Chapter 11

The next day at lunch, I looked down the table at Peter, formerly Andersen, Tang, and thought he was luckier than he knew. I knew Lori’s older sister, Lani, better than I knew Lori, but they were pretty similar. Lori was drop-dead gorgeous, smart as they come, and athletic enough to be a competitive cheerleader. She seemed sweet and picky, and she had picked Peter.

Mel was lonely without Bobby around. Mel talked a lot. Bobby was really quiet, and he didn’t mind. Cherry had Mei, and they were inseparable. Annie couldn’t seem to find the right guy. I tried to remember if she had dated anyone after Dillon had tried to rape her, and I couldn’t think of anyone.

Kim sat across from me and next to Mel. “Guess what,” she said to Mel. “Lani and Vince are married, and Jack is Scottish. He’s got McPherson and McGonagall in him.” Annie looked like she was going to say something, but managed to hold back.

Kim and Mel were talking when I realized what Annie was about to say. I looked at her and she smiled, sheepishly. ‘No, Annie, you’re not going to get McPherson and McGonagall in you,’ I thought and shook my head. I knew, and she knew, and she knew that I knew, and all she could do was laugh and shrug her shoulders. She gave me a pleading look. ‘Please put your McPherson and McGonagall in me.’ She was really cute. Really cute.

No one cared that I was Scottish, but everyone wanted to hear about the wedding. Kim and Lori took turns. “You paid twenty to dance with Vince?” Cherry asked, laughing.

“If I’d known he had two left feet, I wouldn’t have.”

“Did anyone get pictures?” he asked.

“Oh, lord, I hope not.” Kim laughed.

Jay came over and crouched down next to me. “Allen and I are going to meet you at the center tonight. Coach called. A bunch of the guys are interested, but I think most of them are more interested in learning to fight than they are teaching some kids. If we go and tell them about it, maybe more will want to go.”

“Or maybe none,” I said.

“Yeah. Hadn’t thought about that, but I guess it’s a possibility.”

“I heard you guys cleaned up on Friday. I wish I could have seen it.”

“Thanks. That’s as easy as it’s going to get, but I think we have sort of a rhythm going. I guess we’ll find out. Seven, right?”

“See you there. Keep an open mind.”

Kim helped me finish up wedding leftovers for dinner that night. We talked a little about our growing group of volunteers, then left for the center. We met Jay and Allen, Mel, and Bobby in the parking lot. Kim and I gave them a few tips and a few subjects to steer clear of. Don’t ask about parents, brothers, sisters, home life, or how they got to the center. Mel added a few things from her experience, and we went in.

I introduced Jay and Allen to Mrs. Porter. Mrs. Belmont showed up shortly after that with our contingent of middle school kids. Jacqui made a beeline for Kim, wrapping her up in a bear hug.

“Well, hello, Jacqui. What brought this on?”

“I got an A on my paper. I’ve never got one before.” She was very excited, and a couple of other kids bragged about how they were doing. I told them Mac would definitely be with us the following week, and we introduced the new guys.

We each worked with a group of kids. Bobby finished first and helped out with one of Mel’s kids. It was good to see most of them with improving grades. I’m not sure if it was our tutoring or simply the attention that spurred them to improved performance. Honestly, what difference did it make if they were doing better and feeling good about it?

“Wow.” Two hours later, we stood around in the parking lot comparing notes. Jay was surprised and perhaps a little overwhelmed by it. “I did not expect that.”

“No. I think you just have to jump in,” Kim said.

“I meant the stories. I didn’t ask how they ended up in foster care, but they asked about my family, so I told them. Then, they told me. I got more than I bargained for.”

“Ayup,” Bobby said. “Some of their stories aren’t bad. Some are pretty heinous.”

“You came back, though,” Allen said to Bobby.

“Yeah,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “I’ve got it pretty good. I can give a little time to make their lives better. What else would I be doing on a Monday night?”

Allen started to say something and caught himself. He motioned, and I walked with him away from the group. We walked out to a little decorative wall and sat on it, facing the street. There wasn’t much traffic, so it was pretty quiet for being in the city.

“It’s over fast, man. When we get older, how do you think we’re going to look back on all of this?”

I wasn’t sure where he was going with this. “I don’t know. Hopefully, we’ll smile when we remember it all.”

“Do you think we might look back at our time in high school and think it was the best days of our lives?” I didn’t have an answer for that. I’d never thought about it. “I have a brother in college. He says college is different. There are some guys that are, I don’t know, forward-looking. They’re planning ahead. There are other guys that want to get bombed as often as possible and other guys that are trying to fuck any available girl.”

“What about you?” I asked.

“Yeah. That’s the big question. High school is pretty good. I think it would be easy to look back on it when I’m fifty and think high school was the best days of my life. I don’t want that. It is good. No doubt about that, and swimming is a big part of that. Being on a dominating team is a big part of that, and that means you. And now, I’m just trying to figure it out. You remember the movie Chariots of Fire?”

“Definitely. Great movie.”

“I don’t want to be like Harold Abrahams. He won, and that was the highlight of his life. Eric Liddell had bigger things in front of him. He won a gold medal at the Olympics but knew for a fact there were bigger things in front of him.”

“And you want to be like Eric Liddell,” I said.

“Which is a bigger deal, winning State or helping these kids?” he asked, hopped down, and started walking back. I joined him.

“I’m glad you’re doing this, Allen,” Kim said.

“It does tend to change your perspective on things, doesn’t it?” he answered with his own question.

On the way back to Kim’s house, I told her about Allen’s comments. She agreed with my thoughts and was a little surprised at him.

“When Sifu Chen invited Michael to come teach you guys about knives and clubs and stuff, he didn’t have any idea what their visit would mean to us. Michael and Fallon turned everything upside down.”

“Not everything. I think what Allen said was on the money, though. It puts things in a new perspective.”

“Do the kids at the center get to go places?”

“Like where?” I asked.

“Like to the beach or a football game. Do they get to do the things we take for granted? Do they get to go for a walk in the woods? How many of them have been to Francis Marion National Forest, or a rodeo?”

“That’s a really good question. I have no idea. There is so much that we don’t know. So much.”

I walked Kim to her front door, and we hugged and kissed and simply enjoyed being in each other’s presence. I told her that I was really happy with Bobby and how he had responded, and we both wondered about Jay and Allen and the other guys. I guessed we’d find out soon enough.

The next day at lunch, Jay came and invited Kim and me to come to a table where he and a batch of other guys wanted to ask questions about tutoring and the kids at the center. Jay laid out their big questions. I relayed my conversation with Allen the night before. They’d all seen Chariots of Fire, and they all knew Allen. He was not prone to emotional anything, and he had nailed this. I simply relayed what he said, as close to word-for-word as I could.

When I finished, it was pretty quiet. Finally, one of the big linebackers, Frank Fielding, said, “Well, shit, Aquaman, now we have to do it.”

“Why wouldn’t we do it?” someone asked.

“Tell them, Jay,” I said.

“If I do, no one will want to do it,” Jay said.

“Don’t shortchange these guys. Just tell them what was tough.”

He hesitated. He really didn’t want to say it. “I worked with two kids at the same table with Bobby. We took a break from history and talked about all kinds of things. One of them told me that he didn’t know what was going to happen to him. He watched his father shoot his mother, then chase him. He ran out the back door and escaped to a neighbor’s house. He found out later that his father had killed himself. He has an aunt in Oregon, but she already has three kids. He’s been at the center since July and doesn’t know if he’s going to get to go live with his aunt or even if he has any other relatives.”

“He doesn’t know. He’s mad at his dad, but he knows that doesn’t do any good because his dad killed himself. He feels guilty, but he didn’t say that, since he was supposed to be dead, too. That’s one of the two kids I worked with. Guys, you don’t hear a story like that and just go home and go to sleep. You just don’t.” It was quiet again. Really quiet.

“We do it for two hours a week,” I said. “It makes a difference. You should have seen how excited some of these kids were because their grades are improving. It makes a difference.”

“If any of you or all of you decide not to do it, I won’t think anything less of you,” Kim said.

“Neither will I.” With that, we left so they could talk. “Are they in or out?” I asked Kim.

“Out. It’s tough, and I won’t blame them a bit.”

That afternoon, walking from calculus to computer science, Frank Fielding was passing me in the hallway. He put his hand on my shoulder to stop me. “Some of us are going out next week.” I nodded and we both kept going. He didn’t need to say anything more. Son of a gun!

“Three days, gentlemen. Our first meet is in three days. We have eleven events. Who wants to race? Show me what you’ve got. Aquaman, Gil, Allen, put your names on the events you plan to race,” Coach said, pointing to the chalkboard. The three of us had earned the right to compete in almost whatever we wanted.

Gil and Allen, deferred to me. I went to the board and grabbed a piece of chalk. I know I surprised some people by what I put myself down for. In big, bold letters, I wrote ‘Pierce’ next to fifty free, one hundred back, one hundred breast, and IM, individual medley. I’d work on my fly and compete in it later.

Gil went to the board and wrote his, then Allen. There were a lot of spaces left.

“Colleton County comes here. The meet starts at three. Let’s fill the rest of these slots, gentlemen. Get wet, we’ll start filling in blocks today. One hundred free is first up.”

“Here, we go, guys,” I said to Gil and Allen.

“Hey, I know the deal you had with Bobby last year. You and him, one and two in the IM. I’m going for IM this year. I hope you do great and really enjoy finishing in second place.”

“Thanks, Gil,” I said, and we laughed. “Let’s help make the rest of these guys a little more competitive.”

I worked on starts and turns with the guys who needed that. Gil worked with a couple of guys on butterfly, but it was tough going. Allen worked with some of the younger guys on breathing. I felt like we were way behind where we were the previous year, but then I guess my perspective had changed.

That afternoon, while lifting, I sensed Kim was in a different mood. I could usually tell where she was emotionally, but this was different. We were almost finished when she started crying. I would have said it came out of nowhere, but I’d seen something building up. I went to her and tried to hold her. She struggled against me for a moment, then leaned on me and almost collapsed.