Chapter 1

“What’s the fascination with tits?”

“Did you enjoy your vacation time, Marci?” I asked. Marci had just sat across from me at lunch. I’d just opened Fundamentals of Mechanical Engineering by Strauss and Whitaker but obviously, Marci’s question was much more important, and certainly urgent.

“Yes. Don’t change the subject. What the big deal?”

“And you’re asking me because...?”

“Because you’ve got Kim and she’s got perfect tits. You must know.”

“Ah. Well, when you put it that way, I’m probably the world’s expert.”

“Exactly.”

“Really, Marci, why are you asking me? Why are you asking in the first place and then why would you think I’d know? And doesn’t this seem a bit awkward?”

“Of course, it’s awkward. Who else am I going to ask? Kim’s busy. Everyone else is busy. I don’t talk. You know I don’t.”

I looked over at our table to see everyone else engaged in conversation. I had intended to enjoy some quiet time reading but knew Marci would stay right where she was until I talked with her. “Guys just like them. That’s the bottom line, Marci. I don’t know what else you want to know.”

She wasn’t satisfied with that lame answer. “Some guys seem to like girls with really big ones but other guys don’t seem to care. Who’s got the best tits? There. That seems straightforward.”

“You’re killing me, Marci.” I tried not to laugh but it was difficult because she was so serious.

“Do you want to see them? Do you want to touch them and play with them, or what? Size matters, right?”

I looked over at our table again, but Kim had her back to me and everyone seemed busy talking. There was no one near us. “I can’t believe we’re talking about this. Okay. Yes. Yes, to all of that. Guys want to see them and play with them. I think some guys think the bigger the better but I know for a fact that all guys don’t think that. Who the boobs are attached to matters, Marci.”

“Okay. But is there a best size for guys? More than a mouthful’s a waste. I’ve heard that. Do guys think that?”

“Guys who have girlfriends with small boobs say that.”

“Jan has bigger boobs than Annie, obviously. So, would guys want to date Jan more than Annie because she has better boobs? Help me out.”

I had no idea how to get out of this. Strangely, I wasn’t really surprised. Coming from Marci, it seemed pretty normal. “Guys like boobs because they are sexual. If you can get a girl excited from touching her boobs, maybe she will want to do more. Annie is small but she’s also cute and enthusiastic and fun.”

“So, guys would think she’d be a lot of fun to fuck?”

I sighed. “Marci, none of this is getting back to the squad.”

“No. Of course not. I don’t talk and you don’t talk. We don’t gossip. I just want to know.”

“Some guys just want to fuck. Other guys want to make love to a woman. Annie is attractive with small boobs. Jan is attractive with larger boobs. I’m certain there are a lot of guys who would want to make love to either of them.” I could see her thinking. “Marci, you have nice sized boobs. You have a pretty face and a cute figure. You’re also a bit of a mystery. I’m certain that a lot of guys find you attractive and would like to make love with you, too.”

She smiled a little. I thought I’d just answered the bottom-line question. “You would want to? With me, I mean?”

“Given different circumstances, yes. I don’t think you have to worry about it, Marci.”

“Okay, thanks,” she said, stood abruptly and left my table. Holy crap! Did I just say anything I’d regret later? I hoped not. I guess it was a good thing Marci thought she could confide in me. I wondered what it would be like to be on a date with Marci. I couldn’t imagine.

I wanted to talk with Kim but we needed time for that and it just wasn’t working out that morning. Not on the first day back, at any rate. That afternoon at PE, I ducked out of the next module to talk with Coach Miller. I hoped he’d write a pass for me but I just wanted to talk.

“What brings you here, Aquaman? Season is over.”

“Can I ask you a question? Actually, a couple of them.”

He set a bunch of papers down and leaned back in his chair. “What’s on your mind, Aquaman?”

“First, did Coach Leonard really go to the Olympic trials for boxing?”

He laughed. “That’s a new one. What did he tell you?”

“That he was golden gloves boxing champ for Ohio or Indiana or someplace and he went to the trials but Joe Frazier was the winner.”

“He’s right about Joe Frazier. Joe Frazier was a heavyweight. Did he say he competed as a heavyweight? What do you weigh, Jack? One seventy? One eighty? How much do you think Coach Leonard weighs?”

“One seventy-five. He’s probably one sixty. He was just blowing smoke then.”

“Having fun. Let’s see. His first name is Ishmael. He dated Miss America, bowled a three hundred, and, my favorite, joined the Montgomery bus boycott.”

“None of that?”

“No. None of that. He would have told you sooner or later. What’s your real question?”

“How would I stack up against the best from other states?”

“Ah. Should you compete at the college level? Straight poop?” he asked and I nodded. “If you enjoy it, do it. Did you enjoy two-a-days?”

“Yes, sir. It was work but I enjoyed the results, that’s for sure.”

“Good. Let’s run with that. Two-a-days for nine months out of the year. You’d continue to see results for the next year or so and then, improvement gets stingy. If you shave off a tenth of a second for every fifty miles of practice now, imagine shaving a tenth of a second for every five hundred or a thousand miles. Breakthroughs happen less often but they do happen and suddenly you shave off tenths at a time. Right now, you and the rest of the guys are seeing improvement from your effort that no collegiate swimmer could hope to see. Your best event is the two hundred free. You would not have made it to state in California, Florida, Texas, Oregon, Washington, Georgia...”

“Okay, Coach. I’m guessing the list is long.”

“You are the South Carolina State Champ in four events. That is nothing to sneeze at. It’s a damned fine achievement. Could you elevate your game to compete at a national level? I think so. I definitely think so. Would it be worth the cost? That’s the real question.” I nodded. “What would you have to give up? Would you be willing?”

“I was leaning toward not competing in college. I don’t think I want to give up what it would cost to take it to the next level.”

“You don’t have to decide now. I know you like things settled. Relax. Play baseball. Enjoy that. There’s a future for professional baseball players. You never know. And don’t think that just because you don’t compete in college means you’re done competing. I do.”

“How do you compete, Coach? Swimming?”

“Masters. There are some great guys swimming masters and I have a lot of fun with that. Or you could do what Ryan or Marty do and try triathlons. Either way, you get to compete on your terms. You could do one race a year or probably find a race every weekend if you wanted to.”

“Thanks, Coach. That makes a lot of sense. Can I ask you another question? What did you get your degree in?”

“Ha. Does it really matter?”

“No. Not to me. I’m just curious because you seem to know a lot of different stuff.”

“Alright. Don’t broadcast this. I have a BA in history from College of Charleston. I’ve got a master’s and a Ph.D. in education from USC, and I’m still taking classes. That stays in here.”

“And you’re coaching swimming at a small private school.”

“And that doesn’t make sense to you. I enjoy learning. I always have. I like where I live. I make enough and enough is as good as a feast. I already told you that you’d make greater improvements here than in college. I get to be part of that. You, young man, are an arrow of potential, about to leave the bow. I, in my own small way, get to help aim that arrow, so that it will find the mark.”

“It seems like that would be a lot more rewarding than posing as a golden gloves champ,” I said and we both laughed.

“Have you seen the list, one hundred books everyone should read before college?”

“Yes sir. I’ve read all but a couple. I couldn’t get through As I Lay Dying or Ulysess.”

“Good. I don’t blame you on those two. Now, read the books no one else is reading, at least not in high school.”

“Any suggestions?”

“A History of Western Philosophy by Russell, The Republic by Plato, The Upanishads, Night by Weisel, Man’s Search for Meaning by Frankl, West With the Night by Beryl Markham, Surprised by Joy by C.S. Lewis, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics by Kant. How many do you want?”

“I’ve read The Republic but that’s it. I bet you’ve got a crazy good library at home.”

“I do. While you go diving into those challenging books, don’t overlook the joy of Edgar Rice Burrough’s Tarzan or Zane Grey. It doesn’t all have to be challenging. Don’t forget to have fun along the way.”

“Who’s your favorite?”

“Oh, my gosh, Pierce. What a question. If you’re in the mood for a spy novel, it’s hard to beat le Carre. Zane Grey for a western or Ray Bradbury for science fiction. You can never go wrong with a good book.”

The bell sounded and the period was over. “That went by too quickly,” I said, and Coach smiled.

“You’ll get no argument from me. My door is always open, Aquaman, you know that.” I started to leave when Coach called after me. “Pay a visit to the College of Charleston bookstore. Talk to Luann or Meredith. They can tell you what’s good, what everyone is reading and what’s overrated. You’ll have a hard time finding the books you want in an underfunded public library.”

“Thanks, Coach.”

I caught up with Kim at her truck. “Whew.”

“No, kidding,” she said. “I don’t think we’ve had two minutes together since the day began. What was up with you and Marci?”

“First things first. Your mom.”

“No idea. I’m almost certain she saw my shoes at the boat and I’m almost certain she suspects we were down below, doing the hanky panky but I can’t be certain.”

“Hanky panky? So, are you both just pretending it didn’t happen?”

“Seems safest to me. She was still up when I got home and if she was suspicious, she would have looked at my shoes. If she did that, and I honestly couldn’t tell, then she knows I wasn’t wearing the shoes she saw on the boat.”

“And her legal mind is looking for a preponderance of evidence,” I said.

“Exactly. Did you tell your mom where you went on New Year’s Eve?” I shook my head. “Then we can make up whatever we want as long as we agree, right?”

“Then we went downtown to White Point Garden. We know she wasn’t there and we don’t know anyone who was.”

“I hate this. I didn’t think we could have been more careful. I don’t want to lie. Argh.”

“No. Me neither. Let’s just say we went to the harbor to watch fireworks. We were at the marina and the marina is at the harbor,” I said. “Oh, and we did watch fireworks.”

“I can live with that. What did you and Marci talk about?”

“Tits, mostly,” I said as Kim stopped in our driveway. We went to the gym to lift with Mom, Kim wondering about my conversation with Marci the entire time. There is no way she could have known what it was about. I told them both about my conversation with Coach Miller and his suggestion that I visit the CofC bookstore. Everyone called College of Charleston Cee of Cee but they all spelled it CofC.

After a great lift, Kim stayed for dinner. We both showered and got dressed, then drove downtown to check out the CofC Bookstore. We’d been to a college bookstore up at USC before so we thought we knew what we were getting into. What a mistake. Ten minutes after we got there, we were back in Kim’s truck.

“Well, that was a bust,” I said.

“Yeah. What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking it would be just like any other bookstore. What I wasn’t thinking was that with the next semester starting on Thursday, it would be like a shark feeding frenzy.”

“The line to pay for books was a pretty big tipoff.”

“Sorry. It didn’t even cross my mind, Baby.”

“Where to, now?”

“Home, I guess. I’m really sorry. Let’s wait a couple of weeks and try again,” I said.

“You sure you don’t want to try the outdated and underfunded library?” she asked. “Is that right?”

“I can’t believe he still takes classes. Do other teachers do that?”

“Who knows what deep dark secrets they keep,” she said, laughing, probably at the fact that Coach Miller didn’t want word to get out that he had a current student ID from a couple of local colleges.

“You’re still upset about New Year’s Eve and your mom, huh?”

She was quiet for a minute, focusing on driving out of downtown. “We’re not stupid. I don’t even know any stupid people. We had to know that sooner or later, we’d be busted.”

It was quiet for a long time. “I think I might know a stupid person,” I said, casually.

She didn’t respond right away, then looked over at me to see if I was being serious or not. “You are such a dufus.” She tried to give me a pissed off look but it wasn’t working very well. “You might know a stupid person? Jack, I’m being serious.”

“Did you know the ‘A’ in Volvo stands for aerodynamic?” I waited. She looked over at me and rolled her eyes.

“Vince?”

“Yeah. Want to hear another?”

“No!” She pulled into the next street over from mine and parked. “We need to think about this. Everything has been going along just fine. Now, Mom knows, or at least she thinks she knows. Now, she can keep doing what she’s been doing and sort of pretend she doesn’t know, or she can be super sneaky and try to catch us in the act, which probably wouldn’t be too difficult.”

“So, we have to decide how we’re going to not get caught and, or, what we’ll say when we are caught.”

“Exactly. I’m thinking there would probably be a lot of yes, ma’am and no ma’am.”

“Let’s think it through from their perspective,” I said. “We’re both straight A students. Neither of us drinks or does drugs. We make good decisions and were responsible. I guess we’re both overachievers. If you and I had kids like us, wouldn’t you be pretty happy?”

“Yeah. I hadn’t thought about it that way. So, what do they really want?” she asked.

“They want the same thing we do. Neither of us wants to screw it up. They don’t want us to screw it up. What would be worse for them, our parents, is if they somehow screwed it up. How many kids do you know whose parents have totally screwed up their lives? I know some. It’s not good.”

“We go on the offensive,” Kim said. “We ask our parents to be part of our success and ask them what we can do better.”

“And if we’re not already doing whatever it is, we start. If we’re doing everything they can think of to succeed, then they’re part of our success and we’re golden.”

“Okay. I like it but we have to really think it through. We can’t just walk into your house and spring that on your mom. And we definitely can’t do it at my house. Dad might buy it but Mom will think she’s being played,” she said.

“We went to the bookstore tonight because of what Coach Miller said. Mom didn’t give it a second thought. All we need is some sort of trigger to set that in motion so it’s like it wasn’t our idea.”

“Are we blowing this out of proportion, Jack?”

“Even if we are, is there anything wrong with asking that question? We get grades from our teachers and if the grades are good, we don’t ask if there’s something we could do better. Who else would we ask? Franklin and Karen?”

“Aunt Nora and Uncle TJ, but they don’t really know me the way they did when I was little. Mel’s mom, for me, probably. Franklin for you, I guess.”

“Okay, then you ask Mrs. Middleton the next chance you get and I’ll ask Franklin and we’ll see how that goes and adjust our approach if we need to.”

“That sounds good. I’ve just got one question,” she said and I waited. “Why were you and Marci talking about tits?”

I explained that while Kim shook her head in disbelief about how naïve Marci was. Kim dropped me off at home, I told Mom about the fiasco at the bookstore and called Franklin from the library and we talked for a while.

Tuesday morning, Kim obviously hadn’t talked to Mrs. Middleton yet so I held onto my conversation with Franklin until we could compare notes. That afternoon, I discovered that we were in a new module in PE. Both Kim’s and my class were outdoors, learning about the various events of track and field. The girls were doing track so we stuck to field. The weather was perfect.

Our first event was the long jump. Coach Leonard gave everyone the basic instructions and had everyone take one jump. Then, he went back over his instructions. It made more sense, having given it a try. He said we’d need to jump a dozen times just to get our approach figured out. Most of the guys jumped somewhere between twelve and fourteen feet. Bobby, Gil, and I all managed about fifteen feet. Bobby would have probably managed seventeen or eighteen feet but his landings sucked and he fell backward.

“Claire, your jump is good. It’s really good for a first effort but you land like a Raggedy Anne doll some little girl discarded.” Ouch.

“Gee, thanks, Coach.”

“What I meant was, that if you could improve your landing, you’d add at least a foot and maybe two to your jump and that would be outstanding.”

Bobby walked past me to the back of the line and said, “I was sort of going for Raggedy Andy.”

We each got a half dozen tries and then moved on to high jump. I looked around to make sure Coach Miller wasn’t watching from the bleachers. I didn’t need him laughing at my jumping ability. Coach Leonard explained the different types of jumping. We each tried the straddle technique a couple of times before trying the Fosbury Flop.

It was pretty easy to clear three feet using either method but when he moved the bar to four feet it became pretty obvious why the Fosbury Flop was popular. Bobby and I both manage to clear five feet and Gil was a butt and showed off by clearing five and a half feet.

“You foot-faulted,” Bobby said.

“You can’t foot fault on the high jump,” Gil answered.

“You did. Doesn’t count.” That’s sort of how the rest of the field events went. No one was surprised when Jake Gealy put the shot about a million miles out there. Most of the time, we were focused more on the girls than the event we were supposed to be doing. When you’re outdoors and it’s in the seventies in January, it’s a good day, regardless of whether or not you foot-fault on your high jump or land like Raggedy Anne.

After class, I met Kim on the track and we walked to our locker rooms. She grabbed her clothes; I grabbed mine and met her on the other side. We slid into her truck for the short ride back to my house.

“Marci Watkin’s boobs are just fine,” Kim said.

“I couldn’t agree more,” I said and that got a sideways look. “What? I’m agreeing with you.”

“Was she fishing for compliments or something?”

“I think she’s clueless and figures I have a clue.” It was quiet for a moment. “She didn’t ask what I thought of hers, by the way. In fact, she simply asked about guys in general.” Quiet again. “I have a hunch, she thought that since I’m dating you, and you have perfect boobs, that no one would be better able to answer her question.”

“You know, you’d probably do better by quitting while you’re ahead.”

“I’m ahead?” I asked, incredulously.

“Dufus. You are marginally ahead.”

“Great. I was afraid I was going to be called on to inspect...”

“Watch it.”

“Just trying to help.”

“I’ll bet.” Kim parked and we walked up to join Mom and Angela in the gym. “She actually has very nice boobs,” Kim whispered.

“Who does?” Mom asked.

“You heard that?” And that’s how our workout started. We had a great lift, explaining to Angela each of our exercises and how they were helping Mom develop the perfect mystery biker chick Vee. Mom said that Franklin had to work late on a presentation and would not be able to go to kung fu. Mom was teaching dance, Karen was picking up Angela, and Kim offered to drive. She’d never been to the kung fu school.

I explained Wing Chun Kung Fu as best I could but Kim would just have to watch and see. I bowed at the front door but Kim didn’t and I wasn’t sure what the protocol was. Inside, I made introductions and apologized for Franklin. Kim stepped out of her shoes and took a seat to watch.

Sifu Chen taught me how to match a weapon to a target. He explained hard targets and soft targets and the reasoning for attacking a hard target. When my brain was full, he taught me a little of what he called contact manipulation. Fulcrums and joint locks were powerful tools and I couldn’t believe how easy they were to use.

“Do you play chess?” Sifu Chen asked.

“A little.”

“Have you played with a clock before, or at least seen it played that way? One strategy is to make moves that will occupy your opponent with trying to decipher your attack. His clock ticks, while you think of your next move. Occupy your opponent with something that prevents him from thinking about winning.”

“I get it. How does that apply to this, though?”

“Occupy your opponent with their own injuries. When you first came in, you tried to punch me, then saw the ceiling. Were you then thinking about punching me again or wondering about the ceiling and how you came to be looking at it?”

“I was trying to figure out what happened.”

“Exactly. What happened was irrelevant. It was already past. You were not thinking about the future. When you told PJ that you had to go to the hospital because there had been some sort of injury, what was Crank thinking about? Was he thinking that PJ would have to fight first, or was his mind occupied with what might have happened?”

“Holy crap. He was thinking about the hospital and who might have been hurt and all that,” I said, amazed that there was a connection.

“In boxing, you expect to get punched. You learn to take the punch and continue to move forward. You work to prepare so that your opponent cannot unsettle you. With Wing Chun, your opponent must face you in a very different way. You will learn to occupy your opponent in many different, unsettling ways. At first, you will learn to do so with violence and pain.”

“At first?”

“Yes. And then, when you have learned to do that, you will learn how to defeat your opponent with as little pain as possible. You defeated Crank, on PJ’s behalf, without causing him pain. Nor, did he lose face by backing down. No one saw Crank as weak because he allowed PJ to leave. Sun Tzu would have applauded. It was very bold and creative.”

“Wow. I don’t know what to say.”

“Good. Be careful that when you leave tonight, your big head does not get stuck in the doorway,” he said, laughing. We were done for the night. We bowed to each other and I thanked him. Sifu Chen followed me to Kim. “Do you have any questions, Miss Kim?”

“It’s very different than boxing.”

“Much is different. Much is the same. You are welcome to come any time. You may watch, or perhaps you would like your own black pajamas,” he said, smiling. He must have heard Franklin and I talking about the uniform.

She thanked him for the offer, we both turned and bowed, then left. “I’d sure like to know what he and Timex talk about,” Kim said.

“Probably the Braves chances for next season. Who knows? It’s so different but the more I learn, the more I like it. I still like boxing, though.”

“You don’t get hurt doing Wing Chun,” Kim said as a statement rather than a question.

“Nope. Had my feelings hurt a couple of times. He’s really good.”

“He had some pretty good things to say about you tonight.” I looked over and could tell she was pretty proud of me for what Sifu Chen had said about the whole Crank episode.

“I’m not going to lie, it felt good to hear that. I think he was bragging on me because you were there.”

“Uh-huh.” She was unconvinced and I didn’t mind in the least.

On Wednesday, Mrs. Middleton began preparing us for our dramatic reading of Much Ado About Nothing. I wasn’t exactly sure how I felt about that. Kim and I had the leading roles so that would make it sort of fun. It never dawned on me that we could opt out of it. Everyone had voted for us and so we would do it. I decided I would convert all my sounds of woe into hey nonny, nonny.

At lunch that day, we had a full crowd at our usual table. Conversation wandered over a variety of topics and somehow, I mentioned that Kim and I had been on the search team for missing girls. Marty asked about that and when I said we did it on horseback, the conversation shifted to Frontier Woman. For some reason, she was at the opposite end of the table from me. I had to look past everyone to see her so I did.

I got distracted. While she was describing the morning we’d gone searching in the forest, I was comparing boobs. It was Marci’s fault. Annie’s were the smallest, which made sense. Annie was the smallest. Mel’s or Jan’s were probably the biggest. Lori was on the smaller size but she was just so well-proportioned it didn’t matter. I thought Marci was probably a little bigger than Kim and Allie was, well, Allie was Bounce and she had a very nice set of headlights.

Melons, ta-tas, jugs, knockers, or hooters were good in any size, I thought. Walking to chemistry, Kim slid next to me and whispered, “How do I stack up?”

I couldn’t see her face but I knew she was smiling. How did she do that? “Pretty obvious, huh?”

“To me. Well?”

“I think you were right.” How could a guy go wrong with that? “Marci is probably right in the middle in size department and she probably doesn’t need to worry about it.”

“Marci’s bra size is the least of her worries. Marci needs the Pygmalion treatment.”

“A tutor in all the ways of society?” I asked.

“Just some of the ways would be good. I think she joined cheerleading so she would fit in.”

“It’s a step, right?”

“It doesn’t hurt.”

“She doesn’t think I’m her Professor Higgins, does she? That’s all I need.”

“How do you remember stuff like that, Jack? Higgins was the teacher, right?”

“And Eliza Dolittle was the uneducated street urchin. Something like that.”

“It’s what she needs, but you’re not going to do that.”

We began to prepare for our next experiment in chemistry. Allen and I decided we would make a concerted effort not to evacuate the lab. We had a hard time not laughing about the stink we’d caused the last time, though. In keyboarding, I managed a burst of speed and hit sixty words per minute but if there were numbers or weird punctuation in the text, that dropped off real fast. It was still a lot faster than I could write and with my new computer, papers were a breeze.

In PE, we revisited the field events we’d tried previously. Now that we knew what we were doing, sort of, we could practice different things without the coach. He parked near the pole vault area and waited to see if anyone was going to give it a try. It was the only thing we hadn’t tried before. Bobby and Jake were taking turns putting a shot. Who came up with that anyway? Putting? Gil looked at me, we looked at the bar for pole vaulting and decided to give it a try.

Coach Leonard was happy to have someone give it a try. He showed us how to hold the pole, then lower it, plant it, drive up with a knee, and go over the bar. What could go wrong? I discovered that it was possible to completely miss the box and not plant the pole. Gil discovered that if you don’t run fast enough, you won’t bend the pole and you won’t even get off the ground. We basically took turns making all the mistakes it was possible to make without getting airborne.

After six or eight tries and my third trip airborne, I managed to actually get my feet higher than my head and sort of push myself up while the pole straightened out and threw me. We didn’t have a crossbar up yet. I probably would have cleared ten feet or so. It was the coolest thing in the world. After three or four successful jumps, we put the crossbeam up at eight feet. It was too easy. We tried again at ten feet. We each managed to knock that bar off a couple of times before the period was over.

“I’m fast,” Kim said on the drive to my house. “Did you see me? We ran a hundred and then a full lap and I was the fastest in the class.”

“I didn’t see. Gil and I were practicing flying.”

“I saw. It looked fun. You’re not thinking about track and field, are you?”

“No, no. It was fun but that’s it. You know what the difference between high jump and long jump is? Besides the obvious. High jump always ends with failure. With long jump, you just jump as far as you can. Tada. With high jump or pole vault, your last jump is always a failure. You knock the bar off. I don’t think I’d care for that very much.”

“I never thought of it that way. Is there any other event like that? You know, that ends in failure?”