by Ben Marcus
She’d dress, put on her snow boots, go to the garage, and pick up one of the discuses, holding it with both hands, feeling the worn smoothness, the coldness, and the magic of it—magic, Lory believed, because he had touched it. Certain that no one was watching, that no one could ever find out, she would go into the front yard bundled up in woolens and a parka, and under the blue cast of the streetlight she’d crouch and then whirl, spinning around and around, and throw the discus as far as she could, in whatever direction it happened to go. She’d shout, almost roar, and watch it sink into the soft new snow, jumping up and down afterward when she threw well and was pleased with her throw.
Then she would wade out to where she had seen the discus disappear, kneel down, and dig for it with her hands. She’d carry it back to the garage, slip it into the box with the others, and finally she’d be able to sleep, growing warm again in bed with him.
In the spring, before the wedding, after the snows melted and the river began to warm—the river in which A.C. had first seen and swum up to his brothers—he began to swim again, but with Lory this year.
A.C. would fasten a rope to the harness around his chest and tie the other end of it to the bumper of her car before leaping into the river from a high rock and being washed down through the rapids.
Then he would swim upriver until his shoulders ached, until even he was too tired to lift his head, and was nearly drowning. Lory would leap into the car then, start it, and ease up the hill, pulling him like a limp wet rag through the rapids he’d been fighting, farther up the river until he was in the stone-bottomed shallows. She’d park the car, set the emergency brake, jump out, and run back down to get him.
Like a fireman, she’d pull him the rest of the way out of the river, splashing knee-deep in the water, helping him up, putting his arm around her tiny shoulders. Somehow they’d stagger up into the rocks and trees along the shore. He’d lie on his back and gasp, looking up at the sky and the tops of the trees, and smelling the scent of pines. They would lie in the sun, drenched, exhausted, until their clothes were almost dry, and then they would back the car down and do it again.
He liked being saved. He needed her. And she needed him. Closer and closer she’d pull him, reeling in the wet rope, dragging him up on shore, bending over and kissing his wet lips until his eyes fluttered, bringing him back to life every time.
Ben Marcus is the author of Notable American Women and The Age of Wire and String. His stories have appeared in Harper’s, The Paris Review, McSweeney’s, Conjunctions, Tin House, and elsewhere. The recipient of three Pushcart Prizes, a Whiting Award, and a National Endowment for the Arts grant, he is an Associate Professor in the School of the Arts at Columbia University and lives in New York City.
Acknowledgments
Many writers, editors, and readers offered guidance and insight during the preparation of this book, either directly or through their own innovative work, which exposed me to writers I might not otherwise have known. I would like to thank Ben Metcalf, Rebecca Wolff and the editors at Fence, Brian Evenson, Jonathan Lethem, Ryan Bartelmay, Nathalie Schulhofer, Heidi Julavits, George Plimpton, Gordon Lish, Dave Eggers, Binnie Kirshenbaum, David Hyde, Bill Henderson, Rick Moody, Aimee Bender, Matthew Derby, Denise Shannon, Marty Asher, and Robert Coover.
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Stephen Dixon: “Down the Road” from The Plays and Other Stories by Stephen Dixon (Coffee House Press). Reprinted by permission of Stephen Dixon.
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