Biking Across the Country Because of Love for a Brother
On the uphills through the mountains, his legs and his lungs will scream -- day after day. On the downhill at 50 mph, he’ll cling to the handlebars in relief and terror. Across the long, flat midlands, the 18-wheelers will drive their wall of air across the bicycle.
This is not “Breaking Away.” Mark Cattano calls it “Because I Can.”
Beginning Memorial Day, he’s riding across the country, 3,300 miles across seven weeks for the benefit of AIDS research. It will be an athletic feat, and more.
“I’m doing it because I can,” Mark said this week with the enthusiasm of a young man with uncommon purpose.
Advertisers, who three months ago said they’d stand behind Magic Johnson, have begun to subtly distance themselves. Business is business. Magic told our president he wasn’t doing enough.
A friend who teaches at an inner-city junior high tells me that Magic’s appearance on a basketball video at a recent assembly was booed for being so foolish as to have tested positive for HIV.
Mark Cattano’s inspiration to ride is that his brother, Steven, is HIV positive, has been for 10 years without showing AIDS symptoms. “He was my athletic idol,” Mark said. “He has had the dubious honor of watching the people around him die.” Cliff, Steven’s companion, is perilously frail now.
Peter Cattano says that when he sees his son Steven he looks for the signs. “It’s the normal thing to do,” Peter said. “He’s resigned that the string of his life is getting awfully tenuous.”
This is not merely one family with two sons. Peter Cattano was born the same month, day and year I was. His wife’s name is Anita; my wife’s name is Anita. He has two sons; I have two unmarried children. Coincidence is such in this time that it could be any of us.
I know the awful feeling of driving behind the ambulance rushing my son from ski slope to hospital. Peter and Anita Cattano live with the infinite finality and feel the bond a parent has for a child.
They’ll worry about Mark’s ride. “Of course I do,” Peter said. “It doesn’t matter how old, whether they’re neurosurgeons or legislators, they’re still your children.”
Peter said the first revelation that Steven was gay when he was an undergraduate at Cornell caused shock. “Then you focus on the person and who he is and what kind of humanity he has,” the father said. “Our relationship is stronger. You’re forced to look at the basic issues of a father-son relationship. It can no longer be anything approaching casual.”
Peter Cattano is an engineer, a Long Island pool contractor in Baldwin. Steven, 33, is a veterinarian in Berkeley, Calif., where the ride will begin. Steven ran track and threw the discus at Baldwin High School, won the scholar-athlete award when he graduated, went to Cornell, as his father did.
Mark, 28, is a personal trainer in New York. He trains comedienne Sandra Bernhardt and dancer Gregory Hines. “Steven was why I threw discus,” Mark said. “He lifted weights, so I lifted weights.”
Mark is 6-foot and 220 pounds, hardly the common build of a bike rider. “Steven is my size,” he said. “He’s husky. What’s amazing is seeing Cliff go from 190 to 125, and the family is waiting for the other shoe to drop on Steven.”
Mark will ride, which is something beyond arranging a dinner or a benefit performance. In the early spring, he’ll train in the Berkeley Hills. He knows the hazards of New York cabbies who dart from across the street for a fare and never notice the bike.
One time a truck pinned the wheel of his bike, just missing his foot. “The guy said he was sorry and I carried the bike to the subway,” Mark said. One time he sent a woman to the hospital. “She stepped out between parked cars and I cracked her ribs. No place on Earth is as difficult to ride in as New York City.”
Well, there are the Sierra Nevadas and the Rockies to climb. He is not a professional bike racer. “When it’s that steep, your mind shuts down,” Mark said. “Your legs hurt so much you just think of going forward to get over the next hill. That’s the fun of it; it becomes zen-like. The reward is when you get to the top of the hill, you have the long downhill. You sit and hold the bars for dear life and the wind is screaming through your helmet.”
Of course, there’s also the nerve strain on hands and feet and the total pelvic numbness that goes with the bike, and the common diarrhea, and the muscles that can’t recover overnight.
Three other riders will go along as alternating riding companions, plus an equipment vehicle. Sandra Bernhardt has pledged the proceeds of the opening night of her one-woman show “Give Til It Hurts” in March or April.
Only Mark will be riding door to door. Whatever they raise by contributions and sponsorship -- he thinks a million isn’t a remote goal -- goes to Community Research Initiative on Aids in New York and Community Consortium in San Francisco, medically-backed groups experimenting in treatment and prevention.
Mark has pondered the reception his group with its identifying shirts and vehicle sign might receive across America’s heartland. He says he tries not to think of the last scene of “Easy Rider” with the passing pickup truck with the shotguns removed from the rack in the back window.
“This can’t be done by just anyone,” Peter Cattano said. “He’s doing this because he can. There are some awfully contributing people dying without much hope.
“I’ve looked back and wished I had a chance to do something like what Mark is doing. Forgive a father’s pride. Most of us have our jobs and our lives. Very few people in life try to make a difference.
“How many who face the finality of life can ever say they did anything like this?”