The obstacle and the way
The NJCAA Region IX Championships at Leadville dawned crisp and clear. Trinidad State brought the house, including international recruits, many wearing “supershoes” — super-expensive technology with high-tech energy-return foam and propulsion plates. Central Wyoming came with high hopes as well. As it turned out, two of CMC’s guys were unavailable to run.
Darren set up the starting line on one of the campus roads to get the exact 8K measurement for the men’s race, so the first quarter-mile was on wide pavement, then funneled onto the dirt fire-escape road, downhill to the Mineral Belt Trail, then up the steep hill, where despite my best efforts with the shovel, there remained enough sugar to make things interesting.
The Trinidad State guys quickly used the long descent to gain the upper hand. They further stretched their lead over the three laps of the course. Only Blueberry finished in the top 10, followed by Ben, Kenneth and Harrison interspersed with Central Wyoming’s finishers. Nate valiantly started the race hoping to give the team five scoring runners, but his injury kept him from finishing. Harrison struggled throughout the race. He was fighting a side-stitch, flailing with his arms, and lacking power on the uphill. Nonetheless, he finished out the regular season solidly as CMC’s fourth runner, and had earned his trip to nationals.
While Trinidad ran away with the race, Central Wyoming placed a distant second and CMC was a no-score with just four finishers. Surprisingly the Central Wyoming women pulled off an upset over Trinidad State. CMC’s women’s team also failed to place as two of their six runners runners dropped out with injuries.
With the college races over for the day, Mary and I decided to run in the 6.66-kilometer Haunted Hills race that afternoon. The team retreated to the dorm to dress in costumes and paint their faces. Then they reported to the field to disperse in various hiding places along the trail system. Lexi invited Harrison to join her on the spooking mission.
There were not many entrants for Haunted Hills. A few were in costumes, and some were in the one-lap kids’ run. Darren’s daughter Tauriel, took the lead right away and held on to it most of the way down the fire road. I light-heartedly encouraged her until she ran out of gas near the bottom of the hill. Then I realized I was in the lead. To be clear, if I am leading any race at this stage of my life it’s purely because there’s nobody faster entered in the thing.
I ran past an old mining shack and the door flung open as one of the ghouls made a scary noise. When I turned to confront the hill, I could hear someone right on my heels and breathing hard. It was Will, a CMC student and resident in the dorm. I was relieved by the opportunity to not win. A couple of the goblins jumped out from behind trees screeching at me as I ground away at the climb.
I suddenly realized Will was not there any more. I got to the top of the hill and needed to run one more lap. Once again the ghosts haunted the trail, some up in trees, others hiding in the brush. Near the top of the hill Ben appeared wearing a duster and with his face painted white like a ghost. I continued on to the finish. I later learned Will had pulled over to puke on that first lap. Mary meanwhile finished as first woman.
Mary and I had been discussing some way to thank the team for all their patience and support of Harrison. We decided to buy pizzas for the group. I stayed back to help Darren retrieve the trail markers, while Mary and Harrison went to High Mountain Pies to fetch the pizzas. On the way there, apparently the conversation shifted to the normalizing friendship with Lexi. Mary gently reminded Harrison about boundaries. For some reason this set him off and soon spiraled into a really bad tantrum. He would later relate to me that he mistook Mary’s advice to mean he had done something wrong, and that the entire drama was starting over.
His vexation subsided long enough to scarf a few slices of pizza but then it started right up again. The tantrum defied logic and there was no reasoning with him. Mary left for home but Harrison did not calm down and his meltdown continued on into the night, with him awakening several times throughout, yelling, screaming and pounding on the wall. I thought for certain someone would hear all this and we’d get a visit from the R.A.s, but nothing happened.
Between the short bouts of sleep and the waking meltdowns, I meditated on the position I was in, a prisoner in a college dorm room, caught between Harrison’s uncontrollable behaviors and an administration documenting it all. It was a pure mental yoga, reconciling that I had absolutely zero control over either thing. I could only control my response. Neither of us got much sleep and we awoke early that next morning with Harrison still agitated and making noise.
I felt like I needed to get him away from campus as quickly as possible before he got reported for another conduct violation. I suggested we go out for breakfast since the cafeteria does not serve food until later on Sundays. He agreed to this but continued to be loud, yelling, making noises, and lashing out at me all the way down the hall, out the door and across the parking lot. I was now dealing with what appeared to be a full-on psychotic episode.
This continued in the car as I drove away from campus, and though I felt safer in terms of an incident report, there was absolutely no way I could take him to a restaurant. I was at the end of my rope. As a last resort I pulled into the parking lot at St. Vincent Hospital. I explained to him that he was having a psychotic event and if he could not calm down I was going to have him admitted. I was completely serious, as I felt like I was on the verge of a mental breakdown myself.
He began to slowly dial back the noise. I could see the gears turning. It took some time for him to fully calm down as we just sat there parked in the hospital lot. I tried to breathe through it. Finally I asked him if he was going to be able to hold it together if we went somewhere to eat. He said he would. I made him promise.
Over breakfast I tried to make a plan for the day. I still didn’t trust Harrison to remain calm and quiet back at the college. Despite racing the day before, Darren had prescribed a long, slow distance run for Sunday, and all the routes around Leadville were snowy. The idea of driving south to Buena Vista for a trail run came to mind. It seemed like a good diversion.
I knew Ben had gone home to Buena Vista so I had Harrison text him. Ben agreed to meet us at the Midland Trail system for a long run. So we got our gear together and left Leadville. It was a glorious bluebird fall day and the trails outside Buena Vista were free of snow. We jogged and hiked some steeper sections, logging about nine miles.
While we ran Ben told me about some issues he was having with college life, relationships, and frustrations with teammates. He was so good with Harrison, who seemed unfazed from the race the day before or the night of bad sleep. We finished the run, got some lunch, and Harrison and I headed back toward Leadville.
On the way I stopped at Pine Creek along the Arkansas River to explore a road down to the water. The truth is, I was stalling on getting back to the campus. I rigged up my fly rod and we hiked down to the confluence where the creek met the river. By now the sun was behind the Sawatch Range and it was chilly in the canyon. The river roared through the rocky, narrow chute, producing its own cool breeze.
A nice trout scooted out from under the bridge where Pine Creek passed beneath the highway. I casted under the bridge from the downstream side to see if there were any other fish. Harrison took pictures. Then we hiked farther upriver along the abandoned tracks of the Union Pacific’s mountain route that parallels the river. I casted into a few likely spots behind rocks, but no fish rose.
We found a huge boulder that had rolled down the bank and landed square in the middle of the railroad tracks. A strange angle of repose. A sobering reminder — the obstacle might just be the way. After this calming side trip we headed back to the college in the evening light, and we ate in the cafeteria. Harrison went quietly to sleep, and I soon followed.
Before midnight I was startled awake by what sounded like three guys and one woman right outside the room, yelling, talking loudly and using foul language. They were banging on a door across the hall trying to get the occupants to open it. Much of what I heard aside from the expletives, though very loud, was unintelligible, probably because they were too inebriated to properly enunciate. There was reference to fighting. “If we don’t fight today, then we’ll fight tomorrow!” And drug use — “I took too many psychedelics.” This went on for over an hour as I remained motionless hoping that Harrison didn’t wake up and go right back into a tantrum.
The hoodlums left and banged on some other doors and what sounded like other objects. I could hear them doing the same in other hallways. It was quiet for a while. Then they returned three or four times during the night and repeated the yelling, cursing and banging on the door. There was a discussion of, "Well, tomorrow," which I took to mean the fight would be tomorrow if the people in the room didn't open up.
The prospect of Harrison waking up to this and going back into tantrum mode had me on edge. He really needed to sleep, and I didn't dare move for fear of waking him. I seriously thought about calling the police but worried the light from my phone or my speaking would wake him. I fought the urge to get up, fling the door open, and go all old man on these kids, while somehow — somehow — Harrison managed to sleep through the disturbance.
It was well into the early morning hours before I fell back to sleep. Mainly I was on high alert and irritated, but also I kept expecting them to come back. The next morning I realized Harrison had worn ear plugs to bed. This made me wonder if the R.A.s were sleeping with earplugs as well. How did nobody else hear this? There was often noise in the dorms but this behavior was extreme. It left me feeling concerned for Harrison’s safety.
Later that day while I was packing up to leave, I ran into a couple of the guys from across the hall. One of them sheepishly apologized for the ruckus. His buddy chimed in, “Yeah we were completely out of control. I’m sorry.” I felt awkward because I had already reported the incident and the hallway cameras of course would back up my story. I wondered if someone had already spoken to these guys, and I didn’t know how to respond. I just shook my head and said I appreciated their apology. I headed home despite my sense of trepidation following Harrison’s epic tantrum, talk of a fight and it being Halloween. I’d spent four consecutive and restless nights in a college dorm, and drove away exhausted.
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