Ironman

  “Come on, Dad. You know you’re going to tell me.”

  “It’s about one of your teachers. Something I thought you might want to be cautious of.”

  A new wave of uneasiness washes over Bo.

  “It’s one you like, the fellow who teaches Journalism. He’s your swim coach, too, isn’t he?”

  This is a setup, Bo thinks, you know he’s my swim coach. “What about him?”

  “Just something I heard. Something I think you should be cautious—”

  “What about him?”

  “Well, I hear he’s a bit strange, if you know what I mean.” Luke raises his eyebrows and gives a limp wrist.

  “What? Where did you hear that?”

  “Does he have a wife? A girlfriend?”

  “Hell, I don’t know,” Bo says. “Dad, Mr. Serbousek is not a homo.”

  “Now how would you know that?”

  “I just know it, that’s all. Who told you that?”

  “That’s not important. Just know this: It was a reliable source, as you journalistic types like to say.”

  Bo is once more amazed at how their conversations turn sour. “Well, it’s not true.”

  Luke sits forward, deadly serious. “You be careful of him, son. Damn careful. You never know what those guys have in mind.”

  “Dad! Lion Serbousek is not a homosexual, okay?”

  “First-name basis,” Luke muses. Then, “You watch yourself, son.”

  “Jesus, Dad…”

  “Why don’t you run on home now? I’m sure your mom and your brother are holding up Christmas activities for you.”

  “Dad—”

  “You go ahead. Run along. I’m fine here.”

  “I know you’re fine. I just want to clear this…who told you that?”

  “Go.”

  Nak intertwines his fingers over his knee and rocks slowly back on his desktop. “So, buckaroos, welcome back.”

  There are grunts.

  “Everbody have a good vacation? Ready to get back into the tough stuff?”

  More grunts.

  “Anybody tear down the family Christmas tree?”

  “Came close,” Joey says.

  Hudgie begins shaking his head continuously in slow motion. “No Christmas tree here, Mr. Nak. No Christmas tree. ‘Sorry, Hudge. No Christmas tree for you. Can’t have no Christmas tree, ’cause you’re gettin’ no Christmas. Wouldn’t be right. No Christmas, no tree. Ya done messed up your Christmas, boy.’” He stares through Nak. “Couldn’t tear it down, Mr. Nak. Wasn’t there to tear. Not there to tear.” Hudgie seems delighted with his primitive poetry. “Not there to tear,” he says again. “Would’ve, though. Would’ve teared it to the ground.”

  Shuja watches uneasily, hoping he’s not about to witness another Hudgie cave-in. He says, “Maybe nex’ year, my man. You hold out for a tree nex’ year, Hudge.”

  Hudgie looks at Shuja as though he’s never seen him before.

  Shuja says, “Mr. Nak…”

  “You all right, Hudge? You with us?” Mr. Nak asks.

  Hudgie looks at his shoes and slowly nods his head.

  “Good. Now let’s git this show on the road. Who wants to start?”

  Elvis, chin in palms, elbows resting on knees, slowly, tentatively, straightens up and raises his hand.

  Nak says, “Still waitin’ for orders to ride on out of here?”

  “No, man,” Elvis says back, uncharacteristically subdued. “I was just gonna let you in on Christmas at our house.”

  Nak says, “Shoot.”

  Elvis stares around the group, pausing at Bo to give a suspicious glare. Then, “My dad got a present from my sister. First time in twelve years.”

  Nak nods while the group waits. When Elvis doesn’t offer more, Nak says, “What was it?”

  Elvis’s gaze drops to his knees, then back. “It was a bullet.”

  “Your sister shoot your daddy?” Shuja asks.

  “No,” Elvis says. “It was a present. Wrapped up and shit. My sister don’t live with us. I mean, she’s married, got kids.”

  Nak says, “Tell us about the present.”

  “Well, like I said, it was a bullet.”

  “And…”

  Elvis glances again at the faces of the group members. “Look, you said we could talk about anything, right? Like, it don’t have to be about some shit that pisses us off.”

  Nak says, “That’s right,” and the rest of the group falls even more silent. This is a different Elvis than the one any of them knows. Even Hudgie’s attention is drawn.

  “Rules the same?”

  “What’s gettin’ under your saddle, Elvis?”

  “Nobody talks outside of here. Shit that’s said here, stays here?”

  Nak nods, his eyes meeting Elvis’s. “Yes.” He turns his attention to the group as a whole. “I’ll say it agin,” he says. “Nothin’ much gets me riled, I think you all know that. But if I hear any of you talkin’ about what happens here to anyone who ain’t here, you’re gonna have a load o’ me to deal with. Everbody okay with that?”

  That’s how he commands all that power, Bo thinks. He lays back until something’s really important, then he comes on full blast.

  Nak’s request is met with quiet unanimity.

  His gaze drifts back to Elvis. “That’s good enough?”

  “I guess,” Elvis says. “Has to be. ’Cept I don’t trust Brewster.”

  Bo’s face instantly flushes.

  “And why is that?” Nak asks.

  “He ain’t one of us. Look at him. Look at his clothes. Hell, look at his face. He ain’t one of us.”

  Shelly’s head snaps up, her look combative. “You haven’t talked since you came here, Elvis. You don’t get to decide who’s one of us and who isn’t.”

  “Maybe I do and maybe I don’t,” Elvis says calmly, “but no matter who decides, you are and Brewster ain’t. Them fancy jock clothes don’t fool me, sweetheart, you been through some shit. You ain’t makin’ all them muscles for looks.”

  “Keep talking, and I’ll try them out on you,” Shelly says.

  Nak interrupts. “Whoa, whoa. You can head over to the OK Corral when we’re done here. Meantime, let’s get on with it. You ain’t talkin’ outsidea here, are you, Bo?”

  “No.”

  “That’s good enough for me. Go ahead, Elvis. Tell us about the bullet.”

  Elvis’s eyes narrow at Bo. “I’m warnin’ you, Brewster.”

  “He’s good, Elvis. Tell us about the bullet.”

  “It was the one my old lady killed herself with. She was Dad’s first wife. He’s been through three more.”

  Dead silence.

  “I didn’t know your mother committed suicide, Elvis,” Nak says after a moment. “I’m sorry to hear it.”

  Elvis shakes his head quickly. “No matter. Happened a long time ago, before we moved here. Four years.”

  Gazes fall to the floor as Elvis glances yet again around the room, with the exception of Hudgie’s, which is wide-eyed frozen on Elvis’s face. Elvis catches it, is seemingly unnerved, suddenly hesitant.

  Nak reads his mind. “We’re all in it now, Elvis. Go on ahead. Tell us about your mother. Tell us about the bullet.”

  “Came in a box,” Elvis says finally. “All wrapped up nice in paper an’ ribbons. There was a card. We was at the dinner table, me an’ my little brother and sister an’ my old man. He opened the box ’cause it didn’t say who it was from; couldn’ta known what was in it. There was all this tissue paper an’ cotton, an’ right in the middle was this bullet, been spent. So Dad says, ‘What the hell?’ an’ opens the card. His eyes like to pop out of his head while he’s readin’ it, then he looks over my head an’ out the window—looks scared like I ain’t never seen him—an’ he reads it again. Then he jumps up an’ runs to his room. Knocks a pan off the stove an’ kicks over a lamp on his way. Gets on his coat an’ he’s gone.”

  Shuja says, “So how long he gone for? Mussa been one dyn-o-mi
te epistle.”

  “Never come back,” Elvis says, and takes a deep breath. “My goddamn little sister an’ brother start bawlin’, an’ I tell ’em to shut the hell up or I’ll give them somethin’ to bawl about, but that don’t do no good, an’ I run out the door to see where he’s headed, but he’s long gone. Pickup’s still in the driveway.”

  Nak says, “You git your hands on the note?”

  “Yeah, it was layin’ right there on his bed.” Elvis takes inventory of the faces again, and Nak gently urges him on.

  “It said, ‘This here’s the bullet they took out of our momma’s brain, Dad. I thought you should have it to put in the scrapbook I hope you’re keepin’ to show how bad you messed up this family. I’m tellin’ what you did to me, Dad. I have to. It probably means you’ll go to jail. It wasn’t right.’”

  Shelly scrutinizes Elvis’s face, now staring into the floor in the middle of the circle. Softly she says, “You know what that means, don’t you?”

  “Yeah,” he says without looking up. “It means my ol’ man done my sister. Whaddaya think, I’m some kind of dumbshit?”

  “No,” Shelly says back evenly. “I just think it feels real bad, that’s all. I know a thing or two about that.”

  Elvis flares. “Yeah, well, you don’t know nothin’ about me.”

  “I do now,” she says.

  Elvis stands and starts to bolt out of the room, but Nak’s soft voice catches him midstride. “This ain’t about Shelly,” he says, “or any of the rest of us. No need to be runnin’ off. Let’s finish this. You told us for a reason. What was it?”

  “I don’t know,” Elvis says, running his hand over his face in frustration. “I guess ’cause my brother an’ sister are gettin’ hungry an’ I’m tired of stealin’ shit to feed ’em, ’cause if I get caught, well…” Elvis appears desperate.

  Nak nods.

  “An’ ’cause I’m feelin’ like killin’ my sister, but that’s mostly ’cause I can’t find my dad to kill him.”

  “You want to talk a little about your dad?” Nak asks.

  “Nope. I’m done talkin’.”

  JANUARY 3

  Dear Larry,

  This saga is taking some turns. We might have to upgrade it to a “Knots Landing” spin-off. Maybe cable. Late night. Since it’s supposed to be a book about my rise to the top of the triathletes’ pyramid, I only wanted to include my training and what I think about during my training, but when I’m working out, my mind runs wild.

  Do you find it strange to know about people’s lives, Larry? I mean, it’s got to affect you to talk to a 1950s Miss America after you know her dad molested her, right? It changes things. Being in Mr. Nak’s group shows you what’s below the surface of people’s lives. When you’re just trying to live your life, trying to get by, you tend to oversimplify things. You look at a guy like Elvis, and he’s just another badass making all us regular folks’ lives a little more risky, and Hudgie’s a loon and Shelly is there to make you ache below the belt, and Mr. S is there to help you, and I’m just breathing people’s air. But when you look below the surface, something else is true.

  If I ever do really mail any of this to you, I’ll have to white a lot of it out, especially this next part because it’s confidential and the guy it’s about already thinks I’m a major snitch, but writing it down might help me understand it. Today Elvis told us his older sister accused his dad of being a child molester. She sent him the bullet their mother killed herself with when she found out, as a little Christmas reminder that he drove her to it. Shuja was squirming like he was ten seconds from blast-off, and nearly everyone else tried to disappear to keep from looking at Elvis or have his story touch them in any way. But Hudgie was calmer than I’ve ever seen him. I don’t know, Larry; something about the two of them was the same. It was like Hudge knew something, and Elvis knew he knew it. All way below the surface.

  And it started me thinking about my own dad. On Christmas Eve, we talked about some things we disagree about, and it was the first time I’ve ever seen my father maybe doubt himself a little. He didn’t admit it—we’ll both be old guys when that happens—but I saw a tear, and it made me hope for a truce, or at least a cease-fire. Naturally, the second I had the thought, he started baiting me with some trash about Mr. S that was really ridiculous, and it all went south. To tell the truth, I think I helped sabotage it because I was afraid of the complications it might bring between him and me—you know, remind me how much I want to love him—when I’m trying my best to hold my own.

  Then hearing Elvis today made me think I didn’t have a lot to bitch about, but when I said that to Mr. Nak after group, he said, “Don’t get to thinkin’ just because some other guy’s sinkin’ in horse manure, the stuff up around your neck is chocolate puddin’. A wound is a wound, young Brewster. Remember that. Don’t diminish the pain of your own just because you see some other gut-shot cowboy bleedin’ to death.” Then he said, “You ain’t signed up for much longer. I’d get some stuff off my chest if I was you.”

  Be ready, Lar. If I tell them, I tell you.

  Your eyes and ears in the Northwest,

  The Brewmeister

  CHAPTER 8

  “Stotan: a cross between a Stoic and a Spartan,” Bo says, a Cheshire grin spreading across his face. “Coined by an Australian track coach named Perciville Cerruti about thirty or so years ago, in describing Herb Elliot, world record holder in the mile run.”

  “Not bad,” Lion says, glancing up at Bo from his desk. “That didn’t take you long.”

  “That’s not all,” Bo says back. “More recently—mid-eighties, in fact—the term was used to describe the last swimming team at Robert Frost High School in the great and scenic city of Spokane, Washington.”

  “I’m impressed. I’d call that pretty thorough investigative reporting.”

  “I’d call it very thorough,” Bo says. “The first part came from the microfiche in the library and the second part from the office.”

  “The school office?”

  “You forget who the vice-principal at Frost was back then?”

  The light of realization passes over Lion’s face. “Aha, the honorable Dr. Stevens.”

  “Yes, indeed,” Bo says. “And once she started spilling her guts, it was nearly impossible to shut the interview down. Did you really paint socks on your legs so they’d let you into your prom?”

  Lion smiles. “And a fine pair they were. A bit hairy, but they fit like they were custom-made.”

  “And did the toilet in your apartment really have a seat belt?”

  “Kept my friends from blasting off,” Lion says in affirmation.

  “You were weird.”

  “Perhaps lacking maturity in some key areas.”

  “I think I might scrap the American Gladiators piece and do a little expose,” Bo says. “Say, something in an unauthorized biographical sketch.”

  Lion reaches into his shirt pocket, extracting a red pen. “Know what this is?”

  “You’re about to tell me.”

  “It is the sword of censorship, young man, the sword of censorship. Stick to your star-crossed Gladiator.”

  “So tell me about the modern-day Stotans.”

  Lion sits back. “Strictly off the record,” he says, staring at the ceiling. “We had this amazing coach, a lot like Mr. Nak, really. He was a Korean guy named Max Il-Song. Grew up in Montana. He read the Sports Illustrated article you found on the microfiche and became so enthralled with Herb Elliot’s work ethic that he designated the first week of Christmas vacation of our senior year as Stotan Week. There were only four of us on the team, and we all moved into my apartment, which, besides having a seat belt on the toilet, had no heat or light and no furniture. We put sleeping bags on bare mattresses and hunkered down for the week, which turned out to be your basic juggernaut of pain.”

  Lion takes a deep breath, reveling in the memory. “From eight in the morning until noon, for five days, we worked out without one second’s
rest. The intervals between repeats were filled with push-ups, sit-ups, chin-ups on the high board, bear walk around the pool. And there were repeated trips to the Torture Lane any time Max thought we were letting up.”

  Bo is absorbed. “The Torture Lane?”

  “Twenty-five-yard sprint, ten push-ups, twenty-five-yard sprint, ten push-ups, twenty-five-yard sprint, ten push-ups, until he got tired. I don’t know how we did it.”

  “How did you do it?”

  “Together,” Lion said. “We did it together. I met two of those guys at our five-year reunion—the other one had died—and we stayed up all night talking about how none of us could have done it alone, but no one could have quit as long as the others hung in.”

  “God,” Bo says. “A four-hour workout with no rest?”

  “Not one second,” Lion says back. “Not one second.” He gazes into the fluorescent lights in the ceiling. “Max played us like a symphony. Wrung out every last harmonic chord. God, I loved those guys.”

  “One of them died?”

  Lion nods. “Yeah. Jeff Hawkins. Big, strong redhead. Toughest guy I ever knew. Got some poison in his blood cells and just shriveled up and went away.”

  Bo feels suddenly uneasy with this intimate glimpse into his teacher’s life, but intrigued. “Was he your friend?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Lion says. “He was my friend.”

  A silence falls between them as other students file into the room. “God,” Bo says finally, “I hope that never happens to me.”

  “I hope so, too.”

  “So,” Bo says as the bell rings signaling the beginning of class, “you said I should go at the Yukon Jack’s piece from a Stotan point of view. How am I going to do that? I train alone, except for swimming with you guys, and I don’t think there are many CFU swimmers willing to sign a Stotan pact with me. Hell, Wyrack would kill them.”

  “I can’t tell you where to find them,” Lion says, “but take a piece of advice from a pro. Choose your fellow Stotans carefully.”

  “I don’t think you should always train with these dogs,” Shelly says, watching Bo slip a harness over the broad head of Buck, an eighty-five-pound red male husky, in the early morning five-degree temperature.