Chapter 3

Wednesday morning started with math, then science, English, then a break for lunch. In the afternoon, I had history, and Latin. I finished the day with PE that would eventually transition to swimming once the season started. My biggest concern before the day started was Latin but the teacher, Mr. Oliviera, seemed like he was going to try to make it practical. At least as much as you could make a dead language practical. Maybe, if you were going to be a doctor or lawyer. I really liked my English teacher and my history teacher seemed okay. My science and Latin teachers were men and the rest were women. PE would be a breeze and we got a tour of the facilities. I thought I had as good a gym as Porter-Gaud did, just not as many stations. I was proud of my equipment choices.

Mom had taken me and two friends in to school that morning so I got a ride home from one of theirs. That was their deal. The three of us guys lived close so one mom would take us in for a week while another would take us home and the third mom had the week off. Then they’d rotate. They’ve done the same thing for a couple of years. It worked for them and it beat walking.

Phillips was a year ahead of me and he did okay, but not great, in school but he didn’t do much besides school. Harpo was my age and quiet. He almost never talked and since his last name was Mark, he got the nickname Harpo. It was appropriate.

I got home around three thirty, which would be the norm until swimming started. I rushed upstairs and dropped off my backpack and changed to work out. When I got to the gym, Mom was already waiting.

“What are we doing today?”

“Pull.”

“What does that mean?”

“Sorry. Back and biceps. Watch. These are all push exercises” I said and imitated bench press, military press and push downs. “They hit your chest, shoulders and triceps. I can’t remember what the motion is called but it’s all pushing. Today, it’s all concentric. Back and biceps.”

“Eccentric. The opposite of concentric would be eccentric. Let’s do it.”

We warmed up with some lat pull-downs and then moved to bent rows and one-arm rows, then tried deadlift. Mom could deadlift as much as me which was a bit of a shocker. With a slightly bruised ego, I did ten pull-ups and then ten dips. She couldn’t do either so I felt better. We moved on and did a couple different curl exercises and we were done.

“That’s it?”

“Yeah, Mom. For today. We’ll go up in weight and maybe add a set or two next time. Tomorrow is killer.”

“I thought tomorrow was legs.”

“Yup. Calves to ass. Sorry. Butt.”

“No. You were right the first time. I need to work on my ass.”

“Your gluteus maximus.”

“I told you I have a gluteus saggy-much.”

I had to laugh. “Glutes. How’s that? We’ll work on calves to glutes.”

“Sounds good.”

We wrapped up and went inside. I called Sally from the library phone while Mom fixed dinner. I knew she’d want to know about my day. We spent a half an hour on the phone and Mom called me. I pretty much repeated it all to Mom. After dinner, I went to my room and knocked out the tiny bit of homework I had, then settled in to read Dune. It turned out to be one of those books that takes forever to read but you’re sad when you’re finished. I wanted more, which was a good thing. Next up was A Farewell to Arms. I turned out the light.

I woke up early the next day and swam a few laps before taking a shower and getting ready for school. It was pretty much a repeat of the first day but we actually had real homework. My teachers seemed pretty serious and I decided Franklin was right about the switch to high school. I thought about which textbook I should buy to practice taking notes. Science, I thought. Latin and math had workbooks so I wouldn’t need them. History was too easy and English would involve a lot of reading and writing and not so much from the textbook. Science it was. When I got to class, I told Mr. Trent, the teacher, what I wanted to do and he smiled.

“Interesting, Mr. Pierce. I can save you a lot of trouble searching for the book,” he said. He pulled out a notepad and wrote a short note on it. “Take this to the front office. They’ll have Mr. Pringle get one for you and bill you for the ‘lost book’. That will be a lot easier and faster than searching for one. Interesting plan, Mr. Pierce. Glad to see you taking it seriously. Most of my freshmen don’t.”

I thanked him and did exactly what he said. I stuffed my school science book in my locker and put my new one in my backpack. The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. I thought about doing the same thing for history but decided to wait a week or so to see how it went.

When we got home, I went to change and Mom still beat me to the gym. “Legs. Let’s do it.”

“You’re really getting into this, aren’t you,” I said more as a statement than a question. “Alright. Let’s loosen up with some lunges.”

I showed her how to do traditional lunges and then back lunges. It didn’t matter to me but she liked the back lunges better. She said they seemed easier on her knees. Then, I had her do some squats with dumbbells to get used to the motion and for me to judge what kind of weight to start with.

“I’m going to do some squats with a light weight and try to keep good form,” I said and put a pair of forty-fives on the bar. With the weight of the bar, that would be one hundred thirty-five pounds and a good place to start.

I did ten reps, trying to get deep while keeping a good form. Mom did her reps and I bumped it up to two-twenty-five and did my reps. Mom tried it and when she stepped forward, she wobbled a little so I helped her back into the cage and dropped it back down. We each did a couple more sets and switched to low cable exercises where Mom absolutely killed it. With an ankle strap on she showed me how to do adductors and abductors. I didn’t like them at all and she blew me away. “It’s a chick thing,” she said. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know any more than that.

That evening we had finished dinner and I was clearing the table when the phone rang. Mom got it. I didn’t think anything of it, at first.

“It’s for you, Romeo.” I probably turned red.

“Thank you,” I said taking the phone with as much composure as I could muster. Mom went to the other side of the kitchen and picked up where I’d left off with the dishes.

“Hi.”

“Hi. I didn’t even think about your mom picking up the phone. What did she say?”

I thought about it for a minute and decided it would be pointless to pretend. “She said, ‘it’s for you, Romeo.’”

“She didn’t! Was she serious?”

“Well, our moms did go to a fundraiser together. I wonder what they might have talked about.” Of course, Mom could hear all of this. I decided to make the most of it. “I bet your mom didn’t tell her about, you know.”

“I’m right here, Buddy,” she said and then realized I was messing with her. She threw the dishtowel at me and walked out of the kitchen. “I’ll give you privacy but you finish cleaning up,” she said on her way out. I could tell she had a smile on her face, even from the back.

We talked about nothing for a half hour and I promised to call her the next night at eight. That way she would know to be by the phone. She was one hundred pages into A Farewell to Arms. I don’t think she liked the story but she was fascinated by his writing style. I’d read The Old Man and the Sea and knew Hemingway’s style and that if I wrote like that for English class, I’d probably get a bad grade for so many run-on sentences and have to re-write them if I wanted to pass the class but that would only be if I wanted to and I probably wouldn’t. I talked to Sally for about five minutes in nothing but long run-on sentences, trying to imitate Hemingway. She finally got it and said I should punch my own shoulder since she wasn’t there to do it. We hung up laughing.

I’d completely wrapped myself up with the long phone cord and it took a minute to get out of it. I laughed at myself and then did the dishes. It was still early so I grabbed my book and went onto the back patio to read. The weather was still nice but that time of year it was unpredictable and there was no telling how many opportunities like that I’d have before it started getting cold. I read quite a bit but apparently, I was more tired than I thought. Mom woke me up to tell me to go to bed. I’ve always thought that was a weird thing to do.

“C’mon, Sport. Let’s hit the sack.” I rubbed my eyes and asked what time it was. “After ten. Let’s go,” she said and put a hand out to help me up. When I was standing, I gave her a hug. “What’s that for?” she asked.

“Not ribbing me for getting a phone call from a girl.”

“I figure you’ve got enough to deal with,” she said smiling and I wondered what that was about.

Once in my room, I fell asleep with my clothes on.

Thursday was truly unremarkable. Almost unremarkable, I guess. When I got to the gym, Mom unloaded on me for putting her in pain. Her legs were toast and I commiserated rather than laugh. We had a good workout, a fine dinner and I called Sally promptly at eight.

Friday was a push day. That meant chest and triceps. I started loading weights for our first exercise when Mom showed up. I’d beat her to the gym for the first time since school started.

“Okay, Marquis, what’s first?” she asked.

“Marquis?”

“Marquis de Sade. Famous for his passion for inflicting pain. The original sadist. Any of this ring a bell?”

“Ah. So, you are here for pain. We’ve got plenty of pain,” I said with my best German accent.

“He was French, bonehead,” she said and we both laughed when I tried it again with an even worse French accent.

We went through our lifts, adding a few sets and increased weight where we could. We both did better than the first time around.

“You did great, Mom.”

“Thanks. Push is okay but I like pull days better.”

“Why?”

“I think it has to do more with which muscles I want to work on.”

“Back?”

“And lats. Don’t laugh.” I shook my head. “A couple of months ago, I was on Folly Road and there was a woman biker in front of me. Her bike had those high handlebars. I think they’re called ape-hanger bars. She had a great looking vee shape. I thought it was incredibly sexy. I didn’t know how to get that until we started lifting.”

I couldn’t stop smiling. “That’s great Mom. If you keep working like you have been, you’ll have a nice vee shape in no time. Then we can go shopping and get you a motorcycle to show it off.”

“I don’t think so. I’ll be happy with just a nice vee.”

“Mom, you look pretty good already. It would be weird if I told my mom she looked sexy but ... you look pretty good.”

“Thanks, Buddy. If I can live through this workout routine for a few months, maybe I’ll look even better. Do we workout on Saturday?”

“I don’t know what Franklin has in mind but unless it’s an all-day thing let’s lift at four again. We should do a double so we can start on push Monday and get through each part of the split twice next week. Pull and then legs.”

“Legs, ugh.”

“You did great last time, especially with pully exercises. You know what we need in here?” I asked, knowing that she didn’t. “We need a mirror and some muscle posters. You know. Like an anatomy poster of front and back muscles.”

“That sounds like a good idea. How big of a mirror?”

“How much of your progress do you want to see?”

“Stupid question, huh? You know, you’re a pretty good coach.”

“Thanks, Mom. A lot of guys know more than me but since we’re both beginners, I don’t need to know much. Most of what I know came from Kenny’s brother. Everybody says proper form is the most important thing. And then progressive overload. Just keep bumping up the weight. You’re really doing great, Mom. I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks. I don’t think you’ve ever told me that before. I’ll be ready for a double workout tomorrow. Are you doing anything special for the rest of the day?”

“I went by the pool at lunch today and talked with the swim coach. There were a couple of seniors in the pool and he had one of them demonstrate the butterfly for me. I was doing it all wrong. Wrong kick and timing. Now that I have a better idea what the butterfly is supposed to look like, I thought I’d practice.

“Okay then. You are what you eat so salmon for dinner. Is that okay?”

“Perfect.”

I watched my mom walk away. She wasn’t bad to start with but I would have bet that after three months of training, she would firm up nicely. It was Mom so I didn’t think of her as sexy and I couldn’t think of her that way. I could think of her as firm and attractive though.

An hour later, I climbed out of the pool, gasping for breath and totally spent. Butterfly was definitely the hardest of the four strokes. I doubted as many people tried out for it as freestyle or backstroke. I had no idea about breaststroke. I knew that I didn’t want to compete in breaststroke because it bored me to tears and practice would be painful. Butterfly practice would be painful also but in a completely different way. A way that I could tolerate. The guys that specialized in butterfly always had the best shoulders and that was a plus.

Dinner was good but not as good as the bass we’d had the previous weekend. Fresh fish is always better. I wondered if fresh beef was better. Who knew?

“Dad never spent much time with me but now Franklin is and you are too. It’s kind of nice.”

“I bet it’s even nicer that Sally wants to spend time with you.”

“That, too. It’s all good. I think I’m learning more from talking than going to school.”

“Aha. Like what?”

“Well, it was pretty cool that you told me why you wanted to work on your back. So, you could look sexy like some random biker chick. I never knew you thought like that.”

“How did you think I would think?”

“I don’t know. More mom stuff. Not like being sexy.”

“It might surprise you but before I had you and Franklin...”

“I see where this is going,” I said and covered my ears. “Na, na, na.” She laughed.

“Dating was invented long before you came along. There’s over four billion people on the planet and they all got here the same way.”

After dinner, I read until eight and then called Sally.

“When does the swim season start?” she asked.

“Practice starts in two weeks. I talked to Coach Miller today. He said that if I want on the team, I’m on the team. Everyone who comes out and works is. Who gets to compete depends on performance.”

“I guess that makes sense. I’m going to ask Mom if I can invite you over for a movie and maybe dinner.”

“Okay. Franklin is picking me up at ten tomorrow and I don’t think this will be an all-day affair like fishing was. Let me know.”

“K. I’ll call you later,” she said and disconnected. An hour later she confirmed dinner. Twenty minutes after that, Mom came in.

“Dinner tomorrow night at the Hinkleman’s,” she said and saw me nod. “You already knew. I see how this works. The good news is, you won’t have to ride your bike. You spending time with Franklin tomorrow?”

“He’s picking me up at ten to go to the batting cage.”

“Don’t stay up late. You never know what else he might have cooked up. And make sure you get home in time for dinner. I didn’t need to say that, did I?”

She left smiling. I read a bit more and hit the sack early.

Saturday morning, I was in the pool at eight and practiced freestyle and butterfly. I’d worked those specific muscles hard the day before and was expecting to be stiff like Mom was. Fortunately, it didn’t happen. Maybe a little but any stiffness was gone in the first lap or two. Lesson learned. I didn’t know if it was the age difference or not but I was happy to have recovered from weight lifting so quickly. Mom was thirty years older than me. Most of the time it didn’t seem like it. It seemed like she was closer to Franklin’s age than she really was. I decided it was cool to have a mom that seemed young.

After an hour swim, I showered and changed. Franklin picked me up and we were off to the batting cage. On the way there, he gave me some tips.

“I’m going to tell you how to hit a baseball. That sounds stupid but it’s not. You don’t want to just hit it, you want to hit in fair territory and you don’t want to hit a ground ball to the infield, so you have to do more than just hit it. You have to hit it well and that requires good mechanics.”

“Should I be taking notes?”

“Nope. When you’re in the cage, you won’t have time to read them. I’ll coach you between pitches and you can try to make corrections.”

“Sounds good. What’s first.”

“You have to have a solid stance,” he said and went on to describe it. He told me about loading up, keeping my eye on the ball, a timing step, cocking my hips and wrists, and the swing and follow through. He went into a lot of detail and I thought it seemed way more complicated than it should be. I told him.

“It sounds a lot more complicated than it looks.”

“Nah. Once you get your mechanics down, it will come naturally. We’ll probably find that you do half this stuff pretty close to the right way on the first pitch. So, I’ll try to pick out the most egregious errors and coach you on them.”

“Egregious errors? I don’t make egregious errors.”

“No?” He laughed. “That’s rich. How about the time you were ready to ride your skateboard down the roof and into the pool? You’d probably still be in the hospital if Ronnie hadn’t come out of the house when he heard the noise. Ah. How about the time you and Stinky Watson decided to pants the big kid? What was his name?”

“Okay. I don’t make many egregious errors.”

“That was quite a shiner he gave you.”

“The only reason Stinky didn’t get one is because he took off running. Chicken Watson would be better than Stinky.”

I hadn’t been paying attention to where we were going. I had assumed we were going to Frankie’s Fun Park but this was indoor.

“I’ve never noticed this before. How come we didn’t go to Frankie’s?”

“Frankie’s cage has a top speed of seventy and you have to change lanes to get a different speed pitch. This place will give you ninety-five mile an hour fastball if you want them. And you can adjust the speed without having to change lanes.”

“Great.”

We went in and Franklin checked in at the booth, got a couple of bats and helmets. We walked over to lane four but before I went in, Franklin had me practice a stance and swing. When he thought I was close enough, he sent me in. He watched from outside the floor to ceiling chain link fence.

“We’re going to start slow. Sixty. You might hit them all. If you miss them all, we’ll move it down to fifty but I don’t think that’s going to happen. Try to hit them over the machine.”

The first pitch came and I fouled it off. It took a couple of pitches before I got the timing down and I starting hitting them regularly. I think I hit about eight in a row and Franklin stopped the machine.

“Nice start. We’re going to kick it up to seventy. Be careful on your timing step. You’ve gotten used to loading up for a sixty mile per hour pitch.”

I nodded and he started it. I completely whiffed the first one. Timing step my ass. I needed to watch my timing of everything. I fouled off three in a row and then got a solid hit. It was hit one, miss one, foul one off for a while. When I hit eight out of ten in fair territory, Franklin stopped the machine.

“How are your hands.”

“Kind of stings but I’m okay.”

“Ready to try eighty? That’s what most of the high school varsity pitches will be. Somewhere in that neighborhood.”

“I’m ready coach. Put me in,” I said and we both laughed.

It took more time to adjust to that. The jump from sixty to seventy was tough but manageable but this was a whole new level. I took about twenty swings and managed to hit eight of them but five were fouls. It was tough. He motioned and I stepped out of the cage.

“My hands hurt like crazy now. Eighty is tough.”

“Yeah. And the fair balls you hit all would have been caught. The good news is, your mechanics look pretty good but you need to get your timing down or you’ll never be able to open up your hips and get power into the swing.”

“I can see that. Why don’t you show me how it’s done?” I said, offering him the bat.

He smiled and put on his helmet and grabbed the other bat instead. He stepped into the cage and took a couple of practice swings. I didn’t think they looked anything like mine. His looked smooth and effortless.

“Give me a couple at seventy he said.” I set the speed and hit the button. He hit each of them solidly. “Let’s try eighty.” I kicked it up and he hit eight out of ten in fair territory and fouled two off. “Ninety, just for fun,” he said and I adjusted the machine. He hit six out of ten in what would have been fair territory. Then he turned and laid down a couple of bunts, then asked me to stop it.

“Dang, Franklin. That was pretty sweet.”

“Thanks. It’s a lot easier when you don’t have to worry about a change-up. You looked good for a first go. The season doesn’t start until Spring, right? We’ll get you up to speed by then. No one would guess this was your first trip to the cage,” he said, patting my back.