Camping, fishing, nature, being around a warm fire in the darkness of the night. I had been looking forward to this trip since Julie first suggested it to us back in February. Her & her boyfriend Tommy had recently purchased a Mobile home & they were eager to show it off. Iris & I took the tour & couldn't believe the size of it. It was about the size of our apartment & the cost of a small house.
"You have to have a CDL to operate this thing?" I asked Tommy
"Yep." He said back to me. "Had to study up & take a test."
"You and Iris ought to come up to the Lake with us." Julie said to me.
I looked at Iris. She didn't have to answer. I could tell by the look in her eyes that she was all for it.
"You mean Superior?"
"No. Much smaller lake. Tommy & I usually go a few times a year."
"When are you thinking?"
"This spring. As soon as it's warm enough."
I took a look at the little area that I figured would be ours. A small mattress facing a television in a little living room area right off the kitchen. I pictured Iris & I cuddling in the peacefulness of the country, far away from the many sounds that made up our city block.
I found myself talking to Tommy a lot about the trip. He asked me what I knew about fishing & I told him that my grandpa had taken me a few times when I was a kid. It was something I enjoyed but after he passed away, never got back into. Tommy said that we'd fish from a boat, something I've never done but looked very forward to.
"Ever hunted?" He asked one day while showing me his gun.
"No." I said back to him. "I have no real desire to. Nothing against it. I'd be more than happy to go out with you, but I don't think I could pull the trigger."
I wasn't 100% positive that I could even watch Tommy kill a squirrel or a deer or whatever he planned to shoot, but I knew for a fact that I couldn't do it myself.
"Well, we don't have to do it." He said as he put the gun back in its case. "We can just stick to fishing."
I liked Tommy, he had a way of reading people. I think he knew that I didn't want to watch him shoot anything, but I wanted to remain open to the views of others. It was Julie that was Iris's friend, but the more I got to know Tommy the more interesting I found him. I looked forward to getting to know him on this trip.
Curiosity got the best of me as I found myself on the internet one day. In Minnesota "The Lake" can literally refer to 10,000 different places. When Julie said the one we were going to was a little less than two hours northwest, I decided to look it up. It was near an itty bitty town named Orr. A population less than three hundred people, but a personality I'd find out in reading of its history every bit as big as Duluth's.
It took long enough. April was far colder than it should have been & it took May all of 25 days to warm up to a respectable temperature but Iris had good news for me when I arrived home.
"Tommy & Julie want to go out this weekend." She said to me. "They're picking us up at four tomorrow & we'll get home late Sunday night."
I sat up in the front with Tommy the whole way up there as Iris & Julie sat in the back. I didn't think much of it when Tommy said something that I'd later find out would change the entire course of the trip. In fact, I simply said, "oh, ok" not giving it another thought.
"We have some other people that might be camping beside us." He said. "Friends of Julie's."
My thought was "cool." I enjoyed getting to know new people. I switched the subject back to fishing as Tommy told me the finer details of cleaning and cooking fish.
We pulled into our site & as we got out, Tommy asked me if I'd got out into the woods to collect firewood.
I didn't think much of it & began to walk towards the wooded area.
"Watch for bears." He said with a smile.
I was from northeastern Missouri. We didn't have bears there. I knew bears & Minnesota were a thing, but not something I had worry about much in Duluth.
"I have wood in here." He laughed as he opened up a compartment on the side of the mobile home. "Here help me carry this."
"You don't think Bears will come up to the campsite do you?" I asked him as we laid the wood down in pile.
"Na." He said to me as he pointed to an area full of trees. "As long as you don't go up into their you should be fine. This area is too populated with people. I wouldn't worry about it."
And with that he motioned me to follow him as he suggested that we take a ride around the lake in a boat.
"You know there was a time when I could swim from one end to the other without taking a break."
"Seriously?" I questioned.
"Oh Yeah." He said as he took a look around. "I was on the swim team in high school. Never fast enough to get my name on any walls or in any books, but I built up serious stamina. I could go on forever."
"Think you still could?"
"Ha! I'd be lucky if I made it a fourth of the way. I'd drown."
The further we got away from the land, the more I began to inspect my life jacket. It was good and tight.
"You do any sports in school?" He asked as we began to circle back.
"uh." I thought for a minute on whether to be honest or not. "Yeah, sorta."
Tommy laughed not sure what to make of my statement. "What do you mean sorta?"
"Bowling" I said it quick & barely loud enough for him to hear. I guess it was unfair of me to anticipate his response. At my high school the Bowling team was laughed at. The football players, the wrestlers, the basketball players, Hell even the track team made fun of us. They were the "real" athletes. We didn't have a swim team, but I'm sure if we would have they would have given us shit too.
"Were you any good?" He asked.
"Decent." I said to him. "Good enough to earn a bronze medal at the conference meet my junior & senior seasons. Captain of the team."
"Hey that ain't bad."
I wondered if his sincerity would have been as genuine had he known that I was the only senior on a co-ed team of seven kids. Three of them female, two of them in Special Ed, & the foreign exchange student named Emalai who rode home on the wrong team bus after the conference tournament.
As we headed back to dock the boat, I thought of how in both my junior & senior years, no one had given a shit that I had placed third at the conference tournament. Every time the football team won a game we'd hold a pep rally, the town would throw a parade & it'd be front page news. My mom had to drive to Hannibal to get a copy of the bowling results from conference. Our paper "forgot" to mention them. I guess I am featured on one third of a page in the year book we had to share with the Chess & debate teams. You need to put your glasses on to see it but about an inch tall by an inch wide is a photograph of me standing in the third place slot. Better than my junior year, it wasn't even mentioned. All the other sports got at least a full page. Some even got two. Basketball three. Football four.
I was lost in my own world thinking of the past when suddenly it be came my present.
"Dilly!!"
I looked up & there he was. Walt Gould. Captain of the football team, the basketball team & the track team. The star athlete of our school. I had heard that he had gotten a scholarship to a small school where he continued to excel in all three sports. I never bothered to find out where.
"You two know each other." I starred at Walt as Tommy asked me the question. It shocked Iris, Julie & the other woman sitting there as much as it did him.
"Yeah." I said ready to call the little over an hour I had spent here a weekend & head back home.
Instead I just sat there as Walt Gould continued to call me Dilly & brag about all of the accomplishments he had made during his life.
It didn't take long for Iris to get annoyed by Walt's arrogance as she kept it polite but stern, "His name is Bert. He goes by Bert now."
"DIL-Bert." Walt may have been able to take a football across a goal line & put a ball into a basket, but his comedic skills left much to be desired. Nevertheless I put my hand on Iris's leg & gently tapped it to let her know it wasn't worth the effort. Walt Gould loved to push people's buttons & ten years prior when he was a senior & I was a freshman we tried playing the "My name isn't Dilly, it's Bert" game. Held down by the head with one arm & having my underwear yanked up my rectum with the other, gave that fight a W in win/loss record of Walt Gould.
To tell the truth as we sat their by the fire it didn't bother me to hear him brag about himself. He had gone to Carleton College in Northfield. All conference in football three years straight. All American in Basketball & a NCAA Division III champion in track. He had been named the MIAC (Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference) athlete of the year. He let us know all about it. He had dated & eventually married the hottest girl on campus & now the two of them were raising two strapping young lads destined for the same athletic prowess, while he coached basketball at Rainey River Community college in International Falls.
It's when he started taking shots at me that I began get irritated. Not enough to do anything about it, but enough to let it bother me.
"What are you up to these days Dilly?"
Iris, Julie, Tommy & Walt's wife whose name I still had yet to learn sat looking at me in anticipation of my answer. I think Tommy wanted me to grab one of the logs in the fire & smack it straight across Walt's face. Julie's eyes were a mixture of guilt & regret. I wanted to say to her that I wasn't angry with her. There's no way she could have known that her friend's husband had been a former tormentor of mine. Iris...I wasn't able to look at Iris. I thought maybe she might be ashamed of me not standing up for myself. Walt's wife? I couldn't tell. She was either embarrassed by her husband's braggadocios demeanor or she was turned on by it.
"I work in Duluth" I said hoping to leave it at that.
"What do you do there? Work at a bowling ally?"
Boy didn't Walt think that was a good one as he cracked open a can of beer & laughed a way. Before I could tell him that I worked for the Tribune selling advertisements, he continued to make guesses.
"Waitress at the bowling ally?" He continued to laugh. "Serving up them cokes and chips to the mighty bowlers of Duluth?"
He stopped laughing at his own joke long enough to see that none of the rest of us got the joke. He took another sip of his beer as he felt a need to explain.
"You see here Tommy." He said. "Oh Dilly here was captain of the bowling team in high school."
Walt expected Tommy to scoff at me the way he did, but he didn't.
"I know." Tommy said much to Walt's dissatisfaction. "He said he earned All conference honors twice."
Walt raised his eyebrows in confusion as he turned his attention to me. "You won conference bowling?"
"No." I said to him. "took third."
He scoffed again.
"How many teams were in your conference?" Tommy asked.
"Twelve" I answered.
"Top three out of twelve two years in a row?" He asked. "I find that pretty impressive."
I forgot to mention to him that only nine of the twelve schools in our conference sponsored bowling but he didn't know that & luckily for me, neither did Walt.
Walt had looked for a companion, a fellow bully to ridicule me into feeling bad about myself that I wasn't the star athlete that he was, nor did I have the exciting job of coaching junior college basketball. I could tell it pissed him off that Tommy wasn't here to join in on his fun.
"You an athlete?" Walt asked as he threw an empty beer can into the fire.
"Swimmer."
Walt thought a moment. Figured to himself it wasn't football or basketball but it was still better than bowling.
"Looks like I'm the only real athlete here." He grabbed another can of beer. "A man among..."
He hesitated as he looked at Tommy & I.
"A man among, a man. Himself"
That's when Tommy had enough.
"If you were that good of an athlete why didn't you go Division I?"
Walt stood up as Tommy remained seated.
"Carleton is Division III ain't it?" Tommy looked right at Walt never taking his eyes off of him. "Don't the best go DI?"
Walt clenched the can of beer so tight in his hand that it splattered up and onto his face.
"I could've gone DI if I wanted to!"
He reached down & grabbed his wife underneath the arm as he yanked her up & started walking towards their car. He said something to her but I couldn't make it out.
"No we're not leaving." She said to him. "You've had too many tonight & I'm not driving."
"It's only 40 minutes." He yelled.
"Yeah, not tonight."
She sat back down as he remained standing.
"I could beat you at anything at any time." He said as he pointed his index finger at Tommy.
Perhaps the "right thing to do" would have been to have bowed and to let a near drunk man have the satisfaction of believing he was better than you & more importantly believing that you believed it too.
Tommy pointed at the lake.
"Tomorrow morning." He said as he looked back at Walt. "Me & you. We'll have Bert go out in the boat. When you can't swim anymore & you're too tired. It's over. Last man in the water wins."
"You're on."
Walt went back to his camper, parked right beside Tommy's. He walked up the stairs, opened up the front door & slammed it as he went in.
His wife gave Tommy a dirty look & then turned her attention toward's Julie as the look worsened. She soon followed Walt into their camper, slammed door and all.
"I suppose she probably wanted me to just say that I know I couldn't beat him at anything." Tommy said to break the silence.
"Screw what she wants." Iris was the next to speak.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Julie asked him. "You're not in the same kind of shape you used to be in."
"Neither is he."
With that the subject changed as we roasted marshmallows & talked about more pleasant things. Then we went to bed.
That night I went to bed uneasy about what the morning would hold. If Walt won, that'd probably be the best case scenario. It'd be a day & night filled with him boasting about himself & reminding Tommy of how foolish he was to have ever thought that he a mere mortal could beat a God like him in any physical contest.
The idea of Tommy winning actually scared me. A guy like Walt was anything but gracious & if Tommy defeated him, it might drive him crazy. Maybe even to the point of violence. I fell in and out of sleep, dreaming each time. One dream was Walt pulling a knife. The next was a gun. Then the last was him figuring out a way to push Tommy's mobile home into the lake will all of us trapped inside. Humorous as it may sound, knowing Walt as I did from years prior, even that didn't seem unrealistic.
I woke in the morning before everyone else. I laid in bed for a while as I watched Irish sleep. She has a funny way of sleeping that makes it easy to tell that she's actually asleep & not just lying their with her eyes closed. She tilts her head back with her chin pointed towards the air as she makes faint "caw" noises like a bird. I thought about waking her up & seeing if we couldn't quietly sneak away. My intuition sensed that someone bad was going to happen & I didn't want to be a part of it. Yet I also knew that it wouldn't be right of be to leave Tommy alone to deal with Walt. It wasn't the first situation in my life where damned was the only option I had.
Tommy came into the kitchen already wearing a pair of swimming trunks. My hope that maybe he'd try & talk Walt out of this ego measuring contest was quickly laid to rest. He sat down on the floor & began doing stretches.
"Ate some garlic about a half hour ago." He said to me. "Supposedly helps with conditioning."
"Heard eating pears can have a similar effect." I said to him. "You really think you can out last Walt today? He was a national champion in track."
"He was a sprinter." Tommy wasn't phased by Walt's credentials. "Those guys never go long distances. Besides, swimming is a whole new ball game."
It wasn't long after that Julie & Iris were up, as the four of us sat & ate breakfast. Tommy of course having nothing but a small glass of energy drink.
When we walked outside Walt was standing their in nothing but his pair of trunks.
"Was wondering if you were ever gonna come out." He said as his wife soon appeared from behind his camper. "Thought as long as it took you to get out here, you might be forfeiting."
"You ready?" Tommy asked as he took off his shirt. "Cause I am."
Along with Iris & Julie, I went and took Tommy's boat about 25 feet from the dock. My job was to keep the boat within 10 feet or so of the two of them as they raced. Walt's wife decided to watch from the shore.
"Back & forth as many times as you can." Tommy explained to Walt. "No stopping for breathers. You reach the other side, you immediately turn around & come back."
"Yeah, yeah." Walt said as he got in position to dive in. "Try and keep up."
"There's a gun in the cockpit" Tommy yelled at me. "Count to twenty or so & then fire it."
As I looked into the cockpit, I noticed an emergency tube. One of those that will inflate upon pulling a string. It stuck out to me as if I were meant to see it & I'd find out soon why. I grabbed the flare gun, counted to 10 and fired it.
Tommy & Walt dove into the water & began to swim near us. When they got within 15 feet, I put the throttle on as low as it would go. Iris & Julie cheered Tommy as Walt's wife screamed at him from the shore.
It was all going well until suddenly Walt let out a yelp of pain. He stopped in the middle of his stroke as he let out another yelp.
"Ah!" He yelled.
It was clear to me that he was suffering a cramp as I yelled out to him.
"Walt you all right?"
Focused on his own swimming Tommy heard me yell & turned around to look at Walt. As he did, Walt disappeared under the water.
"Oh shit!" I yelled as I put the boat into full throttle & turned around to head towards the spot where I thought Walt went under. Tommy took off on a dead sprint back to the same position.
Iris & Julie began to panic as Walt's wife screamed frantically from the shore for us to do something.
I watched the water as Tommy dove down & came back up in a panic. He too was running out of energy & I knew he wasn't going to be able to dive down many more times.
"Jesus." I thought to myself. "I wanted the son of a bitch to be humiliated in a loss today. I didn't want him to die."
Without thought I opened up the cockpit, grabbed the inflatable and dove into the water. I couldn't see a thing as I headed towards the bottom. I had no idea how far down it was or if I'd run out of air before I even got there. I couldn't see a thing as I held on tight to the inflatable with my left hand & felt around with my right.
I thought to myself this might be it for me. This action might be the last I ever took in my life. Here I was trying to save the life of a guy who had done nothing but make my life Hell every chance he got. He picked on me and bullied me when I was in high school, & last night had had been a complete jerk to me. If the circumstances were reversed, I couldn't help but think he wouldn't have done the same for me.
That's when I felt what I felt was his torso. I began to rap the cord around my body as tightly as I could as I grabbed Walt's body in a bearhug & began to frantically search for the pull cord. Time was running out as I felt all over but couldn't feel for it. Had it taken me another 15 seconds I don't think I would've found it. My chance or by miracle, I pulled on the cord and up we went.
I have no idea how Tommy & the women got the two of us onto the boat. I have no idea how long it took Iris doing CPR on Walt to get him to start breathing again or if CPR had even been done on me. I had passed out on our way up & the next thing I remember was being wheeled on a gurney in a hospital in International Falls.
It didn't take long for me to recover. Iris beside me the whole time. Tommy & Julie came & went a few times. Mostly to grab me drinks & food I was craving. I inquired about Walt as Tommy informed me he was a few rooms down recovering. Doctors thought there was a chance that he might have brain damage from being deprived of Oxygen for as long as he was.
When I had the energy I took the slow walk to his room to see if he was awake. He wasn't as his wife sat looking at him. She didn't even notice me until I had been standing their a few minutes. She wasn't sure what to say to me as she slowly walked up to me & gave me a hug.
"Thank you." It was faint & it was the only thing that was said.
I went back to my room as Iris lay "Cawing" in a chair that I knew was far too uncomfortable to ever fall asleep in. That's how exhausted she was.
I sat in the bed & thought about life. Everything that I had done up to that point. All that might happen to me in the future. And how less than two days before, it all could have came to an end.
The door began to open. Figuring it was Tommy I said, "You get me those wings I asked for?"
A small child came into the room. He wasn't probably five years old at the most.
"Are you lost bud?" I asked him as he stared at me.
He looked nervous as he chewed on his thumb. He never took his eyes off of me.
"Are you looking for your mom & your dad?" I asked him
He still didn't say anything as he starred.
"Are you the hero?"
His question caught me off guard as a woman walked in.
"Cody!" She said, "There you are."
She looked up at me, "I'm so sorry. He knows better than to do this."
They were gone before I could process a response as Iris began to wake.
"A kid came in and asked if I was a hero." I told her.
"The doctors must be talking about what you did." She said back to me. "And you are."
We left the hospital the next morning as I sat in the passenger seat next to Tommy as we headed down the road to Duluth.
"Looky here." He said to me as he handed me a paper
I unfolded it to read Local Sports Legend Survives Death Scare
The article was all about Walt. His accomplishments in high school, his accomplishments at Carleton & his accomplishments as the head coach of the Rainy River Community College Men's basketball team. His wife's name, "Beth" printed nice and neat. The rest of us were referred to as, "acquaintances."
I shook my head and laughed as I laid down the paper.
"Hey if you never get to do another important thing in you life." Tommy said to me. "At least you had the privilege of saving the life of a legend."
The two of us laughed as I looked off into the clouds. I wondered do we have purpose? Do we have meaning? If we do, what was mine? Why was I put on this earth? Maybe it really was to save the life of Walt Gould. Should I feel guilty for hoping there's more to it than that?
"You have to have a CDL to operate this thing?" I asked Tommy
"Yep." He said back to me. "Had to study up & take a test."
"You and Iris ought to come up to the Lake with us." Julie said to me.
I looked at Iris. She didn't have to answer. I could tell by the look in her eyes that she was all for it.
"You mean Superior?"
"No. Much smaller lake. Tommy & I usually go a few times a year."
"When are you thinking?"
"This spring. As soon as it's warm enough."
I took a look at the little area that I figured would be ours. A small mattress facing a television in a little living room area right off the kitchen. I pictured Iris & I cuddling in the peacefulness of the country, far away from the many sounds that made up our city block.
I found myself talking to Tommy a lot about the trip. He asked me what I knew about fishing & I told him that my grandpa had taken me a few times when I was a kid. It was something I enjoyed but after he passed away, never got back into. Tommy said that we'd fish from a boat, something I've never done but looked very forward to.
"Ever hunted?" He asked one day while showing me his gun.
"No." I said back to him. "I have no real desire to. Nothing against it. I'd be more than happy to go out with you, but I don't think I could pull the trigger."
I wasn't 100% positive that I could even watch Tommy kill a squirrel or a deer or whatever he planned to shoot, but I knew for a fact that I couldn't do it myself.
"Well, we don't have to do it." He said as he put the gun back in its case. "We can just stick to fishing."
I liked Tommy, he had a way of reading people. I think he knew that I didn't want to watch him shoot anything, but I wanted to remain open to the views of others. It was Julie that was Iris's friend, but the more I got to know Tommy the more interesting I found him. I looked forward to getting to know him on this trip.
Curiosity got the best of me as I found myself on the internet one day. In Minnesota "The Lake" can literally refer to 10,000 different places. When Julie said the one we were going to was a little less than two hours northwest, I decided to look it up. It was near an itty bitty town named Orr. A population less than three hundred people, but a personality I'd find out in reading of its history every bit as big as Duluth's.
It took long enough. April was far colder than it should have been & it took May all of 25 days to warm up to a respectable temperature but Iris had good news for me when I arrived home.
"Tommy & Julie want to go out this weekend." She said to me. "They're picking us up at four tomorrow & we'll get home late Sunday night."
I sat up in the front with Tommy the whole way up there as Iris & Julie sat in the back. I didn't think much of it when Tommy said something that I'd later find out would change the entire course of the trip. In fact, I simply said, "oh, ok" not giving it another thought.
"We have some other people that might be camping beside us." He said. "Friends of Julie's."
My thought was "cool." I enjoyed getting to know new people. I switched the subject back to fishing as Tommy told me the finer details of cleaning and cooking fish.
We pulled into our site & as we got out, Tommy asked me if I'd got out into the woods to collect firewood.
I didn't think much of it & began to walk towards the wooded area.
"Watch for bears." He said with a smile.
I was from northeastern Missouri. We didn't have bears there. I knew bears & Minnesota were a thing, but not something I had worry about much in Duluth.
"I have wood in here." He laughed as he opened up a compartment on the side of the mobile home. "Here help me carry this."
"You don't think Bears will come up to the campsite do you?" I asked him as we laid the wood down in pile.
"Na." He said to me as he pointed to an area full of trees. "As long as you don't go up into their you should be fine. This area is too populated with people. I wouldn't worry about it."
And with that he motioned me to follow him as he suggested that we take a ride around the lake in a boat.
"You know there was a time when I could swim from one end to the other without taking a break."
"Seriously?" I questioned.
"Oh Yeah." He said as he took a look around. "I was on the swim team in high school. Never fast enough to get my name on any walls or in any books, but I built up serious stamina. I could go on forever."
"Think you still could?"
"Ha! I'd be lucky if I made it a fourth of the way. I'd drown."
The further we got away from the land, the more I began to inspect my life jacket. It was good and tight.
"You do any sports in school?" He asked as we began to circle back.
"uh." I thought for a minute on whether to be honest or not. "Yeah, sorta."
Tommy laughed not sure what to make of my statement. "What do you mean sorta?"
"Bowling" I said it quick & barely loud enough for him to hear. I guess it was unfair of me to anticipate his response. At my high school the Bowling team was laughed at. The football players, the wrestlers, the basketball players, Hell even the track team made fun of us. They were the "real" athletes. We didn't have a swim team, but I'm sure if we would have they would have given us shit too.
"Were you any good?" He asked.
"Decent." I said to him. "Good enough to earn a bronze medal at the conference meet my junior & senior seasons. Captain of the team."
"Hey that ain't bad."
I wondered if his sincerity would have been as genuine had he known that I was the only senior on a co-ed team of seven kids. Three of them female, two of them in Special Ed, & the foreign exchange student named Emalai who rode home on the wrong team bus after the conference tournament.
As we headed back to dock the boat, I thought of how in both my junior & senior years, no one had given a shit that I had placed third at the conference tournament. Every time the football team won a game we'd hold a pep rally, the town would throw a parade & it'd be front page news. My mom had to drive to Hannibal to get a copy of the bowling results from conference. Our paper "forgot" to mention them. I guess I am featured on one third of a page in the year book we had to share with the Chess & debate teams. You need to put your glasses on to see it but about an inch tall by an inch wide is a photograph of me standing in the third place slot. Better than my junior year, it wasn't even mentioned. All the other sports got at least a full page. Some even got two. Basketball three. Football four.
I was lost in my own world thinking of the past when suddenly it be came my present.
"Dilly!!"
I looked up & there he was. Walt Gould. Captain of the football team, the basketball team & the track team. The star athlete of our school. I had heard that he had gotten a scholarship to a small school where he continued to excel in all three sports. I never bothered to find out where.
"You two know each other." I starred at Walt as Tommy asked me the question. It shocked Iris, Julie & the other woman sitting there as much as it did him.
"Yeah." I said ready to call the little over an hour I had spent here a weekend & head back home.
Instead I just sat there as Walt Gould continued to call me Dilly & brag about all of the accomplishments he had made during his life.
It didn't take long for Iris to get annoyed by Walt's arrogance as she kept it polite but stern, "His name is Bert. He goes by Bert now."
"DIL-Bert." Walt may have been able to take a football across a goal line & put a ball into a basket, but his comedic skills left much to be desired. Nevertheless I put my hand on Iris's leg & gently tapped it to let her know it wasn't worth the effort. Walt Gould loved to push people's buttons & ten years prior when he was a senior & I was a freshman we tried playing the "My name isn't Dilly, it's Bert" game. Held down by the head with one arm & having my underwear yanked up my rectum with the other, gave that fight a W in win/loss record of Walt Gould.
To tell the truth as we sat their by the fire it didn't bother me to hear him brag about himself. He had gone to Carleton College in Northfield. All conference in football three years straight. All American in Basketball & a NCAA Division III champion in track. He had been named the MIAC (Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference) athlete of the year. He let us know all about it. He had dated & eventually married the hottest girl on campus & now the two of them were raising two strapping young lads destined for the same athletic prowess, while he coached basketball at Rainey River Community college in International Falls.
It's when he started taking shots at me that I began get irritated. Not enough to do anything about it, but enough to let it bother me.
"What are you up to these days Dilly?"
Iris, Julie, Tommy & Walt's wife whose name I still had yet to learn sat looking at me in anticipation of my answer. I think Tommy wanted me to grab one of the logs in the fire & smack it straight across Walt's face. Julie's eyes were a mixture of guilt & regret. I wanted to say to her that I wasn't angry with her. There's no way she could have known that her friend's husband had been a former tormentor of mine. Iris...I wasn't able to look at Iris. I thought maybe she might be ashamed of me not standing up for myself. Walt's wife? I couldn't tell. She was either embarrassed by her husband's braggadocios demeanor or she was turned on by it.
"I work in Duluth" I said hoping to leave it at that.
"What do you do there? Work at a bowling ally?"
Boy didn't Walt think that was a good one as he cracked open a can of beer & laughed a way. Before I could tell him that I worked for the Tribune selling advertisements, he continued to make guesses.
"Waitress at the bowling ally?" He continued to laugh. "Serving up them cokes and chips to the mighty bowlers of Duluth?"
He stopped laughing at his own joke long enough to see that none of the rest of us got the joke. He took another sip of his beer as he felt a need to explain.
"You see here Tommy." He said. "Oh Dilly here was captain of the bowling team in high school."
Walt expected Tommy to scoff at me the way he did, but he didn't.
"I know." Tommy said much to Walt's dissatisfaction. "He said he earned All conference honors twice."
Walt raised his eyebrows in confusion as he turned his attention to me. "You won conference bowling?"
"No." I said to him. "took third."
He scoffed again.
"How many teams were in your conference?" Tommy asked.
"Twelve" I answered.
"Top three out of twelve two years in a row?" He asked. "I find that pretty impressive."
I forgot to mention to him that only nine of the twelve schools in our conference sponsored bowling but he didn't know that & luckily for me, neither did Walt.
Walt had looked for a companion, a fellow bully to ridicule me into feeling bad about myself that I wasn't the star athlete that he was, nor did I have the exciting job of coaching junior college basketball. I could tell it pissed him off that Tommy wasn't here to join in on his fun.
"You an athlete?" Walt asked as he threw an empty beer can into the fire.
"Swimmer."
Walt thought a moment. Figured to himself it wasn't football or basketball but it was still better than bowling.
"Looks like I'm the only real athlete here." He grabbed another can of beer. "A man among..."
He hesitated as he looked at Tommy & I.
"A man among, a man. Himself"
That's when Tommy had enough.
"If you were that good of an athlete why didn't you go Division I?"
Walt stood up as Tommy remained seated.
"Carleton is Division III ain't it?" Tommy looked right at Walt never taking his eyes off of him. "Don't the best go DI?"
Walt clenched the can of beer so tight in his hand that it splattered up and onto his face.
"I could've gone DI if I wanted to!"
He reached down & grabbed his wife underneath the arm as he yanked her up & started walking towards their car. He said something to her but I couldn't make it out.
"No we're not leaving." She said to him. "You've had too many tonight & I'm not driving."
"It's only 40 minutes." He yelled.
"Yeah, not tonight."
She sat back down as he remained standing.
"I could beat you at anything at any time." He said as he pointed his index finger at Tommy.
Perhaps the "right thing to do" would have been to have bowed and to let a near drunk man have the satisfaction of believing he was better than you & more importantly believing that you believed it too.
Tommy pointed at the lake.
"Tomorrow morning." He said as he looked back at Walt. "Me & you. We'll have Bert go out in the boat. When you can't swim anymore & you're too tired. It's over. Last man in the water wins."
"You're on."
Walt went back to his camper, parked right beside Tommy's. He walked up the stairs, opened up the front door & slammed it as he went in.
His wife gave Tommy a dirty look & then turned her attention toward's Julie as the look worsened. She soon followed Walt into their camper, slammed door and all.
"I suppose she probably wanted me to just say that I know I couldn't beat him at anything." Tommy said to break the silence.
"Screw what she wants." Iris was the next to speak.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Julie asked him. "You're not in the same kind of shape you used to be in."
"Neither is he."
With that the subject changed as we roasted marshmallows & talked about more pleasant things. Then we went to bed.
That night I went to bed uneasy about what the morning would hold. If Walt won, that'd probably be the best case scenario. It'd be a day & night filled with him boasting about himself & reminding Tommy of how foolish he was to have ever thought that he a mere mortal could beat a God like him in any physical contest.
The idea of Tommy winning actually scared me. A guy like Walt was anything but gracious & if Tommy defeated him, it might drive him crazy. Maybe even to the point of violence. I fell in and out of sleep, dreaming each time. One dream was Walt pulling a knife. The next was a gun. Then the last was him figuring out a way to push Tommy's mobile home into the lake will all of us trapped inside. Humorous as it may sound, knowing Walt as I did from years prior, even that didn't seem unrealistic.
I woke in the morning before everyone else. I laid in bed for a while as I watched Irish sleep. She has a funny way of sleeping that makes it easy to tell that she's actually asleep & not just lying their with her eyes closed. She tilts her head back with her chin pointed towards the air as she makes faint "caw" noises like a bird. I thought about waking her up & seeing if we couldn't quietly sneak away. My intuition sensed that someone bad was going to happen & I didn't want to be a part of it. Yet I also knew that it wouldn't be right of be to leave Tommy alone to deal with Walt. It wasn't the first situation in my life where damned was the only option I had.
Tommy came into the kitchen already wearing a pair of swimming trunks. My hope that maybe he'd try & talk Walt out of this ego measuring contest was quickly laid to rest. He sat down on the floor & began doing stretches.
"Ate some garlic about a half hour ago." He said to me. "Supposedly helps with conditioning."
"Heard eating pears can have a similar effect." I said to him. "You really think you can out last Walt today? He was a national champion in track."
"He was a sprinter." Tommy wasn't phased by Walt's credentials. "Those guys never go long distances. Besides, swimming is a whole new ball game."
It wasn't long after that Julie & Iris were up, as the four of us sat & ate breakfast. Tommy of course having nothing but a small glass of energy drink.
When we walked outside Walt was standing their in nothing but his pair of trunks.
"Was wondering if you were ever gonna come out." He said as his wife soon appeared from behind his camper. "Thought as long as it took you to get out here, you might be forfeiting."
"You ready?" Tommy asked as he took off his shirt. "Cause I am."
Along with Iris & Julie, I went and took Tommy's boat about 25 feet from the dock. My job was to keep the boat within 10 feet or so of the two of them as they raced. Walt's wife decided to watch from the shore.
"Back & forth as many times as you can." Tommy explained to Walt. "No stopping for breathers. You reach the other side, you immediately turn around & come back."
"Yeah, yeah." Walt said as he got in position to dive in. "Try and keep up."
"There's a gun in the cockpit" Tommy yelled at me. "Count to twenty or so & then fire it."
As I looked into the cockpit, I noticed an emergency tube. One of those that will inflate upon pulling a string. It stuck out to me as if I were meant to see it & I'd find out soon why. I grabbed the flare gun, counted to 10 and fired it.
Tommy & Walt dove into the water & began to swim near us. When they got within 15 feet, I put the throttle on as low as it would go. Iris & Julie cheered Tommy as Walt's wife screamed at him from the shore.
It was all going well until suddenly Walt let out a yelp of pain. He stopped in the middle of his stroke as he let out another yelp.
"Ah!" He yelled.
It was clear to me that he was suffering a cramp as I yelled out to him.
"Walt you all right?"
Focused on his own swimming Tommy heard me yell & turned around to look at Walt. As he did, Walt disappeared under the water.
"Oh shit!" I yelled as I put the boat into full throttle & turned around to head towards the spot where I thought Walt went under. Tommy took off on a dead sprint back to the same position.
Iris & Julie began to panic as Walt's wife screamed frantically from the shore for us to do something.
I watched the water as Tommy dove down & came back up in a panic. He too was running out of energy & I knew he wasn't going to be able to dive down many more times.
"Jesus." I thought to myself. "I wanted the son of a bitch to be humiliated in a loss today. I didn't want him to die."
Without thought I opened up the cockpit, grabbed the inflatable and dove into the water. I couldn't see a thing as I headed towards the bottom. I had no idea how far down it was or if I'd run out of air before I even got there. I couldn't see a thing as I held on tight to the inflatable with my left hand & felt around with my right.
I thought to myself this might be it for me. This action might be the last I ever took in my life. Here I was trying to save the life of a guy who had done nothing but make my life Hell every chance he got. He picked on me and bullied me when I was in high school, & last night had had been a complete jerk to me. If the circumstances were reversed, I couldn't help but think he wouldn't have done the same for me.
That's when I felt what I felt was his torso. I began to rap the cord around my body as tightly as I could as I grabbed Walt's body in a bearhug & began to frantically search for the pull cord. Time was running out as I felt all over but couldn't feel for it. Had it taken me another 15 seconds I don't think I would've found it. My chance or by miracle, I pulled on the cord and up we went.
I have no idea how Tommy & the women got the two of us onto the boat. I have no idea how long it took Iris doing CPR on Walt to get him to start breathing again or if CPR had even been done on me. I had passed out on our way up & the next thing I remember was being wheeled on a gurney in a hospital in International Falls.
It didn't take long for me to recover. Iris beside me the whole time. Tommy & Julie came & went a few times. Mostly to grab me drinks & food I was craving. I inquired about Walt as Tommy informed me he was a few rooms down recovering. Doctors thought there was a chance that he might have brain damage from being deprived of Oxygen for as long as he was.
When I had the energy I took the slow walk to his room to see if he was awake. He wasn't as his wife sat looking at him. She didn't even notice me until I had been standing their a few minutes. She wasn't sure what to say to me as she slowly walked up to me & gave me a hug.
"Thank you." It was faint & it was the only thing that was said.
I went back to my room as Iris lay "Cawing" in a chair that I knew was far too uncomfortable to ever fall asleep in. That's how exhausted she was.
I sat in the bed & thought about life. Everything that I had done up to that point. All that might happen to me in the future. And how less than two days before, it all could have came to an end.
The door began to open. Figuring it was Tommy I said, "You get me those wings I asked for?"
A small child came into the room. He wasn't probably five years old at the most.
"Are you lost bud?" I asked him as he stared at me.
He looked nervous as he chewed on his thumb. He never took his eyes off of me.
"Are you looking for your mom & your dad?" I asked him
He still didn't say anything as he starred.
"Are you the hero?"
His question caught me off guard as a woman walked in.
"Cody!" She said, "There you are."
She looked up at me, "I'm so sorry. He knows better than to do this."
They were gone before I could process a response as Iris began to wake.
"A kid came in and asked if I was a hero." I told her.
"The doctors must be talking about what you did." She said back to me. "And you are."
We left the hospital the next morning as I sat in the passenger seat next to Tommy as we headed down the road to Duluth.
"Looky here." He said to me as he handed me a paper
I unfolded it to read Local Sports Legend Survives Death Scare
The article was all about Walt. His accomplishments in high school, his accomplishments at Carleton & his accomplishments as the head coach of the Rainy River Community College Men's basketball team. His wife's name, "Beth" printed nice and neat. The rest of us were referred to as, "acquaintances."
I shook my head and laughed as I laid down the paper.
"Hey if you never get to do another important thing in you life." Tommy said to me. "At least you had the privilege of saving the life of a legend."
The two of us laughed as I looked off into the clouds. I wondered do we have purpose? Do we have meaning? If we do, what was mine? Why was I put on this earth? Maybe it really was to save the life of Walt Gould. Should I feel guilty for hoping there's more to it than that?
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