“Oh yes, but come here a minute, Christina this is one of my favorite students. Mickey, meet Mrs. Parsifal and her son, Baxter. Mickey, Baxter and his mom just got back from vacation in Hawaii.” I had never been to Hawaii—in fact, I had never been anywhere except Grandaddy’s and Mamau’s and Galveston Island in Texas.
“And where d’y’all summer, Best Student of Mrs. Bradford?” Baxter’s mother drilled in on me, sizing me up as she extended a red-taloned hand. I truly had no idea what she meant.
“Um, I guess we just let it come to us.”
“Well, if that ain’t the quaintest, y’all let it come to you.” She pressed on, “So, where do y’all go for your vacation, boy?”
“Well, so, here I guess. Or the beach. Sometimes we get to go to the beach.”
Some kids in my school went to fancy places that I could not pronounce for Christmas, but those were the kids whose dads worked at Texas Instruments or had married into old oil money families. My family was not old rich or new rich or any kind of rich, or at least not any kind of rich that required money. We were regular people grateful to Sears’s layaway plan for school clothes. A couple times we did go camping on the beach at Galveston Island, when Dad could get time off from work. He was innovative and he rigged up a flatbed U-Haul trailer on which he would place our own homemade pop-up tent so no bugs or rattlesnakes could get at us, and we would park it right on the sands of the Gulf and fall asleep to the waves. I could never imagine anything being better than the Galveston that my mom and dad showed me.
“Which beach?” Mrs. Parsifal was relentless. But, I just wanted her to shut up. I only wanted Jane. I thought of all the different pronunciations I could give to Galveston to make it sound better, but it didn’t need any. My beach would always be better than Mrs. Parsifal’s beach.
“Galveston Island.” And before Mrs. Parsifal could probe further for which side of the island or what hotel, Mrs. Bradford diplomatically redirected the conversation.
“Mickey, are you sure you’re all right? That knee looks bad.” I hadn’t even noticed my knee was scuffed and bleeding all the way down my shin and foot, until I took that brief moment to look down.
“Oh yes, ma’am, I guess I should prolly go fix it, Mrs. Bradford. It’s okay, though. I just wanted to say hi, really…” I wanted to be cool and look at other things, but it was impossible to pry my eyes off Jane.
Chunky Baxter walked around the side of the group and stood right next to Jane and looked down at her bare feet and then over at mine, disdainfully.
“She’ll need shoes or they won’t let her into the country club for dinner.”
“Baxter, hush up, baby boy! That’s for her momma to take care of, my lovey sweetheart.”
I remember wondering how Baxter could not see those glorious 95s dangling around her neck. But then I remembered that he and I shared not one human similarity.
“Got ’em right here.” Mrs. Bradford smiled. “Well, how’s the swim team going, Mickey?”
“Mickey won, Mommy,” said Jane softly staring at me.
Mrs. Bradford smiled at me, and Jane beamed even brighter. “Did ya?”
Mrs. Parsifal examined me more closely. Up close, I was getting a better look at Baxter and it was starting to dawn on me where I knew this kid from. It had been a competition. But I had not beaten him up, or even beaten him at anything. I could see it was just dawning on Baxter, too, that he knew me from before—the very first track meet I had ever run in, I got second place and this kid had placed first, only to be disqualified about a month later for being two years older than my division allowed. I remember getting a gold medal in the mail with an explanation. The fat sloth who now stood too close to Jane had stolen first, and I had earned second. But now he was just a lard-ass slacker who would never do anything important.
“Baxter! This boy just won his swim race! Din’t y’all hear?”
“He’ll need to win something,” muttered Baxter.
I never understood people who spoke like that without expecting to get punched in the face, but I could not operate correctly around Jane. And I certainly did not want her to think of me as a hoodlum. In that moment it was okay, because something about her stopped my river of humiliation from decanting into a tidal wave of rage. I nearly puked, listening to the cloying prattle that flowed from Mrs. Parsifal’s lips, like, “So what, baby boy, not everyone’s as fortunate as you are, Baxter, honey pop, now c’mon y’all, the country club awaits us.” But I knew that there was nothing fortunate about her kid at all, and I also knew that years later fortune would have had nothing to do with my alarm clock ringing fifteen minutes earlier than his my whole life. I knew that fortune was not just something you could pull out of your pocket, and that fat did not just describe his body. And I suspected that one day I would blow by him on life’s straightaway like he was standing still. I could see it in his eyes. His mother used words like kitten fluff and other nonsense to communicate with that useless coaster. But no sweet terminology would ever make that little shirker a man or even a reasonable human being, even with his mother’s incorrect definition of fortune. Baxter’s mother straightened his collar, patting out the curl in his purple alligator knit. I presumed he chose purple because it was no secret that that was Jane’s favorite color.
It was only at that moment I realized that I was still dripping wet and standing in the parking lot in nothing but my Speedo, trying to separate two violently conflicting emotions. I loved this girl. I loved everything about her. But I wanted to hurt this kid who was in her space. Badly. I loathed Baxter and the fact that he was getting to have supper with Jane, instead of me being the one at her table. It wasn’t just jealousy that added an extra level of loathing to my regard for Baxter, or that he was a cheater. Sure I resented snooty people who flaunted the country club, but I embraced success on all levels, whether it was mowing lawns or selling golf balls back to lazy people, or tapping into a Texas oil field. Even at that age, I adored prosperity and those with the work ethic who create it, but I knew enough to loathe the generation that the work ethic skips because of financial obesity. At first I wrote off Baxter, assuming he was just a fat, lazy waste whose family money siphoned off all his drive to succeed. But I hated him even more because he allowed himself to accept average, to stop trying. Stop competing. His personal best was lazy. Baxter reeked of defeat and failure, and I could smell it right there in that parking lot.
“I tried to get Baxter to sign up for the team,” his mother whined. I was itching to tell Baxter that I had a fat friend who could swim and had not sunk yet, but Baxter cut me off just as I opened my mouth.
“I’m not wearin’ one of those things!”
“Yeah, that’s prolly a good idea,” I mumbled, and he and I both knew exactly what I would do to him if I ever found him on my side of the fence.
“I have a Band-Aid,” murmured Jane, reaching into her matching yellow purse. I remember wondering if she would walk that Band-Aid over to me herself or if she would pass it to her mother to hand to me. But when Jane found it and looked up at me, she stepped forward and placed her palm on mine…and I was holding Jane’s hand. “For your knee.”
I tried not to wait too long before giving her a quiet, “Thank you.”
And I immediately tried to calculate whether or not I was squeezing her hand too hard, but it felt too good in mine for math, and I wondered if I could get away with just a few more moments, when Baxter eh-hem’d, “I’m hungry!”
I was glad that I managed to keep the of course you are, you fat fuck inside my head that time, and just let the “Oh…yeah” escape with “Well, I guess I should get back to the pool.”
And as I let go of Jane’s hand and slowly backed away, I wondered if she would have let me hold it longer. And when she did not immediately turn to rejoin her family, I wished I had stayed just a moment more. I did not even bother to look at Baxter, he had already chosen to lose.
“All right, but make sure you take good care of that knee!
And give your mother my best.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, as I approached and hugged Mrs. Bradford briefly, then extended my hand to Jane’s father. “Mr. Troy Bradford.”
“Very good to see you again, Sunshine Superman!” Mr. Bradford shook my hand like he truly meant it. Just then Baxter muttered another remark about my Speedo that hung in the air awkwardly. Jane’s dad rerouted to good cheer. “Don’t worry, son, I think you look like Mark Spitz! Take care, y’hear?”
The group strolled off toward the country club with Jane the last one to turn away, her yellow sundress catching the fading rays as another day of Jane was setting. Jane walked beside her mother, who was untying her 95s. Baxter pulled in right next to her. I watched.
“BYE, JANE!” I blurted out.
Jane stopped and turned while the others waited. She smiled and waved at me while she stood there wrangling her feet into her 95s. Finally she ran to rejoin the group, aiming at first between her mother and Baxter. But just when she came up even with the group, she deviated and squeezed in on the other side of her mother, away from Baxter. As they entered the country club Jane turned back again. I was still standing right where she left me in the middle of the parking lot like a drowned rat, blood running down my knee. We just kept smiling at each other till that country club swallowed her.
Suddenly, a car horn blared at me and I heard tires screeching to a halt.
“Hey! HEY KID! WATCH OUT!” A man’s voice bellowed through the open sunroof of a sedan with dark tinted windows. Slowly, I turned toward the car, its bumper a few inches away from my leg as Firefly ran up.
“Hey, lard-ass!! You eyeballin’ Mic? What the fuck’s wrong with yer brakes?”
“Sorry,” I said vaguely to the driver, who continued to rant through his sunroof. In a stupor, I headed back to the pool with Firefly.
“Don’t apologize, that maniac nearly hit you with his fucking car, Mic! Who the hell was that fat purple fuckhole with Mrs. Bradford? Was he eyeballin’ you, too? ’Cause I’ll…”
“Nah, I think he’s just cross-eyed or somethin’.”
“Yeah, well he better not be. Hurry up, now, they’s havin’ the serious racers, the big kids. And Mic, your mom’s got peanut butter and jelly, but she won’t open the cooler till you get there.” Firefly jogged around the far end of the fence to get back in and, as I squeezed through the bars, I overheard two young mothers carrying on ecstatically about the next race.
“Yes, he’s in the next race. Trust me, you want to see this!”
“Is this the one with the…?” The first lady nodded excitedly as they pushed their way to the front.
Wondering whom the women were going on about, I found my family in the stands and sat down. Firefly had already rifled through Mom’s cooler and was helping himself. Dad scruffed up my hair and said good job. Grandaddy settled in next to Mamau, and Mom hugged me a long time and said how proud she was, then handed me a napkin for my bloody knee.
“I’m fine,” I said. But I wasn’t about to waste Jane’s Band-Aid on a stupid bloody knee. “Got somethin’ on ya face, boy. Makin’ the corners of ya mouth go ta God,” Grandaddy said with the tiniest of grins. “Maybe came from that parkin’ lot.”
My mom saw my knee, my Grandaddy saw me, and my dad saw my race.
“I didn’t think you could catch that kid, but you’re a hell of a swimmer. Like your ol’ dad! You too, Lawrence. Great teamwork!”
We quieted down as the announcer introduced the next race. “Well, if that wasn’t enough for everyone, this should give you plenty! The sixteen-and-over, one-hundred-yard free.” Everyone got real quiet.
“Mom! You gotta see this!” Even Lilyth whispered as she took Mom’s hand and dragged her over to the edge of the pool to watch. Several fancy ladies over at the putting green looked up and stared as a lithe young man walked past them.
“In lane one swimming for the Hornets is James Pillar!” The crowd applauded politely. “And alongside him is his teammate Glen Ward! And in lane three swimming for the Braeburn Bears…” A lot more women than men clustered poolside. “Come on, I know he’s here somewhere?” Down the length of the pool, the starting blocks were almost all filled. The boys shook their arms to loosen up. One block in the center remained vacant. “There he is, ladies and gentlemen!” Kevin climbed up onto the block to gasps and applause from the crowd. “In lane four, we have Willy Scott…and in lane five, Mark Simpson…” Kevin stood on the block with his back to the audience, his wild blond hair doing what it did. Finally he turned around to face the crowd and wave.
“Oh my!” gasped the woman seated in front of Dad.
Kevin stood there with his manhood stuffed into that tiny Speedo, looking as if it must hurt to keep it restrained. He shook out his arms to get ready. An older man in front of us shook his head in disgust. Kevin spotted me and gave me the number one sign, and I did it right back and smiled. The woman glanced back at me. Her older husband was not looking too happy.
Never once had I seen Kevin practice. But I had always heard that he was gifted, that swimming was in his blood. Kevin plunged and flutter kicked twice, ballet-like, then broke the surface and accelerated. He clearly and consistently pulled away from his competitors. I was astonished. At the far end, Kevin did a perfect flip turn and headed for home. Kevin touched the wall and did not even look to the side, or behind him to see how close second place was coming up. Seconds before the gun, Kevin had shown up, climbed onto the block, beaten everyone by half a length, and then just walked away like he had somewhere else to be.
“Pity that boy’s gonna piss his gift away,” I heard my dad say.
“What a disgrace, I’ve heard about this kid! He shouldn’t be allowed to swim,” came bitter grapes from the man in front of us whose wife had been gaping and gasping over Kevin’s physique. I wanted to punch this guy’s eye, but inside I knew he was a pathetic Baxter.
“Kevin won fair and square, Dad, right?”
“That he did, son.”
Just then Kevin waved at me with his towel and gave me the peace sign on his way out. The guy in front of me turned around to stare at me, but I just ignored him and waved right back at Kevin.
Kevin never practiced and he never lost all summer—no one ever even came close to him. He waved, he won, and then he left.
“Next swimmers, on your marks!” The announcer’s voice boomed for the beginning of another race, and the sudden crack that sounded its start rang in my ears, not like a starter’s pistol but like a shotgun.
Kevin was the coolest kid I knew…and he was my friend.
* * *
Summer didn’t wait for me or Jane or anyone—it just kept on going. Burbling along, Jane sightings poolside, swim meets, more Jane sightings with her Frisbee, with 95s and without, catching critters in The Ditch with Steve McQueen and Firefly, concerts, family, and making money on balls and mowing lawns with my push mower. Mr. Milan’s grass hadn’t been cut in quite a while, so when I saw him out there the next time sitting beside his wife’s empty chair, I stopped and offered to cut his grass. He didn’t respond. I guessed he was drunk like Lew Hoagie, what for all the Miller cans piled up in the grass. So I went home feeling I should tell my mom, but I didn’t say anything and instead just fueled the mower.
Chapter Seven
Summer ended when Kevin blew his head off. They said he climbed down into The Hole, stuck the barrel of a shotgun in his mouth, propped the butt against the wall, and hooked his big toe in the trigger loop. And pushed.
Kevin had never asked for it back, so I was listening to his “Free Bird” under headphones in my bedroom waiting for Grandaddy and Mamau to come by for supper. Still, I could hear a girl crying out in our kitchen. At first I thought my parents were reprimanding Lilyth for some shit she had pulled. They weren’t. My door was open a crack and I saw Magda hugging Lilyth, and both were sobbing, and Lilyth was hyperventilating. Mom and Dad were huddled around them. I heard everything, even the stuff I didn’t want to hear. I re
member every sound and smell from that night, not like it was yesterday, but like it’s today. I could not stop my ears from hearing, but I found that I could move farther away. I withdrew from the crack in my door and slowly pushed myself back into the corner of my bed against the wall, still looking out the crack. Behind me, my P-51 Mustang’s thread gave way suddenly, and the baddest of all propeller planes crashed to my floor. My eyes were already filled up as I picked up its broken wing and carried it over to my bed, where I sat with my back against the wall rolling its landing gear against my leg. Occasionally I glanced back up through the crack trying to square up with an emotion that had never introduced itself before. Steve McQueen never left my side. He always knew. He followed me the next day when I rode my Schwinn straight to The Hole.
The fog draped thin gossamer across the playing fields as I approached, and morning dew shimmered on the grass, giving it a fairy-tale quality in the morning sunshine. The crack in the earth was cordoned off as a crime scene, and cop cars and investigators were everywhere. Kevin’s Plank and the Firebird remained right where he had left it. Steve McQueen ran to The Hole and peered down and barked, but I could not get too close. I didn’t understand. I couldn’t. Magda’s new boyfriend had gone in planning to smoke dope down inside the cavern deep beneath the opening of The Hole. He said he had found parts of Kevin spattered all over Hustler centerfolds that were stuck to the walls. He said it was impossible to tell who it was. I always wondered what that must have been like, barely squeezing your body down that long, dark crevice that zigzagged, sometimes even having to exhale and compress your lungs just to squeeze through a space too tiny for yourself, until you finally came out in a small, pitch-black, dirt room…and then you light a match. It took the forensics team the entire next day to get all the pieces of Kevin out of The Hole. Then the authorities flooded it with truckloads of piped-in cement and The Hole was no longer a bottomless threat.
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