I
^\ ir\\|\| tliis documentary about
^*" the fastest white woman in
the world, ever so little behind a black woman by tenths of seconds in the 100 and 200 meters. Or at least I think I saw a documentary or perhaps my mind created this true-to-life story. She was running along the wonderful paths in the ravines in Toronto and you could see the skyscrapers through the green leafy trees. In a ditzy TV inter- view she said that she easily outran a group of rapists in L.A. They wanted to snoot at her when they couldn't catch her but a wise rapist said that he had stopped the shooting under the accurate presumption that she would eventually run in a circle back to them due to the fact that one leg is always slightly shorter than the other and no one can run very far in a straight line. That's why tracks are always circular. I run in very tight circles due to a deformed left leg my parents couldn't afford to get fixed, another mark of Cain. I may as well put on track shoes and twirl. Anyway this fastest white woman in the world is both sad and angry that she can't run around the world because of the water problem. The oceans, whether in their placidity or torment, are not friendly to feet. Even Jesus while walking on the Sea
of Galilee knew that sinking was a possibility. After I met her a single time briefly (she was running in place) in Toronto I introduced myself by letter as a famed physiologist curious about her speed. I bought a white smock and latex gloves and examined the juncture of her hips and thighs and buttocks that propelled her at such an alarming rate. Of course she was more muscular but I found nothing unlike the other 11 women in my life. We were in Austin at the University of Texas and after the minute examination we went down to the track and I tried to film her running but I couldn't figure out the cheap video camera I had bought at Costco. We then went to a BBQ shack where she ate a huge triple portion brisket platter with the hottest of sauces and an ample bowl of pickled jalapenos. She was bereft of her ability to run around the world but somehow managed to eat saying that she needed 7,000 calories a day to maintain her weight of 119 pounds. It was then that I wiped away her tears with a blue paper napkin and suggested that we go to the North Pole where she could run around the world in seconds, but like many of the young she apparently didn't understand geography. We then went to my not-
so-lavish hotel suite where she quickly ate the entire contents of the complimentary fruit bowl. During a long night of love in which we discovered that we didn't like each other I explained to her that her obsession was to beat a dead horse over and over until it became an actual dead horse in the brain, stinking and immovable. I had to be cautious in our lovemaking because her feet had callused spurs that reminded me of the female duckbill platypus that has poisonous spurs on her back feet that can kill a small dog. She wept and at dawn confessed that everyone in her family was morbidly obese and that her speed was never more than a second ahead of her prodigious appetite. I called room service for the dozen scrambled eggs, one-pound sausage patty, quart of OJ and seven pieces of toast she needed. I drank a pot of coffee and read a newspaper to see if the world deserved to exist. We drove into the country until we found a remote road where she ran in front of my Hertz. I admired the way she was staying a single step in front of her madness in the way that so many of us do by merely watching the clock where each tick brings us safely over the lip of the future, our madness a split second behind us.
