Super-Man’s
last run
I have been
thinking of how to write this, started,stopped,deleted,started,stopped,deleted…you
get the picture. Then the other day I was with my kids, and they broke it for
me. The tatters of my life…that is what I thought…the tatters of my life. I
looked at my son and my daughter as they sat on the couch and I flashed back to
my sister and I at that age, and the my
life became the tatters of our life.
Jenny and I, tatters is a good word for it, had a fucked up childhood. I swore
that when I had children they would never have to go through what we went
through, never. Well I don’t get to decide some things and they get to experience
some of the things I did, not the really bad, but the not so good of growing up
in a divided family, tatters.
As
I looked at Chase and Karley it occurred to me that I had the opportunity to
give them something from my childhood that wasn’t fucked up, a good dad. I had
a good dad; no I had an amazing dad! Growing up he was larger than life. And that
never left me. He was larger than life. Really, just ask his friends and
family.
Dad watched me
killing myself and it tore him up, I felt guilty for living a life that was
killing me and I had to treat him poorly. If I was angry, and fucking loaded to
the gills, at him I didn’t have to feel guilty, and I didn’t have to feel the
pain and shame that I felt from disappointing him. I feared that more than
anything else in the world, dying scared me less. What I didn’t know was that I
didn’t have to feel that way. He loved me; he wasn’t disappointed he was scared
and angry that he couldn’t protect me from myself. As a father I now understand
that, as a child I didn’t.
About
nine years and three months ago my life crumbled sufficiently that I needed
help, serious help. I drove to my dad’s house and told him that I had spent the
last month using and that I needed to leave my fiancé, and I needed help
getting sober. I needed a safe place to go, and dad was my safe place. He was,
and is my hero.
My
father always did shit that would just leave me thinking how the fuck did he
just do that? Throughout my life he was that way. He did drugs and partied like
a rock star…and survived it! He was a gifted mechanic. He could ski backwards
better than I will ever be able to going forward. He was a fucking Abrams tank,
super-man. One Day he ran out our front door and jumped over the railing, while
ducking under the roof beam and hit the ground running. By the time he hit the
road I saw the little red car that had been tearing up and down our quiet
suburb road coming, they had to be going about forty, at a full tilt run dad
dove into their driver side window as they hurtled past. He grabbed the key and
tore it out of the ignition, and then back out the window he went. When the car
finally rolled to a stop he calmly walked up to the car, handed the driver his
keys back and told them he never wanted to see them in his neighborhood again…we
never saw them again.
He was larger than life. At a few years sober
he quit smoking. He needed to feel ok with the not smoking so he started
running. Within six months he ran the Portland marathon. He was a fricking Abrams
tank. Shortly after that he started running ultra-marathons. For those of you
who don’t know what those are, an ultra-marathon is any race that is longer
than twenty six point two miles. I’m not sure what his first ultra was, but I
know what his longest was. Badwater…the Badwater ultra-marathon is a one
hundred and thirty five mile race starting in the Badwater basin in Death
Valley Calafornia, and ending on, or near the top of Mount Whitney. He was super-man!
I
also know the name of his last run, Mcdonald Forrest 50K. I happened to live
with him at the time. And for some reason I had to get up, not sure if it was
for bathroom, or drink but I never get up that early. Four A.M April twenty-sixth
two thousand three was the date of the race and the time I woke. Dad was
getting ready to walk out of the house when I came out of my room. We said hi
to each other, and I told him to have a good race, that I loved him, and good
bye. He said the same to me and left.
The
phone started to ring, and for some reason the ringer was on in my room so it
woke me. On the line was a man asking for my step mother, Vivian. I told him
she was not home and that I could take a message. The man then asked for her cell
number. I told him that I don’t just give out her number to strangers and he
could leave a message. He insisted and finally frustrated I told him that there
was no way I was giving him the number and either he could say what the fuck he
wanted or byby.
“Scott Diamond, is
my name,” he said “and I am a running friend of Scott McQueeney, I need to talk
to his wife Vivian, it is really important!”
“I
am Scott’s son, what is wrong?” I was starting to go from anger to worry
“Scott
had a heart attack and I really need to get ahold of Vivian, she needs to come
to the hospital in Corvallis….”
Things
are a bit fuzzy after that, time did funny things. I am pretty sure I called
Vivian, and woke up Shannon (my younger sister), but the next thing I remember
is getting into Vivian’s car and leaving to go to dad. I offered to drive
because I needed something to do with the world crushing adrenalin running
through my veins. But I think Viv needed the same thing so she said no and
drove.
That was the longest
drive of my life. Eighty one miles, give or take a few, is the distance we had
to travel. And Viv drove the speed limit the whole way. I wanted to scream…HURRY
THE FUCK UP HURRY THE FUCK UP HURRY THE FUCK UP! Had I been driving we would
have been going over a hundred easy. Hurry the fuck up. The family was being
called, I think by me. Hurry the fuck up. Speedometer reading sixty-five, no variance.
Hurry the fuck up, don’t you know my dad has had a heart attack! Hurry the fuck
up I need you to be going faster faster don’t you know! Hurrythefuckuphurry up
hurry up hurry up for eightyone miles that was what was screaming in my mind as
we rolled down the road at that snail’s pace. Please hurry I need to get there…please.
Fuck this is hard,
it is nine years to the day and I can steal feel the boiling raging thing that
was rampaging through my soul on that drive. I didn’t say a thing; thank
everything anyone has ever held holy that I didn’t. Vivian was his wife, his
love, and he was hers. She was feeling that soul swallowing thing as well.
We pulled into the
parking lot and Viv couldn’t find a parking space and she started to crack. Not
even thinking I told her to stop and to get out, that I would find a spot. She and
Shannon went inside and I parked the car. I ran to the front door…the doors
opened just as Vivian started screaming. And I knew…I knew, he’s dead,
Super-man is fucking dead, my hero, my safe place, my dad…dead.
The family was coming
from Portland and Bend. Aunt Nancy and grandma were the next to show up. Jenny
and Jason showed up and I met them in the parking lot, I had to tell my older sister
that our hero was dead.
Dad ran the race. There
is a picture of him at about mile thirty and he was in good spirits. Under a
beautiful oak tree he crossed the finish line of his last run, looked up and
dropped dead.
I hate that tree,
I know that is a stupid thing to say, but it is true. My safe place died there,
I hate that tree.
Scott Douglass McQueeney
Scooter
11-4-55
4-26-03
A good man
A good father, husband, friend, son.
My hero, and my model for life.
My dad.
On borrowed time
I said I love you
He said good bye
Walked out the door
Until that day he had
been
On borrowed time
A deal had been made
A bargain struck
Under the oak
He went home
Chris McQueeney 2011
To my
family, I love you all!
Chris McQueeney 4/26/12 12:46 A.M.
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permission to use or transmit any portion
of this post or any other post on my blog….
Chris McQueeney
Poetry jam...:-)
