Chapter 4

Monday began what would become something of a routine. School was school but now Sally was going as well. For some reason, I couldn’t find anyone to sit with and talk to at lunch. Other people found me and I didn’t mind but I missed talking with her. If I had a car, I thought, I could scoot over to St. John’s and have lunch with her but I knew that was just a pipe dream.

That afternoon, I was setting up for a push day when Mom walked out. She was always dressed to work out but I noticed she’d chosen something a bit more modest. I figured she was trying to send Sally a signal. She stretched and looked out at the driveway. It was time to start and Sally wasn’t there. I started Mom out with bench press at a light weight and she knocked out a dozen warm ups. I bumped it up and did my warm-ups. We were on our third set and getting ready to lift with what had become our working weights. Mom knocked hers out and I bumped it up to my workout weight. I was closing in on two hundred pounds and feeling pretty good about it

I was setting Mom up for her last set of bench presses when Sally rode up.

“Sorry,” she said, “I had to pump up my tires. Have you been at it long?”

“Since four, Sweetheart,” Mom said. “Will you be able to make by then tomorrow? We can adjust our start time.”

“I’m pretty sure I can. I don’t know how my tires got flat so fast.”

“Let me get this set and we’ll work you in,” Mom said.

Sally watched Mom knock out six reps at her body weight, which I though was great. Sally had no idea. When Mom finished, she thought she could jump in and do the same weight. Mom and I shrugged our shoulders and let her try. She laid down on the bench and got in position.

“This is too heavy for you, Sally. Let me take some weight off,” I said.

“I want to try,” she answered and I moved into position to spot her.

She grabbed the bar and I pushed her hands to a better position and coached her through the proper technique. She strained at the bar but it refused to move. She looked up at me with a what-the-heck-is-wrong look on her face and tried again. It might have jiggled a little, but probably not.

“Let’s take the weights off and just let you work with the bar a bit. Let you get a feel for it.”

She nodded and I took the weight off. She unracked the naked bar and with a little coaching managed ten reps.

“Not bad, Sally. What do you weigh?” Mom asked.

“Not sure, I know I don’t weight one hundred pounds. At least not yet.”

“Jack, why don’t you put ten on each end. That will be sixty-five pounds, right?” I nodded and put a couple of plates on.

She managed to do five reps with sixty-five pounds and we had a baseline. Mom and I congratulated her. She did a second set and we moved forward with our workout. Sally laughed and smiled the whole time and so did Mom and I but for different reasons. When we finished, Mom and I felt pretty good about the workout but we weren’t so sure about Sally.

“How many days a week do you do this?” she asked.

“Six. This was a push day, tomorrow is pull, and Wednesday is legs.”

“Six? And this was just a normal workout? Not extra?”

“This is normal, Sweetheart. You’ll get used to it. If you want to continue. And don’t think you have to try to keep up. Jack does more than me on all but a couple. You can skip exercises or do fewer sets. It’s up to you,” Mom said.

“I’ll be here tomorrow,” Sally said but she wasn’t very convincing. I rode my bike with her back to her house. She was beat. I reassured her she could do it. She would be sore on Tuesday. We kissed briefly in the driveway and I rode home and went for a quick swim and then knocked out my homework before dinner. I worked on highlighting and taking notes in my textbook but it was very unnatural. I felt like a vandal.

Tuesday afternoon, Sally was on time with a big smile on her face. Mom nodded at me to show she was surprised but happy with her attitude.

“I want to lift and get stronger but I don’t want to be so sore tomorrow,” Sally said. “Is that stupid or can I do both?

“You’re using muscles you haven’t used in a while,” I said.

“I’m using muscles I didn’t know I had.”

“Exactly. You’ll probably be sore tomorrow too, and the same for Wednesday. But when we restart the cycle on Thursday, you probably won’t be as sore. You should do lighter weights or fewer reps to start and sort of build up,” I said.

“That’s what we did, Sally. It’s okay to start small. We have a head start on you and we’re both bigger than you so don’t try to compete,” Mom said, trying to encourage her.

“You’re both bigger than me,” Sally said. “So, I shouldn’t try to compete anyway.”

“She’s probably talking about your saggy-much,” I said to Mom and she punched my shoulder hard.

“What did I miss?” Sally asked.

“You missed your boyfriend being a creep to his mom. Let’s do some back work.”

We worked through the entire routine and I only waved Sally off from a couple of exercises. She didn’t need to do dumbbell rows when she’d just done barbell rows. I decided that for any exercises other than the big five she should only do one set for the first week or two. She seemed happy with that. Relieved, is probably more accurate. I told her I’d write up her own routine and have it for our next workout.

We finished up around five. Sally was wiped out. Mom and I felt pretty good about our continued weight increases, although we guessed that gains would probably be smaller and harder as time went by. I checked Sally’s tires and put a little air in the back. I rode home with her as Mom went to the house.

We talked about her school day and how she thought the year would go. She thought it would be a lot easier than at Porter and was going to ask to move up in a couple of her classes. I asked if she’d made any new friends and she had. Freshmen were coming in from several middle schools so no one would know she’d come from Porter unless she told them. She reunited with a couple of friends that had left Porter the year before.

“Do your teachers know you came over from Porter?” I asked.

“I guess they have access to my records. They would know if they cared to check. There are more people in most of the classes than at Porter and a lot of kids definitely don’t want to be there.”

“Do you?”

“I’d rather be with you at Porter but it’s okay. It will be okay. Dad says a good school can’t help a student that doesn’t apply himself and a bad school can’t slow down a good student who does.”

“I think there’s probably be a lot of truth in that.”

“He doesn’t want to spend the money and I don’t blame him. My older sister, you know, Katie, has a college scholarship but it’s just for half so I think a lot of the money is going there. But I think if he gets a promotion, he would move me back. Maybe.”

“Is that likely?”

“He seems to think so. I think there’s something he’s not telling me about work, too.”

“You’ll probably make a lot of friends pretty quickly.”

“Maybe, but quality counts more than quantity, right?”

We talked about A Farewell to Arms a little and I knew I needed to get back home. Mom was cooking for just the two of us and I didn’t want her to eat alone, at least not as a common practice. We spent some quality time at first base and I pedaled home.

“Hey,” I said, walking into the kitchen.

“Hey. Sally have a problem with her bike?”

“I couldn’t see any. If she has low pressure tomorrow, I’ll check her tubes and patch them or swap them out for her. Is that what I think it is?”

“It is. I drove up to McClellanville today and picked up thirty pounds of shrimp. I just got done packing away the rest.”

We sat down for Mom’s amazing shrimp and grits. I finished a plateful and got up for a second helping.

“Slow down and enjoy this round,” Mom said. She was right, I had sort of wolfed it down.

“Sorry. It’s really good, though.”

“Glad you like it. I put most of the shrimp in the freezer but I kept enough out for dinner tomorrow night. What would you like?”

“More shrimp and grits?” I said as a question. I knew she wouldn’t do that.

“How about curry shrimp?” She asked and I nodded. “That’s easy enough. Are you two reading the same book? Is she a reader?”

“A Farewell to Arms,” I said between bites.

“I haven’t read Hemingway in a long time. I like him but not that one. I liked To Have and Have Not or Islands in the Stream better. Do yourself a favor and slow down and enjoy it.”

“I’m enjoying it.”

“Yeah, but you devour novels. Slow down for this. It’s different. Hemingway liked to use what he called the iceberg approach. The facts are floating above the water but all the subtext is hidden. If you read it too fast, you’ll miss the subtext.”

“Okay, I guess.”

“There’s a book of his short stories in the library. Take a timeout from your novel and read Hills Like White Elephants and then come tell me what it’s about.”

“You already know what it’s about.”

“Humor me. It’s short. Read that. We’ll talk about it and I think you’ll understand Hemingway better. Then, you’ll enjoy his other works more. Trust me.”

She was smiling like the Cheshire cat. I finished and started to put my plate away. She took it from me and pointed me toward the library. Thirty minutes later I was back.

“What happened?” I asked. “I just read it and I don’t know what happened.”

“What was the operation she was going to have?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t say.”

“No. It infers it, though. What was the gift?”

“It doesn’t talk about a gift.”

“Have you ever heard of a white elephant gift?” I shook my head. “Do you want me to spell it out for you?” I nodded. “They were on their way for her to abort her baby in Madrid, I think. That was the operation. The only way you know that is that the baby was a white elephant gift. Unwanted, but still a gift. The bar they were in was between the tracks. One track led toward Madrid and the abortion. The other side led back the way they had come. Where had they decided to go at the end?”

“I’ll be back in a few,” I said and went back and grabbed the book to read it again. Clearly, I had missed a lot. Okay, I’d missed nearly everything. I took my time and things started to dawn on me. I read the last two pages twice and thought I had it. I went back to the kitchen.

“Well, Buddy. What do you think?”

“He decided they could keep the baby and they were going home.”

“What convinced you?”

“She wanted the baby but he didn’t. He had one last drink on the Madrid side of the bar and went to get her. She smiled when the train showed up. She was going home.”

“I agree but other people think she had decided to have the abortion. Do you see what I mean about iceberg and subtext?”

“No kidding. There’s about a hundred pages underwater and twelve pages above. You know what I think? He writes like Hitchcock directs. What you don’t see is as important as what you do see.”

“That’s a really good comparison. Think that will help you appreciate other Hemingway?”

“Absolutely. I liked that story a lot more the second time.”

“Good. They aren’t all as thick with mystery and symbolism as that. Generally, Hemingway is pretty straightforward. Black is bad and white is good. Rainclouds on the horizon portend calamity. He doesn’t tell you people’s emotions. You have to figure that out from everything else.”

“Got it. Am I going to have to start over with A Farewell to Arms?”

“No. I don’t think so. Just slow down a little.”

“Okay. Can I loan that to Sally? I want her to read it.” She nodded. “I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”

“Ah. You’re going to take it to her now?”

“Yeah. If that’s okay. I have a light on my bike and I won’t be long. She’s ahead of me in Farewell and if I’m going to slow down, she should too.”

“Go,” she said and shooed me away, smiling.

I rode down to Sally’s without calling first. I rang the bell. Mrs. Hinkleman invited me in. When she came to the foyer, I handed Sally the book and told her to read Hills and then call me. I was being mysterious. And then I left. Read Hills and then call me. That was it. I was practically giddy.

Thirty minutes later, I took her call in the library. We talked for thirty minutes and she excused herself to read it again. When she called back, we talked for another hour. We hung up just as Mom walked into the library.

“I like Hemingway a lot more now than I did before dinner,” I said. She smiled, patted my shoulder and left.

Wednesday and Thursday were pretty uneventful. Friday was different. I knew that Franklin was going to ask Karen to marry him at dinner that night. I knew when he typically took his lunch break so I got a pass to go to the office. I called him and wished him luck. He thanked me and said that win or lose, he would pick me up Saturday morning at ten.

That afternoon, after our workout, Sally and I pedaled over to the Wappoo Cut boat ramp. We parked our bikes and sat at a picnic table next to the water so we could watch boats coming in from a day on the water, and a few going out for some evening fishing. I’d been doing it for a couple of years. It was a pretty afternoon and there’s something about watching people at the boat ramp I’ve always liked. You can see happy faces, determined faces, and tired faces. No one hides their emotions. But mostly, I like spending time on the waterfront. Almost all the rivers around Charleston are tidal rivers. That means the water flows out at ebb tide and in at flood tide.

I don’t think Sally had ever been there before. We watched a couple of guys bring in their twenty-three-foot center console. They pulled up to the dock and one guy hopped out and the other backed the boat away. Two minutes later, the first guy backed the trailer down to the water. No hesitation. Just straight down the ramp. The second guy drove the boat up onto the trailer. The first latched the bow and pulled up and out. It was a thing of beauty. A couple of minutes later, a young guy and gal pulled up to the dock. They talked about it for a couple of minutes, and he went for the truck. It was a good thing the ramp was empty because he was all over the place. His wife tried to drive the boat onto the trailer a couple of times and gave up. Finally, he left the truck, climbed into the boat and drove it up onto the trailer. It wasn’t pretty. I felt embarrassed for them but they finally made it. I don’t think Sally noticed the difference.

When the next boat pulled up to the ramp, I described what they were doing so Sally could get it. We watched a couple more come in and she saw their teamwork in a different light. We tried to guess which boats would come in clean and which wouldn’t. It was easy.

The tide was coming in, so the cut was saltier than normal. A couple of dolphins were checking out all the channels and branches. They found a good spot and started a dance I’d seen many times before but apparently Sally had not.

“What are they doing?” she asked.

“Herding. One is herding small fish together so the other can eat. They’ll trade places in a minute.”

“That’s crazy. Teamwork. Oh, look. You’re right. They’re switching.”

“If they don’t get enough for dinner, they’ll move and do it again.”

I put my arm around her and she scooted closer. I slid my hand under her hair and around the back of her neck, something I knew she liked. She wiggled a little and I let my thumb work up behind her ear. She really liked that. Then I gently turned her to me. She looked at me and smiled one of those what’s-on-your-mind smiles. I kissed her gently and she returned it. It had been a couple of days since we’d had a good make-out session. After some serious exploring, I bit her upper lip and backed away.

“Teamwork is good,” I said.

She kissed me again, turning her body to me and when she did, she reached down with her right hand and grabbed my dick. I wasn’t expecting it. It felt good but it was definitely on the edge of what we’d established for boundaries. I couldn’t explain what they were exactly but I knew we were on the edge. I broke the kiss and backed away.

“It’s going to be hard to ride my bike home,” I said.

“It’s already hard,” she replied and squeezed me again. It felt so good but it wasn’t going to end well. She’d have to stop or I’d be riding home in sticky shorts, not something I looked forward to.

“I want you to keep going but I need you to stop,” I said. “I’m glad you like that and I do too but I’m going to cum soon if you don’t stop and I just can’t. No third base. At least not yet.” She took her hand away and pouted. We watched dolphins for a while.

“I need to get home pretty soon,” she said.

“Me too.”

“Do you have a phone in your room?” she asked.

“No. You?”

“There’s one in the den and I can stretch it around the corner.”

“Why?”

“Call me tonight at nine,” she said.

“You’re up to something. What?”

“When you call, I want you to tell me what you do when you think about me.”

“I can tell you now.”

“True. But now, I don’t have my hand inside my panties and I’m not trying to give myself an orgasm. Tonight, when you call, I will be.”

“Oh my god!”

“You can go to third base with me over the phone. That shouldn’t count.”

“We need to leave, and everything you do or say is just making it more difficult for me. What if someone picks up the phone in another room?”

“Ooh. That would be bad.”

“No kidding. Would it be worse if my mom picked it up, or your mom?”

“Dad’s home. I’d be grounded until college. Well, just know that tonight after dinner, I’ll being doing that. I might not wait until then.”

“We need to leave. I’m going to have to pedal home. Argh. Not looking forward to that.”

“Maybe, if I wiggle around on my seat while we ride home...”

“Stop. Just stop. Let’s go,” I said and we did.

For the entire ride home, I whined and complained about how she was torturing me. When she was ahead of me, I complained that she was wiggling her butt to torture me more. I could see that she was laughing so I kept it up and then I changed tactics. I complained that it wouldn’t hurt nearly as much if I had a little dick and she almost crashed from laughing. We were both running late so when we got to her house, we blew kisses and I kept going.

I stowed my bike in the garage and hurried inside. I was late and while I had some latitude, I hated to make Mom wait. I knew she would. If she was upset, she didn’t let on. Instead, when I turned the corner into the kitchen, she smiled at me and began to serve.

“Spend some extra time at Sally’s house?” she asked.

“Actually, I didn’t spend any time there. We pedaled over to Wappoo Cut. It was nice. A pair of dolphins were herding for dinner and she’d never seen it before.”

“Now that is a cheap date.”

“A quick one, too.”

“Do you know what you and Franklin are doing tomorrow? Or what time?”

“Ten. Other than that, it’s a mystery. I think he likes that.”

“No mistake about that. How’s school?”

“Good. Easy, mostly. Latin is no fun but when I’m done with it, I don’t have to fool around with language anymore so there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. There’s a team meeting for swimming on Monday. I think Coach Miller is going to give us a practice schedule and maybe the competition schedule. Not competition. Meet. Swim meet schedule.”

“Is it going to run late? Do I need to come get you?”

“Nah. It will probably get out the same as normal. He would have told us if it would run late, I think.”

“There’s a phone in the office. You can just call.”

“It’s not like it’s a long walk. Don’t worry about it.” We finished setting everything at the counter instead of the table and ate sitting on stools.

“You know, you can invite Sally to stay for dinner anytime. I didn’t think to mention it. I guess I just thought you knew that.”

“Thanks. I might. She likes to cook. It’s one of her hobbies.” We ate in silence for a while. “You haven’t said anything else about baseball,” I said and she looked at me funny. “You know, first base, second base and all that.”

“Ah. No, I haven’t. Did you forget any of it?” I shook my head. “Do you need a reminder?” I shook my head but I guess I didn’t mean it.

“Probably,” I said.

She smiled. “Don’t go to second base. If you try, you might find yourself in the middle of a double play. And if you get a member of the other team pregnant, the umpire will come to your room at night and remove your bat with a dull knife.”

“Ack. Okay. I’ll consider myself reminded. Sheesh, Mom. That was nasty.”

“I bet that image will stick with you.”

“I probably need to go to that hypnosis show next week to have them get rid of the memory. Sheesh.” She smiled, flipped her knife with the edge up and made a slow, deliberate cutting motion on a shrimp. “I just lost my appetite,” I said, standing with my plate still half full.

“Sit down, Sport. I’m just playing with you. You brought it up, though. Having a tough time keeping your hands in check?” she asked.

“A bit.” That’s all I was going to say and she could tell. We finished dinner talking about Hemingway and how he seemed after having read Hills Like White Elephants.

I cleaned up and Mom disappeared. I called Sally and we talked for a few minutes. Neither of us said it but we both remembered what she’d said before. I didn’t even want to think about it but it was impossible to ignore. We both knew that as soon as we hung up, she was going to her room and think about me, fingers buried deep inside her. We weren’t on the phone long. We both had more pressing matters to attend to.

I was up early Saturday morning and went for a swim. I was able to do more distance with the butterfly without inhaling water and that was encouraging. Hungry, I made a big breakfast and was done, showered and dressed just in time. Franklin was right on time. I got in and we left.

“Well?” I said, expecting to hear that he was engaged.

“Well, what?” he answered as if he didn’t know what I was talking about.

“C’mon. You know, well what. Are you engaged?”

“Oh. That,” he said, really downplaying it. “Yeah. I’m engaged.”

“You don’t seem to be thrilled about it.”

“I am. I’m just trying to get in my Zen zone.”

“I didn’t know you had one. And the reason you’re trying to get into a Zen zone is...?”

“I’m going to teach you something that needs concentration.”

I put my hands on my knees with my fingers circled. “Ommmm. Ommmm.”

“Knock it off. Bonehead. I’m just messing with you.”

“Ditto. Where are we going?”

He pulled into the parking lot. “Shooting range. I’m going to teach you how to shoot a handgun.”

“Sweet.” It didn’t get much better than that. “Congratulations, by the way.”

He grabbed his bag from the trunk and we went in. He rented safety glasses and hearing protectors for me and checked in. Franklin explained a bunch of safety factors. Safety issues were pretty obvious to me when we’d gone fishing but this was different. He said the opportunity to screw up was huge and the potential bad consequences were too.

“No joking and no goofing around, at least not while we’re on the range.” He was pretty serious and I nodded. You’ve got four basic rules of safety. Follow those and you won’t accidentally kill anyone. I’m going to tell you and you’re going to repeat them. First, treat every gun as though it’s loaded.” I repeated it back. “Second, never cover anything you’re not willing to destroy.”

“What do you mean ‘cover’,” I asked.

“With the muzzle. Don’t point it at anything you aren’t willing to destroy. Me for instance. Always know where your muzzle is pointed.” I repeated it back. “Third, keep your finger off the trigger until you decide to shoot.” I repeated it and he showed me where to put my finger so it was ready but wouldn’t accidently squeeze the trigger. “Finally, be sure of your target and what’s behind it. That’s it. Four rules. Say them back.” I did and we went into the prep room.

There was plenty of space in a prep room and he taught me three different stances and a couple of different grips. He said I’d have plenty of opportunity to try each. He’d demonstrate a stance and grip and then let me give it a try. It was pretty cool to learn the different stances and grips. I’d never really paid attention watching cop shows on TV. But I had a real gun in my hands so I needed to pay attention.

Once inside I realized why he was giving me the Zen stuff. There was a half dozen other people on the range and every time one of them would shoot, I’d flinch. Jack assured me they weren’t shooting at me but I also knew my heart was beating a little faster than normal. Once we got to our lane, I watched him set up. He sent the target out to five yards and it seemed ridiculously close, especially since everyone else’s target was farther away. Some of them were a lot farther away. I watched the other guys shoot and looked at their targets. Some guys were shooting very close to the bullseye every time and other guys seemed like they were lucky to hit the target at all. Franklin saw me watching.

It was hard to talk with hearing protectors on but I could sort of read his lips and that helped. “Watch the guys with tight groupings. They are all very intentional. This is a science and from practice. It’s not luck.” I nodded.

He talked me through an isosceles stance, and helped me position my hands on the gun properly. My feet were square to the target with both hands straight out. He said it was a really solid stance but that you also expose your body to a bad guy a lot more. I hadn’t thought about a bad guy shooting back, but it made sense.

“You want maximum contact with the weapon. No wrist flex. If I push on the gun, your entire arm should move,” he said while correcting me with each instruction. Once he was confident I had it down, he put a magazine in the gun and pulled the slide back, showing me that a bullet was ready to go. “Safety’s off and the range is hot. Establish the proper sight alignment and squeeze. Don’t jerk the trigger. Squeeze.”

I did and was totally surprised by the sensation. The gun sounded like a canon to me, I could smell it immediately, my hand jerked and my mouth probably flew open. “Holy crap.”

“What did you hit?” he asked.

“I think I missed by a mile,” I said, looking the target. Suddenly five yards seemed like fifty. “What did I do wrong?”

He laughed. “Not much, sport. Ammo is cheap. Try again.”

I shot again and again, and Franklin held the gun and pushed my hand higher on the backstrap, shoving it tight. I shot again and the gun didn’t jerk as much. I was starting to get closer to the center of the target and enjoying myself tremendously when the fun stopped. I squeezed the trigger and nothing happened. I squeezed again and nothing happened. The fun was gone but I saw Franklin grinning.

“It’s not the movies, Sport. Eventually you run out of ammo.”

“What do we do now?”

He took the gun from me, showed me how to release the magazine and put a fresh one in. “Good to go.” It was so cool. Just like that. More bullets. He showed me other grips and stances and I tried each of them and settled on the one I liked the most. Once my shots were consistently inside the middle two circles, he put a fresh target out. “Focus. Put all your shots in the center circle and you’ll have a nice souvenir.”

I had a goal. I took a breath, exhaled, checked my sight alignment and put one about an inch from the bull’s eye. I put two magazines worth of ammo within three inches of that bull’s eye and he had me put the gun on safe before reeling it in.

“When you’re done, leave the slide back so everyone knows it’s empty and put the safety on.” I did that and he picked up the gun. “Now, watch. I just watched you shoot. I know the gun is empty but the first thing I’m going to do when I pick it up is, make sure it’s not loaded.”

“Even if you know it’s empty.”

“Every single time! Step back a second and look up and down the line.” I did and he pointed out holes in the metal plates dividing the lanes. “All those holes were made by unloaded guns.”

“Holy shit.”

“No kidding. The first thing I did when we came on the range was to check and see who the dangerous people are. Next time I will show you how to tell.”

“Yeah. I think bullets would go through me easier than they’d go through those steel plates.”

“Exactly.” He pulled my target down and looked at it. “Nice shooting, Jack,” he said. “My turn.”

He handed me my souvenir and put a fresh target out. He pushed the button and sent the target out to twenty yards. After shooting at a five-yard target, twenty seemed pretty far away. I watched him put at least twenty rounds inside a three-inch circle. A tight grouping, he called it. With a fresh magazine, he put the gun in his range holster and dropped the table we’d been using for setup.

He used the same stance as me and drew the gun quickly and put two rounds on the target. It was pretty fast but not like a quick draw from the old west. He did it several more times. Two rounds on target, then re-holster and do it again. Then he changed stances, putting his right foot forward and shot with a one-handed grip. I hadn’t tried that. He took more time with that and wasn’t quite as accurate but the black silhouette was still dead. I was pretty impressed. I definitely wanted to learn to shoot that well.