Swimming (15 page)

This is what the world looks like out the porthole: a swirling pit, an ocean of blue and green undulating beans until we hit the blob of moss that is Greenland, water again, this time slate-colored all the way to the tip of Europe, which reveals splotches of sunny green when uncovered by cloud. I can’t tell what time it is anymore when we descend into the black and gray quarry pit that is Moscow.

You think that your regular things will do something unusual when they are in an unusual place, but I am amazed that my body remains integrally Kansan even when it’s in Russia. My sneakers squeak across the marble in the hotel lobby exactly the same way they squeak down the halls of Holy Name, but my brain excavates drama. It says:
Steady on, now; steady on. We’re in enemy territory
. This makes Moscow very zesty and exciting even though Radmilla, our guide, is so shy she uses only half of her mouth when she smiles. She looks at a spot above our heads.
To your left is the Cathedral of Christ Our Savior; to your right is the Kremlin
.

Peggy is deeply affected by the abundance of male beauty.
I’d have sex with nine out of ten of them … I think I’d even have sex with an old one …
E. Mankovitz accidentally hears, becomes very frowny, disappointed, and stern but says nothing.

Moscow snows fall heavier and harder than Kansas snows, have a bitter, stinging edge to their flakes, but I’m burning with happiness, thus do not care. I explode from the starting block faster than a hammer of a gun, but I can’t keep up with the East German Berliners, headed by Fredrinka Kurds, one of the greatest swimmers in the history of the world, beard or no. I swim behind her like a guppy in the wake of a speedboat, watching her feet churn as fast and as ruthlessly as steel blades. She is so amazing, I forget to breathe.

I know zip about psychological warfare, openly study her from the streaks of her frosted hair sprouting rooster-style from her small head, to the harrowing shoulders wedging out of her neck like craggy mountain rock, to the sturdy thighs with visible veins, down to her knobby ankles and the longest, widest feet I’ve ever seen on a human being outside of a museum. Fredrinka has decided to deal with Team USA by rendering us invisible, but teammate Dagmar has a different theory, standing behind her, arms crossed over barrel chest, squinting at me with two raisins for eyes. The rest of the team chant and stomp, have dark sideburns, long nose hairs, red spots, really thick necks. The East German Berliner chant is sufficiently potent that it resonates down to my feet as I’m blessing them in my head.

Peggy stares them down from her perch in the bleachers. She’s wearing a white baseball cap with a big blue star in the middle of it, is chewing down hard on some pink bubblegum.

Look at that redhead—she’s definitely packing one; there’s a bulge
, she whispers
. What do you think?

Concentration is the key to mental preparation
, I say, watching Dagmar stretch her rubbery neck in seven creepy directions.

Peggy ignores me.
I’d beat them if they were still girls—even steven
.

They sweep us cleanly, tightly, perfectly, pulling themselves through water at speeds Mankovitz hasn’t dared yet mention. Afterward, Dagmar shakes my hand, looks me straight in the forehead, says:
Gut schwimmen!
Fredrinka slumps up behind her, both shoulders curved in as though to disappear, shakes my hand, looks me deep in the eyes, and quietly whispers:
Gut schwimmen!

Peggy says:
They have guy voices, did you hear them? Like lower than my dad’s
.

On the plane home, Supercoach E. Mankovitz maintains his usual high optimism and enthusiasm:
Our time will come
. He calls me over to the empty seat next to him and we discuss the intelligent swim. I’d gone out too fast, lost milliseconds in senseless breathing, but my technique was tight and I’d lowered my times. E. Mankovitz seems pleased, thus I seem pleased. If Supercoach E. Mankovitz is spending time with you, things are good in a burning bush in the middle of the desert kind of way. If he believes in you, it is because you are.

Up the Downhill

I ride up hills, tires cutting through fallen leaves. I ride down hills, tires cutting through rushing gutter. Seniors are participating in lighthearted thieving, open irreverence, lots of highly effective lie. Lilly tries to coerce me into breaking the Catholic bylaws one by one with all the other fun seniors who smoke secret cigarettes, filling up plastic cup after plastic cup of beer at hidden kegs that sprout around bonfires when night falls. I look at her and say:
I can’t, Lilly. I’m really busy
.

And I
am
really busy. I travel from bed to pool from pool to school from school to pool to bed again like a human train; Mom’s starting not to feel well up in her bed, until now her secret haven, and June’s having a tough, lonesome year that’s driving her to the ledge and showing her the bottom.

When I get home from practice on Friday, shoulders aching in pain, June’s brandishing one of Leonard’s Japanese knives from his special elite barbecue set, its blade so sharp it could cut an entire newspaper in half with one swipe. She’s adding ingredients into a large pot filled with smoking oil; hacked-up potatoes, unpeeled carrots, spoonfuls of chutney, chunks of onion, pieces of still-frozen shrimp. She holds the knife up behind her ear, then brings it down hard on the chopping block and a whole chicken collapses like a house of cards. I take a step back.
What’s going on?

Something’s wrong; her eyes have been invaded by a mean animal who doesn’t recognize me as an old friend.

What’s it look like?
She says, and something in her voice makes me shy.

I don’t know
. I’m using the careful voice I usually reserve for the company of nun.

You don’t know?
She takes a wooden spoon and starts stirring it up.

No
. I look for an out.

What’s this look like?
Her knobby face is perched at the edge of the steaming pot.

I look down at a bunch of vegetables sizzling in pain.
I don’t know
.

You don’t know
. The insides of her eyes are different—rheumy, dull.
Gumbo. Look what you’ve done to yourself … You’ve swum the girl right out
. Then she laughs like someone who’s pretending to laugh and doesn’t care who knows it. A nuclear mushroom of fear heats up, then blossoms in my chest.

Dot grabs my arm.
We should put her to bed or something
.

This makes June jumpy. She grabs the knife, starts swinging it around like a samurai.
I’m not going to bed. No way. I’m cooking up a gumbo
.

I swam one hundred million sets, all of them hard and fast. Leonard appeared at the very last wall bathed in cement like Abraham Lincoln, but with wide-alive eyes.

I’m not hungry
, I say, starving.

She’s got the tip of the knife under my chin.
You’re not hungry?

I barely move my lips.
No
.

She looks at the knife, surprised it’s in her hand, takes a step back, lowers it.
You, you are not hungry
.

I barely move my lips.
No
.

This isn’t good enough for you? Green Giant. Does everything you eat have to come out of a box?
She laughs, forgetting about the knife again, swooping it through the air as though it were a chopstick.
Go. Get out. Go. Scoot. Scoot now. Get out. Pronto
.

I escape into my bedroom. It’s March outside, night falling with a thud, like a heavy object off a wall. Dot comes in.
Can I stay with you for a while?
I say
okay
and we watch March trees sweep their budding arms against the window until we fall asleep.

The next day June sits on the couch avoiding all eye contact like a lady in court.
I don’t know what happened yesterday … nothing I said was … it wasn’t the way … just promise me one thing: Don’t drink like I drink. If there is anything I want you to understand from me: Alcohol is shit, worse than shit, double worse. You can tell who you want what you want
. She looks down at all the nails she’s bitten off her poor worn hand.
I’m not
going to be denying anything. What I did was … after what you’ve been … I don’t know what happened
.

She’s taken a shower but nothing’s washed off. Her hands are trembling and her face is crumpled and her eyes are trembling and crumpled. I feel scared again. I look around. The bird feeder is full, the house has been cleaned from top to bottom, the windows are clear, the sunshine is tangible, but fear blooms hot like a red flower.

Just promise me you won’t drink like I drink
, she says again.

I won’t
. This from Dot, who means it.

I won’t
. This from Roxanne, who’s mastering the effective lie.

I am a swimmer
, I say, stressing the syllables to jiggle a memory, pave apology’s way.

She looks at me with no-color eyes, face no-colored, teeth a translucent greenish gray.
You ain’t gonna be a swimmer forever, babe
.

Trials and Tribulations

It’s hot; the air’s holding so much liquid, it’s difficult to breathe. Coach Stan is standing behind me anguishing, his eyes ringed in brown like an owl’s. This is it, the hardest race in the world. This is it, harder than Worlds. Legend says it’s harder than the Olympics themselves. This is it, the Olympic trials. One and two qualify in each race. The rest: Out.

Earlier on, Supercoach Ernest Mankovitz made a joke:
It will be one of the only occasions in your life where second is as good as first
as hundreds of swimmers pretended to laugh. This is his favorite part, the watching, the waiting, the weeding, assessing the culmination of thousands of hours spent chasing one’s shadow across the floor of one’s pool. But third isn’t funny. Third is purgatory, the real one that flares from the tip of hell where you look up at the angels gliding by in a vision of blue and you’re not yet burning yet you’re not entirely dead.

Coach Stan is speed-talking into my ear.
Keep it steady and smart and strong
. He’s folded his forehead into his eyebrows, his ears stretching his mouth into a nervy line.
I’m talking speed and pace the whole way through, got it? And don’t think about the breathing; just don’t forget to breathe. Okay?

Smart and in-pace and intelligent with my head on straight as I continue to breathe before I can in case I can’t
. I echo, but inside:
Fuck that. Swim like an asshole
.

Before I leave, Father Tim blesses me.
I’ll pray for you
.

Mother says:
Did you pack shoes? Remember your shoes
.

Dot grabs my hands and crushes them.
You can do this. I know you can do this
.

Roxanne says:
I wish I were going somewhere
.

June says:
Take it as far as you can
.

Lilly Cocoplat is still dating Skinny Pants, who plans on being a lawyer as soon as he possibly can. She’s excited; forgetting our diverging paths, she hugs me hard, says:
You’ll
so
win
.

This is it. I put two almonds in my mouth and click them against my teeth, looking outside of myself as quietly as a well-behaved pet in the back of an expensive car. Everyone is moving; swimmers stretching next to me, their legs twisting; swimmers pulling themselves into sprint, then slowing down to rhythmic crawl; swimmers drinking strawberry-flavored protein drinks; swimmers listening to music, some eyes shiny, some eyes vague; swimmers in a state of trance, hoods covering heads, goggles woven through fingers; swimmers rubbing long, flexible feet; swimmers twisting long, flexible toes. Fellow Americans have now officially become competition; if I make eye contact with someone swimming in one of my heats, I look away.

I click the almonds, flex every muscle in my back, hop, put my cap on, check my goggles, rotate my arm propellers, count every rib in my rib cage one by one. There are more than I thought. I click the almonds on my teeth, chew them into pulp, wait.

When my name is announced, I salute with one strong arm, which Peggy kindly points out later seems slightly Nazi of me. I jump, shake, wrench my fingers, twist my wrists, get on my mark, freeze until the beep sounds and I explode.

I make it to the finals in six events. Coach Stan chews his blue lips white. He’s standing next to me indenting cement with the heels of his sneakers.

It’s down to Babe and me for the 200 butterfly. She looks at me, nods, makes the sign of the cross, breaks her own world record. I touch one hundredth of a second behind, another personal best.

Journalists ask:
Disappointed by the second place, Pip?

I frown at the
Pip. Don’t you know second is as good as first?

Theoretically. But she beat you
.

I warm down like a drowning person in a long dress as my name is etched into the wall of Olympians and Coach Stan gets two mottled patches on his neck that take a week to go away.

I find a dark space in the locker room, discreetly throw up in a garbage can, brush my teeth twice, put my sweats on, stand under the dryers I put on full blast so I can warm up. The heat invades the surface of my skin, turning my face burgundy, the mind behind exploding in deep attachment to life and all of life’s things, the source of all suffering. My brain speeds up as fast as the Whirly Wizard on Shawnee Days and I start to shake. Leonard’s gone, the tiles underneath my feet are white squares caulked in blue, Bron’s cello is lying on its back in the closet with the coats (it drifts into my mind, its cords moaning), my mother is sitting in front of the TV she’s set up at the foot of her bed, her face the color of green M&M. Someone who isn’t going to the Olympics is lying on a bench crying as her coach massages her temples, whispering urgent things into her ear. I cut my nails too close to the skin; Coach Stan has broken some blood vessels in his eyes through the mystery of what a big shout can do in the chain of bodily events. The world is deepening like blood in a state of permanent coagulation. I don’t like it. I walk into a stall, sit on a toilet, put my head between my knees, panting like a warhorse.

Pip, Pip, Pip … has anyone seen Pip?
Peggy’s calling.

I hold my breath.

She stands in front of my stall, voice yodeling.

I say nothing.

She stands in front of my stall.
I see your feet
.

I remain invisible through the magic of silence.

Everyone’s looking for you …
Her tall voice cuts easily through the short door.

I speak.
I’m sick
.

Why? Now? … How sick?
She’s confused.

I’m shaking … I don’t think I can walk and I … can’t … unclench … my jawbones
.

Want me to get Kyd?
Now she’s concerned.

No!
I shriek.
Not Kyd. I’ll be okay in a minute
.

Herr Professor Spankypants wants to give a speech
, she says, trying to make me laugh.

I’ll be better in a minute. I just need to warm up
. I feel better.

Want some Chiclets?
She knows I like Chiclets.

No
. I don’t care about Chiclets.

They might help
, she says, then sits outside the door, guarding it. Her silence is punctuated by the sharp crack of popping gum.

Every once in a while, she checks.
How is it now?

Better
.

People waft in and out. I breathe slowly, putting all bad thoughts into canoes and sending them rushing down the river to the trenches of oblivion.

Coach Stan is calling.

Peggy yells back:
She’s in the bathroom; she’ll be out in a minute
.

Did you have to say bathroom?
I’m better.

Who cares about bathroom? Everyone goes to the bathroom
. She knows I’m better, is back to herself.

It takes fifteen minutes for my attachment to worldly things to subside. I open the door slowly with a horrible-looking face Peggy does not mention. We find E. Mankovitz, who solemnly shakes my hand, gives me a quick hug, says things with his lips. I shake his hand, accept the hug, feel pockets of air with sound inside leave my mouth. Babe and Sunny and the rest of Team USA find us and we jump up and down. We look into each other’s eyes and a deep love is born; a love of six-year-old bodies thrashing through pool, a love of white toes clutching the edge of a scratchy starting block, a love of a prom dress pulled over linebacker shoulders, a love of the lonesomeness of the lane, a love of the lonesomeness of the empty pool, a love of the lonesomeness of spent energy and hot pain, a love of all the things we had to do to get here, right where we are, now. Love picks us up, then puts us down again. We love each other at the top, then we love each other at the bottom. We hop and we hop and as we hop, I feel the love and the tears that carry love to the surface for all to see. My mind whirls, hunting and gathering. I will know this moment again and again; it will become one of the measures I use for my life. I whoop a crazy gut whoop and deep love makes them whoop with me as life advances forward and our whoops catch and mingle together in the thick chlorine air.