“Jesus Christ,” Mack says. “Twenty-two seconds flat.” He yells out to Brunson, “Keep it coming, my man. Push through it. Keep your form!”
Brunson takes the back straightaway and — there was no way for Mack Sloan to explain this later to his colleagues — his arms go haywire. He keeps running well, and stays in his lane, but his arms, out of blood flow, look similar to those twenty-five-foot ripstop nylon sky tubes normally used for advertising purposes in the parking lots of car dealerships, mattress warehouses, and buffet-style restaurants managed by the criminally insane.
Was the kid dancing? Mack thinks. Is he fighting demons that no one but his mother — still ululating in the stands — can see?
He clicks the stopwatch when Brunson hits the finish line, slows down to a jog, and continues forward, untying the rubber bands from his arms. Forty-six flat, sure enough, just like Virtual Coach Strainer declared. Mack Sloan looks up in the bleachers and notices how Betty Pettigru sits with her legs splayed open. He looks at the bus depot men and says, “I’ve never seen anything like this in all my years. I’ve been coaching since I was out of college. This is the damnedest place I’ve ever seen. Is this one of those trick TV shows? Is someone playing a trick on me, and I’m being filmed covertly?”
Munny Munson says, “I bet I know why old Finis’s heart give out, and it didn’t have nothing to do with smoking 144 cigarettes in a row the way he done. Hot damn that woman’s a regular vixen.”
“She appears to love her son, you got that right,” says Mack Sloan. He calls Brunson back to him, but keeps looking up in the stands. Betty Pettigru has pulled her hair up in some kind of topknot. “Listen, don’t you men have something to do with yourselves? I’m working here.”
Mack jogs down the track. He says, “Good God, man, you can flat-out fly. But I don’t know about those rubber bands around your arms. I’m not so sure they’d let you run like that in a race, what with the possibility of injuring other runners. Especially in the eight hundred.”
Brunson says, “What about if I go ahead and cut off my arms? Is that what you want? I’m not going to cut off my arms just to please you.”
Mrs. Pettigru comes down from the bleachers and says, “Brunson. Don’t start, Brunson.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Brunson has some anger issues,” Mrs. Pettigru says. “That might be an overstatement. He has some issues with patience.”
“Can I see you run without those strange rubber bands?” Mack asks.
Betty Pettigru stands close to Mack. Is she flirting with me? he wonders. Is this her way of seeing her son get a scholarship?
“Do you have no imagination?” Brunson blurts out. “You saw me run once. Now imagine me running again, without the rubber bands that enhance my cardiovascular capabilities.”
Mrs. Pettigru says, “Brunson,” again, this time drawling out his name, in a higher pitch.
“Is there any place we can sit down and talk?” Mack asks. He wonders if the rubber bands affected the oxygen supply to Brunson’s head, thus causing the sudden evident fury.
“I’m sorry,” Brunson says. “I’m sorry, sorry, sorry,” he says, and takes off running around the track, then over a fence and into the woods.
Betty Pettigru looks at her wristwatch. She says, “I’m about ready for a martini. What about you, Coach?”
There’s no one inside Worm’s Bar and Grill. There’s no bartender, either. Betty Pettigru walks behind the counter, pulls a fifth of Absolut off the shelf, and pours four shots into a metal shaker, throws in some ice, swirls it around, and pours two glasses to the brim. “I like mine dry,” she says. “You want an olive in yours? Worm doesn’t believe in cocktail onions.”
“Yeah, I’ll take a couple olives,” Mack says. He had followed Betty on the one-mile drive between the high school and downtown Calloustown, and noticed that she drank something from a Thermos along the way.
Betty Pettigru slides a jar of Thrifty Maid — brand green olives down the counter. She says, “This should answer any questions about why I didn’t move away when Brunson’s daddy died. Not many places around will let you walk in and drink on the honor system.”
“Will he be all right?” Mack asks. “I’m worried about him.”
“No, he’s probably going to stay dead. We had him cremated, so even the most advanced advances in science won’t bring him back.” She walks around the counter and sits down on a stool beside Mack.
She puts her hand on his shoulder.
“I’m talking about your son. Is he going to be all right, that’s what I meant.”
“He’s fine. He has a lot of things on his mind. He took the SAT and scored perfect on the math but only made a 740 on the verbal. He’s taking the thing again.”
Mack drinks and says, “This is like straight vodka.”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do when he leaves the nest. Listen. Do you think the university would want a student who scored a perfect SAT and can run that fast? I’m willing to bet that just about every college would want such a student.”
Mack thinks, is that lipstick, or are her lips really that red? He thinks, I need to make some promises I can’t keep. “I’m thinking Brunson wouldn’t have a problem getting a full ride.”
“And what about me?” Betty says. She scoots over closer. “I hear tell of some colleges hiring on parents, you know, to work at the college. Coach. Work as a secretary. Me, I could fit right in teaching in the education department, seeing as I’m batting nearly perfect with my past students.”
Mack Sloan nods and laughs. He says, “I don’t know of any bars that’ll let you go in there and drink on the honor system, though.”
She puts her hand on his left thigh. Mack thinks, no, no, no, no, no. He says, “It’s only track and field, Ms. Pettigru. It’s not like football or basketball.”
“I like to do this in alphabetical order,” she says, getting up from the barstool. “Absolut done, Grey Goose next.” She looks at the bottles lined up. “Worm got some Ketel One! That’ll be a good segue before I get on to that cheap shit Seagram’s and Smirnoff, before heading out to the,” she picks up a bottle and raises her eyebrows to Mack, “Three Olives.”
“You’re going to have to go that route alone, I’m afraid,” Mack says. “I got to get down the road and check out a two-miler from somewhere,” he lies, though in fact he’s scheduled to talk to a distance runner from Georgia tomorrow.
The phone rings. Betty shrugs and picks it up. She says, “Hello?” instead of “Worm’s Bar and Grill.” Mack stands up and thinks about going to his car and driving away. Betty says into the receiver, “I’m not doing anything wrong. You can come on over here and see for yourself,” and then the door opens, Brunson walks in with a cell phone to his head, and both he and his mother hang up.
Brunson says, “I told you I could rig this cell phone to get good reception, even here where we don’t get reception.” He says to Mack Sloan, “I’ve been reconsidering.”
His mother walks back carrying the bottles of Grey Goose and Ketel One. She says, “I’m about to get you a football scholarship, too, boy.”
Brunson says, “Can I have a beer, Mom?” He says, “After I drink some olive juice to replace the salt I lost running, can I have a beer?”
Betty reaches over the bar and slides back the cooler top. She reaches in and gets a can of PBR. To Mack Sloan she says, “I’m not a bad mother. Or a whore.”
Worm walks in through the back door. He says, “Well, well, well, I heard we had us a bigshot stranger in town. Hey, Betty Pettigru.” He keeps his eyes locked on Mack. “Hey, Brunson. You got your ID for that beer?”