Devil at My Heels - Louis Zamperini [99]
A banquet held in my honor by the San Francisco Press Club was a taste of life to come and a nostalgic reminder of my glory days as a runner. In fact, this time around was better because an awestruck respect was part of the package, coupled with an eagerness to help me forget my ordeals. Just as training hard for a race had paid off, I soon found it tough to deny that I’d “earned” whatever attention now came my way. Sitting there on the dais, I experienced a gratifying, exciting warmth, a flush, part adulation, part liquor. Fred filled our glasses the moment we emptied them, my eyes turned redder, and I grew expansive. When finally called on to speak, I not only touched on the past but made promises about the future.
“Before I crashed at sea,” I said, “I told you there were still many miles left in these legs. That hasn’t changed. I’ll be running again. In fact, I hope to qualify not just for the next Olympics in 1948, but for the next three!”
A brash promise, not to mention a direct contradiction of what I’d said on Joe Laitin’s radio show from Manila. Thinking about my injury from being pushed off a plank with one hundred pounds of coal on my back, I’d said, “I’m through with competitive racing, thanks to the Japanese.”
Leave it to Fred, though, to neatly express our great joy at being on native soil again. Rising unsteadily to his foot, hands on the table for support, he grinned amicably and said, “Boy, it’s sure nice to be home and see a bunch of fat people again.”
His comment also made me look at myself, now nearly 160 pounds—of spongy, limp flesh, not toned muscle.
A COUPLE OF days later I answered the phone for what seemed like the hundredth time. A dry voice drawled in my ear: “I told them you were too ornery to die.”
I was silent for what seemed like forever, then, “Pete! Where are you?”
“Just forty miles away, Toots. Be there soon.”
“You on a pass?”
“Nope. Went AWOL. See you soon as I can hitch a ride.”
As Pete later explained, a navy friend ran into his quarters and said, “Pete, look at this. Your brother’s home!” Pete wanted to see me so much that he just left San Diego without permission and flew to Frisco on a navy plane. I was very touched that he took such a huge risk—and relieved that he also got away with it.
Within the hour we were hugging each other unashamedly. “I knew you were all right,” he said, over and over. “Everyone thought I was crazy. I told Mom, ‘If Louie can get his feet on solid ground, he’s okay. Just give him a toothbrush and a scout knife, and he can take care of himself.”
I beamed and let him carry on.
“You know what we were going to do, Dad and I, if you didn’t show up?” he continued. “We were going to save up enough money to buy a boat and go from island to island and until we found you. I just knew you were alive somewhere out there!”
I forget what I said. I was so overcome that I couldn’t manage much.
Pete held me at arm’s length and said, “Let me get a look at you.” He took all of me in. “Hey, boy, you been living on cream puffs?” he joked, only he wasn’t joking.
“I know, I have to go on a diet. Give me a chance. All I did was dream about eating for two years.” Then I took a good look at Pete, and my grin slipped a little. Hair that had been as thick as mine was now sparse and thin, more gray than brown. Weariness lined his face; his body seemed gaunt and weighed down. “What’s happened to you, old man?”
“Boy, you got no respect for your elders,” he said, punching me lightly on the arm and changing the subject. I later learned that his transformation had lots to do with his worrying about my fate. That was Pete. He was my mentor, my advisor, my coach, my guardian. We were so close.
The day after Pete arrived, we were in midconversation in the hospital visiting room when the news media blew in, grabbed him, and mistaking his slim figure for a man who’d starved for two years, tried to interview him as Lou Zamperini, prisoner of war. We talked fast and straightened out their mistake.
Pete stayed for five days in a nearby motel. We talked about Dad and Mom,