Running
From the President
By David Michael Wolach
There's
been some talk about President Bush's strenuous workout routine.
Much has been made of the fact that he can lap just about anybody-especially
Iraq War veterans with prosthetic limbs. Many of us search for
reasons as to why he is the President of the United States, how
such a stupid man could be in charge of our country, and when,
if ever, he might depart. We read newspapers and blogs; we listen
to pundits on the radio; we watch television for critical information-information
that is not forthcoming. But I remember the day in 2002 that he
used his weekly radio address to remind the nation that he routinely
runs 3 miles in 20 minutes 15 seconds. During the address, which
came on the heels of the White House's announcement of his then
promising Middle East Peace Initiative (now known as The Hitchhiker's
Guide to Nowhere), Bush made several "helpful" suggestions,
among them: "regularly hiking through a park can add years
to your life" and "you're a better worker if you exercise
on a daily basis." These remarks are filled with promise,
a promise of hope that we may find small clues leading us, perhaps
years from now, to the answers of our questions. Because since
then, Rumsfeld and Cheney, both prime examples of what a lack
of exercise can do, have on separate occasions leaked to the press
just how "fit" our American president is. But it was
during the radio address that I first saw something.
You see, back in '02, like most Americans, I was fat. I'd been
drinking and smoking too much, as our President did himself once
upon a time. I'd put on about 25 pounds during a four-year routine
that consisted of inhaling cannabis and eating generally microwavable
food-like substances. I was happily going on with my fat life,
stuffing my fat face, watching my fat self get dressed in the
mirror every morning-when it happened. Almost suddenly, I developed
this keen interest in running.
Let me explain.
It started with the radio address. I sat down in my beanbag chair
and for the first time really thought about what Mr. Bush was
telling me. I thought about the possibility of hiking through
the parks in my hometown, Detroit. What was he talking about?
Jogging through Palmer Park four out of five days a week was more
likely to take years off my life, given that Palmer had the highest
murder rate of any park in the United States at that time. Why
didn't my President think of that before making such a sweeping
generalization? Then I tried to imagine my mom having the luxury
to exercise on a daily basis. She'd been an employee at Detroit's
welfare services department for a quarter century, and for as
long as I could remember, she'd worked twelve-hour days, routinely
facing take-backs and layoff notices and unpaid overtime. Though
nice, I thought, some elliptical training wasn't likely to make
her a better worker. Maybe instead of laying off sixty percent
of her staff, the Department of Labor could have chipped in and
bought her a BoFlex, I wondered aloud.
And then, out of nowhere, my mom got sick. The official diagnosis
was Systemic Sclerosis. The street explanation of her suffering
is this: any-and it turns out, many-part of her body can be attacked
by her own immune system, such that immense swelling, pain, and
eventually total scaring, takes place. Over time this will kill
her. Wow! I began to realize, the only running she's capable of
is mental: her mind races through the labyrinthine maze of our
private system we call healthcare.
And so the question arose: Was George Bush so out of touch with
the American people that he thought they wanted to hear about
how fast he could make it from his ranch to the stable? Apparently
so. I was so ticked off that in spite of his cure-all advice,
I ran that day for the first time in years, ran right around my
neighborhood block I remember, huffing and puffing the whole way,
and afterwards I felt a little better. Sure, I was upset by the
President's cavalier attitude towards America, and to me and my
mom and my state with its failing economy, but by golly he got
me off the couch!
And so, after that, every time I needed some exercise but was
too lazy to do it, I read the newspaper for my daily dose of What
the Hell? Every day it seemed-whether the Republicans were highjacking
abortion rights or labor rights or gay rights-I suddenly felt
compelled to run. It was the same compulsion every time: read
what Bush had to say, feel insulted, run. By mid-winter I'd lost
10 pounds.
Then Bush Jr. started his war. He called it a war on terrorism,
and Cable News started to call it THE WAR ON TERRORISM, and right
around that time I spent my lousy $300 paycheck on my very own
gym membership. The timing was impeccable. There was a large TV
set up right above the treadmills, and Frank-the political savvy
owner of my gym-ran Cable News on loop. Thank God, because I wouldn't
have become the man I am today if it wasn't for Cable.
First came the axis of evil speech, and then came the unflinching
unilateralism, and then the up tick in cute cowboyisms, then the
focus groups (others called them protests), and then the killing,
and then some more killing, and then somewhere along the line
there was a dashing dismount from a fighter jet. What did I do
to protest? Nothing! Instead, every day-I became fanatical in
a way George was liable to approve of, I thought-I positioned
myself on the treadmill below the TV, waited for the heart rate
to kick up several notches, and ran. I ran as though I was going
someplace, as if I was running away from something and towards
something else, something better, more secure (later I would learn
to associate that place with Canada). In under a year I'd gotten
my running time down to 3 miles in 20 minutes 15 seconds-and I
was 25 pounds lighter.
It was all going well. George and his cronies were routinely pissing
me off, and like George himself, I was routinely running the 3
in 20:15. I was svelte. I was getting looks from women for the
first time in years. My self-image was so high I even considered
a future in politics. But then, sometime in late 2002, came this
communiqué from The White House: "It's interesting
that my [running] times have become faster after the war began,"
George said with a sly grin to a gaggle of reporters. "They
were pretty fast all along, but since the war started I have been
running with a little more intensity. And I guess that's part
of the stress relief."
Stress relief indeed. When you're in charge of killing thousands
of Americans, not to mention countless Iraqis, one would hope
that at least your jogging times will improve. But later in the
press conference George put a numerical value on his improvement,
and I was simply beside myself: he was now down to 3 miles in
20 minutes flat. Hell, I thought, what do I have to do to beat
this guy? Bomb an oil-rich country?
And so as the race for (and from) the White House began in earnest
in late 2003, it had become personal. George provided me with
the impetus, but now my only goal was to beat him. Like any good
running partner, he pushed me to my limit. Only thing is, what's
his limit? At first blush, it seemed as though the American people
were setting it-and therefore it appeared to be infinite. All
of it made me wonder. Like, is it possible that he's embellishing
his times? Is he so macho that he might lie to the American people
about how fast he can run? Can I trust him? Also, whether he's
a liar or not, who would I vote for in 2004? The choice was a
difficult one. In one scenario I voted my heart, which is to say
I'd do whatever it took to get this crusading nut-job out of office.
In the other, I went with vanity. Which is to say that at that
point, say in early 2004, I had the body of a young Barishnikov,
and if Bush lost, all that hard work would be liable to disappear-like
the surplus.
I guessed that if I had any hope of staying fit without George
the Crusader to sneer at, I'd had to set my sights on Kerry or
that other guy, whatever his name was. Kerry was sporty and shifty-once
in office he would probably turn his back on labor, I thought.
Maybe he would give me pause to exercise, but the downside was
that it didn't seem as though he'd be fit for such stiff competition-could
you see him in short-shorts and a pair of tennis shoes? Don't
answer that question. Of course, now we know the outcome of the
race. It was close, but only because the Republicans had agreed
to run it relay-style, and Cheney almost blew it for them in the
first lap.
A few years later I know why, of course, my mother was so critical
of my flip-flopping on the question of who to endorse with my
vote, and my absence from the late-night GOTV phone banks. First,
I lost my union rights and with them my job, then my brother was
stripped of his marriage license even though he's loving and faithful
to his husband, and if George has anything more to say on the
topic, he'd have him strung up on a cross in the middle of the
White House lawn.
And then finally, I too developed a systemic disease, and the
only solid hope for us in the long term is in the area of stem
cell research, which Bush deplores. Now, like my mom, I'm only
running in my mind: from doctor to doctor, provider to provider,
getting poorer, fatter, and more debilitated by the day. I gained
that 25 pounds back. I can't really walk that far without falling,
you see. And my left eye is so bad it doesn't know how to direct
my body. I won't talk about the pain or the tremor, or the brain
inflammation, because Who Cares? Right? Like a lot of stupid people
today, I wished I'd been running door-to-door in 2004 instead
of on that treadmill, ensuring that George lost the race. But
instead I was on that treadmill, a thing of the past for me, a
symbol of the life we lost, it seems, just yesterday...