive hands. “What does your sister do now she ain’t racing?”
“With the money from the insurance settlement she doesn’t have to work.”
Mary Beth turned professional in January, three months before the accident. Negotiating the size of the financial settlement, her lawyer estimated potential earnings (including commercial endorsements) at half a million dollars. The insurance company balked, arguing that, in her short-lived career, she hadn’t won any major races, and it was unclear whether the young woman would fulfill her athletic promise. For every Doina Melinte, there were half a hundred also-rans. Mary Beth’s lawyer threatened to push for a jury trial.
Check. Checkmate.
Despite all the legal maneuvering, the final settlement proved rather modest. Mary Beth paid her lawyer and invested the remainder in stocks. A month later, she moved to Providence, Rhode Island and took a studio apartment on the East Side.
“I meant,” the black woman clarified, “what does your sister do with her free time now that she can’t run anymore.”
“She makes custom wedding albums from fabrics and lace and also takes small orders for decorative brochures.”
When Nicholas arrived at the bus terminal on Friday, his sister was there to greet him. He hadn’t seen her in six months, since the fall when she moved south. Mary Beth had aged. Nothing dramatic. It wasn’t the smattering of gray hair or crow’s-feet dimpling the eyes. Rather, her wiry body had gone soft and sedentary. The hard-edged posturing was gone; she no longer looked like a competitive athlete. Worse yet, she didn’t care.
“Little brother!” she hugged him close and lead the way out of the bus terminal in the direction of her 89 Nova. Turning onto North Main Street, she shot up College Hill. Though the temperatu
re was hovering in the low nineties, Mary Beth wore dungarees. She always wore pants or long dresses to hide the scars and ravaged muscles on her left leg. When she was leaving the hospital, an orthopedic doctor suggested further ‘cosmetic’ surgery, but she nixed the idea. “Leave well enough alone.”
A group of college students with backpacks and tanned faces passed in front of the car. “That deep sea diver remark,” Nicholas said, directing his words at the dirt-streaked windshield, “hurt Mom’s feelings. She cried for half an hour.”