Runaway never actually entered into our bike races right when we started. She lingered behind and continued asking Mr. Thompson a million more questions about engines and cars. Then, eventually, she would come out and race us all.
Chapter Two
I need to clarify—
Runaway was my best friend. She cared for her friends deeply and was extremely protective of them. She was a girl who was a complex dichotomy—she took everything seriously, and then oddly enough, she took the same serious situations and added a modicum of humor to them. She never seemed to be scared of anything, nothing ever intimidated her, and no one could ever stop her from getting what she wanted.
I have never in my life met anyone like her. For me, she gave meaning to the words loyalty, friendship, and devotion—and she never compromised her values. She lived her life according to what she believed in. In fact, if someone needed her, she was a force to be reckoned with in the face of adversity.
I now know that I have spent my whole life searching for someone else with her specific character makeup, but sadly, I have never found them. It has eluded me, as sure as the sunset eludes the dreamer. Nevertheless, I continue to search.
Runaway was, simply put, a tomboy raised by her father. In fact, I don’t even know her real name. Her mother had died when she was quite young. She never spoke about it—not the pain, not the memory, not the hurt. She acted as if she had been born from a single parent, and that it was the most normal thing in the world.
From time to time I would catch her glancing off with a distant stare in her eyes. But hell would have to freeze over for her to talk about it. So, from the absence of a maternal bond came a father-daughter relationship with a closeness that only they could understand.
She was an only child. I suppose that caused her to look at the world in a different way, not having siblings to fight, bicker, and reconcile with. Instead, she found the same animosity and solace in her friends. All five of us were from the same small neighborhood, and our time spent together transcended all else.
Runaway never wore anything that would have been considered “girly.” She had a dress code of worn Levis, T-shirts, and black cowboy boots. Her blonde hair was usually twirled into a ponytail that would bounce from side to side.
Some days she wore her hair down. It was a nuisance, she said, as it was always in her face, but she had a way of flicking it behind her ear and carrying on her tomboy quality.
Perhaps one of the most amazing things about her was that she was more like a guy than a girl. I know other girls hated her, but I think it was more out of jealousy than anything else. She had an amazing knack for being greasy one minute and the next looking like a lady clad in clean Levis and boots.
I suppose Runaway disliked
other girls just as much as they disliked her, because they were never interested in her obsessions. She never hung out with them, and she never wanted to be like them. She was her own person—stubborn, serious, easygoing at times, and fiercely loyal.
Runaway didn’t like dresses or dolls, nor did she like fancy “girl things.” I never once in my life saw her play tea party or carry a purse. She loved to get dirty, catch lizards, play baseball, and hang out with us… the guys. Perhaps it was because her father had raised her that she had an affinity for having more guy friends than girlfriends—but, of course, even that is mere speculation.
For Christmas and birthdays, Runaway never received dolls, tea sets or playhouses—she got cars. I distinctly remember one year, when we were about five or six years old, her dad got her a drivable pedal car for Christmas. It was red, with a lift-able hood. Inside the engine compartment, it had real movable parts that she could work on. The red paint was similar to the Volkswagen Bug in the movie
Herbie the Love Bug
, with racing strips and all, including the big racing number three on the hood. But what really made the little car great was that it was a race car you could get in and pedal around. That’s actually how Runaway got her nickname. Every day she would be in that little red car, roaring around the neighborhood block. Her dad had jokingly said, “That’s my little Runaway.”
I really believe he just meant it in jest, as she was never in one place for very long. However, later we associated her name with the old song, “Runaway,” by Del Shannon. For whatever reason, it stuck, and she officially became known as Runaway. And even if I tried hard now, for the life of me I can’t remember what she was called prior to that. We simply referred to her dad as, “Mr. Cook.”
That was also the moment she fell in love with cars. She honestly loved that little red car, and you could always find her in it, racing up and down driveways, sidewalks, and neighboring streets. That is, until the day it was stolen. Officially, we never knew who stole it, but unofficially, we had a pretty good idea.
Just up the street from us—where we weren’t allowed to play because it was too far away—was a whole tract of homes much larger and grander than our own tract. We didn’t personally know any of the kids who lived there, but they had a bad reputation that got around our neighborhood. It was said that these kids came from more money than our parents made, and they were particularly stuck up about it. We didn’t have to wait too long before the majority of them moved out and went to live in a “better neighborhood,” as they put it, but before they left, Runaway’s car went missing.
We knew the little red car was envied by most of the kids on our block where we lived. However, one kid we did know from Snob Hill, as we called it, showed more jealousy than most. His name was Bret, and he had his own personal following. We knew him from elementary school. He was often our nemesis—at home, or any other time, and we were all glad to see his family and his friends’ families move. We felt pretty sure that he took Runaway’s car with him.
After Runaway’s little red car was stolen, her dad decided to move on and build her a go-cart. He figured this was a much better deal than the little red car, and he realized that she had been growing out of the old one anyway. The go-cart was also red, with spray-painted silver rims and flat bald racing tires. It was super low to the ground, so naturally it was used more for speed and less for driving over hills.
Runaway’s dad put a little lawn-mower engine in it, and she would race it up and down the streets with her blond ponytail trailing behind her in the wind and a smile from ear to ear.
Runaway had officially dubbed the go-cart the Snoopy vs. Bloody Red Baron, after the song by the Royal Guardsmen, and you could often hear her singing the song as she drove.
Later, as Runaway got old enough to have more control of her driving (we were about six then), her dad would set up obstacle courses for her—and us—to drive through.
He would stop her periodically and tell her how to correct her turning, or anticipate the next move, especially if she lost control and drove over an obstacle, such as a broom handle or an empty gas can. She got so good at driving that she beat every one of us, and did it with the gas pedal pinned to the floorboard. We were never really mad—we just felt jealous. We took turns driving the go-cart as well, and Mr. Cook always had words of wisdom to offer us in our handling of the car. Runaway, however, had a special knack for her driving. It was like the first time a painter picked up a brush… it just fit.
Again, one thing about Runaway that always amazed me was her toughness. And as I have always respected, she wasn’t afraid of anything or anyone. She also wasn’t afraid of getting into fights, nor was she good at holding back her thoughts, although at times that would have been of great benefit. There were times when she could have a mouth on her, especially when she felt that something or someone was getting the raw end of the deal. She was an odd dichotomy; one part mouth, and one part quiet girl. In fact, in many ways she reminded me of a Venus fly trap, pleasing to look at, but vicious if provoked.
When we were in third grade, about age nine or so, Runaway saw Bret beating up a new kid on the school playground one day during recess. Bret was decidedly mean. He was fatter than the rest of the kids in our elementary school and no one particularly liked him, except for his gang. Runaway liked him less than the rest of us. Even though Bret had moved out of our neighborhood, we still went to the same school.
The new boy who Bret was beating up that day looked rather tall for our age and very skinny. As the bell rang for recess, Runaway and I were still putting our things away in our desks. When we finally walked out onto the playground, we noticed right away the huge group of kids over near the baseball field. Everyone seemed to be huddled around the fight, yelling for either Bret or the new kid. The playground aides weren’t out yet, so we ran directly over.
From the top of the scuffle, we heard kids yelling, “Kick his butt, Bret!”
“Yeah, stomp on his face!” echoed another.
After quickly pushing our way through the crowd, we saw the two boys rolling around in the dirt. Neither of us could see exactly what was happening, because the fight was moving too fast.
What we could see was that the new kid was getting hurt really badly. He didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell against Bret.
Bret had rolled on top of the kid and was trying to punch him in the face, but the skinny kid was squirming all over the place. This made it hard for Bret to hit him, which of course only made Bret madder. As far as we could see, the new kid had two problems. First, that Bret was trying to hit him, and second, that Bret’s weight was squashing his small but lanky frame.
“Hey,” I said breathlessly as we first arrived at the fight, “who does Bret have ahold of?” I was looking around, not only at the fight, but also noticing the complete lack of authority.
“You got me,” Runaway replied, intently watching the fight. “Hey, isn’t he the new kid we saw at lunch today?” Her bright green eyes focused intently on the action.
“Oh, yeah,” I squinted and looked a little closer. “I guess it is.”
“Well,” she looked at me. “I think we should help the poor guy, or at least save him before Miss Nelson gets hold of him and takes him off to the principal’s office. Besides,” she smiled at me. “It’s Bret, and I can’t stand him, anyway.”
She wasn’t very big, but as I have noted, she had an iron will that catapulted her beyond most people I knew. In the blink of an eye she could go from mellow and quiet to being the most volatile, maddening creature that ever lived. Runaway rarely looked for a fight, but when one presented itself, she knew no bounds in chasing after it. Restraint was not her in vocabulary.
Grant and Brandon, our two other friends, had at this time silently come up next to us as we were standing close to the fight. Runaway pushed her way through the rest of the crowd. I noticed Bret was now in a much better position to beat the crap out of the other kid. Then, just like that, and without any warning, Runaway jumped out and kicked Bret in the ribs.
“Hey! Who did that?” Bret bellowed, pausing only a brief moment to clutch his side.
“Me.” She glared at him—she was standing directly next to the boy’s head, and in no uncertain terms said, “Get your fat carcass off of him.”
“Who the hell are you? His savior?” Bret hollered.
The whole crowd started to laugh at that remark.
“Is he your boyfriend?” he then sneered.
In the fraction of an instant that Bret looked up at Runaway, his smaller opponent now took the opportunity to try to squirm his way out from underneath him. That took Bret’s attention off Runaway, which was not his best move. He began to hit the boy again. This, of course, made Runaway even madder. She stepped up and kicked him in the ribs again.
Bret at this point was clearly irritated “Knock it off!” he yelled.
Runaway hauled off and kicked him again, at least twice more. She never wore anything but those cowboy boots, and it probably hurt like hell.
“Damn it, Runaway, knock it off!” It almost looked like Bret might momentarily care more for his ribs than his defenseless victim.