Weeping Underwater Looks a Lot Like Laughter

by Michael J. White

  A: Like she was my own sister. My older sister, really. She was a genius, you know. An incredible, patriotic genius.

  Q: I heard she was kind of a loner. But she must’ve opened up to you, right?

  A: She was just starting to open up. She asked me to be her confirmation sponsor, but then she mostly skipped the classes. I guess she was more spiritual, you know?

  Q: You’ve only been in Des Moines, what, a year and a half? I know about you and Emily, but how well could you have known her sister?

  A: I knew a lot about her, but she was healthy so rarely that whenever I saw her, it was like starting all over again. Not many people really knew her.

  Q: I’m worried about you. Should I be worried about you?

  A: The way it was written in the papers, you’d have thought we were three peas in a pod. No need to cry for me. I only met her a few times. We weren’t even fishing together that day.

  (After relating these details, I’ve now decided to completely bypass my initial bout of anguish when I was certain I’d lost both Schell girls and would have settled for just hearing Emily’s voice and knowing she was still alive. But before doing so, I’d like to share a short anecdote—no doubt of dubious meaning—simply to provide a context for judging the depth of my low point, that relative place often referred to by alcoholics when they describe “hitting bottom.”)

  A few weeks after the funeral I answered an ad to replace inventory tags for a lighting fixture wholesaler. Iowa Lighting Solutions was only a twenty-minute walk through the woods and across the back nine of the Urbandale golf course, which was patronized by a number of golfers who harbored few qualms about teeing off the moment I sprinted across the sixteenth fairway. (It was once explained to me by such a golfer that he was perfectly entitled to kill me because I was trespassing and he had a summer pass.) The work was tedious and mostly involved replacing inventory tags on thousands of fixtures covering the ceiling space above ten aisles of decorative lampposts, track lighting, flood lighting, cutesy night-lights, sockets, bulbs, every accessory of luminescence imaginable. Only a few days into the job my boss, Mr. Jaffe, hired a volunteer assistant from the Catholic Charity House to help me replace the tags. Strangely enough, while this assistant was Chinese and mentally retarded, he looked like Mr. Jaffe’s twin, particularly in concern to the odd-mannered fat stores around his waist. Both of them had the habit of constantly adjusting their glasses, which when they stood together made them appear like windmills in perpetual motion. Whenever Hu was around, Mr. Jaffe acted like the most kindly, upbeat boss you ever met, apparently to prove to all his employees that he had a soft spot for the mentally challenged and wasn’t simply exploiting the situation for free labor. “Hu’s got a good back,” he was always saying. “He’s just a regular guy who wants to put in a regular day’s work.”

  Anyway, since Hu’s medication caused symptoms of vertigo, Mr. Jaffe decided to have him prepare the tags, leaving me with the sole responsibility of climbing a thirty-foot ladder to attach them to the fixtures. I didn’t complain. It was still better than a happy-go-lucky job at the mall where my increasing frustrations would be placed on broad display. For the most part things went smoothly with Hu, until late that first afternoon when I noticed from the top of the ladder that he’d prepped a whole row of stickers upside down. I had no intention of putting up tags with upside-down stickers, especially since Mr. Jaffe loved to embarrass employees by making repeated public announcements of their mistakes. The day was nearly over. After pointing out the problem, I asked Hu if he wanted me to print a new row of stickers or put off correcting the issue until the morning. In what felt like a complete personality swap, Hu not only denied that he’d done anything wrong, but kept staring at the upside-down tags as though I’d just switched them with the proper tags he’d produced. The conversation ended with Hu giving me a look like I’d stolen something from him. Then he stormed off, bumping into several customers on his way to the bathroom where he slammed the door, shat on the floor, then picked up the shit and threw it at the ceiling, mirror, and walls. Then he smeared the shit. When this surreptitious work was complete, he washed his hands and face, then marched out the back door—he forgot to clock out—and hopped the bus back to the Charity House. My day ended with Mr. Jaffe handing me a collection of sponges and disinfectants. He insisted I undo the accident as penance for my lack of sensitivity in dealing with the mentally challenged. I’ll skip ahead by saying that cleaning the mess was an unpleasant experience, but that in the face of the moment’s larger and less easily resolved problems, I found myself in the unique position of tolerating this unpleasantness. At the very least the story won a few laughs from Smitty, which, when I told it to him, made me feel like a normal guy for a few minutes.

  The next morning I returned to work trying to pretend that nothing had happened, even if all the other employees found the situation hilarious, especially the warehouse workers. One of them kept putting on a Jackie Chan accent and asking me, “Hu flung poo?” I tried to ignore him and focus on the routine of hanging tags. Inevitably my thoughts turned to Emily and who she was talking with and what she was telling them and whether or not she still loved me. I imagined meeting her randomly in Lions Park, checking for cancer again and not finding it, kissing her ballerina lips, pressing against her fiery cheeks, mixing our tears and holding each other up. I thought about Katie, Mr. and Mrs. Schell, my parents, my friendships, life jackets, police, news reports, etc., and over time grew used to the sensation that instead of climbing up and down a ladder at Iowa Lighting Solutions I was actually at home in bed, hiding under the covers and functioning by remote control. Hu and I more or less got along over the next few weeks, even if I’d occasionally catch a dirty stare when I’d sigh too loud after noticing one of his stickers covering the string that I needed for hanging the tags on the fixtures. These hurtful looks reminded me of an abused son who, if he takes one more lick, might just go for the ax. I avoided criticizing Hu in any way, but knew it was only a matter of time before Mr. Jaffe brought me another mop and pail.

  It finally happened on a Friday afternoon when Hu decided to print the stickers without asking how the program worked. In doing so he erased a block of about five hundred prenumbered tags, which meant that someone would have to go back and type in each inventory number, then look up the corresponding model number in one of the thousand-page manufacturing catalogs stacked in the office. I explained the predicament to Mr. Jaffe, who told me that I shouldn’t have let Hu use the computer. “You’re the computer expert,” he said. “What’s he doing doing your job?”

  Knowing I couldn’t completely skirt the issue, I bought two Cokes and invited Hu to join me in the break area out back. I tried to act more sad than angry, like I’d just been scolded by Mr. Jaffe and felt lousy about it. “What made you use the computer without asking my help?” I said. “I never use the computer,” he said, crossing his arms and shaking his head from as far as it would stretch one way to as far as it would stretch the other. “I do the stickers,” he went on. “You do the computer.” When I pressed Hu a second time, he took to his feet and starting huffing his way inside. Of course I had a good idea where he was heading, but I kept a few paces behind him, waiting until I was sure of his intentions before blocking his way or wrestling him into submission, if that’s what it came to. Hu surprised me by slamming the service door and turning the bolt. I didn’t hesitate. I jumped off the loading dock and sprinted for the front entrance, knowing it was no quick jaunt around the warehouse, but figuring Hu had better be damned fast if he planned on beating me. (I won’t deny an initial joy in the challenge, the feeling of sudden resuscitation—adrenaline surging into my heart, blood rushing to the extremities, a momentary reprieve from my stress and directionless pain.)

  Hu turned out to be a pretty good athlete. When I turned the corner and dashed past a customer through the sliding doors, I saw him trucking for the bathroom with his head down and arms crossed over his odd-mannered gut that never mo
ved, no matter the activity, the side effect of a mood-stabilizing drug that obviously didn’t work. He bowled over a contractor and a housewife, losing his glasses on his path toward a stocking clerk whom he startled into crumbling against a shelf. I was close to cutting him off and might’ve saved the day by dive tackling him, but I didn’t, thinking I’d only end up getting sued by the Charity House. He came to a slamming halt at the bathroom door, then locked himself inside.

  It wasn’t long before Hu embarked on his mission of enraged splat terings. Mr. Jaffe arrived on the scene at the sounds of the paper towel dispenser being torn from the wall and then stomped. “It’s okay!” he kept yelling, knocking and pleading. “We’ve got your glasses! Good as new! Come on out, Hu!”

  One of the warehouse workers helped the housewife to her feet. The Jackie Chan impersonator shook his head at all the other customers, pretending to be professionally disappointed as a way of holding back his laughter. The ruckus died down after about fifteen minutes, even if the cursing lasted much longer. When it became clear that Hu wouldn’t come out on his own, Mr. Jaffe called a locksmith. I’ll never forget the moment when the door finally swung open, the sight of Hu plopped down Indian style on a shit-streaked floor, looking like he’d been brooding in his self-made prison for thirty years. When he cried his whole body trembled. Some of the shit fell from his cheeks and neck.

  I asked Mr. Jaffe for Hu’s glasses, then walked into the bathroom and crouched down to his level. “It’s not your fault,” I told him, placing the glasses on his face. “I’m sorry.” Hu didn’t look up. He threw the glasses against the wall and yelled, “Fuck you, mister!”

  There was nothing left to say. I walked out the front entrance, filled with the sort of rage that permitted me to stroll off the premises just as easily as if I’d stopped in for a lightbulb and couldn’t find the one I needed. But this is not the end of the story. Consider everything I’ve just relayed as backstory for the incident I initially set out to share, which is this:

  While heading across the golf course on my way home I tried to put myself in Hu’s shoes. I considered what it would feel like being rejected from stepping onto a city bus. I considered what it would feel like to walk along Meredith Avenue covered in shit. I considered what it would feel like to face the laughter and repulsion of the other residents at the Charity House. And now I arrive at the moment when, in the midst of these thoughts, a lanky member of a Sigma Pi foursome decided to try his luck hitting me with his tee shot. While I’ll never really know the truth, to this day I feel certain there was a bet involved in this decision. Either way, his ball bounced about five feet in front of me, taking a long hop and another short one before skittering to rest in the shallow rough. In truth I didn’t know whether his group had already arrived at the tee box when I started across the fairway, but this detail didn’t seem to matter. I picked up his ball and threw it into the woods, as casually as if I’d found a perfect rock to skip across the surf. Then I marched up the center of the fairway looking happily anxious for the brawl that one might have imagined I’d made a reservation for at the pro shop earlier that week. The golfers readied themselves by adjusting their visors, flicking their cigarettes, and spitting. One of them went as far as to tug his sleeves up over his shoulders. These fierce gestures fell somewhat slack as I drew nearer, likely in response to my disregard for their Big Bertha drivers, and the Cheshire cat grin that seemed imposed upon me by a ghostly counterpart with an ironic sense of the moral edge. “We didn’t see you!” the lanky one shouted, cocking his club like a baseball bat. “Don’t make me do it!”

  Then he hesitated and his swing arrived too late. The head of the club didn’t even hit me and I hardly noticed the shaft striking me in the ribs. The club rattled onto the cart path as I hooked his long pinkish arm that he’d practically handed to me. I locked his head under my right armpit and lifted him as high as I could, bending my knees and arching my back in the manner of a textbook five-point throw over my right shoulder. After traveling an upside-down arc, my opponent was slammed flat on his back onto the cart path pavement. Soon a bright red carnation blossomed on his cheek. He rolled onto his side and covered his face, sucking noisily for the wind knocked from his chest. His fellow threesome stared in disarmed disbelief as the hair on one side of his head darkened with blood. The bravest of them, baby-faced and mustard-stained, edged toward his friend with his hands up in the air, apparently proclaiming himself a pacifistic medical intermediary. I shoved my quivering hands into my pockets and stepped back, feeling suddenly engulfed in a clouded kiln. The last thing I remember was coughing in some weird sick way, and the shouts at my back as I dashed for the woods.

  Twenty-five

  If you’ve ever been a wrestler, or ever loved one, you will probably be familiar with a phenomenon referred to as “muscle memory.” As Coach Grady would likely reason it, in the moment of my opponent’s clumsy attack my muscles simply reacted as they’d been trained to react over the course of a few hundred freestyle practices when I’d been pressed to exploit the vulnerability of overemotional opponents who in the final minute of a losing match would often launch forward in frantic, spread-winged anger. Though I was never honestly convinced of this reasoning, I pretended to be convinced of it for the following afternoons of jobless seclusion, which were largely dedicated to bong hits and soap operas in Zach’s bachelorized bedroom during his day shift up at Gordo’s. (I have no idea what strain of cannabis Zach was smoking at the time, but it was potent and forcibly reminding of the antidrug counselor back in Davenport who’d warned us of the twelve-year-old marijuana addict whose testosterone turned to estrogen, causing his testicles to shrink and his mammary glands to swell until he’d grown a pair of little boy breasts.) More than once I discovered, halfway through one convoluted drama or another, that all the actors were speaking Spanish. I constantly peered through the basement windows for signs of Sigma Pi posses on patrol. Even more upsetting than my paranoia was the moment I came to the understanding—during a double feature of softly upsetting commercials for adult diapers and laser hair replacement—that a dear, intangible part of me had just broken away, setting sail for nonviolent adventures among moralistic peoples.

  But I already decided to avoid the specifics of those first maddening weeks of grief, and have now clearly regressed. I scurry ahead to events more apropos to my relationship with the Schell family, beginning with my two unplanned encounters with Mr. Schell. The first of these occurred at the Seventy-third Street YMCA, which I began attending in an effort to restore a modicum of emotional and cognitive stability. (Colin Franzen, who worked at the front desk, offered me a membership discount usually reserved for stroke and car wreck victims in rehabilitation.) By then I’d more or less regained my appetite and was benching as much weight as ever, a feat no doubt motivated by the conceit that Katie Schell was my invisible spotter, urging me on for additional repetitions that in reality put me at risk of having to crawl out from under a two-hundred-twenty-pound bar pinning me to the bench. But the first hour or two after exercising were my most optimistic of the week, and the Saturday morning I encountered Mr. Schell was no exception.

  That day I arrived to a shower room that was empty aside from the one old guy who was always there scalding himself in a cloud of steam. I chose a showerhead at the far end of the row and began lathering myself, taking pride in the noticeable swell returned to my shoulders and chest, the cable cord veins in my forearms. A minute later Mr. Schell showed up still dripping in a red Speedo and matching swimming cap. He looked so different from every other time I’d seen him that it took me a few seconds to recognize him. At that point I quickly turned into the spray so that it masked my face, hoping he hadn’t seen me glance over as he walked in. I washed my hair, applying liberal amounts of shampoo in order to conceal my ebullient identity and occasional sidewise, stinging-eyed surveillance. I couldn’t help wondering why he was slumming it at the YMCA when almost all of his neighbors attended the Timberline Club, where fo
r three hundred dollars per month you could work out on plush aqua blue carpet and drink all the mineral water you could handle. He hung his swimsuit and cap neatly over the shower bar, then squeezed soap over his hand scrubber that fit like a glove. Despite his chicken legs and frowny-faced ass covered with stretch marks, I couldn’t help but notice the surprising definition of Mr. Schell’s upper back and shoulder muscles, which forced me to recall Katie’s assertion that once upon a time he’d competed as a lightweight boxer.

  After what seemed an hour considering how to take the first brave step toward reconciliation, I concluded that the shower room at the YMCA was neither the time nor place for a conversation about the exact truth of what happened out at Saylorville Lake. Certain that Mr. Schell had yet to recognize me, I took my opportunity to escape as soon as he went for the shampoo lever and started washing his hair. But he turned around at the exact moment of my flight, just as my manhood began bobbing side to side like a resolute pup on a happy sidewalk strut. His eyebrows furrowed and his shoulders lifted up. With his hair slicked back he appeared an eagle who’d caught in its radar a little mouse scurrying out from a hole hundreds of feet below. This reaction almost immediately gave way to an expression of doubt and depression, but by then I was already puffing my chest out and roughly scratching a few places that didn’t itch. Mr. Schell peered into my eyes with such a pained and polite hesitation that I felt like a customer whose business he simply couldn’t risk his respectability by accepting. I swaggered into the locker area, feeling hotheaded, spiteful, etc. I took my time drying off to compile a list of similar adjectives I’d hardly have used to describe myself a few months before. Sitting on a wooden bench with my face in my hands, I summoned all the apologies and humble condolences I intended to offer Mr. Schell as soon as he entered the locker area. But I suspected my chance had passed and couldn’t be recovered, that Mr. Schell had no intention of quitting his shower until he was certain I’d already left.