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The Yankee Homecoming Classic 10 miler and mosquito fest? Yeah, I'm running again this year, although I've been in better shape, that's for sure. The important thing is, I'm getting a ride from Terry again. I don't drive up there by myself any more; I always bum a ride with someone. Why? You mean I never told you the story about the flat tire and the police cruiser? Ah, it still makes me shudder after six years; and you know I think about it every time I drive up that wretched stretch of highway heading toward New Hampshire. I'll tell you how it happened...
I had this old car, a brown Toyota station wagon that I had gotten from my in-laws that was at the end of its useful life. This was just before it started randomly refusing to start, but at the time it was pretty reliable for driving around town. I didn't think twice about taking it up to Newburyport for the race.
I started around 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon, and things were going great when, about 10 miles from the race, I got a flat tire while travelling at about 60 MPH, which was for all intents and purposes the top speed this little car could go. The car started veering to one side of the highway, the memory of which still occasionally causes me to sit bolt upright in bed in the middle of the night. Luckily, I was just approaching an exit, and I was able to steer the car out of harm's way, while the deflated tire made sickening flapping sounds on the road.
I figured I had enough time to deal with the situation and, once I had pulled off to the side of the road, I calmy rummaged around in the back for the spare tire and tools. After a few minutes, I had the car jacked up and the flat tire off. If you had been wiretapping my innermost thoughts at this point, you would have heard me congratulating myself for being so composed and resourceful. That was right before I discovered that the tire didn't fit.The damn thing didn't fit. I couldn't believe it! It must have been ten minutes before I made myself to accept the plain truth of the situation which was that the holes in the hub of my spare tire didn't fit over the bolts of the wheel. I kept turning the tire around and around like one of those stupid puzzles where you have to pull apart or put together two twisted nails. My calm began to deteriorate. I looked at my watch. It was 5:55. The race started at 6:40. I had a problem.
I had noticed a gas station on the other side of the highway, so I hurriedly put the damaged tire back on the car, and drove across the overpass and into the station. A vaguely hostile person with a grease-stained blue work shirt appeared, regarding the flap-flap-flap of my right rear tire with what seemed like unusual suspicion. His vaguely unpleasant features were grim, as though he feared I were going to ask him for money, or to sign some sort of petition. It probably didn't help that I was wearing running gear, a sure sign that I was up to no good. Eventually, by a series of hand gestures and repetions of simple words that I supposed were in his vocabulary, I managed to make him understand that I needed transportation to downtown Newburyport and that a repaired tire was rather important to my plans. He agreed to look at the tire, but promised nothing, certainly not quick service.
At this point, although I didn't fully apprehend it at the time, I was sunk. Had I been aware of the traffic situation in Newburyport, I would have understood that there was a two-mile backup on Main Street, and that, had I all the new tires in the world, I would sit in that backup for an hour--an hour I didn't have because by then it was 6:10. I had a crazy, impractical thought that perhaps I could call a Taxi service (what an absurd idea!) and I think I must have asked if there was a phone booth on the premises. At this point, a State Trooper, who had been loitering in the area, asked if there was a problem.
"Well yes, officer, I have a flat tire and I am supposed to be running in the Yankee Homecoming race in one half hour, and my team needs me..." He immediately dashed my hopes by asserting that there "weren't no way" I would ever make it through the traffic in time, but...and in my unreliable recollection of the event I imagine that he paused dramatically... but he would give me a ride. Now, I'm telling you that if John Wayne himself had ridden up on a white horse at that moment and growled, "Get on," I would have been no more astonished than I was to suddenly be climbing into the front seat of a police cruiser (racing gear in hand). My astonishment only grew, when, after screeching out of the station like Marlon Brando in the Wild Bunch, my new friend and protector got on the highway, turned his lights on, and began doing 85 MPH towards Newburyport.
Are you getting the picture? As other cars pulled humbly and dutifully off into the right hand lanes of Interstate 95, I was speeding, no, hurtling along in a Crown Victoria, gripping the door with white knuckles and secretly wishing my driver weren't so relaxed. In my memory, I see him chewing on a long piece of grass (couldn'a been!) and making small talk, as expensive sports cars and trucks diasappeared behind us with alarming speed. I was aware of, but not really hearing, snatches of communication on the CB radio, and for a moment I had a paroxysm of fear as I imagined that my benefactor was an escapee from a local psychiatric hospital (SaltMarsh State Hospital -- a nationally-famous institution which specialized in treating delusional schizophrenia -- an affliction that might cause anyone to believe he was Jesus Christ, Napoleon, or a State trooper) Any moment, I expected to hear an urgent "Mayday, Mayday!" come over the radio just before a meaty hand reached over and turned it off, and ominous music swelled in the background.
But no, here we were at the exit for Newburyport and sure enough, traffic was backed up all the way out to the highway. This was no great obstacle for us, however, and my driver pulled up onto the grass and went around fifty cars, and (I swear I am not making this up) turned on the siren of his cruiser, and parted Main Street traffic like Moses parting the Red Sea. The next five minutes were among the strangest of my life, as every citizen of that sleepy seaport town turned to see what scandal or tragedy was the cause of a police cruiser coming down Main Street with its lights flashing, its siren wailing, and a scared, skinny little fellow sinking down into the passenger seat in mortal fear of being recognized. A minute more and the feared moment arrived: we reached the High School, and my driver deposited me 50 yards away from the registration table (did I mention I hadn't picked up my number yet?) at 6:28 -- 12 minutes to spare.
Well, that's about it. I managed to get my number, pee in some bushes, and even warm up for about three minutes. Then I ran the race. I won't tell you how I did. You can look it up if you want to. It could have been worse.
After the race, I got a ride back to the gas station from somebody on the club, got my tire fixed and drove home to Boston at about 40 miles per hour -- my nerves were completely shot. For several years after that, something always went wrong for me at Newburyport. There was the year I got there two hours early and still managed to miss the start. Ah, I won't bore you with that stuff. But like I said, I don't drive up there by myself anymore. And I got rid of that old car before the year was out. I still can't figure out why that spare tire didn't fit.
Hey, if you see Terry, tell him I'm paying for the gas.