The Sea of Light (46 page)

“Look you two, I gotta go.”

Babe closed her eyes.

“Where to, Lizzy?” I said. “And not alone, huh?”

“Nah, don’t worry. Sager said he’d pick me up and haul my rear end back to the dorms—I promised him nine
P.M.
curfew the night before qualifying heats, he swore he’d make me stick to it—so there you go, guys. I’m stuck.”

“Pinned.”

“Butterfly on the wall.”

She rubs my shoulder and kisses Babe, stands to shake sand off. Somewhere there are lights. A car honks, and she’s gone. I nudge Babe’s neck with my nose.

“She’s fucking him, Babe.”

“Who?”

“Sager.”

She laughs. “Not Liz.”

“How come you’re so sure?”

“Look, I just
know,
okay? Anyway, what are you doing?”

Nothing, I tell her, my hand up her shirt. Getting ready for a little romance.

She tells me doing it in the dark on a strange beach with sand up your butt is hardly romantic. I tell her to stop resisting and just love me; which after a while she does—kissing back, touching back, getting naked, all the things she knows I like—with a lot less enthusiasm somehow than I am showing, but with real care and affection. She’s had a lot on her mind lately, I know: the battle of wills with Sager, and her slipping times, getting demoted from the animal lane, and all this bullshit she’s going through around her family, and around competing; sometimes, I think, it’s just Liz and I holding her up in the world so she can walk on her own two feet. But it’s not so bad being needed. Even if, most of the time, I cannot make her come. She makes sure I’m happy. We have a good time. I love her eyes, and tits, and long lean belly, and thighs. I mean, I’ve got no complaints.

That night, though, it bothered me: So that I held her face between my hands and she had to look straight up at me while I moved her knees apart with my own and slowly, slowly, like doing something sacred, I pushed inside of her.

“Keep your eyes open, Babe.”

No, she said, don’t.

“I love you,” I told her. “Stay with me, stay with me, I want to make you happy.”

She closed her eyes and I forced them open with the tips of my fingers. She tossed her head out of my grasp; I seized it again, hard, could see the whiteness of her teeth in the dark, and she bit her lip deep and moved her hips up into me, faster, trying to end it all much faster, and I fought against her but couldn’t win, finally bucked and pumped and groaned into her, went hot, blank, and came and came.

I opened my eyes against the damp side of her neck. She was trying to push me away, crying.

“Bitch,” I gasped, like in a dream, without knowing why, “who else is there?”

She shoved me off of her and rolled away. There I was in the sand, shirt off, pants down around my ankles, and she’s staggering to her knees mostly naked, gathering up her clothes, crawling off crying, then running. Hey! I yell. Babe, hey! But she doesn’t stop.

When I get back to the dorm all hell has broken loose. She’s running down the hall smack into me, sobbing, looking red-faced and crazy, her clothes buttoned on all crooked, still sprinkling sand. Her chin hits my chest. She stuffs a hand in her mouth to muffle the sounds.

“Babe. What is it?”

“No,” she says, and runs down some stairs. A door along the hallway slams shut. Liz races out, tying on a bathrobe. It’s too long for her and flaps the floor around her ankles. She heads in my direction, and when she comes close I see that her skin is flushed, mouth set anxiously, eyes uncertain, aggravated. She’s breathing really hard.

“Where’d she go, Kenny?”

“What’s going on?”

She ignores me, pointing. “Down there?”

“Hey.” I grab her by the shoulders suddenly, slam her against a wall and hold her there. The bathrobe’s not hers. It’s Sager’s. I can feel sweat drip down my face. Sand in my shoes. Up my ass. I can smell myself—a mean, pungent smell. “Tell me, Liz, why do you care?”

“None of your business.”

“No, it really is my business. See, in case you hadn’t noticed, I really, really love her. And along those lines, Lizzy, I happen to be fucking her.”

“Funny,” she says, her eyes damp and amused, “so am I.” Doors are opening, lights flickering on. People in various stages of undress—from our team, and others—are staggering into the hall, yawning, blinking. Out of shadows at the end of the hall I recognize one larger, older form, heading our way: Sager, jeans zipped haphazardly on, buttoning up his shirt. “Who else,” I whisper. “Who else are you fucking to win?”

“Shut up, Kenny. Just tell me where she is.” Sager’s too-big robe is open to the cleft between her breasts. Under tropical tan her chest is red, heaving, and for a second I don’t blame him for wanting her, but the feeling leaves me pissed off and sweating and empty inside. So empty that I let my hands drop from her shoulders, pull away, and she leans back against the wall relieved. “Listen, Kenny, you don’t know the half of it. Why don’t you just shut up and swim?”

“Oh, sure I do, Lizzy. I know at
least
half of it.”

“But you’re not the only person around here with feelings, big shot. I love her too—maybe I’m just more, let’s say, ambidextrous. Anyway, it’s all for her! I mean, she’s the one! She’s the one who wanted it.”

“Yeah? And you just cheerfully obliged? For how long?”

“Oh, months.” She smiles, tiredly. “Since Bart—since Sager told me to.”

“Told you to? What are you, Lizzy? Coach’s love doll? Some kind of fucking robot?”

For the first time, pain flashes across her eyes. They are empty of the laughter now, empty of the daily, self-assured teasing joy that usually beams out of them, makes everybody love her, makes everybody think they are missing out on something if they are not with her. But she seems to pull herself up and stand taller, clasps the opened flaps of robe together over her chest, and her face sets into granite-hard indignation.

“What
I
am, Hedenmeyer, is none of your business. But just for your general information, I happen to be a hero. America’s little sweetheart. As good as you get without drugs, gorgeous, and that means the unacknowledged best in the whole world—you know what that feels like? to be the best? and not be credited with a single world record, because a bunch of dopers set them all? I don’t think you do. Go tell
that
to your funny doctor friends—or maybe I am prying into
your
business now. All
I
know is that
I
can walk around the weight room with a clear conscious—I mean, I can do anything I want
by myself,
Kenny—and so could she, if she’d only grow up a little.”

At this point, memory blurs. The trip fades. And I tell myself: No, it wasn’t Havana, you never made it to the Pan Ams; it was San Juan, Kenny—San Juan, Puerto Rico.

*

Tall shadows at the door. Babe. Or am I traveling again?

No, say the voices—a chorus of murmurs, whispers—It is really her. So stay awhile.

“Kenny?”

As if there’d be anyone else here. At the same time, I understand exactly why she asked it. It is her voice, yes; same husky, musical, unmodulated tones, meaning to ask: Is there anything left of Kenny here?

There barely is.

But enough of him, anyway, to stay awhile.

She steps into light and I see her now: Still tall, a little heavier, her face looks oddly pale and she’s aged, seems a lot older than early twenties; when she steps forward I catch it, the almost unnoticeable limp, vaguely damaged stoop to the shoulders. But she’s still Babe, after all. And I want to ask: What did it do to you, Babe? And how have you changed? Almost six months of physical therapy for you, they told me. Never be what you once were. As if that would make me feel better somehow—to know of your misery, your loss. There must have been smart shrinks as well. Could they fix up your mind? Could they fix up your heart?

The machines beep.

“Kenny.” I feel her take a silent breath. Watch her face, her pose, as she crosses in the light. Understand the stillness of her expression, because I’ve seen it before; coming to see me, you prepare for the very worst. Then, at first sight, vaguely human figure resting propped up on pillows amid this clean shiny clicking whirring mass of machines, you recognize something about me and are momentarily relieved; and you tell yourself, Whew, thank God, it’s not as bad or as repulsive as I thought. You relax, begin to come closer. And your face grows absolutely still, under the firm fascist hand of self-control, as you realize, after all, that you were wrong. It is every bit as bad. It is much, much worse.

I twist my lips from the tube. “Yo Babe.” It comes out garbled. “You look great.” Twist them back, and breathe.

She sits right there, on the edge of the bed. Slowly, heavily, as if falling, or shedding a great weight. I am surprised she sits so close. Still nothing on her face. When she speaks it is simply, matter-of-fact.

“Your mom wrote and told me about what you decided. So I came down. She says move the tube when you raise your eyebrows. Right?”

Hmmm, I gurgle, like nodding.

“Okay. It’s your life, Kenny. I mean, whatever you want. I’ll stay until you tell me to go.”

I raise my eyebrows. Slowly, shyly, she pulls away the tube. Her hand shakes a little, makes it tremble near the dimple in my chin.

“Good, Babe. Stay.”

She understands.

*

Open Hand—you called me; I was your Open Hand Boy. Came to you without fingers intertwined. Palms wide, hiding nothing. Strong. Brave. Ingenuous. Heart-on-the-sleeve kind of guy. What you saw was what you got. The only boy you could love.

Liz, you said, was different.

Seemed to hide nothing. In truth, hid a lot. Calculated. Manipulated.

The 200 demands craft, stealth, a smooth, smooth glide. She was sly in that way, you said: that middle-distance kind of way. Liked to play both sides of things. Keep all her options open.

Only pure race, you said, was the 50. No malice aforethought. Just jump in. Swim as fast as you can. Raw burst of power. Thrill. And the fastest thrill wins.

You were right, I thought. It’s what Sager said, too. The longer the race, the less you need talent and the more you need smarts and will; but not too much smarts, you have to be crude in a way, have to get things on your side and then not care that you puke all over them in the end; the main thing is will.

Which is why he preferred sprinters. He thought he could control us better. Talent, he said. Fast twitch muscle. Reflex. Instinct. Don’t think; just do. Then go in for the kill. It’s like eating. Like slaying. Original art of war.

He was on my side, because I had that—what he said, or so he thought—that speed, that murdering finish. Animal instinct; his favorite words.

He was not on your side, because you had that, that instinct, but contained it like a human; and he knew, urged it out of you, but you would not deliver.

Liz? He just wanted. Because she had what he did not.

Craft. Wit. Will.

Expedience.

All this was in another life.

*

As for Liz, and her accusations—well, she was right.

The drugs? I took them. I took them all.

Only, not in a malicious way.

It’s like this: You work so hard. So very hard. And get so tired. And do so much, at that level, as much or more than everybody else, and they are all taking advantage of every little potential edge, every extra ounce of stamina, every small millisecond that may fall their way; we are all so close in talent and training and ability and times, we all do whatever we can to help our proud, magnificent, limited bodies along. Everything centers around the sport. You sleep for it, eat for it, drink nutritional supplements for it, lift weights for it, diet for it, go to special psychologists for it, monitor your blood with doctors for it, take all kinds of vitamins for it, leave aside a normal life for it; in the end, popping just one more pill into your mouth, going to just one more doctor, handing just one more wad of bills over a counter or a table or a locker room bench, is really nothing more than just one more thing. A little thing. A detail. That you take care of, that you do for the sport. For the win. For the love. It is no big deal.

Not the same as shooting dope or sniffing coke, for instance, to get
away
from achievement, or from pain. It’s the opposite, in fact—comes out of the desire, eagerness, will.

Although it hurt me, in the end. Damaged inner tissue. Stopped painkillers and antibiotics from assimilating. Made them hook on more machines.

Not that it mattered, at that point.

I mean, there were other things that hurt me.

I mean, I am sure that, whether in heaven or in hell, Lizzy has no apologies for anyone, and—whatever form she takes these days—no regrets.

Neither do I.

Except for this one memory: Babe. See, I wish I’d loved her better. I wish that she’d loved me.

*

As a child, Sager told us, he used to take a tiny animal. One for each important race. Because he was fast enough, and good enough, to swim in the animal lane. Guinea pigs. Baby rabbits, hamsters. Trembling, raise its throat up to the razor. In locker rooms, after shave-down. Warrior, he’d say, animals. And sprinkle himself with blood. Hearing this, Babe would wince. Look at the floor. Would not let herself cry. Until the sleeplessness started for her, and the vomiting, and all the weird dieting. She was trying to get out the blood, she said. But her times slipped, Sager started to hate her, and she fell from grace. Tumbled far, far. Out of the animal lane.