Chapter 38

Wednesday morning dragged. I wanted nothing more than to get to the gym and hear what the good doctor had for me. I was expecting good stuff, especially since he had fixed my hip. I had looked right at myself and not seen how out of whack it was. He not only saw it but fixed it. I felt like a new man. I was probably only eighty or ninety percent but I felt great.

I was contemplating what he might tell me when Kim walked into the cafeteria. I thought I should take my pulse sometime and see if it didn’t go up ten beats a minute whenever she walked into the room. I was sure it did. She set her lunch down across from me and motioned for me to come with her. We walked across the cafeteria and outside. We hadn’t done that in a while so I thought it must be serious. We got about ten yards away from the door when she turned to face me.

“The last couple of days, we had a couple of little things happen where we did something that irked the other,” she began.

“I don’t think...” I started.

“Shhh. Let me keep going. They’ve all been little things. Stupid things, even. I shouldn’t have gotten ticked at you for laughing.”

“And I shouldn’t have gotten ticked at you because of Mel.”

“And I just wanted to say, I’m sorry. You asked if Mom and Dad ever did stuff like that and the truth is, they do it all the time but none of it sticks, you know? It doesn’t stick because they know each other’s heart. I know your heart.”

“I like that. I know yours,” I answered.

“I love you but it’s more than that, Jackson Michael Pierce. I respect you. You tell me the truth. You work hard, and you always have my interests in mind. That’s all I wanted to say.”

We started walking back. “You’re kind of cute, you know. You want to go out Friday night?”

“Ooh. Like a real date”

“Almost exactly like a real date.”

“Do you have something specific in mind?” she asked.

I held up a pair of tickets. “I asked Birch and he called in a favor.”

She leaned forward to see the tickets. “Those are for the Bishop England Prom. You’re crazy, you know it?”

“Feel daring?”

I could already tell she wanted to. “Sure. What could go wrong?” she said as we went back inside and joined the others.

We walked to the squad’s table but before we sat down, I pulled her close. “I’d do anything for you. Anything!”

“I don’t suppose you’d like to take a French test for me,” she said and we re-joined the group. I noticed that Claire was sitting with us and he was zeroed in on Mel. It seemed like maybe their relationship was progressing. Stranger things have happened, I thought. So different. Then I realized Kim and I were too.

There was a lull in the conversation and I asked the group, “Who is more different; Kim and me, or Bobby and Melanie?” It was kind of a gutsy thing to do, I guess, but it just popped out.

“You two,” Spot said without bothering to look up. I watched as everyone looked around at everyone else.

Melanie jumped in. “Aquaman and Frontier Woman? We can’t compete with that. It works, though, right?”

Lori said, “I think Jack and I have a lot in common. Lots and lots.” Everyone laughed, then Kim gave her the evil eye and everyone laughed again. I wondered if Lori really thought that or not. I wasn’t going to let that stroke my ego, though. I’d been down that road.

Kim told everyone about Doctor Legare and what our plans were for the afternoon. Claire was really interested and I told him I’d take notes and share. The bell rang and we went to class, where it dragged on and on until the last bell rang.

We pulled into the driveway and could see Doctor Legare’s truck. It was probably 1955 or so, judging from the shape, but it was impossible to tell what color it was because there was so much dried mud on it. The rifle rack in the back window told Kim all she needed to know about him. I hadn’t seen the truck on Monday but didn’t remember what he had been driving instead. I would have noticed if it was the truck.

We waved to him and went inside to change. Back out, quickly, he was taking advantage of the gym. I watched in awe as he popped out ten reps of three-fifty on the bench press. He’d had to load most of my weights onto the bar to get that much.

“I hope you don’t mind. You’ve got a fine gym here. A fine gym. How are you feeling today?”

“I feel great,” I said. “Everything else that ached before seems to have stopped since you popped my hip back into place.”

“I feel okay. Pretty good,” Kim said but she wasn’t really convincing.

“Range of motion on your left leg still the problem?” he asked.

“That’s the biggest thing. By far. It’s better than it was. It’s just taking a long time.”

“Patience, Kim. Patience. I know how tough that is. Let’s start with Jack, then, if that’s okay.” We both nodded and he motioned for us to take a seat and he sat on the bench. “You swim and play baseball for PG and box on the side, is that right?”

“Yes sir. I’m varsity swim and I didn’t actually play baseball because I broke a foot but I think I was going to be varsity baseball, too. Probably outfield. Boxing isn’t competitive. I’m just taking lessons so I can take care of myself.”

“Alright, that’s a good start. What are your goals?”

“Sir?”

“Swimming first. Christie said you made regionals based on your free but you want to be competitive with fly as well.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So, what are your goals?”

“I’d like to go to state next year.” I looked up at Kim and she smiled, showing me those glorious dimples.

“That’s a good goal for a sophomore. What next?”

“If I do well next year, I might have a chance at winning state.”

“Okay. Fifty, one hundred, five hundred? What distance?”

“Well, sir, I haven’t tried the longer distances yet. I need to work on stamina if I was going to do that. I didn’t think I’d be racing free until really late in the season.”

“Okay. Let’s say you do really well, in either free or fly. Do you plan to swim in college? Do you have Olympic hopes?”

“I haven’t even thought of that. I don’t think I could do that.” Olympic hopes? I almost choked.

“Then you can’t.” I know he saw the disappointment in my face. “If you don’t think you can, then you’re right. You can’t. What’s the best you could hope for?”

“What do you mean? I could surprise myself, right?”

“Perhaps a little. But no one gets to that level of performance without a goal of getting to that level of performance. If you set a goal to make the Olympic team, maybe you could but if you don’t, you can’t.”

“I hadn’t even thought about competing at that level.”

“Most don’t. That vast majority don’t. But the number of athletes that accidentally end up at the Olympics is exactly zero. We’re back to my first question. What are your goals?”

“I guess I hadn’t really thought about it more than just to swim as fast as I can.”

“That’s what many athletes do. Their goal is to do their best. It’s not a bad vision but it’s not really a goal. Care to guess how many professional football players never thought they could make it in the NFL?”

“No idea,” I answered.

“I’ve asked that question of several hundred players. Not a single one of them didn’t think they could make it in the NFL. Every one of them had that for a goal. I think most truly successful people, whether in sports, academics, business, whatever, set high goals and then work toward them. Laser focus.”

“Ronnie used to say that. Laser focus.”

“Was he successful?” I nodded. “I want you to think about your goals. Not right now. We’ll go with faster than yesterday as a vision. But your goals need three qualities to be effective. First, they need to be realistic. If your goals are unrealistic, you’ll give up on them too easily. Next, they have to be challenging. Since you’ve already made varsity swimming, just making the team isn’t much of a goal. Getting to regionals is something you’ve done. Getting to state would be challenging. Make sense?” I looked at Kim and we nodded. “Finally, you need to write them down. They need to be measurable. You have to be able to tell if you reached your goal or not. Faster is acceptable as a vision but not as good as forty-two for the hundred by your junior year.”

“That’s pretty fast.”

“Could you do it?” he asked, again, with that deep, measured voice. Just the way he spoke demanded I pay attention, take him seriously, and think about my answers.

“I don’t know. It would certainly be challenging but it might not be realistic.”

“Good. How about fifty for the hundred?”

“Definitely.”

“Then you’ve got a window of time to look at. You could set a goal of between forty-nine and forty-two. It’s up to you. That’s a measurable goal. Forty-two might be unrealistic and forty-nine might not be challenging. That’s for you to decide. Then you need to put a date on it. A time frame. Make sense?”

“Yes sir. Birch had fifty-one stenciled on the inside of his locker. I didn’t know why but I bet that’s it.”

“Friend of yours? Breast?” I nodded. This guy knew swimming. He knew high school times off the top of his head. That was crazy. “Was he any good?”

“Best in the state.”

“And now?”

“He’s got a swimming scholarship.”

“He didn’t break fifty-one, did he? But I’ll bet that goal propelled him to excellence. Have you ever heard the saying, ‘aim small, miss small’?” I shook my head.

“I have,” Kim said. “That’s what my dad always says. Shooting. Hunting, actually. I don’t aim at a deer. I aim at an exact spot, an inch behind the crease at the top of the bottom third.”

“Your targeting is precise. Good. How often do you hit it?”

“Not as often as I’d like. But enough.”

“By aiming very specifically, your margin for error decreases. Jack, if you stencil a forty-three on your locker, that’s a very specific goal. Very specific. Challenging?” I nodded. “Realistic?”

“Maybe.”

“You get the idea. You don’t have to have just one goal. You can have that as a goal. You can also have a goal to beat Bishop or get to state as well. Don’t have too many goals or you’ll lose focus. If you could swim forty-three, would you beat Bishop?”

“Definitely,” I said, smiling.

“Would you get to state?”

“Also, definitely.”

“See how this works?”

We worked through a couple more possibilities and then worked with Kim on what kind of health and fitness goals she might set. I thought it was more difficult since she wasn’t competing. Instead, she worked on measurable health goals. He quizzed us on goals and said he would ask Dane to tell him what we’d decided on. He promised that if I had a specific goal to compete at state, he would come to watch me at regionals. He’d be there to see me reach that goal. It was simple but motivating.

From there, we switched to exercise choices and then mechanics. I learned the most about squats. I needed to focus on high bar squats because of the part of the leg it focused on. He told me to get a trap bar for deadlifts and build a box to stand on so I could start with the bar effectively lower. Overall, he was pretty happy with our routines. He suggested that we work a specific routine for six weeks, measure our progress, and then switch to a different routine.

“The last area is very important but younger athletes tend to ignore it. We need to talk about nutrition and that would be best if we were together with Christie,” he said so we went inside and found her in the kitchen. When she learned what we wanted to talk about, we all grabbed seats around the table.

“I could get detailed on this but I won’t. Here are some general rules and you can ask questions if you want. First, you can’t out-exercise a bad diet. Food is fuel.” I nodded and he continued. “Bad fuel won’t get you to your destination. Stay away from processed foods. If it’s wrapped in plastic, it’s probably not the best choice. Frozen is better than canned. Fresh is better than frozen. That’s a gross generalization but a pretty good rule of thumb.”

“I cook with fresh whenever I can and can cut back on canned and use more frozen,” Mom said.

“Good. Stay away from fast food. I know that’s a tough one for teenagers but most fast food is crap. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. It’s typically high in salt, fat, and nitrates. It’s also a bit addicting and you fill yourself with bad fuel. Limit your sugar intake.”

“Is there any fast food that’s okay? What about Burger King or Taco Bell?” I asked.

He looked at me like I had just failed the final exam. “Cut back. When a fast-food restaurant introduces a salad bar, ask me again. Even then, they’d probably have terrible toppings for it.”

“That’s going to be tough. Cut back on sugar. I don’t eat candy. That’s what you mean, right?”

“That’s part of it,” he said.

“Chocolate ice cream,” Mom and Kim both said.

“Ice cream is high in sugar content. Coke is probably the worst because it’s easy to drink a lot of coke without realizing it. There are forty grams of sugar in a single coke,” he said.

“Is that a lot?” I asked.

“Are ten teaspoons a lot?” he answered.

“Holy crap. There’s that much sugar in a coke? What about sweet tea?”

“Generally, about half that. Still a lot. Just be conscious of it. Count the sugar content in what you eat and drink for the next month. You won’t need to do it after that because you’ll know. It’s empty calories. If you want to be an athlete, you have to put athlete fuel in your tank. Drink water. Save your calorie consumption for nutritious foods.”

“Ugh. Like eggplant, no doubt,” I grumbled.

“I didn’t say suck all the joy out of your life. If you love chocolate ice cream, eat chocolate ice cream, but don’t eat a large bowl of it every night. Reduce the portion and savor the flavor. If you can cut cokes out of your life, that would be big. Three cokes have more calories than a single hamburger. Just be mindful. You don’t have to be a monk or cut all the tasty foods out. How much of your protein comes from red meat?” he asked.

“Probably all of it,” I answered and he laughed. We went through the foods I frequently ate and he pointed out the good and bad. He was fascinated with Mom’s ethnic food experiments. He suggested she try menus from around the Mediterranean Sea. Lots of fish, olive oil, grain, and vegetables. He agreed that health was not as important as avoiding eggplant.

“The last thing I want to talk about is protein. If you want to put on muscle, you’re going to have to fuel that growth. It needs protein.”

“We’re back to red meat,” I said, smiling.

“A good steak is a great source of protein and so are eggs. But I want you to consider getting some protein powder. A good whey protein powder, mixed in eight ounces of water, has almost as many grams of protein as a steak. Not quite, but almost. Have one after your workout each day. You could have one before, too. Test your stomach and see how you do.”

“What does it taste like?” Kim asked.

He smiled and said, “They make it in all kinds of flavors, including chocolate.”

“Now we’re talking. We need some of that.”

“I said that was last but I have one more thing. How you eat now is going to establish habits you’ll be inclined to keep for your adult life. If you have the habit of eating a big bowl of chocolate ice cream every night now, your teenage metabolism will probably keep up with it. Try that when you’re thirty and you’ll soon be obese. Think about it.”

We asked a few more questions and then walked him out to his truck. He commented again on what a nice gym I had. I offered him the opportunity to finish his workout. He said he’d been too busy to get in a good workout and he’d love to do a few squats and deadlifts if we didn’t mind.

He went for it and I grabbed Kim and whispered a plan to her. While he was lifting, we washed his truck. Underneath a thick layer of mud, it was almost white. He came out as we were finishing.

“You’ve rinsed away the character,” he said, pretending to complain. He thanked us for the effort and was pulling out as Dane drove up.

“Hey, Hank. Thanks for coming. Really appreciate it.”

“No problem. You been working out, too?”

“Not as much as I should. Would you settle a bet for me?” Doctor Legare nodded. “What do you call what happened in 1861?”

Doctor Legare looked at each of us, trying to figure out what the bet was. I think he realized that since Dane was asking, he would give him a truly southern answer. “I prefer not to speak of the recent unpleasantness,” he said, very slowly and with as much dignity as he could muster. I laughed and then everyone else did too, including Doctor Legare. I liked him.

I talked with Kim as he pulled out. “What do you think?” she asked.

“I can drink more water and less coke. Cutting back on chocolate? I don’t know.”

“You’re hilarious. I meant everything, especially goal setting but you zero in on chocolate. You’re a doofus.”

“She’s right about that, doofus,” Dane hollered over his shoulder as he walked to the door.

“I have to think about goals. What he said was good. I like the aim-small, miss-small thing. It would be easy to set challenging goals. The trick would be to make them realistic, too.”

“I learned that from Dad. Oh, guess what he did the last two weeks,” she blurted.

“No idea.”

“He went out to the stables and rode Diva for me. He didn’t even say anything. So cool.”

“Your dad rides? When Lorraine told him to get out there, I wasn’t sure if she meant it.”

“She meant it. He rides. He used to play polo.”

“Polo? Really? Like croquet on horseback?”

“Croquet on horseback. That’s rich. I want him to like you so I won’t mention that you said that. There’s a polo club here. We could go watch sometime. The season might be over. Dad decided that he couldn’t risk a fall because it would take him too long to heal. He sold his ponies.”

“Ponies, as in more than one?”

“You trade out during the match to always be riding a fresh pony. They aren’t really ponies the way you think of it, though. But we’re way off track. Dad went out to give Diva some exercise without saying anything. That’s so cool.”

“I thought you said Diva didn’t like other riders.”

“No, but Dad’s a charmer. I need to go.”

We kissed and hugged and it felt good. I almost told her how I practically broke down, walking home but would save that for another day. She drove away and I went inside and joined Mom and Dane in the kitchen.

“Hey, Buddy. Learn anything?” Dane asked.

“Yeah. He was doing really good until he said I needed to cut back on chocolate. Thanks for bringing Kim with us on Saturday, by the way. She really enjoyed it. You should have heard her telling her folks about it. Plus, anything with Kim is better than anything without Kim.”

I told him about it over dinner and Mom shared that she’d look into maybe cooking Greek food next. The last thing we talked about was goals. I wasn’t sure what kind of goals I should set. Dane suggested I take the fastest winning time for each event I was interested in and use that. Whatever time had won the state championship should be my goal. I liked it. He said it would be good if I compared times for the past five or ten years to see if there was a trend and use that. I liked that, too. I already had weightlifting goals. I wanted to lift at the elite level for my weight and I had the chart already. Baseball would be more difficult and boxing would be even more difficult.

“I think most guys that box for very long end up having competitive goals,” Dane said.

“I guess I need to put on a few pounds if I want to compete with Marvin Hagler,” I answered.

“I’ll go shopping for protein powder tomorrow,” Mom said as though I was really going to fight Marvin Hagler, if only I could add a few pounds.

After dinner, Mom served up ice cream. She handed me a bowl of chocolate. But it wasn’t a bowl of chocolate. It was a bowl with about a fourth of a scoop of chocolate.

“This is depressing,” I said.

“Savor the flavor, Aquaman.”

“Not really funny, Mom. I’m going to ease into it, okay? Don’t buy any more cokes for me. Don’t buy any eggplant for me either.”

“Gag,” Dane said. “Hank didn’t really say to eat eggplant, did he?”

We talked a bit more and I realized that my goals would drive everything. I wasn’t sure how much more effort I would put into swimming if I had Olympic aspirations than if I just wanted to win State. There are fifty states. I wondered what kind of time I’d need to win in Florida or maybe California. They each had a lot more people than South Carolina. But as far as I knew the fastest swimmers were from Maine or Ohio.

Making varsity baseball should be a done deal. If not as a sophomore, then definitely as a junior. As a sophomore, I thought. Then what? Just make the team? Highest batting average and the least fielding errors on the team sounded good. Getting selected to the all-conference team sounded good. Doing both would be good. But I wouldn’t be in charge of choosing who was on the all-conference team so I got rid of that as a goal. But there was another one and I thought it was a good one. Slugging percentage was the average number of bases per at bat. That told how much power you had as a batter. I liked that one. Fewest strikeouts would be good, too. No wonder baseball fanatics liked statistics. How would anyone measure the best?

Everyone on the Porter team would face the same pitchers. I couldn’t do anything about other teams. Runs batted in would depend on other players getting on base and I didn’t like that. Runs scored would depend on who followed me at bat and I didn’t like that, either. I narrowed it down to a few good goals that would be challenging and, hopefully, realistic. I thought I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted for goals. On top of that, I knew what I was going to do about it.

I knocked out some reading for history and read some more of Shogun. It was like an introduction to Japanese culture. I was pretty glad I didn’t live in Japan.

When Kim sat down across from me at lunch on Thursday, I knew she could tell I had something in mind. I smiled like an idiot and there was no hiding it. Why try? She tried to get it from me but I told her I’d let her know after school. I also told her I’d be a few minutes late. She wanted to know more but she has more patience than me and just nodded.

After last period, I walked to the gym and stuck my nose in the coach’s office. Both Coach Hamilton and Barber were there.

“Hi, Coach,” I said and they both looked up and smiled.

“Feeling better?” Coach Barber asked.

“Yes, sir. I’ve got a question for you. For Coach Hamilton, really.”

“Shoot, Pierce. What’s on your mind?”

“What was the best slugging percentage for the team this season?” I asked.

“That would have been Lindsey, I think.” He pulled out a notebook and thumbed through it. “Here it is. Six-six-two. He did really well. Why do you ask?”

“I plan on hitting six-six-three next season. Just wanted to know what I was shooting for.” They both smiled and Coach Barber set down the papers he’d been working on and gave me a solid once over.

“Alright, Aquaman, what other tricks do you have up your sleeve?”

“I plan to lead the team in the least fielding errors, too.”

“You do, do you?” Coach Hamilton asked. “You think that’s what we’re interested in? The measure of success?”

“It has to be close, doesn’t it?”

“It’s close. Slugging percentage is better than batting average but what I want is productive at bats.”

“Having the best slugging percentage sounds pretty productive,” I answered.

“Good start. But sometimes I need a sac fly to advance a runner. And a walk is good, too. If you can make the pitcher throw eight or more pitches, that’s also productive, even if you fly out.”

“I can see the other ones but how is getting the pitcher to throw more pitches a good thing?”

“Wear out their starter,” Coach Barber said. “If their starter has to throw seventy pitches in the first four innings, we dig into their bullpen.”

“Holy crap. How do you keep track of all that?”

“Aquaman,” Coach Hamilton said, “If you lead the team in slugging percentage, you’ll have productive at-bats. You do that and have the least number of errors on the team and I’ll personally buy you a steak dinner.”

“Thanks, Coach,” I said. “Porterhouse. My mouth is watering already.” They laughed, I smiled and jogged out to meet Kim.

“You did what?” Kim asked as we drove toward my house after I relayed the conversation to her. “You’re nuts, that’s what you are. Now, you have to deliver.”

“That’s the plan,” I said with a big grin.

“Alright, Aquaman. Alright. Are you going to tell Coach Miller your plans for next season, too?”

“He wasn’t in his office. I do believe I will, though. I actually feel pretty good about announcing my commitment.”

“You know what? I like it. Do you think I should tell Miss Bentz I plan to lead us to a state championship next year?”

“No. Definitely not.” She glanced at me, wanting more of an explanation. “You can’t control what everyone else does. Just you. So, you can’t make a promise for them.”

“That makes sense. You didn’t promise that the team would win games, just that you would contribute. So, how would I do that for cheerleading?”

“I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it. Baseball and swimming are pretty easy because there are stats and all. Lori went to the cheerleading competition. Ask her.”

We got to the house, changed, and were ready to find out just where we were in our lifting. What had we lost? Mom joined us and was anxious to get back to it, which I thought was cool. She was also trying to be the voice of reason, slowing us down if we tried to do too much. We were so far off the schedule that we decided to just do a few compound exercises to see how we stood. We decided to do bench, military press, squats, and deadlifts. We wouldn’t do too many sets or too much weight. Just enough to evaluate.

It didn’t take long for me to discover I could only lift about eighty percent of what I could two weeks prior. I thought I could do more on each but we’d decided beforehand to limit it to that. Kim was fine with everything upper body but she had difficulty with deadlift and was afraid to try squats. She did a lot of pully work for her left leg, especially. Mom clobbered it, enjoying working out again, and actually had a couple of personal bests. She did well enough for us to wonder whether we should take week-long breaks every now and then to get the benefit of extra rest.

We were about to go inside when I stopped Kim. “Let’s try squats,” I said.

“I don’t think I can.”

“No weight at first. Step up to the rack just as though you were going to take the bar but don’t.” She did that while Mom watched, undoubtedly curious. “Duck down, as though you were going to take the bar and put your hands up like they were on it,” I said. I spotted a push broom, spun the head off, and slid it into her hands so she would have something to hang onto.

“Back away. I had to figure this out with my foot. Good alignment is key. Knees out a little, now try to spread the floor with your feet. Push out. Keep your weight over your lower legs and squat, just a little the first time.”

She dipped down about six inches and came back up, smiled at me, and then squatted down about two-thirds of the way. Feeling good, she tried again, taking it down until her thighs were parallel to the ground.

“Put a couple of tens on so there’s some weight on the bar,” she said, tossing the broom and lining up at the rack.

“Remember what Doctor Legare said, learn the difference between working through soreness and working through an injury. If you think you want to stop, stop.” She nodded and backed away from the cage, set her alignment, and squatted down halfway.

“Feels good. I can do this,” she said and squatted down until her thighs were parallel again. “Give me another twenty-five on each end. What would that be, one-fifteen?” I nodded. “I’m going for ten reps but I’ll be happy with six,” she said, backing away from the rack again.

I stood there, ready to take the bar from her as she stepped back, did one-half squat, then three-quarter, then performed six good squats before deciding she’d had enough.

“Holy crap,” she said, grinning. “I think I held my breath the whole time.”

“Leg feel okay? No tweaks or anything?” I asked.

“No. It’s good,” she said, shaking her leg. “I could probably do more but I just spent a lot of energy concentrating. It’s good. I’m pumped,” she said with a huge smile - both dimples. It was super sweet. I got a nice hug.

“Good job, Kim. Very proud of you. You, too, Buddy. Nice coaching. Proud of you both, you know, for working on it, being careful, and not rushing. Very nice. I’m going to try my hand at Moussaka, for dinner. Behave yourselves,” Mom said and went inside.

I sat down on the bench and checked the line-of-sight to the house for probably the hundredth time since Sally and I first made out in the gym. Just like the other ninety-nine times, you couldn’t see it from the house. I motioned Kim to come over and she sat on my left leg.