Twenty-One Mile Swim (8 page)

Then he stood there, breathing tiredly, until he was sure nothing more was coming up, and walked weakly up on shore.

The cheers and applause had stopped. His mother ran up to him, an anxious look on her face. “Joey!” she cried, grabbing him
by an arm. “Do you still feel like vomiting?”

“No. I feel better, Mom,” he said. “I just want to sit down.”

He started for the deck near the shanty and saw Gabor and Paula, and a man who looked vaguely familiar, quickly coming toward
him. Yolanda and Mary were docking the boat.

The man put an arm around Joey’s waist and helped him to the deck.

“Here. Rest yourself,” he said. “You’ll be okay.”

Suddenly Joey remembered where he had seen the sun-bleached hair, the tanned face, and the rugged physique before. The man
was Sam Harvey, Merton High’s swimming coach.

Obviously Paula had told him about Joey’s wanting to swim the lake. Did he come to give me pointers? Joey wondered.

“Good swim, Joey,” Paula said, beaming at him. “You did stop on the other side, didn’t you?”

“No.”

She stared at him, surprised. “You didn’t?”

“No,” Mary piped up. She and Yolanda had docked the boat and had come to join the small crowd. “He just turned around and
swam back. And you know what? He swam almost as fast coming back as he did going across.”

“Marvelous!”

Joey tried to hide his embarrassment over Paula’s outcry. Anyone might think he had just done the impossible.

“Joey, this is Coach Sam Harvey,” Paula said, after her initial excitement had died down. “He’s swimming coach at Merton High.”

“Yes, I remember seeing him at the meet,” said Joey. “Hi, Coach. I’m glad to meet you.”

“I’m glad to meet you, too, Joey,” said the coach as they shook hands. “Congratulations.
That was a good swim. Especially since you didn’t stop for a rest on the other side.”

‘Thank you.”

“What did you have to eat before you started, by the way?”

Joey thought a minute.

“I baked for you
palacsinta
” his mother reminded him, smiling. “Don’t you remember?”

“Oh, that’s right,” he said. “That’s something like pancakes, Coach Harvey. This is my mother.”

They exchanged greetings and shook hands. “That might be why you got sick, Joey,” said the coach. “Those pancakes could be
very tasty, but you’d better lay off them before a long swim.”

“I thought it wouldn’t hurt if you got some pointers from a real professional,” Paula cut in, her eyes intently on his.

Joey smiled. “I guess I can use all the pointers I can get,” he said.

“From what you’ve just demonstrated, I think you’ve already learned a lot of them,” said Coach Harvey.

“Thank you, sir.”

“You exercise every day?”

“Yes, I do. I use barbells, and do isometrics and isotonic exercises, too.”

The coach grinned amiably. “Fine. Was this
the first time you’ve swum across the lake and back?”

“Yes.”

“Start from the south end the next time. Swim about seven miles and increase that by about a couple of miles each day. Watch
for cramps. Do you know what to do in case you’re caught with one in a calf, for example?”

“Pull up on my toes and massage the calf at the same time,” replied Joey, remembering what he had read about half cramps and
other cramps that afflicted the various muscles in the legs, ankles, and arches.

“Sounds like you’ve done your homework, young fella,” observed Coach Harvey, smiling.

“A lot of it, anyway,” said Joey.

“You know about the rest periods? They’re most important on long swims. Take them, whether you think you need them or not.
They’ll relax your muscles, keep them from getting cramps, and keep you from getting tired too quickly.”

“He rested only once coming back,” said Mary.

“I really wasn’t that tired,” confessed Joey.

“There’s the point,” said Coach Harvey. “Don’t wait for the tiredness, or the fatigue, to hit you first. Rest, swim a distance,
rest again.
You don’t have to rest very long. Thirty seconds is enough.” He looked at Joey’s arms, shoulders, waist, thighs, and legs.
“You’ve really built yourself up a strong, terrific body, son. Know what? I wish I had you on my swim team. I think you’ve
got the makings of a champion.”

Joey smiled modestly. That was the greatest compliment ever paid him. “Thanks, sir,” he said. “Thanks very much.”

“Save it until you’ve finished that swim,” said the coach. “Taking any vitamins?”

“No.”

“Start taking vitamins C and B, about two tablets of each a day, after meals. Lake water tends to be cold most of the time,
and one thing swimmers must guard against is colds. Vitamin C will help keep colds away. Vitamin B helps in various areas,
especially against headaches and indigestion that can happen after spending a lot of time in the water.”

“That’s good to know,” said Joey, deeply appreciative of the coach’s help. If he had come across anything about vitamins in
the books he had read, he couldn’t remember it.

“But, getting down to the nitty-gritty,” said the coach, “probably the two most important things to know about, and put into
your daily routine, are exercise and diet. Include orange
juice for breakfast, but lay off anything that’ll lay solid in your stomach, like pancakes. Save that
palacsinta
for the evening meal.” He smiled. “Cereal is good. Orange juice again for lunch, with meat, vegetables, and fruit. Meat again
for the evening meal — for its protein, you know — with salad, peas, and beans.”

He paused, and looked at Joey with an amused glint in his gray eyes. “You know, even the most famous swimmers got to the point
when they hated to train. But it’s that self-discipline and drive that puts the men above the boys, Joey. You train right,
and you’ll find that your goal will be easier to get to than you think.”

“Thanks, Coach,” said Joey.

IT WASN’T until eight days later that he was able to try another long swim in the lake. Bad weather — it either rained hard
or the water was too rough — had been against him.

That morning, just before ten, he followed Coach Harvey’s suggestion and rode to the south end of the lake in the boat to
begin his swim from there. Yolanda and Paula accompanied him. During the ride, Paula explained why she had brought Coach Harvey
to meet him that day over a week ago. Neither one had seen each other since then.

“I met him during the Saturday morning swim meets,” she said. “Ross introduced me to him.”

“I figured that,” he said.

She smiled. “Look, we’re just good friends, Ross and I. His parents and mine have known each other for years. His father and
mine work at the same place. They’re both engineers. They come over to our place, my parents go to theirs.”

“You go with them?”

“Sometimes. While our parents play cards and have a few drinks, Ross and I listen to records.”

“Must be fun.”

“Oh — it’s okay.”

“I bet,” he said.

He stopped the boat about fifty feet from the farthest end of the lake, keeping away from the sea weeds that were choking
up that area.

“Okay, take over, Yo,” he said to his sister. A moment later, he dove into the water. It was cold, but it always felt worse
when he first entered. After a few minutes, as he started to take long, powerful strokes through the water, his body became
acclimated to the temperature, and soon he thought no more of it.

He saw Yolanda pulling the boat up to his left side and slightly behind him, and there she maintained it at a slow, steady
speed.

Thoughts of the talk with Coach Sam Harvey went again through his mind. He had started to follow part of the coach’s recommendations
the
very next morning when he had added the vitamins to his breakfast and resisted the tempting rolls of
palacsintas
that had been left from the day before. Why did Mom always have to make so many that there had to be leftovers? Even
they
were delicious!

Sometime later he took a brief rest — about thirty seconds — then went on.

“We’ve just come opposite the red barn on the hill,” said Yolanda after a while.

“Okay!” he acknowledged.

The red barn. He and his father had drawn a map and clocked the distances between various landmarks a few days ago. The red
barn was exactly three and a half miles from the south end of the lake.

He swam on, still feeling no aches or pains, not even a tiredness creeping into his bones.

“We’re opposite the gabled house,” advised Yolanda.

Five and a half miles. Moving along — slowly, surely.

After a half-hour more in the water, his legs and arms were getting to feel like lead. There were muscles in his shoulders
that were beginning to cry out with pain — muscles he hadn’t known he had. His chest was beginning to tell him things, too.
Put them altogether, and he got
the all too inevitable answer: he was near the stopping point.

How far had he swum? How many miles? What was the next landmark? Right now he was so tired he couldn’t remember where it was.

“Okay!” he cried, his arms and legs unable to function another second. “I’m stopping! Right here!”

Yolanda quickly pulled the boat up beside him and reversed the engine to bring the craft to practically a dead stop. Joey
grabbed the aluminum ladder that hung over the side, then took Paula’s extended hand and climbed aboard.

“Man, I’m tired,” he said, collapsing into a seat in the stern.

“You shouldn’t tire yourself so, you dummy,” scolded Paula. “What do you want to do — hurt yourself and
not
be able to make that long swim?”

His chest rose and fell as he inhaled and exhaled heavily. He closed his eyes and felt his head spinning.

I hope I don’t get sick, he thought.

He didn’t.

He opened his eyes and looked at the sprawling hill of brown and green fields to his right.

“Where are we?” he asked. “Did I pass another landmark?”

Yolanda glanced up from the sheet of paper she was holding.

“Twin white silos,” she said. “Where are they?”

“There!” Paula pointed ahead. “Up there next to those trees!”

Joey saw them and tried to remember what the distance was from the south end of the lake to the silos. Before his memory could
focus on the mileage, Yolanda exclaimed proudly, “Ten miles! You’ve almost swum ten miles, brother!”

Joey couldn’t believe it. Yet there was the proof. The silos.

“More like nine,” he said. “I’d have to go another mile before I’d be opposite those silos.”

“So what’s another mile?” said Paula, smiling. “So you’ve swum nine! That’s not bad, man!”

Joey grinned, pride dancing in his eyes. “No, I guess it isn’t. That’s not bad at all.”

Four days later, on a Friday almost as calm a day as last Tuesday, he swam to a point just beyond another landmark, a white
stone building visible for miles. It was fifteen miles, and it was late afternoon when a cramp in the calf of his left leg
forced him to stop. It felt like the jab of a sharp instrument, and he started to do as he had learned if that situation arose.
He pulled up
on his toes with one hand and rubbed his calf vigorously with the other. The cramp disappeared, but he was tired all over.
Every muscle in his body seemed to ache, as if each of them had gone beyond the straining point.

But reaching the fifteen-mile landmark wasn’t bad. It was a six-mile gain over the other day.

How many guys had ever swum fifteen miles? He was sure that Ross Cato hadn’t. But Ross was a sprinter, a short-distance swimmer.
It wouldn’t be fair to compare Ross with himself.

He was making progress on the goal he had set out for himself. That’s all he wanted: to conquer the whole twenty-one mile
lake at one shot. Suddenly he’d be famous. Sixteen-Year-Old Kid Swims Twenty-one-Mile-Long Oshawna Lake. His picture would
be in the papers. Maybe the feat would even attract national attention. Maybe TV cameras would be there when he walked up
on shore at the end of his swim, and the next morning his celebrated swim would be described on the “Today Show” and the “Good
Morning Show.” Maybe he’d even be asked to appear in person on one of the shows. Look at Steve Cauthen, the jockey who was
only eighteen when he rode a triple-crown winner. Look at all the national publicity he collected.

Television would be the best exposure, be
cause people could see how small he was and how remarkably great he was in spite of his stature.

His family would be proud of him. Especially his father, who was a small guy, too, and had had his nose rubbed into crud by
his tall, fat-bellied boss because of it. His father hadn’t quit his job yet, but that was because he hadn’t been able to
find another one that paid more, or even as much. The way inflation had risen, he couldn’t afford to get another job at a
cut in pay.

Joey knew that his parents were putting a little money into a savings account every week, but he didn’t know how much. He
didn’t care. The money was earmarked for a college education for each of the kids, and the occasional out-of-state trip for
his mother and father.

Then came a day in August when he felt as if he suddenly were two separate persons. A part of him wanted to go swimming, the
other part didn’t. The part that didn’t — won.

It was an ideal day for swimming, too; the water temperature was about seventy-five degrees. But the desire seemed to have
been drained out of him.

“What’s the matter?” Yolanda asked, sur
prised. She was already in her swimsuit, and Mary and Gabor were in theirs, too, ready to plunge in. But Joey had made no
move to change.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I just don’t care about going in today,” he said.

His sisters stared at him as if they couldn’t believe their ears.

“It’s perfect weather for it,” said Mary. “And the water’s great. You sick or something?”

“No. I feel okay. I just don’t want to go in. I want a break. I think I’ll take in a ball game for a change. I haven’t seen
a baseball game all summer. Okay?”

Yolanda shrugged. “Sure. That’s okay.”