Everything Abridged, page 2
“Sorry,” he said earnestly. “It helps with the stress. We’re only three hours away from the event.”
“You need to be more careful. Strentovia is counting on you,” she reminded him without looking away from her phone.
Adrian nodded, realized that she couldn’t see this, and then grunted. As the first and last athlete representing Strentovia in Tokyo, it fell to him to represent over one hundred thousand men and women. Every eye in Strentovia City—Strentovia’s only city—would be on him.
Moreover, he was part of the first Olympic do-over. The original Tokyo Olympics had filled stadiums, hospitals, and funeral homes with activity. Lawsuits followed. To save the soul of the games, the IOC announced a “grand reset.” The Japanese public remained unconvinced, while the Japanese government remained eager. The new prime minister called the event a “living tribute to the dead.” Adrian’s performance needed to live up to that ideal.
“Don’t forget to finish your milk,” she added. Adrian complied without hesitation, draining 250 mL of meldonium milk in fifteen seconds.
Marrying Trianna was a secondary, more closely guarded fantasy. Her refusal to make extended eye contact stirred his champion’s passion. It took a genius to manage the affairs of an internationally ranked racewalker. Moreover, she looked like a heavily made-up version of his mother. Adrian knew his Freud too well to deny the appeal.
He depleted the rest of his plate, bringing the total to an even 1,280 calories—1,350 if he counted the meldonium milk—but if there was ever a time to treat himself, it was now. A positive mindset was a racewalker’s best tool. Along with his feet.
“Want to go on a warm-up lap? You might be a layman, but I can teach you a few tricks.”
“I don’t do sports.” Trianna cleared another row of colored gems on-screen.
He’d have to ask the dating reactionaries for more advice later. Adrian retreated to his sparse bedroom and took stock. There were eleven duffel bags left, meaning the Olympic Village staff had stolen only one last night. At this rate, he would have at least six of his bags left when the games ended. A reasonable sacrifice for his country.
He saluted his flag without the irony of his countrymen. Medieval records marked Strentovia as a “kingdom of little import,” a label they had internalized throughout the ages. Charlemagne marched around it as he forged the Holy Roman Empire, and his successors never bothered threatening them into the young nation. Strentovia was subsequently forgotten during the unification of Austria and ignored by design during the unification of Germany. Their participation in both world wars amounted to sitting in the basement and waiting for the loud noises to stop. They were still waiting for an invitation to the European Union. The new millennium offered a chance for a new start, with something like dignity.
Adrian was less interested in contributing to Strentovia’s athletic legacy and more interested in defying it. The nation’s history of athletic failure went back to the 1970s, when their three-man delegation limped through the Munich Olympics. The delegation consisted of two reporters and one competitor, a sharpshooter named Kirk Hansi. Kirk sat out all five of his events, citing psychological trauma following the Israeli team massacre. This story might have held up if the reporters hadn’t released graphic images of Kirk’s adventures in the Olympic Village. The sharpshooter had made diplomatic contact with at least four European sprinters, one Ethiopian long jumper, and a pair of North Korean weight lifters. The cultural exchange did not involve clothing. From then on, Strentovia engaged the Olympics with the enthusiasm of a semiannual polyp check.
Throughout the next four decades of competition, Strentovia earned four silver and seven bronze medals. These happy accidents were invariably leveraged into starter positions on overseas teams. Once their new citizenships became official, the athletes discovered hitherto unseen senses of patriotism for their adopted homelands.
Adrian wanted to show the children of Strentovia something different. He would win, and he would stay. The Strentovian dream didn’t have to mean leaving Strentovia.
Especially if he was the last winner. Weaker souls wanted the 50km gone, for “humanitarian reasons.” Adrian could live with that, once he brought the final medal home.
He finished humming the last four bars of the national anthem, which was composed with quarter tones. Humming it properly typically required a semester of music theory, but Adrian was a patriot.
“Are you changed yet? The last ten years of your life are going to be pointless if we’re late,” chided Trianna. Adrian slid into his uniform and followed the call of love. He took care to walk: running was a habit that could cost him his dreams.
On his first day in Tokyo, Adrian had taken the obligatory tour of tourist traps. The experience left him with an enduring sense of guilt. Most of Shinjuku had the clean gloss twenty years of television had led him to expect. He could walk around at night without fear, dropping high-value coins every time he used a vending machine. But his dorm sat on the edge of Kabukicho, the former red-light district. And current red-light district. An army of pimps had offered him drinks, good food, local highlights, and bareback. The streetwalkers didn’t even mention the first three. Adrian had politely rejected all of them, since all this and more waited in the Olympic Village. But the brush with the edge had reminded him of how sheltered his world was. The streets the shuttle flitted by and the resort he lived in weren’t one city. They were barely one world. The Village cleaning staff’s quiet robberies were the one thing that let him feel human. As long as he paid his tithe to the gods of poverty that ruled outside the Village’s pastel-colored bubble, he could focus on his own struggle.
The journey to the marathon course took twenty minutes. Trianna intermittently jogged ahead, realized she was alone, and glared angrily over her shoulder. Adrian walked steadfastly, putting his nation ahead of romance.
He took a moment to appreciate the sun. Normally, Adrian made a vampire’s effort to avoid getting burnt. Strentovia’s finest indoor athletic track sheltered his training, exhibitions, and cell phone self-portraits. But the nature of the race made roasting a foregone conclusion. There simply was no way for a human of any complexion to complete a fifty-kilometer racewalk under the uncompromising summer sun without a mark. The SPF 125 glazing his skin simply served as a respectful nod toward the power and influence of skin cancer.
He felt the early tingles of a burn when they reached the starting line. Security held them for seven minutes; an enterprising guard felt the need to make sure Strentovia was a real country, going as far as asking Adrian to point it out on a map while they waited for word from management. Throughout the ordeal, Adrian kept his eyes on the stands. He’d never seen a racewalk crowd this size in his life.
“How big’s the course?” asked Trianna.
“It’s a two-kilometer loop,” answered Adrian. He tossed his visor behind him. His face might as well share the same color of burn as the rest of his body. “Relatively small. I’ll only have to complete it twenty-five times.”
“Remember to walk fast.”
“I can’t walk too fast. That would be running, which would shame the sport of racewalking and Strentovia itself.” Adrian waved to the crowd as he spoke.
A pained expression flashed on Trianna’s face and disappeared just as swiftly. Remembering Strentovia’s Olympic record tended to have that effect. He moved her up the list of names he had to represent today.
“Fucking sad,” she mumbled, returning to her cell phone.
“Only if we lose,” Adrian countered. Trianna considered something caustic, squinted, and finally nodded. Then she moved on to the rest stops with the other handlers, managers, and confused members of the press.
Adrian’s slot was in the third row from the front, a comfortable distance from the established walkers. The media favorites to win hailed from America, China, and Russia, with betting odds that corresponded loosely with their homelands’ spheres of influence.
Unlike the others, Adrian held no loud resentment for the great powers. He carried his resentment quietly, like a proper Olympian. While Adrian was stuck using outdated gutter enhancers like meldonium, the Americans had moved on to more sophisticated methods of cheating. The Russian and Chinese teams still flirted with meldonium, but only as a cost-cutting measure in events deemed expendable.
Grumbling on this topic dominated the lunches and orgies of the Olympic Village. Yesterday morning, a South African pole vaulter had almost ruined the simple joys of cunnilingus with a rant about her Texan rival, who espoused the joys of clean competition with needle-pockmarked triceps. Adrian had expressed nonverbal commiseration to the best of his ability.
The referee fired the warm-up shot, and the walkers began stretching as one. Adrian watched the American’s movement with a technical eye. The universe granted Matthias Harding expansive thighs and powerful calves. Adrian could only hope to match their force through superior training and unflinching effort. As the first hints of sweat pooled above Adrian’s eyes, Matthias showed no sign of exertion.
To his right, Trianna unfolded a plastic reclining chair and unhooked the Velcro straps on a six-foot-long golf umbrella. Her prudence lifted his spirit: a racewalker lived and died by his support staff. Adrian’s childhood hero, Elias Peralta, never properly recovered from the 1996 Games, when his water boy took a bathroom break during the thirty-second kilometer. Peralta’s coma lasted for three years, and his performance was never the same. When he’d only earned a bronze during the Sydney Games, Adrian knew the legend of the Brazilian Blur had come to an end.
“This is for Elias,” Adrian muttered.
“What about Strentovia?” asked Trianna. She’d moved on from her cell phone to a bulky hardcover novel. The cover featured a shirtless man without the quiet dignity of a racewalking champion.
“That goes without saying,” said Adrian.
The referee fired a second shot, warning the athletes to prepare for the third, starting gunshot. Adrian rolled his right ankle one more time before adopting his pre-race pose. It looked like standing to lay observers, but he applied twice the pressure to his left heel for a more energetic launch.
The third gunshot cut through his doubts. Adrian’s legs moved before his brain processed the sound, and he took his first step as an Olympian.
Adrian walked the first lap at half speed. It was a chance to feel out the resistance of the course and strength of the competition. Adrian slipped into the fourth row of walkers, confident in his ability to upset the formation over the next forty-eight kilometers.
Six kilometers in, a Canadian racer to Adrian’s left bent his forward leg. Adrian averted his eyes as the man fell to his knees and crawled off the course. The rules of the game were as unforgiving as they were simple. Straight leading legs, with at least one foot on the ground at all times. He hoped that his rival would find glory in the next race, or at least the next life.
At eleven kilometers, Adrian rejoined the third cluster of walkers without an increase in speed. Raw, foolhardy walkers had already wasted their energy on a starting lead and fallen victim to exhaustion. The Peruvian walker to his right had the glazed eyes, red skin, shallow breathing, erratic stride, and extreme sweat indicative of mid-race heatstroke. Adrian’s moderation had only earned him two of these symptoms.
At twelve kilometers, he surged to his maximum walking speed, taking advantage of the spiderlike limbs that made him king of the Strentovian circuit. Matthias wasn’t the only athlete with gifts.
Then the cull began in earnest.
Adrian wished to succeed, but it hurt to see others fall. Each walker that collapsed on the track held the same dream. The sun and stride took four victims during the twenty-second kilometer and showed no sign of slowing. He joined the second row of walkers with a leaden heart. Each ambulance speeding away from the race carried a brother.
He pumped his legs through three more laps and slowly left pity behind. His breath was steady when the South Korean walker passed out. His pace was unchanged as the Latvian walker started foaming at the mouth. His heart was unmoved when the rest of his row voided themselves, pushed to the limit of human endurance. They knew what it meant to step onto the field of honor.
Adrian’s own body finally began to complain. His heels screamed for mercy and went ignored. His eyes were sieged by sweat and sunlight, but the pain kept him sharp. He reminded himself that a comfortable walk could easily slip into a jog, and that would cost him everything. With a body temperature far past the point of fever, Adrian focused on the vision of gold.
He made it to the water stop. A cool stream of liquid hit him in his right eye, blinding it. Trianna fired three more shots from her water pistol, dousing the rest of his face with ice water. He gave her a thumbs-up that went unnoticed as she returned to her novel and reclining chair.
“Get going.”
He got going. The muscles in his thighs had torn open, but Adrian made it to the leading row of walkers. The German, Russian, and American front-runners were in a dead heat.
His soul swelled as he passed Germany’s walker. Each step erased centuries of half-smiling Strentovian impotence; Adrian’s people now had a chance to trade irony for pride. The German didn’t seem to recognize Adrian or his flag but smiled politely. Adrian ignored this gesture and pushed forward. Such was the privilege of the conqueror over the conquered.
Then the Russian walker threw up his hands and decelerated. Adrian glanced over his shoulder and found Antonov occupying the space between himself and the second row at a leisurely stride. The defection shocked Adrian more than any of the casualties. How could anyone leave at the edge of history? He couldn’t remember the name of a single bronze medalist.
Adrian felt his large intestine cave in. Mercifully, the chunks were solid and stayed sealed in his athletic shorts. There would be stains, but anyone could survive that level of humiliation. It was the liquid that tested his soul. Even now, preoccupied with the race, he could feel the stream trickling toward the earth.
Matthias glanced to the left, meeting Adrian’s eyes. The American’s shorts were chestnut brown, hiding any signs of digestive strife. But fashion couldn’t hide the smell.
“I’m impressed. Not every man can walk beside God,” wheezed Matthias.
“There is no God,” wheezed Adrian. After a pious lifetime, the truth stood clear.
They walked for some time. Behind him, Adrian heard cursing in every language he knew. He filtered it out. There was only one opponent worth watching, and Adrian had already memorized the intricacies of his walk. The countless hours of racewalking footage branded onto his brain told him enough.
In the semifinal lap, Adrian forgot Matthias. He forgot the audience, and the pain, and Trianna. Strentovia faded into memory. He simply walked. There was nothing else. The human story began crawling out of the tar pits and ended walking down the track. Everything else was an indulgent lie. Adrian’s legs moved freely, coated in enlightenment and urine. The smell of enlightenment was overpowering.
He heard a dull popping noise and then found his face against the ground. He turned upright and discovered his left shin spurting prodigious amounts of blood through the vertex of its mortifying new V shape. The other walkers tramped over and around him, providing mocking smiles and vicious glares as they limped past the finish line.
There wasn’t enough moisture left in his body to cry. Before blacking out from the pain, Adrian cursed the heroes of every country he could remember. He called Usain Bolt a fast monkey, Jesse Owens a slow monkey, Larisa Latynina a flexible whore, and Derek Redmond a codependent monkey. Once the cameras turned his way, he lambasted the IOC as a cabal of cocaine-addled inbreds and announced his excitement for the third world war. The blood had soaked into his jersey by the time paramedics arrived to drag him off the world stage.
Two days later he awoke in a hospital bed. His cell phone was missing from his personal effects, meaning he was still in the Village. Trianna arrived to check on him, whistling an overplayed Vangelis movie composition. She made direct eye contact, which meant she wanted something.
“The Paralympics are in two weeks, and Strentovia could use a racewalker.”
Apocalypse, the: An event hotly anticipated by evangelicals, survivalists, and debtors.
arson: Amateur urban remodeling.
art: Anything that lacks utility or popular appeal.
Author’s note: Anyone can be an artist. Half of marriages end in art.
Asia: Contains the majority of Earth’s land, people, and atomic standoffs.
austerity: The poor’s punishment for hoarding half the planet’s wealth.
authenticity: A resource mass-produced by branding agencies.
B
banter: Replacing conversational depth with one-liners.
barrio: Any community untouched by the gentle healing hand of gentrification.
baseball: An impossibly slow farm game popularized by America’s biggest and fastest metropolis.
Bastille, the: A glorified day camp for wayward nobles elevated to a symbol of tyranny.
Batman: The modern American’s main father figure.
bayonet charge: The innovative post-gunpowder tactic of running screaming across the battlefield with a big knife.
bile: An alkaline fluid that aids in digestion and op-ed writing.
billionaires: Local representatives of the king’s authority, given free reign over serfs in their territory.
Bipolar Tendencies
Prince Roland Nor prepared to meet the new president of the United States. Diplomacy was traditionally the queen’s domain, but an unforeseen and dangerous surplus of royal wine demanded executive attention. Roland’s mother risked life and liver to fight the threat, leaving him to greet their honored guest.
The prince stood before the palace steps and adjusted his bow tie. By his understanding, he was a year too young to vote in America, let alone hold any kind of office. If he didn’t know better, he’d think that his mother was using him as some kind of insult. But her wisdom put her above suspicion. In fact, considering the idea at all almost amounted to treason. He cursed his flimsy loyalty and vowed to repent in private.
