“But I won’t do it alone.”
“I’ll be with you every stroke of the way.”
“That’s not what I mean. I know you swam on a small college team,” I say, “but not so small the workouts were solitary confinement. I need a team around me.”
“Better start recruiting.”
“I’m ahead of you. Only scouted one guy so far, but there have to be more where he came from. I mean, we evolved from water, right?”
“That’s right,” he says. “Swimmers under every rock.”
“One other thing. Who establishes the criteria to earn a letter?”
“The coach of the sport,” he says. “Why? You think I’d let you jerk me out from in front of the oncoming grapplers’ train and not give you a letter? What kind of man do you think I am?”
“Never mind that, but I’m not thinking of me. I want whoever else I get to come overboard with me to have a chance.”
“When I see the caliber of fish you’re catching, we’ll talk about it.”
Whatever caliber of fish I catch, they’ll all be suckers, but no sense getting into that with him yet.
A lot happens in my imagination. In my imagination Chris Coughlin stands in front of his locker in his own letter jacket, a miniature gold swimmer stroking across the middle of the C, and when some righteous buttmunch like Mike Barbour jacks him up, some ultra-righteous coach, say maybe Simet, has Barbour running stairs.
And in my imagination I have answers to the pertinent questions, such as, “Who else can I get to piss off the likes of Mike Barbour?” And sometimes what is in my imagination comes to fruition. See, by the time most of us get to ninth grade, we know whether we can play football or basketball or baseball-the big three-or whether we’re fast enough or can jump high or far enough to turn out for track. But no way do we know our talents as swimmers. I mean, most Cutter kids swim and water ski on the river, so a lot of us can propel ourselves in a life jacket from the place we fall to the ski, but when I swam age group, my parents drove me a good forty-five minutes to the nearest indoor pool. The point is, there have to be at least a few other guys around like Chris Coughlin, with that natural feel for the water, who we can recruit to keep me from looking like the national swim team for Antarctica.
Swimming’s a winter sport in high school, so I have some time to pull it all together, but swimming’s also a sport you train long and hard for if you don’t want to embarrass yourself in a big way when your stroke falls apart on the final lap of a two-hundred free because you haven’t put in the requisite miles, so I can’t wait too long.
The following weekend I run off about fifty envelopes I designed on Mom’s computer. They say YOU MAY HAVE ALREADY WON! with a reproduction of Ed McMahon and Dick Clark in one corner. Then I stuff a flyer inside that reads FEARLESS HIGH SCHOOL MERMEN & MERMAIDS WANTED: CASH PRIZES AND INSTANT FAME above my telephone number, and because we are having one of those rare great hot fall days, I take them out to the river and stick one under the windshield wiper of every car in sight. I figure, hey, it’s a river. At least most of the people here can swim.
Eight hours later, in the early evening, I answer the phone to the first ring and hear, “To whom might I be speaking?”
I say, “Shouldn’t that be my question?”
“It might be if you hadn’t left a number without a name on that flyer you placed on my automobile windshield this afternoon.”
“This is T. J. Jones.” I do know that’s redundant, by the way: the J and the Jones. “And to whom might I be speaking?” I ask, placing the “m” on the end of who for what I hope will be the last time in my history of casual speech.
“You might be speaking to almost anyone, as many of those flyers as you distributed,” the voice says, “but you are speaking to Daniel Hole.”
When your name is The Tao Jones, you think twice before passing judgment on a peer’s name, but I am quick with silent gratitude that my last name can’t be translated into any target so basic to adolescent males. “What can I do for you, Mr. Hole?”
“I called to gather information regarding your rallying cry for fearless swimmers. I’m assuming you’re in search of people who experience a certain amount of comfort in the water.”
Dan Hole. He was in my English class a few years ago, and I think a couple of social studies classes since. Dan “Never-Use-a-Single-Syllable-When-Polysyllables-Are-Available” Hole. I say, “Yeah, people who experience comfort in the water. Is that you?”
“Totally comfortable,” he says. “What is your plan?”
“My plan?”
“Well, do you simply want to acquaint yourself with people who can swim, or is there some mission?”
Jesus. “We need you for a swim team.”
Silence fills the line.
“Dan?”
After a moment, “That would require a considerable outlay of energy.”
“And time,” I say.
“Indeed.” More silence. “I actually participated on a swimming team in my youth,” he says.
“That’s great,” I say back. “Exactly what we’re looking for.”
Dan wants particulars. Where will we swim; when? Will the chlorine level be controlled better than it was at the YMCA pool in his former hometown, where he swam for their team? (I assure him it will, at which time he questions my sincerity, given I don’t even know where his former hometown is, and therefore cannot possibly have the particulars on the chemical makeup of the water in the YMCA there. I lie and say all YMCAs are the same; it’s a rule.) Will we have time for our homework? One doesn’t ever want to get out of balance with the “athletic thing,” as many of the football players are wont to do. I assure him I’m interested in a college education myself and wouldn’t go out for a sport where I might be wont to not want to do my homework. That seems to satisfy him. “And our mentor would be whom?”
“You mean the coach?”
“Yes, the coach.”
I say it would be Simet.
Another silence.
“He’s my English teacher,” I tell him.
“Yes, I’m aware of Mr. Simet. He’s rather frivolous, don’t you think?”
I agree Simet can be a bit of a slacker, but I assure Dan Hole he was a collegiate swimmer and is probably the best we can do under the circumstances. Dan is wearing off on me. I say collegiate.
“Let me get back to you on this,” Dan says. “I’m tempted to respond to impulse and sign on, but history tells me that’s ill-advised. I’ll have a reply within forty-eight hours.”
I hang up, exhausted.
I know if I end up with Chris Coughlin and Dan Hole, seemingly two ends of some otherworldly continuum, I’ll need to get some guys to fill in the middle, if for no other reason than to save Chris.
The second call comes from Tay-Roy Kibble. Tay-Roy is a guy I know from every school musical production from grade school tonette band to high school symphony, choral events included. This guy has a set of pipes on him, and plays all the woodwind instruments, plus the piano, well enough to be presented as a featured soloist every time. He’s also a bodybuilder, though not quite as accomplished there as in the musical field. He doesn’t embarrass himself, though, and enters only steroid-free events, usually placing in the top five of eighteen-and-unders. Tay-Roy is a senior, too.
On the phone he says, “This is Tay-Roy Kibble. I’m calling about a flyer on my car windshield out at the river this morning.”
“Hey, Tay-Roy. T. J. Jones. I’m trying to get enough guys together for a school swim team. Mr. Simet wants to coach it…actually, to keep from having to be an assistant wrestling coach.” I go on to give him the downside: no real pool, all “away” meets, basically giving him every excuse to say, “Excuse me, my Caller ID shows an important call” and unplug his phone, because I know the hours he puts into his music, not to mention the bodybuilding.
“Actually, that sounds kind of fun. I’m kinda burned out on the bodybuilding thing. You have to travel too far to catch the drug-free contests, and the price of regular supplements is killing me.”