Blood on the Track

By Alan Wilkinson

*THE FOLLOWING IS A WORK OF FICTION*

I am afraid I was a sickly child-but it seemed to run in our family- but I made up for that being brainy. Not that I appreciated this at school, I got picked on beat up and chased. I was nerdy and weird, and back then the chase ended quickly because I was slow and awkward.

But I got into Princeton History.so up yours Brad Cooper and gang. I was reading European history and the Romance languages, I guess my interest and adeptness in these subjects was in part hereditary,- my great grandmother fled from Rumania pregnant with Joel , my  granddad –the story goes she came into Ellis island, apparently a poor emigrant, she then  headed into the American heartland –to apparently not be found by her husband. She wound up in Cincinnati and promptly brought the fine detached four bedroom house I was brought up in –she paid for it with jewellery she’d hidden about her person.

I grew up a sickly swot, fascinated with East European history and languages. I was a nerd but I was going to be a multilingual well paid nerd.

At Princeton it was Jane who changed everything.

Jane Hall was one of the brightest stars of our year at Princeton, even cleverer than me, but also attractive and a superb athlete. When I saw her at the track she was everything I wasn’t and, I realised everything I wanted to be.

She filled my daytime reverie and haunted my gothic dreams- I’d been assailed by what I would term Gothic mythic nightmares ever since I could remember. Those monsters now shared my sleep with Jane, where she took the role of heroine and monster slayer.

I tried to run, perchance to gain a lady’s favour.  On one of my painful jogs I cut myself badly and I needed a blood transfusion. It was hard to describe the effect of that transfusion-after it I had so much energy I could run, talk and socialise like never before. But after a few days it had worn off-leaving just a memory of what life could be like.

I wondered what to do, plainly I could not injure myself every week to get a transfusion,

Could I buy a blood transfusion? I could finance it by giving language lessons maybe?  I asked around students on campus and came up with the name of a guy at a nearby Hospital who would sell you blood -the price depended on the rarity of your blood. Mine including transfusion was $500 dollars a pint–boy that would take a few language lessons to afford on a regular basis –and I needed it to be regular.

The alternative was to rob the bank, the blood bank-ha ha. Trouble is that might end in a blood bath ha ha! So maybe I would have to resign myself to maybe one or two pints a month.

Which would be most beneficial to me, a little every day or splurge the lot when some special event came up? I would need to read up more and test things. I needed to research this vital subject. As I read I came across something athletes used to do to improve performance which was classed as cheating and is banned now. Blood Doping- this requires you to take out a pint of your blood and put it in the freezer, your body replenishes the missing blood, and then you put the other blood back increasing the bloods efficiency.

Doping might be cheaper –but I doubted it would be enough on its own, my blood was weak stuff –on its own -it was not as effective as other peoples donated fresh blood.

So I did both-the same medical guy helped me blood dope every week for £60 dollars on top of monthly transfusions. You might wonder at my standing the cost and inconvenience of all this –but to me it changed my previously grey world to a new multicolour world.

So there was no question, it was my way forward –giving as many lessons as I could–I had the energy and the drive as long as I kept freshening up my blood

And my running was improving

Then a third darker phase came with my blood obsession –a side which chimed with those nightmares dreams I’d had since childhood.

There was an unfortunate incident by the canal one dark night, a guy fell over cut himself called for help, no I didn’t push him over, honest. I went to help. I accidentally got some blood on my lips before I knew it I was sucking his blood, he fought but I knocked him out.

After that things started to change quickly-I was literally becoming a different person; vigorous lively passionate and starting, for the first time in my life to be good at games. Running not jogging.

What with running, studying and starting to chase the lady’s, I needed to keep topping up my blood with fresh blood-from not two but my three sources. Transfusions, doping and now, a drink of the occasional passing vagrant’s blood. Poor souls who would wake up with headaches and feeling tired and listless, ha ha. This way was dangerous but it boosted me as much as the transfusions but cost nothing and was weirdly empowering.

My life was changing Blood doping and the blood of dopes was transforming me

I was running well, I was on the edge of the track team now and nearly, in rubbing shoulders distance of Jane. She was in my dreams and nightmares-I hoped soon she would be in my life. She had a boyfriend, also a track star, Jeff Wiles. I’m sure I could do something about him.

There are always problems in life, but my life was coming to life.

….to be continued

                                                                                                                  Friday 17^th May 2013