In the last days of August and beginning weeks of September, I went to class and worked on the boat with Early. The other boys continued to have crew practice, and I told Mr. Blane I’d catch up as soon as my boat was ready. He didn’t seem to mind that I hadn’t shown up yet. Maybe he felt responsible for my initial humiliation and didn’t want a recurrence of me falling in the bay. I still saw the other boys in class and around the dorm, but ever since that night in Sam and Robbie Dean’s dorm room and the talk of the Fish, the awkwardness lingered like the empty space on one of Early’s records. It whirled in circles, making it hard to jump back in.
Those after-school hours blended together to the sounds of Frank Sinatra, Glenn Miller, Louis Armstrong, Mozart, and Billie Holiday, depending on the day and the weather. Sometimes Early and I listened to shows on the radio. The Lone Ranger, Buck Rogers, Jungle Jim, and Captain Midnight. There was also local news of the roamings of the great bear still terrorizing wayfarers on the Appalachian Trail. The bounty was up to $750.
One night, we listened in reverent silence as the voice on the radio crackled over the airwaves, announcing the official surrender of Japan on the USS Missouri. The war was over. We could hear whoops and hollers from boys outside, but Early and I continued our work without speaking, filled with our own thoughts about the war.
In fact, I think Early and I both enjoyed those times of quiet, when we worked in silence, listening only to the croaking of Bucky the frog and our own thoughts.
I thought I knew a thing or two about woodworking. I even bragged to Early about having built a soap box car before, but Early was much more skilled. As the afternoon light spilled in through the basement windows, we worked at disassembling the Sweetie Pie, stripping layers of varnish and repairing splits. Early showed me how to mix in matching sawdust with resin to give a more uniform color under the varnish.
We spent several days on the oars, repairing cracks in the blades, painting them blue with white stripes, and sanding the wooden shaft and handle for a smooth finish.
The bones of the Sweetie Pie were sound, but after we’d knocked off all the rotten parts and rough edges, the bones were about all that was left. The only wood we had available was whatever we could find in the workshop or in the boathouse. There were hodgepodge pieces of maple and oak and a little mahogany for the trim.
The Morton Hill Regatta was four weeks away. I had pretended that I wasn’t interested. After all, rowing a boat wasn’t a real sport. But as the days went by and my hands sanded, carved, bent, caulked, glued, and fastened every inch of the Sweetie Pie, I felt the stirrings of something familiar—the spirit of competition.
Back home we competed over everything. There was always some contest of strength, speed, endurance, or will. There were the usuals—baseball, running, swimming—although the contest didn’t have to be a real sport. We’d spar over who could climb the fastest, hit the hardest, hide the longest, and spit the farthest.
But ever since that day in July by the creek, the last day my mom had frizzy hair, I’d lost interest. I gave up my spot on the baseball team, quit going swimming, and pretty much left it up to somebody else to do the climbing, hiding, and spitting. Unfortunately, I found I was still pretty good at hitting.
Melvin Trumboldt and I were tired and sweaty after a day of baling hay at his grandpa’s farm. All he’d said was that he was hungry and couldn’t wait to get home and have some of his mom’s homemade biscuits and gravy. But how could he talk so casually about his mom when I no longer had one? I’m not proud of it, but I hauled off and hit him right in the face. The worst was when he said he’d deserved it. I’m ashamed to say I almost cried. I wished I’d apologized before I left.
But here it was, September, and something had come over me. I think it started the day I ran that portion of the Steeplechase. Once my legs and arms started pumping, something else in me started pumping too. I wasn’t sure if it came from sadness or anger or the need to punch someone in the face, but now, with the Sweetie Pie looking pretty sweet, I knew I wanted to compete in the regatta. And I wanted to win.
Early talked a lot while we were in the workshop.
Most of what he said began with Did you know …?
Did you know that the regatta was originally a gondola race on the canals of Venice?
Did you know that Maine is the only state name with one syllable?
Did you know that hippopotamus milk is pink?
Interesting but exhausting.
He’d also explain things about boat building. The proper positioning of the wooden seat in relation to the clogs, to give enough room for someone my height to take a full stroke without straining his back. The importance of keeping the oars level and positioned at the proper angle.
He spent a good deal of time working out equations on the chalkboard to figure the best ratio for this and the appropriate span for that.
It was the end of September, two weeks before the regatta, and Early was perfecting the lubricant for greasing the tracks.
“The regatta is the kickoff for fall-break week, Jackie. October starts to get cold in the mornings. I got castor oil from the infirmary so the seat tracks can slide easily in the cooler air.”
I watched as he used a clean rag, applying the oil to the tracks below the eight-wheeled seat. “Try it,” he said.
I took my place on the seat, put my feet in the laced clogs, and pumped back and forth a few times. “Smooth,” I said. “Let’s take her out for a test run.”
Early and I carried the boat up the stairs and out into the open air. She was surprisingly light. My last venture in the Sweetie Pie had been such a failure that I was a little nervous about trying again—until we lowered her onto the water. The shiny wooden hull barely made a ripple as it settled to rest, sleek and fine, by the dock. Yes, the Sweetie Pie looked as yar as they came, and she seemed to enjoy her own reflection in the glassy water.
“Get in the boat, Jackie.”
I got in the boat.
“Start rowing.”
I started rowing. And rowing. And rowing. That day. The next day. And the day after that. I was on the water before sunrise, until the bell rang for morning chapel. Then I was on again after school, until sunset. My muscles ached all over again, at first rebelling with every stroke, keeping me awake at night and screaming at my audacity to want to do ordinary things like walk or sit. I wandered around in a perpetual fog of Early’s smelly ointment.
As the days went by and the pain subsided, Early praised my strong, smooth strokes that propelled me through the water. But navigating was a problem. I couldn’t row a straight course.
“You need a coxswain.”
“Coxsen?” I repeated the word as he’d pronounced it.
“The person who guides and navigates the boat. The Sweetie Pie is a double, and since we took out one of the seats for you to row it as a single, we can fit in a coxswain seat instead. You need someone to give you direction.”
My pride bristled a little, but maybe he was right. I had not proven myself an able oarsman yet, and much as I would have liked to be in control of my own race, I knew I was still a little wobbly on the water.
Early went to the Nook, then returned with a small leather seat that he attached to the back of the boat. We had to do some jury-rigging to get the coxswain seat to sit right in the Sweetie Pie, but Early eventually settled his little body on board, and we started out again.
This time, he called out directions like “FIRM UP!”—meaning “Apply more pressure where needed”—and “PICK IT!”—meaning “Use only the arms to make a turn.”
One thing I learned about Early was that he never doubted his authority as he called, “SQUARE ON THE READY! CHECK IT DOWN! POWER TEN! SLOW THE SLIDE! WEIGH ENOUGH!”
It took time to learn what the commands meant, and even longer to respond to them. But eventually I followed his direction and began to stay on course.
Out on the bay, when the sun would inch lower upon the western woods, Early, in a quieter voice, would give the command “Let it run,” meaning, Stop rowing, oars out of the water, and glide to a stop. Here we would rest, taking in the last warmth of the day. And Early would tell me his number story. The story of Pi and his adventures.
Sometimes I worried a little about that strangest of boys. If he could let go of even a little of his strangeness, he might not be such an outsider. But then, who was I to talk? I remembered the headmaster’s advice to me when I’d first arrived at Morton Hill Academy. If you want to sit with a group in the lunchroom, they’ll probably let you. If you want to go off and sit by yourself, they’ll probably let you do that, too.
I had positioned myself apart from the table, apart from the group, and I let myself drift away as Early told his story.