Bliss, Remembered

by Frank Deford

  “I’m on, Mother.”

  “That’s the stuff. Fix me a G and T, and don’t go light on the G, mister. You make me a good stiff one, and I’ll tell you about that time I went down to Easton to swim.”

  So I made two gin and tonics, and after we both took a swallow, upon her direction, we raised our glasses high and Mom cried out: “To Natalie Coughlin and the old red-white-and-blue!” Then she settled back. “Where did I get us to in Easton?”

  “Not very far. You just told me you whipped all their asses.”

  She chuckled. “That’s the God’s truth, Teddy. Those gals from Easton were Custer, and I was the Injuns.” She sipped her drink again. “You make a good G and T, Teddy. Just like your father.”

  “Well, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree,” I said.

  Mom smiled at that and began again.

  For a kid who’d never even seen a swimming meet before, it was pretty exciting. There were maybe a hundred people watching—course, most of ’em were just parents—and lotsa swimmers. It was age divisions. I was in the oldest—senior division. There was even a little stand where you could buy lemonade and hot dogs. Let me tell you, Teddy, I was mightily impressed.

  There was a table where you signed in, and the man in charge there asked me my age and where I was from. That got a rise outta him. “All the way from Chestertown?” he asked.

  I said, “Yes, sir.”

  And then he said, “Well, you understand now, the swimmers from Talbot County come first.”

  So I asked him, “So, what races are still open for me?”

  He looked at his papers, and he told me, “Well right now, there’s a spot in all the races in your division except the hundred-yard freestyle. That one’s filled up.”

  So I asked, “So exactly what all’s left?”

  He said, “Which races do you want, young lady?”

  I turned to Mother and shrugged. It was all foreign to me. I said, “I guess you can put me down for all of ’em.”

  “All right,” the man said. “Unless you get bumped, you’ll be in the hundred-yard breaststroke and the hundred-yard backstroke and the five-hundred-yard freestyle. That’s the girls’ longest race of the day. You sure you can do that?”

  I shrugged. I thought I could. I knew I must’ve swam that far regularly in the Chester River. But just so I understood what an absolute marathon I was getting into, he said, “It’s ten lengths of the pool.”

  “I can do that,” I told him.

  So he wrote me down for all those races, and Mom and I found a place to sit, and we waited. Pretty soon, the races started—the little kids first. The first one for girls in my division was the hundred-yard freestyle, which was the one I couldn’t get in, but I stepped closer to watch—you know, Teddy, to check out my competition.

  The gals from the country club looked very impressive. They all, the boys and girls alike, had these very snappy maroon suits with white piping, and the girls had maroon caps that matched. I didn’t even have a swimming cap, my hair flowed all out, and my suit was white—well, more kind of cream—with red roses on it. And those roses had seen better days. As a package, I don’t imagine I looked especially imposing.

  Well, I was standing there, watching, and the girls lined up. There were four of them from the country club and three others, which meant one lane was open. When I saw that, I looked around, and when I saw nobody else was approaching, I ran over to the man at the table and asked if I could fill in.

  He said, “I don’t see why not,” so I ran back and took the empty lane, which was the one by the side of the pool. We didn’t have starter’s blocks or anything, just divin’ in from the edge of the pool, and the starter raised his pistol and said, “Take your marks.” I was kinda lookin’ to the side at this girl next to me, to see the proper way to take my mark, when the gun went off. It took me a moment to collect myself, and by the time I dove in, everybody was ahead of me.

  So I just started swimming, Teddy. As fast as I could. Like I told you, I was in the last lane over, and when I breathed I was looking away from all the other swimmers, and so when I got to the end of the lap I had no idea where anybody was. I was amazed to see that I was way ahead. I didn’t really know how to turn around properly, so I lost some of my lead there, but then, that second lap, I just aired it out and won goin’ away. The four country-club girls all came in after me, second, third, fourth and fifth, and you could tell they were really PO’ed. The best one was named Edna, and she was downright furious.

  I hopped out of the pool and was standing there in my cream bathing suit with the faded roses when Edna and this man who I suppose was her father went over to the table and carried on some. After a while, the man behind the table called me over and said, “How old are you, young lady?”

  I said, “I’m sixteen.”

  And Edna, who was fuming, said, “Well, can you prove it?” I mean, the whole thing was ridiculous, Teddy. The senior division was fifteen through eighteen, and there was no way in the world I looked nineteen, but I said, “As a matter of fact, I can,” because I had passed my drivers test a few weeks before, and my mother had my wallet, so she showed them the license.

  The man behind the table examined it and said, “Earl, she’s fine. She’s only just sixteen.”

  But Edna and her father still weren’t mollified. He said, “It’s like a ringer, someone comin’ down here all the way from Chestertown.”

  But the man behind the table, who was sort of getting annoyed at all this nonsense even though he was obviously from Talbot County himself, said, “Earl, there aint no geographical limits here. We had that boy come up from Salisbury two years ago.”

  Earl just shook his head. “Well, it just doesn’t seem right,” he said. But there wasn’t anything he could do. I was perfectly legit, and so the starter called out, “The winner is Trixie Stringfellow, all the way from Chestertown.”

  That did not endear me to the crowd, Teddy. That is, the part about “all the way from Chestertown.” I would say I got only scattered applause when he gave me the blue ribbon. Extremely scattered.

  But you know, I didn’t give a hoot. I was so excited to win that blue ribbon. I’d never gotten anything like that before, and I was downright exhilarated. It was the first time I’d really felt good about things since Daddy got killed. Plus, I was pretty irritated, let me tell you, about Edna and her father trying to get me disqualified. So, by the time my next race came, which was the breaststroke, I had developed what you might call a killer instinct, as well.

  “And you whipped their asses again,” I said.

  Destroyed them, kiddo. Left them in my wake. Watch my smoke. I won from here to yesterday. I’d watched the senior boys race to see how you made a turn, so I was better at that. Poor old Edna didn’t know what hit her.

  Even better, when I climbed out of the pool, the senior boys were coming over for their race, and the cutest one, who I’d certainly taken note of—he made a point of going over to me and saying, “Nice race, Trixie.” And I could see that PO’ed Edna even more.

  And trust me, Teddy, I could tell he wasn’t just interested in my athletic prowess. I wasn’t bad to look at then, Teddy. You know, girls grow up fast, and I was full grown, and if I must say so myself, I had developed a very nice pair of bosoms inside that cream bathing suit with the faded red roses. Boys called them “bazooms” in those days.

  “They called your bosoms ‘bazooms’?”

  No, smarty pants, they called everybody’s bosoms “bazooms” then. Boobs didn’t come in until later. A boob then was just a dopey person. Whaddya call ’em now?

  “Whaddya call what?”

  Boobs.

  “We call ’em boobs.”

  Nothing new? You men usually have a new one.

  I gave it some thought. “Rack.”

  Rack?

  “Yeah, like check out the rack on her.”

  Mom shook her head, both in wonder and some admiration, I thought. She said:

&n
bsp; I never heard that one, Teddy. And it’s usually in the plural. I’m just not up on the new lexicon. But I must say, it’s not unexpected. It’s amazing how you men always keep coming up with a new way just to say “tits.”

  “Well, Mom, I think it’s kinda like the Eskimos have a hundred different ways to say ‘snow.’”

  I don’t know if that’s a good analogy, Teddy. The Eskimos are surrounded by snow. You men just wish you were surrounded by tits.

  But, anyway, keeping with that train of thought, it was obvious that Frankie had an eye for mine, whatsoever you might call them. Neither did I particularly try to discourage these attentions. Somebody even called over, “Come on, Frankie, stop flirting with Chesty-town and take your mark.” Oh, it was very obvious. I was reveling in it. Reveling.

  “‘Chesty-town,’ huh?”

  Yeah, that made me blush, but tell you the truth, I kinda liked it.

  “Reveling?”

  Reveling.

  “Was Frankie the best swimmer of the boys?”

  No, no, just the cutest. And he could be comical, too. The best was a big, strong, tall boy named Carl. He won all the boys’ races, like I won all the girls’. And he was full of himself, Carl was. I won the backstroke next. And, you know, that was my best. That was an absolute rout. After the boys raced, Frankie asked me if I wanted a lemonade, and so we chatted awhile, and he said if ever I came back to Easton, he’d love to go out with me. And I said, well that was unlikely, but why didn’t he make the effort to come up to Chestertown sometime?

  It was all very flattering, and then came the grand finale, the long one, the ten laps freestyle. To be honest with you, Teddy, when I got goin’ in that, I was so far ahead, I eased up. I mean, by this point, I even showed some mercy to that awful Edna.

  So I got my fourth blue ribbon, and Mom was ready to leave, but I said I wanted to see the boys’ long race, too, although actually I was only interested in maybe having a little more of a tête-à-tête with Frankie.

  I don’t think I was fooling Mom any, but she was so proud of me, and she was so happy to see me happy again, so she let me stick around. Of course, Carl won the race, but when he got his blue ribbon, standing there all full of himself, Frankie called out, “Hey Carl, I’ll bet you can’t beat the girl.” And everybody looked over at me, and I blushed, but people began to clap and say, “Yeah, yeah,” and Carl got his dander up.

  “I’m not racing any girl,” he said, but Frankie came right back and called out, “You’re scared of her, aren’t you?” and all his friends hooted at him. “Carl’s scared of the girl!”—that sort of teen-age stuff. So Carl was a rat caught in a trap.

  The starter called out, “Shall we have a match race of champions?” And everybody cheered. Now nobody’d even asked me anything, and so Mother whispered, “Do you wanna do this, Trixie?” and I said, “Sure,” and Carl cried out, “I’ll give her a head start,” and that really frosted me, and so I stepped forward and said, “I don’t need any head start,” and everybody cheered some more. Carl might’ve been the hometown boy, but I was the underdog, and everybody roots for underdogs, even if, as in this case, they’re from faraway Chestertown.

  The starter said, “Well, we’ll give the young lady the choice of weapons. What stroke do you wanna swim, Trixie?”

  That’s what they call a no-brainer today. “Umm, the backstroke,” I said, playing dumb, you understand.

  “Like a fox.”

  Exactly, Teddy. So Carl nodded, and the starter said, “All right, what say we make it four laps—two hundred yards? Is that okay?” I said sure, and Carl agreed, all smug, and everybody moved closer to the pool. I mean, I guarantee you, nobody was leaving. Well, maybe Edna had gone. I’d lost interest in her by now, so I don’t know.

  “How’d you feel, Mom?”

  Never so calm in all my life. I knew I should beat him, and if somehow his pride got his adrenaline up and he beat me, then it didn’t really matter, ’cause everybody’d say I was just a girl and so what? I knew all the pressure was on him. And just before we jumped into the pool—you know, you start the backstroke in the pool—Frankie called out, “If he beats you, Trixie, he gets to kiss you.”

  And everybody cheered some more, but I was really feelin’ my oats now. I’d never been in a spotlight before, and I’d found I enjoyed it. So I called over, “And suppose I beat him?”

  And Frankie called back, “Then you get to kiss me.” Oh, he was fresh, that Frankie. They don’t say “fresh” anymore, do they?

  “No, they stopped that awhile ago.”

  So, let us say Frankie could be inappropriate. Unfortunately, that’s what they say now. Inappropriate. Awful word.

  But like I said, I was feelin’ my oats, and I called back, “In a pig’s eye!” And everybody roared.

  And so we jumped in, and the gun went off, and I just lay out on my back and pretended like I was on the river, with nobody around, and I just started moving my arms in that windmill way and kicking my feet nice and easy, taking my breaths, and it was such a breeze, Teddy, just me skimming along, looking up at the blue sky.

  She stopped and smiled, cocked her head, remembering.

  It was a year or so later when I first met Eleanor Holm, and she told me how there wasn’t anything as grand as moving through the water on your back. She told me, “Yeah, I like to be on my back in the water and on top in bed,” but I was so young, I really didn’t know what she meant. I just said something foolish like “yeah.” That Eleanor Holm, she was a piece of work, lemme tell you . . .

  But there you go again, lettin’ me wander. Poor Carl. I got ahead of him halfway through the first lap, and it was all over but the shoutin’, because then he began to panic, flailin’ his arms and chop-pin’ his legs too hard, so he started to wobble and even weave outside his lane. It was like with Edna earlier. I actually began to feel sorry for him. But I didn’t let up, Teddy. I wasn’t gonna go easy on any boy—especially one as stuck up as Carl. I beat him better’n a whole lap.

  “You whipped his ass.”

  Yes, indeed. He could barely bring himself to shake my hand. The people were cheering. Some of the little girls jumped right into the water with me. This girl had beaten a boy, and they were all simply ecstatic. Now remember, Teddy, this is a million years before Billie Jean beat Bobby Riggs. I was one big heroine. Yes sir, on the Eastern Shore anyway, the women’s movement began that day.

  But, best of all, as Mom and I were leaving, this bald man came up to me. He said he was the coach at the country club. Honestly, I think he was more like some kinda glorified lifeguard, but he was awfully nice. He said, “Trixie, how much coaching have you had?” and I told him none, and he said he thought that was the case, but he just couldn’t believe how good I was. He told me, “If you ever get coaching, you could be really good.”

  I said, “Really?” And he said, “Yeah, really. You’re a natural, Trixie.” A natural. Is there anything better anybody can tell you but that you’re a natural? I don’t think so.

  He asked if I knew that there was an indoor pool at Washington College, which was in Chestertown. I told him, no, I didn’t, but he told me there was. He also said there was an old guy named Wallace Foster who had been a real good swimmer himself, who swam at the pool up there, and he was gonna call Wallace Foster long distance and get him to start coaching me some. Which he did. Mr. Foster started to teach me what he knew. I mean, he wasn’t a real coach, but in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, so I swam all that winter indoors, and I got faster and faster, and I knew I was good. It’s an amazing thing to be sixteen years old and realize you’re truly outstanding at one thing in the world.

  Mom stopped abruptly and pointed at the tape recorder.

  Well, you can turn that off now. A girl’s gotta get her beauty rest.

  “Wait a minute, Mom. First, you gotta tell me about Frankie. Did he ever take you out?”

  Yes, he most certainly did. I told you: I was pretty pert then, easy on the eye
s. And he came up from Easton in his father’s very stylish Pontiac. Remember now, he was one of the country-club boys. Frankie’s family was doin’ all right, even in the Depression. He picked me up in that Pontiac, and he was cute as a button and a barrel of fun. But all Frankie wanted to do was monkey around with my bazooms, and I wasn’t ready for that sort of thing yet. In fact, he’s the only boy I ever slapped. I mean actually hauled off and slapped him right across his face.

  She pantomined that. With vigor.

  No, Frankie wasn’t used to bein’ told no. Just so full of himself, so fresh.

  He was killed at the Battle of the Bulge. I was living in Missoula by then, and my mother mailed me the obituary. But even if he was fresh, I thought about him fondly. To tell you the truth, Teddy, if I was going to start letting boys feel me up, I think I would’ve begun with Frankie, but I was getting into swimming at the time, and I didn’t want any physical distractions of that nature.

  Poor Frankie. Just his luck.

  The next morning, Mom came to breakfast dressed up in a printed silk dress that Helen had given her for her birthday. “You going out?” I asked. She still drove, even though I wished she wouldn’t.

  “I’m just gonna get something.” And, anticipating me, she said, “And, no, I can get it by myself quite well enough. I’m not dead yet.” I didn’t rise to the bait, but just kept eating my eggs and bacon. “Well, you don’t know what day it is, do you?”

  I knew August 23rd couldn’t be the complete answer, so I had to say no.

  “Well, this is the day Jimmy died. Seven years ago.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” She didn’t correct me when I said ma’am. “I’m sorry I’ve forgotten.”