“Run to Hamilton and tell me that.” Those were her exact words. Hamilton’s words. But she had forgotten the conversation we had two weeks earlier about brains and how some are wired differently. I’d told her about the spectrum and where my brain sat on that scale. I don’t think she believed me. I checked the map. A hundred and forty kilometres. By my calculations, I could be there by the following night to surprise her after school.
I imagined ringing her grandparent’s doorbell again in Grandview Heights, just like in the old days. It would play that tune like the one Mr Whippy’s van used to play. The thought of Hamilton opening the door with her mango-Chapstick lips motivated me, and I sprang into action.
I dragged my old sneakers out of the lounge cupboard, as my flatmate Jed sat hypnotised by his laptop screen, his hand reaching out for his beer every once in a while. I sprayed the sneakers with air freshener that smelled of meadows and stuffed loo paper into the heels. I gave them a quick spit and polish, just to prove to Hamilton that I’d changed.
“Where are my rugby shorts?”
“How should I know?” Jed pushed past me into the bathroom before I’d had a chance to open the door. I rummaged through a pile of crap left in the hallway by my old flatmate, Andy. Fuck knows where he is now. I’m sure he won’t mind. There were some women’s tights with glittery planets on them and a pair of green stubbies. I pulled them both on. I wiped the hall mirror and noticed big wet patches under the arms of my All Blacks singlet. Sniffing myself, I grabbed a tea towel from the pile and wiped at my pits.
The kitchen was surprisingly clean for a Sunday, possible evidence that Jed was harbouring a female in his room. I laughed at the thought and splashed my face with water, drying it with a Rotorua hand towel. Back in the lounge, I laid out the contents of my small backpack on the floor, next to Jed’s towering collection of anime DVDs. Accidentally knocking them with my elbow, they fell like dominoes.
“Watch it!” Jed didn’t look up from the screen.
“Sorry.”
I fixed the pile and then laid out my essentials in a row: breath mints, a map of Hamilton, a roll of loo paper, a five-dollar note, a water bottle and a half-empty box of Pizza Shapes. Done.
“Can you move over? Game of Thrones is on.” Jed hitched up his jeans and fiddled with the TV remote, before reaching deep into a big bag of Doritos.
“I’m going to Hamilton.”
“Move over, Dick.”
“Derek. I’m going to Hamilton to tell Hamilton I love her. Do you have any, you know …”
“Hamilton is horrible.”
“No she’s not. She’s lovely. She told me to come to Hamilton and tell her I love her.”
“It’s starting. Get out of the way!”
“Do you have any co-”
“I’m missing it. Get out of the fucking way!”
One hundred and forty kilometres. Thirty hours. If I had money, I would have taken the bus. But I didn’t. Anyway, she’d told me to run. I closed the door to the flat behind me and then tied my sneakers in a double bow as tightly as I could.
My sweaty fringe was sticking to my face, so I pushed it under my baseball cap and took a deep breath. I pulled my rugby socks right up for courage and took a swig of Ribena from my drink bottle. She won’t know if you don’t run the whole way.
“You forgot these.” Jed dropped a bunch of condoms out the window onto the driveway. I scrabbled to pick them up, looking around me to make sure no-one was watching.
“Have fun in Hamilton.” I heard him laugh as he pulled the window shut with a squeak. I shoved the condoms quickly into my backpack and did squats next to the gate to warm up. I felt a few cold droplets of rain on my shoulders and wiped them off. Looking up at the sky, I thought about the guy who ran the two-minute mile. Sometimes you have to do the hard yards.
As I pushed open the ancient gate, I heard the faint oons oons of a bass line and looked up to see a modelesque woman running past in shiny new Skins, her music player blaring. Her swishing ponytail reminded me of Hamilton. So many horses. I tucked my singlet into my shorts and stretched my hands out in front of me.
I started out at a slow jog down my street, past the council flats and then into the next street where people actually mowed their lawns and had windmills sitting in terracotta pots. I waved at Dorothy Mason, who was hunched over, checking her mailbox. She went to say something, but I didn’t hear it, the thought of Hamilton’s purple wrap dress firmly in my mind and the wind whistling in my ears.
I stopped at the lights at the bottom of the hill and swallowed before sticking out my thumb. She won’t know I cheated. How else can I get to the Bombay Hills? A man in a silver Audi wound down his window.
“I’m heading to the city – would that help?” I nodded and slid into the passenger seat.
“Where are you off to?”
“To see Hamilton.” The man had his eyes on the road but gave a sniff.
“You heading to see the hobbits’ town? I took my wife last year. It does look like the movies.”
“I’m going to see Hamilton.”
“You said.”
“Her name is Hamilton.”
“Hamilton from Hamilton, eh?”
I said nothing.
“Is she pretty? She must be.”
I nodded, thinking about her Pearl Jam T-shirt and the way her curves filled it out.
“You a runner?”
“Yep.”
“Well, this is me then,” the man said, parking outside his law firm and straightening his tie. “Enjoy Hamilton.”
As I ran across the domain, I felt energised by the phone conversation. It had been three years since I had seen her, and I knew the timing was right. Her gramps had just died; she would need someone to comfort her.
I ran diagonally through a group of well-built boys playing touch rugby. They ran around me, some shoving me out of the way. The rain had started to come down now, and I stopped at the edge of the game to put on my hoodie and tighten my cap. I took some loo paper from the roll and dabbed at my cheeks. I thought of every romantic comedy my sister had watched. You have to run through the rain to get the girl. It’s only water.
I was soaked by the time I began the long stretch of Great South Road parallel to the Southern motorway. It was a gauntlet of women, who took up the whole sidewalk with their prams, and packs of teen girls with their shopping bags, picking their way slowly up the road, heels in hand. Luckily the rain had stopped.
At Penrose train station, I sat down on a bench. I pulled out the Pizza Shapes and shovelled them into my mouth. Hamilton loved Pizza Shapes. Chicken Crimy Shapes were next on her list. We would sit for hours at her grandparents, munching our way through boxes of them, sometimes talking, other times just lying on the couch with our legs intertwined, covered in crumbs, watching Pimp My Ride. I imagined riding into Healsy Avenue in a bright pink convertible with black-and-white zebra stripes and her coming to the window in her purple wrap dress. I would crank up some music she liked, maybe some Rihanna, or was it Miley now?
I put my feet up on the bench and took a few deep breaths. I hope I don’t get lost in Otahuhu. I took my wet hoodie and singlet off and hung them over the bus stop seat next to me. A woman in a raincoat on the other side of me looked over at my bare chest and inched away.
“I’m running to Hamilton.”
“I like your tights.”
“They’re not mine.”
“Yeah, they’re women’s ones. Which bus are you catching? The Hamilton ones don’t go from here.”
“I’m running there.”
“Where?”
“To Hamilton.” The woman stood up as a bus approached.
“Get on here. It’s going to Drury.” She handed me five dollars and motioned for me to get on.
“But I have to …”
“Come on.”
I grabbed my hoodie and singlet and followed her onto the bus. I noticed that she had handles of flesh at the top of her jeans. I paid the driver and then sat next to the woman. We rode in silence, and I sighed at the thought of not running the whole way. I felt like a failure.
“You like Hamilton? You from there?” The woman held her bag in her lap.
“My girlfriend is called Hamilton. She lives there. She told me to run to Hamilton to tell her I loved her.”
“Do you always do what pretty women tell you to do?”
“But I do love her.”
“I don’t know. My boyfriend just gives me money for the slots. This is me. Here’s my number if you want to hang out when you get back. It’s Amber.”
In Pukekohe my legs felt wobbly, so I lay down in the park full of kids and their parents. Sometimes, Hamilton and I would sneak RTDs into the Hamilton Gardens and lie in the grass like that. She held my hand once. I closed my eyes and thought about her sweaty palm and the Taylor Swift I endured from her iPod. I took several deep breaths and bit my lip at the thought of the condoms in my backpack. I took a breath mint out of the front pocket of my bag and sucked on it. A boy in a school uniform tripped over me.
“Sorry. You alright?” I stood up and brushed myself off, nodding. I stood at the gate of the park for a moment, wriggling my toes in my damp socks and contemplating walking home. I ambled up the road to the dairy and bought a steak-and-cheese pie with the change I got from the bus driver. I walked slowly along the main road, wincing from the hot cheese that spurted out one side of the pie as I bit into it.
I still had one dollar left, so I thought about calling Hamilton from a pay phone, but there weren’t any phones around. The darkness was setting in, and I counted the cars that went past as I trudged towards Tuakau. I had lost track of time, but I had studied the route. I had to put one foot in front of the other.
When I got there, the footpaths stopped occasionally, and I walked on the road or in the gutter until they started again. A car slowed near me, and I gulped, walking resolutely. I could see the green Welcome to Hamilton sign in my mind, and I leaned against a fence, my back throbbing. I thought someone had hit me across the legs, and I fell back from the jolt. A cow seemed to laugh at me, and I sat on the ground for a minute, scratching my thighs, which were lumpy with prickly heat.
There were no street lights, and I picked my way slowly but surely down the river road, thinking about how the Waikato next to me was shimmering in Hamilton too. I liked that. I was thinking about feelings and the way they ripple between people. I really liked Hamilton. She always thumped me on the back hard when she laughed, and when we were kids, we’d chase the chickens around for hours and then lie down until they came close to our heads. Then we’d jump up and run away.
I felt a knot in my stomach. I remembered her stomping up the driveway after I told her I was going to uni in Auckland at 16. Engineering. So unfair. She was still at school. On the phone she had said something about becoming a horse trainer and I laughed.
It felt like I’d been walking through blackness for a long time when I saw a streetlight up ahead. A car slowed again as it passed me, and I tried not to look over.
“Oi! Dickhead!” Someone threw a milkshake out the window, and it bounced onto the road in front of me, bright against the tarseal. I picked my way around it and studied the grass ahead of me for hazards, wishing I had a torch. The temperature had dropped and the wind felt like it was coming from Antarctica.
I put my hoodie back on and decided to take a quick nap in a field. I climbed over the turnstile and using my backpack as a pillow, I drifted off. My whole body ached, but the grass had a comforting smell, even if it was slightly damp. Just like Hamilton.
I woke to the sound of hooves and a small child’s voice yelling. I blinked several times as my eyes adjusted to the light.
“Dad! There’s a man in the field!” The boy approached me in his gumboots, flinging dew up at me from the grass. His dad rode up to me on his horse.
“You alright down there? This is private property. Timmy, leave him alone.” I sat up, but I felt like I couldn’t move my legs, so I lay back down again.
“You hurt yourself, son?” The man climbed down from the horse and offered his hand, which I took, pulling myself upright. Pain shot through the backs of my thighs, and my heels were raw and stinging.
“I’m on my way to Hamilton. How far is it from here?”
“Just follow the river. Where are you parked?”
“I don’t drive.” The man eyed me for a minute, keeping a reign on the horse, which was getting restless.
“You want to come get cleaned up? We’re going fishing if you want to join us.” Timmy stood staring up at him, his fists full of carrots.
“I have to get to Hamilton, but thanks.”
“Alright. Good luck with the hitching then.”
“What time is it?”
“Seven thirty.”
I looked at him in disbelief. I slept for that long? I bent down and touched my toes, feeling the burn in my muscles. Timmy waved goodbye as he made his way back up the hill with the horse in tow.
I’ll tell her I left late. She doesn’t need to know.
I stood on Churchill Road and stuck my thumb out. When a lady stopped, I gratefully slid into the back seat and pulled out my water bottle, drinking it all in one sitting. Her terrier was in the front, poking his nose through the gap under the headrest. He yipped, and the woman leaned away from the wheel to clip his ears.
“Charlie! Bad dog! I can only take you so far as Hamilton, okay?” She eyed me in the rear-view mirror, her wrinkled lips twitching. I nodded and burrowed into the dog blanket.
I woke to the sound of a large group of people talking in Chinese next to a bus. The woman had parked the car in the garden’s carpark and was leaning out of the window smoking. Her dog was sitting still, slightly dejected.
“You can get out here, if you like. I should start charging. Off you go!” She opened the passenger door and motioned for me to get out. I looked around at the gardens and decided to take a break before I faced Hamilton. I ate the last of the Pizza Shapes as the morning sun warmed my neck. Then I tipped the remaining crumbs into the water for the ducks.
Right, this is it. I replaced the toilet paper in my shoes, after airing out my socks. I winced as I cleaned my blisters in the pond. An old lady leaned over and whispered something to her husband, and they rose from their picnic table, walking off quickly.
I took my time along the familiar route to Hamilton. I stopped at lamp posts periodically to stretch. I could feel hunger gnawing its way through my insides. So close.
As I approached the corner of Grandview Heights, I saw a woman approaching in a tell-tale faded Pearl Jam T-shirt. I gulped and turned around, but it was too late.
“Derek?” Hamilton walked slowly towards me, carrying a plastic shopping bag in each hand. She stopped to roll up the frayed edges of her jeans that were dragging along the ground. She pulled the T-shirt down over her muffin top out of habit. I felt panic come over me in a wave, but I couldn’t move. I gripped my backpack.
Hamilton put her bags down on the footpath and reached out to hug me. I noticed her body was fleshier than I remembered. She hugged me tighter than I would have liked, and I looked up at her eyes that were welling up with fat tears.
“I didn’t think you’d come,” she said, and we sat down on the curb together. Exhaustion had taken any words I might have had, and we sat in silence for what felt like a long time. Hamilton was much prettier than I remembered. The birds were more contented; the suburbs worn, but well-loved.
“Can I have some crimpies?” Hamilton nodded and reached into the bag, pulling out a box.
“I love you.” I looked across at the grass as I said it, in between bites.
“I know you do, silly,” she told me, brushing the crumbs off her T-shirt. She pushed me down, and we rolled onto the lawn, setting off the sprinkler. I elbowed a flamingo out of the way.
“I ran here, like you told me to.”
“You did not.”
“I ran to Newmarket.”
“Pass me the crimpies.”
“Get them yourself!”