We get the call back from Benson within five minutes. Simet answers, listens, hands me the phone. “He was out shoveling the walk,” Simet says.

I say, “Hey, Coach, what’s up?”

“I hear you’re knockin’ ’em dead over there. We’re all real proud of you.”

I say thanks.

“Just the two hundred left?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Can you win it?”

“Maybe if a kid named Ray Roscoe drowns in warm-ups. He’s got Olympic trial times in the two and four hundred.”

“Where’s he from?”

“Wilson High. In Tacoma.”

Benson is quiet a moment. Then, “They’re no threat. Anyone there from Seattle Heights?”

“Two guys. Pretty good swimmers. I qualified a tenth of a second ahead of one and about a second behind the other.”

“That’s a problem.”

“I was just swimming to qualify,” I tell him. “I’m closer than that.”

“They took us in a couple wrestling matches we should have won at their state meet yesterday. I’ve made the calculations, and I believe if you take them both, we’ll go into spring in first place.”

“Make you a deal.”

He laughs. “Shoot.”

“I beat both Seattle Heights swimmers, you vote for our letter requirements.”

Silence. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“What you can do is raise your hand when the yes vote is called.” I glance at Simet, who’s shaking his head as if in warning.

Benson says, “T. J., you’re not threatening to throw the two hundred, are you?”

“Did I ever tell you who my favorite baseball player of all time is?”

He doesn’t answer.

“Shoeless Joe Jackson.”

“Let me speak with your coach.”

I hand the cell phone to Simet. Mott gives me thumbs up.

Chris Coughlin says, “They gots a baseball player with no shoes?”

“Shoeless Joe,” I say. “Sometimes he didn’t wear shoes.”

“And sometimes,” Dan Hole says, “he compromised his love of the game for his own personal, which is to say financial, gain.”

“Yes, he did,” I say.

Icko glances at Dan as if to say, “The season isn’t over yet, my pearly-mouthed friend,” and Dan smiles.

Simet listens into the cell phone, glances at me, then at the rest of the team. “Coach, that’ll never hold up. You waited until we were gone.” Pause. “Maybe that’s true, but there was no hurry.” He listens another moment, then says, “I’ll think about it, Coach, but I can’t promise.” Then, “Okay, I won’t promise.”

He waits, holds the phone away from his ear, grimacing at Benson’s tirade.

“Coach, that may or may not be a good coaching technique, but it doesn’t work with peers, okay?” Pause. “Well, maybe not in your eyes, but technically I am your peer. Listen, why don’t you let us take care of business here and you have your weekend. There have to be some good games on.” Pause. “Yeah, sure, we’ll keep you informed.”

He flips the phone shut, gazes into our faces. “Coach Benson told me not to tell you this until after the meet; I said I’d think about it.” He puts a finger to his temple and glances toward the heavens. “There. I’ve thought about it. They held an Athletic Council meeting Friday.”

“Lemme guess,” Tay-Roy says. “They voted on our letter requirements.”

Simet’s eyebrows arch. “That’s cowardly,” he says. “I was gone, and Janet Lindstrom voted with Benson and Roundtree.” He slams his fist into his hands. “I could have talked them into it. Damn it! Don’t worry, guys, this isn’t over.”

I am pissed. This is exactly the reason I’ve never turned out for anything; they always have to have it their way. They seem to listen, but in the end they make the rules and to hell with the people who have to follow them. They have no respect for what we did, no respect for what we created out of thin air.

We’re deflated. We are eight laps from the end of our season and have met every goal we set.

“This isn’t over, guys,” Coach says again. “They can’t set the letter requirements, they only have right of refusal. I’ll get us what I can.”

That doesn’t wipe the look of dejection off most of my teammates’ faces. Mott isn’t dejected at all. He’s pissed. I’m with him.

“I don’t know whether this helps,” Simet says, “but there’s one thing they can never take from us, and that’s this time. As a young man I coached swimmers on their way to the Olympic trials. I’ve coached championship teams at all levels, but I have never coached a team with the guts this team has. When I’m looking back on my coaching career, this is the team I’ll be proudest of.”

He means it-we know it, feel it-and it still feels like hell. For everyone here but me, and possibly Tay-Roy, this is the way it always is. Do your best and get the crumbs.

I grab my tank suit, and we start for the door, when the sounds of sobbing turn us around. Jackie Craig sits in the captain’s chair behind the driver’s seat, his body convulsing.

Chris Coughlin watches him with anxiety you can almost feel. Icko walks over and puts a hand on Jackie’s forearm. Mott says, “Hey, man, them fuckin’ jackets are ugly anyway.”

Jackie gasps for air, convulses again, shaking his head.

“Naw, really,” Mott says, “they are.”

“It’s not the jackets,” Jackie says, doubling his word count for the season. “It’s…”

We wait while he works to catch his breath.

“It’s…I don’t know what I’m going to do when this is over. I never belonged to…anything. I was never on a team, never chosen for…” He stops, breathes again. “When I got on this team, I couldn’t believe it. I kept wondering when you guys were going to find me out and make me leave. The reason I haven’t said anything all year was so you wouldn’t notice me. I didn’t want to bump anything, you know? It’s like when there’s a mean dog, you just stand there and hope he doesn’t see.” He closes his eyes and shakes his head from side to side. “What happens when this is over? God, what am I gonna do?”

Icko grips Jackie’s shoulder. “You’re gonna do whatever you have to do to keep this alive,” he says. “We ain’t a mean dog. Right now, you’re gonna get up and help T. J. swim this race. Then we’re gonna order some hella pizza, as you guys say, an’ have us a goddamn victory party.”

“Hell,” Mott says, “none of us could swim worth a shit. We’ll find somethin’ else we can’t do worth a shit an’ turn out for that in the spring. Wanna coach a rugby team, sir? Then, hell, come summer, maybe we’ll turn out for Little League.”

Because I qualified fourth in the two hundred, I don’t have an inside lane, but I kept myself out of fifth and sixth spots, so I’ll still be close enough to see the leaders.

Warm-up feels good, my stroke powerful. This is it. I’m planning the race as I swim, accelerating into my turns and coming out of them as if on a sling.

Ray Roscoe warms up two lanes over, and we’re gliding through the water stroke for stroke. For a brief second I wonder-if everything goes just right, could I take him?

The guys line up low on the bleachers, waving their towels in support. Apart from Tay-Roy, they look wounded, once again handed second-class citizenship. I hate Benson; I hate Barbour. Those assholes set us up-man, they have to have it all-and all of a sudden I have new resolve for this race.

The starter calls us to the blocks-“Swimmers, take your marks.” The starting gun pops and I am stretched out over the water, surging with the adrenaline my fury creates.