Double Time
Chapter 75
“Life equals running and when we stop running maybe that’s how we’ll know life is finally finished.”
—Patrick Ness, The Knife of Never Letting Go
17 NOVEMBER 2019
I have money I didn’t know about. Or I forgot about. It’s in a PayPal account that has been inactive for over a year. But the money is still there. I have (or have had, according to my account on YouTube) up to 130 subscribers to my channel. The money in my PayPal account comes from people who see the video and the little banner at the bottom that has my PayPal.me account written on it. So, I never ‘charge’ for a video concert, but people can donate to me. What’s more, non-subscribers can also tune in to my performances and many have donated. There is over $2,000 in my PayPal account. I need to find out about how to turn that into real money, like in a bank or something.
I can’t believe that all these people paid money to watch me play the guitar. And at the same time, I can see possibilities. There are still sixty-seven subscribers to the channel, most of whom probably just forgot they were subscribed when I went silent. A few are more recent viewers who subscribed, not realizing that I wasn’t posting anything new.
It just never occurred to me that I could make money playing the guitar. I need to rethink this seriously.
With four and a half weeks left in the semester—the half-week because of Thanksgiving—teachers were all assessing what they had covered and how much they had to speed up during the remainder of the semester to finish their material. I was luckier than some. Teachers who had two-semester courses were a little more laid back than those who had to cover the remainder of their syllabus before December twentieth. Unfortunately, that meant my entrepreneurship class with Desi was being accelerated.
The good part was that I’d had no idea what to use as a sample business for my start-up plan and now I had an idea. I would create a music business. I was online half the time we were in class, researching how people made money in music. We didn’t need to have an elaborate plan, but it had to include a market assessment, product or service development component, market entry strategy, and sustainability plan. The biggest thing I was stuck on was deciding if my music was a product or a service. There was nothing tangible, though people could download and share the videos. The key element was finding a way to actually sell it instead of just accepting donations.
I had a long talk with Em on her birthday Saturday. I’d just finished a full 10k run, trying to get my pace down. I could run a 5k in 21 minutes. Nanette wanted me to hold just under that pace for 10k. Fortunately, at 7:30 per mile, she and Livy could run the same pace. Livy dropped out at 5k and walked the shortcut back to our car. I managed a 48-minute 10k and just dropped when I reached the car.
Livy dropped on top of me.
After we’d cooled down and stretched, we still had time to sneak off into the bushes and make love before Nanette finished her run. She looked at us a little strangely when we got in the car but didn’t say anything.
The shine was already wearing off Em’s new job. She’d had two weeks of on-the-job training, working with a driver who was a year older than her. She’d had the past two days making deliveries on the route alone.
“You know they say the army is all ‘hurry up and wait’? Well, driving this damn truck is the same way. I have to be at the warehouse by six in order to get in line to load my truck. Any later and the line will be so long I won’t get out until ten and then it will be seven p.m. when I finally finish the delivery. So, I’m in line at six with about five trucks ahead of me but the warehouse crew doesn’t show up until seven and it takes forty-five minutes before my truck gets to the dock. By the time I’m loaded, I get on the road at eight and can finish by five,” she said.
“Are you driving a big rig?” I asked.
“No. A twenty-six-foot delivery truck. Everything I’m involved with is getting fresh fruit and vegetables to the various camps. There are fifty thousand troops and sailors stationed within a hundred miles and their kitchens have to be stocked with fresh food daily. We deliver food that gets prepared for the next day’s meals.”
“Seems like they’d want it fresher than that. At least they aren’t having you deliver at four in the morning.”
“There’s been talk of that, but the harvest trucks are loaded in the field during the day and get to the warehouse around eight at night. They keep coming in from various fields all night long, depending on how far away they are. Having us load to deliver would jam the docks. What would really save everyone work, would be if the trucks from the fields just made the deliveries. But of course, that would mean no dispatcher in the middle and the kitchens would get five or six small deliveries a day instead of one since the trucks from the field usually only carry one product. Say, lettuce,” Emily said.
“It sounds incredibly boring.”
“I like the people. Most of them are my age or just a little older. We all have the same issues. There’s a whole fashion line of ‘Repeal 28’ clothing now. The supervisors have made threatening noises about getting rid of them, but a few are wearing them, too.”
“Say, Em, this will sound really off the wall but it’s something I forgot after the accident. I think maybe there was an association that I didn’t want to make. Did you know I have a YouTube channel?” I asked.
“Oh, J! You remembered! I was so afraid you had buried that part of your past. I helped you set it up. I was… I was uploading your last video when you… the accident,” Em sobbed.
“Would you be upset if I started doing it again?”
“No! I’d love it.”
“Then consider it a birthday present, my love. I’ll do one tomorrow morning.”
“Call me if you need help uploading! While I’m probationary, I have weekends off. In two months, I’ll probably get the grueling weekend shifts. That’s what usually happens to junior drivers. Either way, I’ll be tuning in to hear you play.”
I was committed. I called Livy and Nanette and told them I wouldn’t run until Sunday afternoon. When I told them why, they both promised to listen before we ran. I was not going to play live, so they could listen any time they wanted to.
I studied all seven and a half hours of V2’s videos and picked up where they were recorded and how. He used the computer cam. It wasn’t great quality and the camera never moved as he played. If this worked, I was going to buy a higher def camera and a good digital pickup. I reminded myself to put that in my business startup plan as a capital expenditure.
I had to bite my tongue in order to not say anything or to apologize. V2 had never spoken in any of the fifteen videos. I was going to stay as true to his style as possible. I wasn’t sure how much prep work V2 had done for each video. Obviously, he practiced what he planned to play, but he never announced the name of the piece or anything else about it. He just pushed the bed to one side and played in front of that graffiti wall. I would do the same thing.
This was more to me than just playing my guitar and a business proposal. In a way, this was a tribute to V2—the young man I’d never really known who gave his life so I could live. That’s how I thought of him now. He wasn’t just a younger version of myself. He was the tortured young artist I hoped never to become. He was a soul separate from my own. He begged the powers to let him die and give me his body. He left me this incredible talent and I determined to honor him with it.
I made a couple of goofs so bad I had to start over on a piece. That meant I had to do some editing. I was sure people would notice, but it wasn’t too bad. All I had to do was review the position I was in just before the piece started and get back in it as closely as I could. The video editing software on my computer was pretty good and I was able to make the edits without pulling out all my hair. Then I uploaded the video and went to have Sunday dinner with my parents.
Our Sunday afternoon run was an easy three-mile course and we ran together slowly enough for conversation. Both Livy and Nanette gave me a strange look when I got in the car. I checked to make sure my tackle was securely caught in my jockstrap. Once we were on the trail, the talk was all about the upcoming run. Livy had a basketball game Tuesday night, but we were off for Thanksgiving Wednesday through Sunday. We’d drive down to Bloomington on Friday morning and check out the course for the three races. I guess there was a fourth race—an ultramarathon—that started in Greencastle about four in the afternoon on Friday and the first runners were scheduled in Bloomington not long after the completion of the marathon.
I was seriously thinking about my AP US History homework by the time we got home. That was not to be. Livy’s car was at our house, of course. I also recognized Rachel’s and Joan’s. There were two other cars I didn’t recognize parked in front of the house. What the hell?
Peyton hit me like the sixty-pound dynamo she was as soon as I stepped up on the porch. I almost fell backwards off the steps.
“Hey, kiddo. What’s up?”
“It’s so beautiful. You won’t kill yourself, will you, J?” My little sister sobbed into my chest as I carried her into the house with Nanette and Livy right behind me. All our girlfriends were there. Livy’s parents and Rachel’s parents along with their younger siblings were there. Brittany’s sisters and aunt were there. The place was packed.
I heard guitar music. Turning toward the living room, I saw someone had connected my YouTube performance to the TV. There I was in all my glory, playing the guitar. I nearly threw up.
“You could have told us,” Beca said as she hugged me. “Did you think we wouldn’t want to know?”
“I… It just never crossed my mind.”
“Livy called me this morning as soon as she heard it,” Rachel said. “I called everyone else.”
“Not quite,” Mom interrupted. “Emily called me just after you left for your run. Jakey, I’m so proud of you.” Wow! This isn’t what I was expecting. Dad faced me, flanked by Randall Dayton and Bert Evans. Dad just looked at me and uncharacteristically folded me into his arms.
“My son. My son. My son has returned.”
The celebration of me posting half-an-hour of classical guitar music on YouTube was intense but, thankfully, short-lived. Everyone had other places to be. Each of my girlfriends, including Beca and Brittany, gave me deep kisses before they left. I thought Desi would eat my face. But eventually, they all left. I noticed Rachel and Livy left with Nanette and spent a lot of time standing by a car talking.
I couldn’t believe I’d made such a splash. Who even listens to classical guitar music? That was a question I needed answered. I went to my YouTube account and found the new piece. There were thirty comments under the video with 280 views already. Well, I figured fifty of those were people I knew.
“Imagine my surprise when this voice from the past appeared on my alerts. So glad to have J-Hop back with his incredible guitar.”
“Not quite as polished as some of his earlier work, but the sound of that guitar is unbelievable.”
“I disagree. He’s working with much more complicated material. I don’t think he ever played Mozart before.”
“Please tell us this isn’t a one-time come-back. I’ll pay!”
To say I was blown away… Well, figure out your own cliché. I was blown away.
I picked up Rachel to take her to the game in Huntington Tuesday after school. All other after school activities were pretty much cancelled for the holiday. We were off Wednesday and wouldn’t return until Monday. We watched our girls trounce Huntington and then headed back to Mad Anthony to pick up Livy after she’d showered.
“You get him Friday night in Bloomington,” Rachel said to Livy. Fortunately, the back seat of an Impala is roomy enough for a tall girl. Or two. And their boyfriend. “You can help all you want tonight, but I’m making love to our boyfriend.” I couldn’t argue with that. Or with Livy planting her blonde crotch on my mouth while Rachel rode me to completion.
“Okay, you two,” Nanette said as we entered the motel room. It had two queen-size beds but I wasn’t sure what the sleeping arrangements for the three of us would be. “I’m in this bed. Jacob is in that one. Livy, you’ll have to decide which bed will help your race the most. I’ll tell you this, though. If you choose my bed, you’d damn well better be quiet and go to sleep. And if you choose his bed, you’d damn well better be quiet and go to sleep. Now let’s go to the pre-race banquet.”
We left our overnight bags in the room and headed out to the restaurant where a huge spaghetti feed was underway. All we had to do was show our bibs and we got all the pasta and sauce we could eat. Nanette showed us exactly how seriously marathoners take carbing up before a race. I think she ate three plates of pasta—the last with just butter and seasonings on it—and had two beers. Livy and I guided her back to our room, stripped her—much to her feigned embarrassment—and put her in bed. Then we crawled in with her. None of us did anything else but go to sleep. Pressed up against Nanette, though, I went to sleep with a hard-on.
In the morning, there was no time for fooling around. The marathon start time was at eight o’clock. That was followed twenty minutes later by the half marathon start. I started twenty minutes after that for the 10k. Twenty minutes later—an hour after Nanette started her race, Livy took off in the 5k.
“Okay, Livy, you know how to run your race,” Nanette had said before the start. “There are a couple of veteran runners here who will burn the course in the 5k. Probably well under seventeen minutes. Get out there and run your race. Don’t let them get to you. Jacob, I want you to get to your seven-and-a-half-minute mile pace as quickly as you can. Use your watch to monitor. If you’re feeling good, pick up the pace for the last mile, but don’t try to sprint the end. We haven’t worked on that strategy. People might pass you in that last hundred yards, but let them. You are racing for a personal best.”
“Good luck, Nanette,” I said. I pulled her to me and gave her a loving kiss. Livy copied me as soon as I was done.
“Outrun the wet spot,” Livy joked.
“You guys just made my legs turn to jelly. Shame on you,” Nanette laughed. “Good luck.” She went to take her place at the start and in a couple of minutes she was off. We had to wait forty minutes before the start of my race. I was sure the fastest runners in my race would be crossing the finish line before Livy started the 5k. This was a mass run. Everyone in a race started at the same gun and it was timed gun to finish line. If you were in the back of the pack when it started, you pretty much had an automatic thirty-second penalty before you reached the starting line. Men and women started in a group but there were about ten divisions of each that were recorded and separated after the finish.
I was a little intimidated. I got off the line just a few seconds after the first runners and looked for an opening so I could get up to speed.
“Follow me,” an older guy said. “I heard your coach say seven-and-a-half minute miles. I can’t do the whole race at that but I can set your pace for the first mile.” I looked at him and he grinned. He moved between two other runners and I was right on his tail, matching him stride for stride.
I was glad he was ahead of me. Not only did he open a path for our run, he was good company. Not that we talked, but every so often he made a comment or encouraged me to pick it up. I saw he had a pace watch similar to mine that he kept glancing at.
“You’re on target,” he shouted as I pulled up next to him. “I have to cut back a little. Keep your pace and you’re golden.” I glanced at my watch as we passed the one-mile marker and crossed the mark at exactly 7:30. I thanked him and he began to slowly drop back. What a great guy!
We were lucky there were separate finish lines for each race. A few of the 5k runners were breezing by me before I saw the finish line. One of them was Livy.
“Go Livy Go!” I yelled at her. She didn’t turn her head, but I thought there was a little extra shake to her ponytail. I crossed the finish line a few minutes after her. The officials took my number and called out a time at the end of the chute. I couldn’t believe I’d turned a forty-four-minute 10k!
We still had an hour and a half to wait for Nanette as we stretched and massaged each other. When the half-marathoners started crossing the line about forty minutes after I did, the first of the ultra-marathoners came in. He’d run a hundred miles overnight. I knew that it would be late tonight before the last of that race made it across the finish line. This guy had made the hundred miles in a little over fourteen hours.
At ten past eleven, we saw Nanette pumping up the stretch. Another woman was matching her almost stride-for-stride but her strides were shorter. Nanette looked like the Goddess Nike pounding out the last hundred yards and opening up the distance between her and the next one in line.
We jumped up and down as we looked at the clock when she crossed the finish line. We’d get the official time later, but our reading said 3:12:30. She was amazing. We couldn’t touch her until the officials released her from the chute. Guys had been coming in for forty-five minutes, but I’d only seen three women cross the line before Nanette. She was awesome.
“Take care of me,” she whispered as she collapsed into our arms. That started with us walking her around, supported between the two of us. She’d already received a gold medallion, hung around her neck, that just indicated she’d finished a full marathon. Half-marathoners received silver medallions. We lowly 10k and 5k runners got finisher ribbons with a little silver pin.
When we finished walking and had gotten a full bottle of water down her, Livy and I started working her on post-race stretches and a four-hand rubdown.
“Yeah,” Nanette breathed. “I love your hands. Touch me anywhere. Everywhere.” Her eyes drifted closed and while Livy and I didn’t head straight for her crotch we certainly touched it subtly and made sure her breasts were included in her rubdown. Eventually, we made it to the refreshment tent with Nanette leaning heavily on us. Livy and I had Cokes and Nanette ordered a beer. “Livy, you’re the designated driver. I might need Jacob in the back seat.”
Of course, we weren’t headed back yet. It was only noon and race results wouldn’t be posted until nearly two. We just sat around rehydrating and talking. The results were awesome. My 43:20 put me in tenth place overall and first in my age group/sex division. Livy edged out her closest opponent in the girls 15-19 division at 23:10. Far from her fastest time, but most of the high school cross country runners weren’t in this race.
Nanette came in 80th overall—that includes men and women of all ages. She was first in the women 40-44 division.
“I love you,” Nanette whispered when we’d reached my house again. It was after dark and she’d reached to take both Livy’s and my hands. “I couldn’t have done this without you. Let’s not stop. Okay?”
“I don’t plan to stop running,” I said. “And I don’t plan to stop seeing you. Got that?” She smiled at me and Livy echoed my statement. “Start figuring out how you relate to a bunch of teens who want to ravish your body as well as gently loving being with you,” I finished.
Nanette kissed me with the kind of passion and heat I’d only experienced from her on my birthday. I was pretty sure the kiss Livy got was equal. We watched her drive away and I walked Livy to her Wrangler.
“A whole weekend and we didn’t have sex,” she sighed.
“Are you disappointed, love?”
“Only a little. I’m still on such a high that it’s hard to be disappointed. I’ll see you for our light run tomorrow. K?”
“Yeah. See you then.”
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