Chapter 24 #2
“Birthday party,” comes the grim response. “Right after the pizza. Thought I got everything yesterday, but I guess not.”
Danny’s coach stands, wincing as he rubs his knees.
Sasha’s only ever seen him at a distance, usually further down the sidelines at a meet; up close, he looks like Grandfather Frost after a visit to the barber, with ruddy, smooth-shaven cheeks, twinkling blue eyes, and snow-white hair in full retreat from his forehead.
“You must be Sasha,” he says, giving him a quick, assessing look. “Garrett Wennerstrom. Nice to meet you. I’d shake hands, but…” He holds up the vomit-stained rag, then nods at a door near the waiting area. “Why don’t you kids go to the office, I’ll get myself cleaned up.”
He joins them a minute later in the office, which has the look of a space that’s mostly used for stashing things out of sight.
The outline of the desk is a mere suggestion underneath mountains of loose papers, and the floor is covered with half-opened boxes of leotards, t-shirts, and tape.
While Sasha’s trying to find a spot to stand in, he notices a filing cabinet labeled Danny that’s so full, half of the drawers can’t even close.
“So. Sasha,” Coach Garrett says as he settles into his chair, the only clean surface in the room. “Danny tells me you’ve coached boys before, eight- to eleven-year-olds? And some junior elites?”
They cover the bases—spotting experience, first-aid credentials, comfort level with coaching in English—and even though Sasha forgets a few words, he thinks he does a decent job of answering each question, because eventually Coach Garrett nods.
“All right. We’ll put you in with the younger team kids.
They have their moments, but they’re a good crew.
I’ll handle the teenagers, but we’ll be rotating together, so I’ll fill you in on what everyone’s doing. ”
“Sweet, I get the little kids.” Danny pumps his fist, and Sasha can’t help but laugh at how excited he sounds. Knowing Danny, he’ll probably be having more fun than the campers.
“We’ll go over the schedule and all that, and I’ll show you the stations,” Coach Garrett continues, gesturing out towards the rest of the gym, “but while I have you in here…”
There’s a long pause, and Danny tilts his head, looking confused.
“I don’t know much about Russian coaching these days,” Coach Garrett says slowly, carefully. “But I’ve had some experience with the old Soviet methods, so I want to make a few things clear.”
He stares straight at Sasha, all traces of Grandfather Frost gone from his gaze.
“We don’t insult the students here—we don’t call them names or tell them they’re wasting our time if they can’t get a skill right. We don’t yell at them, unless they’re about to run into someone else. And we don’t hit them. Ever. Under any circumstances.”
Danny laughs, then abruptly stops when he realizes Coach Garrett isn’t kidding.
“I won’t.” Sasha forces himself to make eye contact, even though he wants to look at the floor instead. He hasn’t done anything wrong, but shame is swirling in his stomach, dredging up memories he’d rather forget.
“Wait. What? They don’t hit you guys.” Danny glances between Sasha and his coach like he’s expecting one of them to let him in on the joke, his smile faltering under their silence. “Right?”
“Right,” Sasha finally says, because it’s true enough, and he’s not having this conversation in front of a stranger.
Danny opens his mouth, closes it, then opens it again.
“Where are stations?” Sasha asks Coach Garrett.
*
Coach Garrett takes them around the gym, explaining all the equipment configurations they’ll be using for drills and skill work tomorrow.
He shows Sasha where they keep the chalk and tape, the first-aid supplies, the cleaning products for mats and various bodily fluids.
They go over the camp schedule, from drop-off to pick-up and everything in between.
The entire time, Sasha can feel Danny watching him.
For once, though, Danny doesn’t say anything.
Not until they’re back in the car, which is already hot despite the fact that it’s still morning.
Danny turns on the AC, not quite looking at Sasha as he fiddles with the dials for longer than necessary; and Sasha braces himself, because he knows what’s coming in three, two, one…
“Are they hitting you guys? At Round Lake?”
Sasha could lie, but he doesn’t think Danny would believe him. “When we were younger, yes. Sometimes.”
He still remembers the crack of a hand across his face after a drill he couldn’t get right, the shock almost worse than the pain.
It was his first camp at Round Lake, and he was all of ten years old—but he’d known, even then, not to cry or argue with the coach.
So instead he’d stood there, head bowed, feet sweating into the mat, as the coach told him just how useless he was and not to bother coming back to the high bar until he was ready to learn a Tkatchev.
(Afterwards, while he was trying not to touch his stinging cheek, another boy had come up to him. “Doesn’t your dad ever hit you?” he’d asked, and when Sasha swallowed instead of answering, the boy looked him up and down. “I’m Kirill, by the way.”)
“Holy shit. Sasha. I’m so sorry.”
“Not anymore,” Sasha says, because he wants Danny to stop staring at him like that, wide-eyed with horror. “Not since we are seniors.”
“Why? Did someone report them?”
Sasha almost laughs. Jesus, the fact that Danny actually thinks that was an option. “If you do something wrong now, they say you are not competing. Or you are not on team.”
And with the Olympics always looming on the horizon, it’s enough of a threat to keep everyone in their place.
“Seriously? Sasha, that’s messed up.”
A spark of irritation grows hot in Sasha’s chest. Danny’s acting like someone just kicked a puppy in front of him, but he can’t be that na?ve, even if it’s all marshmallows and campfires at Sunnyside Gymnastics Academy.
“Americans do this, too. Worse. You have doctor in prison for… how many girls? Hundred?”
“I mean, yeah.” Danny’s shoulders tense, though his eyes never leave Sasha’s. “But, like… that doesn’t make it okay what they did to you.”
Sasha has no idea what the fuck Danny wants him to say.
No, he didn’t enjoy it when it was happening to him, and no, he doesn’t enjoy the sounds he sometimes hears when they overlap with the juniors at practice, but what’s the point in talking about it?
All you can do is move on, pat the next kid’s shoulder in the locker rooms.
“What about Arkady?” Danny asks after a moment. “Does he… did he ever do that?”
Sasha shakes his head. It’s one of the reasons why he’s never considered switching coaches, even though there are a couple at his gym with more elite experience, with better connections at Round Lake.
Arkady might be stern, but he doesn’t raise his voice or his hand, and Sasha can’t say the same for most other coaches he’s met.
“Does your mom know?”
Danny sounds like he’s already guessed the answer, which is absolutely the fuck not. “What is she going to do?” Sasha demands. “She will only be upset. And why? Why do I do this to her?”
“Yeah, no, I get it,” Danny says, though he doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t. Sasha’s willing to bet no one’s ever hit Danny in his entire life, at least not in a way that mattered.
But it’s not Danny’s fault he was lucky.
For a moment, there’s silence, Danny watching Sasha while he stares out the windshield. He imagines himself taking all these thoughts and memories and stuffing them into a box, slamming the lid shut. Shoving it in some dark corner where he won’t have to stumble over it again.
“Sasha, I’m really sorry,” Danny says.
He reaches for Sasha’s hand, and Sasha lets him take it, feeling oddly detached as Danny’s fingers thread through his.
Even though he knows he should make eye contact again, it’s easier to just keep looking at Danny’s windshield.
There’s a tiny crack in the glass, and if he focuses on it hard enough, he can’t see anything else.
After a while, Danny asks, “Do you want to go work out?”
Sasha nods. He’ll say yes to whatever Danny suggests, as long as they don’t have to talk about this anymore.
“And then we’ll get tacos?”
Sasha can’t help smiling at Danny’s taco obsession as he nods again.
“And then after…” Something mischievous in Danny’s voice draws Sasha’s gaze back to him. “I was thinking I could give you a tour of my high school makeout spots.”
“Your—what?”
“Basically, I know a bunch of places where we can park the car and no one’s gonna see us, so I can, like, blow you if you want.”
Danny looks very pleased with himself for this idea, which is probably a terrible one, not that that stops Sasha from agreeing as soon as he can pick his jaw up off the floor.
What is it they’re always saying? God bless America?
Yeah. That one.
*
Later that night, while they’re helping Diane make the cabbage rolls for dinner, Danny can’t stop glancing at Sasha.
He seems like he’s in a better mood now—carefully chopping the carrots, nodding as Diane explains her grandmother’s recipe—but Danny keeps thinking about how he’d looked in the car, fists clenched, holding himself so tightly together as he told Danny what his coaches had done when he was a junior.
Danny shouldn’t have been surprised. The Russians have always had a reputation of being hardcore, and it’s not like this shit doesn’t happen in the US, either—he’s heard horror stories from other gymnasts, coaches screaming in their faces or making them condition until they puked.
One guy on the Knights even had a springboard thrown at him when he messed up a vault.