Stotan! (4 page)

November 23

Well, Thanksgiving was yesterday and I have a pound or two to swim off. It shouldn't be too bad, though. We went over to the pool in the morning and put in about 4,000 yards before going home and putting in about 4,000 calories. Actually, I didn't do that at my home. I did it at Elaine's. That's right, this smooth captain wangled an invite to her place for Thanksgiving dinner and didn't even do a whole lot of damage to his relationship with his parents in the process. My folks had planned for several months to go to my dad's sister's place in Seattle for Thanksgiving and I was able to convince them that if I didn't work out Thursday and Friday I'd lose too much to make up. Mom and Dad
know next to nothing about swimming—in fact, I can't remember them going to a meet—but they know it's important to me, and in the interest of letting me do and have anything I want, they let me beg off going to Seattle. Letting my orphan status out in the presence of Elaine's mother was no difficult task either, so I ended up right where I wanted to be. It was probably a bad idea for my libido, but I couldn't pass it up. I don't think there's a way to take care of this. In my wildest imagination I can't see me telling Elaine I'm hot for her. If she did believe me, she'd punch me in the nose. She's a tough one, that Elaine. It's also going to be hard to explain to Devnee, my supposed girlfriend, why, with my parents out of town for the holiday, I didn't spend it with her. Probably what I'll do with that is lie. I've got to stop that one of these days—it seems like I lie pretty easily and convincingly to girls—but not right now. I've got my hands full figuring out how crazy I am even thinking about Elaine. Boy, I hope this stuff with girls gets easier when you get older. So far it's a big pain in the butt.

Under any circumstances Elaine and I are good friends, and dinner was really nice. Her mom is one of those people you'd adopt as a parent, given the choice. In fact, back in our AAU swimming days, when she
drove us to all the meets, I thought she
was
my mother. She's a big, strong, smart, earthy woman with a huge heart and it's a treat to be around her. If she has a fault, however, it's her taste in men. You have to meet Elaine's dad to believe him. Elaine's been telling stories about him for years, and from what I saw yesterday, nothing has changed. The man's a pack rat—a collector. The nooks and crannies of the house are filled with cases of canned food, scuba tanks, old car parts, an old plow blade, for Chrissakes, and enough telephone parts to start a medium-sized communication company. His holdings are much expanded from last time I was there. When I asked him what it was all for, he just smiled and said you never know when you might need some of that stuff. I pictured a flash flood where Mr. Ferral fights his way through the crashing wall of water raging through the kitchen, straps on his scuba tank and makes himself a telephone to call for help, thereby saving his entire family, which is cowering behind the plow blade for protection from the canned goods washing through the room.

And he never leaves the couch. He lives on the couch. He has two TV sets within arm's reach and Elaine says the only way on earth to get his attention is to walk in front of one of them. They're both going all
the time and they're set on different channels, the sound up on only one. He switches them back and forth at will, and I guarantee it'll drive you stark raving berserk to watch a program with him. The master stroke in all this, however, is an adjustable, wide-angle rearview mirror mounted on the back of the couch. When I first saw it, several years ago, I thought it was just another of the legion of bizarre items strewn around the house, but when I accidentally bumped it, it didn't fall over. It's screwed right down into the frame so he can watch TV from either side.

“It doesn't bother you that the titles come up backward, I guess,” I said.

“The human mind is a wonderful thing,” he said. “It can get used to almost anything. The Chinese read like that all the time.”

I don't think that's exactly how the Chinese read, but I got the point.

I stayed quite a ways into the evening and Elaine and I went for a walk around her neighborhood. Except for their house, which would be a blight on the poorest sections of Newark, New Jersey, because of all the junk Mr. Ferral has piled around, seemingly holding the house up, the neighborhood is a nice, quiet little lower-middle-class place with a comfortable feeling of families
who have lived their whole lives there. We live in a ritzier part of town that feels sterile to me. I know our next-door neighbors, but I don't know any of the people up and down the street. Elaine's neighborhood is like a little community.

The leaves on the trees are nearly gone and temperatures have been getting down around freezing at night, so smoke curled out of almost every chimney and it felt like there was probably a lot in that little neighborhood to be thankful for. It seemed as if Elaine and I bumped gently together a few times more than random chance would have it, but it's hard to say. I was pretty aware. We talked about swimming and what it would take for me to do well at State—how much I wanted it—and a little about the Nazi newspapers that Lion burned, and about how strange it seems to me sometimes that I'm so far away from my parents and that my brother is like a distant uncle to me unless we have a reason to purposely make a connection. Sometimes I wonder who I am, because it seems like I don't have a solid anchor in my family. Elaine said she thought when we don't have a family to hook up to, we hook up to the next-best thing—our friends. “Look at Lion,” she said. “He doesn't have any family at all, but he knows who he is, mostly in relationship to all of us. You probably do that some too.”

“I know I do,” I said. “And, all in all, it's probably more healthy than what my real family has to offer. But I keep getting pulled back to them. I want my brother to be different. I want his life to mean something. And, Christ, just because my parents are old doesn't mean they have to give up on everything. Sometimes I think they're just breathing our air. My family doesn't have any
personality.
”

She smiled. “They aren't exactly the Beaver Cleavers, but they could be worse. You could have
my
dad. Look at the things
he
makes important.” She shrugged. “You have to go with what you get.”

We got back to the house and Elaine made me a monstrous turkey sandwich and wrapped a piece of pumpkin pie for later. Her mom invited me back for the meal of my choice over the weekend, but I politely declined, telling her I might need it more later; that I'd take a rain check. It was after midnight when I turned onto the arterial leading up onto the South Hill, where I live. It was one of those times when I felt closer to getting a better look at things. Talking with Elaine like that, with no judgment from her or anything, seemed to bring my feelings more to the surface so I could look at them. I love times like that; you don't get many of them. I passed the turnoff to our house and continued on up
to 57th and out to the Palouse Highway, which heads east toward the Idaho panhandle. There wasn't another car on the road and the white line shooting under my car had an almost hypnotic effect. Away from town, the stars became bright enough to outline the mountains around me, and I turned off the dash lights and leaned over the steering wheel to look up at the Milky Way. Out there alone, it was a lot easier to see why Elaine gets such a charge out of her Astronomy class. I must have driven for an hour and a half in my little Duster cocoon, thinking; trying to come up with answers for the things I think are important. I came up with a lot more questions than answers: like, what am I going to do about Devnee, my girlfriend? She's a nice girl—a really pretty girl—who I've been going with about two months longer than I should have, obviously, because I don't feel anything for her anymore; but I can't say that to her. I just can't do it—no matter how much I want to end it and no matter how much I have to fake it when we're making out. When the moment comes to say, “I just don't care about you anymore,” or whatever I could come up with, I just cannot do it. Does that mean I have to marry her?

And how about old Long John? Somehow he gets me thinking that because our parents don't have time
for him anymore—or at least Dad doesn't—that responsibility has fallen to me. I admit I get some interesting information from him, and sometimes he's fun to be around because he's smart and funny, but he's also a drug freak who won't take care of his own life and has caused me maximum grief. And I think he could take from me forever, and he will if I don't stop him.

My mind drifted along the lines of Elaine's and my conversation and came up with zero conclusions, which has been standard lately for this aquatic Aristotle.

With not one clear resolution, I finally turned the car around and headed for home.

November 29

It's too bad this school wasn't named after Jim Thorpe or Jackie Robinson or some other great athlete, rather than a poet or a snowman. I mean, Frost is a jock school. You don't have a lot of pull if you're a swimmer, because swimming is on the way out and it's not the world's most exciting spectator sport anyway. It's hardly engrossing to watch six mostly naked guys motor from one end of the pool to the other as fast as they can, only to turn around and go back. But the coaches and jocks in the major sports are hot stuff around here and they have a lot of influence. That's because Frost has good teams in the major sports. We win a
lot
of athletic contests every year and get a lot of
play in the local papers. The Athletic Council, made up of the captains of each team and the coaches of the major sports, is probably more influential than the Student Council, mostly because the Student Body President is also the captain of the basketball team and is
the
consummate jock. In this school, jocks rule.

This is my third year as captain of the swim team, so I've been on the Council since I was a sophomore. In those three years, up until last week, I don't remember a time when the Athletic Council wasn't unanimous on any decision or opinion we made. I think that's because Mr. Edwards, the football coach, and Mr. Severs, the baseball coach, are big, strong, imposing men who state their opinions, fold their arms and silently dare you to go against them. They don't do that to be bad guys, it's just the way they are. Even if you didn't agree with them, which most of us usually do, you'd have to be a strong believer in the other side to take them on. And you'd lose.

I bring that up only because the meeting this last week was the first time I ever remember any of us at odds on an issue that didn't get worked out, Edwards and Severs or no Edwards and Severs. And it was about that stupid
Aryan Press.
That's like arguing over an article in the
National Enquirer
.

A girl named Molly Ramstead, who's on the girls' basketball team, moved that the Council issue a public statement against the stuff in the
Aryan Press
in case there was the slightest doubt in anybody's mind that
anyone
in this school agrees with that crap. There are two black kids on the Council, Roy Biggs from the track team and LaFesha Stills from girls' softball. They just smiled and looked at the table, shaking their heads. I couldn't tell what they were thinking, probably that we were ridiculous for even wasting time with it, but I seconded Molly's motion and added that we should approach the administration about taking disciplinary action against anyone distributing it.

And that's what started it. Marty O'Brian, who's the rep from the baseball team, a catcher whose marvelous athletic talents are surpassed only by his monumental insensitivity, said, “That's against the Constitution.”

“What constitution is that?” I asked. I couldn't
believe
we'd have trouble passing this.

“The Constitution of the United States. Freedom of the press. Freedom of speech.”

I've never liked O'Brian much anyway, if for no other reason than he's an opinionated, arrogant turd-burger who's always tormenting Nortie about swim
ming being a sissy sport, and I welcomed the opportunity to take him on. “Who read that to you?” I asked. “You pick that up your second time through Civics?”

“People are entitled to an opinion,” he said. “The law says so. Just because you don't agree with it doesn't mean you can wipe it out. That's what the commies do.”

I was getting hot because I didn't like that peckerwood calling me a commie and because he was winning the argument already and because he makes me sick. I said, “Maybe the law should say people need to keep some opinions to themselves.”

“Maybe it should, but it doesn't.” For once in his life O'Brian was making sense and I hated it. I was on thin Constitutional ice and I knew it. I mean, the ACLU is forever sticking up for the Klan and the John Birchers and every other jerk-off organization the bigots of our great land can hide behind. So I decided to see if I could pin old Marty down a little—maybe make him say something racist that the black kids could take back to their friends and get him roughed up a little.

“So what's your beef, Marty?” I said. “If we take the part out about disciplinary action against any distributors, you willing to make a unanimous statement against that rag?”

Marty hesitated too long before saying, “Yeah, sure.” Roy and LaFesha picked up on it too, but they just smiled and looked at the table again. When we finally took the vote on the statement only, O'Brian changed his mind and abstained. He said it was to keep me humble, but I had to ask. “Marty,” I said, “were you the guy that brought those papers in?”

He wouldn't say no. He told me it was none of my damn business what he did or what he thought, then he looked to Roy and LaFesha and said, “Nothin' personal, you guys. I just like to get under Dupree's skin once in a while.” Both Edwards and Severs told him it was nothing to joke about, but O'Brian just shrugged and said, “Hey, Coach, it's my vote.”

Boy, one of these days I'd like to get a shot at O'Brian. I know he can catch a baseball coming down the pipe eighty miles an hour; I wonder if he can catch my foot before it gets to his ear at about that speed. Unfortunately, Max won't turn me loose with all these killer moves he's taught me on the karate mat. He told me once, and that was enough, if he ever caught me using them anywhere it wasn't absolutely necessary, he'd never have anything to do with me again. I believe he means it, and that makes O'Brian absolutely safe from my wrath unless he tries to do me in. There have
been many occasions when I think it's a crying shame.

I talked to Max the day after the Council meeting, right before his English class—Max is one of those utility teachers who teach in several departments—and unloaded some of my outrage on him. I was secretly hoping he'd be as incensed as I was and free me to kick O'Brian's head off his body, but he just looked up from his desk and said, “Walker, how do you think issues like this get to be important?”

I said I didn't know what he meant.

He said, “The world is full of fools and crackpots—people who were never given any tools to fill their lives up, and who consequently have made their lives so meaningless the only way they can feel good about themselves is to look around and see who they're better than. When they can't find anyone, they create someone. Their ideas are meaningless—right up until we start to fight against them. We're the ones who give power to bigots. We make their ideas real by opposing them.”

“Yeah, but, Jeez, Max,” I said, “it makes me want to turn O'Brian inside out.”

“If you don't learn anything else before you get out of high school,” Max said, “learn where to make a stand.” He smiled. “Right now make a sit. In your seat.
Impossible as the task may seem, it's time for me to make you literate.” End of discussion. O'Brian has power only if we give O'Brian power. The gospel according to Max.

 

You know, it seemed a lot clearer why I was attracted to Devnee when I first started taking her out during the middle of last year. I wonder what happens to true love; where it goes. In the beginning I was always excited about seeing her, and I gave her flowers and candy on special occasions, or on any occasion for that matter, and organized my time around what she wanted to do. But then it started disappearing. Even before I started looking at Elaine as a possible object of my questionable favors, the power of my feelings for Devnee was fading. And I'm such a jerk when that happens. I start creating arguments so she'll get frustrated and mad at me and not want to be around me—in fact, it feels like I'm trying to get her pissed off so she'll break up with me and then I won't have to be the one to do it and feel guilty. It would be one thing if this were the first time, but something close to that has happened
every time
I've had a girlfriend. It seems really selfish and makes me feel like a lowlife, but it's out of my control. I keep saying I'm going to do it differently, but then I
start doing subtle things that I know will irritate them and make them fight with me. They never understand it—which is probably the point—and there's a lot of hurt. And it takes for-frigging-
ever
to finally break up. I hate it. So anyway, even though I'm sure nothing will ever happen between me and Elaine, I'm going to try to break things off with Devnee in a way I can be proud of; you know, take responsibility for letting her know what's going on with me rather than try to make her believe it's her fault, or that some dark, unknown demon is lurking between us. I sure wish I knew why love goes away. Devnee is pretty and she's smart and has a really nice body; small, with a tiny waist and great pecs; dark green eyes and short, almost black hair. She's in the honor society and she plays the piano like a pro. She also likes me a
lot,
which makes it all the harder. Anybody in their right mind is going to say I'm a lunatic for ending it, though there'll be plenty of guys who'll be glad I did. The second I'm gone, her social calendar will be filled up through her first two years of college. And that brings up another thing. Even though I don't want to be with her anymore,
I'm jealous
of anyone else being with her. I can already feel it. God, how do people grow up and get married and live together for the rest of their lives?

December 1

Well, I didn't do such a hot job with Devnee last night. I had it planned to take her out to a nice dinner and find just the right spot to say I didn't want to continue with the relationship. I had a couple of chances, but she looked so nice and so sweet and so full of everything a guy should want in a girlfriend, I started questioning whether I should stick with it. Actually, what really stopped me was I was scared. So another time, I guess. I'll look into hypnosis.

Something more important is pressing and I don't have any idea what to do about it. It's Nortie, and I think it's serious. I mentioned before that he spends time working over at the East Side Childcare Center a couple of nights a week and all day Saturday, unless we work out. He works with the older kids, the first-and second-graders who come after school and on weekends when their parents are working. They're a tough bunch; it's a public-funded daycare and most of the kids are from low-or no-income families; but Nortie does a great job with them. It's the one thing he's really proud of—way more than his swimming. He even invited me over once to watch him work and I have to admit I was
amazed. I stayed three hours watching him do science experiments with them, play board games, work on school skills and play outside. He gets them
so
jacked up about learning and discovery, mostly because every time one of them figures out a problem or moves to a higher level in something, Nortie's more excited than the kid. He teaches like he works out—with reckless abandon. If one attack skill doesn't work, he chucks it and goes on to something else. When a kid's having a hard time, he says, “Yeah, that was really hard for me too” and keeps working on it, like it's the most natural thing in the world to have a hard time. Watching him, I was struck by the monumental difference between the way he works with these kids and the way my own daycare and elementary years were. He
never
puts them down. He just doesn't do it, and that's not only with their studies or their quiet time. It's their whole time with him: playtime, lunch, you name it. That doesn't mean he has no discipline; it's that all his discipline is by agreement. He's already gone over with them what is and isn't okay and consequences are already set, so there are rarely hard feelings when Nortie activates them. He gets more respect at the East Side Childcare Center than in all the other places in his life combined. The woman who runs the place—her name's Maybelle
Sawyer—says Nortie must have been a big, tough, happy black momma just like her, in his last life.

But this afternoon it all crumbled for him. He's worked himself into a paying position, has several groups of kids that he takes without any supervision, has already decided he's going into elementary education in college—I mean, this is the one thing Nortie is
sure
about in his whole life—and he comes screaming up to my place in his dad's car about 3:00 this afternoon, yelling my name. “Walker! Walker! Oh, God, Walker!” He shot across the lawn and into the house without knocking, and on upstairs, where I was lying on the bed listening to some old pre-Christian Bob Dylan albums that my brother turned me on to. He burst into the room and fell face down on the vacant bed and began sobbing and pounding the pillow. “I'm done! It's all over!” he said again and again, then began convulsing and sobbing even more into the bed. I locked the door, then sat on the bed beside him and put my hand on his back between his shoulder blades. “Nortie,” I said, “what are you talking about? What's wrong?”

“I did it!” he sobbed. “I blew it! I blew everything! Oh, God!”

I said, “Nortie, damn it,
what happened?
It can't be this bad.”

“It is! It is!” and he sobbed some more.

I let him go for maybe a minute, then rolled him over and grabbed his shoulders. He flinched. “Tell me what happened,” I said. “Just tell me what happened.”

“I hit a kid, Walk. I hit a little kid. Right on the side of the head.”

“On purpose?”

“No,” he said. “I mean, yes. I mean, I didn't mean to; I didn't want to…. I got
mad.”
The sobbing started again.

I felt the wind go out of me. I don't know much about modern child-rearing practices, but I know physical punishment is
out.
I said, “Nortie, just tell me what happened.”