Page 116 of Hard to Kill

“And I still want a flat belly,” Jimmy says.

“But unless he and Licata turn out to be world-class swimmers…” I grin at Jimmy and Esposito and say, “They’re sleeping with the fishes.”

I shrug and put up my hands in surrender. “Low-hanging fruit.”

We’re standing on the dock in front of the station. All of us looking out at the water now. We can’t see the search boats. But they’re out there somewhere, presumably with the remains of Bobby Salvatore and Anthony Licata, who first crossed paths when Salvatore was sixteen.

“What did Salvatore say to you that day at the horse show?” Jimmy asks me.

“He said, and I’m quoting here, ‘It’s not me.’”

“Maybe he was telling the truth for once in his miserable life,” Jimmy says.

NINETY-TWO

A COUPLE OF DAYS later, my own next round of chemo staring me in the face, I decide to do something I haven’t done in months:

Shoot.

I know I’m not going to feel much like working out once I’m hooked up to the juice again. So I get my air rifle and BBs and head over to the Springs and my running trail near Three Mile Harbor, hoping that my targets are still where I left them on various trees along my old course.

I no longer have the ambitions I once did about competing in no-snow biathlons. I’m not even sure how my stamina will hold up tonight when I’m back on the trail, having had a couple of punk days even before the chemo begins, anticipating the next hit my body is going to take. But I’m hoping that once I’m in motion and the adrenaline kicks in, tonight will start to feel like the old days, if only for an hour or two.

That was back when I didn’t know how good I had it, when life’s worst, including a bad marriage, wasn’t cancer.

In the end, you can only take so many beach walks with your dog, do so much work with weights and stretching in yourhouse, and tell yourself that you’re in the best possible shape, whether you’ve got cancer or not.

Running and stopping and shooting and then running again always made me feel like I was still a real jock.

That’s the feeling I’m looking for tonight.

Being the old me for a little while.

It’s past seven o’clock and I haven’t eaten dinner, but I have leftover pasta to reheat. There are no plans with Dr. Ben Kalinsky because this is his poker night.

All of a sudden, out of nowhere, I decide I need to be in motion. Getting my heart rate up. Getting after it the way I did as the old me, feeling like I’m at the top of my game. What do the announcers always say about starting pitchers with my Mets? I’ll go as hard as I can for as long as I can.

Competing only against myself again.

Story of my life.

I start out jogging, telling myself not to push it at the start, I can pick up speed later. The first target is where I left it, right before the first bend in the trail. I stop, get myself into proper shooting position, gun up over my right shoulder, look through the sight, and fire.

I miss.

Then miss again.

Badly.

But the third shot hits the center of the target.

So does the fourth.

I’m back.

I take off again.

Smiling and running free and loose and easy as I head for the third target. My breathing is good, my heart is pumping, probably more with excitement than anything else. I know this feeling, the good adrenaline that sports give you, because it’s still part ofmy DNA, even chemo can’t kill it. The only sound out here, when I’m not stopping again to fire, is my sneakers on the trail. It is, all things considered, a very active way of being peaceful.

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