The Sea of Light (54 page)

*

There is this thing about the magic: You can act as a vessel or a conduit for it, but you cannot really control it. It is just passing through, really, not your own to give.

Also, it only lasts so long. When it leaves, it is gone.

*

I watch the fire leave her by increments throughout the day, until she begins to cough a little again, and clear her throat, and look very tired—almost too tired, she says, to eat a light lunch; she doesn’t know how she can possibly get through it tonight; and she isn’t even thinking about winning, or placing, but about finishing, about sheer survival.

Finally, she shrugs. Looking tense and pale, but nevertheless determined. Or resigned. But committed, no matter what. Saying, Well, I guess if worse comes to worst I can dog-paddle four hundred yards.

Around us, at the table, people giggle and laugh. She does too.

You won’t have to, I tell her; though I am not sure.

*

I am—or was—a sprinter, clear and simple; even the 200 was stretching it for me. This had nothing to do with aerobic conditioning, but with genetic aptitude.

Not that I had trouble swimming 400, or 1500, or 10,000 meters, for that matter, when I was in reasonable condition—not that my times in distance events were not way, way above average; it’s just that, at the sprints, I excelled.

It’s this something ineffable that biochemists and exercise physiologists are always trying to quantify: from event to event, a different kind of energy gets expended, and sometimes it varies greatly and at other times just slightly; but it is always different, and the amount of perfection with which an individual can do a certain event, perform the tasks required, varies from individual to individual, too; so that only the people most brilliantly suited to any one particular event will ever really succeed at it on a world-class or national-class level. There is this matter of inborn ability—which no one likes to talk about—but it’s true: a fact, a reality, that no amount of consistently superb training can overcome.

On the other hand, it also matters what you do with it.

Or, as Bren likes to say, talent gets you fifty meters; the rest is all just work.

Not strictly true. But true enough. No talent, no wonder drug, will ever substitute for the practice and the work.

I grew up with kids who had all of it together: innate physical talent, mental toughness and desire, a willingness to work. For a while, I possessed all of those attributes, too; and, during that time, I was a champion.

When I gave up the mental toughness and desire; when I let slip away from me just a tiny fraction of the absolute willingness to work; I was no longer a champion. And this is what happened—long before the plane went down.

It’s all right. I had other things on my mind and in my heart. Puberty. Family pressure. Betrayal. Love. A nut case for a coach, who wanted only to win at these games called sport, and who was willing to rape and to spill blood for that, and who was copiously rewarded for his efforts.

When I was no longer a champion, someone else was. Matter always fills empty space, sooner or later.

It’s all okay, though I do not forgive, or forget.

I never had a warrior heart—at least, not for keeps.

What I had was an inquisitive heart. One that preferred to observe, and feel, and ask a lot of questions. I know this about myself now.

But what we know is not always what we want to know.

What we know about ourselves is not always what people want to know about us.

That is why, for the time being, I commit myself to swim for Brenna Allen—this year, and next. Sensitive, arrogant, observant scholar that I am, housed in this warrior’s body. She—like Ellie—has a real warrior heart. And she’s done me some favors. In return, I can lend her team this body, learn from it what I can; I can make it swim another year.

I’ll stay at State, stay in shape, swim for the team, finish school. Spend the summer with Ellie—with her and the two funny smart little dykes who already seem middle-aged to me—in that ugly old ramshackle house that has tattered furniture and the warm yellow light.

Who would have thought I’d lust for a place like that? Me, with my trophies, and my Gold Card? Still, it’s true. I wanted to be there from the first time I saw it. Wanted to be myself there—no champion, just me—and to be there with her.

Let my parents do their own split-up. Invite Jack, even Robo or Toots, up for a visit if things get too rough. Otherwise, stay out of it. They can’t, they won’t, help me mourn. They cannot deal. But I have to mourn—for them, for myself, for Kenny, and for everything now lost. Ellie, though—she can deal. And so can I. Not all the time, and not perfectly, but we can.

Right now, I can watch her try her best to compete, to swim. I can ache for her suffering effort, can admire her sheer guts; understanding that this fighting, grinding way is the way she’s got to be—her way, not mine—and that it’s all just fine.

Because the point is not to exalt one way over the other, but to know which way is your own, your very own.

And later, too, I can hold her.

Understanding these things, making these decisions, I feel suddenly at peace.

Finals

(
JACK
)

It started again with little fights. Just a day or two after Christmas—during which everyone was pretty much comatose and in a state of shock. But Ricky and Lucy recovered. And went back to the ways they had never really abandoned.

Didn’t sound like anything out of the ordinary, at first. Standard guerrilla warfare. Nasty snipes. What had she done with his keys to the Saab—ground them up in the Cuisinart? Why had he stayed so long after work that night, two weeks ago—another wild office party for two?

But pretty soon this stuff escalated, until it seemed like whenever the two of them were around at the same time they were yelling at the top of their lungs, saying really disgusting shit to each other nobody wants to even know about—and they were making the house such a fucked-up place to be that, on more than one occasion, I found myself stomping around outside through the snow with Roberto, wishing I could spend the night at Cindy’s—not for sex, but to escape—or wishing that indoor practice would last twice as long each day, so I could have more time away.

When they first started to really yell, too, a lot of it was about Babe.

You always rode the kid so hard, Barbara, it breaks my heart! You never really loved her!

Look who’s talking! Look who’s talking about love! A man who barely takes the time between adulteries to zip up his fly!

Why can’t you be a real mother, Barbara? What on earth is wrong with you? Why can’t you just be a mother, and love your own child?

Do
you
love her, Phil? All you ever did was shovel money down her throat whenever she won. To the detriment of everyone else around here, may I add. At least
I
tried to instill certain values—

Values? What values? Your cold little privileged white Mayflower values?

Privileged? White? I’m the only one around here who is white,
señor.
And nobody around here was ever privileged, really, except you—and her, when she had goals, and a decent body, and a worthwhile life—but you, you, have always just gone ahead and done what you pleased, never mind about the rest of us!

What bullshit! I put in hours of slave labor for you, woman! To buy the house you wanted! With all the things in it you and your stupid parents wanted! To support all those children that you said you wanted!

I
wanted!

You!

*

And so on. After a while, it got so you could tell when things were about to blow. Then I’d grab my bomber jacket and head out for the garage. I’d hang around watching Roberto smoke for a while. Sometimes the two of us would just sit inside the Volvo or the BMW, silently, waiting for the storm to pass. I’d think about Teresa, who was in there curled up in bed pretending to be asleep but really hearing all of this, this nasty bullshit, and I’d cringe, I’d want to go in and take her away somehow, take her away and save her. But, I realized, there is nowhere else to go. And I’m sixteen years old. Barely old enough to drive. How the fuck am I going to save anybody?

Things didn’t get better; somehow, this time, unlike all the other times, I knew that they wouldn’t. When the old man told me, I wasn’t surprised. It was even kind of a relief. But I still wanted to cry and, when no one was looking, I did.

*

Weird fucking family. Now I am here, this mediocre high school cross-country runner who, let’s face it, can’t pass for black and can’t pass for white, with my soon-to-be divorced Cuban refugee father, watching the Jew girlfriend of my self-admitted queer ex-champion sister get on the starting block for some stupid final or some stupid swimming event in some stupid nothing division.

That’s America for you. Bunch of refugees. Makes you feel like you landed on Mars. Makes me wonder if any of us will ever feel at home here. But, what choice do we have—us refugees—I mean, what other home is there? Everyone needs one, has to make one—a home. Me too. Even though I am losing the home I thought I had, and don’t know where to go.

The buzzer goes off and I watch, feeling pissed and mean. The whole bunch of them, eight chicks in tight racing suits, sort of smash into the water at once. A couple of them looked really great, standing there—you could practically see their tits. I take off my jacket and bundle it over my lap.

Butterfly, they are doing butterfly. Which I think is pretty cool, I like the way they sort of plunge forward up and out and in again with both arms, like some mad ghost monster attacking something defenseless, pouncing, just pouncing, then kick, and up again, dolphin-like. Ellie Marks is in lane eight, which means she’s the slowest, and after a few seconds I swear I don’t know why the hell Babe wanted me to watch—I mean, as a swimmer, it’s clear that she pretty much stinks. She manages to keep up with the rest of the field for the first lap or so, then starts falling back, and falling back, and it doesn’t look like she’s ever going to catch them. In fact, by the end of the third lap of butterfly it looks like she’s really tired, and slowing down, and when she makes a sloppy turn into the fourth lap I start to blush—I mean, I am actually humiliated for her—and I start to fidget, and wish that I hadn’t promised to watch.

The other seven of them all finish up the final twenty-five of butterfly pretty tight together—more than a body length ahead of her already—and, looking very strong, almost inhuman, they all one by one turn gracefully at the wall for the next hundred yards of backstroke.

She turns at the wall last. Still looking sloppy. Looking incredibly, incredibly tired—like the first 100 was about all she could handle.

Her backstroke sucks. I remember Babe’s friend Liz Chaney, how great she looked when she swam backstroke, how once when she visited from Southern with Babe she smacked me on the back and said she’d show me how to do special stretching exercises just for runners, and then got me all twisted up like a pretzel trying to do these stretches, so that my nose was practically up my asshole and I collapsed on the floor like a moron, and she and Babe laughed and laughed. I thought she was really beautiful, though, really hot. And watching this miserable excuse for a swimmer, this Ellie Marks who Babe claims she loves, trying to backstroke, I swear I don’t know what Babe sees in her.

I confess: I stop watching; I shut my eyes.

The old man sits next to me like a ghost. I don’t know whether or not he is watching, and the truth is that I really don’t care. He is the one breaking things up; he’s the one taking away my home. But, on the other hand, I don’t blame him. I just hate him. And love him. I think of my mother, and I don’t know what to even say. That she hates us. And loves us. And neither one of them was big enough for our house, in the end.

For some reason, this sticks in my head: The house, our house, that they socked all that money into, all the land, and the three-car garage—it was too big for them, they were too small to fill it. But somehow, before the plane went down, back when Babe was healthy and world-class and a real contender and kept bringing lots of medals and trophies home to put behind custom-made glass cases on the walls—somehow, then, in this way that is connected to Babe but that I do not understand, somehow then they seemed big enough to fill it, and it seemed like we all of us loved each other, at least on the surface—and like it was a love that worked, and things were almost perfect.

But perfect things don’t fall apart.

Thank God, the backstroke is finished. All of them are now light years ahead of her—I mean, like, halfway down the pool already, swimming breaststroke; and, for a second, I think I almost see her pause at the wall like she wants to hang on and stop and not continue.

Stop, I think. Give me a break.

But she dips under water and shoves off the wall—not a bad wall, really; I know that from Babe, who was pretty much at one point basically the best in the world—yet, though I am a moron in the water, you can bet that as her brother I
know
about breaststroke. And she bobs up, having gained a little, closing the gap between her and everyone else just slightly, closing it ever so much more slightly with each stroke and kick. I mean, no
way
will she ever catch up. But it’s obvious that she knows a little about how to swim this, now; and I find myself leaning forward to watch with a vague feeling of interest because, though obviously too tired, and with her timing off too, even so she can pull this part of the race off with a little dignity and grace, and when you see that in sport it’s nice, really nice, just to watch, to behold. Another turn. She doesn’t explode off the wall like Babe—she doesn’t have that kind of agility, really, or raw strength. But she keeps gaining, ever so slightly, closing up the endless gap to maybe about two and a half body lengths, struggling down the 250-yard leg and maybe rushing it again, reaching again with her skull, like she can’t wait to get to the wall, and the turn, like she knows that the wall and the turn will save her.