The meet itself is an eye-opener. I’m in way better shape than I thought and take the hundred and two hundred freestyle pulling away. My times aren’t world beaters, but they’re very competitive for the beginning of the season, and I even blow one turn in the two hundred and still pull it out.

The kid in the lane next to me slaps the water after the hundred, and I’m sure I hear him say he’s never been beat by a nigger, which for some reason doesn’t ignite my will to hold his head under water till he passes out. I reach across the lane rope and grab his hand, like I’m shaking it, pull him close and whisper, “Get used to it.”

Mott does his best to take the heat off Simon. After they call the hundred-yard breast stroke, just as Simon is about to shed his warm-ups, he tears off his sweatpants, jerks his leg off with a flair, and throws it over to me. If it were a gymnastic move, it would have received a ten, and the crowd falls dead silent.

There is a ten-minute delay at the end of the race because one of the judges can’t determine whether or not Andy used a legal kick. In the breast stroke, a swimmer’s legs have to kick symmetrically, and lo and behold, the rule book states nothing about one-legged swimmers. Dan Hole solves the problem by suggesting that since it’s a double-dual meet, and since two swimmers on both teams beat them both, why don’t they disqualify Mott against one team, giving third-place points to Simon, and not the other, giving third-place points to Andy. That is the way it finally goes down in the book.

Chris gets third-place points twice because he’s swimming the five hundred free and the hundred individual medley against nobody else from our team, and Tay-Roy does the same in the hundred fly and the two hundred I.M. Jackie pulls down a pair of thirds in the fifty free and the hundred back. Those races are short enough that there are still swimmers in the water when he finishes, though he bumps his head hard enough on the third turn of his backstroke race not to notice.

The Idaho teams are from neighboring schools and have a rivalry going, as well as a lot of friendships because most of them swim on the same summer team. They’re friendly but a little aloof, and I can’t tell if that’s because they aren’t sure if we got off the bus on our way to Burger King, or if they think they might catch whatever we obviously have.

When it’s over, we gather our things, shake hands with the other swimmers (most of whom wish us good luck, knowing how badly we need it), and head for Pizza Hut, where Dan almost blows cerebral capillaries trying to convince Chris that ordering a twelve-inch will give him more pizza than two six-inchers. Bottom line is, Chris wants two pizzas, and that’s what he gets. “He’s more intelligent than we think,” Dan whispers in defeat. “He almost understood that.” Simon gets two pizzas, too, but he takes Dan’s advice and makes them both twelve.

Andy declares this whole experience a real bonus for Chris, making the swim team and getting a math tutor in the mix. He says it like he says everything, with extra sarcasm, but Dan just says, “Darn tootin’.”

We take our same bus seats, seats that will come to belong to us as the season progresses, and start the trip home through what quickly turns into heavy snowfall.

We’re feeling good. We not only walked away from our first swimming meet with as many people as we went into it with, but we all walked away with points. Chris is so proud of himself we almost have to give him two seats, and Simon is so grateful at having stood on that starting block and not melted away with embarrassment that his relief is leaking all over the bus. Jackie Craig seems exactly as he did before we hit the water, but I tell myself even a ghost has to feel good about this. Icko tells Dan Hole he’s so proud of him he’ll give him a bonus of three big words on the way home, and Dan promptly uses up two: euphoric and rapturous, both to describe his current emotional state. Mott says little, but slaps Simon on the shoulder as he limps back for his seat, adjusting his headphones as his head again disappears from view.

In a short while the euphoria and rapture wear off and, except for the droning of the engine, the inside of the bus is like a dorm room. Simon sounds like he turned into a sputtering chain saw, and when they get in sync, he and Mott are dueling nostrils. Simet and I talk awhile, but before long he’s drifted off, too, and only Icko and I see the storm turn to a blizzard as we slow to about twenty miles an hour. The flakes become so thick and heavy we seem to be disappearing through a white wall.

The small transistor radio hanging from the rearview mirror warns us to stay home by the warm fire for the evening. Winter storm warnings are posted through tomorrow.

I say, “Uh, Icko, did I hear him say the road we’re on is closed?”

“Couldn’t be,” he says back. “We’re on it.”

“We okay?”

“Hell, yeah,” he says. “Used to drive truck over the continental divide in a lot more weather than this. Rolled one of those babies all the way down a mountain once.”

I tell him that doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.

“Like to killed me,” he says. “Law of averages says a guy doesn’t have two of those in one lifetime.”

As he says it, bright light fills the interior of the bus like the Fourth of July as the loud blast from the horn of a state snowplow brings everyone up in his seat, and Icko cramps the wheel hard to the right. He pulls it back quickly, but the bus begins to slide, and for a few crazy moments we whirl as if we’re on the Scrambler carnival ride, then hear a bang! as the front fender smashes into the natural rock wall on our left, violently reversing our field back to the other side and over a six-foot steep embankment.

Simet is up and through the bus in an instant, checking us for injuries. Mott limps up the aisle, slipping off his headphones. “Damn,” he says. “I been on drug trips that weren’t that good.”

Chris’s hands are frozen into grips on the back of the seat in front of him, eyes wide, paralyzed. Jackie sits in his seat, head immobile, glancing side to side, waiting for someone to tell him what happened. Tay-Roy slept through it and is just now looking around. Simon hyperventilates.

No one is scratched, but Icko informs us we are at the bottom of the ditch with the fender smashed against the right front tire and we’re going nowhere on our own. “I got up to the road,” he says, “an’ it is nothin’ but white out there. Gonna be here awhile, men.”

Chris glances around frantically, looking ready to go ballistic, but Simet is right there. “You’ve been camping before, haven’t you, Chris?”

Chris says, “With Brian.”

“Your brother.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, that’s what this is. It’s a camping trip.”

Chris says, “I wish my brother was here.”

“So do I,” Coach says back. “But we’ll have to do this camping trip without him.”

“Gots to do everything without him,” Chris says. “He’s dead. They gots his picture in the trophy case, though. You seen it?”

“Every day,” Coach says. “Your brother was in my class. Real smart guy.”

Chris smiles.

Icko goes back out into the snow, returns in just a few minutes. “Plenty of fuel,” he says, “and the engine’s working, so we can keep warm. All the comforts of home, which is a damn good thing, ’cause we ain’t going to the real one for a while. I put a flare up on the road, and we’ve got plenty more, but it’s a good bet nobody’ll be by for a while.” He holds his wrist near the speedometer light. “Close to midnight. Nobody’s gonna miss us till two or so. Should have help by early morning.”

The bus is equipped with an emergency pack that includes blankets, and we all have warm coats. Icko figures if we hang some of the extra blankets ceiling to floor about a third of the way back, we can keep the front part of the bus in the low sixties all night, running the engine intermittently.