Stotan! (2 page)

November 12

Nortie volunteered for Stotan Week today. The little screwball hoped Max would tell him more about it if he just walked in and signed up, but Max merely said okay and wrote his name down. Now he's begging the rest of us to hurry and go volunteer so he won't have to go through it alone; and we all will, of course, but not before we terrorize his scrawny butt a few more days.

His panic is becoming full-blown. “C'mon, you guys. Hurry and sign up. You're not going to let me go alone, are you? God, just me and Max? I wouldn't last five minutes. What
is
it? I tried to look it up in the dictionary, but there's no ‘Stotan' not even in the big one in the library.” It doesn't matter that Max has never
thrown a workout at us Nortie couldn't take. We keep telling him that we're going to be out of town that week or that you'd have to be an idiot to volunteer for something when you don't know anything about it. Part of it's an act, but he'll rest a lot easier when our signatures are on the paper. We won't let it go on much longer, mostly because we don't want a major gastric disorder to be visited on our fastest swimmer.

The only thing Max has said since he put up the notice last week is that Stotan Week will require total commitment.

Lion's up for it. He trusts Max to come up with something to equal all this drama, and to Lion that means a chance to extend himself—which is what he does best. Lion and Elaine are alike in that respect.

What Lion is, first, is an artist. When he's not swimming or in class, he's making pictures. I don't know much about art—I don't even know what I like—but I don't have to sit in the cafeteria or out in the hills along the Little Spokane River watching him sketch for long to know he has a boatload of talent and, I think, probably the personality and arrogance to stretch it as far as it will go. Mark my words: you'll be hearing from Lionel Serbousek.

His art isn't just picture-making, though. Lion's an
artist at everything he does. He brings a certain zany grace to things—workouts, classes, just hanging out—that makes them more alive, more animated, maybe more real. He's long been legendary around Frost for his madcap hijinks, like the time he set the school record for snorting Jell-O cubes. Lion's different from the rest of us because he doesn't have parents. They got killed in a freak boating accident over on Coeur d'Alene Lake between our freshman and sophomore years, when their boat and another speedboat collided at full speed out in the middle of the lake. No one ever figured out how it happened; they weren't drinking or anything, and they'd been boating all their lives. Everybody in both boats was killed. Lion didn't have anyplace to go—no relatives or anything—and he didn't feel like moving in with any of the people who offered, so he got himself an apartment, if you can call it that, and started living by himself. I don't know whether that's legal or not, but nobody stopped him. His folks had plenty of life insurance and he inherited some other money from them, so he doesn't have to work to support himself. Most of the time he goes on like nothing happened.

We've talked about staying together for Stotan Week—that is, when Nortie's not around to hear we all know we're going to sign up—and have decided if our
folks will let us, we'll move into Lion's for the week. Now, I said Lion was an artist at everything he does, but in his personal lifestyle that holds true only if you're looking for Still Life of Swine. His so-called apartment is two condemned rooms above the Fireside Tavern with a bed, a hotplate, a sink that drains out onto an alley and—the one really class item—a toilet with a seat belt. He's got a seat belt on his toilet. Claims it keeps him from blasting off. There are no electric lights in this palatial suite, and the sole source of heat is an old electric reflector heater powered by a frayed extension cord running out the window and down to the outlet behind the bar in the Fireside. Artificial light, lest you think these quarters uncivilized, shines from a flashlight dangling at the end of a rope above his bed.

I would like to go on record here—despite the sense of adventure for doing this Stotan Week thing together on our own—that I am not looking forward to spending a week with the guys in Lionel Serbousek's bachelor pad.

Besides voluntarily placing myself in ghetto-like accommodations at Lion's, the only thing that really bothers me about Stotan Week is that I was looking forward, during this extra week at Christmas, to spending some time with my brother. I said he was a little out of
touch and that's probably the understatement of this decade. It's strange how I feel responsible for him sometimes—I mean, we were never really close or anything. He was off to college by the time I was five, and pretty well into the flower world not long after that. He was always nice to me when he was around, but, given his political leanings, he and my dad weren't famous friends, so he wasn't around all that much. But, for whatever reason, I feel protective of him like he's a stray errant uncle or something; I'm always making excuses for the weird way he acts and the stupid choices he makes. One of these days my concern for him may get me killed, or at least seriously mangled. He spends a lot of time over at the Red Rooster Tavern, drinking beer and buying drugs from the bikers who hang out there. I shouldn't have to go into a detailed description to let you know that's a rough scene. My folks have given up on him, so when he gets in trouble it's me who bails him out. When he goes off the deep end, Ed Savage, one of the bartenders over at the Rooster, calls me to come get him, instead of calling the police or someone from the looney bin. I don't know how that little ritual got started, and there are times I feel like letting the law haul him off, but I always go. And I want to tell you, it's
scary over there. I went to get him one night the summer before my sophomore year, and eight or nine of those bikers had him stuffed in a garbage can up on the pool table—butt first, so his feet and head were sticking out—and they were spitting snoose at him for target practice. When I tried to get him down, they kept right on spitting. Ed had to threaten to call the cops to get them to let me out of there with him. One of them grabbed my arm on the way out and let me know Long John owed him money for “goods received” and if I came down there again to get him, I damn well better be able to pay off his debts. I was so scared I lied and said I would, that I'd get the money he owed them by the end of the week, and he slapped me a couple of times hard on the cheek, squinted and smiled and nodded his head. When I got Long John back to his room at the Jefferson Hotel, he told me what a great brother I was and he was glad I understood. I understood diddly. I screamed at him that he'd almost got me killed and I never wanted to see him again, and if he got into any more trouble he could sit it out in jail, if he was lucky enough to have someone call the cops. Then I went home and lay in bed and trembled. I got over hating him, but I didn't get over the terror I felt about
those bikers. No doubt they'd as soon tear off my head and spit in the hole as look at me. I decided then and there I was going to make it risky to mess with me. Next day I went into Max's office and asked if he could have me transferred into the karate section of PE. He started me out there, and worked with me some on his own; didn't even ask what I was up to. He also got me a key to the wrestling room, where the class is held, and said I could practice any time I wanted as long as it wasn't being used. He gave me some drills to work on too, and I've been putting in a couple hours a day at least five days a week since then. I'm not a mean guy and I never go out looking, but even though I haven't passed any tests and I don't have any “belts,” I've developed some pretty classy moves and, if it comes down to it, I can hurt you.

 

From the sound of all the tough talk, you'd think all I do is try to go fast in the water and strike fear in the hearts of those who cross my path, but that's not true at all. I no longer have any illusions of single-handedly cleaning out a biker bar, and the stuff with Long John is really peripheral to what's important to me. I'm part of a group of really special guys—and a girl—who happen
to swim, and I'm a little paranoid about being physically vulnerable, but it's a lot more important to me to be a part of that group of humans than it is to be in a school of fast fish or to flaunt a truckload of Billy Jack moves. We all know this is it for the frivolous part of our lives; we're going to have to go out and start the real thing very soon. We want to do that with style, and we want to finish this part together.

 

You have probably figured out by now, if you can count, that my parents are old people. Figure my brother is fifteen years older than me, and my parents got a late start anyway—that puts them right up there. Old people call my parents old. They're older than lots of my friends' grandparents. Folks used to rub my head and tease me about how lucky I was that my rambunctious daddy saved up enough rugged sperms to produce such a healthy specimen as myself, and Dad used to laugh and shake his head when he heard it, but I have a feeling he would have just as soon not had to deal with a brand-new bouncing baby boy at the ripe old age of fifty-five. There was no way either of my folks was ready to spend another eighteen years practicing the latest child-rearing techniques. So they kind
of let me raise myself. Don't get me wrong, they have always been good to me and pretty much given me everything I need and most of what I want, but they're not very involved with me. I don't think I've suffered much, though, because, even though Max is a little removed, in a lot of ways he's been as good a parent as I could ask for.

 

It's kind of scary sometimes to think that we'll all go our own ways after this year—break up this little group that has really been together since grade school. None of us is fool enough to think that we can keep things like this forever, but there are times I'd really like to give it a try. Nortie and I will probably get swimming scholarships somewhere, maybe together and maybe not, and Jeff will more than likely follow his girlfriend down to Stanford, where she's a freshman this year. God, he's in love with her! He'll probably major in Political Science just so he can spend the rest of his life telling folks how things really are.

And who knows about Lion? He's fast becoming Frost's Renaissance man; commie pinko in the A.M., imperialist pig after lunch. He fools around with ideas for the sake of fooling around; tries them on,
wears them a few hours, swearing they are a part of his very soul, then casts them off like he should cast off his old sweatsocks, but doesn't. His most intense beliefs are lightly held, and he changes philosophical positions like a chameleon changes hues. Ten years from now Lion could show up just about anywhere and I wouldn't be surprised. I would only be surprised if he doesn't show up.

If Nortie doesn't become a permanent orphan somewhere, he'll more than likely be a grade-school teacher. He loves little kids; talks to them on their own level—which I sometimes think is his own level. Nortie works a few nights a week and Saturdays at a daycare center over on the east side, where most of the town's blacks live. Boy, he's amazing. It's a completely different Nortie; I've seen him work. He knows what makes little kids tick, where their pain is and how to help them fly. Given his Catholic background, he'll probably teach at St. Somebody's school, which means he'll never be rich—but he'll be happy as a pig in mud if he can spend his time making their lives better. Old Nortie has a lot of heart.

Me, I'd like to be a writer of some kind; maybe a journalist, maybe a storyteller. I should have my choice
of at least a few schools once this swimming season is over, and I think I'll pick the one with the best English and Journalism departments. I love to write things down, be they fact or fiction. It helps me see things more clearly, and besides I just enjoy it. That's why I have a semi-regular column in the school newspaper, even though I'm not in the Journalism class, and why I submit articles to the
Spokesman Review
and the Sunday supplement. I've actually had one or two published. I used to go out with a girl whose dad was a bigwig at the
Review,
and even though the relationship was a marathon screaming match, he liked me and still throws a few bones my way when they need some local public-school filler. I was afraid that would stop when I quit going out with his daughter, but he told me recently it would have stopped if I'd
kept
going out with his daughter.

November 13

Nortie and I were over at my place this afternoon after workout, up in my room listening to some music and pretending to get some study time in, when Jeff came a-pounding on the door. We were lying there on the
beds listening to an old Kingston Trio album (part of the cultural legacy left me by Long John Dupree), helping them out now and then with a little burst of the lyrics and flipping through the pages of our U.S. Government book like we might be learning something. Jeff had a very old
Sports Illustrated
he'd obviously lifted from the city library rolled up in his hand, and the grin of a man in the catbird seat. “Hi, Anus Breath,” he said. “I have some good news and some bad news.”

“Give me the good news,” I said. “You can keep the bad news to yourself.”

“The good news,” he said with a grandiose sweeping gesture of the magazine, “is your hero now knows what a Stotan is,” and he pointed to the magazine. He shook his head and looked to the heavens. “God, redheads are bright. Do you know the average SAT score for redheads as opposed to the rest of mankind?”

The question passed over Nortie as he laid his book aside and sat up. “So what's the bad news?” he asked. “Give us the bad news.”

“The bad news is,” Jeff said, his grin widening considerably, “I found out what a Stotan is.” He shook his head. “It isn't pretty.”