Ironman Read Free Page B

day-care kids he’s put on injured reserve, and fifteen trying to convince her that we really have applied for admittance to several other day cares and will contact her the moment we hear a word.
    When I finally do gain his release, he won’t get on the bike with me until I clothespin a playing card to the spokes, for that engine effect, and once we’re moving I’d need at least seven bungee cords to hold him still. It’s only about a mile back to our place, but no matter how hard I’ve trained that day, it’s my toughest ride.
    The story goes that my parents had Jordan to try andkeep their marriage together, which is a real joke because Dad split the same weekend Mom was in the hospital having him. Mom had been secretly attending a woman’s support group for more than a year to help her deal with his controlling ways, and she must have been ready to graduate because she was so thrilled at finding him gone, she threw an enormous “divorce bash” the very next weekend, and Dad’s name was first on the guest list. Now my dad is not real fond of drawing attention to himself in potentially negative situations, but he’ll always try to outdo you at your own game, so he showed two hours early with a professional photographer to take pictures for a divorce album to be kept at his bedside, so if he ever “woke up sweating in the middle of the night, worried that it was all a dream,” he could leaf through it for proof.
    Mom’s crowning touch was to hire some newfound friends from a militant, over-forty, all-woman country-rock band called The Curse to play a drum-heavy variation of an old Tammy Wynette song which they called “Stand On Your Man” straight up at midnight, while she and Dad stood before the fireplace mantel taking sacred vows never again to darken each other’s door without a court order.
    That gives you a bit of an idea how far asunder those two put what God had joined. And I want to go on record right here, Larry, as declaring that it didn’t surprise ordisappoint me one bit, because I have never been able to imagine why two people as different as my mom and dad would allow themselves to be seen on the same street corner, much less try to spend their lives together. Plus—and I’m sure I’ll get into this later—that there house weren’t big enough for him and me.
    That’s as frivolous as I’ve ever seen my father, and I think he played it out because he didn’t want to look bad in the face of my mother’s growing strength, but that’s basically the remains of the family my brother Jordan was born into. He thinks every kid has two houses and two sets of clothes and a duplicate of every toy and parents who’ll give their kid any damn thing he wants to win him over from the other. The little turd is lucky to have a big brother to keep him in line. I’m amazed at how much Dad will put up with from him before sliding back into his old ways, and stashing Jordan in his bedroom. But maybe that’s just me singing the Firstborn Male Child Blues.
    There’s more to October 10, Lar, but I don’t have time to write it down right now. Catch you before sacktime.
    Ever your loyal subject,
Beau-re-gard
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    Sixth period—the last of the day—is Lion’s class preparation hour, and normally he drives across townto the university, where he has coached the swimming team the past four years, to prepare the afternoon workout. Today he hangs around school, knowing Keith Redmond also has sixth-period prep and that he can probably catch up with him in the teacher’s lounge before Redmond heads for football practice.
    Lion finds him relaxing on the couch behind the sports page of the Spokesman-Review , and drifts to the counter next to the sink, pouring himself a cup of coffee. It’s a prop—he’s not about to give himself the opportunity to compare it to Dr. Stevens’s coffee.