Early the following day, Kevin went to the pool with Roger. When they arrived and walked out onto the deck, there was a bunch of kids milling around and talking to a teacher. Roger walked up.
“All right, everyone—what gives? You need to get suited up, we’ve gotta start.” he called.
The teacher walked up. “That’s the point, Roger. Mr Winters—the new assistant principal—is making some changes in the high-school sports rules. He wants gym classes and the teams to be working naked, said it’s part of how he’s going to run the Program here.”
“Well, Ralph, not this team, okay? Competition swimming doesn’t work naked. I know; I tried it. It kills the times and it also ruins the swimmers’ rhythms and strokes. And it would destroy any chance for anyone here to improve their skills.” He turned to the students. “Okay, everyone, get your suits on and hustle. I want everyone on the deck in five minutes. Move!”
One of the kids called, “Mr Howard said we’d have to be naked—but we can wear our racing suits, right, Coach?”
“Right!”
“Super!” many of the kids cheered.
Roger nodded at Kevin, who went to get ready too.
“Who’s that who came in with you?” Mr Howard asked.
“A new guy; just started here. He’s done some racing, Japan or Korea maybe. Has the right physique and I asked him to show me what he could do. Say, Ralph, what’s this shit about nudity all about, anyway? You gotta have your soccer team naked too?”
“That’s what Winters wants. He’s browbeaten some of the coaches, but Bendenton, you know, football, told him to shove it up his ass. He said no moron plays football naked.”
“Well, same with swimming, same with soccer—is this guy for real? Just don’t listen to him, he’s an idiot.”
The team was coming out of the locker rooms. They lined up at the starting blocks.
“Okay, now, in lanes one through eight, I want...” he called out eight names, “100 meters freestyle. Give it everything. Mark... GO!”
Roger and Ralph Howard were timing the swimmers and one of the student trainers was assisting. For the second heat, he asked Kevin to swim. After the freestyle he had the team do the backstroke and checked their times.
“Okay, guys, rest a bit. Let me look at your times....” He pulled Kevin over. “Hey, this isn’t too bad, Kevin. You’ve tied in fourth in freestyle and were fifth in backstroke. All these kids’ve competed at least one year before this, so you’ve got a real good chance of boosting your times. You need some work on your flip turn; that looked a bit shaky.”
“Okay, but my breast and fly are pretty bad, you know,” Kevin said. “I always had trouble with the breast stroke because you’re supposed to breathe at every stroke and the bobbing slows me down.”
“Yeah, it slows everyone down; that’s a dumb rule.... Okay guys, butterfly now. Same order, group one. Mark... GO!”
Roger ran them through the butterfly and breast strokes and while they were swimming the breast laps, Winters came in. He watched for a minute, went over to Roger, red-faced, and tried to get his attention. Roger shook his head and put his hand up, eyes intent on his timing device, then Winters grabbed his arm and tried to pull Roger around to face him. With his free hand, Roger took Winters’ wrist and squeezed it hard. Very hard. Winters yelled and pulled away. The swimmers began hitting the pads and Roger checked the times and looked up at Winters.
“Never, repeat, never try that again. I don’t know who you are and don’t really care, but never, ever interrupt a practice like that, you understand? And never lay your hand on me either. Now who the hell are you and what do you want?” Roger growled at the man who was standing there, clutching his wrist.
“I’ll see that you’re fired. Today,” Winters huffed.
Roger grinned. “Dock my pay, too, okay? You can’t fire me; I’m a volunteer. You must be the assistant principal who’s causing all the uproar, right? I’m Roger Denison and the student coach. Pleased to meet you. And what is it that you so urgently wanted that you tried to interfere with my practice session?”
“I want you gone. Right now,” he answered.
“Um. Sorry—that’s not happening. My appointment was made by the district school board. Do they report to you also?”
“Well,” Winters responded, “we’ll see how long...”
“Excuse me,” Roger interrupted and began to turn away. “I’m running a practice and we’ve got limited time...”
Winters made to grab his shoulder. Roger turned back. “Guy, I warned you—touch me again and you’ll be in that pool quicker than you’d believe, got that? ... Guys enough rest, first group, wind sprints for five minutes, freestyle. As many laps as you can. Go!”
He turned back to Winters. “I really don’t want to be rude, but it seems you need lessons in polite behavior, Mr Winters. So far I haven’t been impressed with your competence and I expect to be treated like a professional, not a child. Okay? Now, you came in here for a reason. May I know what it is?”
“I came to see the coach...” he began.
Mr Howard spoke up. “Mr Denison is the coach. I’m just the staff observer. He’s in charge here.”
“He must be a college student, then. A college student can’t be in charge...” Winters began.
“He is. No one else is qualified to coach swimming.”
“I’m still waiting, Mr Winters. Or, better, you could leave. I need to get back to the team,” Roger said mildly.
“I’ll be back when your practice ends,” Winters huffed.
“Be my guest, sir.”
Roger beckoned Kevin over; Kevin wore a giant smirk on his face.
“Now you’ve met the asshole. What did you think?” Kevin asked.
“Asshole? Assholes keep better company than that one. Okay, you’re not awful in fly, you actually were third; I’m surprised. But I couldn’t see your stroke technique to see if it’s legal. But breast, you were like twelfth or something. You never got up a good stroke cadence.”
“Yeah, I have to remember to bob and breathe. I’ve got good breath capacity and tend to hold it and I know you can’t do that in the breast stroke.”
“Okay, Kevin, why don’t you do the wind sprints with the second group now and we’ll talk afterwards, okay?”
After practice wound down, Roger gave the team some final instructions, told them to come again Wednesday morning, and sent them to shower. Kevin stayed behind and just then Winters appeared, so Roger sent him to the showers too.
“Don’t want him to recognize you, okay? Complicate matters.”
Kevin agreed and went off to the locker room.
“So, Mr Winters, how can I help you?” Roger asked.
“Apparently I’m stuck with you. The board has a contract with the university,” Winters said.
“Okay. And?”
“So I had given instructions that teams have to be naked,” Winters continued. “This one isn’t.”
“That’s what I heard—nude competitions. Not happening, however. My team’ll swim nude when the football team plays nude—and I mean completely, no pads, helmet, cleats. Same exact uniform. Okay? And the football coach has agreed to that, I assume?”
“No, he...”
“And neither will we. Anything else, sir?”
“But you don’t need the same protection in the water...”
“Sir, I’m not going to argue. What I said is how it’s gonna be. I know swimming; I know coaching swimming; naked swimmers are not competitive swimmers. Period. Are we clear on that? Now, was there anything else?”
“I’ll have you talk to Principal Leeds about this,” Winters said.
“Fine. Right now? I have maybe ten minutes. Otherwise I need to get back to the university and won’t be back till early tomorrow.”
“I don’t know if he can see you now,” Winters said.
“Okay, then let Mr Howard know. He can tell me tomorrow morning. If Leeds wants to see me, I have a few minutes after tomorrow’s practice. I gotta run, bye.”
Roger went to the locker room.
“Kevin, I don’t have much time and neither do you—your class starts in about five minutes. Let’s talk about the swimming when we get home later, okay? Great. See ya!”
During home room, Kevin got a summons to the office. He turned to Denise.
“This crap is looking familiar—office visits every day, just like last year. I don’t expect any federal agents this time, though,” he said.
“But be careful!” she urged.
Winters wanted to see him.
“Mr Coris, I tried to contact your parents. Are you aware there’s no contact information for them in your records?”
“Yes, sir, I am,” he sighed. “How much of my file materials did you read?”
“The registration form, emergency contact form—you listed Denise Roberts on that; you can’t do that—she’s another student. Also it appears that it’s your signature—what looks like your signature—on all the forms. You can’t do that either, I could suspend you for forgery,” Winters said.
“Oh, sir, if you did that, you’d be greatly embarrassed at what would happen, I think,” Kevin said with a feral grin. “You don’t want to try that—you must have my file there... yes, that’s mine. I recognize the envelope sticking out. So. Want to try to suspend me now, or read my file first?”
“What do you mean? You’re really an impertinent youngster, you know?”
“Sir, I treat with respect those who earn it by treating me with respect. So far you’ve treated me like a child, even a servant of yours would get more respect. Please read my file; then you’ll have the answers you want.”
Winters paged through the sheets, then opened the envelope and extracted a page. He looked it over.
“What’s this legal thing with all the stamps? Ah, declaration of emancipation? What’s that?”
“It says I’m a legal adult. Even though I’m not 18 yet, that says that I can sign any legal document as a fully responsible adult. No adult has to sign for me. Which is why I signed my forms.”
“But why wouldn’t your parents sign? And why is there no contact information?”
“You didn’t finish reading the last few pages.”
Winters looked down and flipped through the last two sheets. Then he looked up.
“Sorry about your parents. You have no guardian?”
“Legal adult. Didn’t need a guardian. Is that all, sir? I need to get back to classes.”
“Ah, I needed to talk with... er, about your non-cooperation... how to get you to stop the opposition to the Program.”
“Yes, there is that. Same as I told you yesterday, sir. I won’t take direct action against you, but I will let the students know about the Program’s evils.”
“The school has various ways of punishing students who fail to follow their rules, you know,” Winters warned.
“Please let me know which rules are being broken, then...”
“Not following my orders...”
“Excuse me. The ones that are written. In the student handbook. Not those that are verbal and have no formal basis in the school’s written rules of behavior. It seems to me that those rules are the only ones that can be enforced by a school punishment.”
“Talking back to a staff member is in the rules.”
“Please. Please don’t imply that you are calling this conversation ‘talking back.’ May I go?”
“Go. But you’ll hear from me further.”
On the way back to his classroom, Kevin got a text from Habers. It asked him to call him that afternoon.
During the class changes Kevin and Denise tried to see if they could see any naked participants but didn’t see any until lunch; there were four at one of the tables, and as they approached, several kids got up to block them from coming close.
“Hey, Alan, they’re good,” one of the naked kids called. “Come sit here? I’m Jon. These are Valery, Marcy, and Sam. Val and I are sophomores and the others are juniors. There are two others this week, both of them are frosh. Your idea of doing that screening maneuver for us when we’re in the halls, in here too, is really working, so thanks.”
“It wasn’t our idea, actually,” Denise said, “it was our college friends’. They used it at their school. We just passed the idea along.”
“Any problems so far?” Kevin asked.
“No big ones. None of the four of us have classes where a demo would be a problem...” Valery started but stopped when a girl walked up.
“Fancy finding you here!” Cynthia said gaily, as Kevin spun around.
“Cindy!”
Denise had already jumped up with a little squeal and hugged her.
“Hey, guys, this is one of those college kids I mentioned,” Denise said. “Cindy, what brings you here?”
“Girls’ b-ball coach, remember? Got a team meeting after this period, so I thought I’d catch you. What’s up, and I see Kevin’s filling these poor kids’ heads up with lies.”
“Lies?” Marcy said, confused.
“Yeah, Kevin loves to regale everyone with stories about how great the Program is,” she said with a smirk.
“Yeah, I almost had them convinced, and you had to come and spoil it,” Kevin moaned.
“Seriously, did he tell you about this super-secret anti-Program movement?” she whispered theatrically.
“Well, he and Denise did try to convince us not to do the Program but we chickened out. About maybe twelve others are resisting,” Marcy answered.
“Well, you’re doing great,” Cynthia said. “There are ways of resisting from within too. My boyfriend in high school was in the Program yet he was one of the major figures in our resistance. So don’t think of yourselves as ‘chickening out,’ okay? What you’re doing is just as brave as those who are refusing to participate.”
“You know? That’s just what Denise told us outside the office when we were called yesterday.” Sam replied.
“Yeah, that’s because we read it in the same script!” Cynthia laughed. “Seriously, at our high school we got everyone together and kept a united front. Like the Marines. My dad is a Marine and he says the best way to win is to work together as a team; you stay together and you’ll win together. So if you find something to unite around, do it. Denise told me the slogan ‘Just say no!’ That’s as good a rallying cry as any, so go with it. Hey, I gotta run—good luck, guys!”
“Wow, that’s one damn cool chick,” Sam said admiringly as Cynthia rushed out.
“Sure is—and so’s her twin, um, he’s a guy, and really cool too,” Denise said.
“Yeah, and shit, did he whomp up on Winters at swim practice today,” Kevin exclaimed. “Took him down like a little kid—gave him a damned tongue lashing and sent him away with his tail dragging. If he learned that ass-kicking from his dad, I’d hate getting on his dad’s bad side. He was just like a Marine drill sergeant. It was awesome to see.”
“Hey, Kevin, you know where we were just about a year ago, right?” Denise giggled.
“Um, holy shit, yeah... this is quite a change,” he grinned.
“Change? From what?” Valerie asked.
“Last year at around this time we were in a lunchroom sitting with some naked kids then too,” Denise explained, “although we were a kind of support team for them, and wound up doing stuff with them, Kevin did anyway, right in the lunchroom.”
“No shit?” Jon said. “So why are you so anti now?”
“We were anti then, too,” Kevin said. “But the kids we were trying to help—it was pitiful; the girls were so frightened. We tried to make it easier for them and got sorta carried away and they did too. I felt bad about it later. That’s another bad thing about this nudity stuff. If you mix the nudity with eroticism the way the Program does, it screws with your moral compass. That’s why I oppose it. I was right in the middle of it all and it lured me into doing stuff that after I cooled off, it embarrassed me. Tell me, any of you, have you been erotically stimulated these last two days?”
“No...” “Are you kidding?...” “Turned off, actually...” they muttered.
“So the parts that are meant to be erotic—the touching, posing, overt sexual elements—if those are removed, then it’s just the nudity, see? And nudity alone is not erotic, normally. Mix that with the embarrassment of being naked in a place where everyone else is clothed seems to me to be anti-erotic. So the Program fails again. You can’t force someone to learn about their sexuality by forcing them into an artificial situation. Someone once said that it’s like throwing a person into a river and expecting him to learn to swim, just because he’s in the water,” Kevin finished.
Kevin phoned Habers as soon as he returned home.
“Kevin, are you in trouble at the school?” Habers asked when he got on the line.
“Not yet, sir,” he replied. “It’s just the same as I told you in my email, so far. I’ve been talking to students about the problems that the Program causes, Denise is too, and telling them about how I’ve heard of resistance movements against it at other schools. The assistant principal keeps implying that he wants to punish us, maybe even suspend us, for just that talking.”
“And you haven’t done anything that could be viewed as a direct challenge, like organizing a protest?”
“No, sir. We’ve told the kids stuff, facts—nothing made up, and let them decide for themselves if they want to refuse to participate,” Kevin answered.
“Good. I have an iron in that fire, too. My daughter was almost raped at your high school last year while she was in the Program. I couldn’t force the school to exempt her, so I’m behind any student-originated movement to resist the Program. Here’s what I’ll do. A friend of mine is a circuit-court judge who has jurisdiction in this county. He’s also very much against the Program. If they do give you a suspension order, just leave, don’t argue, but contact me right away. I’ll have a restraining order back to the school inside the hour and a notice of a permanent injunction against their taking retributive actions against you for your free speech activities in the school within the week. If they try anything else to punish you, other than a suspension, let me know and I’ll figure out the proper response.”
“Thanks so much, sir,” Kevin acknowledged. “That’s a relief and Denise will be thrilled too. I’ll let you know if anything happens.”
Then Kevin noticed that he had received an email from Bob Charlesworth. He was reading it when Denise came in.
“Say, darling, I spoke to Habers and not to worry, if Winters tries suspending either of us, he’ll intervene immediately to get us back into school.”
“That’s cool,” she answered.
“And I gotta let Cindy know—Bob is taking up this Tenth Amendment challenge. He’s working with the ACLU in—um, let’s see, fourth and eleventh districts, and they’ve already requested a declaratory judgment in those federal courts. He says this gets the ball rolling to stop any federal requirement for having the schools run the Program. He sends his compliments to Cindy for thinking of this, too.”
“Fourth and eleventh districts? What’s that mean?”
“Um. It’s a big area, east coast, Maryland to Alabama, he says.”
“Hey, look, sweetie, Roger’s home. I just saw his car.”
“Ah. I gotta talk to him about my swimming today. I’m not sure I want to actually compete on his team, but I sure liked the workout he gave us.”
Kevin called to Roger as he came up to the house and they sat on the porch while they discussed Kevin’s swimming.
“Yeah, Kevin, you could work out with the team if that’s all you want to do, but you could even compete in some meets—you could swim in the events where your times are competitive. Individual and team events too, you know,” Roger commented.
“Let’s see how my week goes, okay? I liked the exercise—hey, I was more alert in classes today too, so the exercise got my blood going, I guess. Say, here comes Cindy and Tom; I got some real news for her—and you.”
Cynthia came up onto the porch.
“Say guys, what’s up?” she asked.
“Kevin and I were talking about swimming. He’ll be working out with the team so we’ll be riding in together in the mornings. Also he said he’s got news for us,” Roger said.
“Yeah, Cyn, I heard from my N.C. lawyer, Bob Charlesworth. He’s taking up your constitutional challenge and already filed the papers.”
“Awesome!” the others exclaimed.
“And you know how a-hole Winters has been threatening Denise and me with suspension?” Kevin went on. “Well, I spoke to my lawyer here, Joshua Habers his name is, he’s really anti-Program; he told me his daughter was almost raped while she was on the Program. So he’ll send an injunction and something else to the school immediately to cancel it if Winters tries.”
“Habers... hmm, I know I heard that name...” Cynthia mused. “Oh, my god... Kevin, you know who that is? He’s the father of the girl I saved from being raped last year in your school! Small world, wow. I don’t believe it; how did you find him?”
“Bob—Bob Charlesworth. He recommended Habers; they’ve worked together on some cases, is what Bob told me.”
“Hey, if you tell him that I’m part of your Merritt anti-Program group, I bet he’ll work twice as hard for you,” Cynthia smiled.
Tom had been talking on his cell phone, then he came up on the porch.
“Just spoke to Jim,” Tom said. “Everything’s ready for the great news article switch. The newspaper sends the file late Thursday evening; it’s queued for printing by 10 p.m., printed overnight, and delivered early Friday morning. So our window is between 7 and 9 p.m. He said we should have our copy ready, 500 words max. Can we do that?”
Cynthia looked at Kevin.
“Um, sure,” Kevin said. “How ‘bout we base it on your resistance model, Cyn? Several levels of non-compliance. First level, Just say no. That’s not participating at all. Next, limited participation, with help from others who will shield them from being harassed. Then refusal to take part in humiliating classroom demos. Why not tell kids who participate to simply ignore the stupid opposite-sex rule about restroom use for Program people so they’ll have their privacy if they want? And same thing about the locker room and shower situation, too. Remember all those forum stories about the biggest source of rapes involved girls in the boys’ showers. And begin the article with info about why the Program is so bad, Cindy’s study results, and possible consequences and punishments the school can impose and how to counter those threats.”
“Hey, that sounds pretty good, right, Cyn?” Roger exclaimed. “Kevin, why don’t you write that up and we’ll all look at it, okay? We can make it like a guide so the kids who get called next Monday have some idea of their options. And point out that there’s no formal organization being done; that the resistance movement is simply a general kind of civil disobedience and if enough kids take part, the school’s options for retaliation become greatly reduced.”
They all agreed that this was a good plan.
Kevin grinned at the twins. “Geez, guys, you’re some hot team. This is going down like a real military campaign—now we have a propaganda arm, too!”
Cynthia smiled back humorlessly. “Yeah. They want a fight? They’ll get a fight. We Marine kids know how to fight. Kids—need help? Call in the kids from the U.S. Marines!”
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