Whale Talk

Two weeks after Christmas vacation, the team goes to an out-of-town meet to face off against two schools from Idaho. Their route to the meet is a narrow backroad, and it begins to snow just before they depart on the bus, which Icko drives.

At the start of the trip Simet and T.J. discuss the letter requirements. T.J. convinces Simet to award letters based on the swimmer meeting his best time each time he swims competitively. While non-swimmers like those on the Athletic Council might think this is a high standard, T.J. points out to Simet that new swimmers like those on the Mermen will almost always improve their times in the beginning.Simet tells T.J. that he will sell the idea to the council, but he also makes T.J. agree to keep the lettering requirements secret to avoid having his swimmers intentionally set a low time as a baseline.

Before they arrive at their destination, Simet leads the team in a visualization exercise to help them prepare mentally for the meet and to familiarize them with the layout of the swim area. He then opens the floor for swimmers to share personal goals. Andy’s goal is to swim without assaulting anyone for laughing at his prosthesis, T.J.’s half-serious goal is for Tay-Roy to escape unwanted female attention to his muscular physique, Tay-Roy’s goal is the opposite, Dan Hole wants to study, Jackie Craig wants to make sure he does not finish last, and Simon, who has no goal, simply tears up when asked. Andy asks to be put in all of Simon’s events to prevent any possible ridicule of Simon, who is overweight.

During the meet, T.J. is pleasantly surprised by how competitive his times are, a positive outcome that is marred only momentarily when one beaten opponent calls him a racial slur. During one event, Andy flings his leg in the air to distract from Simon disrobing before a swim. After the race, the judges debate whether having one leg disqualifies Andy from swimming in the breaststroke event, ultimately resolving it by using a suggestion from Dan. Chris, Tay-Roy, and Jackie all manage to place at least third in several events. The team stops for pizza after the meet.

As the team heads home, the snow picks up, and the swimmers on the bus are elated, relieved, and proud.Everyone drifts off to sleep except T.J., who happens to hear a news notice on the radio that says the road on which they are traveling has been closed because of the snow. T.J. warns Icko. As they talk, they are driven off the highway by a snowplow. The bus lands in a ditch, stranding the team until they can be rescued. Icko sets a flare on the road to alert help to their presence and plans to leave the bus running on its full tank of gas to keep them warm. They hang blankets from the emergency pack to warm the air.

As they huddle together for warmth, the swimmers begin to joke and talk with each other. Andy asks everyone who they want him to kill of he is the only one who makes it out alive.Icko’s pick is the driver who drove them off the road. Simet’s pick is to have his brother-in-law maimed, not killed. DeLong’s choice is his mother, but he refuses to tell the team why. Jackie shrugs off the question and is teased for refusing, as usual, to talk.

T.J. tells Andy that he is “into saving lives” (147), so his pick is actually Andy so as to stop him from killing anyone else. Andy expresses surprise that T.J., “a half-black guy” (147) doesn’t have a long list, and then he asks him if he would rather be any of the other misfits on the bus. When Simet tells him to stop talking, Andy persists by asking T.J. if he put together the Mermen simply to give himself “a little edge on superiority” (147). His question and the ugly names he uses for each of his teammates anger T.J., and the two end up nose to nose. After Simet separates them and chastises Andy, T.J. begins to wonder if his whole plan for the team isthe result of arrogance, not cleverness.

Andy surprises him by apologizing and explaining that he tends to get under people’s skin as a result of a personality disorder.T.J. admits that Andy might be right about his motivation for putting together the team and that he has gotten obsessed about the athletic letters. Andy responds by telling him his pick for killing is Canada Smith, his mother’s third boyfriend after Andy’s father left. Andy implies that Canada Smith sexually abused him, but he refuses to tell the rest of his story since he doesn’t know T.J. that well.

Andy then tells T.J. that he is better off being a person of color than being a one-legged boy who was abused by his mother’s boyfriend. Andy’s counselor advised him that telling people about his personality is probably the best way to prevent himself from showing his ugly side. T.J., says Andy, should now consider himself forewarned (150).

A snowplow pulls the bus from the ditch at four in the morning, and the team heads home, having completed its first meet and “group therapy session” (150).

In the days after the meet, the team gets some press from the town newspaper for having survived their accident rather than their performance at the meet. T.J., both the editor and a reporter for the school newspaper, publishes an overly positive story in the school newspaper. The story mentions that the team broke several school records. Simet later tells T.J. that the story is unfortunate since it may make Coach Benson and Coach Roundtree suspicious of the team’s letter requirements when the Athletic Council meets later in the day. 

After meeting Simet, T.J. runs into Rich Marshall and Mike Barbour, the latter of whom takes him to task for calling the swim team a “dynasty” in his article(153). After Mike ridicules the team, Rich follows up by asking T.J. if he has “respect for anything” (154). T.J. responds by saying that he has respect for some things, but he refrains from saying what he is thinking, which is that he has respect for people who do not mistreat others.

He taunts Rich by mentioning that he respects people who hunt only adult animals (a reference to the baby deer Rich killed), and Rich, who equates himself with a teacher, threatens to report him. T.J. dares him to do it. Mike leans in closely to tell him that his team will never letter, especially since Mike is the male student representative on the Athletic Council. The confrontation ends, and T.J. goes to a room to calm down and talk himself out of confronting the Athletic Council for letting Mike be a member. 

He leaves campus to have lunch at his house with Carly. When he gets home, his father’s car is in the driveway, but his father does not respond when T.J. calls out to him. When he goes to look for him, he notices that his parents’ door is closed, an unusual occurrence in their house. When he enters the room, he finds his father sitting in a chair in the dark as he watches a video of humpback whales. His father is crying and eventually tells him that it is the anniversary of the day he killed the widow’s little boy in his truck. John Paul makes T.J. leave him. T.J. returns to school, where he is in a distracted mood the rest of the day.

After school, Mike is pleased to tell T.J. that Simet has placed the team in a bad position for lettering by setting personal improvement for every meet as the standard for lettering. T.J. pretends to be discouraged and tells them that the standard is impossible to meet. He leaves them, supposedly to have a talk with Simet about the lettering requirements.

In subsequent meets, the team performs well, with each swimmer beating his best time. The bus rides back and forth to the meets also prove to be a plus because the swimmers “talk about things[they’d] probably never mention in any other arena” (160). Near the end of the semester, Simet uses the bus ride to force several swimmers to study because their low grades threaten their academic eligibility to compete.By the end of term, the team’s grades are bested by only one other team and everyone is eligible.

One day, Georgia tells T.J. that Heidiwill be staying with the Jones family because Alicia allowed Rich access to her children again and has lost custody as a result. The twin boys have been placed elsewhere. T.J. agrees to look out for Heidi, who has probably been re-traumatized by Rich during the time he spent with her.

When T.J. gets home that evening, Alicia and Heidi are there. While Heidi is immediately drawn to T.J., who tells her that he needs a sister, she is more cautious of John Paul when he arrives later with Abby. Heidi spills thefries from the Happy Meal the Jones bought her and responds with fearful apologies after the accident. John Paul dumps his fries on the floor to put her at ease. His plan works. Heidi laughs and joins him. Before Georgia departs, she tells T.J. that she placed Heidi with his family because Heidi trusts T.J. and she needs the support because she is fragile.

At midnight, a drunk Rich Marshall bangs on the door of the Jones family home, demanding to see Alicia. T.J. tells him that Alicia is not there and that he should call her in the morning. Rich responds by telling T.J. he is not allowed to contact her legally, then asks if T.J. is sleeping with Alicia.Using several racial slurs, Rich says that Alicia likes sleeping with black men. 

When T.J. tells Rich he should leave in case the police come, Rich gets angry and flashes the butt of a gun. T.J. grabs the gun, a move that shocks Rich. T.J. hears a sound and discovers that a frightened Heidi is watching them. He calls Heidi a “nigger girl,” and asks where her mother is (172). T.J. yells for John Paul, who arrives with a bat in hand. Rich tells T.J. that their conflict isn’t over. Rich leaves, and John Paul calls the police.

After T.J. puts Heidi back to bed, he tells his parents that Rich believes he is sleeping with Alicia. Abby tells T.J. to be cautious because Rich is violent. John Paul returns to tell them that the police will arrest Rich in the morning. When T.J. tells Abby he would welcome a confrontation with Rich, his mother warns him that Rich is desperate and his accusation that T.J. is sleeping with Alicia is really just an articulation of what he fears. The danger to T.J. is that Rich will catch him unaware. She refuses to go back to bed until T.J. promises to steer clear of Rich.