Micah smiled. "Our wives and children just don't seem to have the appreciation for good horror movies that we do."
"It's a shame," I admitted. "All I wanted to do was share something with Miles that my dad shared with me growing up. Kind of like going fishing or playing catch or going to museums."
"I understand completely, little brother," he said. He put his arm around me. "You gotta give that to dad," he said. "He did teach us to appreciate the important things in life."
Once back at the hotel, we decided to go snorkeling.
While I've snorkeled in the Caribbean and Hawaii, I've never been more impressed than I was that day. Thousands of bright blue starfish, barracudas, and colorful reef fish swam in the warm, clear water, and a light current made it possible to float at the surface of the shallow water while expending little effort. Above us, clouds had filled in the sky, making it possible for us to be out without getting sunburned, and we stayed in the water, even when the rain started to fall.
Afterward, we ate on the hotel's outdoor patio. We were trying to decide what to do later in the evening; with nothing planned, it seemed like a waste to head back to our rooms. The bartender--who was also our waiter--recommended a pub crawl, and said a van would stop by the hotel around eight o'clock, if we signed up for it.
A pub crawl is essentially that: The van comes by, picks you up, and brings you from one pub to the next over the course of the evening. Whether or not a person drinks, however, is almost beside the point. Over the years, I've visited numerous countries, and I've learned that until you meet the people in a relaxed setting, doing what they normally do, you haven't actually experienced what the country is all about. Almost everyone I've ever met in situations like that is friendly; most people around the world enjoy practicing their English and hearing about America. Our country, warts and all, is a place that foreigners find both fascinating and intriguing; they love some things and hate others, but everyone has an opinion about it. At the same time, I'm always struck by how similar people are, no matter where they live. Throughout the world, people not only want to have the chance to improve their own situation, but want their children to have more opportunities than they have. Politicians are nearly always held in low esteem; so are demagogues on both the right and the left.
Our bartender was no different, and though he was mildly disappointed that we wouldn't be traveling to New Zealand--his home country--he did add that he'd visited the United States.
"Oh yeah?" Micah said. "Where?"
"I was in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Las Vegas, Denver, Dallas, New Orleans, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, and New York. I spent a summer traveling around the country."
"Did you see the Grand Canyon?" Micah asked.
"Yes, of course," he said. "I thought it was great. Mount Rushmore, too. And the giant redwoods. Beautiful. My favorite place was Las Vegas."
"Did you win in Vegas?" I asked.
"No, I lost. I played the slots, you know? But it was fun. That's the wildest city. I love it there. Have you ever been there?"
"Of course," Micah said. "From Sacramento, it's just over an hour away by plane."
The bartender shook his head, a look of pleasure on his face. "I tell people--if you want to see America, go to Vegas. The lights, the shows, the excitement--it's America."
While we were eating, Jill Hannah, the physician, joined us. Over the past few days, she'd been busy, since so many people were developing stomach problems. Like everyone, she seemed lethargic, and when we mentioned we were going out that night, she raised her eyebrows.
"Aren't you guys tired?"
"A little," Micah answered. "But you should come, too. It'll be fun."
"Thanks, but I'm going to bed. Is anyone else going with you?"
"We'll see," Micah said. "We're going to ask around in a little while."
Not surprisingly, most everyone we asked said no, no matter how fun we tried to make it sound. We must have spoken to a couple of dozen people, but only Charles, one of the lecturers on the tour, said he'd come. We told him that we'd meet him in the lobby at eight.
"We're just going to take a short nap," Micah said, "and we'll see you then."
We headed back to our room, lay down, and fell fast asleep, neither of us waking until the following morning.
At breakfast, Charles came over to our table. "Where were you guys last night? I was waiting for you. I was all set to have a great time."
"Sorry about that," Micah said sheepishly.
"I can't believe the brothers Sparks actually got tired."
"Sometimes," Micah said, "it happens to the best of us."
As soon as Charles left, I leaned toward Micah. "I can't believe we slept through it. I guess we're getting older, huh?"
"I know what you mean. In college, it seemed like I never got tired. I could go out all night long. I was wild."
"College?" I asked. "Who are you kidding? You were wild in high school."
In 1979, Micah began high school, and for the next two years my brother had a tenuous relationship with everyone in the family. He'd reached the age where he began to openly question my parents' authority, and acted out accordingly. Yet Micah, as probably could have been expected, was more, even when it came to being a teenager. He got drunk at the river, and my mom once found marijuana in the pocket of his jeans and grounded him for a month after threatening him with military school. At fifteen, Micah also came home with a pierced ear; my mom made him remove the earring by issuing yet another threat about military school.
She always threatened us with military school. Both of our parents had gone to boarding school and each of them had shared their horror stories, always ending with, "but at least it wasn't military school." As kids, we were terrified at the thought of these institutions, believing they'd been designed by Satan himself. But Micah was listening to our parents less and less, and he'd come to realize that he'd never actually be sent away, if only because the family couldn't afford it. Thus, his behavior got worse and worse. During his freshman year, the mood in the house was extremely tense, and my sister and I were often amazed at the way he boldly raised his voice to our mom and dad.
Image is important to most teenagers, and Micah was no exception. He was tired of being poor, and even worse, looking poor. At sixteen, he got a job as a dishwasher at an ice cream parlor, and began saving his money. He bought a used car and learned how to repair it, he bought new clothes, and began dating. He soon became serious with a girl named Juli and began spending all his free time with her. My mom didn't think it was a good idea to be so serious about a girl at such a young age, and they argued about that as well. Once, she caught the two of them napping in his room, and all hell broke loose. I don't think I'd ever seen my mother angrier about anything.
It was around that time that my mom marched into my dad's office. My dad had been all but irrelevant when it came to raising us, but my mom could go no further without his help.
"I raised them this far," she said. "Now it's your turn."
My dad simply nodded. It was, he probably thought, a lot better than cooking or cleaning.
After that, I remember evenings where I'd find Micah sitting in the office, visiting with my dad. My dad was exceptionally smart, and he read almost constantly. He taught behavioral theory and management at California State University in Sacramento, and read every conceivable book that had been written on the subjects. Seriously. There were thousands of books in his office at any given time--stacked along shelves, piled on the floor, stored in boxes--and he'd read every one. In the evenings, I could always find him sitting at his desk with his feet propped up, reading. He read amazingly fast; on average, he would finish one or two books in an evening, jotting notes as he went along. His hours were unlike anyone else's in the family. Because he taught in the afternoons, he usually stayed awake until 5:00 A.M., and then slept until noon.
Though my dad always kept his office door open, we all knew that he was most comfortable alone. He w
as a quiet, attentive listener; when talking to his co-workers, I was always struck by how much they seemed to adore him. My dad could listen to a person ramble on without ever feeling the need to interrupt. Nor, unless asked, would he ever offer advice. Instead, he would clarify your problem--rewording what you'd said in a way that crystallized your thoughts and allowed you to solve the problem on your own.
When talking to Micah--and later, when talking to me--his routine was always the same. He would ask what was going on regarding a specific situation, then would listen while you filled in the void. And the more Micah--or I--talked, the less he would say. Sometimes, these one-sided conversations lasted upward of an hour. We would usually leave his office thinking more clearly, and believing he was one of the smartest people we'd ever met.
In the end, my dad gave us three ironclad rules that we were bound to throughout our teenage years. They were:
A. Don't drink and drive.
B. Don't get a girl pregnant.
C. Be in by your curfew--midnight as a freshman, and increasing half an hour with every passing year in high school.
My dad, by the way, was very shrewd to offer us these particular rules when he did. We would soon be reaching the age where one or another might become an issue, but since we were following all three already, they seemed entirely reasonable at the time. Even more important, by our teenage years we'd been on our own for so long that anything more would have seemed draconian (too little, too late) and no doubt would have led to outright rebellion. These, however, seemed well thought out, and Micah agreed to abide by them.
Micah, it must be said, followed those rules, and only those rules. Everything else, it seemed, was up for grabs, and for the next couple of years he continued to press the outer limits. On more nights than I can count, I remember listening to my mom and dad fretting about him.
"He just keeps getting wilder," one would say. "What do we do?"
A long silence would follow.
"I don't know," the other one would answer.
That year brought about changes for me, too. I began competing in track and field, and though not great, I was one of the better freshmen on the team. This isn't saying much, since in the distance events, there were only a handful of us.
Still, I loved track and field, and as fate would have it, there was a genuine track and field legend who also lived in Fair Oaks. Billy Mills, an Oglala Sioux Indian raised in poverty in the Black Hills of South Dakota, had won the Olympic gold medal in the 10,000 meter run at the Tokyo games in 1964. It is still regarded as the greatest upset in Olympic track and field history. He's the only American ever to win the Olympic 10,000 meters, and proving his talent for posterity, broke the world record the following year. Years earlier, I'd read about him in one of the many almanacs I'd perused as a kid, and I'd been fascinated by his story. When I learned that he lived in Fair Oaks, I was ecstatic, and I remember running to the kitchen to tell my mother.
"Oh Billy," she said, nodding. "I know him and his wife, Pat."
My eyes widened. "You do?"
"Yeah," she said easily. "They get their glasses at our office. They're wonderful people."
All I could do was stare at her, thinking that I was standing next to someone who'd actually talked to a genuine American hero.
This was heady stuff for a kid, and after talking to my mom, I was always on the lookout for him. I'd get excited when I saw him walking into the grocery store (I'd memorized how he looked) or into a restaurant, but I couldn't summon the courage to introduce myself. When I learned that informal, neighborhood track meets were held at the local high school, I wanted to go because I suspected that he might be there as well. Sure enough, he was there, and when I saw him, I was transfixed. I'd watch him walk and think to myself, "That's how the fastest man in the world moves," and try to imitate it. Needless to say, I wanted to impress him with my talent, but to be honest, it never happened. Billy had three daughters and his youngest competed. Unlike me, however, she was great, and never once lost a single race.
Learning about Billy's past led me to read about other great runners. I dreamed of running like Henry Rono, Sebastian Coe, or Steve Ovett, but that's all it was--a dream. Yet I went out for the track team, and gradually I became friends with Harold Kuphaldt, a junior who was also on the team.
Like Billy, Harold was almost a legend, albeit a high school one. Harold was one of the fastest runners in the country (he would record the nation's fastest time in the two mile for juniors, and hold the American junior record for a while), and, as with Billy, I idolized him from afar. Again, there's a world of difference between the lives of freshman and upper classmen. Yet one afternoon, toward the end of the season, the team was running as a group and I found myself running alongside Harold. We started chatting until Harold eventually grew quiet.
"I've been watching you run," Harold said to me after a few moments of companionable silence. "You can be great if you work at it. Not just good, but great. You're a natural at this."
I remember nothing about the run after that. It seemed as if I were floating, carried along by the words he'd said. There was nothing anyone could have said that would have meant more to me than what he'd told me. Not only did his words feed my fantasies, but they also touched the deeper core within myself, the one that always sought approval from my parents. I could be great, he'd said. I'm a natural . . .
I vowed at that moment to make his words prophetic, and instead of spending the summer goofing around as I usually did, I decided to train instead. I trained hard--harder than I'd trained during the season--and the harder I worked, the harder I wanted to work. I ran twice a day, often in temperatures exceeding a hundred degrees, and frequently ran until I vomited from exertion. Despite Harold's words, I wasn't a natural athlete, but what I lacked in talent, I made up for with desire and effort.
My brother, meanwhile, was working and earning money; in the past couple of years, he'd matured a bit and was rapidly becoming a man. And a handsome man at that. Combined with his natural confidence and charm, he quickly became irresistible to the opposite sex. The fact that he had a steady girlfriend didn't seem to matter; girls flocked to his side or admired him from afar. My brother was essentially a babe magnet.
Not so for me. I was shorter than Micah, with skinny arms and legs, and had none of the easy confidence of my brother. It didn't matter, however. Running offered me the chance to excel if I worked hard enough, and I began focusing on it to the exclusion of everything else that summer.
Well, almost everything. I was as worried about Micah as my parents were. Toward the end of the summer, after much lobbying, I convinced him to join the cross-country team with me. The team, led by Harold, was expected to be one of the best in the state, and would travel to meets in both the Bay Area and Los Angeles, where, after the meets, we would have the chance to visit amusement parks or boardwalks--places we would ordinarily never have the money or excuse to visit. "All you have to do is run fast enough to be in the top seven," I told him, "and you'll have more fun than you could ever imagine."
He finally took me up on it. Once my brother started running, he quickly made the top seven. Our team went undefeated, and for the most part, Harold did as well. Harold broke course records at nearly every meet, and ended up finishing second in the high school national championships.
While Micah didn't focus on running the way I did, with a desperate determination to excel in it, it nonetheless changed him for the better. He was part of a team, a team that counted on him, and--not surprisingly, considering the way he'd been raised--he took the responsibility seriously. Little by little, he began courting less trouble, and the more successful the team became, the more he took pride in being part of it. It didn't seem to matter to him that I was faster than he was; in fact, he was always the first to congratulate me on how I'd done.
More important to me, however, was that we were spending time together again for the first time in years. And best of all, enjoying it.
M
y sophomore year was transformative. Not only did I learn to love athletics and running, but it was the first time in my life that I outperformed my brother physically.
At the same time, I continued to focus on getting good grades. Unfortunately, it was becoming more and more of an obsession; not only did I want straight As, but I wanted to be the top student in every class.
I also began devouring novels. My mother, like my father, was an avid reader, and she frequented the library twice a month. There, she would check out anywhere from six to eight books, and read them all; she particularly loved the works of James Herriot and Dick Francis. As for me, I discovered the classics--Don Quixote, The Return of the Native, Crime and Punishment, Ulysses, Emma, and Great Expectations, among others, and grew to love the works of Stephen King. Because I'd been raised on old horror movies, they struck a chord with me, and I'd read them over and over as I anxiously awaited a new title to be released.
In my sophomore year, I also had my first real girlfriend. Her name was Lisa and, like me, she ran cross-country. She was a year younger than I, and, as fate would have it, her father was Billy Mills, my boyhood hero.
We dated for the next four years, and I not only fell in love with Lisa, but with her family as well. Billy and Pat were different from my parents in that they genuinely seemed to revel in my accomplishments. More than that, Billy would talk to me about my training and the goals I wanted to reach, and had a way of making me believe they were possible.
My life was growing busier; between school, running, homework, and Lisa, I didn't have much time for anything else. Nor did I have any money, and I came to realize that this situation wasn't exactly conducive to dating. Since our parents didn't give us allowances, nor would they open their wallets if we wanted to go to the movies, I decided to follow my brother's lead. After the cross-country season ended, and on top of everything else I was doing, I got a job as a dishwasher at the same restaurant where my brother worked. In the beginning, I worked until closing two school nights a week; within a few months, I was working thirty-five hours a week, and had been moved up to busboy. Eventually, I became a waiter, and with tips was earning a tidy sum for a high school student. Every minute of every day was accounted for--I was on the go from seven in the morning until nearly midnight, seven days a week--and this schedule would remain essentially unchanged until I graduated two years later.