to the pressure of his stomach were more in need than his legs, but he could not keep the feel of Ali’s easy rhythm if he left the turf.
On they went. Now they were passing through a smallforest, and by his measure, they had come a little more than a mile. He was beginning to think it was remotely possible that he could cover the entire distance — was it scheduled for three miles? — but even as he was contemplating the heroics of this horror they entered on a long slow grade uphill, and something in the added burden told him that he was not going to make it without a breakdown in the engines. His heart had now made him prisoner — it sat in an iron collar around his neck, and as they chugged up the long slow grade, the collar tightened every fifty feet. He was breathing now as noisily as he had ever breathed, and recognized that he was near to the end of his run.
“Champ,” he said, “I’m going — to stop — pretty soon,” a speech in three throttled bursts. “I’m just — holding you — back,” and realized it was true — except how could Ali put up with too slow a gait when the fight was just four nights away? “Anyway — have good run,” he said, like the man in the water waving in martyred serenity at the companions to whom he has just offered his spot in the lifeboat. “I’ll see you — back there.”
And he returned alone. Later, when he measured it by the indicator on his car, he found that he had run with them for a mile and a half, not too unrespectable. And enjoyed his walk. Actually, he was a little surprised at how slow the pace had been. It seemed unfitting that he had been able to keep up as long as he had. If Ali were going to run for fifteen rounds, there should, he thought, be something more kin to a restlessness in his legs tonight. Of course, Ali was not wearing sneakers but heavy working shoes. Still. The leisureliness of the pace made him uneasy.
There is no need to follow Norman back on his walk, except that we are about to discover a secret to the motivation of writers who achieve a bit of prominence in their own time. As the road continued through the forest, dark as Africa is ever supposed to be, he was enjoying for the first time a sense of what it meant to be out alone in the African night, and occasionally, when the forest thinned, knew what it might also mean to be alone under an African sky. The clarity of the stars! The size of the bowl of heaven! Truth, thoughts after running are dependably banal. Yet what a teeming of cricket life and locusts in the brush about him, that nervous endless vibration seeming to shake the earth. It was one of the final questions: Were insects a part of the cosmos or the termites of the cosmos?
Just then, he heard a lion roar. It was no small sound, more like thunder, and it opened an unfolding wave of wrath across the sky and through the fields. Did the sound originate a mile away, or less? He had come out of the forest, but the lights of Nsele were also close to a mile away, and there was all of this deserted road between. He could never reach those lights before the lion would run him down. Then his next thought was that the lion, if it chose, could certainly race up on him silently, might even be on his way now.
Once, sailing in Provincetown harbor on nothing larger than a Sailfish, he had passed a whale. Or rather the whale passed him. A frolicsome whale which cavorted in its passage and was later to charm half the terrified boats in its path. He had recognized at the moment that there was nothing he could ever do if the whale chose to swallow himwith his boat. Yet he felt singularly cool. What a perfect way to go. His place in American literature would be forever secure. They would seat him at Melville’s feet. Melville and Mailer, ah, the consanguinity of the M’s and the L’s — how critics would love Mailer’s now discovered preoccupations (see Croft on the mountain in
The Naked and the Dead
) with Ahab’s Moby
On they went. Now they were passing through a smallforest, and by his measure, they had come a little more than a mile. He was beginning to think it was remotely possible that he could cover the entire distance — was it scheduled for three miles? — but even as he was contemplating the heroics of this horror they entered on a long slow grade uphill, and something in the added burden told him that he was not going to make it without a breakdown in the engines. His heart had now made him prisoner — it sat in an iron collar around his neck, and as they chugged up the long slow grade, the collar tightened every fifty feet. He was breathing now as noisily as he had ever breathed, and recognized that he was near to the end of his run.
“Champ,” he said, “I’m going — to stop — pretty soon,” a speech in three throttled bursts. “I’m just — holding you — back,” and realized it was true — except how could Ali put up with too slow a gait when the fight was just four nights away? “Anyway — have good run,” he said, like the man in the water waving in martyred serenity at the companions to whom he has just offered his spot in the lifeboat. “I’ll see you — back there.”
And he returned alone. Later, when he measured it by the indicator on his car, he found that he had run with them for a mile and a half, not too unrespectable. And enjoyed his walk. Actually, he was a little surprised at how slow the pace had been. It seemed unfitting that he had been able to keep up as long as he had. If Ali were going to run for fifteen rounds, there should, he thought, be something more kin to a restlessness in his legs tonight. Of course, Ali was not wearing sneakers but heavy working shoes. Still. The leisureliness of the pace made him uneasy.
There is no need to follow Norman back on his walk, except that we are about to discover a secret to the motivation of writers who achieve a bit of prominence in their own time. As the road continued through the forest, dark as Africa is ever supposed to be, he was enjoying for the first time a sense of what it meant to be out alone in the African night, and occasionally, when the forest thinned, knew what it might also mean to be alone under an African sky. The clarity of the stars! The size of the bowl of heaven! Truth, thoughts after running are dependably banal. Yet what a teeming of cricket life and locusts in the brush about him, that nervous endless vibration seeming to shake the earth. It was one of the final questions: Were insects a part of the cosmos or the termites of the cosmos?
Just then, he heard a lion roar. It was no small sound, more like thunder, and it opened an unfolding wave of wrath across the sky and through the fields. Did the sound originate a mile away, or less? He had come out of the forest, but the lights of Nsele were also close to a mile away, and there was all of this deserted road between. He could never reach those lights before the lion would run him down. Then his next thought was that the lion, if it chose, could certainly race up on him silently, might even be on his way now.
Once, sailing in Provincetown harbor on nothing larger than a Sailfish, he had passed a whale. Or rather the whale passed him. A frolicsome whale which cavorted in its passage and was later to charm half the terrified boats in its path. He had recognized at the moment that there was nothing he could ever do if the whale chose to swallow himwith his boat. Yet he felt singularly cool. What a perfect way to go. His place in American literature would be forever secure. They would seat him at Melville’s feet. Melville and Mailer, ah, the consanguinity of the M’s and the L’s — how critics would love Mailer’s now discovered preoccupations (see Croft on the mountain in
The Naked and the Dead
) with Ahab’s Moby
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