Nightswimmer

by Joseph Olshan

  “Just think, I can represent you. Do all your contracts. Make sure the big multimedia companies don’t fuck you over.”

  “You must be dreaming. That’d be like holding up the Chinese army with one gun.” I appraised his Fire Island outfit: a dress shirt cut off at the sleeves and skimpy denim shorts. “You’ll have to clean up your act. Can’t go to torts class looking like that.”

  “Easy A,” Greg said, spreading his legs and leaning back against the bench railing.

  Born-and-bred New Yorker that I was, I’d never before been to Fire Island Pines, and it suddenly dawned on me that there wasn’t even one woman on the boat. “We could be going to Mount Athos,” I pointed out, just as the drone of the engines dropped a notch and the ferry began listing to the right, shifting its course to head into the harbor of the Pines! From where we sat we could see a string of weathered-looking houses on the bay side of the island. Although we were situated below an overhang, a harsh splash of sunlight was sprawling across the bottom half of our legs.

  Once we disembarked, we went immediately to the house of a man whose golden retriever played with Casey at the dog run. As soon as the dogs were settled in an enclosed yard, we joined the throng of bare-chested men, dressed in either shorts or bathing suits, milling down the boardwalk toward the prefabricated pavilions that served the Morning Party. The Gay Men’s Health Crisis was sponsoring the event, and all proceeds would go toward reinforcing the various fronts of battling the epidemic. Our tickets came in the form of pink plastic wristbands that had to be worn in order to enter the dance floor. They reminded me of hospital bracelets; how macabre, I thought, to wear hospital bracelets to a party.

  Laid over the sand, the dance floor quickly filled with thousands of men who were already heavily drugged before they began gulping down the rum punch being served by the cheerful hosts. I found few sober-looking people in the crowd. The majority of the men in attendance were beautiful, but to me the beauty was either improvised or exaggerated: too much emphasis placed on a perfect hairstyle, sets of heavily pumped-up tits and big arms that didn’t match stick-thin legs. I saw great wide backs in tandem with sunken chests or huge chests coupled with undeveloped backs. I saw beefy arms that didn’t correspond to the size of the chest and vice versa—all of it, it seemed to me, the half-baked results of working out to be beautiful instead of working out to be fit. There were some knockouts, certainly, but they flaunted it with every last ounce of purpose. What will they do when they hit forty, fifty, I couldn’t help wondering. What will any of us do?

  Greg and I danced for a while, and that was comfortable because we could touch each other, as we moved in tandem, and he could put his back to me and spoon as we danced. But then he ran into a guy he’d been dating on and off, and I was honor-bound to give them a wide berth. After making plans to meet me at the five o’clock ferry, Greg with his friend took a stroll to some more secluded area of the beach. And as I watched them walking off, I had to forcibly dispel the creepy feeling that Greg’s Morning Party date looked a lot like me.

  However, once I was alone again, I grew even more aware of the passion of the mob, the narcotic faces thrown back into the sun, faces bowing over to inhale the latest in designer drugs that conveniently came in tiny amber bottles. Then a great laurel of tanned and muscular arms linked together in so many frolicking tribes—all of them inspired by the sexual throb of carefully selected music. Never before had I been so aware of the pressure to pursue physical perfection, to be unblemished and youthful at the dance. I could even understand why people were tempted into and consumed by the triangle—the New York-Fire Island-South Beach triangle. But then some cloud heads crossed the sun and the stain of a shadow drifted over the crowd, and I grew aware of the thinnest of membranes separating us from the rest of the world: the false belief that pumping up would be our protective armor against the plague. And I remembered that the death sentence of Narcissus was wasting away.

  When I found myself dancing with another loner, a guy with a nice ostentatious build, I mentioned that I was thinking about going for a long swim in the ocean, and he told me that he was also a swimmer and asked if he could tag along. I think he could tell that I was serious about the swimming.

  We left the party and stripped off our shorts down to Speedos and in a flash we were out beyond the breakwater, hitting the smooth back of the swell and beginning our flight along the shoreline, matching stroke for stroke. Through my goggles I could see his perfect underwater S motion, the final backward thrust of the hands before the high elbow recovery. I hadn’t risked a tandem ocean swim since Chad, and I was reminded that with it came the responsibility to keep an eye out for the other swimmer, to make sure we didn’t jam together in a cresting wave or brush up against each other when we least expected to. At one point during the swim, I glanced back at the Morning Party, and the image of the dancing that flashed back over the surf was a great, writhing tangle of snakes, the sort that would crown the head of Medusa.

  The swimmer invited me back to his house for a drink, but I wasn’t in the mood to be with a stranger, and besides, there was very little time before I had to meet Greg back at the dock. In fact, by the time I arrived he was already waiting with Casey, looking concerned. He’d just pulled five blood-engorged ticks off our dog.

  “I hope they’re not the Lyme variety,” I said.

  “You can’t see that kind.”

  “So then what are you so worried about?”

  “When you pull the ticks off, sometimes the heads stay in and can float in the bloodstream and do things like stop the heart.”

  “And a meteor can strike Fire Island.” I smiled and Greg seemed to calm down. I asked him where his “new friend” had gone to. Apparently the guy felt like dancing some more, but they had a date later on in the city.

  “Must be nice to look forward to that.”

  He detected my edge of jealousy. “Look, you could have any number of dates. I saw guys cruising you today.”

  We both stood with our backs to the breeze that was whipping in from the mainland. “You know, at some point, you’ve just got to give somebody else a chance,” Greg finally said.

  “Yeah, well, at the moment the idea is too depressing.” I cited some of my Morning Party observations. Greg listened carefully and shook his head. “I know what you’re saying, Will, but we’re all like this to a certain extent—yourself included. And the fact of the matter is it’s been nearly a year since Sean split and you haven’t really dated anybody.”

  “Except for Peter,” I pointed out.

  “Peter doesn’t count.”

  “I guess I’m getting there, slowly.”

  “Getting there maybe, but definitely torturing yourself along the way.”

  “Torturing myself in the most beautiful of places,” I amended and gestured toward the ocean front.

  We boarded the ferry along with only a scattering of others; the majority of men were still reveling. Greg met some people he knew, people I didn’t even recognize. How strange, it seemed, that in two years away from me he’d reassembled a whole new world for himself, a world in which I was not automatically known by everyone. The moment the boat steamed away from the slip I wandered off along the upper deck to find solitude. I leaned over the railing of the boat and admired the water in the Great South Bay, its deep indigo.

  I found myself remembering the time when Chad and I got up early one morning to go deep-sea fishing. Nearly eleven years ago, but Jesus, I could remember everything about that day: not a single flaw in the California sky, and the Monterey pines spiking the grounds of his apartment building, and the maple syrup smell of these thistles that used to grow along his driveway. And the way he shaved hastily in the dark and his tanned cheeks showing pinpoints of blood from the razor burn. How he went down on me as I was driving us to the dock, even though I told him I was so tired it probably would take me ten years to come. I remember saying that, ten years to come.

  And I remembered the part of Bobby�
��s letter, the part about “the rest of my life now seems too long a stretch to go.” Bobby was dead, though I still couldn’t quite believe it; and yet, before he died, he was able to feel something so acute as to make him choose not to feel anything more at all. Yes, he was gone now, but how could he really be gone, and how could his intense love for another man completely vanish with his leaving? Why couldn’t I let go of Chad? Why couldn’t I let go of you?

  I closed my eyes and asked whatever higher power there might be to just tell me whether Chad was alive or not, to show me some sign that either he’d died eleven years ago, or he’d just left me. Please, I murmured to the water pulsing alongside the boat, leaning closer to it, smelling the mucky brine of the bay. Let me know one way or another and then I promise to move on.

  The part I still cannot understand is what possessed me to let go of the railing. Balancing my stomach on the bar, I was leaning forward, craning to kiss the face I suddenly saw before me, a waxen face with a startling dark gaze flecked with the silvery dorsals of the fishes swimming inside his head. And then the boat lurched unexpectedly and its forward thrust left me out of balance. I was like a juggler’s ball thrown high up into an arc and slowing to that stationary point where its upward force and gravity meet. But then a hand brought me back into the forward motion of the boat—Greg’s hand jerked me back to myself.

  I was startled by the spooky look on his face.

  “What the fuck were you doing like that?” he fumed.

  “Nothing, I was just—”

  “Do you realize what you just nearly did?”

  I shook my head. I peered at him but he seemed so many fathoms away.

  “I’ll fucking kill you if you do something so stupid.”

  “I was just … I was just smelling the water,” I finally protested.

  “Smelling the water,” he mocked me. “It looked like you were getting ready to jump.”

  The shoreline of Long Island loomed only a quarter of a mile away. “Greg, if I was going to jump, don’t you think I would’ve done it out in the middle?”

  “Who knows what you would’ve done?” he exclaimed. “I’ll be honest with you, Will, sometimes I think you’re turning into a real nut job.” And yet he sounded relieved.

  “I didn’t know I was acting weird.”

  But then I felt him stiffening next to me, suddenly attentive. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered. “I don’t believe who’s on this boat!”

  Before I could ask who Greg meant, I instinctively glanced toward the bow of the ferry, where I noticed that you’d been standing, watching us.

  EPILOGUE

  AND I TELL YOU exactly what I told Greg. I wasn’t about to jump. Then I’m staring out over the water, dead inside, mute to you when you tell me I scared the shit out of you, that you were just about to run over when you saw Greg grabbing hold of me. My eyes rivet to the cutting wake. I wish you’d just go back to where you were standing. We’ll be docking soon.

  “Come on, Will, don’t be like this. Just talk to me a little…Why do you think I came out to Fire Island today?”

  I shrug. How long had you been back? Had you ever really gone away?

  “Won’t you even look at me?”

  Unyielding silence.

  “So what’s with the bandanna on your head? … You don’t have to cover up the fact that you’re balding. You’re beautiful, Will. Your balding head is one of my favorite things about you.”

  Spare me the compliments.

  “I would’ve called you but I was afraid that you would refuse to speak to me. I guess I was right. Then I thought you might be out here today. That you might be curious about the Morning Party.”

  I look around for Greg and Casey, but they’ve slipped away to another part of the ferry. The engines are beginning to wind down, we’re approaching land, and I suddenly feel the urgency of wanting to know what will happen next.

  So I finally dare a full look at you. Your hair is longer, gelled a bit to relax the curl; your skin is tanned, and your eyes are still piercing blue. I hate you for looking good. And what’s worse is I can see a certain soulful glimmering in those eyes.

  The dock is encroaching on our one-way conversation, so you breach the silence again. “I had to come back to New York. Because I couldn’t let you be left twice.”

  I’m now compelled to speak. “I don’t understand.”

  “I didn’t want to be like him,” you explain.

  This sort of perception is what in the beginning so quickly broke down my defenses. But by now it has taken a toll. I still can’t believe you could leave without telling me, after all we talked about, when you knew it was the worst possible thing to do to me. I wait another moment and then say, “But you are like him. You vanish when you can’t handle somebody’s devotion.”

  There was more to it than that. I’d heard the phone message at your apartment, hadn’t I? Your neighbors said they saw me going into the building. When they forwarded all your mail, the letter you’d left me was missing. Had I read the letter?

  I admit to you, I read it. “But you still could’ve stayed, Sean. It might’ve been hard, but you could’ve faced it.”

  “You’re absolutely right, okay? And it’s embarrassing to have to admit that. Because at least you had the guts to leave yourself open to me. At least you were willing to risk falling.”

  “What a fucking line,” I say as the boat makes its final approach, as I can feel the other passengers charging up to return to the eternal pleasure-seeking that goes hand in hand with living in New York City.

  You move in closer until our shoulders are jammed together, and as I edge away you say, “I just want you to tell me honestly what you were doing leaning out over the water like that. Were you about to take another one of your unexpected swims?” The ferry sounds its horn and the passengers begin gathering their belongings.

  I remember Chad. I remember the voyage out to the Channel Islands, where, just off Santa Rosa, the boat intersected a school of blue porpoises. I remember how they rushed the side of the boat like a Marine battalion, their opaque, gentle eyes catching light, how they seemed so content in their powerful locomotive freedom. Sunlight coming from the east glinting on the surface of the water like silver lures, and Chad, shirtless, was leaning over the railing as I am now.

  He was watching the porpoises undulating, watching the power of their waving tails, and the blue ridges of Santa Rosa were soaring out of the mist behind his haloed head. “Christ, what a life,” he’d said. “I wouldn’t mind a life like that.”

  “Your life is okay,” I told him. “You can live on land. You can go swimming whenever you want.”

  He turned to me, his black eyes squinting. “I love you,” he said. “And I’d love to do it with you right now.”

  “You always love it when you can’t have it.”

  “I guess I love what’s impossible,” he agreed, saluting the porpoises, who were finally abandoning their escort. It is one of my fondest memories of him.

  You repeat your question. What had I been doing leaning over the railing? Had I been about to jump off the boat? You must still be afraid that what happened to your father and Bobby Garzino might soon happen to me.

  But I’m also afraid because I don’t want you to leave again. I’m afraid because I don’t know what I mean by this confession and that I’ve told you everything in the blink of an eye.

  I realize it isn’t a bid to bring you or him back, but rather an exorcism.

  Still, you want an answer.

  The boat kisses up to the dock and Greg is now walking toward us, Casey straining against his leash to reach me. Waving to them, I grab my bag and hoist it over my shoulder. And then I tell you that I was praying.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I WOULD LIKE TO acknowledge the following people who, in various ways, made the completion of this novel possible.

  Charles Sprawson, whose Haunts of the Black Masseur: The Swimmer As Hero was an excellent guide to swimming in literatu
re as well as to the many writers and poets who were obsessed with the sport;

  The late Allen Barnett, in whose short story collection The Body and Its Dangers I have found much inspiration;

  Andrew Sullivan, whose article “Ecstasy and Intimacy” in The New Republic was a great inspiration when I was beginning this novel;

  Peter Davenport, who, along with Charlet, time and again provided me a place to come away to and write;

  Margaret Edwards, who gave me a careful and insightful reading of the manuscript;

  Eric Steel at Simon & Schuster, New York, and Liz Calder and Maggie Traugott at Bloomsbury, Ltd., in London, who gave many helpful comments and encouragement;

  Steven Gaines, who provided me with emotional support and encouragement;

  Gordon Robinson, who gave me insight into growing up as a military brat in Okinawa;

  John Lynch, who sang while I wrote.

  About the Author

  Joseph Olshan is the internationally acclaimed, award-winning author of nine novels, the most recent of which, the crime novel Cloudland, was lauded by the New York Times: “Joseph Olshan has stepped up and hit one for the home team. The bracing clarity of his prose . . . observes the destructive impact [the] killings have on this isolated region.”

  Olshan’s first novel, Clara’s Heart, won the prestigious London Times/Jonathan Cape Writers’ Competition and went on to be made into a feature film starring Whoopi Goldberg. He has contributed journalism and essays to the New York Times, New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post, the New York Observer, as well as the Times (London), the Independent, the Observer, and the Guardian. His books have been translated into sixteen languages.

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