Ironman

by Chris Crutcher

  Whooo! Hey, Lar, I wanna meet this Jim guy.

  Shelly said, “I think that saved me. I was devastated at losing basketball, but it was the first time an adult ever stood up for me. Jim and I went out for coffee to try to figure out my future. We decided it probably wouldn’t be much fun for me to play for Redmond, what with this much sewage under the bridge. The bigger problem was that he was out of foster placements for me, so my choices were to go home or back to Good Shep.

  “My dad was tired of paying the state for my room and board all over town, so he agreed to let me move into this little guest house out back and keep his goddamn hands off me and my mother off my back as much as he could. CPS sent me home mostly because everybody was just so worn down. I stayed in school out here because it was the only place I’d ever had any success.”

  “I take it the state never tried to bring the house down on Redmond.” I knew the answer, because Redmond is still up to his SOS.

  “Naw,” she said. “If Dr. Stevens had been here then, we would have gone for it, but Mr. Cox was just a better-dressed form of Redmond and I didn’t need those guys thinking of ways to make me mad enough to get kicked out. Jim signed me up for some martial-arts classes up at CFU and got me the phony ID so I could use the weight room. Actually it was Jim who came up with the idea of me being a Gladiator. That guy walked out to the edge for me. I owe him big.”

  I said I’d like to meet him someday.

  “He’s gone. They kicked him upstairs to Olympia. But I’ll never forget him.” She put her hand over mine. “So you see, Brew, Elvis was right. I am one of them, and you aren’t.”

  I smiled and said I’d work harder.

  “Anyway, it’s too late to make a long story short, but I told Mr. Nak about the kitchen and the TV, and about Redmond. I told him my feelings about my parents haven’t changed that much, so it could probably happen again.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “He said, ‘Not only can you join my git-together, little lady, you can be our poster girl. I ain’t never met anyone your size done in a whole kitchen, then had enough left to do in a giant television. I’m impressed.’” She said it in perfect Nakatanese.

  Then she said, “Does that scare you off?” and I said it didn’t. That was only partially true, because though it didn’t scare me off, it sure made me jumpy.

  I said, “What happens if I inadvertently tell a little lie?” and she said she would probably inadvertently kick my ass, so I told her I thought the new blouse she was wearing was ugly even though I’d said I liked it earlier.

  She laughed and said, “Truth is, Brew, I’m never going to hit anybody I care about. That’s the hell of my family—and it stops here.”

  I don’t know, Lar. I went home after I talked to Shelly and wondered how she could be this neat and have lived through the nightmare she described. And I thought about how guys like Redmond get their power. Where does it come from and how do you fight it? I’ll bet Mr. S has some ideas, and for sure Mr. Nak would. Tell you what, I don’t think I’ll be leaving Nak’s Pack anytime soon.

  One thing I’d like to achieve in my quest for Ironmanliness is some wisdom about the nature of justice. Any ideas, Lar?

  Ever your loyal fan,

  The Brewder

  CHAPTER 9

  “God, sometimes I just hate my dad,” Bo says. He sits in Gatto’s across the booth from Lionel Serbousek, waiting for their pepperoni-and-sausage pizza. They have come to organize training strategies for Yukon Jack’s.

  “I’d be careful of that if I were you,” Lion says.

  “You wouldn’t if you knew my dad.”

  “I don’t know your dad,” Lion says, “but I knew mine.”

  Bo is instantly embarrassed. Everyone knows Mr. S was orphaned at fourteen, when his family was killed in a freak boating accident across the state line on Lake Coeur d’Alene. Only Lion survived. “Oh, God, man, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”

  Lion lifts his hand in protest. “Don’t worry about it. I said it because my dad was a lot like yours. He liked control—needed it—and he was hard to deal with when he felt he was losing it.”

  “They sound like brothers.”

  “They do, don’t they?”

  “So what did you do about it?”

  “Argued a lot,” Lion says. “Tried to piss him off as much as possible.” He hesitates as their pizza number is called over the intercom, and Bo rises to retrieve it.

  “We were scrapping a bit that day on the boat,” he says when Bo returns. “Arguing about responsibility and fishing.”

  “You were arguing about fishing?”

  “Fishing demanded all the attributes my father believed led to an exemplary life,” Lion says. “It required intelligence and patience, and though there were no guarantees, one could certainly stack the deck in his favor by doing it right.” Lion has considered his story a thousand times, told it few. He believes Bo should hear it. “We’d been fishing from the boat near shore, under an overhang of bushes. I was beat from a night of screwing around with my friends and didn’t even want to be there. My little brother and Mom were up front, as far as they could get from Dad’s relentless instructions. The bait was up with them and I was too lazy to get it, so I baited my hook with berries from a bush hanging out over the boat.”

  “You were fishing with berries?” Bo laughs. “I don’t fish and even I know—”

  “Yeah, well,” Lion interrupts, “so did Dad. And don’t think he didn’t let me in on it. You know how your father palms the back of his neck when he’s getting close to the edge? Well, my dad would shake his head in this certain way. He’d grimace and look at the ground and then shake his head real slow.” Lion imitates memory. “Whenever I got on a self-improvement kick, I’d promise myself to reduce the number of times per day Dad did that.”

  Bo thinks of his own dad. “It didn’t work, did it? You didn’t reduce that number one bit.”

  “Not one bit,” Lion says with a smile. He sips his beer and places a slice of pizza on his plate. “His head shook in classic fashion while he watched me reel in those berries; fishing was just too important to my dad to be trivialized. He had to give me the long version of his responsibility speech before he’d even start the engine to head for deeper water. I called it his You Got to Think speech.”

  Bo nods. “The Someday When You’re My Age speech.”

  “I’m sure that’s it.”

  Bo feels oddly relieved that someone else knows this.

  “But you know something?” Lion says. “That speech isn’t completely wrong; it’s just badly delivered—and the timing’s off. The truth is, I did have to think; I did have to consider my actions more carefully. Not about fishing, necessarily, but about other things. And the world does look different when that someday comes and you’re older. It doesn’t necessarily look the way your dad thinks it will, but it’s certainly different. I think that speech could have helped if it had been given more gently—hadn’t had such weight attached.”

  Bo takes a long drink of ice water, having given up on sugary pops in the name of training, and half a slice of pizza disappears into his mouth. “I don’t know, Mr. S. You should hear my old man.”

  “I know, Bo, believe me I know. I’m just saying it doesn’t help to discard the good news with the bad.” He scoots his chair back and intertwines his fingers behind his thick neck, staring at the ceiling. “I thought I had time. I thought I had all of time. Now not a day goes by that I don’t want to talk with my dad, learn more of where I come from. I know we’d still fight, and there are issues we’d never agree on, but I just wasn’t ready for it to be over.”

  Lion leans forward on his elbows. “It was killer hot out there that day on the lake, easily over a hundred degrees. Neal Anderson, this kid I swam with in age group, was over at his parents’ summer cabin drinking beer with some of his buddies. He was fourteen, just like me. His mom and dad didn’t even know he was there—thought he’d gone to a matinee back in Spoka
ne to get out of the heat. After a couple of six-packs they got to yukkin’ it up and decided to take a quick spin on the skis.

  “I saw ’em coming, even thought I recognized the boat, a sleek yellow Sunrunner, one of the fastest ski boats on the lake. When I dream about it now, I see it as a thing of awful beauty, skipping like a bullet over the sun stars dancing on the glassy surface.”

  Bo sits fascinated, afraid to hear the rest.

  “I jumped,” Lion says, and shakes his head, teary-eyed. “I yelled and when they didn’t hear me, I jumped.” He sits back. “You know, Bo, there is a feeling, in that instant following some life-changing tragedy, that you can actually step back over that sliver of time and stop the horror from coming. But that feeling is a lie, because in the tiniest microminisecond after any event occurs, it is as safe in history as Julius Caesar. Data in the universal computer is backed up as it happens. That’s probably a good thing for me, too, because given a chance to think, I’d have stayed in the boat.”

  Bo stares at the edge of the table, speechless.

  “In the water I was already sorry for the bad things I’d done, all I hadn’t said, and most of what I had. After all our disagreements—no, fights—after all our fights, I just wanted my dad to approve of me.”

  “God, Mr. S…”

  “I’m not saying you should torment yourself about people you love dying tomorrow, but I think it’s smart to keep up to speed with those you consider important.”

  Bo munches pizza, considering. “You’re right, Mr. S. I know you are, and there are times when I ache to please my dad, but you should hear him sometimes. I mean, he’ll make up stories about people just to make his point. Hell, you should hear what he said about you.”

  “Everyone has their ugliness,” Lion says. “That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about relationship. I’m talking about looking past the current war to find out what you are to each other.” He pauses and shakes his head. “It isn’t simple, Bo. It should be, but it isn’t. It’s not about good guys and bad guys, or right and wrong. It’s something way more basic than those things. It’s about connection. I sit back and watch you now, and know that part of your struggle is developmental—that as an adolescent, you need to separate from your dad to establish who you are. I’m frustrated because I want you to learn from my experience, and I know that’s not going to happen. But it is developmental, Bo. It’s a time of life, a time of life that will change. I can only hope that you and your dad stay intact long enough to see it for what it is. I guess I’m just saying don’t burn all your bridges.” He pauses, lost in the flurry of his words. Then, “What did he say about me?”

  “Never mind, it—”

  “You don’t have to say it if you don’t want to, Bo, but I’m a big boy. I can take it.”

  Bo shifts nervously. “Well, we were fighting about Redmond, you know, about good guys and bad guys, and he said…” He pauses. “It was nothing.”

  “Say it.”

  “Well, he said you were…like…homo; you know, gay.”

  A faint smile crosses Lion’s lips, and he glances at the pizza.

  “I mean, I didn’t believe him. Shit, I mean, I don’t know why…”

  Lion remains silent as Bo is swept with a wave of realization. “Oh, God. Oh, no. Shit, Mr. S.”

  “What?”

  “Are you?”

  “Yes.”

  JANUARY 24

  Dear Larry,

  Had a great workout last night, Lar. Got home from pizza with Mr. S about seven-thirty, hitched up the dogs one at a time, and ran ’em five miles apiece. Then I went over to CFU and swam the last forty-five minutes of open lap swim and worked out on the StairMaster for thirty minutes. Then I lifted weights.

  I know I’m talking to the wrong talk-show dude if I’ve got a beef about this, Lar, but I don’t even know how to spell Lim-baa. My life is getting flat weird. This shit is strictly Geraldo.

  Mr. S is a homo. I mean, he’s gay. And that’s not just some name a guy calls somebody to get his goat. He sleeps with a man. I mean, he doesn’t sleep with him, necessarily; he has sex with him.

  I’m sitting there in the pizza place with him last night trying to tell him what a peckerhead my dad can be, how he makes up stories about people he doesn’t like, and I tell Mr. S Dad said he had a limp wrist. To which I expect Mr. S to laugh and say “sticks and stones” or something, but he just looks at me and I get all tongue-tied, just like I’m pen-tied writing this to you, and he tells me it’s no lie.

  Well, I stuff down half a pizza about as fast as a guy can eat without a couple of Heimlich adjustments, and tell him I got a load of homework and I’ll see him later. He says, “Instead of running off and turning your imagination into a three-ring circus, why don’t you stay and talk about this?”

  Like the dumb shit I truly am, I say, “Talk about what?”

  Mr. S laughs and says, “Oh, I don’t know, whatever pops into your head.” Then he says, “About me being gay.”

  So after I try about fifteen false starts, he says, “Why don’t you just ask me what you want to know?” and I come up with, “So are you coming out of the closet or what? How come you told me?”

  He says, “There’s no closet, Bo. I told you because you asked. I’m not an activist—my sexual preference is only a part of who I am. It’s just that after my family was killed, I swore I would never again lie about anything important to anyone important.”

  “You mean everyone knows? Does your swimming team know?”

  “They’ve never asked,” he said. “You’re the first in quite a while, actually. It doesn’t come up much.”

  This felt so crazy I had to push, Lar. I said, “So what if they knew? I mean, what do you think they’d do?”

  “Whatever they had to,” he said. “Bo, I didn’t choose to be attracted to men, that’s just the way it is. I chose to deal with it. Anyone who has a problem with that will have to do the same.”

  I knew he meant me, Lar, and I’ve heard you say something pretty close to that on your show, but I ignored it. “So how do you think my dad knew?”

  “Your dad wouldn’t know me if he walked through that door right now. I would guess Redmond said something.”

  “Jesus, Redmond knows?”

  “He doesn’t know, but he’s guessed. He knows I have a male roommate, and he met Jack at a faculty Christmas party a couple of years ago. Keith doesn’t like me any better than he likes you, so I would guess he has a gala time with it in my absence.”

  Now I hate to say it, Lar, because it sounds just like the guys who call you, and I know your bigot-basher nose must be twitching like a geiger counter at Los Alamos, waiting for me to write the comment that lets you know what kind of narrow-minded, hateful scum I am, but I don’t think I’m a bigot. Hey, I’ve been in Mr. Nak’s group awhile now, hearing people tell the most bizarre stories as if they’re giving the weather report, and I’m even starting to like that style. I mean, Elvis tells us his dad got the bullet his mom committed suicide with for a Christmas present and that his sister is going to charge his dad with child molestation; Shelly talks about being beaten by her dad and double-crossed by Redmond; Hudgie doesn’t really tell us anything, but he plays out the horrors of his life like they were a cereal commercial. But Mr. S dropped a bomb and there’s just no other way to say it, and I don’t think anyone—bigoted or not—should be expected to receive it over a pizza and go on as if the world hadn’t just tilted on its axis.

  What am I going to tell my dad? He’ll say if I could be tricked about that, what else am I being tricked about? Then he’ll tell me again how careful I should be. I mean, I don’t think there’s any danger, because I certainly have never felt anything like, you know, sexual, coming from Mr. S, but I can’t help wondering if it means anything about me that he likes me. I stood up for Mr. S against my dad, and now I’ll eat shit. And I’ll tell you what, I don’t know how I’m going to face Mr. S the next time I see him. I can’t tell anybody
because I don’t want to get a bunch of rumors started, so I guess I’ll have to figure it out for myself. This whole thing pisses me off. Why can’t Mr. S just be normal? I need a normal guy to go up against guys like Redmond and my dad. Some Stotan, huh?

  Gotta go, Lar. None of this is helping me focus on my training.

  Sincerely drowning,

  Bo Blub-Blub

  CHAPTER 10

  FEBRUARY 4

  Dear Larry,

  Here’s a true story you can use on the air some time for filler. My little brother, Jordan, has always thought Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote the “I Have a Dream” speech specifically for him, because they have the same birthday, and from Jordan’s first, he’d toddle into the living room to the strains of King’s passionate voice as presented on the “Today” show.

  From the time Jordan could walk, at about ten months, both my folks had a terrible time getting him down for a nap. Mom gave up trying, so by the time he was one and a half he spent naptime at our house on his bed playing with his toys or babbling or screaming. Mom said there was no reason for him to sleep if he didn’t want to, but Dad had this idea that a nap was about the most important thing a kid could learn to take, so when Jordan stayed at his house, Dad put him down right after lunch to take the same goddamn nap Dad always took, the one I woke him up from when I slammed the door.

  The freedom he enjoyed at our place wasn’t easily relinquished at Dad’s, and keeping him down for any length of time became a tougher and tougher challenge. And this kid did it right, Lar. He was noncompliant from day one, and he didn’t scare. Dad couldn’t admit his nap theory was full of holes, especially to my mother, but to save face and his blood pressure, he decided he had read somewhere that a kid needed forced daytime sleep only until his third birthday and he would back off immediately after that event, but not one day before. Mom knew he’d never read any such thing unless it was in a pre-Hitler German child-care manual, but it was almost Christmas when he said it, and she figured it wouldn’t hurt Jordan to put up with this silliness for just another month. She kept telling Jordan it was like what the monkey said when they cut off his tail: “It won’t be long now.”