The Sea of Light (2 page)

*

“Fear,” DeKuts used to yell, “is always physical. Fear is in the body, and the body tells no lies.” He’d go into his spiel then, throw a kickboard at you if he thought you weren’t listening. Sometimes he’d miss and the board would bounce off a pool gutter, skim pastel blue water like a manta ray’s fin.

“I want you to be afraid when you swim for me. Healthy fear of the pain it takes to win and a deeper fear of losing, and a much much deeper fear of me.”

He’d stalk past every lane, his bare toes just missing your fingers as you hung on, his eyes glittering like brown, mean little bugs. “I want you to be afraid of ease and comfort, I want you to feel like if you stop or let up for a second you will die. I want you to work and I want you to race like your lives depend on it. If you do all that for me, you will earn my respect.”

Once, the toes stopped near the wet gutter space between my thumb and forefinger. They were big, warped, specked with shiny black hair. They lifted with the foot, and his callused heel came down on my wrist, trapping it and me, sent a cold line of pain up to the elbow. Chlorine and a sour fleshy smell mixed in my nostrils. I felt tears about to spill, resolved not to let them.

“You!” he shouted, “I’m talking to
you!
No talent. So show me some guts. Use your fear. Maybe you can swim with the big girls some day. Then you and I can be friends.”

He made me do an extra set of 200s that day—ten on a short interval, and when practice was over I puked in the locker room sink. When my wrist swelled I wrapped an Ace bandage on. The fear settled deep down in a dark, living, inside place I couldn’t touch. I needed it. I got used to it. Like I needed him, got used to him. Dreamed of beating him to death. But wanted, more than anything, to be his friend. And found that, after all, having the terror inside is a useful thing. Toughens you for the rest of life.

Getting used to it can be deceptive, though—you tend to forget it’s still and always there. But crisis never fails to remind. The day of Kay’s diagnosis I felt it flare up again, chilling and bright, vomit bubbling around in my throat and the sweat suddenly sliding over my forehead, down my belly, just like old times. Later we took a walk. It was right before New Year’s and things were sunk in ice-sheeted snow. We wore boots and sweaters and long coats and hats, I’d made her put on a couple of scarves, too, because of the fever. We walked with one of my arms around her shoulders, the other across her chest so I kind of staggered along sideways, shielding her from the wind. Neither of us talked. Until she said, very quietly,
Baby, why don’t you cry?

It was late afternoon. The air was red-tinged gray and wet, tasted like more snow.

Because I’m the coach, Kay,
I replied—for the first time, though not the last.
Super Coach. Remember?

I wanted to cry, but didn’t.

*

A lot of things happened that winter. Second opinions. Bad prognoses. The weather was particularly severe worldwide: plenty of frost, orange crops ruined, old folks freezing next to kerosene heaters, ice storms and airlifts in Alaska and, farther south, the storm they called Angelita—worst Gulf hurricane of the decade—and the 747 disaster. A banner year. I spent most of our savings on a new car with deluxe heater. Kay had these chemotherapy appointments twice a week, felt cold most of the time.

And I thought getting tenure was rough,
she said.
Great way to spend a sabbatical, huh?

In the midst of all this, my team started to win. Really win. I sort of watched it happen out of the corner of my eye. Afraid that at any moment they’d find out what a hoax I was—for all intents and purposes out to lunch, gone, kaput, busted up like no one ever told me I’d be, not even DeKuts. I flew on automatic pilot, put them through their paces twice a day. Shifted into an unearthly kind of gear and sewed together perfect training schedules. Bugged them at workouts, made them dread the sound of my voice and my footsteps. Reminded them that I’d recruited them, each and every one. That they weren’t exactly the cream of any crop, weren’t exactly the stuff Industry Hills senior meets are made of, that they owed their barebones little college scholarships to me, and if they wanted to keep what I’d given them they would damn well cut out the crap and work hard. Because they were mighty short on talent, I told them, and if they won they’d win on guts and work alone. Forget all your Olympic medal fantasies, I said. Forget your dreams of Pan Am gold. The world’s not waiting for a single one of you. Better start thinking about survival.

They wondered what was wrong, but didn’t dare ask. Hated me, but didn’t dare express it. So while Kay was dying, and the deep-down living terror kept boiling up from inside until my skin felt pale and slimy and I responded to every hello with a punched-out vacant look, those kids swam their guts out—and they won, and won, and kept on winning. Until, in the Division II land of the Straight White People, I became a rising star.

*

WASPs,
Kay said.
Never a tear. What on earth is wrong with you?

Kay was Jewish.

Our private life centered more and more around stained beds that winter. Around tubes like tentacles filled with colorless liquid, sick blood.

I don’t have a lot of friends, and I was pretty busy worrying about all those tubes, and about fending off her relatives—with whom we had always coexisted in a state of mutual dislike—and about the insular whirlwind of athletic triumph at work that had placed me at its core. But I did keep in touch with Chick, calling once in a while to say how things were going. She came up to visit quite a lot at first. Then Kay got depressed and asked her not to any more.

Once, just before spring, I called DeKuts. It had been years. He answered with a cough so hard and thick I thought his guts would spew out in chunks through the receiver. When he could breathe we talked swimming for a while. This and that. He congratulated me on the program I’d built at State. Said he’d done right to get me into coaching, hadn’t he? A mediocre swimmer, never go All-American in any division, nothing but a hammer with one talent, one talent only: to persevere. Outlast hope itself. A workout king. Queen. Some ability to organize, too, sniff out the talent in others. Still, girl coaches wouldn’t go far, not in the big clubs. Never coach a national team. But college sports, Division II—yes, that was right where I belonged. He laughed and the coughing wracked him. His voice was half of what it had been, though there was still that unmistakable hard-driven rage in it fueling the cruelty he’d use like a tool. Finally he asked why I’d phoned. What did I really want? I told him I was afraid.

“What a coincidence,” he said, “I am too.” Then started to cough again and I knew it was true. “They opened me right down the middle, Bren. Took out everything they could lay their hands on, zipped up the zipper. Told me, Mr. DeKuts, you’d better go home to die. So here I am. Interesting that you called. Say your piece now, though. We won’t talk again.”

I was quiet and the receiver sweated in my hand. Then these words popped out of me—I meant them to be cruel, to pay him back then and always—but for some reason, I don’t know why, they came out very gently.

“Is it the worst fear, Jan?”

“Sure,” he said, “but that doesn’t really matter.”

There were many states between us. His throat rattled, long distance, while he tried to keep breathing.

*

September 1st. What wakes me is fear and the dream. And Boz planting crusher paws on my chest, pink pit bull tongue dripping everywhere. Ugliest dog in the world. Kay’s choice, two years ago. Even then I knew I’d regret it.

“Boz, cut it out.”

Dawn sifts through the living room blinds. I remember everything with a big sick rush that seizes my throat again like a prison guard moving in to stay, so for a moment there’s nothing I want any more, not really, least of all to wake up.

Personally, I adore pit bulls,
Kay said. Putting her foot down.
And I will have one, Bren, an albino, pink-eyed, rat-eared, Roman-nosed as can be. The ugliness is noble somehow, don’t you think?

No, Kay, I think that’s bullshit.

Another thing that never got said. But I loved it when she put her foot down. Her eyes blazed wide and deep, you could see the flush begin around her ears. It would just about decapitate me.

“Come on, Boz.”

He twists his thick body like a corkscrew. Starts doing what Kay called The Morning Dance, half-growling, half-whining, beseeching with tongue and whirling tail. Breakfast time. So without quite realizing it I’m off the couch, heading for kitchen and can opener, contemplating the upcoming hypocrisy of goading a bunch of college kids to set their alarms for six a.m. workouts when Super Coach herself has trouble finding any real reason whatsoever, these days, to crawl off the living room sofa at daybreak. Bless Boz, the living alarm clock. Who has probably become my reason for being—what Kay would call, in this beautiful academic French accent she could muster at will, a
raison d’
ê
tre.

Not that I will ever let on to the kids about that. Or about anything.

“Okay, pal, here. Here’s your food.”

He dances, toenails clicking the floor tiles in a frantic shuffle, eats with fierce gulping sounds while I refill his water bowl.

Now the twisted tail’s flagging air again and Boz has that hopeful head-cocked look. Maybe uncertainty has crept into whatever his consciousness is. Maybe he misses Kay, expects her back any minute now, any day.

“You want to go out?”

I let him bite the ratty hem of my robe and drag me to the door, watch him lope across the lawn. Breeze ruffles the tips of grass, turning them over like thousands of tiny spears shimmering green, then silver, in the morning. He burrows through pine cones, dandelions, disappears behind some trees. I lean against the refrigerator and close my eyes. Then the handle springs. The fridge door flies open. Half-finished bottles of salad dressing and soda rattle dangerously, an opened tin of sardines splats against my bare feet while the fish oil spreads.

Cleaning things up on my knees on the floor, I cannot help it: ripples surge along my spine, shock waves of memory.
Come here, sweetheart.
Her mouth moved in the mess of tubes.
I’ll tell you a secret.
I stepped in, then, toward the bed. Willed myself to lean closer. Saying this is your lover, Coach, and you must, you must.

* * *

You’re so damned obsessive-compulsive!
she always told me. Exasperated. Resigned.

Yes, love. Yes.

I go through the house straightening edges and surfaces. Obsessively-compulsively—is that a word? Kay would know. Checking everything twice the way I usually do. Avoiding the bedroom. I shower, dress in the hall, toss cosmetics into a purse and sweat clothes into a gym bag, examining my face in the bathroom mirror from a variety of angles to see what, if anything, can be done. Boz watches, curious. Either it’s real loyalty, or just habit: to sit patiently, good-natured, ugly pink eyes noting every move, tough paw pads scuffing rugs and tiles and wood as he follows.

“You and me, dude.”

He thumps his tail.

Powder under the eyes, dribble a little Visine in to clear the red. There’s this glossy lipstick Kay liked.
When all else fails, bright lipstick, Bren.
I took careful lessons from her, the veteran of countless departmental meetings and tenure committees. She was older than me, more familiar with the Straight White People, knew better than anyone how to spiff up an act.

I pull my briefcase together.

Obsessive-compulsive makes for good coaching. Maybe it’s a survival mechanism, too—not necessarily the best, or even the most appropriate—just what I have at hand, practically speaking. Kay would have agreed; I am nothing if not practical. And there are all these things to do. Partial scholarships. Team cuts. Big interview with a prospect this morning.

Suddenly I understand about the dream, and about waking up afraid. At first glance, there is shocking similarity in the appearance of a shaved-down swimmer and a hairless chemotherapy patient. They are both creatures in limbo somehow—recognizably human but oddly so, poised on a starting block or the edge of a hospital bed in some transitional place between effort and finality.

Cry, sweetheart,
she told me, holding my head in ruined hands.
Please, baby, let it out. You’ll feel so much better if you do.

Yes,
I said.
Yes, love.

But I couldn’t.

Inner things came to me, things from the past. Images. Snatches of almost-understanding.

A cold drink of water. Splashes of chlorinated powder in full basins. Showers. Steam. Whirlpool on damaged shoulders and knees. I have been around this stuff most of my life. First out of love, then out of fear, until it became a meal ticket for me, just work, obsession, nothing more. But it got so intertwined with the other things—the water did, I mean, and the swimming and coaching—that it wrapped around a stuck-deep root inside and meshed its genes with that root. The way the love did, and the fear. The way Kay did from the first time I met her. So that, now, I could not stand to lose it.

I stepped in closer to the bed, plucked a tube aside. There were sores on her mouth and I put my ear to them. Something jangled in my head, a tangible rattling sensation. It made white and gray waver in front of my eyes and I knew that if I remained standing I’d faint. So I sat on the side of the bed, fighting it. She wanted to tell me something—her hands shook, beckoned—to tell me a secret. I was all weighted with heaviness inside, then I just lay down next to her. My ear pressed her mouth again while she whispered.