Stride

Locals

If you ever drive through Donquella, you’ll notice a few things.

The trees, of course, but thousands of towns have those. 

The stone bridges over the rivers and creeks for sure, bridges that grace calendars and state tourism brochures.

And you’ll notice that in the trees, above the bridges, along trails, are runners. Lots of them.

Donquella is a running town, the way small Texas towns are football towns and small Indiana towns are basketball towns.

There’s a bronze statue of an anonymous runner, lithe, sinewy, full stride, just about to cross the Hobarn Bridge over the Small Platte River, and runners sometimes pat it for good luck on their way to the trails in the hills.

There’s another landmark in town, the only bar, Breakers Tavern, and it once won Best Burger in the state, and might have again if some fancy big city chef hadn’t opened a Wagyu burger bar and started collecting all the plaques.

Inside Breakers, around the corner from the kitchen, on a stainless steel barstool that was built to swivel but doesn’t anymore, is Bill.

He’s there almost all the time, and the first thing you’ll notice is that he’s shirtless.

Like most places, by law you have to wear a shirt and shoes in an establishment that serves food, but Bill just wears shoes.

Bill watches people play pool on the three tables in Breakers, where they don’t let the cloth get too worn before changing it, and Bill only speaks if some tourist is dumb enough to set a drink on it.

If you asked Bill why he doesn’t where a shirt-don’t do that, but if you did– he’d let out a sound like a small gasp, maybe a weak goose honking, then not answer.

Bill is claustrophobic. Horribly, debilitatingly claustrophobic.

He can’t wear a shirt. The thought terrifies him.