Two Ladies

Often I see two people walking or jogging together. These two ladies make quite a pair. One of them has a butt so big it takes over her T-shirt tail. It bunches up over her and creases at the waist. Her shirt makes a jostling white laundry load as she walks. Her friend does the power walk, arms up, elbows working, heals and toes. Her butt says determination. They talk incessantly and wave their hands around. Laundry Load talks more and isn't really listening to her radio.

I leave the path when I pass them. Like other couples, I don't see their faces, just their rears. Sometimes they go single file when they hear you behind them. I have a little kick in the dirt that signals my approach, if I use it. This day I didn't with this pair. I hop off the track and feel the solid, black pavement under my shoes while I overtake. This zone belongs, in my memory, to the outside jogger. A silent, radio-free tall man in his 50s easily whom I used to see. He never jogged in the track. Always outside it on the pavement. He tilted his head as he went and never looked up. I tried it, thinking he did it to over come the hammer of the pavement on his feet. Like a wince.

I guess people have things they do for pain. I used to feel it more in the afternoons in the hot sun at about the second turn. Real desparation all over your body as you trudge and hope for a second wind. Breathing can help. I take a really deep, two-stride long one and my oxygen levels fill back up. It pulls me in. The body has ways of adjusting. I tried the head tilt too and it worked. When I hop into the outside jogger path I do the head tilt for this fellow.

This day there's only one lady, Bunchy Shirt lady. "Where's your friend," I wonder. But I don't ask, of course. There's nobody there where her friend was. She has her radio plugged in and listens now. I stay in the path, to her left, as I pass. For just an instant I'm in her friend spot. Then I'm gone and she can watch me head off. She was singing along to the radio.