Swimming (25 page)

Eight Is a Power of Two

Eight gold medals. Eight! I just about lost it. I really did. And I don’t give a shit about swimming. Eight
.

Roxanne’s lying in her underwear on the diving board, a half-empty bottle of Gallo by her side. She’s smoking a small doobie I watched her roll with one hand. I’m floating on my back staring at the stars. Dot’s pretending to sleep in the hammock. It’s as hot as July, but the month is October and the Russian guy is making himself scarce since my sisters arrived.

And that one chick who came out of nowhere …
She’s holding the smoke in as she speaks.

Tia Woodward
, I say, floating on my back.

What a bitch
. She exhales.

She just wanted to win
, I say, going under.

I almost thought she had you a couple of times
, she says when I come back up.

She wouldn’t have caught me
. I laugh, but only because it’s over.

How do you know?
she says, taking a swig.

You just know
, I say, feeling my hair float around my face.

What was she, like twelve?
She’s getting wasted.

Eighteen
.

Fuck … at eighteen. Let’s see … I was … I was …
She is wasted.

I’d already been to L.A.
, I say.

You’re shitting me … you were eighteen?
She sits up sideways, dangling her legs off the board.

Yeah
. The moon looks like an eyeball in a vertical wink.

Dot gets up from the deck chair.
That’s when Mom lost it
.

Roxanne laughs a mean laugh.
She was nuts way before that
.

I’m not in the mood to talk about Mom.
Let’s not talk about Mom
, I say.

Dot sits down by the edge of the pool, grabs the bottle of Gallo, takes a big swig.
She was probably nuts from the beginning but no one knew it
.

It doesn’t work like that
, I say.

How does it work, then? Pray tell
, Dot says.

You’re great at the beginning until something bad happens and you have to think. Once you start thinking, you’re lost
. I’m pretty sure about this.

Then we stop talking for a while until Roxanne says,
I’m starting to freak out
, and we help her to bed.

Things get whirly after an amazing Olympics. You have to do the razor commercial in New York, then fly to Hawaii to host a master swim clinic. You get interviewed by the funny guys, who ask you the stupid questions to make the people on the other side of the TV laugh. You fly into Disneyland, go on all the rides, smilingly swim with live dolphins, lunch with some executives and their swimming children, wave with Captain Hook, fly out again. If you are dating a Russian guy, you have to be careful, calling him in the evenings with a moderate voice, underestimating any fun you may have had. You look at yourself and wonder what the future is supposed to do now, crawl into a bed someone else has turned down for the night. The sheets will be cool and tight, the windows sheets of glass containing major slices of sky, and underneath, a city teeming with life.

I’ll take planes home thinking of nothing else but to see him. He’ll be at the airport standing behind the crowds; sometimes he has short hair; sometimes he’s shaved almost bald. He says:
How were the razors, swimsuits, goggles? How were the insurance people? How’s Speedo? How’s Timex? How’s Hank?
And I’ll rub the stubble on his head, say:
Good, good, good, good, good
and it all winds down again until I find myself standing at the edge of an empty pool, the warmth of its vapors stealing into the cool morning air, my toes gripping the surface of the starting block, bracing to plunge.

From Here to There and Back Again

Skating drill. Shark drill. Turtle drill. Ancient dull dead men say:
One day is, the next isn’t
. Breathing drill. Two-beat rocking drill. Rock body. Rotate shoulder. Shift. Ancient dull dead men say:
O courage. O sorrow
. Watching clock tick drill. Feeling water flow drill. Body spearing focal point, mind lasering forward.
Time whips everything we know into foam
. I turn sharply, mind in electric hum, hear the same sound in my head that I did when Leonard sliced the newspaper in half with his Japanese knife, a consistent, growling rip:
Tah dah
. My shoulder. The pain comes in shock waves, rogue waves, freak waves, killer waves, surging, spilling, rolling, plunging. My heart tightens, I stop moving, let the water hold me up.

E. Mankovitz has various teammates and one janitor carry me to a car and brings me speeding to the hospital as I look out the window at various and sundry people driving their cars, their faces pressed forward with a private frown they reserve for the loneliness of the road.

I lie on my back in an ugly blue cloak while three doctors discuss my situation. The ceiling is composed of squares of thin white plaster surrounded by tubes of fluorescent light.

You most probably have a torn labrum; either we operate or you suffer forever
is the subliminal message they are sending.

I’m cautious, a cautious heart thumping in my chest, say:
It doesn’t hurt so bad
, refusing the kiss of death, although I feel its cool lips against my skin.

The Supercoach is quiet, his face in deep crease.
We’re going to have to think very, very seriously about this, look at all our options
.

A famous surgeon with shriveled eyebrows is called in to discuss the possible benefits of surgery. He shows me what a surgeon can do, then starts reeling off statistics so I can’t say I never knew. This is the thing I hate about medicine, the listing of what can go wrong. Knowing all the possible possibilities makes you stop all movement both voluntary and involuntary. If we knew anything about anything, sperm would freeze in their tracks. I picture my muscles shriveling into pieces of dry bacon. No swimming. Sitting around all day long. Time looming.

E. Mankovitz listens intently.

I stare him down.
I would be in a hospital, Ernie
.

No one stares E. Mankovitz down; he is anchored in bronze.
Under the best care
.

They’d tell me everything was okay
. I’m starting to tremble.

Because everything would be okay
, he says quite calmly.

But I wouldn’t know it was okay until it was over
.

No one knows it’s okay until it’s over
.

But what if I find out it’s not okay when the surgery’s over, but they keep telling me it’s okay?
My teeth are chattering; I hold them down with one hand.

I’m losing you
, he says. When I drive E. Mankovitz nuts, he shifts his attention to other things. He’s studying his shoes now, white leather Adidas with simple dark blue stripes, says:
There’s always rest and rehab
.

You heard what he said, all the things that could happen
, I say, biting down hard on my knuckles.

He’s the best
, he says, walking through a black-and-white world.
It’s part of his job to assess the risks
.

My brain’s bleeding color.
There are so many sick people in hospitals … I could …

Could …

I grab his hand.
I don’t know. People die
.

He squeezes my hand, lowers his voice, and sticks to the truth.
People die because they’re dying; the people who are healing, heal
.

A wad of chewed-up gravity lands on my chest.

I don’t realize how panicked I’ve become until the Russian guy walks into the room and Mankovitz makes himself scarce. I grab Alex’s arm, pulling and blabbering:
Alex. Alex. Help me. It hurts it fucking hurts my fucking shoulder is fucking killing me. I’m dead, dead, my body won’t ever
swim right again; it’s all over. That surgeon with his fucking eyebrows—Did you see him?—he was warning me warning me warning me … Doctors have this thing that they do … everything, everything … this is it, this is it. Life is … it’s …
My guts bubbling over like oil.

He holds me in his arms, keeping his perfectly symmetrical high-cheekboned Russian face very still, says:
Listen; we’ll think this thing through
.

He takes me home, driving fast, both eyes on the road, thinking thoughts that will forever remain a mystery. He will present me with an option, one; all I have to do is to be a feminine woman and take it.

Weeks pass, he takes me out for dinner, doesn’t complain about anything. The waiter says:
How is everything, sir?
and Sir says:
Just fine, thank you
, as I grow uneasy.

I’ve been thinking … things are coming together … I’m done here and now you have this shoulder situation … maybe it’s time to move on
. He’s slicing a thick red steak.

Move on?
My fork is hovering in the air.

Yes. Move on. I’ve got my degree. You’ve got your degree. Let’s go to New York
. He puts his knife down and looks at me.

Quit?
I put my fork down.

Move on
. He’s sipping some water.

New York?
The ripe hand of mature grief grabs my heart and squeezes.

Yes
. He’s uncomfortable, almost squirmy.

Now?
The ripe hand of mature grief is wearing a black leather glove.

Soon. I’m setting some things up
. He’s slicing a thick red steak but not eating.

But I’m rehabilitating. Ernie says he knows this doctor who can do these amaz—

I want you to come. I want us to go. Start something new, you and I, together. You’ve spent enough time in the pool. Time to break out of prison. You can concentrate on the other things
. He’s getting exasperated, is starting to squint.

Other things …

Come on. There are so many … Commentary, for example. Speeches. You could be a consultant, run camps, coach. Lots of things. Television. Radio. Babies
.

Television … radio … babies?

What’s so shocking about that?

Babies are … I’ve never thought …

I stop mid-sentence, filled with a dose of terror so intense my palms start to weep. A baby floats into my mind. One: too small to be alive. Two: naked skin with visible veins and a throbbing spot on its head as its brain rushes underneath. Three: too soft to survive. What if you forget about it for a second and it rummages around in its bed until it buries itself in a blanket? What if you leave it on the bed and it rolls onto a knife?

I look at him with such abject horror that it strikes a chord deep in his ancient ballistic Russianness. He has given me the choice and I haven’t automatically taken it.

He lets it go for eleven days, a ferocious smile sitting on the corner of his mouth like an upside-down comma. He lies down on the bed and sleeps on his back, closed-faced and inhuman, like Dracula. I smile back, non-ferocious but quiet also, pretending it will pass even though
danger danger danger
resonates along my spine. I sleep on my side, watch the light from a moon I can’t see shift as the hours pass, say nothing. Tactical error.

I have long discussions with Sunny and Peggy about the future, rehabilitation, what I am ready for, what I am not. We huddle together over Mexican salads served in taco bowls the size of cowboy hats that Mona would have frowned upon. Sunny says:
Babies don’t die like that in the First World; it’s rarer than rare
. She says this with her psychological
You need to see a professional
face.

My shoulder aches so badly I stop using it.

The Russian guy confronts me one night as I lie on the couch staring at the wall.

He touches my back with one of his hot hands.
So, what are you thinking?

I brace myself, say:
Definitely not surgery
.

No?

I can’t quit
.

What?
he says, his hand frozen in place.
What’s your plan?

I’m going to rehabilitate. Ernie says if we’re lucky, maybe … then I’ll concentrate on Atlanta. I’m just … not ready to retire. I’m too …

His eyes grow shiny with ice. He pulls the front door open violently, breathing slowly to calm himself down. I’m as still as a possum in the middle of a busy road. He turns, salutes, says:
If you’re going to wait around and torture yourself until you start losing, go ahead, but if I leave now, I’m gone forever, baby. This is your last chance
, which makes me so nervous I accidentally laugh and he leaves forever.

I think of it as sick Russian torture, the not calling, the disappearance of personal items while I’m in physical therapy. I call, leave formal messages.
Come on, Alex. You know this is a difficult time … You’re my … we can … you’ll see … call me back. Don’t be this way
. Tennis racquets disappear, the selection of bicycle shorts, the sweetie pie eau de cologne, books about the power of money, T-shirts, socks, shoes, a box of razor blades, and to my horror, a box of rubbers, until one day, on the counter, is his key. I get sharp pains in my chest, my left arm tingles, becomes numb, my heart thumping way too strongly. I panic, adrenaline coursing through veins, call the team doctor, wrenching with dread.

He listens to my heart, sighs.
We’ll run some tests, but I’d say it’s stress
.

Swimmers give me Russian guy sightings. Some enjoy it, others don’t. They see him with one girl, then another, or maybe the first one changed her hair. Swimmers give me Russian guy news. He’s quit swimming, is moving to New York, has gotten a job doing something gargantuan.

He contacts me before heading off to his shiny, strong, steel-reinforced, concrete, vertical life, speaking with a cool brittle voice, but I have already fashioned myself into a block of mortified wood, driving my Jeep up the high road of hell.

I say:
You left me alone at my darkest hour
, which is true.

He says:
Ahhh, the queen of me in the land of I
, and it’s over.

Some people think of life in terms of meant to be and not meant to be. Some people say:
Well, maybe it just wasn’t meant to be
and I say:
Oh fuck off
, practically spitting. I wake up at night to the bluish darkness of my well-lit condo as the radio swoons and the TV hums in unison. My motivational speeches start to become what the sponsors call
a little bit on the edgy side
. I stay exactly the same on the outside, pretending things are exactly the same on the inside, but you don’t know what you’ve been relying upon until it has been removed, and you find yourself standing on a mountain of nothing.

Babe sends me handwritten instructions for optimum healing that involve meditation, visualization, sweating, the ingestion of living foods imported from Japan, stretching, clay cataplasms, and twenty-three different vitamins and minerals packed into organic ingestible bullets that look like compressed hay and cost $99.99 for a jar of thirty.

She tells me to be Indian to myself so I am Indian to myself. I hum, taking the time to speak quietly to my body: to all the bones and the muscles, to all the veins and the organs, both vital and secondary. I give praise to wise turtles, give praise to wise sky. I use gentle words for my muscles and organs. I use wise words for my heart and my mind.
I love you guys, you hold on, you let go, you take in some oxygen and breathe, you sweep the poison away and take the pain with it, you continue as is, you beat it, you get your fucking ass out of that slump, you fuck off and quit it, quit lying there slumping around feeling sorry for yourself letting everything around you shrivel up and die …

One of my sponsors grows sorry, sends me the most expensive electronically enhanced exercise bike on the market. I ride it nowhere, making it go up hills as steep as mountains nowhere, making it speed back down as fast as I can, ignoring the pain because pain has forever been progress, unless you discount those times when pain is just something that hurts.

Nice swimmers want to take me to important barbecues. They call me up and ask me out, but the Russian guy has ruined them for me forever. I make brittle disastrous love with a good-looking one in his California king, sneaking home at four in the morning.

I lose, my heart a clenched fist.

I lose, pushed to the lame lanes.

Peggy dates Mr. Canadian Hockey, who looks at her like it’s going to last forever. Peggy’s Destiny wears Barney Rubble’s face.

Isn’t he cute?
She is beside herself.

Be careful
, I warn.

Don’t be a jerk
. She laughs.

Two months later she is sitting in Vancouver two months pregnant eating her mother-in-law’s moist carrot cake.