Jess Keefe - Thirty-Thousand Steps: A Memoir of Sprinting Toward Life After Loss

To my intrepid agent, Priya Doraswamy, and my sure-footed editor, Jake Bonar: Thank you for your faith in this book and in the value of difficult stories. Thank you to my friends and early readers, especially Lindsay Berrigan, Erin Calligan Mooney, Colleen Dinn, Kristen Everman, Madeline Felix, Ellen Haun, Emily Kunkel, and Devon Tarby. Thank you to Matts loved ones who shared memories with me, especially Brian Biciocchi, Annie Fallon, and Taylor Swyter. Thank you to Caroline Davidson for answering my random questions about dense scientific research with generosity and genius. Thank you to my dog, Eddie, who cannot read but deserves my formal gratitude regardless.

Thank you to Casey Scieszka and Steven Weinberg of the Spruceton Inn, at whose artists residency this book first began to take shape. Thank you to the fine folks at the outlets that first published my writing about my brother, especially Brooklyn Magazine, Filter magazine, and HuffPost.

To my brother, Matt: I wrote a whole book about you but still cant really describe what you meant to me and countless others. I miss you. See you around.

To my parents, Mike and Janet: Thank you for your love and support and for accepting my burning need to tell this story. And to this projects first editor and most spirited cheerleader, Corey Beasley: Thank you. I love you.

H UMAN BODIES ARE SO MUCH MESSIER THAN THEY SEEM . W HEN you imagine kidneys, livers, hearts, lungs, you might recall those tidy medical illustrations that often appear in science textbooks. They depict each organ as static and matte, with a well-defined color and shape, floating peacefully in the center of a white space. But bodies dont really look like that inside. If youve ever seen somebody cut open on an operating table, you know its mostly a mess of mixed-up carnage in there. Slick, wet, pulsating. The organs have no clear shapes or colors, no surrounding white space. They look profane, animated, cartoonish even, like any one of them could spring to independent life, walk off and smoke a cigarette at any moment.

I tend to become hyperaware of my insides whenever Im in motion but not adequately prepared for that motionduring a high school soccer practice the morning after a kegger, for example, or riding a roller coaster after eating oysters. This evening, as I jog along Bostons Southwest Corridor Park in the thick August air, I am very much feeling the heavy wetness of my lungs and liver.

I did not prepare for this motion. Its past 6 p.m. on a summer Friday. I can feel my insidesand my lunchsloshing around as I run. A few hours ago, I was housing Swedish meat-balls, mashed potatoes, and three beers at work. Its one of those hip, alcohol-centric workplaces where the combination of creative work and lowish salaries results in almost every nondepartment-head employee being hot, interesting, and under 30. (At 29 myself, I qualify just barely.) Its rare for me to get out of there for the week without first getting medium drunk in the chic on-site bar and insisting that my project manager or graphic design partner or, shudder, my boss watch inappropriate YouTube clips with memaybe one of a monkey that screams like a person or a hip-hop remix of a Fox News talking head yelling at his producers. But about halfway through my Orange Line ride home from the office, my buzz wore off, and anxious dread took its place. Leaving my workplace behind for the weekend meant that itd just be me and my own exploding personal life for the next 48 hours. And that made my guts tighten uncomfortably.

So now Im running. Its a desperate attempt to quell the anxiety. This is my main motivation for running these days. Im not on a training schedule; I dont meet up with friends or local track groups. I force myself into the occasional solitary jog only after all my internal angst has reached a fever pitch and Im desperate for relief.

Because as much as I suffer through them, theres something irresistible about these runs. I know they will center me, but its not because I achieve some sort of healthy Zen on my jogsits more a simple understanding of the physics of it all. Because I know that while Im sweating out here, putting one foot in front of the other in this mindless but intentional way, I can beat my overactive brain into bloody submission. The panicky lights will dim, its sharp edges will smooth over. It will all feel much gooier, which is easier to handle. While Im running, my brain cant obsess. Like rubbing your tummy and tapping your head at the same time, its just too much to do it all at once.

Its hot as shit tonight. During northeastern summers, sunset doesnt bring any real relief. The discomfort just shape-shifts. Instead of the sky roasting from above, the pavement sizzles from below. The air feels too full and on the verge of barfing, like perhaps it too had Swedish meatballs and three beers for lunch. I feel my insides churn. I quicken my pace.

I need this goo-brain time today because my little brother Matt is back in the hospital. He goes into a medical facilityan ER, a psych wardabout once a year at this point. This time, his hand has been swelling up again. About four years ago, Matts heroin use resulted in some kind of infection that made the hand on his injecting arm balloon out like a Mickey Mouse glove. The swelling went down in the hospital, but the hand never quite returned to full working order. Nerve damage? Something I never knew drug use could do. I thought drugs just made you get so high you went crazy and threw yourself out of a window, like Helen Hunt in those after-school specials. But, turns out, problematic drug use doesnt always lead to a spontaneous combustion. It more often brings pernicious, lasting issues that contribute to a slow erosion.

Cant fixate on that right now though. Not while Im running. Its too much for the goo to handle. As I approach Green Street station, a lean blond woman trots past me on my left. Her pony-tail swishes against the back of her hot pink New Balance singlet, and I catch a whiff of her elegant department store perfume as she breezes by. Shes tricked out in all the gear: Shes got her waist belt lined with little shot-glass-sized bottles of water, shes got the UV protective baseball cap, shes got the swishy shorts skimming her cellulite-free thighs. I watch her ponytail bob off into the distance in front of me, her perfection shrinking into the horizon, then disappearing around a bend.

As you can imagine, Im wearing the Swedish-meatballs-and-three-beers equivalent of a running outfit. Ive got on my knee-length bike shorts, which I require in an almost medical capacity in order to prevent bloody thigh chafing. Im sporting a ratty old soccer camp t-shirt made of heavy-duty heathered gray cotton, and its so soaked in sweat that it feels like one of those compression vests anxious dogs have to wear during thunderstorms. I know my face is beet red, as it always becomes during any period of exercise. This makes it look to others like Im about to keel over any minute, so I try to smile a little, or at least wipe the pained look off my face, when confronted with concerned-looking passersby. I dont splurge on department store perfume, and even if I did, Id never waste a precious spritz on a jog.

Now Im coming up on English High School and its wide, empty football field. Behind the campus youve got the Midway Caf, one of the best gay bars in the area, as well as Doyles, a classic Boston Irish pub. The two spots look deceptively similar: crumbling exteriors, thick coke-bottle glass in the windows, creaking floors, a dim air of decay and alcoholism. Its only once youve spent some time in each, among the drag queens of Midway and the off-duty cops at Doyles, that you understand the respective deals. I always pity the folks who wander into either spot clueless of its context, becoming more and more visibly uncomfortable as they begin to catch on to a vibe for which they were not briefed or prepared.