“Shut the hell up!” yells Dave, throwing the covers off of himself. He’s on the other side of the room, in his bed, an erection pointing practically straight up to the ceiling. “What the hell are you so happy about, Anchor?”
“You’ve been having a wet dream?” I say, laughing, and pointing to his erection. I take a little half-deflated basketball that’s been lying around the room and toss it over. Of course, it lands right on his dick.
“Don’t mess around,” says Dave. “I’m hung over as shit. What the hell happened last night? Did we have a party or something?”
“There’s no time for that right now, Dave. Listen, I made the Olympics!”
“Are you serious?” says Dave, the shock on his face making him look a little more awake. He sits bolt upright in bed, facing me. “Are you sure?”
“I just got the call a minute ago. I just hung up with the guy… I’m going to be on the Olympic training team this coming summer, after graduation.”
Dave’s face calms down for a moment. “Listen, Anchor, that’s really great. But remember last time? You thought you were on the team because the scout came to the meet and talked to you or something. It turns out he was just being friendly…”
“No, really, Dave. This is for real.”
“What did he say exactly?”
“He said they wanted me on the training team. Then he said something about needing to make sure my form was improved for the scout that’s coming to another meet. I forget which one.”
“You see? Dude, I’m happy for you. But you’re always misinterpreting things.”
“Why you got to be like that?” I say, getting angry. I can feel the anger boiling up inside me.
“Be like what?” says Dave, hopping out of bed. His erection is gone. He’s looking hung over and mean, ready to fight. I wonder if he remembers our fight last night. Something else happened last night, but I can’t remember what it was. Some kind of prank. I wish I could place it, because I’m sure it was hilarious, whatever it was we got up to.
Dave suddenly trips, going flying across the room.
Fortunately for him, he lands right on my bed next to me, bouncing a little on the cheap mattress.
“What the hell is that?” I say, bursting out laughing, as I look down at the floor to see what it is that Dave tripped over.
“Oh shit, dude,” says Dave. “That’s the statue! The statue of what’s-his-name. He was some kind of campus founder or something. Remember we stole it last night?”
“Oh yeah! Now I remember” I start laughing uncontrollably, doubling over with laughter. It’s the statue all right, lying face down on the floor, lengthwise. It’s the whole thing, looking like it’s about ten feet long. The bottom of it is completely sawn in half, somewhat crudely. I’ve got no idea how we did that. It would have taken hours of sawing that thing, and, anyway, what kind of saw would cut through stone like that?
“How did we even get that thing inside here, and up all those stairs?” says Dave.
“No idea,” I say, still laughing.
Dave’s not laughing though. His face is stony. “Shit, Anchor. We’re going to get in a lot of trouble for this.”
I’m not too worried. Maybe I should be, but I’m just not that kind of guy. “It’ll be fine,” I say, with a wave of my hand. “How are they going to find it in my room?”
“What about Spellman? He’s always on our case.”
“Shit…” Spellman is essentially the resident snitch, the resident swimmer goody-two-shoes who doesn’t seem to have anything better to do than to rat on the rest of us for having a good time. “We’ll just have to make sure he doesn’t see it. Shouldn’t be that hard, right? Just don’t let him in our room. Don’t keep the door open.”
“It’s a good thing we don’t have morning practice today,” says Dave, looking at the clock on the wall.
“But that reminds me,” I say, shaking my head a bit, trying to shake out some of the hangover. “We’ve got class right now.”
“You’re right,” says Dave, getting up, and looking at himself in the mirror for a moment, before deciding he looks just fine, hangover hairstyle and all.
“Let’s get going,” I say, grabbing my keys, and changing my t-shirt quickly.
I open the door to our room a few inches, trying to see if anyone is out in the hallway. I don’t want someone passing by to see the statue we’ve stolen. Spellman has a way of finding out everything, but as long as we don’t let the news get out at all, we should be fine.
Dave is behind me, standing on a pile of crushed beer cans. “Is the coast clear?”
“Looks good,” I say, opening the door a little more.
The hallway seems deserted as I step into it. Dave is behind me in the doorway, in the middle of pulling the door closed behind him.
“Anchor, you bastard!” yells someone, a high pitch feminine voice, coming out of seemingly nowhere.
I spin around, causing confusion, looking for the woman speaking. I knock into Dave a bit, and he falls down, crashing down into the heap of empty beer cans.
“Asshole,” yells Dave, as he goes down.
Now I see her. It’s another senior. I don’t think she’s on the swim team since I don’t recognize her face, although something about her does seem a little familiar.
“Another fan, eh?” I say, looking at her. She’s quite cute, or even hot. She’s stacked, with a nice set on her. She’s not wearing much, although it looks like she’s slept in the few clothes that she does have on. “You been partying with one of the swim boys all night, and wanted to come pay your tributes to the team captain?”
“You’re such an asshole, Anchor,” she says, puckering up her lips, and spitting a big gob of spit right in my face.
I wipe it off slowly. Somehow, I’m not mad. There’s little a woman that hot can do to make me really mad.
“I didn’t know my reputation was preceding me so much,” I say, making a fake little bow to the woman.
“You don’t remember any of it, do you?”
“Remember what?”
“You really don’t have any idea who I am? I didn’t think you were that drunk.”
“I wasn’t. I’m barely hung over right now,” I say, shaking my head and growling a little, to demonstrate the top physical condition that I’m in at the moment.
“We slept together last night, asshole,” she says, her eyebrows practically reaching her hairline, and her eyes burning with anger.
“Nice,” I say, looking at her carefully up and down, soaking her body in.
“Gross,” she says, catching my look.
Dave is finally to his feet, his hair tousled again, and a beer can somehow stuck to his shirt.
“Nice,” says Dave, poking me in the ribs and eyeing the woman, up and down just like I did.
“Pigs,” says the woman, giving Dave and I a nasty look together. “You don’t remember how you made me help you carry that statue up into your room before we fucked?”
I shake my head. “I wouldn’t mention that…” I start to say, lowering my voice.
“What?” says the woman, raising her voice. She seems to understand that I don’t want anyone to know about the statue. And she wants revenge. This isn’t a good combination. “You say that you stole a famous campus statue, Anchor? You stole a statue?”
A few swimmers are walking down the hall.
“What’s this about a statue, Anchor?” says one of them.
To my horror it’s Spellman himself. He already has a superior look plastered across his face.
“Nothing,” I say. “Nothing to see here, Spellman. Don’t want to be late to class, you know?”
“He stole the Friedman statue,” says the chick, the one who I apparently slept with. I’m not so pleased now with my decision. She’s a real peace of work. What, just because I slept with her and don’t remember her name—why is that enough to make her so mad she wants to rat me out to Spel
lman, the biggest rat of them all?
“Well, well, well,” says Spellman, licking his lips, and pushing his way past Dave to look into our room. He’s gotten a look before I can stop him. “That’s the statue all right. What were you thinking, Anchor? Coach is going to love this one.”
“We got a little drunk,” I say. “What’s the big deal? We’ll put it back.”
“It’s sawed in half. There’s no way it’s going back on.”
“Why you got to be such a dick, Spellman?” I say.
“Why do you think you can break all the rules you want without consequences, Anchor?” says Spellman, a shit-eating grin on his face.
I give him a shove in the chest, but he’s no pipsqueak. No one on the swim team is, really. He stands his ground, and we look at each other eye to eye. I want to fight him, and my blood is getting hot, basically about to boil over. But if we fight now… I don’t want to screw up my chances for the Olympics. I’ve got to hold it together. I don’t know how much longer I can hold out, though, with this piece of shit rat staring me in the face, with that smug look of infuriating fake superiority.
“Let’s get out of here, Anchor,” says Dave, pulling me as hard as he can, and closing our door behind him.
He drags me down the hallway, away from Spellman.
“There’s nothing we can do now, man,” says Dave.
The woman’s cackle follows us down the hall, through the doors to the outside. I can hear it running through my head. Why’s she so pissed at me? Just because I can’t remember her name?
4
Allison
I take a deep breath before walking into the swimming building. I’ve never once covered a sports story on campus, and I’m surprised to find myself nervous. I’ve always considered myself the epitome of the cool, calm, collected reporter. I don’t exactly know why I’m nervous, but it has something to do with my hatred for jocks of all types. How have I let myself be tricked into doing this? I know Beaumont means the best, but I’m not sure I’m the right girl for the job.
The pool building is huge and very new, one of the newest and nicest buildings on campus. I make a mental note to investigate exactly how much money the campus has poured into the pool.
Even though I’m just in the hallway, which is filled with huge trophy cases (which I find rather off-putting and presumptuous), that chlorine smell hits me hard. I feel sick to my stomach now, and it’s not just the nerves.
How can the swimmers stand this smell? No wonder they all seem so stupid. The chlorine must be affecting their brains, having completely saturated every cell in their bodies, down to their bones.
I knock on the door to the coach’s office.
“Come in,” says a gruff voice.
A bald grumpy looking man sits behind the desk. He looks like the typical athlete completely gone to seed, with a big belly that stretches his maroon polo shirt to its very limits.
“Tryouts were months ago,” he says, his voice deep and a little rusty, like he’s not used to talking to people. He’s probably more accustomed to barking out commands at the swim team.
“I’m not interested in trying out for the swim team,” I say. This should be obvious, since we’re already well into the school year.
He gives me a look without speaking, but it’s clear he’s trying to say, “Well, get lost then.”
“I’m Allison Benching. I’m the editor and chief of the school paper, and I’m…”
“Never heard of you,” says the coach.
“Yes, well I’m…”
He cuts me off again. “Why don’t you ever run stories about the swim team?”
“Well, as I was about to say,” I say, trying to keep the tone of my voice even, as I feel the frustration building up inside of me. I would have thought the coach would at least have been a little more reasonable than the actual swim team members, but he seems like he’s just another idiot jock, bitter about having gone to seed. I take a deep breath, pausing before continuing, “I’m interested in running an in-depth story on the swim team. It’s going to be a big article, on the front page. A number of my stories have been picked up by national papers, and with the emphasis that the college puts on swimming, I have no doubt that the same might happen with this story.”
“About time,” says the coach.
“Sorry, what was your name again?” I say, extending my hand.
He looks at my hand for a moment, as if he’s trying to decide whether he really wants to shake it or not. Finally, he takes it, and gives me a powerful squeeze and a shake. “Coach Smith.”
“Nice to meet you,” I say. “I wanted to meet with you first to, well, first of all, to get your permission.”
“Fine with me,” he says. “They’re having morning practice right now. You can go watch them in the pool. You ever been to a swim meet?”
I shake my head, while wondering what the coach is doing in his office during a practice session.
“Jesus Christ,” he says. “There’s no one on the paper who knows anything about swimming? You know anything about sports at all? Track and field? Anything?”
“I’ve never been that into sports,” I say.
“Great,” he says in a huff, crossing his arms across his chest, resting them on the top of his heaving belly. I catch a glimpse of a mass of hair sneaking its way through the opening on his polo shirt that unfortunately has all three buttons undone. The emblem of his shirt is a man diving into the water, surrounded by the college’s crest, which I always thought looked ridiculous.
“Look,” I say. “I’m the only one interested in doing the article. None of the other reporters are into sports either. They’re all nerds just like me. But swimming is important to the college, and I want to do a big expose piece on the swim team. It could have a lot of good effects on the whole organization.”
His face softens a bit as I say this.
“You can watch the practice from the balcony. Take the stairs left of the locker room doors.” His voice is still gruff and commanding, but I can see that he’s thinking a little better of me now. It isn’t hard to see, after all, that I’m not your typical student. I’m more serious, more dedicated, and more professional.
I thank him, and walk back into the hallway, and go up the stairs to the balcony.
I sit down in the bleachers. No one else is here, but I have a great view of the swim practice below.
I’m already bored, after just a minute.
First of all, I can barely think, because the whole place reeks of chlorine. I thought it would be better up here in the balcony, which is a separate section, a whole floor above the pool, but it’s even worse up here. It’s hot and humid, and the chlorine is everywhere. My clothes will probably stink of it later.
There’s a short stocky bald man, who seems to be the assistant coach. He’s standing in front of a blackboard and barking commands at the swimmers, who can’t possibly hear him, since they’re practically completely submerged in the water.
I’m actually not such a bad swimmer myself. I took swimming lessons all through middle school, and spent most of my summer days at the pool with my family. I know all the strokes, of course, and I’m actually quite good at some of them. Freestyle has never been my strongest, although I have to say that my breaststroke technique is nearly flawless.
The swimmers are doing butterfly drills right now, and the pool is full of noises and splashes, as they flop their way through the water. I’ve always thought that butterfly is one of the silliest strokes, and I still can’t understand why it’s considered one of the four competitive strokes.
As much as I like swimming myself, I’m bored stiff. I can’t even garner any interest in the male bodies that are basically naked, except for a little pieces of fabric covering their junk. They’re certainly muscular and fit, but they’re definitely not my type, not even physically. There’s just something too gross and athletic about them for me. And, to top it off, I know they can’t
keep up with me intellectually.
Finally, after a few torturous minutes, the short assistant coach barks out some commands and the swimmers return to the side of the pool, holding on to the side, or treading water.
The coach is wearing these ridiculously short red shorts, exposing an intense amount of leg hair.
“All right, all right,” he’s barking for no reason at all, it seems.
He’s in the middle of pointing at some messy diagram on the blackboard, when he suddenly spins around and yells at the top of his lungs, “Where the hell is Anchor?”
“Dunno,” say the swimmers nearly in unison, shrugging their shoulders.
“That asshole thinks he’s too good for morning practice, is that it?”
“Sorry, I’m late,” says someone coming into view, walking across the deck. He’s another swimmer, dressed in the same swim briefs as everyone else, but he’s completely dry. He’s just arriving.
“Where the hell were you, Spellman? Do you know where Anchor is?”
“I just came from talking to coach,” says the guy named Spellman, putting down his towel and getting ready to get into the pool. He’s wearing a smug look on his face, and for some reason I already know I don’t like him one bit. I think I hate him even more than your average jock. There’s something especially sleazy and self-serving about him, and it’s so strong it comes right through to his physical appearance.
“Dave’s not here either,” yells one of the swimmers in the pool.
“Damnit all to hell,” yells the assistant coach, stomping his foot hard against the tiled deck, looking a bit like some cartoon character.
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