I shrug and get into my car, waiting for him to pull back so I can close the door, and then sit there waiting for the adrenaline flow to ebb.
Ten minutes later at All Night, I tear the water up; swim two-hundred-yard repeats leaving every three-and-a-half minutes until I can barely drag the paddles through the water, forcing my elbows high through each stroke, sending deep burning pain into my shoulders and chest, trying to replace the fear and contempt in my gut. Maybe this is Rich Marshall’s purpose in my life, to make me faster.
An hour and a half later I drag my dripping butt out of the water and head for home, only to rise—now more pissed than scared—around four to return for some distance work before the rest of the guys show for the station workout, and find Icko waiting for me.
Icko is Interim Coach Oliver’s new acronym. Yesterday I started calling him our I.C.O., but when Chris Coughlin heard it he was convinced I was spelling the name so he wouldn’t understand something, like they do at his home. I tried to explain about acronyms, but that went about as far over his head as you can go without escaping gravity, and he started calling Oliver Icko. As I tried to explain it for the tenth or eleventh time, Oliver overheard me and said, “Hey, I like it. Icko. It has a certain ring.”
I said, “Yeah, like already chewed food, or snot running into your mustache. Ick-O!”
Icko told me to watch it.
At any rate, when I show up now, a little after four, he’s already up. “You got a minute, chief?” He follows me to the pool.
I say, “What’s up?”
“I been watching what you call a swim team pretty close,” he says, “and no matter how hard I watch, it don’t look like any swim team I ever saw.”
I said it was a little raw.
“Raw? Hell, I seen open, seeping sores ain’t as raw as this team. Ever notice you’re the only actual swimmer? Hell, you look like one of them boys in the O-lympics.”
I tell him it’s the same principle as my parking my Chevy Corvair next to some really ugly cars in the school parking lot. He says I couldn’t find an ugly enough car to make a Corvair look Olympic, but he gets the point.
“There some kind of vendetta goin’ on at school about this team?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” he says, “you know the Barbour kid, the one that works for Marshall Logging in the summer? The football stud?”
“Mike,” I say. “Mike Barbour. Yeah, I know him.”
“I seen him stacking up little slow Chris back behind the hardware store.”
Shit. “Did he hurt him?”
“Naw,” Icko says. “I done what I used to do with my boy.”
“What was that?”
“Picked me up a piece of rebar.”
“You used to hit your kid with rebar?”
Icko laughs. “Never thought of that. Naw, I just stood there talking to him real reasonable, you know, sayin’ he ought to increase his circle of friends enough to include people like my friend Chris there, while I bent the rebar into a horseshoe. He seemed to understand.”
“Was Chris okay?”
“Yeah, I guess. You know how he don’t say much. Well, he was sayin’ less than that. He liked the rebar thing, though. ’Cept he thought it was a magic trick. Asked me to teach it to him.”
I ask Icko if he knew why Barbour was bugging Chris in the first place.
He says, “Somethin’ about a letter jacket. I didn’t understand. I mean, the kid was wearin’ that Speedo jacket he always wears.”
Man, Mike Barbour is a one-trick pony.
So later in the morning I’m “doing lunch” in Simet’s room, bringing him current on the progress of his semi-landlocked mermen, advising against his applying for the job with the men’s national team.
He says, “What are your goals?”
“A small cattle ranch outside Albuquerque,” I tell him. “A few longhorns—”
“For the season,” he says.
“Swim as fast as I can. Get the gold.”
“That it?”
“Letter jackets for the downtrodden, one and all.”
“That’s still the big deal to you, isn’t it?”
“Still is.”
“Coach Benson caught me in the teachers’ lounge this morning,” he says.
“You must have been delighted.”
“Not particularly. He was feeling me out for swim team letter requirements; said he thought it was great I was getting a team going, though I should have talked you into going out for football if I really wanted to do the school a favor, rather than create a whole new sport for you.”
I love that they all want me. “What did you tell him?”
“I told him I didn’t create swimming; it’s been going on a long time. Told him about a couple of guys named Schollander and Spitz.”
Simet’s as big a smartass as I am.
“He said he knew the letter requirements were up to me, but he hoped I wouldn’t diminish what it means to be a Wolverine. Mike Barbour’s name came up, along with a couple of other ball players; and yours, of course. Said they were concerned that you were trying to make a sham of it.”
“It’s already a sham. I’m just exposing it.”
“You got something going on with Mike Barbour?”
I shrug.
“Well, I don’t know exactly what this is all about, but remember I have to live here after you’re gone. We can be creative, but I have a certain respect for athletics myself, so don’t push it too far.”
I promise I won’t push it too far. But like I said, Simet’s one of those guys who remembers what it was like to be a kid, so I figure “too far” is quite a ways out there.
CHAPTER 7
Finally Andy Mott shows. I believe I may have mentioned I wasn’t exactly looking forward to that. You know how that Li’l Abner character goes around with a cloud over his head all the time? Well, Andy’s cloud is three times the size and shudders with thunder and lightning. Andy seldom talks; the cloud speaks for him.
He limps onto the deck in that unique gait one morning, dressed in gray sweatpants, Nikes, and a T-shirt. His torso cuts an impressive figure; he ain’t Tay-Roy, but he isn’t Chris Coughlin, either. This guy has spent some time pushing iron away from gravity.
He whips off the T-shirt, kicks off his shoes as he sits on the bench, pulls off his sweatpants, then unstraps his right leg. The guy has a prosthesis from just above the knee. He shoves it behind the bench, hops over to the end of the pool, and stands.
Andy Mott is a junior, moved here two years ago, and nobody knows he’s missing a body part. He says, “What’s the workout?”
I almost can’t tell him we’re doing kicks.
He looks at me with contempt, or maybe that’s just his look, and says, “My best thing,” and hits the water.
Everyone is stunned, but Chris is paralyzed; wide-eyed with mouth agape, staring first at Andy in the water, then at the leg, a space-age metallic thing, then back to Andy. Communication with Chris Coughlin teaches one patience. There is a standard two-second lag time between input and output. Even with the simplest of questions, you watch his eyes and see the wheels slowly turn. His brain has a standard transmission, as if he has to create his own synapses. That’s for a simple question. When some guy limps into the pool and takes off his leg before diving in, Chris’s wiring tangles irreparably.
I have to admit it frays the ends of my own, but I walk Chris over to the bench and start him swimming on the surgical tubing, though he almost breaks his neck craning it to see if Andy’s for real.
At the end of the workout, Andy pulls himself out of the water, hops over, and straps on the leg. Chris still can’t take his eyes off him. Andy looks up and says, “What’s the matter, never seen a one-legged swimmer before?”
After the standard hesitation, Chris shakes his head slowly and says, “Huh-uh.”
I couldn’t be happier. Before Andy actually turned up, I believed the Magnificent Seven consisted of one swimm
er of color, a representative from each extreme of the educational spectrum, a muscle man, a giant, a chameleon, and a psychopath; when in fact we have one swimmer of color, a representative from each extreme of the educational spectrum, a muscle man, a giant, a chameleon, and a one-legged psychopath. When I envision us walking seven abreast through the halls of Cutter High, decked out in the sacred blue and gold, my heart swells.
By the time Thanksgiving vacation is over and Simet is legally coaching, we are a well-oiled machine. We have three in the water and four on the benches at all times. I’m putting in extra yards during off hours and my repeat times are getting faster daily, and if my times are in rapid descent, the other guys’ times are in freefall. Fifteen minutes of simple stroke technique per day will make a nonswimmer exponentially faster, and Simet is truly a master technician.
Dan Hole benefits most from that because he is first and foremost a student, and the very physics of swimming fascinates him. Jackie Craig, who remains the team’s ghost, listens intently to Simet’s every word, watches Dan put those words into practice, then imitates Dan’s every move. Though he’s been with us for weeks, I don’t think Jackie has uttered three sentences. I look back and realize I haven’t even thought of him and wonder if his whole life is like that. He shows up, watches, imitates, all the time remaining invisible. Mott comes in every day looking surly, leaves looking surly, and does everything in between with a barely controlled rage. I believe if the water were alive, he would beat it to death. Chris doesn’t get much from the technique instruction, but once or twice a week Simet gets into the water with him and manually moves his arms and legs correctly through the strokes. Chris probably has the best natural stroke on the team, and that’s a good thing, because no matter how much Coach works with him, that stroke doesn’t change. Simon continues to churn the water in search of muscle definition.
Tay-Roy probably has the most overall talent next to me. Though not a natural, he has an okay feel for the water, and as he alters his body design from bodybuilder to swimmer, he gets better and better. He’s the one guy who knows what it means to dedicate himself athletically. I don’t know how many people understand the dedication bodybuilding takes, or what it takes to bring yourself to the musical level Tay-Roy has achieved. Even I can learn from him. He is singular in his vision of himself as an athlete.
The first day Simet is on the job, Icko tries to disappear, standing over by the door for most of the workout, then slipping out early. The second day, while I’m moving from the water to the benches, I grab his arm and bring him to Coach. “Oliver Van Zandt,” I say, by way of introduction.
Simet sticks out his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Van Zandt. I didn’t realize that was you. I understand I have you to thank for keeping this group together.”
“They were pretty much together already, I was just around,” Icko says. “And you can call me Icko.”
Coach says, “Not the way I heard it, Icko.”
“I don’t know much about swimming,” Icko says. “In fact, I don’t know nothin’ about swimming.”
Coach glances around the pool. Jackie Craig and Chris Coughlin lie flat on their stomachs, stroking away on the benches to the beat of Bob Seger’s “Betty Lou’s Gettin’ Out Tonight,” while Tay-Roy churns the water in his lane like a washing-machine agitator, and Simon DeLong displaces enough water on his dive to wash Dan Hole to the far side of one lane and Mott to the side of the other. “You’re not the only one here who doesn’t know much about swimming, sir. And I’d sincerely appreciate it if you were to stick around as my assistant. I’m sure there’s money in the budget to compensate you.”
“Hell,” Icko says, “I got two full-time jobs as it is. No reason to pay me for this. I kind of enjoy it.”
“I kind of enjoy it, too,” Simet says, “but they still pay me.”
As I’m moving to the benches, I hear Simet ask Icko if he can drive a school bus. That would make us one self-contained traveling water show.
I look at us: a group of real outsiders, a group Cutter High School has offered very little to. You could make a case for the fact that Cutter has offered me a lot and that I’ve simply refused to take it, but for whatever reason, I fit better here than I’ve fit anywhere before. It’s hard to put my finger on, maybe it boils down to the racial piece. It isn’t as if I live in a city where racial struggles are everyday issues if you discount people like Rich and Mike Barbour, and it isn’t as if I’m carrying much personal cultural history, though my parents have always kept me supplied with books about African-American heroes, and we’ve always celebrated certain of their accomplishments and birthdays. But the fact is, my parents are white and the only others close to my “persuasion” are a child therapist and a preschooler. Sweet Georgia Brown, more by example than by lecture, has continually demonstrated that racist thought and action say far more about the person they come from than about the person at whom they are directed. Yet, no matter what you know, it doesn’t always alter how you feel.
When I was eight, in the third grade, I learned about Charlotte Volare’s birthday party the day after, when one of my friends asked why I wasn’t there. I walked up to Charlotte and asked her the same thing. She said her parents didn’t want me in their house because I wasn’t white; that her grandfather had been killed by some Japanese people in this thing called World War II, an event neither of us could quite pin down. It was okay for her to play with me at school, but she could never ever kiss me or have me to her house. I was pretty hurt, and Dad offered to call up Mr. Volare to find out what gives, but Charlotte was gorgeous beyond belief, with large, round brown eyes, and dark, thick hair that spilled down to the middle of her back like a luxurious blanket. Even at eight, I was pretty sure if my biker dad jumped in the middle of Mr. Volare’s shit I could kiss good-bye any idea of becoming Charlotte’s secret boyfriend, so with Georgia’s help I talked him out of it. But the sting was undeniable. Charlotte was so matter-of-fact with her explanation that I thought there really was something different and wrong about me that everyone else took for granted.
“Not a thing wrong with you, baby,” Georgia said over a plate of those miraculous cookies when I showed up at her house, crying and majorly pissed. “Some people’s parents are just stupid and mean; so mean they would cheat their own children out of having a great friend like you. Got to feel bad for that Charlotte.” By the time that conversation was over, I half felt bad for Charlotte.
So as an outsider, I may rate only a three or four on a scale of ten, where Dan might be a six, Simon and Chris an eight, Jackie—who knows?, Tay-Roy wherever he puts himself (he goes his own way], and Mott a fifty. Andy is famous as the king of in-school suspension, out-of-school suspension, and Saturday school; he spends more time in those places than in the classroom. We know he accrues most of that time not from fighting, but from calling to public attention Morgan’s shortcomings as a principal, or pointing out some teacher’s personal deficits in front of the class. While he hasn’t said a cross word to Simet or Icko, nor to any of us for that matter, he is notorious for the level of vitriol in his parting comments. I haven’t yet figured out why he picked this team for his sanctuary.
Cutter High School has many rituals I could do without, but none is more annoying than the special assembly before each new athletic season. The athletes from the teams are introduced, and the captain and coach have to make a short speech about team goals and what it means to compete for Cutter.
We operate on a shortened class schedule that day, so the assembly lasts the entire final hour. Winter sports include basketball, wrestling, volleyball, gymnastics, and now swimming. To this, I have not been looking forward. We will parade our band of merry men before a crowd of more than seven hundred students that includes the members of the state champion football team.
The other teams have a large number of returning lettermen, so the gym floor is covered with blue and gold by the time we are introduced, dead last, fitting for the spot we are sure to place in th
e conference. Icko has taken an hour off work and follows Simet onto the floor decked out in his Burger King uniform. I’m behind him, followed by Chris Coughlin, who is so seriously traumatized by having to walk in front of that many people that I have to keep saying, “Stay with me, Chris. Stay with me, Chris. Chris?” I hear the laughter and turn around to see Jackie Craig run into him because Chris has stopped when someone in the bleachers calls out, “Dummy!” A moment later we watch a teacher hauling the culprit out, but Chris is still paralyzed and Jackie’s nose is bleeding from the collision. I take Chris’s arm, bring him next to me, and tell him to stare just above the top bleacher and hum “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” in his head.
Simet introduces us as a new team with a good chance of getting points at State to help Cutter out with the all-sport state championship. When he introduces Icko, several people shout out orders for a burger and fries. Then I’m introduced as captain to a mixture of cheers and boos. I’m fairly popular, but there’s not a student in this school who doesn’t know I’m considered a slacker for not turning out for football and basketball. My speech is short. I tell them our goal is to finish the season with as many swimmers as started. Mott picks up a couple of days of I.S.S. when he hears somebody snicker at his name and gives the entire crowd a double middle-digit salute.
All things considered, we weather it pretty well.
The experience starts me obsessing on the idea of embarrassment and humiliation. Truth is, I have no idea how I stack up against the rest of the swimmers in the state, don’t even know who the best ones are. I downloaded last year’s best times off the Internet, but I still can’t get a fix on where my times fit; I get an extra turn each hundred yards because we’re swimming in a twenty-yard pool, give or take a couple of feet for the underwater shelf that also prevents me from flipping turns at that end. For a sprinter, starts and turns are absolutely crucial. All I can do is work out as hard as I possibly can, and start checking my times against the best times after our first meet, which isn’t until after Christmas vacation. Meantime, the trick is to get in as much distance as possible so I can avoid both embarrassment and humiliation.