forty as fast as I could. Just to see his big belly flop. Just to see him jump up and down flushed with excitement. Telling me good bright comforting things about my future with a humble, kindly voice.
“Come on, Ellie. It’s the five-flight freestyle.”
“Yaaah.”
But at the bottom of the first flight I stopped, a little dizzy. Wondering about being boxed in, and the smoke, for the first time in years.
Lottie’s teeth are false. So are Zischa’s. The old ones rotted away from hunger long ago—the roots so frail, they told me, you could reach in and twist a molar out. There wasn’t even any blood. And the roots were dark coils, like tiny worms. Odorous. Dying.
After Marachietti there were other coaches. Public school guys. YMCA teams. City league. The kids came from good schools and bad. Some of us qualified individually for the statewides in high school one year. I went up to Albany alone, and came in last in the consolation final of the 100 breaststroke. At the end of it my lungs and arms felt like they were filled with thumbtacks. But qualifying, I told myself, that was the main thing.
Afterwards I went into the locker room and sat on a bench. Just plunked. The floor was solid wet gray. Every other locker was painted orange, alternate ones yellow, and for some reason only the yellow ones were rusting around the edges so they looked like old egg yolks streaked brown. The rasping pains pinched away from my shoulders and thighs and ankles one by one, like insects departing on poisoned feet. The long aching burn in my chest eased. On my skin, drops of water turned to sweat. Tactility, disappointment, reality and the capacity to hurt in a beaten, throbbing way—all that returned to my neck and arms, fingertips, the backs of my hands. My eyes were a little puffy from the goggles, I’d had this leak in the left one and some chlorine had gotten in, blurred my vision, temporarily obscured things inside a rainbow-tinted halo.
I felt racing-suit Lycra soak into the worn-down wooden bench between my legs, leaned back against concrete and thought about how I’d done it, done the main thing. How I ought to feel more pride. And I watched some girl at the mirror, all showered and dressed, her hair dry, putting on makeup. A subtle powder-puff swipe upwards at the cheekbones. Definite cherry-red heart shape of the lips.
The door opened, air blew in and out. For a moment, with the waft of hot damp, I could smell her: baby powder and a tonic-like perfume over flesh. There was something else, too—a darker smell—something deep in a way, like a permanent musk. It was almost bitter, I guess. Sour. It made me want to taste it.
Not that you can taste a smell, really. Or give it a color. But I breathed it in as deep as I could. Then leaned my dripping head back against the concrete wall and shut my eyes, and for the first time since very early childhood no images came to me of railroad boxcars or molars or tattoos. I did not see little Oskar eyeless on the ground. No stained, ruined lace, no skeletal limbs bulldozed into mud.
What I saw instead was this thing, sort of, that was like a combination of color and smell and taste put together, and I didn’t fear it but wanted it. It was deep, sour, musk red, floating outside of me but also down inside, in a place that had not been touched, and it was surrounded by a brightness. By this color-tinted light.
The door opened again, different air blew through. The cherry-red lipstick girl picked up her bags and left. But my new image remained. And I understood. In that moment, many things about my life made sense.
Consolation finals are sweet sometimes, too. Even when you come in last.
*
Later, when I met Coach Allen, she looked at my distinctly unimpressive, definitely supporting-cast-quality record and laughed. But she said, very seriously: Will you work this hard for me? Will you maintain this consistency? If you do doubles, if you always make practice, I think we can improve
“Come on, Ellie. It’s the five-flight freestyle.”
“Yaaah.”
But at the bottom of the first flight I stopped, a little dizzy. Wondering about being boxed in, and the smoke, for the first time in years.
Lottie’s teeth are false. So are Zischa’s. The old ones rotted away from hunger long ago—the roots so frail, they told me, you could reach in and twist a molar out. There wasn’t even any blood. And the roots were dark coils, like tiny worms. Odorous. Dying.
After Marachietti there were other coaches. Public school guys. YMCA teams. City league. The kids came from good schools and bad. Some of us qualified individually for the statewides in high school one year. I went up to Albany alone, and came in last in the consolation final of the 100 breaststroke. At the end of it my lungs and arms felt like they were filled with thumbtacks. But qualifying, I told myself, that was the main thing.
Afterwards I went into the locker room and sat on a bench. Just plunked. The floor was solid wet gray. Every other locker was painted orange, alternate ones yellow, and for some reason only the yellow ones were rusting around the edges so they looked like old egg yolks streaked brown. The rasping pains pinched away from my shoulders and thighs and ankles one by one, like insects departing on poisoned feet. The long aching burn in my chest eased. On my skin, drops of water turned to sweat. Tactility, disappointment, reality and the capacity to hurt in a beaten, throbbing way—all that returned to my neck and arms, fingertips, the backs of my hands. My eyes were a little puffy from the goggles, I’d had this leak in the left one and some chlorine had gotten in, blurred my vision, temporarily obscured things inside a rainbow-tinted halo.
I felt racing-suit Lycra soak into the worn-down wooden bench between my legs, leaned back against concrete and thought about how I’d done it, done the main thing. How I ought to feel more pride. And I watched some girl at the mirror, all showered and dressed, her hair dry, putting on makeup. A subtle powder-puff swipe upwards at the cheekbones. Definite cherry-red heart shape of the lips.
The door opened, air blew in and out. For a moment, with the waft of hot damp, I could smell her: baby powder and a tonic-like perfume over flesh. There was something else, too—a darker smell—something deep in a way, like a permanent musk. It was almost bitter, I guess. Sour. It made me want to taste it.
Not that you can taste a smell, really. Or give it a color. But I breathed it in as deep as I could. Then leaned my dripping head back against the concrete wall and shut my eyes, and for the first time since very early childhood no images came to me of railroad boxcars or molars or tattoos. I did not see little Oskar eyeless on the ground. No stained, ruined lace, no skeletal limbs bulldozed into mud.
What I saw instead was this thing, sort of, that was like a combination of color and smell and taste put together, and I didn’t fear it but wanted it. It was deep, sour, musk red, floating outside of me but also down inside, in a place that had not been touched, and it was surrounded by a brightness. By this color-tinted light.
The door opened again, different air blew through. The cherry-red lipstick girl picked up her bags and left. But my new image remained. And I understood. In that moment, many things about my life made sense.
Consolation finals are sweet sometimes, too. Even when you come in last.
*
Later, when I met Coach Allen, she looked at my distinctly unimpressive, definitely supporting-cast-quality record and laughed. But she said, very seriously: Will you work this hard for me? Will you maintain this consistency? If you do doubles, if you always make practice, I think we can improve
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