“I didn’t—”
“You going with me or what? You don’t treat me like that, understand?”
“I didn’t—”
“You understand?”
Nortie nodded. “Yeah, I understand. I’m sorry.”
Milika softened a little. “Yeah, well,” she said, “sorry don’t get it. I got no time to spend with someone who won’t talk to me. Don’t be sorry, just don’t ever do it again, okay?”
Nortie smiled. “Yeah, okay.”
Milika started to walk back to the counter, but turned in the middle of the room and looked straight back at Nortie. She said, “Next time I hit you, hit me back. You want to be my man, you don’t take that from anybody.”
Poor little turd just can’t win.
“So what’s to eat?” I asked Elaine, hoping to end the ambush.
She reached into one of the bags, dragged out a dozen weiners and said, “We’re going to have a weenie roast. I brought sticks and buns and mustard and ketchup, and I have wood in the car. Move over, Annette Funnyjello, we’re having a beach party.”
“You may not have noticed,” I said, “but along with everything else this place doesn’t have, it doesn’t have a fireplace.”
“You don’t roast weenies and marshmallows indoors, you silly goose,” she said. “We’ll roast ’em down in the alley.”
“It’s fifteen degrees out there,” I said.
“That makes it five degrees warmer than it is in here,” Milika said, and she was close to right—the heater had been performing less than admirably all day long and it was looking to be the coldest night of the week.
Past experience told us that if you’re going to argue with Elaine, you have to want to argue, and none of us did, so we had a damn weenie roast. We sat on the hoods of my car and Elaine’s, and Lion’s Jeepster in the alley behind the Fireside, dressed in every stitch of warm clothes we had; built a fire and stuffed ourselves with hot dogs and marshmallows and, except for the snow and the cold and the unlikely surroundings and the fact that there isn’t a body of water within a hundred miles of here that isn’t frozen solid, it was a beach party. The fire crackled and sizzled and our shadows danced on the side of the Fireside Tavern and something about the whole stupid experience was a little bit magic—until the fire burned down and something about the whole stupid experience was colder than hell.
We went back inside, Nortie holding back a little with Milika, probably trying his hand at another apology, and stuffed towels in the cracks around the windows and doors and beat on the heater a little—Lion went down into the Fireside to make sure it was plugged in well—and things warmed up a little. We made Elaine insanely jealous with stories of Stotan Week and she lamented the fact that there’s no place for women to have the experience we were having. “Sure there is,” Nortie said, “when they die and go to Hell.”
Milika, on the other hand, was absolutely content with the knowledge that there isn’t a place for girls to have the experience we were having.
Around nine o’clock Elaine produced four straws in her hand. “Short straw gets the Elaine Ferral no-mercy, full-body massage, guaranteed to relax every muscle Max has ambushed. The massage will be the product of six weeks of intense training at Gary Takashita’s massage school—a blending of styles from the East and West. It is non-sexual in nature, and if the recipient makes one false move, I’ll tear his arm off.”
I’ve never won anything in my life, never even a single game of Bingo—hardly a coin-flip—but I drew the short straw, an obvious move on the part of the gods to let Elaine get her hands on me and fall forever in love. When the cries of “Fix!” died away and those reptiles crawled off into their bags, Elaine told me to put on my suit and lie down on the bag. It was chilly, but once she started in, the temperature in my body was the only one that mattered to me.
That massage had to be one of the most wonderful things I’ve ever felt. She started with my shoulders and neck and worked for at least an hour, working over every muscle Stotan Week had bushwhacked. She used a continuous deep rolling motion that took all the tension down and out through my fingers and toes. She even massaged my face.
We all talked for a while—every once in a while I’d moan and Jeff and Lion would threaten my life—until everyone else had drifted off. By the time she finished, I was convinced she was hopelessly, terminally in love with me and that I should describe in lurid detail every fantastic hallucination I’d had about her in the past few months. She saved me from that by going once quickly over my shoulders again, hard, then slapping my back. “Gotta go,” she said. “Make tomorrow a good one.” She gently shook Milika awake, and they were gone. Boy, I hate this. One of these days I have to check her out. Soon. Soon as I clean things up with Devnee. I’ll do that tomorrow.
THURSDAY
The magic was gone today. Oh, God, was the magic gone. You never want to turn your back on something as tough as Stotan Week; take it for granted in any way and it’ll sneak up from behind and hit you on the back of the head with a pickax. We did and it did. Today we went up there thinking we had it knocked. Three days down, two to go; all the confidence in the world after humming through yesterday in a magical fog. What we forgot was you have to do it, and you have to do it all out, and if you don’t, it won’t work and you will be sorry.
We must have spent half our time today in the Torture Lane. Max used the bullhorn like it was growing out of his face, and he must have thrown the siren into the deep end, because there wasn’t even a sniff of a five-minute rest period. And Jeff let Lion off his leash. Christ, we’re headed around the pool deck on what must have been our fiftieth lap of bearwalk when, instead of taking a right to continue around the pool, that peckerbrain takes a left and heads for the door. The door to outside. It’s twenty-two degrees out there, semi-blizzard conditions, we’re soaking wet and dog tired and that stark raving brain-damaged lunatic takes us on a bearwalk across the tundra. “Stotan! Stotan! All the way!” he yelled as he butted the door open with his head and forged his way through—through, not over—the snowbank next to the sidewalk and out to the fence, then across the yard and back through the other door and into the Torture Lane, the three of us following dutifully behind him, swearing we’re going to rip his arms and legs from his body and let Marty O’Brian use his torso for a chest-protector.
Actually, the wonder of it all doesn’t strike when you plunge into the snow—you have enough body heat going to keep you warm for quite a while out there. And it’s less work because you can put your hands out in front of you and sled along, which takes quite a bit of pressure off your shoulders; and certainly the snow is kinder to your hands than the rough deck. No, the wonder of it all becomes apparent when your twenty-two-degree hands hit the seventy-degree water. It felt like I was wringing out a beehive. At the end of the first lap of the Torture Lane, Lion was out of the water, yelling, “Stotan!” at the top of his lungs with each pushup and Jeff dropped with his face inches from Lion’s ear. Between Lion’s chants, Jeff whispered, “Your stuff is in the street.” Lion jumped up, must have dived half the length of the pool, screaming, “All the way!”
Over on the side, Max smiled.
But there was no dragging us into that magic Twilight Zone. I felt every stroke I swam today; every pushup. When it was over, all I could do was drop to the floor of the shower and praise the gods for not stopping time completely.
“Serbousek,” Jeff said, “you must be a very old man.”
“Why’s that?” Lion asked.
“Because you’re so close to death. If I cough once, or sneeze, or have the slightest hint of a sniffle, you’re as old as you’ll ever get.”
Lion smiled and sank against the wall. “You won’t get sick,” he said. “They do that all the time in Norway, or one of those places. Actually, I only did it because it’s so good for us.”
“Well, it wasn’t good for you,” Jeff said. “Don’t sleep. Don’t turn your back on me for a second.”
Lio
n’s high-pitched giggle bounced around the shower like a rubber bullet.
Bad as it was, there’s only one more day of it. We’ve got it beat. We won’t take it for granted again, though: guaranteed.
Lion may have a little tougher time with the last day of Stotan Week than the rest of us, because he did serious bodily damage to himself tonight after we’d devoured the last of the sandwiches and lay basking in the glory of having whipped four fifths of Stotan Week.
“Gather ’round, Stotans,” he yelled from the kitchen, where he stood stark raving naked atop the stove, his tank suit in one hand and Max’s bullhorn in the other, as Jeff walked through the door with groceries for dinner. Jeff looked impressed; he stood in the doorway, semi-awestruck. I still have no idea how Lion got away from the pool with Max’s bullhorn, but there it was, and there he stood.
“Gather ’round, Stotans!” Lion said again, this time through the bullhorn; and the walls rattled. “Having successfully completed four days of Stotan Week, you have earned the sacred privilege of learning the true mystical secret of Stotanism—at least, as it applies to aquatic endeavors.”
“Tell us, Master, O ye of the sunken chest,” Jeff said, “what is the secret?”
Lion looked down at his chest, then back at Jeff with exaggerated haughty contempt, and continued. “You have been led to believe that the great swimmers of modern times are just like us. ‘They put on their suits the same way you do; one leg at a time,’ I believe is the way Max puts it. Well, I am here today to tell you that is simply not true. My uncle had the privilege in his youth, lo these many years ago, to swim against one Don Schollander at a Meet of Champions in Portland, Oregon. Uncle Jake happened to be in the locker room, taking a leak, as they say, when Don was suiting up, and witnessed the secret of Don’s magic. Yes, my children, Don Schollander was a closet Stotan. My uncle passed that secret down to me and I am here tonight to pass it on to you.”
With that, he handed the bullhorn down to me, stretched his suit open with both hands, leaped into the air, doubling both knees to his chest, and attempted to thrust both legs through the leg holes at once. He caught the little toe of his right foot on the suit and fell sideways all the way to the floor, onto his shoulder. Jeff was able to break his fall some, which is the only reason Lion didn’t break his arm, but it knocked the wind out of him and I’ll be surprised if at least one rib isn’t cracked. Somehow in the chaos we got him safely to his bag, clutching his ribs and cursing Don Schollander. Jeez, the way Stotan Week is going, I’m surprised we didn’t all follow suit, like we did off the diving board.
After dinner tonight I called Devnee and went out for a couple of hours, though the rest of the guys said I was exhibiting conduct unbecoming a Stotan by spending even that much time on a “date” with a girl during this holiest of weeks. It wasn’t exactly meant to be that. I’d decided part of being a real Stotan was “getting clean.” That was how I felt when we came out of the workouts; that’s what I thought had happened for Nortie when he told us about his brother killing himself. “Getting clean” translates into “telling the truth” for me as far as Devnee is concerned, so I decided to take her someplace and break off our relationship—tell her the truth, that it just isn’t powerful for me anymore. Tell it like it is, Captain.
I picked her up about seven and we drove over to Dick’s Drive-In for a Coke. She looked so pretty, so squeaky clean and shiny, that I knew I’d have a lot of trouble with this.
“I’ve missed you,” she said as we drove down the arterial from her place toward Dick’s. I’d told her I wouldn’t be around much during Stotan Week, that I needed to concentrate on workouts. That was okay with her.
“Really?” I said.
She laughed and reached over to kiss me on the neck. “Of course, dummy. What do you think? You miss me?”
My resolve eroded a little. “Sure did,” I lied. Truth was, except for feeling pangs of guilt because of my uncontrollable attraction to Elaine, I hadn’t even thought about Devnee. “Missed you a lot, though we’ve been pretty busy—and pretty tired.”
She moved over closer and rubbed my neck. Her hands are strong but no match for Elaine’s in either strength or touch. I tried pushing comparisons out of my mind. They wouldn’t go.
“How are the other guys holding up?” she asked. “Are you all becoming big, tough Stotans who leap tall buildings and eat your young?”
I said, “Looks like it,” and told her of Lion’s shenanigans, falling off the board and taking us out into the arctic air. I tried not to get comfortable with her so this would be easier, but it wasn’t working. Besides going together, Devnee and I are good friends and have been for quite a while. Everything here felt like betrayal of that friendship. Somewhere in the middle of it all, just before I abandoned the idea of pulling this off with any grace—or pulling it off at all—I realized that if I were going to really be honest, I would have to tell Devnee about Elaine, even though there isn’t really anything to tell in terms of action; and that to do that I would have to tell Elaine too, as well as the rest of the guys. What I ended up with was Scrambled Innards, a condition in which my stomach turns inside out, I abandon all stressful plans and shine it on.
Devnee and I drove out Division Street to Diamond Bowl and bowled a few games. As usual, we had a good time and I talked myself into believing Christmas wasn’t the right time to break up with your girlfriend anyway. I took her home by nine, we made out in front of her house for a little while, which further convinced me I hadn’t explored all the possibilities of this relationship yet, and she got out.
“Call me tomorrow when you’re finished?” she asked.
I said I would.
I’m not much one to share my innermost feelings with the guys, close as we are, so nobody suspects my dilemma. When I got back, they made all the rude comments you’d expect from guys surrounded by civilization, yet remaining untouched by it in any way. I made a motion that we all turn in and get the sleep we’ll need for tomorrow. When the lights were out and we lay there watching the corners of the room dance in muted red to the uneven cadence of the neon Fireside sign flashing just outside and below the window, Jeff said, “Hey, Walk. I told Serbousek where we saw O’Brian yesterday.”
I said, “So, Lion, what are you doing here? How come you’re not sniffing that scumbag out of his hole?”
“I’m injured,” he said. “I’ll kill him later.”
FRIDAY
We awoke by six this morning—charged up. Lion felt a lot better and was having only a little trouble with deep breaths, so I guess his rib isn’t cracked, maybe only bruised. We got to the pool a little early and he put the bullhorn back in the equipment room, but when Max came out on the deck, he didn’t have it. The military posture was gone: no captain’s hat, no bull. He just walked out on the deck and said, “Guys, today we swim. No bearwalk, no deck drills.” He looked directly at Lion. “No romping in the snow. You’re swimmers and that’s what you’re going to do.” He didn’t talk about how hard we should work or that we’d get out of it only what we put in, or any of that crap. He just started us swimming. Every second repeat was ’fly, and if I’ve said it once, I’ll say it a thousand times, my vision of Hell is swimming butterfly down a one-lane pool toward Eternity.
There wasn’t a pushup or situp done, not a dip or a yard of bearwalk; just us plowing through the water. When one of us started to fade, the others were right there helping—pushing, pulling. Nothing was going to keep us from completing Stotan Week in style. Max systematically cut back on the rest between repeats and kept the pressure right at the outer edge, and we turned up the heat.
At about 11:00 Lion jumped out, clutching his rib, and yelled, “To the Torture Lane!” Max let us go for about a half-hour and we did one lap freestyle, ten pushups; one lap ’fly, ten pushups; one lap free…
It was mind-boggling. We felt every lap, every pushup, but kept each other going on sheer will. There was nothing mystical or magical about it, just raw physical and
mental tenacity.
At 11:30 Max blew the whistle, and we had to hold Lion. Jeff got up on the low board and cannonballed about an inch from his head and the rest of us tied him up. He went limp, and we let go, then he tried to swim away. What a hot dog.
When we got to the edge of the pool, Max said, “Let’s call it early. I’m bored with this crap.”
We soaked him as he flip-flopped off into his office. When we got out of the shower, Max was nowhere to be found. The pool was locked and the lights in his office were out. We thought we’d missed him, so we headed for the Jeepster, but he was standing beside his car in the parking lot with a paper sack.
“I’m going to say something about this week before you go,” he said, and reached down into the sack to fiddle with what was there. “The key is Wednesday, the day you went with it all the way.” He played a little more in the sack. “I’m really proud of you guys. You came up with more than even I thought you had. If there really is such a beast as a Stotan, you guys are it—though Stoicism and Spartanism aren’t really what it’s all about; they’re just ways to get there.
“If you think this week was just about swimming, you’re missing the part I think is important. If it’s only about swimming, you gave up a full week of your lives to shave one, maybe two tenths of a second off times you’ll be hitting by the State meet anyway. Heavy payment for so little time.”
He put the sack down beside him and looked straight at us. “This week I attempted to take some of the things I learned when I was in Korea and turn them into something useful to you. Remember the times when you gave up the fight and just went with Stotan Week—saw which way the river was flowing and went that way too. Most times the depth of your well isn’t measured in how hard you fight—how tough you are—but in your ability to see what is and go with that. If you’d fought me this week, I’d have won.”
Then Max’s eyes went soft and he folded his arms and leaned against his car. He said, “Guys, it isn’t very often in a person’s life that he gets to pass on the really important messages, the things he’s learned that are sacred to him. And I think it isn’t very often he gets to pass them on to exactly the right people. But this is one of those times for me, and I want to thank you for allowing it. There are lessons in this week that can serve you for the rest of your lives—but there aren’t words for those lessons, so I can’t tell you what they are. You find them for yourselves. Just remember, when it’s time to meet the Dragon, that you can’t fight him head on; he breathes fire. But you can go with him and beat him.” Max pointed to the sack. “I gotta go,” he said. “Got something for you in there.” He got into his car and drove away.