Twenty-One Mile Swim Read online

  A tall, gangling man came from the house, wearing gray overalls and a battered straw hat. “Hi, ya,” he greeted. “You the gent who called about the boat?”

  “I am,” said Joey’s father.

  “Well, there’s the boat,” said the man. “It’s all set to go. It’s five years old, but it runs like a top. You’ll be very satisfied with it, I guarantee.”

  “May I ask you a question, please?” asked Joey’s father.

  “Why, sure.” The man’s sun-browned, leathery face broke into a smile.

  “Why do you want to sell a nice boat like that?”

  “Why? Because the doctor told me I’d better quit fishing and hunting if I want to keep enjoying a longer life, that’s why. I had a stroke, you see. I’m lucky to be alive.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “So am I. But that’s the way the ball bounces.”

  Joey’s father didn’t dicker over the price of the boat. The man filled out the registration papers, signed a bill of sale, and took the check.

  “You don’t have a hitch, do you?” he observed. “Well, I can take the boat to your place right now — follow you there, if you want me to — or do it first thing in the morning.”

  “Right now will be fine, if you have the time,” said Joey’s father.

  “I have plenty of time. Give me a few minutes.”

  “Sure,” said Joey’s father.

  As the man tramped up the path toward the tall, two-and-a-half-story house. Joey’s father turned and faced his wife and children.

  “I feel guilty,” he said.

  “Why?” said his wife. “You paid him what he asked for, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. But I came out here wanting to demand he lower his price. I didn’t know he was sick, or else —”

  “But you didn’t do it, édes. You had respect for him, I — I admire you for that.”

  He smiled. “It is a fair price, I’m sure.”

  Joey clutched his hand, squeezed it affectionately. “You’re okay, Dad,” he said, feeling his throat tightening up. “You’re really okay.”

  His father, still smiling, returned the squeeze.

  2

  A WIND made the lake choppy the following evening, but Joey’s father was intent on going fishing anyway. There were a couple of bays on the east shore where the water was well protected. As long as the wind was blowing from the east, the water there would be virtually smooth. They took their raincoats, however, just in case.

  His father’s guess was right about the conditions, as he and Joey discovered when they arrived there. It was about ten past six. The air was warm, the sky a mass of slow-moving gray clouds that seemed to be working up into a giant lather.

  “It looks as if we’re going to have a storm, Dad,” observed Joey, casting out his line. It whirred loudly as it spun off the reel.

  “It’s hard to tell,” said his father. “Maybe it will blow away and not touch us.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Joey felt a tug on his line, yanked the rod, knew he had something, and started to reel it in.

  “Got one, Dad!” he said.

  “Good boy.”

  He soon hauled in a jackperch. Not long after that, drops of rain began to fall as dark clouds began to swirl over their heads. The wind had picked up perceptibly, too.

  “We better head for home,” said Joey’s father. “Reel in your line, Joey.”

  They both reeled in their lines, lay the rods down on the floor, and put on their raincoats. Then Joey lifted up the only fish they had caught and placed it beside the rods.

  His father started the engine, and they headed for home. By the time they had the boat safely upon on shore and the engine and prop up, the rain was coming down in torrents.

  “You’ve gotten pretty strong over the winter months,” said Joey’s father, ignoring the rain that battered his hat and shoulders. “I saw how you pulled up the boat.”

  “I exercise every day, Dad,” said Joey.

  “You still think you want to swim the lake?”

  “’Course, I do.”

  His father shook his head, “Sometimes I think it is all right, but sometimes I think it isn’t.”

  “Why? I’m going to have a boat go alongside me. Ours. Yolanda can drive it. That okay with you, Dad?”

  “Sure, but I don’t know, Joey. It could be dangerous, that long swim.”

  “I tell you, Dad, there’s nothing to worry about. I’ve looked into it very thoroughly. And as soon as the water warms up, I’m going to start swimming again.”

  Joey got the fish. “Shall I clean it before I take it up to the house?”

  “Better. What the hell, you can’t get any wetter. And it’s better to put the fish into the freezer cleaned than not cleaned.”

  “Right.”

  The expression on his father’s face changed. Something different entered the mild, friendly eyes. “I bet you wished that the people had voted for a swimming pool in the new school, didn’t you? “he said.

  “Sometimes I have,” Joey admitted.

  “But you understand why I was against it, don’t you? Why most of the people voted against it?”

  “Oh, sure. Because it cost too much.”

  “Yes. That would have meant a higher tax. Four hundred thousand dollars is an awful lot of money for a swimming pool.”

  “I know, Dad.”

  “Well, I thought you did. Okay, clean your fish.”

  He turned and went on to the steps while Joey got the knife out of the tackle box, stepped up onto the dock, and proceeded to clean the fish. His father had surprised him by bringing up the subject of the swimming pool. Joey guessed that his father knew that if there had been a swimming pool built in the almost completed new school, Joey would have been able to swim there nearly every day instead of in the lake where he could swim only when the water was warm enough. A daily swim would be the perfect solution in training for the long twenty-one-mile swim.

  He’s thinking of me, thought Joey. That’s the important thing.

  Joey was in his room the following afternoon, doing his exercises with the barbells, when a knock sounded on the door.

  “Joey, it’s me,” said a familiar voice. “Are you decent?”

  “I’m decent, Aunt Liza,” he said, recognizing her voice. He made a sour face, but then tried to look pleasant as she entered the room.

  Under most circumstances he didn’t mind his aunt’s coming to the house for a visit; his mother and father were the only people she knew with whom she could speak Hungarian. But he was sure that her wanting to see him while he was exercising meant something uncomfortable was about to come up.

  He was doing sit-ups when she entered.

  “Hello, Joey,” she greeted him.

  “Hello, Aunt Liza.”

  He kept exercising as if she weren’t there.

  “Joey, can I talk to you a minute?”

  He stopped. “Sure. You want to sit down?”

  “Thank you.” She sat down on his chair.

  “Didn’t you work today?” he asked.

  “Yes. But I quit early. I had a dentist appointment.”

  “You’ve been there already?”

  “Yes. Joey, should I talk to you in English instead of Hungarian?”

  “I don’t care. But I can understand English better. What are you going to talk to me about? That swim I’m going to do?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, Aunt Liza,” he said impatiently. “I’m going to do it, no matter what you say. I’ve got to do it, don’t you understand? I’ve got to swim that lake, Aunt Liza.”

  “If you do, you will make me very unhappy, Joey. I will worry for you every minute. And your mother will worry for you. And your father, too.”

  “They both know I’m going through with it, Aunt Liza,” he said. “And they aren’t worried, not anywhere as much as you seem to think. I’m not going to swim the Atlantic Ocean, Aunt Liza. It’s just going to be Oshawna Lake, and I’m going to have a boat
alongside of me every minute of the time. There’s nothing to be worried about. Nothing.”

  “You don’t know how my Janos died, do you?”

  “I know he drowned,” said Joey.

  “Yes, he drowned. And he was a good swimmer, did you know that? He was a very fine swimmer, Janos was.”

  “Dad told me,” said Joey.

  “He drowned in four feet of water,” said his aunt. “Did he tell you that, too?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “When — when he was pulled out of the water —” Her voice broke, and she reached into her purse for a handkerchief and touched it to the tears that came to her eyes.

  “Aunt Liza, you don’t have to tell me anymore about Janos,” said Joey. “I know how you feel about him.”

  “I — I don’t want you to risk your life, too,” she stammered, and blew her nose. “You want your mother and father to go through the pains and heartaches I and your uncle went through? They will never get over it. Never.”

  “If I don’t swim that lake, Aunt Liza, then I’ll feel that —” He paused, not knowing how to continue. Why say more to her? No matter what he said, she would still insist he was crazy to attempt swimming Oshawna Lake.

  “I can’t understand why,” she went on, looking at him as if suddenly she had seen a new and different side of him. “Why do you think you have to swim that lake? My God! Yolanda said it is twenty-one miles long. Twenty-one miles! Did you know that there were many swimmers who tried to swim across the English Channel and could not? And the English Channel is almost the same distance.”

  “But you can’t compare the English Channel with Oshawna Lake,” Joey said.

  “Why not?”

  “The English Channel is controlled by tides and winds. It moves a lot faster than Oshawna Lake because it flows into the North Sea. And it’s a lot colder. It hardly gets above sixty degrees even during the hottest months of the year. Oshawna gets up into the seventies, and sometimes eighties. It’s been recorded at eighty-one. It has an outlet, too, but the water flows so slowly you’d hardly notice it. You just can’t compare the two, Aunt Liza.”

  She stared at him. “You have read a lot about it, haven’t you?”

  “Yes, I have.”

  “What’s the difference? Why is it so important to you? You want to break a world record or something, is that it? You want to risk your life to get your name in that book — what is the name of it? Guinness?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Well? Is that it? You want your name in that book?”

  “No, Aunt Liza. I don’t want my name in that book. But, you’re right, in a way. I want to prove something.”

  “Oh. Now it is beginning to come out. Okay, so what is it you want to prove?”

  “That I can do something a lot of other people can’t,” he confessed. “That just because I’m small doesn’t mean I’m a nothing.”

  “And who says you’re a nothing?”

  “Nobody. But there are people who call me Peewee, and Shorty, and Shortjob, and Squirt, and make remarks about my height. It bothers me, and I want to do something about it.”

  She looked at him as if she were trying to see into his mind. Slowly she shook her head. “Joey no matter what you will do, there will always be people who will call you such names. A tall, skinny man they will call Slim. Sometimes they will call him Fatso. A man with a big belly they will call Fatso. Sometimes they will call him Slim. You know what they call your Uncle Janos at his job? Hunky. Because he is Hungarian. Some people just do not care about calling other people by their real names. It is much easier to say Slim, or Fatso, or Hunky. You know what I mean?”

  He nodded. “Yes, Aunt Liza,” he said. “But after I swim that lake, it just won’t be the same.”

  “You’re wrong, Joey.”

  “Okay. I’m wrong. But I’m still going to swim it.”

  She got off the chair. “I hope you change your mind before that day comes.”

  He smiled. “I doubt that I will, Aunt Liza.”

  She smiled back. “You’re a little devil,” she said.

  “See?” he said. “You called me little.”

  “I know.” She grinned impishly at him and left the room.

  3

  FOR SEVERAL DAYS during the middle of May, the sun beat down like a flaming torch. It warmed up the surface of the lake enough for Joey and his brother and sisters to go out for their first swim of the year. Joey, an adept freestyle swimmer by now, swam out almost a hundred yards; then he found that the water had cooled several degrees. But the feel of it, and the realization that each day from now on meant better and warmer weather, thrilled him. He frolicked about like a young colt let out to pasture after having been cooped up in a stall all winter. He laughed and yelled, and waved to Yolanda to swim out to him. She started to, came out about halfway, then turned and swam back.

  Oh, wow! He thought. For a while there I really thought she was going to!

  He was glad she didn’t. It might’ve been too far for her. He was at least a hundred yards out now, treading water, and feeling the real coldness of it on his thighs and legs. He felt great.

  He started to swim back in toward shore when the sound of a powerboat reached his ears. He looked around and saw the boat approaching toward him, waves spouting from either side of its bow like white wings. He caught a glimpse of a water skier behind it.

  He hadn’t swum more than fifty feet when the boat started to sweep behind him, and a voice shouted, “Joeeeey!”

  He stopped swimming and looked back. A grin came over his face as he recognized Ross Cato behind the wheel of the boat, Paula at the stern, and Cindy on the skis.

  “Hi!” he yelled, waving back.

  Cindy removed a hand from the short stick she was hanging onto and waved to him.

  Joey tried not to let Paula’s being with Ross bother him. After all, Cindy was with them, too. It didn’t mean anything.

  He continued to swim back to shore, but before he got there, he saw that Ross had swung the boat around in a wide circle and was coming in to shore ahead of him. Ross cut the engine, and Cindy, sweeping in on her skis behind the boat, slowed down quickly and sank to her thighs in the water.

  After an exchange of greetings, Paula asked Joey if he’d care to try water skiing.

  “Sure,” he said willingly.

  “Okay. Put on that preserver,” said Paula.

  He put it on, then secured his feet to the skis, listened to Cindy’s and Paula’s chorus of suggestions, and took off behind Ross’s expert piloting of the boat. He didn’t make it up on the skis on the first two tries, but on the third try he was up on them and stayed up for over two minutes before Ross’s slow turn, which forced him to ride the waves that the boat subsequently created, made him lose his balance and fall.

  He managed to get on the skis again and rode for a few more minutes before Ross headed back for shore. This time Yolanda tried her skill at it, succeeding after a few attempts, and finally Mary tried it.

  Joey, standing next to Cindy and Yolanda, watched as his younger sister got up, fell, got up again, and fell again.

  “She won’t make it,” said Joey.

  “She will, too,” said Yolanda.

  She did make it. But for only a few seconds. She went down, both skis going into an X under her. Ross quickly cut down the power and swung the boat around.

  “I think she’s hurt,” Yolanda said anxiously.

  “Oh, no!” Cindy moaned.

  Joey watched, his heart pounding. His first thought was what his mother would say. “It’s the last time,” that’s what she’d say. “The last time you get on water skis.”

  And Aunt Liza? “I told you!” she’d cry. “That lake is dangerous! She was lucky she didn’t get killed!”

  “They’re both lifting her into the boat,” Yolanda said breathlessly. “Oh, dear, I hope she’s not hurt bad.”

  “Maybe she’s not hurt at all,” said Joey. “Maybe she’s just tired.�
��

  That’s what he hoped, but he suspected the worse. Both Ross and Paula were tending to her, as if trying to make her comfortable. Then Ross got back behind the wheel and maneuvered the craft so that Paula could pick the skis out of the water. In a moment they were speeding in toward shore.

  “Oh, man,” said Joey nervously. “Why did we let her try it? She’s too young.”

  “She isn’t too young,” countered Yolanda. “I’ve seen lots of kids her age water skiing. It’s just her luck.”

  “And ours,” added Joey.

  He and Yolanda ran up on the dock, waited for the boat to come up alongside it, and grabbed it. Ross shut the engine off and secured the boat to cleats fore and aft.

  Joey saw blood oozing from a small cut on the side of Mary’s head as she stepped out of the boat.

  “Your head’s bleeding,” said Joey, worriedly, helping her out.

  “Never mind. I’m okay.”

  “Are you hurt anywhere else?” asked Yolanda.

  “No!” she snapped. “I told you I’m okay!”

  “Just the same you’d better get up to the house and have that taken care of,” Joey advised.

  “I’m sorry about this,” cried Paula, her face pale as paper. “Oh, I’m so sorry about this.”

  “It’s not your fault,” said Ross. “Quit moaning, will you?”

  “But I was the one who asked her if she wanted to ski.”

  “And she said yes. So what? It could happen to anybody.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Paula,” said Joey. “She’ll be all right.”

  Yolanda removed the life preserver from Mary, then took her sister’s hand, and started to lead her hurriedly off the dock and toward the steps.

  “I’m going with her,” said Paula.

  “You don’t have to,” Joey told her. “It’s just a cut. A bandage will take care of it.”

  “But your mother will blame me,” exclaimed Paula, stepping out of the boat. “I know she will.”

  “No, she won’t.”

  “Let her go,” declared Ross, irritably. “You’re not going to change her mind.”

  Joey watched her run off the dock and catch up to the girls.