The Race

By M. E. Pickett

Capt. Steven Henry stepped down onto the pavement as a gust of wind blew dust in his face and the doors of the bus squeaked shut behind him. He squinted his eyes and looked around at the small, two story buildings that lined Main Street and grinned. He was a familiar stranger in a strangely familiar town. The town hadn’t changed much. In fact, it had hardly changed at all. But Steve always knew that this town was the place that progress forgot. The only difference that he could see was that the post office across the street was painted white, but even that new coat of paint was flaking to reveal the red coat underneath that he remembered. The town hall was essentially the same, except that it looked much older—but that building had been old since Steve was a kid.

Steve stood there for a moment in his decorated and freshly pressed uniform and gripped the smooth stone in his pocket that he had brought back for Nancy. Then, he readjusted his grip on his bag, and started down the street toward Nancy’s house. Some of the store fronts that lined Main Street had been remodeled, and there were many products behind the windows that still looked to him like they should be in some sort of science fiction movie, but the stores themselves were still the same.

Not many people were in downtown—if you could even call it a downtown—but Steve wasn’t surprised. It was late in the afternoon, and most of the stores had already closed for the day. Every once in a while, though, he saw a car drive by, or a shopkeeper locking up. Two women rounded a corner about a block away and continued in his direction. The one on the left was wearing a long, bell-shaped dress that perfectly fit her portly figure. She had short, brown, curly hair that stuck to her head like a shower cap. The other woman—now that they were coming closer, Steve guessed that she was legally considered a woman—wore jeans that showed off her curving hips, and her silky blond hair fluttered loosely about her shoulders. As they walked past, the older woman—who Steve guessed was the girl’s mother—didn’t even look at him, but a grin slid across the girl’s face and she looked him over out of the corner of her eye. Steve grinned as he walked past, too. At least some things would never change.

Steve didn’t really expect anyone to recognize him. His starship had landed back on Earth over a month ago and even if there had been fanfare—like Steve had expected when he left—that was enough time to let it settle down. Those first few weeks had been hard. Learning that your successful mission was considered obsolete is hard to swallow, but in the fifty years that Steve had passed over in six months, the technology of space travel had improved by leaps and bounds. Once man broke the light barrier with the sub-space engine, there was no limit to the speed of his ambitions. With that technology, other explorers had gone farther than Steve, and had come back in a matter of months. People now thought of light-speed travel as Steve used to think of going to grandma’s house in a train.

But even then, people might have been interested in a lost hero from the past who finally returned if the heroes of the Titan mission hadn’t returned the day before. Now, there was a story. A group of men banding together to salvage their wrecked ship enough to make it back home to their worried families. If Steve’s life had been in danger, or if there had been a chance that he might never make it back to earth, he might have gotten at least a little press. But as it was now, he was small news. Not even that; he was history—a single paragraph side note in the history textbooks that was hardly even mentioned in schools. Steve had always wanted to make history, but this wasn’t what he had in mind.

Steve passed the town General Store, with its wood shingles and faded sign and thought that things could have been worse. He could have been stuck in this tiny little town his whole life, like Josh Templeton. Steve was tempted to go into the store, just to see the look on Josh’s face. To see the agony of defeat in his eyes. It’s not too hard to win a race when the other racer never even leaves the starting line, but that didn’t change the fact that Steve had won.

#

Steve ran down the street, dirt smeared on his scowling face, as his size seven canvas tennis shoes slapped the sidewalk beneath him. Josh was still within reach in front of him. Steve could catch up. He wouldn’t be beaten this time. He forced his legs to work faster, push harder. His throat started to burn and his eyes started to water. It didn’t even feel like he was in control of his legs anymore. They just pumped faster and faster, and Steve was almost afraid that he wouldn’t be able to stop them. But, no matter how hard he pushed, he couldn’t get any closer. He couldn’t narrow the gap.

Finally, Josh started to slow, and Steve thought he had given up. At least, until he came to a stop with his hand resting on the handle to the General Store’s new glass door. Steve stopped pumping energy into his legs and they slowed to a stop. He gasped for breath as he rubbed the moisture from his eyes. When Josh lifted his head, Steve jerked his hand away from his face.

“Nice race, slug!” said Josh, between deep breaths, smiling. “That makes twenty-two times I’ve beat you. What to make it twenty-three?”

Steve tried to stand up straight and control his breath so that Josh wouldn’t know how winded he was. He really wanted to fall on the ground and suck the air like a vacuum. “Well, it shouldn’t be very hard to win when you cheat.”

“Cheat?” asked Josh. “What are you talking about?”

“You cheated,” said Steve looking him in the eyes. “You’re a filthy cheater.”

“I didn’t cheat. I won fair and square.”

“So, bumping me back there is fair and square?”

“You bumped into me,” said Josh, taking his had from the door handle and stepping toward Steve. “If anything, you’re the cheater.”

“I didn’t bump nobody,” said Steve, taking a few steps toward Josh. “You’re a liar and a cheater.”

“I ain’t no liar,” said Josh, now standing only inches from Steve, “and I won fair and square. You’re just a piss poor loser.”

“I ain’t no loser!” Steve gave Josh a shove and the boy fell back into the glass door. A crack shot out from where Josh’s back hit the glass.

“What the heck is wrong with you?” Josh demanded.

“Nobody calls me a loser!” Steve raced forward and grabbed Josh by his shirt, pulling him away from the door. He was so furious that he could hardly even see Josh’s face.

Suddenly, the door opened and Mr. Templeton reached down to separate the two boys. He held on to Steve by the wrist, and bent over him. “What is going on out here?”

“Let go of me!” Steve shouted.

Mr. Templeton jerked on Steve’s wrist. “You calm down, boy, and look at what you did!” He moved out of the way so Steve could see the cracked pane of glass. “You going to pay for a new door?”

“I ain’t paying for nothing!” Steve jerked his wrist free and started running down the street.

“Your parents are going to hear from me, boy!” Mr. Templeton yelled after him.

#

Thinking of that day made Steve cringe—especially when he thought of the black eye his dad had given him that night. It wasn’t for breaking the door; it was for letting Josh beat him. Henry’s weren’t losers. Henry’s win. Steve’s dad never did pay for that door, claiming that that rotten Mr. Templeton deserved it. He always said that they were a family of cheaters, and now they expected him to pay for their boy’s cheating ways. He was going to have none of it.

Steve never lost a twenty-third time to Josh. Steve decided that night, as he lay crying on his bed with a black eye, that he would never let Josh beat him again. They never raced again, but in everything else they did, Steve won. When Josh was going to try out for quarterback in high school, Steve tried out too—and won first string. When the rumor was that Josh was going to go after Nancy, Steve went after her too—and won again. Steve had never lost to Josh again after the day of their twenty-second race.

As Steve passed the General Store, he guessed that Josh was still working there, just like he had been when Steve left for his training.

Climbing onto that bus in his new uniform was one of the greatest moments of Steve’s life. He had looked out from his seat and bid a fond farewell to this Podunk little town. But the best part was seeing the look on Josh’s face. It was the same look Josh had always given him when Steve won all the awards and Josh got nothing. Only this time, it was even better. This one was the killing stroke. Steve could see him through the windows of the general store. The wishful look on his face was something that Steve would never forget. Victory sure is sweet.

Of course, Josh probably could have gone on to bigger and better things too, had his father not died right before graduation. He had no money for college, and he had to stay and take care of the family business to support the rest of his younger brothers and sisters. He may have been dealt a bad hand, but that’s all you get to play with. Steve hadn’t been dealt the best hand either, but he had reached the stars. That may not have been all that significant to the rest of the world now, since others had gone farther than him, but at least he had beat Josh.

Steve turned down Chestnut Street, and continued toward his destination. As he walked down the street, he saw house after house with cracking paint, patchy lawns, and broken screen doors. He had to stifle a chuckle. Nearly every other garage door was broken and gaped permanently open, exposing what looked like a dusty warehouse inside. No one ever threw any of their junk away around here. You never know when a broken down lawn mower might come in handy. A few dirty, snot-nosed kids ran around playing football, or basketball, or whatever game kids played nowadays. They were probably responsible for most of the damage done to all the houses. Steve silently laughed as a man banged out of his house with a big shiny black bag in his hand, yelling something about having to take out the garbage every night. He felt bad for all the people living in those shacks, and feeling bad for them made him feel better.

Finally, he strode up the familiar road to his destination. The house looked basically the same, except the windows were new—at least they had been new at one point since the time Steve had seen them last. The black, cast iron railing around the cement porch, which had been sleek and shiny when Steve was here last, was now rusted in the corners and wobbly because of a few missing screws. As he walked up the concrete steps, he remembered the old wooden bench that used to be in the far corner on the other side of the door. He had had a lot of good times in that bench. But the last time he had sat there is what made him come back.

#

Steve sat there in his uniform with his legs spread wide and his left arm draped across the backrest. The envy of every other guy in town—especially Josh Templeton—sat next to him, fighting hard to hold back her tears.

“But I love you Steve,” Nancy Albright, said. “I thought we were going to get married, and start a family someday.”

“Why would you want to do that?” asked Steve defensively. “All they do is drag you down, Nan. And I wanna go up. See the stars. Go places where no one’s ever gone.”

“I thought maybe you were coming home for good.”

“Nancy, I got out of this place so that I wouldn’t be stuck here my whole life.”

“So that’s it then?” she said. Steve couldn’t ignore the hurt expression on her face.

“What’s it?”

“So you’re just going to fly off into space and I’ll never see you again?”

“Don’t you get it, Nancy?” Steve said as he rose to his feet and turned to face her. “This is the chance of a lifetime. A lifetime! More than that; it’s the chance of a millennium, of the whole history of the world. It’s the first time that man will travel at the speed of light, and I get to do it. Do you understand what that means? I’ll go faster than anyone in the history of the world. I’ll go to places that no one’s ever even dreamed of. I can’t do that staying here in this piece-of-junk town all my life. You can’t ask me to pass this up.”

Nancy sat there, staring blankly at the ground. She didn’t say anything for a long time, and Steve considered walking off. Instead, he just stood there, motionless. He thought that this would be a lot easier if she would just say something.

Finally, she broke the silence. “You’re right, Steve,” she said in a slow, deliberate tone. “I can’t ask you to pass that up.” Then, her eyes shot up, cold and hard, into his. “But I shouldn’t have to.” She came to her feet, and was in the house before Steve could even react. The door slammed behind her, just as he was about to reach out to stop her. He heard the door lock. He grabbed the knob and turned it, but it did no good. “Come on, Nancy, open up,” he said through the door. Nothing moved, but he knew she was sitting against the door, just like she always did when she got like this. He knocked lightly. “Nancy, just open the door.” Nothing happened. He knocked harder. “Come on, Nancy.” When he again got no response, his frustration boiled over and he hit the door as hard as he could. His knuckle left a dent in the wood. “Why can’t you just be happy for me?...huh? I thought at least you would be.”

She didn’t say anything in response. Then, Steve heard something very faint, but it was getting louder. It was the sound of sobs coming from inside the door. “Give me a break,” Steve muttered under his breath and started for the porch steps. He came to a stop right at the head. He stood there for a moment, not knowing what to do. Is this how he wanted to leave? It defiantly hadn’t gone according to plan. He had to think of some way to make it better. He always did. He reluctantly turned and went back to the door.

“Nancy, I—”

How could he fix this?

“I’ll bring you back a space rock, or something.”

The sobs only got a little louder.

“Fine!” he said stronger than he had intended, and stormed off into the night.

#

Now he stood at that same door again. He could tell by the dent in the wood that it was the same door. It had been painted over recently, though, but not all that well. He rapped lightly on the uneven wood, and grabbed hold of the smooth stone in his pocket. Someone stirred inside. The door opened to reveal a short, portly woman. Steve could see a few grey streaks in her short, brown hair and a few fine wrinkles in her face. “Yes? What can I do for you?” the woman asked.

“Uh...hello.” Steve suddenly didn’t know exactly what to say. “I’m looking for Nancy Albright. Is she here, by any chance?”

The woman looked a bit puzzled. “Why? Is she in some sort of trouble?”

“Oh! No,” Steve said, remembering how he must look in his uniform. “I’m just her...uh...I’m an old friend. Does she still live here?”

“No, she moved out when...you mean Nancy Templeton, right?”

That took Steve off guard. “What? No, no,” he tried to gather his thoughts. “I mean Nancy Albright. She used to live in this house.”

“Yeah, that’s Nancy,” said the woman. “But she moved out when she got married almost fifty years ago.”

“Married?” Steve asked, trying not to sound too obsessive about it.

“Yep,” said the woman. “But they just moved down the street. She lives in that house right there.” She was pointing down the street, but Steve couldn’t focus on what house she was talking about.

“A—and she lives there with...with Josh?” he asked.

“Yessir. Well, that is until Josh passed away a few years back. Did you know him?”

“I...uh....” Steve didn’t know how much he wanted to explain. “I had heard of him a few times.”

“Figures that people would talk about him,” said the woman with a smile. “He was a great man. We all loved him. He was like a grandpa to my kids. We still miss him around here. I can’t believe how well Nancy has taken it all. She is quite a remarkable woman herself. I guess they were made for each other.” She paused for a moment, then said, “But, look at me babbling on and on. I’ll go ahead and let you go.”

Steve started to back away as he muttered, “Thank you,” but then realized that he still didn’t know which house the woman had pointed out as Nancy’s. “Wait, which house did you say she lives in?”

“She lives in house 156,” said the woman, pointing down the street. “It’s that tan-ish house right there.”

“That one?”

“Yep. Right there.”

“Thank you.” Steve turned to the woman and hesitated for a second, not knowing the protocol for ending the conversation. Since he couldn’t think of anything else to do, he extended his hand. The woman looked at it, perhaps a bit taken aback, but finally reached out and shook it.

“And what was your name?”

“Steve.”

“Well it’s a pleasure to meet you, Steve. My name’s Cheryl. If you need anything else, you can come by and ask me.”

“Thank you,” said Steve as he took his hand back and turned to go.

“Oh, wait!” exclaimed the woman. He stopped. “Nancy won’t be home yet. I’m sure she’s still at that store of hers.”

“Which store is that?”

“The General Store over on Main Street. She’s there most of the day. If you’re looking for her now, that’s where you’ll find her.”

“Okay. I’ll go there, then.” Steve started down the steps as Cheryl yelled to him, “Good luck.”

Steve hadn’t been in the General Store since the fight with Josh. His dad had forbidden it. The Templeton’s had owned that store for at least a hundred years, and there was no way a Henry was going to give any money to those cheating dogs. Steve had secretly wished that it would go out of business.

However, this store is what had allowed Steve to beat Josh in the real race. It had kept Josh trapped in this little town, while Steve got out. Josh had done nothing with his life. He had tended a store day after day for who knows how many years, and had nothing to show for it. So, he had married Nancy, but no matter what that woman back there said, she had probably been miserable the whole time. She had probably wanted him to kick the bucket, just so she could get rid of him. She was probably counting the days until Steve came back with the space rock, just as he had promised.

Steve walked up to the swinging glass door, which was smudged with fingerprints, and pulled it open. A little brass bell chimed above his head. Inside, the store looked almost the same as Steve remembered it. The candy rack, the drink fountain, and the light grey floor tiles were practically unchanged, except for over fifty years of wear. The speakers in the ceiling went in and out as they lightly spurted out music that Steve had never heard. He didn’t see anyone else in the store, and with only six aisles, there weren’t many places to hide. Then, he heard a sound coming from the household goods aisle.

Steve peered down aisle two and saw a grey-haired woman kneeling on the tile floor, stocking light-bulbs. He hesitated before walking toward her. The old woman heard his footsteps and glanced up at him.

“Why hello, there,” she said to him, in a shaky voice. “Is there something I can help you find?”

Steve took a few steps toward her before answering. “Um...probably.”

She turned her body and lifted one knee off the ground to face him. She looked up at him with hauntingly familiar eyes. “What are you looking for?”

“W—well, I’m actually looking for somebody. Nancy Al—uh...Templeton.”

The old woman’s face brightened up. “Well, then you have come to the right place, son.”

“So, she’s here?” asked Steve, now a little afraid of the answer.

“Of course she is,” said the woman, coming to her feet, which required some effort. “She’s standing right in front of you.” The old woman extended her wrinkled hand. “What can I do for you?”

Steve looked down at her hand. He didn’t reach to shake it; he merely stared at it. There was no way that the knarled hand in front of him could possibly be the same hand he had held so many times. That hand was soft and delicate, whereas this hand looked like an old tree branch. But, he wondered if he tried to remember what he had expected to find. If he had actually thought that time would pass her by. He couldn’t force himself to grasp her hand. Instead he pulled the gem out of his pocket and placed it in her palm. She looked at it, surprised.

It was a dark, transparent stone with an explosion of bright white in the middle. It looked like a supernova, caught in a stone. Ever since he had seen it for the first time, Steve knew that he would bring it to his girl back home. The only problem was that she wasn’t a girl anymore. And by the surprised way she looked at the stone, Steve could tell that she hadn’t waited every day for him to walk through the door and bring it to her.

“I brought that for you,” Steve said in a sterile tone, and turned his back on her.

As he made his way through the cleaning chemicals, she called out, “Hold on, son.”

Steve stopped, though he wasn’t sure why.

“What’s your name?”

Steve stood there for a minute. Then he heard himself say, “My name is Steven Henry.”

The gem clanked against the floor. After a moment, Nancy muttered, “Well, I’ll be.” Then she said to Steve, “Turn around so I can get a good look at you.”

Slowly Steve turned to face her. She examined his face as he examined hers. Besides the eyes, he couldn’t see the girl he used to know under all those wrinkles. That girl was gone forever.

“My word,” she said as she stepped closer. “You haven’t changed at all. That’s why I didn’t recognize you. All the rest of our friends are old—or dead. I guess you found the fountain of youth, didn’t you?”

“I guess.”

“How—how long has it been for you? Since you left?”

“About six months, give or take.”

“And how long has it been here?” Nancy muttered, looking beyond Steve and out the front windows. “It’s been at least fifty years.” She looked back at Steve. “Fifty years in a few months? What—how does it...feel?”

“It’s pretty weird.”

“My word.” She paused. “I never thought you’d be back here.” She looked down at the tiles, and then back at him. “I didn’t even hear about your ship coming back.”

“Not many people did.”

There was another awkward pause while Nancy just stood there shaking her head in disbelief. Finally she exclaimed, “Look at you. You’re still a young buck and I’m an old widow. I have kids older than you. Has anyone filled you in on what’s happened in the last fifty years?”

“A little.”

“What have you heard?”

Steve didn’t want to say it, because he knew it would come out with an edge, and he didn’t want to sound like that. He wanted to be gone from there, even though he had no idea where he could go. Anywhere would be better than this store, though. Despite himself he said, “I heard you married Josh.”

Nancy looked taken aback. “You say that like it bothers you,” she said with a slight chuckle.

Steve turned away from her. “So what if it does?”

She didn’t say anything for a minute. Finally, she asked, “Did...you think I was going to wait for you?”

“Ye—” Steve started to say, but then realized how foolish that sounded. “No.”

“Then, what did you think you’d find here?”

“I—” Steve struggled to grasp what he really had hoped to find. “I don’t know, but I didn’t think you’d go and marry that scumbag, Josh Templeton, the day after I left.”

“Steve, I didn’t marry Josh the day after you left.”

“That doesn’t make any difference.” Steve turned to face her. “You were supposed to...to...”

“Be miserable without you?”

Steve stopped as he realized that she had said exactly what he had hoped to find. That he had hoped that he life would end once he left.

“Sorry to disappoint,” she said, “but I have had a very happy life.”

Steve looked down at the ground and muttered, “So you forgot me just like everyone else.”

“I didn’t forget you Steve,” Nancy said as she craned her head so that he would look her in the eyes, “but I moved on. The last time you saw me, I was just a naïve young woman. At least, I was more naïve than I am now. But I came to realize that you weren’t going to be a part of my life. I didn’t want to accept it for a long time, but I finally did. And I’ll be honest with you, Steven, it broke my heart. But I got over it, and found that there was still a wonderful life in store for me. A life full of happiness, and peace, and family and love. That’s not to say that there weren’t any hard times, but those just made the good times better. Steve, while you were out discovering the galaxy I was back here discovering what life is all about.”

“But how could you marry Josh Templeton?”

“Well...I hope you take this as advice, rather than criticism, but Josh was everything you weren’t for me. And that’s why I married him. He was the best thing that ever happened to me. I know you always said he was a dirty cheater, but if he was, he must have changed a lot since you knew him. He was responsible and caring and gentle. He knew that love is more about being willing to make sacrifices for others, rather than holding onto a person like a trophy.” There was a long silence. Steve couldn’t think of anything to say. Instead, Nancy continued, “I guess you learn those things when you get as old as I am.” She started walking past him. “Follow me,” she said as she motioned for him to follow with her hand. “Oh, and could you pick up that stone and bring it with you?”

Steve found the gem and followed her down the aisle to the front of the store. Nancy was remarkably mobile for how old she looked, but there was still a noticeable slowness to her pace. It was almost as if she were enjoying a meandering walk through a fragrant flower garden. Steve had to cut his pace in half to stay behind her.

Finally, she came to the cash register, which was in the front corner of the store. There were a few shelves behind it with a few of Nancy’s personal touches as decorations. She stepped behind the register. Steve could hardly make out its digital readout that read “Welcome.” It had seen better days—probably about fifty years ago. Steve stopped at the register, like a customer.

“May I have my gem, please?” Nancy asked with her hand out.

Steve placed the rock in her hand. She took it and started to turn toward the shelves behind her. “It is beautiful, by the way.” Then she turned back to look him in the eyes. “Thank you.” She reached up and placed it in on the shelf, careful to arrange it so that it wouldn’t fall off, as Steve muttered a “you’re welcome.”

“There,” she said when she finally had it situated perfectly. “Now I can brag to my customers that I know someone who’s been to another planet.” Steve’s face must have looked very disbelieving. “Perk up, kid. You look like you’re on your way to a funeral.”

“I kind of feel that way.”

“Look, I don’t want you to walk out of here thinking that you are a horrible person. Because you’re not. We were just kids and we had different plans for our lives. I didn’t understand that at the time, either, but you’ll come to realize it soon enough. I wanted to settle down and have a family and found someone else who wanted the same thing. You wanted to go conquer the world...or the galaxy, more like it. You had a dream and you went after it. That is a very admirable quality. I loved it here and wanted to stay, but that doesn’t go for everybody who lived here their whole lives. Some of our old friends only stayed because they couldn’t get out. They lacked the drive to do what they wanted with their lives. You didn’t.”

“Yeah, but what did I get for all that drive? Nothing?”

“Only you can know that.” She didn’t say anything and Steve let her last words sink in. He wondered if he had gotten anything, and what he would do now. Nancy started and said, “Oh, I almost forgot what I wanted to show you.” She reached up to the shelf and pulled down a framed picture. Showing it to him, she said, “Here is my pride and joy. The kids are older than they look here, but at least it’s a picture of the whole family together. Before they went off on their own lives, and before Josh passed away.” Steve saw their three kids—all in their early to late teens—and Nancy and Josh—looking younger than Nancy looked now, but her hair was still turning grey. They certainly looked like one big happy family, all dressed in their white shirts and jeans.

“You know...he said that he always felt like he was in a race with you growing up. Josh. That if he let up at all, you’d leave him in the dust.”

“Yeah?” Steve was surprised to find that he didn’t really care about what Josh thought anymore.

“He sure did have a lot of respect for you, though. He wished he could have gone up there with you. Seen the stars. Visited other planets. Not that he wasn’t happy here. He made a decision and he never regretted it. But still, there was a part of him that wished he could have gone.” She paused for a moment, then exclaimed, “Oh my, look at the time. It’s time to close up.”

The sky was nearly dark outside. A faint glimmer still remained from the setting sun. “I guess it’s time for me to go, too.” Steve turned to leave.

“Well, I guess you won, huh?” Nancy asked as she started cleaning up.

“Won what?”

“The race.”

Steve turned his body to face her, but kept his eyes on the distant orange sky. Finally, he said, “I’m actually starting to wonder about that myself.” He glanced back at her, and their eyes met one last time, before he left the store with the bell tinkling above him.