Jules was unsure what day it was. He knew Ruby wasn’t arriving at four, so it must’ve been a weekend. He’d asked Seamus if he wanted to come over and watch old movies. Seamus hadn’t seen most American films before 1980. Jules found a list of classic films online. He and Seamus were working their way through the list. Seamus couldn’t make it today. His son’s birthday. Jules took a meat lasagna out of the freezer and preheated the oven.
He picked up the printed movie list. Classic films, from the 1960s and 70s. They’d crossed out a bunch. Jules peered down at the list of movies and chose The French Connection. Then he searched on his computer to find out which of the remote’s buttons he had to press just to find the right service to watch the damn thing on.
As the opening credits began playing, Jules’ mind started to drift. He was sure he’d seen the film in the theater with Lisa. He looked at the list again. 1971. That would fit. Gene Hackman was one of his favorite actors. His face was constantly shifting, morphing from intensity to empathy in seconds. His characters were fierce but fair, kind of like Philip had been.
The oven beeped. Jules ambled over to the kitchen, put the lasagna in, and set the timer. He poured himself a lemonade and gin and tossed in a few ice cubes. He found some cashews in the pantry and filled a bowl, then shuffled back to the couch.
After a few minutes of the film, Jules noticed his mind sailed away from the television screen in front of him, out of the living room, and up into the imaginative realm.
In another life, Jules might’ve been a race car driver. In that parallel universe, if race car driving didn’t work out, he might’ve tried stunt driving on movie sets. Or, in a less famous scenario, managing a Go Kart track with a ragtag outfit of ne’er do-well employees, whom he’d race after hours for cash.
Despite his mind’s tendency to drift toward anxiety, when Jules sat down behind the wheel and hit the gas—the world beginning to flash by him—his anxiety faucet turned off. Driving was an experience that demanded focus and instant reaction. With only mild awareness, Jules could sense the power of the car, his grip on the wheel, changing his instincts.
He figured this happened subconsciously to most people. Too often people became intoxicated with speed and rarely acknowledged the risks of driving until they’d been involved in an accident, or happened to witness one. Like Gregory.
During elementary school, after Memorial Day, Jules and his classmates competed in an annual “Field Day.” Jules played sandlot baseball, basketball at the park and during the winter at their local JCC, and Sam taught Morty and Jules how to play tennis one summer. One sporting moment he continually returned to was the “Race around the Park.” In third grade, Jules found himself the target of a particularly nasty group of boys, led by the tallest of the bunch, Gregory. After three years of various gym class scenarios, Jules knew he was one of the faster runners in the grade, but he surprised himself one humid June morning in 1949.
Gregory elbowed everyone out of the way at the start, and he’d been leading the pack most of the race. As they turned at the edge of the field, marking the halfway point, Jules felt a surge of adrenaline course through his legs and passed by a few of the faster boys, who turned their heads as he flew by. Jules found himself behind only Gregory. As they turned toward the final quarter of the long loop, Gregory started taunting Jules, shouting “Jules the Fool! No way, not today!” That was the moment that something shifted in him. Time and space dropped away.
In Jules’ vision, only the finish line. He could visualize passing Gregory, and then he did. During that final exhilarating stretch, Jules barely touched the ground. The girls, who weren’t allowed to run this race, cheered him on. Jules was kind to them and they reciprocated. This come-from-behind victory propelled Jules’ confidence over the next several years.
Twelve years later, when meeting up with old friends during winter break from college, Jules heard that Gregory was killed in a drunk driving accident. The memory that had once filled Jules with pride, shifted into something else. The race became an elegy for the troubled Gregory, who, in turn, troubled other kids like Jules.
Every spring, Philip took Jules and his brothers to the Penn Relays. The 100 meters and the 200 meters were Jules’ favorites. In the 800 meter race, Jules could sense the exhaustion of the sprinters.
The 100 and 200 meters were dashes. Purely primal experiences. Outrunning danger—a universal human urge. There was an unmistakable truth in these sprints that riveted young Jules. It was emotional to him. Morty teased him. Sam thought Jules was odd. To Jules, they weren’t just racing. They were surviving.
Decades later, watching the Summer Olympics, slow-motion footage of the action added a new dimension to the viewing experience. Jules was glued to the screen, examining the faces of the world’s fastest humans, both the men’s and women’s races, as they leaned toward the finish line, extending their torsos toward the yellow tape. The marathon. An impossibly grueling idea borne out of a need to communicate during wartime. A true exhibition of maximum human effort in the complete sense. However, it was the 100 meter dash that illustrated the urgency of survival, at least in the mind of Jules.
As a middle-aged man, when Jules read about Canadian sprinter Donovan Bailey’s peak speed of 27 mph, he was both amazed and perplexed. In 1996, Bailey’s speed was achieved while winning the Olympic gold in Atlanta. Jules considered how humans were so entranced by speed that compact sedan dashboards were built with speedometers that reached 140 or 160 miles per hour. Jules thought, “What if car manufacturers limited these vehicles to 30 mph?” He imagined car commercials in which the cheetah, which can reach 70 mph, raced a small sedan and left it behind in a cloud of dust.
Early on, Jules had a unique gift for timing and being able to sense spatial awareness. He could set a timer for five minutes, and guess, within a few seconds, when the alarm was going to beep. His hand-eye coordination helped him in learning how to play sports. Basketball, baseball and tennis. But also billiards. He could direct the ball with surprising accuracy. Near the end of high school, in the summertime, Jules and Morty would go to the local pool hall. They usually came home with at least enough money for a double feature at the cinema, sometimes more.
In the mid-1960s, Jules attacked Philly’s highways and downtown streets in his new Ford Thunderbird. With his first salaried job, an editorial position at a now-defunct magazine, Jules treated himself to the teal green sports car. He whizzed along with an intense sense of purpose. It was as if the car turned him into a different person. Steve McQueen’s Bullitt came out when Jules and Lisa had just begun dating. The San Francisco chase scene was etched into his memory. They saw it three times in the theater. Her manic laughter was contagious. After getting married, they continued seeing films and music shows every weekend. Then came tiny Reva. Life settled down. Seat belt laws were introduced. It mystified the middle-aged Jules that he’d ever driven with such wild abandon.
Near the end of the pregnancy, Lisa had bought a car seat and had warned Jules about driving carefully. Jules agreed. He fully accepted that young man who drove that old Thunderbird was gone. With the windows of their new Dodge Aspen rolled down, Reva’s bright eyes focused on the blur of images passing by on the street. Her little curls waving in the wind. He realized he was driving more than one heartbeat now.
The reverie ended abruptly. The lasagna timer was going off. Jules inched himself toward the edge of the couch and rubbed his eyes, lightly smacking his cheeks. Jules pushed himself up into a standing position and made his way into the kitchen.