The Finest Gold by Brad Cooper

Author:Brad Cooper
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BIO026000, BIO016000, SPO058000, SEL044000, SPO047000, SPO043000
Publisher: Scribe Publications Pty Ltd
Published: 2018-12-02T16:00:00+00:00

DOLPHINESE

Hi Nickname. I thought it about time I dropped you a line. Hope all’s well. You’re so lucky you’re still up there in that constant 26 degree Valley Pool water: when we left the indoor pool last September for the outdoor (unheated) pool at Auburn, the water was 17 degrees. So, one day we’re in a wilting 33 degrees in Talbot’s indoor Hurstville pool (apparently they need it that hot for babies’ classes) and the next we’re in those freezing outdoor lanes at Auburn. Now that was a shock and a half.

You can’t throw your body into such cold water without feeling you’ve seriously betrayed it, particularly when you know there’s two hours to go! And this Talbot doesn’t put up with ‘namby pambies’ slinking in via the steps with a squeal for every inch: it has to be a running jump. And after hitting the water, we’re all bouncing around on tiptoes with arms above heads, blowing quick half breaths and shouting ‘phwa, shit, Christ!’ As long as we don’t take this show too far, Talbot says everything will be ‘hunky dory’. If you haven’t guessed, two of his favourite expressions are namby pamby and hunky dory. Oh, and I almost forgot Creeping Jesus. You’re definitely a Creeping Jesus if you always tag on the end of the line, hoping he won’t notice you draughting on everyone. (When my friend Hal finished a 1500-metre yesterday, Talbot reached down, grabbed his skinny wrist, hauled him out of the pool like an underfed seal pup he was about to club to death and barked, ‘Listen, you little Creeping Jesus.’ Hal’s always going last.)

Your body never warms up in 17 degrees. After morning training I was still shivering through breakfast 20 minutes later, losing cereal off every shaky spoonful. On a sunny day the water picked up a tad, but overnight it dropped again.

In my first week in the outdoor pool I kept hearing the high pitched whine of an outboard motor. Either this, I thought, or my usual tinnitus had hit a new frequency from some sort of eardrum frost bite. Then one day a lane-mate asked why I never replied to their cheerios. ‘What cheerios?’ I asked.

‘The ones we give when we’re passing each other,’ he said (and I was getting passed a lot in my first few weeks).

‘Dolphinese!’ one girl laughed. ‘Surely you’ve heard our underwater dolphin squeals.’ And that was my outboard motor whine. Now I speak fluent Dolphinese!

Talbot and Gordon are dead opposites. Both get angry, of course, though Gordon’s age made him a kind of lovable ‘C man’: crotchety, crabby, cranky. But Talbot’s definitely your ‘A man’ — adversarial, abrupt, authoritarian — and he’s decades younger than Gordon. He’s built like the nuggetty drill instructor in Gomer Pyle, with the same flat-top crewcut but minus Sergeant Carter’s man-boobs and conflicted lapses into pastoral concern. And he’s always saying ‘hell’: ‘That was a hell of a swim — you’ll have hell to pay — you can go to hell.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.