S Running with Ghosts

L
Essay

Mark Wukas

I saw a ghost today.

Two miles into a long run in Lincoln Park, my eyes drifted to the two dozen high-
school girls stretch-striding on a soccer field at the foot of Cricket Hill. Their coach
was a squat woman whose bleating exhortations and shrill whistle pierced an otherwise
perfect September afternoon of summer temperatures and autumn color. Next to her stood
an older, tall, stoop-shouldered man with skinny legs who swung his hands low into a clap
in front of his waist. He looked amazingly like Jack Bolton, who coached me when I was in
high school. I remembered how well I ran under his tutelage and wished I was running half
as well today.
My life as a runner began more than 25 years ago on the day that my father challenged
me to a race around the block, about a quarter mile. We’d had relatives over for Easter
dinner, and when the conversation finally turned to the kids, an uncle asked what sports I
was interested in.
“Track,” I said. I’d never taken so much as a step in an organized race, but that
morning I’d read an article about Jim Ryun and his excellent prospects for a gold
medal in the 1500 meters at the Olympics in Mexico City.
“Let’s race around the block,” he said. It was as much an order as it was a
challenge. I was surprised. Although Dad was fairly coordinated, he never was an
athlete. When we would shoot at my hoop in the alley or play one-on-one, he always
looked like what he was: a 42-year-old man stiffly chasing his 13-year-old son who was
running rings around him.
We stood alone on the sidewalk in front of our house on a cloudy April afternoon;
none of the family, not even my uncle whose question had sparked this contest, was
interested enough to watch. Dad gave the ready-set-go, and we took off. I sprinted to
a quick lead, running scared from the sound of his footsteps. He expected, I think, to
catch me before the finish, but he never did. Dad pulled up at 300 yards and walked
the last half block to where I stood panting and grinning in front of our house.
“Good run,” he said sincerely as he shook my hand, something he never did after

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basketball. This was a significant moment for us: His handshake gave me a taste of
what every son wants from his father—respect—in a way that my easy victories at my
alley hoop never did.
“He beat me,” Dad laughed in embarrassment as we rejoined the family. I’d dealt a
blow not only to his pride but his mortality as well.
In May of the following year, a notice in my neighborhood newspaper announced that
anyone interested in trying out for the Marquette Park Track Club, a summer squad, should
be at the track the following Monday evening. Dad gave me a ride to the meeting. We were
met by a man with a ruddy complexion in his early 50s who introduced himself as the coach
and spoke with a Welsh accent.
“Ye want to be a roonnerrr, then, eh?” he asked me.
“Yes, sir,” I said.

Retrospective Reflections 79
His name was Jack Bolton, and he looked like a runner. He was tall and thin and stood
like a flamingo on his long, spindly legs. Deep-set, piercing blue eyes peered from above a
bristly silver stubble of beard.
My first workout, Bolton said, was three laps of the track with another runner who
had come out for the team, followed by a fourth lap as fast as we could. Dad stood next to
Bolton, intently watching me trot my three laps. With visions of Jim Ryun in my head, I
sprinted a blistering final lap and left the other fellow in my dust. Once I’d recovered, I
went over to Bolton, who gave me a curt nod and told me to come back the next night.
“You sure left that other guy on that last lap,” Dad said as we walked to the car.
Dad was never long on praise, but his remark gave me a flash of gold-medal triumph.
And so it began. I joined Bolton’s pack of distance runners from sundry South Side
high schools who each summer formed the Marquette Park Track Team. As a coach,
Bolton forged in us his strong work ethic which he tempered with distant affection, and
I learned more about running from him than anyone else in my life. My high school
coaches were all well-meaning teachers who picked up the sport to make a few extra
bucks to supplement their meager parochial pay. None of them knew anything about
running. But Bolton knew—first-hand. The older guys told us that he would have run
for England in the 1940 Olympics in the 1500 meters if it hadn’t been for World War II.
Bolton emphasized teamwork in what was essentially an individual’s sport, insisting
that we always run as a pack. When one of us would drop off the pace, he would pump
his arm like a boxer throwing repeated uppercuts and urge the laggard to “go ooon,
pick it ooop.” We in turn would encourage one another with a panted, “C’mon, stay
with me,” when we, too, were steps from complete collapse. He urged us to “rrrun
thrrrough” any and all pain, knowing that it would be easier going on the far side, and
he constantly harangued us to have “the goots” to fight through a workout, to fight off an
opponent during a race, and to fight ourselves no matter how much our bodies wanted to
quit.
A few nights during those summers, my body simply quit mid-workout, and I
shamefully went home without a goodbye. I would return dutifully the next night,
wondering whether I still had a spot on the squad. Before sending us out for that
night’s run, he would turn and say, “Yer not going to quit on yerrrself tonight, arrre ye
now, Marrrk?” I would shake my head but say nothing. He’d give me one of his sharp,
signature nods. “All rrright then.”
Bolton’s praise was rare, and therefore savored; his criticism was sharp but
always to the point, which was familiar enough to me. Like Dad, he loathed self pity
and sharply deflated any swelling pride. “Marrrk, yer rrresting on yer laurrrels” was
Bolton’s most stinging insult. In his eyes, we were only as good as our last races and

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then only until the next practice. “Grrrandstand finish,” he’d growl if we’d blaze across
the finish line after loafing earlier in the race. Of if we’d run a consistently mediocre
pace without bothering to kick home, he would accuse us of “feeling sorrry for yerself,”
another of his mortal sins.
Every Friday before Labor Day, Bolton would bid us farewell until Memorial Day.
“Good luck this fall, then, eh,” he would say as he looked around affectionately at all of
us. “Worrrk harrrd, and don’t forrrget to keep up the frrriendships—that’s what it’s all
about, y’know.” He’d clap his hands, give us the nod—and that’d be that.
After cross-country season in the autumn, winter was down time. I would run a
couple nights a week so as not to lose my edge and also because it provided me with a
welcome escape from the rigors of adolescence. On still winter nights when there
was little or no wind, Dad would offer to accompany me on the three-mile circuit. I would
set the pace, and he would ride his bicycle alongside as we’d glide from pool of light to
pool of light from the street lamps along the park’s recreation drives. Dad would ask some
perfunctory questions about school, comment on my form, but otherwise said little else.
What we most enjoyed, I think, was being together in the winter solitude, each with private
thoughts but happy in the silent company of the other.
Dad rarely came to see me run in meets, maybe one each season, but I’m glad he
watched me run the best race of my life.
Every Thursday night during those summers Bolton would take us to Stagg Field
at the University of Chicago for open meets. I had finished my sophomore track season
without breaking 5:00 in the mile. I’d run a 5:00 flat, but anything faster eluded me, and
I wondered if I’d reached my physical limits. My parents drove me up to 55th Street and
Cottage Grove for that Thursday’s race, and there was a mile on the card.
The gun went off, and after the crowded jostling of the first turn I found myself
leading the pack, a lead that I held for two laps. After the first 880, two runners passed
me, one a teammate. I had pushed the first two laps so hard that by the half I wasn’t
sure whether I had the energy to keep the pace, let alone finish the race, so I drifted a
few steps behind the new leaders.
“Go with ‘em, Marrrk,” Bolton barked from the sidelines. “Show some goots.”
I looked over and saw he was pumping his arm—the “go” sign. I put my head down
in pursuit and strained to keep pace. I passed the three-quarter mark under 3:45, which
Bolton told me I had to beat in order to break 5:00. Hearing that time, realizing that I
had the chance for a sub-five, I threw everything into my last lap. Never mind that the
two runners ahead of me were pulling away. Never mind that my lungs were burning
for more oxygen. Never mind that I could barely control my legs. Blinded with sweat, I
could only hear Bolton shouting as I turned down the home stretch.

Retrospective Reflections 81
 I staggered across the finish line in 4:53.7, my best mile by more than six seconds,
and it felt like a world record. I wanted to cry for joy, and I might have if I hadn’t been
so dizzy and dehydrated. As I trotted a warm-down lap, my legs felt like I was running
on pillows. My parents came down from the stands to say hello to Bolton, who gave
them the nod and said, “He did all rrright tonight.”
I beamed. On the ride home I asked Dad what the race had looked like.
“When I saw you leading after two laps, I figured you had something going,” he
said.
That was it.
I stopped running with Bolton after my sophomore year of college. Most of the
guys I’d run with in high school had not returned, and Bolton was preoccupied with
a new crop of younger (and faster) harriers. But I kept running laps of the park or
440s up the sledding hill—old habits die hard—and sometimes I’d see Bolton at the
track coaching or just talking with the regulars. I’d stop, say hello, and while I was
confident he recognized me, I don’t think he remembered my name.
“Marrrk,” I’d say, faintly echoing his accent. “From Quigley.”
Bolton would give the old nod and grin. “I rememberrr ye,” he’d say.
I’ve never stopped running, although seven-minute miles, which I once thought
impossibly slow, now leave me as wrung out as five-minute miles once did. I was
recovering from a broken ankle the winter my father was diagnosed with stomach
cancer. I would spend weekends at the hospital, helping him take a lap of the floor
and pushing his IV tower as he pushed his walker. We’d talk a little about the
future, about his life after recovery and rehabilitation, but like those winter runs
in Marquette Park more than 20 years earlier, we communicated best through our
silence. He was dying, and we knew it, but some days he would find the strength, the
guts, to press harder, to walk a second lap, fighting the pain with a determination
that I have never seen in my life.
As Dad weakened, mom asked me to move back to the South Side to help her
care for him. Dad died the night before I moved home.
I promised Mom that I would stay with her until she sold the house. Moving back
to the old neighborhood meant that I could run the old paths in Marquette Park. I
had expected to feel a home-turf exuberance that would restore old energy, quicken
my stride, but I’d lost too many steps, and the park was too full of ghosts, including
my own. For the next year, I ran uninspired laps of the park, sometimes taking
the sledding hill or stopping at the track to run some anemic intervals. I looked for
Bolton every time, but I never saw him. I figured he’d died, too.

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 When I moved back north, I resumed running in Lincoln Park and found a four-
mile circuit with varied terrain. Yesterday I felt strong and daft enough to attempt
interval 220s up Cricket Hill. I’m not sure why I felt compelled to thrash myself that
way, but I think it had to do with wondering whether I still had the “goots” to run
such a grueling workout. Foolish thinking these days, but ingrained nonetheless. As
I started the first 220, I remembered the man who taught me to run hills and said,
“God bless ye, Jack Bolton, whereverrr yer roonning.” I ran all eight 220s as hard
as I could.
In an effort to reward myself for that agony, today I decided to take a slower run
and enjoy this perfect autumn day. I spotted Bolton’s Doppelgänger as I was passing
Cricket Hill and decided to trot a little closer.
Sure enough, it was the man himself. I could scarcely believe it. I stopped
running and walked toward him.
“Mr. Bolton?” I called. He looked over and gave the old Bolton grin and nod.
He looked a little worse for the wear but still fit, not unlike a Volvo with 300,000
miles on it. Same sharp eyes though, and the same silver beard stubble on his ruddy
complexion.
“Mark,” I said, extending my hand. “I ran with you 25 years ago in Marquette
Park. I went to Quigley.”
Bolton nodded and shook my hand firmly. He turned to the female head coach
and jerked his thumb at me, saying, “One of me old roonnerrrs.” She was not the
least impressed, but he seemed awfully pleased.
Bolton said he’s still coaching during the summer, but in a suburb south and west
of the city where he has a one-mile loop with a hill nearby, which didn’t surprise
me. Wanting him to know that his lessons remained ingrained, I told him that I was
running hills right here only the day before. Another nod and grin, as if to say,
“Good forrr you, laddie.”
Bolton looked busy, so I excused myself with a grateful handshake, told him it
was good to see him and resumed my run. I just laughed with joy for the next mile at
finding him alive, albeit a little more frail.
After the run, I was still smiling as I pulled a beer from my refrigerator and
held it to my forehead. My knees ached and my stomach churned as I slouched
against the wall on my back porch and remembered how much easier this used to be.
Suddenly I felt very old. I thought of Bolton, still out there in his late 70s, and then I
thought of Dad, dead at 68.

Retrospective Reflections 83
As I slowly recovered in the late afternoon sunlight, the moisture on my cheek turned from
sweat to tears. Running into old Bolton had been the next best thing to seeing my father
alive again.

Editorial Aside: Mark Wukas was the first teacher I had in graduate school in Chicago, and—
after a couple of go-rounds through higher education—easily the best teacher I’ve encountered. In
our first evening’s class, I learned he started out at a south side Chicago high school called Quigley,
the same priestly training ground my brother-in-law Glenn attended. Neither Mark, nor Glenn
(the attorney in the previous pages) made it to the priesthood. Thank God. In 1997, Mark seemed
initially worried that we wanted to lead off the magazine with this “First Person” essay simply
because we knew him. A year later, however, when the Best American Sports Writing anthology
made mention of “Running With Ghosts,” he must have known it was the right choice.

Bio

Mark Wukas teaches English at the freshman campus of New Trier Township High
School in Northfield, Illinois. He’s still running. Old habits die hard.

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