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Show even recognize them as "runs." As a child, they were simply my days. At the end I would race my father home, sprinting up the hill to our house. Faster, faster, my dad would urge, his breath coming hard behind me. I would respond by pumping arms and legs even harder, not breathing, not waiting, not looking back for even a second. Eventually there would come a moment, rounding the corner and gaining the hill, when, breaking away from my father, my legs seemed to move faster than my body, as if preparing to leave the earth. Within a few years, I was asking more of my legs. When I was in high school, a serial killer stopped young women on the Pali Highway posing as a police officer. From the local swap meet, he had purchased a flashing blue light which he displayed on his dashboard just like Steve McGarrett did on Hawaii 50, his only prop other than a stolen uniform. It was enough, though, for he lured victim after victim from her car and into the dark and viney undergrowth along the road where he raped and killed her. I drove the Pali regularly because my boyfriend lived on the Windward side of the island, and I often drove at night. As young woman after young woman slipped from this world in a bloody and violent way, my dad became more aggressive in his advice. At first I was only to keep the window rolled up if the police ever stopped me. Soon, though, he was telling me never to stop for anyone, including the police, to just drive to the nearest police station and take the matter up there. If all else failed he said, if for some reason I found myself out of the car and in danger, I must use my legs and run. They are your best weapon, he told me. I could outrun anyone. Not until college did I run seriously. Separated by a half a continent and an ocean, I was thousands of miles away from home, making the rules and policies that once 224 |