Dan Hole benefits most from that because he is first and foremost a student, and the very physics of swimming fascinates him. Jackie Craig, who remains the team’s ghost, listens intently to Simet’s every word, watches Dan put those words into practice, then imitates Dan’s every move. Though he’s been with us for weeks, I don’t think Jackie has uttered three sentences. I look back and realize I haven’t even thought of him and wonder if his whole life is like that. He shows up, watches, imitates, all the time remaining invisible. Mott comes in every day looking surly, leaves looking surly, and does everything in between with a barely controlled rage. I believe if the water were alive, he would beat it to death. Chris doesn’t get much from the technique instruction, but once or twice a week Simet gets into the water with him and manually moves his arms and legs correctly through the strokes. Chris probably has the best natural stroke on the team, and that’s a good thing, because no matter how much Coach works with him, that stroke doesn’t change. Simon continues to churn the water in search of muscle definition.
Tay-Roy probably has the most overall talent next to me. Though not a natural, he has an okay feel for the water, and as he alters his body design from bodybuilder to swimmer, he gets better and better. He’s the one guy who knows what it means to dedicate himself athletically. I don’t know how many people understand the dedication bodybuilding takes, or what it takes to bring yourself to the musical level Tay-Roy has achieved. Even I can learn from him. He is singular in his vision of himself as an athlete.
The first day Simet is on the job, Icko tries to disappear, standing over by the door for most of the workout, then slipping out early. The second day, while I’m moving from the water to the benches, I grab his arm and bring him to Coach. “Oliver Van Zandt,” I say, by way of introduction.
Simet sticks out his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Van Zandt. I didn’t realize that was you. I understand I have you to thank for keeping this group together.”
“They were pretty much together already, I was just around,” Icko says. “And you can call me Icko.”
Coach says, “Not the way I heard it, Icko.”
“I don’t know much about swimming,” Icko says. “In fact, I don’t know nothin’ about swimming.”
Coach glances around the pool. Jackie Craig and Chris Coughlin lie flat on their stomachs, stroking away on the benches to the beat of Bob Seger’s “Betty Lou’s Gettin’ Out Tonight,” while Tay-Roy churns the water in his lane like a washing-machine agitator, and Simon DeLong displaces enough water on his dive to wash Dan Hole to the far side of one lane and Mott to the side of the other. “You’re not the only one here who doesn’t know much about swimming, sir. And I’d sincerely appreciate it if you were to stick around as my assistant. I’m sure there’s money in the budget to compensate you.”
“Hell,” Icko says, “I got two full-time jobs as it is. No reason to pay me for this. I kind of enjoy it.”
“I kind of enjoy it, too,” Simet says, “but they still pay me.”
As I’m moving to the benches, I hear Simet ask Icko if he can drive a school bus. That would make us one self-contained traveling water show.
I look at us: a group of real outsiders, a group Cutter High School has offered very little to. You could make a case for the fact that Cutter has offered me a lot and that I’ve simply refused to take it, but for whatever reason, I fit better here than I’ve fit anywhere before. It’s hard to put my finger on, maybe it boils down to the racial piece. It isn’t as if I live in a city where racial struggles are everyday issues if you discount people like Rich and Mike Barbour, and it isn’t as if I’m carrying much personal cultural history, though my parents have always kept me supplied with books about African-American heroes, and we’ve always celebrated certain of their accomplishments and birthdays. But the fact is, my parents are white and the only others close to my “persuasion” are a child therapist and a preschooler. Sweet Georgia Brown, more by example than by lecture, has continually demonstrated that racist thought and action say far more about the person they come from than about the person at whom they are directed. Yet, no matter what you know, it doesn’t always alter how you feel.
When I was eight, in the third grade, I learned about Charlotte Volare’s birthday party the day after, when one of my friends asked why I wasn’t there. I walked up to Charlotte and asked her the same thing. She said her parents didn’t want me in their house because I wasn’t white; that her grandfather had been killed by some Japanese people in this thing called World War II, an event neither of us could quite pin down. It was okay for her to play with me at school, but she could never ever kiss me or have me to her house. I was pretty hurt, and Dad offered to call up Mr. Volare to find out what gives, but Charlotte was gorgeous beyond belief, with large, round brown eyes, and dark, thick hair that spilled down to the middle of her back like a luxurious blanket. Even at eight, I was pretty sure if my biker dad jumped in the middle of Mr. Volare’s shit I could kiss good-bye any idea of becoming Charlotte’s secret boyfriend, so with Georgia’s help I talked him out of it. But the sting was undeniable. Charlotte was so matter-of-fact with her explanation that I thought there really was something different and wrong about me that everyone else took for granted.
“Not a thing wrong with you, baby,” Georgia said over a plate of those miraculous cookies when I showed up at her house, crying and majorly pissed. “Some people’s parents are just stupid and mean; so mean they would cheat their own children out of having a great friend like you. Got to feel bad for that Charlotte.” By the time that conversation was over, I half felt bad for Charlotte.
So as an outsider, I may rate only a three or four on a scale of ten, where Dan might be a six, Simon and Chris an eight, Jackie-who knows?, Tay-Roy wherever he puts himself (he goes his own way], and Mott a fifty. Andy is famous as the king of in-school suspension, out-of-school suspension, and Saturday school; he spends more time in those places than in the classroom. We know he accrues most of that time not from fighting, but from calling to public attention Morgan’s shortcomings as a principal, or pointing out some teacher’s personal deficits in front of the class. While he hasn’t said a cross word to Simet or Icko, nor to any of us for that matter, he is notorious for the level of vitriol in his parting comments. I haven’t yet figured out why he picked this team for his sanctuary.
Cutter High School has many rituals I could do without, but none is more annoying than the special assembly before each new athletic season. The athletes from the teams are introduced, and the captain and coach have to make a short speech about team goals and what it means to compete for Cutter.
We operate on a shortened class schedule that day, so the assembly lasts the entire final hour. Winter sports include basketball, wrestling, volleyball, gymnastics, and now swimming. To this, I have not been looking forward. We will parade our band of merry men before a crowd of more than seven hundred students that includes the members of the state champion football team.
The other teams have a large number of returning lettermen, so the gym floor is covered with blue and gold by the time we are introduced, dead last, fitting for the spot we are sure to place in the conference. Icko has taken an hour off work and follows Simet onto the floor decked out in his Burger King uniform. I’m behind him, followed by Chris Coughlin, who is so seriously traumatized by having to walk in front of that many people that I have to keep saying, “Stay with me, Chris. Stay with me, Chris. Chris?” I hear the laughter and turn around to see Jackie Craig run into him because Chris has stopped when someone in the bleachers calls out, “Dummy!” A moment later we watch a teacher hauling the culprit out, but Chris is still paralyzed and Jackie’s nose is bleeding from the collision. I take Chris’s arm, bring him next to me, and tell him to stare just above the top bleacher and hum “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” in his head.