Fight Song A Novel - By Joshua Mohr Page 0,64

nothingness.”

Gotthorm turns and starts walking back toward the indoor pool, leaving Bob and his binoculars all by their lonesome.

About 4:00 AM something sort of beautiful happens. Gotthorm gets into the pool with a bottle of Gatorade and an energy bar. He approaches Jane. Slowly, she seems to emerge from her trance, her nothingness, and she slowly drinks the whole Gatorade, eats the snack. Then she shuts her eyes again and returns to her puckered breathing.

Coffen climbs into the empty lifeguard chair, the perch giving him a better view. He watches Jane in awe. Watches and feels washed with affection.

Tuesday looks a lot like Monday. Besides intermittent trips into the locker room to relieve himself, Coffen stays fixed to the outdoor pool deck, spying with grave intensity, snacking on his stash of Mexican lasagnas.

If Coffen’s calculations are correct, she’s been treading water for twenty-nine hours now.

And while he can’t see her legs working in the pool, he can see her face, her arms, her cohesive motions. Gotthorm is right—there is something otherworldly in the way her body moves.

Erma, Margot, and Brent are back.

Apparently, the judges rotate to stay alert. The woman who was there the day before is now gone. A small gentleman is positioned close to the pool, scrutinizing each of Jane’s strokes, clutching a clipboard of his very own.

Bob texts his kids the same message: How’s our girl doing?

Margot: fine

Brent: you mean mom?

Bob: Think good thoughts for her!

Neither of them knows he’s out there, hiding with the masses on the congested pool deck. He figures it’s better to keep them in the dark about his distant attendance, so they don’t accidentally tell Erma, who would probably call the cops on him. Or worse, buy a stun gun and handle things herself.

Gotthorm comes out again to chat with Coffen late Tuesday, around 11:00 PM. The health club is closed. He’s not carrying the African pompano this time, but instead is eating a banana.

“Aren’t you cold?” Bob says, pointing at his Speedo.

“I’m Nordic.”

“Don’t remind me. How’s she doing?”

“She is accepting the ocean as another home. And it is accepting her.”

Bob fights back laughter. Why is it that the first thing through Coffen’s stupid mind is a wisecrack? Here his wife is going on forty hours straight of treading water and all he wants to do is say something snide to Gotthorm: How is a heated indoor pool anything like the open ocean?

He stops himself, embarrassed. Why can’t he focus on what’s important? He catches himself, composes himself, then says to Gotthorm, “She’s going to do it this time.”

The coach snorts. “Too soon to know. She’s made it this far before.”

“This time’s different. I can tell.”

“Fish swim forever,” Gotthorm says.

Wednesday looks a lot like Tuesday. It’s a bit after high noon. Coffen has run into the locker room to shower, shit, and brush his teeth, and then flees back to the pool deck to eat another Mexican lasagna—a snack that doesn’t age well. Each bite a chore. Each bite probable food poisoning.

Jane’s just crossed the fifty-hour plateau, which puts her nine hours away from her personal best. Nine hours away from uncharted waters.

That night, Gotthorm doesn’t come out to talk to Bob, which he takes as a bad sign. Coffen’s up on the lifeguard chair, peering in at them. The coach looks worried, leaning down and talking a lot to Jane as she treads. The African pompano has been thrust to the side. This can’t be good.

Erma, Margot, and Brent have gone home to get some sleep. The same judge is there, alert as always, clipboard in his hands.

Coffen channels his inner Gotthorm, thinking to himself, Why would a fish need any words of encouragement to keep on swimming?

Through the binoculars, Jane appears no different. Her eyes are closed. She paddles and sways her limbs with the same nimble fluidity. She breathes her puckered breaths.

But Gotthorm’s shift in demeanor has Bob flustered, and a flustered Bob Coffen isn’t known for shrewd decision-making. Pretty soon, he’s creeping up toward the window. Pretty soon, he’s pantomiming a big thumbs-up with a simultaneous shrug of the shoulders to Gotthorm, who responds only with pursed lips and a shaking head.

At 5:00 AM on Thursday, Jane’s been treading for sixty-seven hours, and this is the moment when her eyes pop open. The skin tone changes, going pale. Her rhythmic, puckering breaths go into shallower, almost panic-stricken sucks of air. Her head slips a bit under the water. She catches herself, rights her stroke, but it’s the first