...THEREBY HANGS A TALE

In memory of William S. Gray Jr., Ph.D.

"On your mark..." shouted the starter as I made the first mistake of my first 10K race by jostling for a toe on the starting line. The next was taking off with the real runners to cheers of townspeople, fellow students, and the occasional college faculty spectating this first Randolph-Macon Railroad Run in the spring of 1980. One of said spectators was Dr. Gray, an English professor and former LSU Rhodes Scholar at Exeter University.





"Go, David, go!" he cheered with champagne flute in hand and big belly bulging from wrinkled grey suit, imbuing even these simple words with his trademark deep south drawl. 

_______________

Dr. Gray had come to know me not in the classroom but when I had sought out the faculty advisor to my Kappa Alpha fraternity. During the fall of junior year I was struggling with juggling a heavy science course load and an active KA social scene. One chilly Saturday before final exams, I had come home from an evening of physics to a loud and drunken dance hall. Unable to sleep with the house rocking and anger mounting, I escaped out the back door into the frosty night and found the professor stumbling away toward his small cottage on the edge of campus. 

"Can I walk you home, Dr. Gray?"

"It would be my great and everlasting pleasure", he slurred, taking my arm as we passed through the fountain plaza. "Won't you join me for a nightcap?"

"I need some sleep."

"Not in that fraternity house you don't" he reasoned. "I insist, and won't take no for an answer."

Ascending the steps to his second floor flat, we were engulfed in the musty scent of noble and not-so-noble rot as we passed through a tunnel of wine racks and bookshelves into his cramped living room.

"Make yourself at home while I freshen up", he quipped while disappearing into the kitchen, soon to return with an uncorked bottle of Spanish port and two small glasses.

"Do you play the piano?" I asked, observing the beautiful upright Grand tucked against the only wall without old hardcover books or wine.

"Not a lick, but I love pianists" he enthused. "Won't you stay the night with me?"

I should have taken the hints and hightailed it out of there. Instead, I slept on the couch and spent the next year and a half resisting Bill Gray's advances while trying to convince him to get treatment for alcoholism.

_______________

The race proceeded from the starting line at Day Field to the roads on either side of the Amtrak tracks that split Ashland in two, where I made mistake number three. By trying to keep up with the faster runners, I completely lost steam after only three of the ten kilometers, and that was when mucous production kicked in.

"Hey asshole, watch out" spat a passing runner as I turned my head to clear my throat.

"Sorry ... ASSHOLE" I coughed, making a mental note to move to the side of the road before hocking into the wind.

Struggling onwards, I was forced to focus on each slow footfall until breathing finally returned. Then the focus shifted to passing the next asshole up ahead, one-by-one, until the finish line appeared back at the football field. Bursting into a sprint, I blew past a dozen runners to the finish line, where I abruptly threw up.

"David, you did it!" beamed Dr. Gray.