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Joe Rantz and the rest of the boys in the number one boat glided to a stop alongside the ASUW shell house boat launch, panting and exhausted. The sun had set, the night was cold, and they were all ready to be done rowing for the day. Tom Bolles, infuriatingly chipper, lowered his clipboard.
“That’s it for today, boys. Rest up and I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow. That’s early, Morris; I won’t have any slacking just because Coach Ulbrickson is ill.” He shuffled his feet a little and nodded. “Okey-doke, go on and get out of here.”
The boys, grumbling and shivering, obeyed.
“I wish Bolles wouldn’t say things like that,” Roger complained, voice raised to be heard over the sputtering showers. “Okey-doke. He’s too old to talk like us.”
Shorty, laughing, slapped Roger on the back. “Aww, Roger, you’re just sore ‘cause he got on you about being late. He’s not that old.”
“It was just once and it wasn’t my fault, you twit. And he’s thirty-three.” Roger shrugged off Shorty’s hand and pointedly turned his back on the rest of the boys to soap himself up.
“My brother’s thirty-three,” Joe said with a shrug. “Got a wife and a kid and everything.”
“Does your brother say okey-doke?”
“Don’t see him much these days, but - crap. Time’s up,” Joe said, as the clanking of pipes ceased and the weak spray of water from the shell house showerheads, already barely more than lukewarm, went cold.
Roger, still half-covered in suds, groaned. “Even the boiler hates me today.”
“Yeah, sure Shorty goes with lots of dolls, but it’s not wrong to date while you can. And anyway, everybody knows he’s that way for -”
Roger’s voice, loud in the quiet, marshy dawn, cut off at the approach of Coach Bolles, fedora in hand, picking his way around the deep mud puddles left behind by an overnight rainstorm. He reached the open hangar doors of the shell house and, pausing to clean a few misty drops off his glasses, smiled much too widely for such an early hour.
“Good morning, boys! I hope you slept well. Especially you, Mr. Hunt,” he added with a pointed glance at Shorty, whose eyelids were drooping with fatigue and whose hair looked suspiciously rumpled. “Since you clearly weren’t sleeping last night, I hope you spent it studying and not making out with this week’s dame.”
Shorty’s eyes went wide. “Coach, I -”
“I don’t need to hear about it. Everyone in the boat,” Coach Bolles said cheerfully, and ushered them out again into the drizzle.
Later, in the showers, it was Shorty’s turn to complain. “I’ll take the kiss off happy if I never have to hear him say making out again. And I was studying.”
“Yeah, that one’s a bit off the cob when he says it,” Jim allowed. “I don’t even want to think about him, you know, actually doing it.”
“Come on, fellas, he’s got a wife,” Gordy said, muffled through the fabric of his shirt as he struggled to pull it down over his still-wet shoulders. “They’re probably making love.”
Jim made a noise of disgust. “Even worse.”
The number one boat had rowed well that day, making some of its best times yet. Still, none of the boys were accustomed to receiving anything more than crumbs of praise from Coach Ulbrickson, so it came as a surprise when Coach Bolles nodded approvingly and said, “good work today, boys. As you know, Coach Ulbrickson is still laid up sick, but since I’ve been neglecting the freshmen boats while I’m standing in for him, he’s given his permission to let you boys have a day off tomorrow. You will spend it working on your assignments; if I hear about any of you dogging it I’ll make sure to advise Coach Ulbrickson against ever giving you a day off again. That means you, Jim McMillin.”
“So, boys, who’s getting swacked tonight?” Chuck asked, as soon as they were out of Bolles’ earshot. “Forget what old Bolles says, dogs have got to dog. I’ve got a bottle of plonk stashed away; who’s with me?”
Roger shared a guilty look with Shorty. “Not me, sorry, Chuck. I’m already in his bad books. Who knew he’d be just as strict as Ulbrickson?”
“At least Ulbrickson doesn’t say dog it,” Jim grumbled. “It’s as if he’s trying to fit in with us by using our slang. Why can’t he just pretend to be older than he is like Ulbrickson does?”
Johnny slung his bag over his shoulder with a nod towards Chuck. “I’m with you, Chuck. Joe?”
“Sure, why not?”
“I’m starting to agree, anyway,” Johnny said contemplatively. He led the pack out of the showers and towards the water as he spoke. “Ulbrickson’ll just kibosh things, right? Bolles’ll say he’s putting the kibosh on them, just like that. ‘Now, boys, I’m putting the kibosh on any of you getting swacked tonight’. It almost makes me embarrassed.”
“You and me both. It sounds crazy, but I’m starting to miss Ulbrickson’s silence,” Chuck said with a laugh. “Come on, let’s make tracks before Bolles comes to tell us we’re behind the grind or something else just as awful.”
“I shudder to think on it,” Roger said seriously, pulling the heavy doors shut behind him as they all began the walk home.
“What’s the score, fellas?” Bobby asked the next day, sliding into place along the wall of the shell house just in time to be lounging against the shingles as though he had been there all along when Coach Bolles appeared over the grassy ridge up from the Cut.
Don nodded up towards the high windows above the shell house doors. “Ulbrickson’s back today.”
“Oh, thank the lord,” Bobby said, head thunking back into the wood. “I don’t think I could take another day of Bolles’ dingy sayings.”
“What’s your story, morning glory?"
Bobby’s head shot forward once more. “Coach Bolles!”
“It’s all wet, boys. I don’t have to be a house peeper to hear what you’ve all been saying; you’d rather I be more hard boiled like Coach Ulbrickson. Well, don’t blow your wigs, but I’ve got some snazzy news for you. He’s back, and that means you don’t have to put up with my slang anymore.” Coach Bolles paused for a second, grinned, and winked. “Abyssinia.”
“Coach,” Shorty said, plaintively, as Coach Bolles turned heel and walked away, humming to himself.
“You know,” Roger said slowly, “I don’t think I’ll ever be so happy to see Ulbrickson’s stone face in my life.”
A tall, smartly-dressed shadow appeared in the doorway. Al Ulbrickson smiled. “You shred it, wheat.”