Stotan! Read online

  He started to protest, but I said, “Just promise you’ll stay here, okay? You won’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

  He sank back on the bed and I took his silence as agreement. On the way out, I stopped and asked Mom to please just leave Nortie alone—he was upset, but he was okay. She absent-mindedly said fine and went back to work on her cutwork pillowcases. Then I phoned Elaine and asked if she’d come up and sit down the block in her car and make sure Nortie didn’t leave, because it was not lost on me what he’d said about his brother. And no, I didn’t know he had a brother who killed himself. None of us did.

  I hopped in my car and headed for the east side, wondering what I was going to say to whichever childcare worker had walked back into the activity room to find her coworker gone, two kids wounded and one finely organized science experiment shattered on the floor. Maybe Stotan Week had come early.

  The room didn’t look as bad as I had imagined. The experiment—whatever it was—was cleaned up and Maybelle had things back under complete control. Jamie the Spitter sat in one corner stretched out in a metal chair, arms folded, staring at his shoes. One side of his face was red and it looked like he might have a mark for a few days. Kathy Scarpelli, whoever she was, was sufficiently recovered to be integrated back into the group and wasn’t visibly identifiable. I knew from Nortie’s story that she was black, but the group is about a fifty-fifty mix.

  I stood in the door and motioned to Maybelle to come over. She was moving about the room as if nothing had happened. When she saw me at the door, she smiled politely and said, “Yes, can I help you?”

  I asked if I could talk with her a second.

  “Sure, honey,” she said, “just a minute.” She turned back to the group. “I’m going to be right outside the door for a few minutes. Go on with what you’re doing, and if you have a problem, just wait or go on to something else until I get back.” She looked at Jamie. “The door will be open, so don’t get anything started.”

  Jamie jammed his chin further into his chest and glared a hole in his shoes.

  I identified myself as a friend of Nortie’s and she remembered me from the time I came down to watch him.

  “Where is he?” she asked.

  “He’s at my place. He thinks he just jettisoned his career as a molder of young minds.”

  She looked concerned. “I wish he’d stayed. Running was the worst thing. He left my babies alone.” Her eyes went to the ceiling. “Poor Nortie, he must feel a fool.”

  “At best,” I said. “He thinks he’s a child-abuser.”

  Maybelle passed that off. “We’re gonna have some trouble with Mr. Crawford,” she said. “He can be a bad, bad man when he gets a little drink in him. An’ usually what he gets is a lot of drink in him. He’ll come over here all righteous and nasty, talkin’ about how nobody can touch his kid but him. Then he’ll take Jamie home and beat hell out of him.” She shook her head. “Ain’t it a world.”

  “Should introduce him to Nortie’s dad,” I said. “They could compare war stories.”

  “Listen, honey,” she said. “You get Norton back over here. I don’t know exactly how we can repair this, but I know we can’t do it with him hid out in your bedroom. You get him over here, hear?”

  I said I’d do my best and thanked her. What a feeling that woman has about her. What a big, powerful, wonderful woman.

  When I got back, I saw Elaine’s car parked down the block, so I stopped and told her I’d bring her up to date as soon as I checked on Nortie. She was worried, but willing to wait when I said I thought it would be best if she didn’t come in just yet. When I got up to my room, though, Nortie was gone; he must have left before she got there. A note on my pillow said: “Thanks, Walk. I’ve got it back together and I know what I have to do.” My heart stopped until I read on: “Don’t worry. I’m not my brother. And please don’t tell anyone else about him.”

  I was a little worried because I figured what he “had to do” would more than likely be self-destructive, given his condition at last sight; but I did trust the little maniac not to off himself. There was no way to guess where he’d gone, so I went out and invited Elaine in to bring her up to date and give her a cup of hot chocolate.

  CHAPTER 6

  December 16

  The Eve of Stotan Week

  Nortie quit his job over at the East Side Childcare Center. I probably passed him on my way back to my place. He never did see Maybelle face to face or she might have been able to talk him out of it; he just left a note stuck between the door jamb and the knob that said there was no room in that business for guys who lose it. He even sent his last check back—told them to keep it and buy something for the Center. As far as Nortie is concerned, his days of helping kids find their other mitten and ordering Weekly Reader are over before they started. That breaks my heart; Nortie will be lost without it. And I don’t know what he’s going to do about Milika—that’s his girlfriend. She works over there too, and he hasn’t seen her since the day he quit. She doesn’t go to Frost, so he doesn’t run into her at school, and even though she’s called, she can’t seem to get hold of him. She called me a couple of times, trying to locate him, but when I give him the message, he just nods. I think he’s too embarrassed. If he doesn’t do something about it pretty soon, I’m going to kidnap his young butt and drag him over to see her. He really seems to like her a lot and it must be tearing him up to stay away. That’s the dangerous part of Nortie: he keeps everything in and lets it eat out his insides. His relationship with Milika is one that has a strike or two against it from the get-go anyway. Milika’s black, and Nortie’s dad is hardly a Freedom Rider. I have a feeling if he ever found out, he’d be cutting eye holes in his bed-sheets and going out late at night. Milika’s dad has the same enlightened views, only in reverse, so Milika would be in the same deep, murky, brown sludge as Nortie if he found out. You talk about clandestine: Nortie and Milika have gone on dates to some of the most obscure places in the Northwest, just to keep anyone from seeing them and telling either of their dads. Sometimes you have to wonder who are the kids and who are the adults. Anyway, I’d hate to see this incident at the daycare mess up their relationship, so if Nortie doesn’t do something about it soon, the Great White Captain will have to intervene.

  None of us had much trouble talking our parents into letting us spend Stotan Week at Lion’s, since it doesn’t really affect the Christmas holiday itself. Nortie was really the only one in question, just because his dad is so unpredictable; sometimes he won’t let him do things so he can show he has the power, and sometimes he acts like he just doesn’t care. Actually, it was harder to get Nortie to come around than it was his dad. He has this illusion that he needs to be around to protect his mother from his dad, and he gets real nervous when he’s away for very long. “He just doesn’t beat on her as much when I’m around,” Nortie said.

  “I know, Nortie,” I said. “He beats on you.”

  Nortie nodded and said he guessed that was right.

  “Jesus, Nortie, you’re the family decoy. You get beat up because your mom won’t just get up and leave him. That’s not fair.”

  “Fair” had never occurred to him. “It’s not that easy,” he said. “It’s not that easy to just walk out on somebody you’ve been married to for twenty-five years.”

  He was starting to sound defensive and I was feeling myself getting ready to preach, so I backed off. “You’re right,” I said. “It’s probably not that easy.”

  Anyway, I was able to talk him into coming to Lion’s for Stotan Week, which, by the way, is upon us. We borrowed Elaine’s dad’s pickup last Friday and loaded up some mattresses to keep us off the hard floor and to separate us, by at least a few inches, from the exotic plant and animal life that I’m sure is evolving there. Over the weekend we’ve been pretty cocky about how much of Max’s stuff we can take, but I notice things are fairly quiet around here tonight. We’re just lying around waiting for D-Day. We’re making it look good, thou
gh. Jeff is reading up on world events like he doesn’t have a care in the world. He’s got a Time and a Newsweek and a U.S. News & World Report and something called the Christian Science Monitor. He’ll read an article in one, then dig through the others to find which ones carry a report on that same event. He reads them all, then gives us the Hawkins’ Digest version. Lion, on the other hand, is making no bones about being totally focused on Stotan Week, which is why he’s lying on his bed hyperventilating. He wants to go in ready. With any luck, he’ll pass out from too much oxygen and stop that awful noise for a while. He sounds like a pile-driver.

  Nortie’s looking a little grim—probably knows that when his dad finds out about what happened at the daycare center, he’ll consider it an offense punishable by much physical violence—so I’m keeping him close. I did notice just after we got here he had to go to the can and a couple of seconds after he closed the door I heard the seat belt click, so he’s regaining his sense of humor to some degree. That’s certainly preferable to the first few days after he quit the daycare—and got a call from Jamie Crawford’s dad. Boy, Old Man Crawford raked him over the coals; even threatened a lawsuit. I figure there ought to be a class-action countersuit on behalf of the world against the Crawfords for letting that little turd live three hours past birth.

  Elaine and a couple of her friends plan to come over on Tuesday to make us a decent meal, should we live past Monday. Meanwhile we’ll be eating what Jeff assures us is Nature’s Perfect Food—peanut-butter and scrambled-egg sandwiches on toasted bread. He swears they’re better than they sound.

  They sound like hell.

  We do have some sense of what Stotan Week will be like because we’ve been through a few of Max’s “Zen” workouts—where everybody gets going so fast and hard that the workout takes on a life of its own. Some of those workouts have gone an hour or more past quitting time, but we were riding so high—and hurting so bad—we didn’t even notice. I doubt any of these days will be as easy as the toughest of those. As Max said, he has something he wants us to prove to ourselves. I won’t be proving anything if I don’t quit thinking about it and get some shut-eye.

  MONDAY EVENING

  Oh, Lordy, Lordy, Lordy, save me! If I could lift my arms, I’d take up a collection for an automatic weapon and hunt Herb Elliot down like a dirty dog. Max blew even Lion away today. Lion’s back over on his bed staring at the ceiling, hyperventilating, but for a different reason. He’s trying to get enough oxygen back into his body to get up and go to the bathroom. He’ll need the seat belt now just to hold him on.

  Max is playing this straight out of Bridge over the River Kwai. He showed up with his old Airborne cap and a battery-powered megaphone, lined us up in front of the bulletin board at 8:00 straight up and laid out the rules, which were fairly simple. “Gentlemen,” he said. “As I’m sure you know by now, a Stotan is a cross between a Stoic and a Spartan. He’s tough and he shows no pain. Directly in front of you, on the board, you see a contract. Step forward, one at a time, and read it. Sign if you still want to participate; don’t if you want out. There’s still time.”

  I was at the front end of the line, so I stepped forward and read:

  I hereby relinquish ownership of my mind and my body to Max II Song for the days of December 17 through December 21, 1984, all inclusive (hereafter known as Stotan Week) between the hours of 8:00 A.M. and High Noon. During that time I will perform all feats required of me to the best of my ability with no visible display of my agony.

  I understand that should my mind and/or body fail me and break down, I hold no person or institution responsible, save myself; and should I fail to succeed, fully expect to be washed up into the scum gutter of the Robert Frost High School swimming pool.

  Pretty clever, that Max. I smiled and signed, then stepped back and dropped immediately for twenty-five pushups, smiling being a less than Stotanic response. At fifteen I heard Nortie whimper, meaning he had come either to the word “agony” or the part about being washed up into the scum gutter. Nortie joined me.

  After we’d all signed, Max laid out the rest: five minutes rest each hour, when the siren went off. He’d brought a goddam hand-crank siren, which he would crank up on the hour; we would stop on the spot for five minutes. Except for those five minutes each hour, our time would be spent in perpetual motion. It was important that we concentrate every minute. Wasted time would be dealt with appropriately. Stotan Week was to be a kaleidoscope of land and water drills, performed so intensely we would transcend our presently accepted limits of emotional stress and physical pain. “When you’re starting on the fifteenth lap of a five-hundred-yard freestyle and the guy in the next lane has been on your shoulder all the way, you’ll know how deep your well is.”

  And slowly the kaleidoscope began to turn.

  We started with four trips around the deck—a hundred yards per lap—of bearwalk: hands and feet. The pool is an old gray 25-by-25-yard Army Surplus hole in the ground with a rough, spackled deck to prevent slipping. The roughness shredded our hands during the first couple of laps. They won’t begin to heal before Friday. Any time Max thought one of us was dogging it in any way, we all stopped the bearwalk on the spot and racked off ten pushups, Max right there with the bullhorn: “What’s the matter, Stotan? Quitting so soon?” It’s hard to tell which is worse, the stabbing pain in your hands, the ache in your shoulders or Max’s taunting in your ear.

  From that we went right to the deck drills—jumping in place, pushups, situps, chins on the high-board frame, dips on the low-board frame, switching from one to the other on the whistle, no rest.

  “No time for a shower,” Max said through the bullhorn, “but I can’t allow your sweaty, slimy bodies in my clean pool,” so we stood at attention, turning quarter-turns on the command “Turn, Stotan!” while he hosed us down with the fire hose. “Warm up with an easy four-hundred butterfly,” Max said, “and we’ll get this show on the road.”

  There is no such thing as an easy 400-yard butterfly. There’s an easy 400-yard freestyle, or breaststroke, or backstroke, but anything over 100 yards of ’fly, at any speed, deserves Dante’s serious consideration.

  “You’ll notice I have one lane roped off,” Max said as we finished the ’fly. “For lack of creativity on my part, I’m calling it the Torture Lane. At any point I feel the workout is falling apart or certain of you aren’t putting out, we’ll go to the Torture Lane. Once there, you will dive in, sprint twenty-five yards, get out and rack off ten pushups, dive back in and repeat—until I stop you. The better job you do during the workout, the fewer times we’ll use it.” He smiled. “Right now I’d like to see if it works. Line up!”

  We lined up single file in front of the Torture Lane and Max blew the whistle, starting us at three-second intervals. We sprinted down one side in single file, got out and racked off the ten, then sprinted back on the other side. Ten push-ups isn’t many, but after ten or fifteen full cycles it’s all you can do to get out of the water, much less push your body up off the concrete. But Max was there with the bullhorn to help and somehow we got through it.

  Then we lined up across the deck for the regular workout, beginning with thirty 100-yard sprints with time standards, starting every minute and forty-five seconds. For the rest of the day we did sets of 200s, steamrollers (one hard, one easy; two hard, one easy; three hard, one easy; up to ten and back), sprints, two trips to the Torture Lane, then wrapped it up with four more laps bearwalk.

  In the shower at a minute past noon we lay on the floor with all the nozzles turned on hot, oblivious to the plethora of fungi occupying that very same space.

  “There was a time there, right before eleven, and then about ten to noon, when we started to fly,” Lion said.

  Nortie looked over at him like he was crazy. Jeff cranked up a big middle finger. I closed my eyes.

  Actually, Lion was right. There were a couple of times when it was so tough it just didn’t matter, but most of the time I was aware of trying to save a fracti
on of myself for the next set. According to Lion, you have to get that out of your head or you’ll never fly. Christ! If the good Lord wanted us to fly, he’d have given us hang gliders.

  Somehow we pulled ourselves together and made it out through the snow to Lion’s Jeepster in the parking lot and piled in. The Jeepster has no top and the temperature outside stood at about twenty degrees, but there was no sense of cold as Lion pulled out of the lot and wound his way through the unplowed neighborhood streets and down to Safeway, where we attempted to buy all the Coke they had in stock and all they ever will have. The first eight bottles were empty before we got them into the Jeepster; we left some fluids back there in that hellhole.

  As we lie here on our mattresses, letting KZUU, “The Rock of the Inland Empire,” hammer its way into the consciousness of Stotan Week, I ponder a few other constants of this time. One is Jeff’s miracle sandwiches. They aren’t bad! They’re quick, and Jeff makes them for everyone—claims you have to have just the right amount of each ingredient—so no one has to cook. That’s a plus. And there’s Nortie’s St. Christopher medal, speaking of constants. It counts every pushup we do. (“You Stotans think that’s funny? Drop for ten!” chink…chink…chink…“You’re dogging it, give me ten!” chink…chink…chink…) If I can get my hands on him, St. Christopher’s going on a trip.

  We canceled all our pressing social engagements for this afternoon and evening in favor of lying in our sleeping bags listening to rock and roll, reading and otherwise burning not one calorie more than is absolutely necessary. The fatigue in my body goes to the marrow. My guess is that tomorrow morning that fatigue will be replaced by something very close to excruciating pain.