Stotan!

  “When we shipwrecked last year,” he said, “I thought I’d had it. I was the only one on the boat who could really swim, and we were two miles out in the dead of night and that piece of crap was going down like a rock. I knew I couldn’t just swim off and leave those guys, even if it were physically possible.

  “So we’re up there on the sinking deck, roping everything together that floats. The seas get rougher and rougher, and no one speaks a word. Everyone knows this is it. I’m looking into that black water, thinking, ‘I’m eighteen and I’m dead; and I hate it.”’ ’

  He looked up at Colleen, still holding him tight, and said, “Now I’m nineteen and I’m dead; and I hate it. But I got a year.”

  Looking back, I’m amazed at how fast Jeff went through the denial and rage that’s supposed to go with death—either someone else’s or your own. But he was right there that night accepting it, and trying to get us to accept it too.

  “I won’t be like this all the time,” he said. “It just seems really important to share some of this with you guys—what it’s like and everything.” He stood up shakily and kind of stretched. “Now, if it’s all right with everyone, I’m tired and I want to spend a little time with my lady here, okay? Get your butts out of here, you have a curfew. We still got the State meet to lose.”

  We hung in there with him and said, “Right!” but it’ll take a few days to get that down—that we have to do it for Jeff, without Jeff. Right now all any of us feels is this awful helplessness.

  No one wanted to go home with that, so we headed over to Dolly’s for a Coke. Elaine took my coat as extra warmth and rode with Lion, I think in the interest of making sure none of us was alone; though riding with Nortie was like being alone for me. He couldn’t talk, just stared out the window.

  “Nortie,” I said, “Jeff doesn’t know that he’s dying. It’s just that we tend to expect the worst in hard times, that’s all. When he starts feeling better, things will look different.”

  Nortie shook his head and kept staring out the window. “He knows,” he said finally. There was no point in discussing it further.

  In Dolly’s we picked a booth toward the back and ordered Cokes and fries. Lion propped his back against the wall with his pad on his knees, got out his trusty Rapidograph and started drawing. I remember hoping some magical answer would come out on the paper if he drew long enough.

  Finally, Elaine said, “Damn it, Jeff’s not a doctor. He can’t predict this. He could get better. Some people live a long time with leukemia, or whatever he has. He has no right to give up like that.”

  I said what I’d said to Nortie in the car, that I just didn’t believe it was that hopeless and that Jeff would see it differently when he felt a little better.

  Lion nodded, but didn’t say anything; he hoped I was right, but wasn’t confident at all. Lion knows Jeff better than any of us; there is a part of them that is the same.

  Nortie said, “He knows. Jeff knows. If he says it, it’s true.”

  I said, “God damn it, Nortie, this isn’t Gin Rummy. Jeff can be wrong.”

  Nortie shook his head. “He’s not. Jeff’s gonna die.” He looked up. “Listen, you guys, the bad stuff is real. It doesn’t do any good to not believe it. Remember when I said I didn’t open the letter my brother left me for a long time? You know why? Because I secretly hoped it would say it was all a trick, that he wasn’t really dead; that I could meet him down by the old river bridge and we could laugh our butts off at this great trick. But all the note said was ‘Sorry.’ The bad stuff is real. All of it.”

  Elaine put her hand on Nortie’s arm. “Hey, you guys, let’s talk about something else for a while, okay?”

  Lion’s Rapidograph was flying over the paper; he looked to be in that place where he can see everything—soft eyes, he calls it. He was approaching the Stotanland of artistry. “World’s just here,” he said, sketching a world that doesn’t give a damn. “It doesn’t give a damn. We’re clinging to this round ball in space by an accident of suction.” He flipped the page and shook his head. “Any one of us could be gone in a flash. Doesn’t matter whether we’ve been good guys or bad guys. Right set of circumstances comes up: zap. Out of the game. Boy, the next time I hold back from doing something because of what someone might think…”

  I tried to think back to the last time Lion might have held back because of public opinion. No instance came to mind.

  Just then O’Brian and a couple of his flunkies came in the door, looked around and picked a booth up near the front. He looked over at us a couple of times and I remember thinking what a monumental mistake it would be for him to say the wrong thing. There is no justice when guys like O’Brian live and guys like Jeff die.

  “Screw it,” Lion said. “You’re a decent guy. You set up your life, use all your best stuff and what happens? Some stupid little germ comes along and reduces it all to sewer scum.” He sketched sewer scum, then laid his pen down for a second. “There’s a line in a book called Vision Quest by Terry Davis: ‘you’re born and the hammer cocks.’” He closed his eyes. “What the hell are we gonna do now? I mean, what are we gonna do?”

  Elaine said, “We need to look at it another way, that’s what.” I couldn’t imagine what “other way” she had in mind. Either Jeff is dying or he isn’t, but reality is what it is.

  She said, “You know, in some cultures, people view death as just another part of life, part of the cycle of existence. They believe that souls or spirits or whatever are everlasting; that they come back; that everything in life and death has a purpose. Maybe we can’t see it, but maybe there’s some good to all this.”

  There was almost a piece of hope in that for me: that just maybe all this wasn’t what it appeared to be; that one of our best friends dying wasn’t the absolute worst thing ever in the world. But Nortie put it back in perspective, quick. He said, “I don’t care how many times Jeff comes back or what he comes back as. If he dies now, he’s leaving us forever. And that’s all I care about.”

  Nortie was right. All the cosmic, philosophical explanations of life and death don’t amount to a medium-sized pile of dog dung when your friend is dying.

  Lion continued to sketch, his Rapidograph once again flying over the paper. “Tell you what, sports fans. We got to take care of each other from now on. All of us here, Jeff if we can, Colleen, Max if he ever needs it. Anyone messes with one of us, he gets us all. Life doesn’t care, guys. It’s just there. The only way we have of getting a leg up on the world is to stick together, no matter what.”

  It reminded me of what Max had said after he stopped to play with his daughter that night in Montana, and it seems more and more correct as time goes on: the set stays the same; only the players go through changes.

  I said, “Well, Jeff says we swim. So we swim.”

  Elaine glanced up toward the door and gave a little wave, then started picking up her things. “Gotta go, you guys,” she said. I looked up and glimpsed part of a head disappearing near the edge of the window. It took me a second to place it as Mr. Wilson’s head. Old Elaine and Wilson were going underground. My heart sank, but I gave her a knowing look and said, “See you. Be careful.”

  “I always am,” she said, and was gone.

  CHAPTER 13

  February 24

  I don’t understand why things won’t quiet down. Every time I think the lunatic who designed this year has run out of tricks, something comes up that adds new meaning to “craziness.”

  After Jeff made it clear that all we can do for him is be there if he needs us and swim like unlimited hydroplanes at State, we got heavily into swimming. All Max did this last week was correct our strokes and call out times during workouts. No pushing, no telling us when to put the pressure on. The pressure is on. We didn’t even taper off for our meet in the Tri-Cities this weekend, and we blew everyone out of the water. Of course, we lost the meet, but hit personal bests all the way around.

  I started lifting weights again. It’s not supposed
to be a good idea to do weight training during the regular season—you’re supposed to take care of that in the pre-season—but when we left Dolly’s that night and I felt so crazy about Jeff and so hurt about Elaine and Mr. Wilson and so full of hate for Marty O’Brian and every other unconscious butt-wipe like him, I dropped Nortie off at home and drove over to the Nautilus Fitness Center, where we worked out during Christmas vacation when the pool was empty. They’re open all night to accommodate the people who work swing and graveyard shifts at Kaiser Aluminum and some of the high-tech places coming into the area. I must have stayed two hours; set the weights low and pumped out a million repetitions of each machine. I have no idea whether it was good for me or not, but my body is the only place I have control right now, and with the way things have been the last few months, I just want to keep it big and strong and alive. I have to admit I was a little sore in the water on Monday, but it went away as I warmed up, and none of my repeats was any slower.

  But the big story in this newscast is about Nortie, who is swimming with a cracked rib, I think, and not letting it slow him down a millisecond. I’ll bet that little bugger will be glad when the time in his life comes that people quit beating on him.

  Tuesday night after practice he told me he wouldn’t be home for dinner because he and Milika were going out for some pizza and a little time together. Milika has been really good for Nortie lately, because she’s tough enough not to let him get so down about Jeff that he can’t get back up. She’s probably the one person anywhere who makes him feel good about himself. Anyway, they decided to go over to the Savage House on Monroe, which is a hangout for a lot of Frost kids, then maybe take in a movie. But somewhere in there Marty O’Brian came along and altered their plans.

  It’s hard to know what motivates O’Brian sometimes. I mean, he has to know that any time he starts in on Nortie, he’s going to get the rest of us eventually, and you’d think he’d figure out it isn’t worth it. But when Marty gets with his buddies and starts showing off, he can’t seem to project very far into the future. Anyway, O’Brian comes in with John Dolan and a couple of other baseballers who have been with him over at the community-college fieldhouse getting in some pre-season workouts. They’re still in uniform, slapping their mitts against their legs and being cool; being jocks. They pick a table close to Nortie and Milika, and Nortie thinks about moving, because he’s tired of O’Brian giving him a hard time, but Milika tells him to just sit and ignore them. O’Brian doesn’t even see them, but when Milika gets up to go to the bathroom, she catches his eye and when she’s just out of earshot—and Nortie isn’t—O’Brian says to Dolan, “How’d you like to have a little dark meat, Johnny?” and Johnny says, “Would I? Would I?” and they get a big laugh. Nortie ignores them—in fact, he turns his back and pretends not to hear. But O’Brian’s such a jerk, he can’t let it alone. So he calls over, “What’s it like, Wheeler, jumping in the sack with a little tarbaby? Pretty hot stuff?” Then, in an instant, O’Brian’s mean. “What’s the matter, Wheeler? You too much of a puss to get a white woman?”

  Nortie turns around and looks O’Brian straight in the eye and says, “Come on, Marty. Leave me alone. I’m not doing anything to you. Why do you always have to be such a jerk?”

  “Cause guys like you make the rest of us look bad. A million chicks out there and you pick a nigger. I gotta tell you, Wheeler, I hate that crap.”

  Nortie said, “I know you do, Marty. But it’s none of your business, so just leave me alone.”

  “Long as you’re hanging out with niggers I’m gonna be on you like white on rice.”

  Dolan is still hanging in there with O’Brian, but the other two guys are hedging a little. One of them says, “Come on, Marty, leave him alone. He’s not hurting us.”

  But Marty’s on a roll and he doesn’t want any members of his entourage jumping ship on him. “Up yours, Masterson,” he says. “You don’t like it, hit the road. I hate nigger-lovers.”

  So Masterson gets up and splits, leaving Dolan and the other guy, an infielder named Dave Seigler, to torment Nortie. Milika comes back from the can then and O’Brian backs off a little; there’s nothing in the world that would stop her from going right for O’Brian’s eyeballs if the occasion called for it.

  Nortie is hot. He’s sick and tired of getting pushed around, but he’s determined to make this a nice night with Milika and he knows if he says anything, she’ll go right after O’Brian, verbally or physically; Milika’s a fighter. So Nortie’s quiet, and they dig into their pizza. But Marty has to take one last shot, and as the three of them get up to leave, he puts his head close to Nortie’s ear and says, “Hey, Wheeler, I hear your redheaded bodyguard ain’t feelin’ so hot. Too bad.” And Nortie is out of his chair and onto O’Brian in a flash. He’s screaming and swinging and diving at Marty’s legs. O’Brian shoves his face into the floor and kicks him hard in the ribs before Milika fires a glass at him. The glass crashes against the wall next to O’Brian’s head, and by the time the shards hit the ground she has a pitcher half full of beer from the table next to them, and people dive for cover. The cook in the kitchen and the guy manning the bar are young guys, small and not about to get into the middle of this for minimum wage, so one of them calls the cops. Marty sees him on the phone and drags Nortie out the side door by his hair. Milika is trying to get a good shot at him when Dolan grabs her from behind and the beer goes everywhere.

  By the time they even hear any sirens, Nortie is lying in the parking lot clutching his ribs, spitting out pieces of three side teeth, his T-shirt covered with blood from his nose and mouth. Milika drives the car over beside him and, with Nortie’s help, loads him up. She starts to head for the emergency room at Sacred Heart, but Nortie convinces her to bring him home.

  I was sitting in the living room finishing off some math and watching some worthless program on TV when they came in the door. Nortie’s face was swelling up and he looked really bad—bad enough that I thought maybe he’d been to see his dad. My coat was on by the time they finished their story. I let Nortie talk me out of taking him to the hospital, as long as he agreed that if everything wasn’t okay in the morning, he’d go without any trouble. He lay on the couch, kind of laughing, while Milika cleaned him up. The monologue she was running made me think O’Brian would be lucky if I found him before she did.

  “O’Brian’s a wus,” Nortie said. “My dad can beat me up twice this good, and he’s an old man.”

  I remember thinking Nortie ought to have his likeness printed on a bunch of those Joe Palooka punching bags that you knock over and they stand right back up. He could make big money out of the fact that everyone seems to want to take a shot at him.

  I got in my car and went looking—first to O’Brian’s house, but he wasn’t there. I left a message with his mother: “O’Brian, your ass is in a sling,” then checked all the places I thought he might be hanging out. I made a deal with Max a long time ago that I wouldn’t ever “go out looking” to use the karate skills I’ve learned from him, but that’s exactly what I did. If I’d found Marty that night, I’d have shoved his nose up through his brain. I really believe if I’d found him, he’d be dead.

  But he isn’t dead. After I realized I probably wouldn’t run into him, and had cooled off enough to let it ride till morning, I drove over to Lion’s and filled him in. As I expected, he flew into a rage. Lion’s loyalties to his friends are as fierce as his aversion to socks, times ten; and he is a man who gets even. But he was able to control his rage enough to come up with a stroke of genius: go to the one person on this planet, or at least in this hemisphere, who best knows how to GET EVEN IN A BIG WAY. Terminally ill or not, that would be one Jeffrey Hawkins.

  O’Brian had the surprising good sense to stay out of school the next day, so nothing escalated. Max bound Nortie’s ribs with a piece of an old wetsuit, and either it worked or Nortie has become such a Stotan he just swallows up pain. When we told Max what happened, I was surprised at the intensity of his reaction,
given that he initially takes any piece of news like it’s the stock-market report. He got every detail from Nortie, some of them twice; and when he finally stopped asking questions, he looked dangerous.

  When workout was over, Lion went to the pay phone at the side of the school and called Jeff to see if we could come up for a few minutes—something really important. Jeff said come ahead.

  He looked about like we’d left him last night, only he was in bed. One look at Nortie gave him new energy, and Nortie’s story brought back, for a few minutes anyway, the old Jeff: sitting attentively, fingers across his lips, thinking several moves ahead.

  “You’d have been proud, though, Jeff,” Nortie said, finishing up his story. “I think I got a couple of good shots in before he wasted me.”

  Jeff told Lion and me to get Lion’s Jeepster, which Lion had dropped off at his place on the way over. “Is the winch on it?” he asked.

  Lion said it was.

  “Good.” He got up and started dressing.

  I said, “Hey, man, you aren’t going anywhere. You’re in no shape to be leaving your place.”

  Jeff sucked his tooth. “In the shape I’m in, I can go anywhere I want,” he said, and blew me back.

  Good point. Well punctuated.

  Lion and I whipped over to Lion’s and traded my car for the Jeepster and were back in a little under twenty minutes to find Nortie in the driveway with the mattress off Jeff’s bed and a long rope; Jeff sat on the steps. He told us to rope the mattress to the back of the Jeepster.

  One of the things you avoid with Jeff when he’s working on a project is asking him what the hell he’s doing. The guy is Alfred Hitchcock when it comes to creating suspense, and he never shows his hand. It was absolutely wonderful to have that part of him back. “This is a full-dress operation,” he said to Lion when the mattress was secured to the rear bumper and tailgate. “Stop back by your place and get your duds.”