Chapter 19

There was a break in conversation and Franklin turned to us. “Angela is done with rehab,” Franklin said. “She’s clean and sober but she’s not confident she can stay that way on her own.”

“It’s a difficult process and it can take a lifetime,” Doctor Legare said.

“We’re all in this,” Doctor Calhoun added.

“This is life-changing stuff,” Dane said, “And it’s pretty nice that everyone is on board.”

“We’ve decided to offer her a strategy,” Franklin said. “Karen will offer to bring her here. Karen would travel to San Diego, put her stuff in storage, or ship it. We’ve narrowed the places she would stay down to four possibilities. She could stay here, at our house, at Doctor Calhoun’s house, or with Veronica.”

“I’m dry, kids. We all are. No booze for any of us until she’s here and we have our strategy in place and working,” Veronica said.

“Wow. You guys are serious,” I said, not meaning it the way it came across.

“I resemble that remark,” Veronica said. “It will be good for me, too.”

“Here’s the challenge, no matter where she stays,” Franklin said. “Someone needs to be with her full time. We can lock up the liquor but alcoholics can always find a way to get some. If we leave her alone, she could drive, take a taxi, walk, whatever. The problem with this house is that it’s huge. There are simply too many places to hide liquor for it to be practical.”

“I have a small two-bedroom house,” Doctor Calhoun said. It would be perfect but we’ll need someone to be with her while I’m at work.”

“That’s where we are, right now,” Karen said. “I don’t want to quit my job but I could probably adjust my shifts so I could spend a lot of time with her, at least until we get our new house renovated and we move.”

“And Veronica’s house would have the same problem,” Kim said.

“We’ve pretty much taken my place off the table. I live in an apartment and there is always a party going on somewhere,” Veronica said.

“The other possibility is that I could quit,” Karen said. “I don’t really want to quit my job, but I’m going to put school on hold. The other thing in favor of our house is that it’s a long walk to a package store.”

“Marie is going to take my dance classes,” Mom said, “And I’m going to go with Karen. Then, we bring her back here. We don’t want to overwhelm her.”

“If she knew there were this many people planning on her behalf ... well, I don’t know what she’d think,” Karen said. “We’ll introduce her to Doctor Calhoun and see if she’s okay with that.”

“Let’s drop the ‘doctor’, shall we? I’m Lula Mae. If your mom finds out I’m a neurosurgeon, who knows what she would think.”

“If she stays with us at first, it will probably take us longer to get the renovation done, Karen said. “If she stays with Doctor – if she stays with Lula Mae at first, we can probably get finished and moved in within a month or two.”

“Wow,” Dane said. “We just summed up about three hours’ worth of discussion in ten minutes.”

“Where’s Elvis?” I asked. “He’s about the only person not here.”

“You should sit down for this,” Veronica said, and she seemed serious, sort of. “Elvis and I are not dating anymore. You’re not going to believe this. Elvis has a drinking problem.” She looked right at us and said, “I know what you’re thinking. I’m not going to make any forever promises but I think I’m about done. When we get done here, I’m going home and take my inventory down to the clubhouse and donate it to the cause.”

“Dang. I don’t remember ever having a team like this before,” I said. “Planning Kim’s birthday party or maybe our party on the fourth, but that was just for a one-day event. This is serious.”

“Life-changing,” Doctor Legare said. “I think it will be good for us all.”

“Anything we can do?” Kim asked.

“Perhaps. If it’s okay with you, we might ask you to take a rotation. You know, just spending time with her,” Karen said. “Eventually, she’ll make a decision on whether she wants to stay in Charleston or go back to San Diego.”

“How long will this take?” I asked. I had no idea.

“Realistically? The rest of her life. I’m not saying she can’t get past this rough part where she needs support, but the truth is, she’s going to need some sort of accountability partner for a long time,” Dane said.

“Does Alcoholics Anonymous here in Charleston have any resources or anything?” I asked.

It got really quiet and everyone looked around the table. “Out of the mouth of babes,” Doctor Calhoun said.

“We should definitely explore that,” Franklin said. “How come one of you brilliant doctors didn’t think of that?” he asked, laughing.

“Glad I could help,” I said, looking at Doctor Legare with a grin. He’d said the same thing to me right after I’d won a few races. He shook his head, laughing, I nudged Kim, and we retreated to the library.

“Someone needed to state the obvious,” Kim said. We worked on her homework for a while and then she went home before dinner. She was going hunting with her dad the next day and wanted to tackle her geology, take care of a couple of chores, and hit the sack early. I got a pretty nice hug before she left, then went inside.

I could smell food long before I got to the dining room. The counter in the kitchen had a variety of Chinese dishes lined up. Nothing was labeled but it didn’t matter. It all looked good. I filled a plate with some sort of orange shrimp, that looked like it might be a curry dish, and what was probably cashew chicken. Mom stood and offered me her seat.

Karen was directly across from me. “Don’t let anyone kid you, that was a good idea and nobody else had thought of it,” she said, leaning forward, toward me. I nodded. “I called the number in the book. They have a hotline number and they took a message. They have something called Al-Anon for families and they teach you how to help. A couple of us are going to go on Tuesday night and see what they’ve got. I’m sure it will help.”

“Good. I’m really happy to see so many people willing to help.”

“Oh, my gosh. Aren’t they amazing? Everybody is willing to help. When Christie said we were going to have a little meeting, I had no idea. I know we’re just starting but I feel so much better. I’m just hoping she is willing to come.”

“She doesn’t know?” I asked.

“We talked and I suggested the idea but she hasn’t signed on. I think she will. What does she have to lose?”

We all talked a little more as we ate, and I helped Mom put massive amounts of Chinese food into Tupperware. I knew what I’d be eating for the rest of the weekend. People started leaving and it got more and more quiet. Finally, it was just Mom, Dane, Franklin, Karen, and me. Mom assured Karen that it would all come together and then they left. Dane gave me an attaboy for thinking of AA.

“All that brainpower and nobody thought of that?” I asked.

“Sometimes the obvious isn’t so obvious,” Dane said.

“Buddy, I think with this many people here, we thought we would know what we needed to know, but AA has been in business for a long time. It was definitely a good idea.”

I excused myself and went to my room to work on homework but that didn’t take long. I looked through my stack of unread novels but nothing caught my fancy. They all looked like good books but I just didn’t feel like starting something new. I wrote in my journal for a while and hit the sack. Pretty good day, I thought.

After a healthy breakfast of Kung Pao Chicken, I packed knee pads, gloves, hearing protectors, and safety glasses into a backpack and took off for Franklin’s house. His car was already gone so I kept pedaling. I turned right onto Fort Johnson Road, wondering how many times I’d follow this same route from our house over the next few years. I pulled into Franklin’s driveway, noting a small dumpster, already half full.

“Hey,” I hollered. “Put me to work.”

He smiled and led me into a bathroom. “If it’s avocado green, it goes,” he said.

“Everything is avocado green.”

“You catch on quick. The less damage you do to what’s underneath, the easier our prep work will be for what we’re replacing it with. Sometimes you can get under an edge with a pry bar, and sometimes you have to be more persuasive,” he said, handing me a prybar and small sledgehammer.”

He went back to the kitchen and I got to work. A year ago, Franklin had given up his Saturdays to teach me all kinds of things. I owed him. Franklin hadn’t brought any music but I had “Shattered” stuck in my head anyway and as I persuaded tile with the sledge hammer, it seemed appropriate. I got into a rhythm. This tile’s been shattered, uh huh.

A couple of hours later, Franklin stuck his head in to check my progress. I kept working as he watched. I took my safety glasses off and stood to look at him and he laughed. “Look at yourself in the mirror,” he said. My face was covered with fine white dust, except for around my eyes. I looked like some sort of a weird, inverted raccoon.

“It’s lunchtime. Hungry?” he asked.

“I know a good Chinese place,” I answered and he groaned. I stuffed my bike into the trunk, with the front wheel hanging out and we drove home to raid the fridge.

“I see you two found the leftovers,” Mom said as she entered the kitchen. “What happened to you?”

“Avocado green tile,” I said. “Dust gets everywhere.”

“Obviously. Wash up to your elbows and get your face good before you eat, and you can do that standing up. Clothes go right in the laundry, or out to the trash. What a mess.”

“You should have seen him before he cleaned up,” Franklin said, getting an eye roll from Mom.

We put a pretty big dent in the leftovers, then Franklin left to spend time with Karen, and I cleaned up. My clothes were so bad, I had to bag them to get them to the laundry room. Then, I took Franklin’s advice and tried to remember the Tai Chi, we’d learned so I could stretch after working all morning.

I stretched and felt pretty good, thinking Tai Chi might be worth the time and effort to learn. I went to the library and explored Mom’s recent purchases. I wasn’t interested in Michener. I hated Michener. Pat Conroy’s stuff about the Citadel didn’t interest me, although it was cool that a local author seemed to have done pretty well.

I narrowed my choices to Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke, Farewell My Lovely, by Raymond Chandler, and The Shadow Riders by Louis L’Amour. It was crazy to think those three novels were even in the same library, let alone at the top of my stack. I figured The Shadow Riders would be an easy read and I settled in to see what Dal and Mac Traven would learn on the road from Texas.

I woke up to the sound of Mom paging me to the phone. When I didn’t answer she came to the library, picked up the extension, and handed it to me.

“Aquaman!” boomed a familiar voice.

“Vince! How’s it going in the land of the fighting Irish?”

“Good, but that’s not why I called. I’ll be back for Thanksgiving. After that, there’s only three weeks until finals and then home. Tell me about regionals. Five events? Is that right?”

Lani had told him what she knew. Lani had heard from Lori and she’d heard from either Mel or Kim. I gave him the rundown, including my personal debate about whether or not to swim the fifty. Then I asked him what he thought I should do.

“What would be your chances to win any of the events if that was the only event you were competing in? Be realistic. Then, figure out if adding events changed those odds and ask yourself if you could live with the change. That’s what I’d do.” It was quiet for a moment. “You were already thinking that, weren’t you?”

“Yup. I’ve tried to figure it out but I don’t know how to do it.”

“Ask Coach Miller. If he knows, go with it. If he doesn’t, do what your gut tells you. Listen, if you try to win all five events and come in second in every one of them, you might regret trying to win all five. If you win four, you might regret not trying for five. But everything you’ve told me is that you should go for four and be happy with the effort. The results aren’t really up to you anyway. You’re only in control of how well you do. The other guys may be faster. Not up to you.”

I thought about it for a moment or two. “I’ll ask Coach.” He let the line stay quiet for a minute. He knew me well enough. “You know what, Vince? I want to win the two hundred individual medley. That’s it. The guy that wins that is like the decathlon winner for swimming. That’s what I want to win.”

“And that’s early in the sequence, isn’t it? Talk to Coach Miller, then settle it in your own mind, and don’t look back. That’s my advice. Best I got.”

“Thanks, Vince.” We talked a bit more and hung up. He promised to pay me a visit over Thanksgiving break.

It was such a simple thing. Should I swim the fifty or not? That’s it. In the big scheme of things, it didn’t really matter. It was a test of my ability. A test of my training and discipline. I opened my novel and tried to read.

I read a bit more of The Shadow Riders, tried hard to finish off the leftovers, and hit the sack early.

On Monday morning, they announced the results of regionals during homeroom. At lunch, a dozen guys came over to our table to congratulate me. It felt good to have a lot of people encouraging me but I’d be fine if no one had.

“You know,” I whispered to Kim, “Before we showed up for a basketball game in a limo, no one knew who I was.”

“Do you miss the anonymity?”

“I guess I do. But I guess if you do well at something, people are going to find out. Part of the deal, I guess.”

“Part of the deal. Are you okay with it?”

“I don’t think I have a lot of choice,” I said.

“You could lose all your races.”

“Thanks. I’d probably be famous for all the wrong reasons. I think I’ll suck it up and enjoy my fifteen minutes of fame, for what it’s worth.” We ate in silence for a while. Mel was pretty proud of Bobby for doing even better this year than last, and Gil had come by the table for a couple of minutes. It was a bit of a reprieve. “You know, as long as we’re dating, I mean, as long as we’re engaged, I’m going to be sort of famous for being the guy that prevented any other guy from having a shot at you. That will last unto death do us part.”

“Exactly. So, suck it up, cupcake,” she said and handed me a chocolate-covered cupcake. Good looking and charitable. You just can’t beat that.

That afternoon at practice, I asked Coach Miller about the events I was qualified for.

“Coach, I can’t decide if I should compete in the fifty or not. If I want to be competitive, I can’t breathe like I do for a longer race and that kills my recovery. I’ve got a break until the hundred but, well, I don’t know.”

“Not easy to figure out, Pierce. There are a lot of variables and they’re different for everyone. What about warming up? How many laps do you swim before your first race? Do you eat breakfast the day of a race and if you do, how early do you have to eat? I doubt there’s a single swimmer at the college level who has the same routine he had in high school.”

“Great. So, it’s all a big experiment,” I said, feeling frustrated.

“Yup. If you swam what you’re qualified for today, at race pace, at the event timing I’d expect, you might have a great time for everything. Maybe even winning times for everything. Then, tomorrow, you do it all again but without swimming a fifty, you could have slower times.”

“Great. Maybe I should just wait until Saturday and decide then.”

“Maybe. Would knowing today, change your preparation?”

“Yeah. I’d spend more time doing sprints.”

“Fair enough. Let’s look at qualifying times,” he said and pulled a printout from his folding clipboard. “You have one of the top four times for all your events except the fifty and backstroke. You’re sixth. Let’s see if those guys are swimming other events. Maybe they’ll crap out before that.” He flipped through a couple of pages, then back and forth. “Two of the guys ahead of you are also swimming the two hundred free. One of them is swimming the two hundred IM.”

“So, there are three guys with faster qualifying times, that will be fresh for the fifty. It sounds like I’d have to have a kick-ass day,” I said and wasn’t sure if I was happy about that or sad.

“You’ve had them before, Jack. I wish I could tell you what to do but all I can do is give you the facts and let you decide. I’ll tell you one more thing. Of the five guys with faster times than you, four of them are seniors, and one is a junior.”

“Meaning it would be reasonable to think I could have one of the fastest two times next year,” I said.

He shrugged. “No guarantees. It’s just a thought. If you want, you can swim all your events today, at race pace, and event timing, then do it again tomorrow, without the fifty and see. Up to you.”

I’d almost decided not to swim the fifty when Coach suggested that. Testing the theory was free, though and Bobby joined me, swimming his events at meet timing. I saw Kim, sitting in the stands and told her what I planned to do. She gave me a smile and a thumbs-up. I gave it my best shot at five events, then worked on starts and turns for a while. Bobby did the same.

“I like your little swim costume,” she said when I joined her on the deck.

“Costume?”

“Yes. Costume. It’s cute. Come here and let me see,” she said, smiling.

“Right. If I do that, my costume won’t fit properly.” I toweled off and pulled on warm-ups over my Speedos costume. “Let me grab my clothes from my locker. I want to knock out the week’s homework today. That worked pretty well last week.”

I met her at the truck and she looked hard at my face then rubbed around my eyes. “Do your goggles have to fit that tight?”

“I was practicing starts. Normally, I wear them a bit looser. Which reminds me, do you mind swinging by Perlman’s on the way home?”

“I don’t mind going to Perlman’s but it’s hardly on the way. What do you need?”

“Goggles. The bands on these are getting a bit brittle. I don’t think I rinse them off every time and the chlorine probably does that.” She nodded and that’s what we did. I picked up two pairs.

Back at my house, we worked on homework for a while, then Kim went home. She didn’t have cheerleading practice and didn’t need to get so far ahead. I didn’t want anything to distract me.

I swam race pace for five events on Tuesday afternoon and Coach Miller logged my times. They were all fast enough to qualify, if I hadn’t already. That evening, Franklin and I learned a few more strikes and some new foot maneuvers. There were a lot of stances and foot maneuvers to learn but they were the literal foundation of the art. Foot position and movement for boxing had been a lot easier to learn but I could definitely see the benefit I was getting from kung fu.

At practice on Wednesday, I swam four events, leaving the fifty out of the equation. I was faster on some and slower on others, but not by much either way. One thing was clear, nothing was obvious. I was leaning toward skipping the fifty but knew I could wait until moments before the race to make the decision. Once I decided to delay the decision until race day, I relaxed. It was probably the first time in my life that delaying a decision was a relief. Who knew?

Thursday, I practiced hard. On Friday, I took it easy, putting in a few easy laps. Actually, I probably swam a mile or so, but it was all at a nice and easy pace. Both days, I sent Kim home without me. Late Friday afternoon, I felt her presence before I saw her. She’d found me sitting on the picnic table at The Wappoo Cut. She stood behind me, not saying a word until I turned and motioned for her to join me.

She sat next to me, quietly watching boats come in. The weather was marginal at best, with the wind picking up and the sky spitting little drops on us every now and then. My warmups weren’t doing much of a job of keeping me warm but I wasn’t ready to go.

“There’s a heater in the truck,” she said and we walked together and climbed into the Aquatruck. “Do you have it figured out, yet?”

“I think so.”

“Care to share?” she asked.

“I think I have it figured out but I’m not certain.”

“And if you tell me, you’ll stick to it, even if you want to change your mind later,” she said as a statement. That was exactly it.

She picked me up early the next morning and we drove south on Highway Seventeen to Walterboro. I opened the Thomas Brothers Map book to give directions to the aquatic center. We pulled into the parking lot right behind Mel and Bobby. The girls went into the pool area while Bobby and I changed in the locker room.

I pulled on my warmups, wishing they were thicker, grabbed my swim cap and two pairs of goggles, and walked out to the pool. The first event wouldn’t be for another hour. Gil was already in the water, doing some easy laps and Bobby was sitting next to Mel in the bleachers. Coach Miller was at the officials’ table and when he saw me, he waved me over.

“Jack Pierce?”

“Yes, sir.”

“We have you down for multiple events. Coach Miller seems to think there is a possibility you won’t be competing in the fifty. You’re eligible.”

“Yes, sir. The fifty would be six events. I’m still not sure if I’m going to compete in that.”

“I totally understand. When we call swimmers to the blocks for that, I’ll look for you. Just give me a thumbs up or down to let me know. You’d be in the seven lane.” He looked down at his event sheet. “Ah. You’re a top four qualifier for every other event. Oops. Not quite so high for backstroke. The fifty looks to be very competitive this year. Lots of seniors.”

“When’s the last time a junior won the fifty?” I asked, still gathering information.

“You mean sophomore. I can’t remember. Cathy?” he said, turning to another official. She shook her head. Nobody knew.

Coach Miller and I left the table and walked over to the bleachers on what was the competitors’ side of the pool. “Pierce, you simply need to swim your own race. One race at a time. You and Gil start us off with the two hundred free. Get the IM and fifty out of your mind. Two hundred free. Just that, Pierce. Two hundred free. You could have a garage full of cars but you can only drive one at a time. The other cars in the garage might need repair, be low on gas, or whatever. You can’t worry about them when you’re driving. One car at a time. One event at a time.”

Forget about the other events, I thought. Get your head in the game for the two hundred. Just that. You might not win but you can make someone else have to work for it. If someone else is faster than you, make them prove it.

I thanked him, stripped down, and joined a growing crowd in the pool. I heard a fifteen-minute warning and went inside to use the restroom. There was a line, and I thought that was pretty funny.

I think you can tell how a meet is going to be run before the first event begins. There was a digital scoreboard for posting results, a whiteboard with events and starting times, and four large clocks at the pool corners. The PA system was loud enough for everyone to hear but not so loud that it was distorted. The pool temperature was seventy-nine. By regulation, it has to be between seventy-seven and eighty. Higher temperatures don’t let you cool off as much. If I was only going to swim one event, eighty-five would have been fine. With six events in front of me, I would have preferred seventy-seven, but it wasn’t that big of a deal.

When I approached my spot on the five-lane, I thought there was only one person to beat and that was me. If someone was faster than me, they’d have to prove it. I looked over and saw Gil in the three-lane. One guy in lane four had qualified faster than either of us. Our last names came up on the digital scoreboard. Shear from Greenville was in the four-lane. I like the two hundred. It’s long enough for you to get into a good rhythm, but not so long that it wears you out.

We had a false start in the seven lane, and after conferring, the officials allowed him to race. We got ready a second time. I looked down my lane, the way a kicker or punter might see a line between the ball and the goalposts. This lane belonged to me. The race belonged to me. It did not belong to Mr. Shear of Greenville. Called to our marks, I gave a last look at Kim, who smiled and showed me those fabulous dimples.

Everything was working right. My strokes were strong, long, and smooth, breathing was easy and my turns were on the money. At the end of two laps, Mr. Shear was still with me and we were ahead of everyone else by half a body length or more. My race. I made the turn to start my final lap and turned my feet into little flippers. For the last lap, I swam at a pace designed to take me to the finish and no further. With each stroke, I went a little further into oxygen debt.

We were close when we touched but I had no doubt that I’d won. None. It was my race from start to finish. I congratulated him on a good race and was out of the water before our times came up. That race was history and I was no longer concerned with it. I checked the event clock which showed how much time until the next event began. When the pool was clear, I got back in to warm up. I did one easy length of each of four strokes, then climbed back.

That’s the first time I looked up to see finish times for the two hundred free. I’d come in first, then Shear, then Gil. I wished Gil could have taken second but third is nothing to sneeze at. He seemed happy with it, or at least satisfied. The lane assignments came up on the digital scoreboard. I was next to Bobby with Shear on my other side. That meant we were supposed to be the fastest three in the pool.

“You and me, Bobby,” I said and he nodded. My goal was to set such a brutal pace for the butterfly leg that no one would think they could catch me. Shear and Bobby, both knew they’d have to be ahead of me when we started the final lap of freestyle. Bobby would beat me on the backstroke lap but Shear’s breaststroke was the real mystery.

The race began and I accomplished just what I wanted. At the end of the butterfly lap, I was two body lengths ahead of Bobby and Shear. Switching to backstroke, I ran a checklist in my head, forcing myself to keep my head level, shoulders, and a big rotation, and using my feet like flippers. I could see Bobby making up some of the gap but Shear wasn’t. We switched to breaststroke and Shear turned it on. When we switched to freestyle, I still had the lead with Bobby and Shear battling it out for second.

I moved closer to Bobby’s lane. If he wanted to draft, swimming in marginally faster water, he could. I held my position in front and watched Bobby begin to pull away from Shear. One length to go and we were right where we wanted to be. Bobby would have preferred to be in front, but he’d have to take that from me.

I swam hard to the end, touching then looking to see if Bobby had taken second. It was closer than I thought it would be. All I could do was watch the scoreboard. My time came up first, then Bobby, then Shear.

“You and me,” I hollered to Bobby, and again, congratulated Shear on a good race. As soon as I climbed out of the pool, I knew I wasn’t going to swim the fifty. Shear would undoubtedly swim the one hundred free and I thought if I raced the fifty, he would beat me. The two hundred meant more to me than the fifty. I told Coach.

“You’re certain?”

“Yes, sir. I just wish the ninth fastest qualifier was here so he could compete in my place.”

“What makes you think he isn’t,” Coach said and he was off to the officials’ table. I wasn’t sure what he meant but I needed to get my heart rate and breathing back to normal.

I shouldn’t have been surprised to see the scoreboard change the names around when I dropped out. What did surprise me was when Gil’s last name, Vechy, showed up for lane eight. There’s an order for assigning lanes. The fastest qualifier is in the middle and slower swimmers are on the outside. It makes it easy to see who the favorite is when they’re swimming. When we had a meet with another school, there were only four swimmers in the water at the same time. With regionals and state finals there were always eight swimmers.

It’s probably pretty rare for swimmers to finish a race in the exact order they qualified in. That’s probably especially true on a short race, but that’s exactly what happened. The fastest qualifier won and Gil came in eighth. Still, he was happy to have had the chance.

He had to follow that up with the one hundred fly. I’d been so consumed with my own events that I hadn’t realized how many Gil was swimming. When I bowed out of the fifty, that brought his total number of events to five. It was great to hear the announcer call our names. Rather than go by qualifying times, he went by lane number. He announced, “In lane one from Porter-Gaud, Allen Conrad,” and so on. By the time he finished, he’d announced Porter-Gaud more often than any other school. Spectators from other schools were wondering just what was going on. It was great. This was Allen’s first competition at State and he was nervous. By that time, I was the old guy, having competed at regionals the previous year, in six events at regionals, and had already swum two events at State. I had just enough time to walk down to talk to him.