Some like it not so hot

It was 1:20 in the afternoon, with the sun beating tom-tom on the pavement at the corner of Washington street and Commonwealth avenue in Newton.

Pretty soon the marathoners would be coming into view, thin, wraithlike creatures with staring eyes and relentless gait. White men, brown men, Orientals, wearing hole-riddled T-shirts and on their heads flopping handkerchiefs or hats that advertised Reliance Paint.

Their ultimate goal was the Prudential Building, still miles ahead in the shimmering distance. Their immediate goal was the next step and then the next and then the next.

Washington and Commonwealth is where it can all being and all come apart. That’s where the hills are, those three gently sloping accents that are easy if you’re tucked behind the wheel of a Chevy, but can make the appearance of Mt. Everest to a marathoner.

That’s where the legs can turn into bamboo sticks and where the lungs can feel as though they’ve been stuffed with hot coals.

The hills of Newton are where the Boston Marathon is often won and just as often lost.

Just below the entrance to the Brae Burn Country Club, Eric and Kathy Kristenson and Ron Taylor, all of Mansfield, had set up camp. They had a cooler of beer, and were back in the shade, and it seemed very pleasant.

A little farther down, Mr. and Mrs. Bill Porter and son Billy were waiting. Porter ran the half mile when he went to Melrose High and once tried 14 miles, just to see what it felt like.

It didn’t feel very good, he said.

Mrs. Porter said her father took her to watch the Marathon when she was a kid, because her grandfather ran in it.

A kid walked past holding a balloon. He said he’d paid 50 cents for it. Was the balloon worth 50 cents?

“I’m holding it for my kid sister,” he said. “She thinks so.”

A big line was gathering at the back of Stan the Ice Cream Man’s truck. Popsicles and Italian Ices were the top sellers. A man paid a half-dollar for a pink popsicle and reflected once again that it was no longer 1937.

A brown police car came down the hill and a disembodied voice over the loudspeaker asked residents to water the runners down as they came past.

Firefighters Jim Gallagher, Tucker Leone, and Billy Fitzpatrick stood in the doorway of Station 2, on the corner of Washington and Commonwealth.

“This is Clarence DeMar weather,” said Gallagher. “He liked it hot.”

Leone said he remembers Marathon days so cold the runners stopped at the station to get warm.

‘We got a room,” Leone said, gesturing toward the back of the station, “that must be 180 degrees. They’d go in there and never come out.’

Ed Clark, the fire captain, joined the group.

“I hear Jenkins pitched a shutout,” said Clarke. “He’ll win a lot of games. That’s a good team over there, and people shouldn’t panic too soon.

Station 2 had rigged a hose through the branches of a young tree in front of the firehouse, and water was cascading onto the sidewalk.

Any runner going through it would think he or she was in the Puerto Rico rainforest.

On the street, the crowd had started to cheer as several police on motorcycles came around the corner, and then a truck with photographers perched on it, and then the first runner.

He was wearing a white mesh top with a yellow border, yellow shorts, and no number, and seemed to be laboring.

As he went up the hill, the citizens turned their water house nozzles to fine spray and cooled him off.

The runner was Richard Mabuza from Swaziland, and he’d been leading almost from the start. But the hills were his death warrant. By Lake street, he was seventh. He finished 38th.

An hour later, as the cameras clicked and the pencils scribbled around winner Jack Fultz, the runners continued to plod past the corner of Washington and Commonwealth, each with an eye on his particular sparrow.

Fultz was asked if he didn’t feel that by dedicating his spare time to running he was missing the fun most guys his age have.

“No,” replied Fultz, “they’re the ones that are missing out.”

Jerry Kapstein will never get these people a multimillion-dollar contract. Marvin Miller or Ed Garvey won’t bring them a fat pension.

Their reward is a beef stew and blisters, but damn, when you see them start up the hills of Newton, you realize Jack Fultz knows what he’s talking about, that there is more to sport than a dollar sign.