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Running Man

Phil Temples

    Running Man turned the corner at Brattle, and headed up Church Street. He stopped briefly at the Border Café and peered at his reflection in the window. In it he saw a 40ish, white male wearing jogging clothes, sporting dark, brown hair with a hint of grey, a thick mustache and glasses. Running Man was not exactly stunning, but he wasn’t ugly, either.
    For the past few minutes, Running Man was aware of a disturbing fact: he did not know himself. This is not to say that he was suffering an identity crisis. Actually, he did not know his name! Nor had he any knowledge of where he lived, whether he had loved ones, or even if he was gainfully employed.
    Running Man felt that he held some sort of job. He imagined that it could be just about anything: office manager, engineer—perhaps even tradesman.
    As he rounded the corner past First Parish Church, Running Man glanced down at his hands. They were relatively smooth, free of callouses, with well-groomed nails. He was probably employed in some professional capacity. And the fancy diamond ring he wore on the middle finger of his right hand looked very expensive. Running Man guessed that it was not a wedding ring, for the ring was on the wrong hand—unless, of course, he was European. No, he was pretty sure that he was an American. And, Running Man recognized the streets; the town, Cambridge, Massachusetts; the neighborhood, Harvard Square. He must live or work around here.
    This is silly, Running Man thought to himself. I must be somebody. I must be suffering from amnesia. Perhaps I fell along the way and hit my head. He reached up and felt his noggin. Everything felt okay to him—no lumps or sore spots.
    “Who am I?” he said, to no one in particular, along the busy Massachusetts Avenue sidewalk.
    Running Man felt in great shape. He had no idea how long he’d been running, where he had come from, or where he was running to.
    Keep moving, don’t stop.
    Running Man decided it might be a good idea in the interim to give his self a name. Possessing a make-believe identity could help spur his unconscious to recall something.
    “My name is Ralph,” he said. Running Man fancied he looked like a Ralph, whatever Ralphs look like.
    Ralph thought that he might be concentrating too hard on the problem at hand. He cleared his mind of any thoughts, and focused on the steady rhythm of his heartbeat and the pounding of his feet on the pavement. It was a beautiful fall afternoon, and the temperature was perfect for running: not too warm, not too cold.
    Don’t look back.
    Perhaps Ralph was running from somebody or something. Maybe even the law. No, Ralph didn’t think so. He didn’t regard himself—whoever he was—to be the sort of person to run afoul of societal rules in any serious way. Ralph was no doubt an upstanding, law-abiding citizen.
    Ralph leapt agilely over an ancient tree root that was slowly winning its war with the cement sidewalk in front of the Temple Bar. He then paused for a moment to check his pulse, all the while shooting a quick glance over his shoulder to see if anyone was following him.
    The coast looked clear.
    Ralph wondered: “Should I find the nearest police station, walk up to the desk sergeant and calmly announce that I’m ‘Completely Clueless in Cambridge?’ They’d probably lock me up in a padded cell.”
    “Hmm . . . What if I’m a professional assassin?” he wondered. “Or an agent who’s been brain washed. I’ve been programmed to go completely blank when the enemy is in pursuit.
    Ralph recalled the 1962 movie “The Manchurian Candidate” starring Frank Sinatra and Laurence Harvey, in which one of the characters was brainwashed by the North Koreans only to be “woken up” years later by a code phrase to obey a command to assassinate an important public figure.
    Ralph realized that his imagination was running away with him. And, the “Ralph” charade wasn’t getting him any closer to answers, either.
    Running Man crossed the street and continued his run back through the law school campus. As he passed Langdell Hall, Running Man thought that this particular area seemed awfully familiar. He wondered if he worked there.
    Running Man continued past the Science Center and into Harvard Yard. Even though others might know who he was, as far as he was concerned he had no identity now.
    “This is a blessing in disguise,” Running Man thought.
    If I am—no, if I had been a lawyer or a law school professor, then the world will now be better off now with one less lawyer.
    And although he couldn’t be absolutely certain, Running Man felt strongly that he had no one waiting for him on the home front: no wife, no parents, or children. No one would miss him. It was all clear to him now—divine providence had interceded to award him a new lease on life.
    The Running Man turned his back on Harvard and ran east toward Central Square, supremely confident in the fact that his future lay somewhere.
    That-a-way.

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