The Call

by Yannick Murphy

  WHAT JANET EVANS SAYS: When doing the backstroke flip turn, flip over onto your belly and then take the allowed one hand stroke before flipping at the wall. It will help you flip faster and increase your speed.

  WHAT MISTY HYMAN SAYS (THIS IS REALLY HER NAME, EVEN THOUGH IT SOUNDS LIKE A NAME YOU WOULD FIND AT THE BOOB FEST): Think like a dolphin.

  NUMBER OF SIT-UPS JANET EVANS DID EVERY DAY WHILE IN TRAINING: 1,000. Core strength is everything in swimming the fly, the kick not so much from the hip but from the whole body. Your body is a whip.

  WHAT THE CHILDREN SAY: Enough, enough, enough of swimming!

  WHAT WE SAY: Never enough!

  WHAT GISELA LIKES TO DO: Go swimming.

  WHAT THE COACH IS: A Seventh-Day Adventist.

  WHAT I HAVEN’T FIGURED OUT: What it means to be a Seventh-Day Adventist.

  WHAT I HAVE FIGURED OUT: The coach is a really good coach. The children have their swim team practice with him first. Then the wife and the team and I have our practice.

  WHO HOLDS MY PAGER WHILE I’M SWIMMING IN CASE THERE IS AN ANIMAL EMERGENCY: Mia, who keeps the pager clipped to the waist of her pants, but she is so small and thin, the pager weighs her pants down and she has to keep lifting them up. When there is an emergency and the pager beeps, she comes to the end of my lane and throws a kickboard on my head to get my attention.

  WHAT I DO WHILE SAM IS SWIMMING: Just watch him sometimes, the water sliding off his smooth back, the catch of his stroke underwater, speeding him along, the breaths he takes from both sides, his body working beautifully.

  WHAT I FEEL AFTER I’VE SWUM: That my levels are low. I will live.

  WHAT THE WIFE SAYS: Victoria told me about the place in Costa Rica where they let you stay in cabins for free so long as you help with the turtles.

  WHAT I SAY: What turtles? (Victoria is a woman at the pool who is always telling my wife things.)

  WHAT SHE SAYS: The turtles that have come to the shore to lay their eggs in the sand. The eggs need moving before the tide comes and steals the eggs away. Let’s go, Jen says. Let’s stay in the cabins and stay up all night and help the eggs.

  WHAT I SAY: That’s a vacation?

  WHAT THE WIFE SAYS: Victoria said you can freeze chicken eggs. I never knew this before. You can crack them into ice cube trays to store them in the freezer. People don’t know these kinds of things, she said.

  CALL: It’s the voice of the man who calls and hangs up. This time I am ready. After he says hello, I start talking. I tell him the schools I went to. I tell him the places I’ve lived. I tell him the name of my first stuffed animal. Now tell me, I say, just who are you that you keep calling my house and why do you want to know so much about me? The voice lets out the breath again, the breath that sounds like a seashell, and then the caller hangs up.

  WHAT THE WIFE SAYS: I think I’ll work at the kids’ school.

  WHAT THE COP SAYS WHO TAKES HER FINGERPRINTS SO SHE CAN WORK AT THE SCHOOL: You have almost no swirls on the pads of your fingers. I once knew a potter with the same problem. Working with the clay at the wheel had worn her pattern away. Are you a potter? the cop asks Jen.

  WHAT THE WIFE SAYS: Why, no. I type a lot, though, she said. I have maybe worn off the pads of my fingers with all of my stories.

  WHAT I SAY: Sounds like you could commit a murder and get away with it.

  WHAT THE WIFE SAYS: Who did you have in mind?

  WHAT I SAY: Why that doctor, of course. The one who wears pins, the one more gung-ho about my levels than our parallel universe.

  WHAT THE WIFE SAYS: Oh, I thought you’d say that hunter. Sam’s hunter, she says.

  WHAT I SAY: No, not him. I am done with him.

  WHAT THE WIFE WONDERS: When you take your ice cube tray full of frozen eggs out of the freezer, do you have to defrost the eggs first before you cook them, or do you just throw them onto the pan and they skate around on the surface before the heat of the flame starts to melt them?

  CALL: No call. The phone hasn’t rung for two days. You see, I tell Jen. Nobody can afford to treat their animals anymore.

  WHAT THE PHONE SAYS: Hah-hah-hah.

  WHAT THE WIFE SAYS: Your fly looks so fast!

  WHAT I AM TRYING TO DO: Lift my head up above the water only high enough to get a breath in that pocket of air. My chin is really still in the water.

  WHAT I AM THINKING: I am a dolphin.

  WHAT THE DOCTOR DOES: Calls my house and talks to Jen.

  WHAT THE WIFE SAYS: It’s been weeks, shouldn’t you go back to the doctor?

  WHAT I DO: Shrug.

  WHAT THE WIFE SAYS: All they want to do is test your levels again.

  WHAT I AM: A dolphin. My feet are my tail. My body is in the shape of a sine curve.

  WHAT THE WIFE SAYS: Maybe your levels are lower. Don’t you want to know that?

  WHAT I WANT TO KNOW: How Misty Hyman keeps her head so low and her palms facing up to the sky in her recovery. I cannot keep my palms up to the sky for long because it hurts in the shoulders.

  WHAT I SHOULD DO: Watch my Misty Hyman video over and over again.

  WHAT VICTORIA SAYS: If your ring finger is longer than your forefinger, you’re good at competitive sports.

  WHAT MY RING FINGER IS: Slightly longer than my forefinger.

  WHAT VICTORIA SAYS: People who are fat are inflamed all the time. The fat presses in on them, causing the inflammation. Their bodies react to this. Their bodies are always working hard to fight the inflammation. Their bodies always feel like they’re sick.

  WHAT MIA THINKS WOULD BE A GOOD NAME FOR THE MASTER’S SWIM TEAM: The Sea Slugs.

  WHAT THE TEAM IS ALREADY NAMED: The Manta Rays. The logo on the swim caps, instead of looking like a manta ray, looks like a sperm traveling through its liquid medium.

  WHAT THE COACH DOES: Takes care of a young man named Ted. Ted is in a wheelchair.

  WHAT I DON’T KNOW: Why Ted is in a wheelchair. Ted is not right. It seems like whatever happened to him, happened long ago, before he was born, and just as his cells were beginning to divide.

  WHAT TED SAYS TO ME: I do not know. I cannot understand Ted. While I am sitting in a chair on the pool deck watching the children swim, he sometimes holds a magazine or a catalog and he wheels his chair over to mine and points to the pictures and says something I do not understand. Sometimes the pictures are of cell phones or of cars. Maybe Ted is trying to tell me that he wants a cell phone, or that he wants a car.

  WHAT TED DID ONE TIME: Fell into the pool in his wheelchair. He was removed quickly. Everyone jumped in to help him. He was smiling when we brought him up, and still holding onto his drenched catalog. Coach thinks that Ted may have released his brake on purpose. Ted likes the water. Ted likes to swim. Coach sometimes straps a flotation device to Ted’s waist and Ted gets into the pool and moves his arms to move through the water. Ted is always smiling when he’s swimming.

  WHAT I THINK TED IS THINKING WHILE HE’S IN THE WATER: That he’s a dolphin.

  WHAT MY WIFE AND I SOMETIMES WATCH ON OUR TELEVISION WHILE WE’RE DOING SIT-UPS AND PUSH-UPS: Old episodes of The Twilight Zone. Oh, he was profound, Jen says, because after every episode Rod Serling will quote Shakespeare or some famous philosopher like Khalil Gabran, who tells us what true love truly is. We watch the episodes on DVD because we don’t have television reception and you can tell when there’s a pause in the episode, that that is when a commercial was planned to air and Jen pretends it really is a commercial and she pretends we are our parents watching the show, and she says, Dahling, time for a cig and a martini. Because that’s all our parents seemed to do when we were young, was smoke and drink, and they were not, as my wife and I are doing, huffing and puffing and strengthening our muscles so that they could have a stronger fly, a faster turn, lower levels.

  WHAT COACH MAKES US DO: Swim underwater two lengths of the pool without taking a breath.

  WHAT I CAN’T DO: Hold my breath for even one length. I am sorry. I just like to breathe, I tell coach.
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br />   WHAT I AM ASKED TO SUBSTITUTE-TEACH: Art. I don’t know anything about art.

  WHAT I TELL THE KIDS IN ART CLASS: I don’t know what art is. I just know it when I see it.

  WHAT I DO DURING ART: Sit at the teacher’s desk and study German.

  WHAT THE WIFE SAYS: Maybe your levels are telling you to take it easy. Maybe you shouldn’t be cutting enough wood for the next ten years.

  WHAT I SAY: What is your fascination with my levels? Do you miss Sam being in a coma? Do you miss constantly worrying about someone’s health in the family? And besides, maybe my levels are saying, “Cut, cut, cut away!”

  WHAT THE WIFE SAYS: That’s not what your levels are saying. Your levels have more common sense than that.

  WHAT IS SURPRISING: That according to Jen, not only can my levels beg, talk, appreciate food, join a swim team—they now have common sense.

  WHAT THE CHILDREN SAY WHEN I GET HOME: Poppy, we are expecting ten inches of snow.

  WHAT I SAY: Good, then when you stay home from school I can teach you math and German and violin and history. I can tell you about the Russian Revolution, about the czars killed in the basement and no one knew where their bodies were buried because they did not want some people to dig them up and put them in a tomb and worship their tomb and wish for the old regime to resurface. I can tell you about the Nazi war criminals, who when they were killed, were buried in unknown places for the same reason, so that no shrine would be created that worshipped the perpetrators of the Nazi killing machine. I can tell you about first position, and drawing your bow across your strings using your wrist and not sawing your elbow back and forth. I can tell you about angles, how in a parallelogram opposite angles are equal.

  WHAT THE WIFE COOKS FOR DINNER: Mushroom barley soup.

  WHAT THERE IS MORE OF IN THE SOUP THAN MUSHROOMS AND BARLEY: Carrots.

  WHAT I SAY TO THE WIFE: My levels are saying where are the mushrooms?

  WHAT THE WIFE SAYS: Tell your levels they can cook dinner next time.

  WHAT THE HOUSE SAYS AT NIGHT: I’m closing you in, and buttoning you tight.

  WHAT THE WIFE SAYS: What’s that noise? Oh, it’s the rabbit drinking her water, she says.

  WHAT I, FOR A SECOND, THINK THE RABBIT CAN DO: Cure me. The all-seeing rabbit some kind of swami, some kind of medicine man. Is it the soft touch of her whiskers on my face when I’m lying on the carpet that can lower my levels?

  WHAT SARAH SAYS WE SHOULD MAKE A MOVIE ABOUT: Rabbits running the country, and doing a good job of it, considering they are peaceful and vegetarian.

  WHAT THE SNOW SAID: I will fall out to sea, steer clear of your green mountains, leave you still with your old snow, now yellow with piss from your dogs. You will have no snow day with your children, you will not teach them German, violin, and the demise of the czars. Sit alone in your house, listen to your Newfoundlands snoring loudly by the fire, wait for the phone to ring.

  WHAT I THINK I COULD HAVE BEEN: A professional swimmer.

  WHAT TED, AT THE POOL IN THE WHEELCHAIR, BROUGHT IN TO SHOW ME: A magazine with a picture of a man with a moose head mounted on his office wall, and then on the other side of the wall, reaching into another man’s office, the moose’s body was hanging in the air, above the man’s desk. I had to laugh. Ted laughed, too. I don’t know why I think it, but I do. I sometimes think that Ted could be Jesus Christ and I don’t even believe in Jesus Christ, but maybe he is.

  WHAT THE COACH TELLS US: That because so many people are losing their jobs, we may have to defend ourselves from people coming into our homes and taking what they want from us. We may have to have our guns ready, he says. We are sitting in a hot, crowded gymnasium at a technical school. We are waiting for our kids to compete in their swim heats. Coach is telling me this and above him hangs a basketball hoop that is missing its net. It looks like some kind of halo impossibly far from his head. Around us kids play video games, and read, and eat, and drink Gatorade, and run around playing tag, all waiting for their heats.

  WHAT I THINK WE MUST BE: Crazy to spend an entire weekend waiting in the gym of a technical school, but I know years from now we will look back and say these were good times, maybe the best because we were with our children all the time. Sam is stronger every day. He’s almost what he once was and nothing else matters. I look at my wife across the gym, leading Mia to the concession counter to buy a drink. I see my wife turn and look out across the sea of people and I wave to her and it is amazing that she can see me, but I know she does because she waves back.

  WHAT THE WIFE COOKS FOR DINNER: Nothing. We are far from home, and go to an Italian restaurant where the waitress forgets to bring us bread.

  WHAT THE HOTEL ROOM SAYS AT NIGHT: I have curtains and I can shut out the moon. I have windows you can’t open, and I can shut out your air. I have a television and I can shut out your thoughts.

  WHAT THE WIFE SAYS WHILE THE CHILDREN ARE SLEEPING, SOFTLY SNORING AROUND US: Did you make the appointment?

  WHAT THE CHILDREN DO: Stop their snoring for a moment as if in their dreams they want to hear my answer.

  WHAT I SAY: Yes, I made the appointment today. And I am telling the truth. I have made another appointment and I will have it soon. Sam is all right, and I will do things for myself now. I will take care of my levels. I think I can hear Jen nodding in approval, her head in the dark making a swishing sound on the stiff hotel room pillow.

  WHAT THE WIFE SAYS THE SHOWER REMINDS HER OF: Guatemala. The pounding of the massage showerhead on her neck sounded like a turboprop plane and she remembered the last time she was on a turboprop plane and that was when she went to go see the ruins at Tikal. She remembers walking up the crumbling stone steps, but she says she doesn’t remember much else.

  WHAT EVERYONE DOES: Yells and cheers for their children in the race.

  WHAT THE CHILDREN SAY THEY HEAR WHILE THEY ARE RACING: Nothing, just nothing.

  WHAT THE CHILDREN SAY: The blocks at this pool are slippery. The water is cold.

  WHAT MY SON ASKS ME ABOUT WHILE WE’RE DRIVING HOME: Turkey hunting.

  WHAT THE WIFE SAYS TO THE SON: No, no more hunting for you.

  WHAT I KNOW ABOUT TURKEY HUNTING: Nothing.

  WHAT EVERYONE TELLS ME ABOUT TURKEY HUNTING: Turkeys are smart. They know when you are holding a gun. They will walk out in front of you on the road when you are not holding a gun, but the moment you have the gun, they will not appear. You can call them with a turkey call and sometimes that will work. Most turkey calls sound like fingernails running down a chalkboard.

  WHAT TED DID AT THE POOL: Took a long flotation device, called a noodle, and floated in the shallow end, slapping it on top of the water. The sound was loud, and Ted liked it. He smiled broadly, showing his wide, white teeth. The sound drew attention to him, though, and the more he slapped the noodle on top of the water, the more people looked at him, and so he slapped the water even harder and faster. The lifeguard looked at Ted and took her hands and, palm down, lowered them a few times, letting Ted know he should calm down.

  CALL: Coach has yellow Labradors that he breeds and the puppies need shots.

  ACTION: Drove to coach’s house. Noticed the long ramp leading to his front door. The ramp’s wood was blond pine and reminded me of a newly built boardwalk. I pictured Ted wheeling himself up onto it, and the sound of the wheelchair’s wheels making a rhythmic sound like breaking waves as they rolled across the boards and the spaces between them. In the air I thought I could smell the fish and salt smell of the ocean, and the smell of sun-warmed rocks exposed on the white dunes, but when I looked around me of course all there was to see was the mountains, dusted in white snow and the pine trees looking pointy and sharp. I saw the cute sand-colored puppies and I lifted them up and gave them their shots in their skin under the scruffs of their necks.

  RESULT: Coach and I talked about the puppies. He would sell them all by the time they were nine weeks old. I looked at coach’s house while we talked. Through an open window I could see Ted sitting inside
in his wheelchair. He was looking out at what must have been the mountains, and he was smiling, sitting with his eyes closed and his head lifted, as if he were on the beach himself, taking in the warmth of the sun.

  THOUGHTS ON DRIVE HOME: What the hell was that? Realized, quickly, that it was the snow finally sailing off the roof of my truck.

  WHAT THE CHILDREN SAID WHEN I GOT HOME: Come on, Poppy. Let’s go to the bank.

  RESULT: I drove them, with their pickle jars filled with dollars and coins on their laps, to the bank so they could open their own savings accounts. The teller was patient. There were many pennies to put into piles and count. There were many dog hairs mixed in with the coins that had to be separated, everything smelled faintly of brine, the pickle jars not being washed out so well.

  WHAT THE WIFE COOKED FOR DINNER: Gypsy soup she did not have all the ingredients for so she had to rename it Bedouin soup or Nomad soup, whatever the children preferred calling it.

  WHAT THE WIFE SAID AT NIGHT IN BED: I can’t move.

  WHAT I SAID: Don’t move. I’ll do it all. And I did, taking care not to hurt her back she said she threw out bringing in logs for the woodstove in her office. I made love to her and every time I was just about to enter her, she scooted to the side, the time of the month being bad, or good, depending on how she said she looked at it, or how others looked at it. I was gentle with her, I was tender. I had, just days ago in a fight told her, “The operative word here is Fuck off,” so I felt I owed her a little kindness.

  WHAT COACH HAS US DO: Keep ourselves afloat by having our arms raised out of the water and just dolphin kicking. Keep ourselves afloat by just flutter kicking. Keep ourselves afloat with our hands clasped behind our backs and our legs crossed. The last one doesn’t work and all around me in the pool I see people on the team start to sink down, the rubber of their caps disappearing under the water, I see Jen sinking too and then we all start to laugh and we are all choking and what in the world is coach trying to do to us and then I see him on deck raise his hands and laugh and say it was just an experiment he had in mind and I feel we have fallen for the oldest swim coach joke in the world and who knew there was one?