Dear Brandeis Runner:
Lately, as I have exited the underground parking garage on Palm Ave. in downtown Burbank on my way to work, I have encountered you. You are an Asian man, probably in your early thirties, dressed as if you are on your way to one of the many vaguely generic financial or legal firms which occupy the other floors of our office tower. Your glasses are a little too large for your face, and not in a cool way. You wear loafers, and not in a cool way. And, for some reason, you're running.
The first time I became aware of you, you were barreling noisily up the sidewalk behind me, arms and legs flailing as if a bear was chasing you, an earnest, furrowed expression on your face as if you were doing a complicated math problem in your head, or trying to take a shit.
I had thought, nay, hoped this sighting might be an isolated incident, but I saw you again last week. You ran, pell-mell, up the stairs next to me in front of the building.
"Running late?" I asked cheerfully, feeling a quixotic need to garner an explanation as to your behavior, a self-deprecating sign that of the two of us alone on the steps, I wasn't the only one currently finding you ridiculous.
"Yeah," you sneered back at me, with a surprising amount of "what's it to you?!" antisocial vitriol for someone sprinting like a whirligig through a public place while wearing dress clothes. You seemed surprised, perhaps even irritated, that you'd been noticed. Noticed, and labeled: a Brandeis Runner.
--
Some background: At Brandeis University, my alma mater, there was a certain element of, to put it diplomatically, freakishly dorky morons that helped comprise the student body. And while every selective, academically oriented college has its fair share of Bufords, Brandeis semed to have received an uneven distribution. Within this foolish minority (although one that often felt like a majority), there existed a group referred to as the Brandeis Runners. My friend Alison and I take credit for, not creating, but in fact discovering this sub-sect of the university populace, which, let me be clear, had absolutely nothing to do with the track team. They were often any combination of overweight, unkempt and/or slovenly, in possession of large, unwieldy backpacks, and wearing, generally, the least appropriate attire possible for physical activity, i.e. overcoats, dress shoes, scarves or sophisticated orthodonture.
And, they ran.
They ran through the campus in the same vein as the Asian man from the sidewalk in front of my office, limbs flailing, on pedestrian paths while classes were changing, with a fiery urgency that seemed to imply that if they didn't get where they needed to go at exactly ten past the hour, that whatever low-level Sociology class or Judaic Studies seminar they were late for not only wouldn't happen, but might spontaneously combust, and they'd all have blood on their hands.
The Brandeis Runners were a source of wonder for me and Ali. Did they know one another? Did they plan these guerilla blasts through campus, their overstuffed L.L. Bean backpacks filled with the writings of Isaac Bashevis Singer taking people out as they whip along the pathways as classes change? Were they a precursor to Flash Mobs, only far less zestful and happiness-inducing? Or were their dashes up Library Hill or the crowded steps to the Rabb Humanities Quad as approximately 3,000 people attempted to relocate themselves in a ten-minute period merely a chance to slip a quick few minutes of cardio into their busy undergraduate schedules?
Ali and I decided that no... no, these individuals, whom it would be misleading to in any way refer to as a "group" were mere coincidence. The Brandeis Runners were, and, indeed, most likely still are, completely ignorant of one another (as they may indeed be of many things). They are people whose individual actions not only gain them membership to a club of which they are not aware, but in fact sustain it. A paradox, no? Imagine being a a charter member of a select, recognized phenomenon (as this in fact was after Ali and I were done calling peoples attention to it, have no doubt) that you had no idea existed, whose character you helped form, in spite of yourself. It was this legacy that the Brandeis Runners unwittingly brought to themselves.
--
Today, standing with a colleague at the crosswalk, I realized you, Brandeis Runner were standing in front of us, waiting for the light to change.
"Watch this guy," I said to him. "He'll run when the light changes."
"Whaaa?" Patrick said back to me.
And sure enough, when the light changed, you were off like a shot, lunchbag in hand, bowleggedly bounding up the street, most likely having no knowledge of that fact we, or anyone, had taken note.
And so, Brandeis Runner, it is this tradition to which you unwittingly pay homage, this sodality to which you belong, despite the fact that you most likely did not attend the university itself. You remain, in spite of yourself; an outpost of dweebishness, of antisocial behavior, on the sun-drenched sidewalks of downtown Burbank, easily a charter member of the Brandeis Runner West Coast Chapter. I look forward to both rolling my eyes and getting out of your way as you hurtle past me, conjuring up memories of a younger, more innocent time, sitting on the benches of the Brandeis campus with my friend Ali, Aramark Boulevard Cafe chicken wrap in hand, just waiting for a sighting of another Bradneis runner to laugh at. We always knew it wouldn't be long.
Best regards,
Dear Crabby
