Twenty-One Mile Swim Page 7

  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.”

  Mary nodded. “Yeah. That’s okay.”

  “See you all later,” he said.

  He thought he sounded a little bitter. But maybe they hadn’t noticed it. He couldn’t explain what had come over him. He just didn’t care about going swimming today. That was it. Period.

  He ran all the way to the ball park some two miles away and sat through nine innings of a game that had both exciting and dull moments. It was between the Lions Blue Sox and the Moose Barons. The Lions won, five to one. By the time he got back home he was ready for dinner, just as if he had burned up a lot of energy and it needed replenishment.

  He didn’t go swimming the next day either, or the next. And each day he didn’t go made the thought of swimming less and less desirable. He had never dreamed that he would see the day when swimming would get to him, but that’s what had happened.

  He cut down on his exercises, too. But not much. He enjoyed fooling with the barbells. He could exercise with them anytime, day or night, and they kept him in shape.

  But swim the twenty-one-mile long Oshawna Lake? He had second thoughts about it now. Now, the year he had planned to swim it, he was having second thoughts!

  It was the continuous grind that had gotten to him. The grueling daily exercises. The almost daily swims, even if they were only during the summer.

  The rewards? What rewards?

  Maybe the feat would créât a lot of excitement for a while. But once that excitement died down, who would remember the swim except him and his family? Eventually his family, too, would forget it. Only he would remember it.

  Heck, he had a right to change his mind, didn’t he? It was his mind. He was older now. He knew better.

  Twenty-one miles. Crazy.

  Aunt Liza was outwardly pleased when one day in early September Yolanda told her that Joey had second thoughts now about swimming Oshawna Lake.

  “Second thoughts?” she echoed. “You mean he has changed his mind?”

  “I think so, Aunt Liza.”

  “Is that right, Joey? You are not going to swim the lake?”

  He was watching an old John Wayne movie on television. He didn’t want to go into a lot of explanation about what had gone on in his mind, because he was a little confused about what he really intended to do in the future, anyway. But he had to be honest with her, so he said, “I don’t know for sure, Aunt Liza. But it isn’t because I’m afraid to try it. It isn’t that.”

  “No matter what it is, Joey, I’m just glad you are not going to swim it. Twenty-one-miles! Isten! Only a crazy person would want to swim a lake that long!”

  “That’s what I’ve begun to think, too, Aunt Liza,” he confessed.

  “If you’re not afraid to try it,” Yolanda cut in, “what is your reason for quitting?”

  He didn’t like the word quitting. He di
dn’t like the sound of it. It was like calling him a coward, and he was no coward.

  “I got tired of it,” he said irritably. “I got to thinking that I’ve wasted two full summers doing nothing else but exercising and swimming. I’m not getting ready for the Olympics, you know.”

  “I thought that swimming the length of Oshawna Lake was almost like that for you,” said Yolanda, her voice noticeably quieter.

  “Maybe it was, at first. But no more. It’s nothing. It’s just a big, long lake sitting there. It’s been there for thousands of years, and it’ll be there for thousands more. Not me. I’ll be here for a short while, then pssssst! I’ll be gone. So who’d give a good darn if I swam it, or if anybody else swam it?”

  “But you had a reason to swim it,” she said firmly.

  “Not anymore.”

  “You wanted to prove to people —”

  “Not anymore.”

  “And to yourself —”

  “Cool it, Yo,” he snapped. “I don’t want to prove anything anymore to anybody.”

  “You’ve chickened out.”

  “Yo!” he cried, staring at her.

  “Okay,” she said, raising her hands, palms outward. “Okay. I won’t say another word.”

  THE THIRD YEAR

  1

  HARDLY ANYTHING more was said by any body in the family — including Aunt Liza — during the late fall and winter about Joey’s change in attitude concerning his swimming the length of Oshawna Lake. There were plenty of things going on at school that kept him occupied — football, wrestling matches, basketball — sports he didn’t participate in but attended competitions. But he roller skated when there were roller-skating parties, joined the chess club, and became an avid reader of war stories.

  He kept exercising because it gave him one thing he was especially proud of: a well-developed, healthy body. He’d like to keep it that way if he could without working his tail off as he had done during the previous two years.

  The new school had been finished late in the summer, in time for the students to start in the fall. It was a big, sprawling, red-brick structure that covered acres of land. It had a new football field and around it a track where meets with the various schools in the district were to be held. There were also a new baseball diamond and a tennis court. All it seemed to lack in the way of sports facilities was a swimming pool.

  Joey’s father was still working at the same old place and still griping about his foreman. He hadn’t looked for another job during the winter. Most of the time the weather was too lousy to drive to work in, let alone drive around seeking a new job. He hadn’t given up, though. He had promised his wife that much. He’d be damned if he’d spend the rest of his life working for that fat-bellied so-and-so. The word he used in Hungarian was funnier, Joey thought, than the English equivalent he used sometimes.

  Joey went out for track and was encouraged by the track coach, Bill Harris, to concentrate on sprints. When the first competition came around in April, he entered the one-hundred and two-twenty yarders and came out third in both.

  Meanwhile he kept running three miles each day, except Saturday and Sunday, and one day Coach Harris pulled him aside and said he’d like Joey to run the mile and the two miles at their next meet.

  Joey agreed. On the day of the meet, he entered the mile and two-mile events and came out first in both.

  His picture was in the Gatewood Courier the following day, with an article about him accompanying it.

  Little Joey Vass, participating for the first time on Gatewood High’s track team, has proven to many experts that size and stature are no detriments when it comes to running track meets.

  This is his first year on Coach Bill Harris’s team, and although he came in third in the one-hundred and two-twenty yard meets, his performance in the mile and two-mile events deserves praise. He won both events, the first time that a single runner from Gate-wood has ever done so in its track history.

  It seems that Little Joey Vass has found his niche.

  There it was, thought Joey. ‘Little Joey Vass.’ The allusion to his size again. Would it ever end? Perhaps not. It had never ended for his father; it might never end for him, either.

  Paula called him on the telephone that same evening that his picture and the article appeared in the paper.

  “Hey, man, you’re a celebrity!” she said. “Beautiful!”

  “Thanks, Paula.”

  “I didn’t know you liked track.”

  “Well, I had never thought about it. Not until this year, anyway.”

  “I hope it’s not going to stop you from swimming altogether.”

  “It won’t.”

  She knew. She had known about it since last fall. Yolanda had told her after Paula had wondered why she hadn’t seen Joey in the water much anymore, even on some of those hot days in the fall.

  “Okay. See you at school, Joey,” she said.

  “Thanks for calling.”

  On Sunday afternoon, he got a phone call that hardly went on for three seconds before he recognized the speaker’s voice. It belonged to Ross Cato.

  “Hi, Peewee. How you doing?”

  “Okay. What are you doing here? Aren’t you in college?”

  “Yes. But my father had a stroke, so I came home for a few days.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” said Joey.

  “Thanks. But he’ll be okay. Hey, great publicity you raked up, man. Nice going. But you sure surprised me.”

  “Why?”

  “I didn’t know you were in track.”

  “This is my first year,” explained Joey.

  “So I read. And doing darn well in it, too. Hey, this is the year, isn’t it?”

  Joey frowned at the wall picture he was looking at. “The year?”

  “Yes. The year of the long swim.”

  He didn’t know, Joey thought. No one, not even Paula, had told him that he had changed his mind about swimming the lake.

  “Oh,” said Joey. He made a sound like a laugh.

  “You haven’t chickened out, have you?”

  “Me?” That stupid sound came out of his mouth again. “Well —”

  “Well what?”

  “Just well, that’s all.”

  Ross laughed.

  “You mean you’re thinking of forgetting the whole thing? Hey, man, you’re not worried that a small guy might not be able to make it, are you? I heard you were a regular pint-sized dynamo.”

  Joey’s hand tightened on the receiver. He hadn’t thought about the swim for weeks. He didn’t believe Ross was still teasing him because he was short.

  “Size has nothing to do with it,” he said, his throat tightening.

  “Don’t tell me you really have chickened out,” said Ross. “Why don’t you admit it? You know what? I suspected all along that you would.”

  Joey squirmed. He felt sweat come to the palm of his hand, sticking it to the receiver.

  “I’ve got to go, Ross,” he said, feeling himself losing control.

  “Hey, Joey, wait a minute.”

  Sweat beaded his upper lip, tickled it, and he wiped it off.

  “Yeah?”

  “Look, I’m sorry. Don’t get mad. I didn’t mean to insult you. Really, I think what you’ve already done took a lot of guts.”

  Joey frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Paula told me about those practice swims you made last summer. Five miles, seven, even up to fifteen miles, just doing that should be a feather in your cap.”

  Is he pulling my leg, or is he serious? Joey wondered.

  “Thanks, Ross,” he said.

  “Take care.”

  “You too.”

  He heard the phone hang up on the other end, and hung up, too.

  You’ve chickened out, Ross’s words echoed in his mind. Why don’t you admit it?

  Joey closed his fists and cursed Ross up and down for talking to him like that.

  The hell with you, Ross! he said bitterly to himself. The hell with you!


  2

  THAT VERY NEXT EVENING he began to get serious about training again, multiplying the time he had spent on the back press, the half-knee bends, the sit-ups, the leg stretching exercises, because he had cut down on them all. It was May, and the water was still too cold to go in swimming, so he jogged on the road, running two miles one way, two miles back. The next day he would increase the distance to three miles one way, three miles back.

  He worked on the bench in his room, lying on it and taking long, freestyle strokes as he would do were he swimming in the water.

  His family became aware that he was back into full training again, and let him go without trying to discourage him. They hadn’t tried to before; they weren’t going to now.

  As a matter of fact, his sisters and brother seemed more enthusiastic about his ambition now than they were before. Gabor would come into his room and watch him exercise, something that previously seemed to have no appeal to him whatever. Now the kid, ten years old on his last birthday, had become so interested he began to do the same exercises Joey did, though for fewer repetitions.

  “I thought sure you had given up the idea of swimming the lake for good,” Yolanda said to him one day. “You seemed very depressed.”

  “I guess I was,” he admitted.

  “What made you change your mind?”

  He thought for a moment.

  “That handsome Adonis, Ross Cato,” he confessed.

  “Him? How could he —?” She was staring at him, wide-eyed.

  Joey grinned. “It’s hard to believe, isn’t it? But I owe my change of mind to him, my nemesis.”

  “Nemesis?” She looked at him puzzledly.

  “Oh, never mind,” he said.

  She smiled. “I think I know. Paula. Right?”

  He shrugged.

  “She have something to do with your change of mind, too?”