Stotan! (9 page)

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.”

Lion'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.

I picked up the sack and opened it. Four small
boxes, each with one of each of our names on it, lay in the bottom. Each box contained a small gold band with
STOTAN
lettered across the face and each of our names engraved on the inside. Each was a perfect fit.

January 2

After Stotan Week the vacation went like a flash. They emptied the pool to make some minor repairs, so there were no water workouts, and we had to find other ways to stay in shape. We substituted working out at the local Nautilus and running long distances through the miserable December weather. That, plus the backlog we built up during Stotan Week, left us in pretty good shape to start the season, I think.

After we got our Stotan rings, we drove over to Savage House Pizza to celebrate and talk about what heroes we were. Things seemed in place for all of us. I was settled with my dilemma about Devnee and Elaine, having decided to take the bull by the horns and do
nothing; Nortie's mind was a million miles from the daycare center; Lion was as high as I've seen him; and Jeff was even higher, because Colleen was due in from Stanford on a 6:00 flight. We called Elaine to come over and join us and I remember we spent most of the time talking about Max and what a smart motor scooter he must be to have made this work. Elaine is convinced he's a human being of a higher order than the rest of us—that he's here for a reason. That's a part of Elaine I don't understand very well. She believes in former lives and lives to come and karma and that things happen for reasons—that there's a spiritual reality, a cosmic order that exists right under our noses if we'll just look at it. And she thinks Max's soul has been in the universe longer than most. I'm thinking of telling her I believe all those things too so she'll have one more reason to think I'm the budding guru of her dreams, but if I did, I'd be lying. I don't necessarily
not
believe it; it just doesn't affect me much one way or the other. I figure I'm here now, in this body, in this set of circumstances, and I've got my hands full dealing with things I can see and touch and smell and feel. I have to admit, though, there really does seem to be something mystical about the way things turn out when Max has a hand in them.

Nortie showed a visible letdown when we split up,
knowing he had to go back home to be with his mom and dad. I had a feeling he'd pay for being away. Lion came right out and offered to let Nortie live with him, but the vision of finishing out the year in a condemned apartment above a bar with a guy whose best and only housecleaning tool is a chisel steered Nortie back in the direction of home.

We knew we'd see each other plenty of times over the vacation, beginning with the Christmas dance that night at the Sheraton Ballroom, but we lingered a few minutes saying goodbye in the parking lot outside the Savage House, feeling the importance of this event.

I got home and called Devnee to be sure she knew what time I was picking her up and she sounded real excited and warm and I was glad I hadn't gone ahead and ended things. Besides, she makes me look like such a star, she's so pretty.

I was upstairs when Mom got home late in the afternoon from her bridge club, followed shortly by Dad from his Friday-afternoon poker game. They called me downstairs and asked if I'd had a good time at Stotan Week. I searched their faces and they looked to be sincere, and I decided not even to try. I said yes, I'd had a good time at Stotan Week. There was a time I tried to include my mom and dad in my life and got real frustrated
because I didn't think they could understand what I was about. Now I know they can't understand what I'm about and I accept that and I don't get frustrated. They're more like sweet grandparents who are glad I don't get into a lot of trouble. I think as I get older I'm better able to respect where they've been, and their need to protect the comfort and calmness they have in their lives now. When I was a freshman on the Montana road trip, I got to bitching about them being old and uninvolved, and wondering out loud whether they ever touched each other or got “frisky,” as they say on
Happy Days,
and Max said an interesting thing. He said part of the reason there's a “generation gap” is there's so much more information available to us than there was to our parents—and that will be true for our kids too. Max said he thinks we all do the best we can in our time with what we have, and that kids would be a lot more at peace with adults if they could understand that. When I look back at Mom and Dad through that light, it allows me to respect them more and need less. That's what killed Long John's relationship with them; Dad was a World War II bomber pilot and Long John was a Viet Nam War hippie-dippie glue-sniffing draft-evader, and there wasn't the chance of the lead lemming on a high cliff that either would ever see where the other
was coming from. They solved it by simply dissolving the father-son relationship. Simple as that. I don't want that to happen with me. Besides, there are worse things than living with nice old people who let you do anything you want.

Mom and Dad offered me my choice of their cars for the dance to class up my act a little and I accepted Dad's RX-7, which allowed me to offer my car to Lion in case his date didn't have a mountain tent to keep her warm in his open-air Jeepster. Lion was indignant. “They take me for what I am,” he said, assuming a Napoleonic pose and sucking in his cheeks.

“I guess that's better than taking you for what you've got,” I said, and told him if he changed his mind, I'd leave it parked in the driveway with the keys in it.

 

The dance was great. I took Devnee to the roof of the Ridpath Hotel for dinner; it has a real nice view of the city and is formal and grown-up and treats you like you are too. I don't know whether or not it's the best food in town, but that didn't matter because I'd been eating peanut-butter and scrambled-egg sandwiches all week and my taste buds were decimated.

Devnee looked
good
. She wore this kind of simple white short formal with a medium-low-cut V-neck
that had me craning my neck every time she wasn't looking. Boy, I wish all a girl had to be was pretty, because I'd never consider anyone but her if that were true. We had a nice talk about nothing in particular and showed up at the dance early so we could watch everyone else come in.

Jeff and Colleen came about a half-hour later and that was a show-stopper. Something about being in real civilization down at Stanford hadn't hurt Colleen a bit. She just flat looked classy, and about ten years older than any of us except Jeff, who was decked out in his Marine Corps dress blues with the high collar and bright red stripe down the side of the pants. I was almost afraid to approach them; they looked like the King and Queen of Spokane.

And then Serbousek. You had to be somewhere near the door or outside to really appreciate Lion's entrance. And you'd also need to know a little more about his Jeepster. This thing was new back in the fifties and was kept in immaculate condition by his dad right up until he died. Lion still keeps it in great running condition, but he's altered its appearance considerably. Two years ago, in his World War II surrealistic period, Lion turned his Jeepster into a German WWI fighter plane. It's bright red with an Iron Cross on each door, and he has
what appears to be a machine gun mounted on a tripod just behind the seat. There is also a winch on the front, should he nose-dive into any ditches. Anyway, when the Jeepster is in full dress, with the machine gun mounted and all, like on the night of the Christmas dance, Lion wears this hideous old floor-length fur coat and cloth WWI pilot's helmet, complete with goggles and a long scarf around his neck that whips along behind him in the wind.

He pulled up in front of the Sheraton, leaped over the door, danced around the Jeepster to take his date's hand—Marley Sharp is her name—and brought her to the ground as if he were helping her out of a stagecoach. He kissed the back of her hand lightly, then led her just inside the door, asked her to wait right there, my dear, and strode back to his craft. He waved to the crowd, flipped the scarf once around his neck and taxied down the runway toward the parking lot. In seconds he was back, minus the coat and helmet, looking spiffy as they come in a burgundy tux with a full-ruffled front and cuffs. As always, the crowd cheered.

Inside, Lion and Marley joined Jeff and Colleen and Devnee and me at our table, at which time I subjected his outrageous formal wear to somewhat closer scrutiny.

“Lemme see your socks,” I said.

Lion smiled. He pulled up his pant leg to reveal a near-perfect match to the dark burgundy pants.

“Couldn't get it exact, huh?” I said.

Marley looked confused. “Don't socks come with the tux, Lion?”

Come to light another of Lion's barbaric customs. Lion has been at war with society about socks since I can remember. He doesn't wear them; says his feet can't breathe. “Feet that smell like yours don't need to breathe,” Jeff says, but Lion is unmovable on the subject of socks. Lion's socks at the Christmas dance were made by the same company from whom he buys the rest of his oil paints. As I would have expected, even though I didn't know her, Marley thought that was great. You don't go out with Lion unless you have at least a minimal taste for the outrageous.

The band was perfect. They played hard-core rock and roll and took short breaks, and we worked
out
. At the end of the second set I spotted Nortie over by the door, dressed in a sports coat and tie, with Milika holding his arm, with both hands, anxiously looking around. I figured they must be looking for us, and I waved. He didn't see me at first, so I yelled. Milika moved toward us, sort of dragging Nortie a couple of
steps behind. As they got closer, I could see that one side of Nortie's face was puffy and red and his eye was swollen almost shut. One hand absently held his ribs, but he seemed to be feeling no pain. In fact, he seemed gone. Devnee and I met them at our table; the others were circulating. They sat down and Nortie sort of smiled and nodded, the left side of his smile drooping beneath the weight of the damage. Milika's eyes were red and her face was streaked with tears.

“Your dad?” I said, and Nortie just looked at me.

“His dad found out about us,” Milika said. “Marty O'Brian called and told him. Nortie called me from a telephone booth a few hours ago and asked me to come pick him up. I found him wandering around about a block from the booth. Something's wrong with him, Walker.”

Nortie just looked over at Milika, then back at me. He smiled his creepy smile again and said, “Nothing's wrong,” and sort of drifted away.

Lion and Jeff came back and sat down—in the first instant, real glad to see Nort, then shocked, and pissed. Nortie responded to them the same way he did to me. I thought maybe he had a concussion, but Lion took one look and said, “Nortie, what are you on?”

Nortie looked back and smiled. He shook his head
slowly and laughed. “I'm not on anything,” he said, and his words trailed off with his eyes.

Lion walked around the table and squatted in front of him, grabbing him by the shoulders. Nortie flinched a little, but smiled again and said, “You can go ahead and hit me. Nothing hurts.”

Lion shook him. “Nortie, what are you on?”

Nortie shrugged again and said he didn't know.

Milika took his arm and turned his head toward her.

“Come on, baby,” she said. “Tell Lion what you took.”

Nortie shook his head again. “I don't know,” he said. “He didn't tell me.”

I said, “Who didn't tell you?”

“Long John,” he said. “Your brother, Walk. Isn't Long John your brother? He gave it to me. He said it would make me not hurt.” He nodded his head and his eyes drooped. “He was right. He was right. I don't hurt.”

I flipped Devnee my keys and said, “You guys get him up to Sacred Heart Emergency. We'll go find out what he took. If any of the chaperones give you trouble, tell them you think he hurt his head.
Don't
say anything about drugs.”

 

We were halfway to the Rooster in Lion's Jeepster when I realized I'd forgotten my coat and would probably arrive there in need of medical treatment for hypothermia. Lion reached under his seat and handed me an old Army blanket, but I waved it off. Never mind what I thought may be living in there, I wanted to be cold and miserable and pissed when I saw my brother. I've always kept the seedier part of his life as far away from me as I could, and, to be honest, never really think about it, but if my brother's going to start peddling drugs to my friends, I'm going to kick his butt.

Jeff was in the back seat with the make-believe machine gun, and his was the voice of reason. “What are you figuring to do when we get there, Walk?”

“Find out what my brother gave Nortie, then rip his head off.”

Jeff said, “Bad plan. The Rooster's a biker bar.”

“I pull my brother out of there all the time,” I said. “We'll be okay.”

“You pull your brother out of there because they
let
you pull your brother out of there,” he said. “If you want to help Nortie out, just find out what he took and we'll get out of there.”

We pulled up in front of the Rooster and were out
of the Jeepster almost before it stopped. There was a good-sized crowd and when we walked through the door in our fancy duds the whole place turned to look. For a split second I pictured leaving naked. Jeff was right, and I could see it, looking at their faces: these guys aren't to be messed with. All the karate moves in the world won't make up for how mean they can be. The bartender was a new guy and he came around the bar to meet us near the door. I caught a glimpse of Long John sitting in a booth over by the pool table with some guy who looked like he could eat a medium-sized shopping mall.

The bartender said, “I'll need to see some ID, guys,” then looked us over. “Even if you have it, this might not be the place you're looking for.”

“No ID,” I said. “I'm John Dupree's brother. I need to talk to him for a minute. It's an emergency.”

The bartender said he didn't know him, and I pointed him out. Long John hadn't seen us yet; he was lost in negotiations. “Could you just tell him I need to see him for a second?” I said. “We'll stay right here.”