“Okay,” Roundtree says. “Then let’s focus on the issue. The item under discussion is whether the council had enough information when we took our last vote to make an intelligent judgment regarding the letter requirements of the swim team. Mr. Barbour thinks not, and it appears Coach Benson agrees. Is there more discussion, or should we vote to reconsider?”
My hand goes up. “Wait. How many other coaches had to bring their letter requirements before this council? I haven’t been here before, but you guys didn’t discuss basketball or volleyball or wrestling or any other winter sport, did you?”
Benson says, “The letter requirements for those sports have been set for a long time. Most often it’s a question of rubber stamping, because the requirements are reasonable.”
“So there are bylaws that say the council has the right to pass judgment on a coach or a team? Like, you could show me where all this is written down?”
Benson is really tightening up now. “It is understood at this school, Mr. Jones, that the Athletic Council oversees all athletic matters. This unquestionably falls under our jurisdiction.”
“But it’s not written down,” I say
“It doesn’t have to be written down.”
“But it isn’t.”
“I’ve said all that needs to be said,” Benson says, “and I’m asking that this be brought to a vote.”
“Actually,” Simet says, “I think it does have to be written down somewhere, Coach. I can’t imagine that the purpose and criteria for this council isn’t recorded somewhere. Is it possible to postpone this long enough to look into that? I won’t order the letters yet, and we can hold off on making a decision until we see exactly how this is all laid out. That’s fair, isn’t it?”
Benson thinks it isn’t and says so, but when put to a vote, waiting seems reasonable to a simple quorum. Thank God for women’s sports and for Carly Hudson.
“I just wanted to regroup,” Simet says back in his room. “That would have been too close to call. It will take them a while to dig up the paperwork, if there is any, and set up another meeting. We might have been able to pull the votes, but I didn’t want to take a chance if we can do it without. If we can work up a little compassion for Chris and play down Mott’s two-gun salute to the student body, we could have a shot.”
Carly tells me afterward we should have gone ahead and called for a vote. She’s afraid Janet Lindstrom might vote with Benson. It’s a chance we’ll have to take.
Workouts are a kick. We have put the supine surgical-tubing station (which Dan Hole began to call muscle masturbation-thereby placing him forever in Mott’s good graces) into mothballs, and now the guys simply line up in an endless forty-by-infinite-yard relay, where they go after me forty yards at a time, and I build up incredible yardage. In the second week we’ll taper me again, with medium-speed yards coupled with quality sprints, until I supposedly peak at some cardiomuscular apex that will allow me to lay waste to the swimmers on the coast, none of whom have I yet seen up close and personal.
To stay with me, each of my guys starts from a dive, which adds a little twist to my workout one out of four times when Simon hits the water hard enough to surf me into the next lane. When this is all over, I may try an open-water swim. I say one out of four times because Chris Coughlin works out on the other side of me, swimming as hard as he can, then waiting for me to lap him before coming after me again. He really does have some potential down the road, and Simet is keeping him in shape to see if he can get on an age-group team as soon as the state meet is over.
The music from the boom box is so loud Simet has to cup his hands and holler directly into my ear to correct the tiniest imperfections in my stroke, but it adds to the overall ambience and is not to be squelched. Somewhere near the end of the season, Jackie Craig became captivated by the music of John Philip Sousa, so now “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” is sandwiched between “Stars and Stripes Forever” and “Semper Fidelis.” Jackie didn’t say a word; simply handed Simet the Sousa CDs when Simet called for new music as he did at the beginning of each week.
For the past two weeks we’ve been getting a lot of telephone hang-ups at home, which I assume is Rich Marshall slamming down the receiver every time he calls and Alicia doesn’t answer. She does answer the phone as regularly as anyone else in the house, so sooner or later he’ll get her.
“Gotta happen sometime,” Dad told her. “Might as well see if you have the power to refuse him while you have some support.” Mom thinks we should try to catch him and add a few extra weekends in the slammer for breaking the no-contact order, but Dad says we should simulate real life as much as possible, and there will be a time in the very near future when Alicia has to figure out whether or not she’s going to be able to put the kids’ best interests ahead of her own. Heidi is doing much better, which means she’s meaner than a Doberman to her younger brothers, who have enjoyed Rich Marshall’s umbrella protection plan from the day of their birth. A new pecking order is being established, and nothing in me wants to stop it.
The hangups prompt my mother to order Caller ID, and between that and Last-Call Callback we discover most of the calls are coming from the pay phone at the 7-Eleven about eight blocks away. One of Rich’s logging truck drivers must have quit, so Rich is driving until he can hire another, and the convenience store is directly on his route.
Rich is also making his presence felt in more subtle ways. One day there is a Marshall Logging plastic travel coffee cup on the sidewalk across the street from the house. Another day a double-bitted ax is stuck in a tree in our backyard, a blue hard hat left in the vacant lot behind our place. We know it’s him but have no proof. There are several hundred of the coffee cups strewn around town, remnants of a campaign ploy Rich used last year in a failed run for a city council position.
“He’s watching us,” Alicia says just after Dad pulls the ax from the tree trunk. “He’s letting me know he’s around.”
Dad puts the ax in the garage, then stands in front of Alicia, placing his hands on her shoulders. “Tell me you haven’t been communicating with him, Alicia.”
“I haven’t. Honest, Mr. Jones. Not once. Since I’ve been here, not once.”
“I’m going to trust that,” he says. “What do you think he’ll do?”
She looks away, a flash of desperation passing over her face. “Something bad,” she says. “Rich obeys the rules up to a point, then he doesn’t care. When he thinks somebody is taking something that’s his…See, he doesn’t really care about the kids. I’ve always known that. It’s when he thinks he’s losing me.” She nods toward me. “He thinks I’m…you know, because of Willis…When it gets bad, I don’t know what would stop him.”
Dad’s face goes hard. “I’ll stop him.”
I’d put my money on Dad.
Late that night the phone rings, followed by an extra loud hang-up. Ten minutes later it rings again. Ten minutes later, again. All from 7-Eleven. Dad tells Alicia to answer it, then he and I hop in my car for a quick run to the store, where we discover Rich’s pickup idling next to a row of three pay phones. We pull up on the far side of the building so we can watch him catty-cornered through the store windows. His pickup door opens, and he takes the few wobbly steps to the phone. It’s obvious he doesn’t know this state has an open-container law.
Like a cat, Dad is out of the car and at the door of the phone booth, his knee wedged against it to keep Rich trapped. He whacks the glass hard with his hand, and Rich turns with a start. “What the fuck?”
“Nobody’s home,” Dad yells through the door.
“Who the-Get the hell away from the door.”