Geese Are Never Swans

by Kobe Bryant

  I venture deeper into the house, all shadows and empty space. Winter’s screams grow louder, an echoing lament, but it’s not until I get to the kitchen that I encounter my mother. Eating’s not something either of us is doing a lot of these days, so it’s not the first place I look, but I guess we’ve reached the point postmourning where no one’s willing to stop by and help with the baby anymore. This means my mom is forced to feed Winter, along with other responsibilities she’s loath to acknowledge, and I watch her from the doorway, half leaning against the beadboard wall. My mother’s always been thin, but she’s even thinner now in her grief and rage, a wraith hunched over granite while cutting up grapes with an effort that feels barely adequate.

  Barely there.

  I know I should go to Winter. My curly-haired niece is stuck in her jumper, which she’s probably too big for, but she’s given up jumping and she’s just standing there, with her legs splayed and her fists clenched. Everything about her is furious, red with rage and scrunched up tight. A ball of need and primal longing. I could scoop her up or coo to her or otherwise distract her from her misery. It wouldn’t fix the shit choices my sister’s made or the fact that she’s been left with a woman ill-equipped to handle her own basic needs, much less a child’s. But it might get her to shut up for a few minutes.

  It might help.

  I don’t do it, though. I hate myself for it, but I can’t. I don’t know how to say it other than that my heart won’t let me. We’re all fundamentally ill-equipped for life around here. This house is a blustering tornado of damage and dysfunction. So I do what I do best and ignore everything as I streak down the stairs to my mother’s office on the basement level. This is where she runs the business side of her photography studio. Her partner’s been handling almost everything since Danny died, and I couldn’t tell you when my mother was last down here doing anything close to work. The air’s musty, the curtains drawn, and while I’ve never liked this space to start with, I like it even less today.

  Thankfully it doesn’t take long to find what I’m looking for in the top drawer of her desk: a checkbook for the modest inheritance my father—who died before I was born—left behind in a trust for Danny and me. And let me acknowledge that I fully understand Darien’s resentment and hurt over not being included in this—she wasn’t his daughter, although he’d raised her as one—but it doesn’t excuse any of what she did after. But maybe all pain comes home to roost, because I don’t believe it was anything close to an accident that my sister abandoned her child with the mother she’d always rebelled against. The mother who’d always accepted her in the face of that rebellion. The mother who would never do the same for me.

  Am I the worst or best of us all?

  I don’t have an answer to this question. At least not one I’m willing to acknowledge. What I do know is that I’m the one still here. This is what matters. The only thing. I truly believe this, which is how I’m so easily able to grab the checkbook and a pen and make it out to the club, the dues for the membership that will let me enter their gates and that I know I’ll need. There’s no way Coach Marks won’t take me on once he sees me swim.

  I turn to leave, check and pen still in hand. Returning to the kitchen feels like entering the darkest depths of despair—an execution room or an abattoir or some other form of purgatory lit by the lowest of expectations. I’m fairly certain my mother is crying. I’m fairly certain she wishes she were dead. But as always, her tears, her misery, fail to break my heart. So I walk over to her. Shove the check onto the counter and hand her the pen.

  “Sign,” I say gruffly.

  And she does.

  15.

  Funds secured, I abandon the kitchen and lock myself in what’s recently become my room, seeing as I don’t go upstairs anymore. Too many ghosts float around up there, with no good reason for facing them.

  I open my laptop and put on music to drown out Winter’s crying. Kind of a shit thing to do, but I pick an album she likes and swear in my heart of hearts I’ll hang out with her later. Kid deserves to be loved, and the way I see it, some is better than none. Next, I plug my phone into the wall to charge, sprawl my sweaty body across the pullout bed, and grab my training journal from where I left it beneath the nightstand.

  Once the journal’s in my hands, I roll on my back and flip to the page I’ve last marked. This is where I’ve been writing down my split progressions going back to the start of the calendar year. Freestyle’s my best stroke, and like Danny, I’m built for middle distance: the 200 and 500 yd. events are where I excel, although I’ve competed in the occasional 1600. Most everything else that I keep track of on a daily basis is also written down in here: my workouts, weight, food intake, sleep output, how much I piss, shit, and jack off. Hell, I even make note of my mood, which is pretty much a joke, since when am I anything other than wrathful?

  Well, comparing the bookmarked LCC results on my laptop screen against my own splits for the millionth time doesn’t do anything for me in the mood department. In fact, seeing the reality of what I’ll be up against is enough to make my hands grow clammy. This past month has been understandably shitty in terms of training. Now that school’s out, my only aquatic access has been the local community pool, which is a literal circus in the summertime. From open to closing it’s packed with clueless families who crowd the deck with their giant wagons full of Goldfish crackers and swim diapers and foam noodles. To compensate, I’ve added hours of cross-training to my schedule: biking, running, weights. It’s helped me maintain fitness, sure, but it’s not the same as being in the water.

  And it’s definitely not the same as racing.

  They say it takes twenty-one days to create a habit—a pattern of desirable behavior—which is fine and good, except it does nothing to help me figure out how to achieve what it is I want when it needs to happen in a fraction of that time. My desired behavior, by the way, is winning. Or, not winning, technically, which is hard to do without an actual race. But tomorrow I’ll need to swim faster than I ever have in order to ensure that not only do I make Coach Marks’s team, but that I’ll be his top priority from here on out.

  My focus, then, turns to building success instead of habit. After all, if past behavior is the strongest predictor of the future, then in order to do what I need to do tomorrow, it stands to reason that the best thing would be for me to do it before then, too.

  16.

  This is it.

  My alarm goes off at two a.m. I sit up, bleary-eyed, yawning, but there’s no hesitation. I’m still driven by urgency. I’m still aiming for perfection.

  Swinging my legs to the floor, I start pulling on clothes and coming into consciousness, and I’m thankful I did my prep work before lying down to sleep last night. Everything I need is packed and waiting in my swim bag: my training journal, phone, a few water bottles, gels, a couple of sandwiches, extra clothes, plus all my regular gear: goggles, suit, fins, pool shoes, swim cap, and towel.

  Desire’s a hell of a drug. Adrenaline, too. Together they course through my bloodstream, fighting off any urge I might have to crawl back under the covers and give up on the realest dream around.

  Quick glance outside. There’s nothing but night, and seeing this pleases me. My favorite hours have always been the ones that come after midnight but before the dawn. I wish this were a moment I could savor—the start of the end or the end of the beginning—but time’s march is relentless. I need to get going, so I grab my bag, pull it over my shoulder, and squeeze through my bedroom window to drop into a world spun from shadow.

  My feet hit ground and I suck in air with a gasp. It’s not cold out so much as damp, a late-night wetting of thick fog that soaks my lungs and chills my bones. Quiet footsteps. I pad my way from the side yard down the moss-covered driveway and out onto the street. I’ll forgo the bike in favor of Danny’s old car—his ancient Subaru, the one he called the Mink for her brown leather interior and dark brow
n paint. After he died, we had the car transported back from Los Angeles, and it’s been sitting at the end of Lynnwood Court ever since. Pretty sure the neighbors aren’t too happy about this, but it’s not like they’d complain and besides, our overgrown yard is more of an eyesore. Anyway, it’s not exactly legal for me to drive the Mink after hours—technically, my license is still provisional—but my mom’s not awake to protest. And if she is, well, there’s nothing she can do to stop me.

  Sliding behind the wheel, I slip the key in the ignition and start the Mink’s engine. Then I flip around for a radio station I don’t hate before slowly pushing the car into first and easing off the clutch. The manual transmission is still new to me, but the car rolls forward with a low purr. There’s no weariness inside me. No doubt or hesitation. Ahead of me is what I want and what I plan to get.

  Screw the back roads. My initial plan was to keep a low profile, but now I crank the music up, roll the windows down, and point my ass toward the highway. The headlights bore through fog and the night air strokes my skin, a seductive slurp of power that works to sharpen my mind and heighten my senses. I love this, I realize, the fact that there are secrets only the night and I know. Not the moon or the stars.

  Only the very darkness itself.

  17.

  I’m someone else by the time I park the car. Or maybe something else. A creature winged and deadly. Fearsome, too. My actions run on autopilot and I park the Subaru off road in the bushes not far from where I stashed my bike less than twenty-four hours ago. Scattered beer cans, cigarette butts, discarded clothing, and worse dot the ground, glisten in starlight. These artifacts tell me others have been here, seeking the same privacy that I do, though for very different reasons.

  As I leave her behind, I don’t worry about the Mink getting towed or broken into. She’s got too much magic in her for that to happen. Or maybe there’s too much of the night sloshing around inside of me for me to care.

  Car locked, bag slung over my shoulder, I slink deeper into the woods. The fog, the city lights all vanish beneath tree cover. Blackness is complete and the sole soundtrack I hear, other than my shoes crunching on fallen branches, is the faint hoot of an owl and the chirping song of the crickets. It’s not until I reach the line of cyclone fencing and Private Property signs that I catch sight of the sky again. The fog’s parted enough so that the moon’s somewhat visible—a mere sliver, but I’ll take it. God knows I need the guidance. I place both hands on the fence and begin to climb.

  My nerves stay calm the whole ascent. It’s true that security cameras could be filming my actions. It’s true that there might be people who will know what I’ve done come morning. But these consequences are abstract, distant. This place doesn’t have armed guards or around-the-clock security, and it’s a paradox in a way. Lafayette’s got money, but it’s too safe a city to guard against crime in any actionable manner. Anyway, at the end of the day, I’m not a criminal. I mean, as a soon-to-be club member, I’m not really doing anything all that wrong.

  Leg over fence. I twist and fall, knees to earth, and I’ve made it. I’m inside the club grounds. A quick check of my phone tells me it’s 2:50 a.m., and a fresh whisper of wind urges me toward the aquatic center. When I reach the pool, there’s no lock on the gate, just the spring-operated mechanism, and I push it open.

  Walk right inside.

  My heart rattles as I approach the water’s edge. The pool at night’s as pure as I’ve ever seen it. No lights. No people. Just inky motion, soft lapping.

  A chilly bump and swell.

  Breathing deep, I walk closer before kicking off my shoes. Bare feet on cold tile. I stare down at the unlit depths and see nothing but the same blackness above.

  Come in, it whispers.

  Join me.

  My body obeys and my mind plays catch-up. Before I know it, I’m sliding off my pants, my boxers, wriggling free of my shirt. No one’s here to watch and I have no bashfulness regarding my own nudity. Why would I? I know my flaws and greatness, in all their intimate detail.

  Suit on, goggles in hand, I walk around to the deep end. I have approximately two hours to make up for four weeks of training, and I plan to condense my workout the way I condensed my sleep earlier. Quality over quantity. There’s more to it than that, obviously. I’m well versed in the training principles of applied stress and adaptation and don’t have time for either. But as any athlete understands, practice is more art than science, and more faith than reason.

  The night wind rises. With a shake and shiver, I rub my hands down my arms and up my bare chest. Then I crack my neck, roll my shoulders, and shake out my lats, my hips, all the joints that hold my parts together. Finally, when I’m ready to go, I bend at the waist, tuck my chin to stare down the waiting darkness.

  And dive.

  18.

  If there was ever a question, this is the answer.

  My body cuts the surface, a sharp slice and splash, and then I’m under, rocketing through the frigid grip of the pool. It’s tomblike down here, especially with the lights off, but I’ve never felt more at home or more like myself.

  I read once that runners have bigger hearts than swimmers. This was explained as a function of physics and physiology; runners remain upright, requiring their aortic valves to work harder in order to push blood throughout their bodies. But I believe it’s deeper than that. Swimmers are coldhearted and our anatomy reflects this. We thrill to the deep and the darkness, the danger of it all.

  For two hours, I swim.

  Back and forth.

  Above and below.

  19.

  At the first hint of daylight, I crawl from the water, grab my bag, and flee indoors. It’s time for recovery mode. Before I know it, 5:30 practice will be here and I need to get as much rest as I can before then.

  Wrapping myself in a towel, I lie down on the carpeted changing-room floor with a pile of clothing under my head for comfort. It doesn’t do much. Not to mention, there’s no heat and my teeth won’t stop chattering. Still I force my eyes shut. Sleep’s not a real possibility and I have some vague concerns about spiders, but this state of stillness feels okay. It also lasts precisely fifteen minutes. This is when my alarm goes off, a noxious beeping that sets me cussing and fumbling for my phone.

  Fifteen minutes until practice starts. Hopping up, I dash to the bathroom to piss, and when I return, my first priority is food. Hydration, too. Sustenance is what’ll get me through the next few hours. I open my bag and shove down whatever I find as fast as I can find it: a sandwich, the gels, some sports drink. A whole bottle of water.

  I’m still stuffing my face when the other guys walk in, a steady stream of sleepy eyes, long limbs, and broad shoulders. I watch them closely, my curiosity both abundant and bold, but for the most part, they’re standard swim stock—a few appear to be a cut above ordinary, but that’s it. I count eleven guys total, and a few look at me funny, their brows furrowed and questioning. But whether it’s my presence they’re curious about or the fact that my hair’s already wet and my towel’s damp, I don’t know and don’t care.

  There are a couple faces I recognize, including Adam Fitzmaurice’s. He’s a year or so older than me and he’s been getting a lot of attention of late. Local and beyond. He also swims free like I do, and fly, and I’ve heard his name mentioned in the same breath as my brother’s. I have no clue if this comparison is warranted, but I do know this upcoming season will make or break him. He’ll be going out on the national circuit, which will determine where he swims for college. If he’s smart, however, he’ll stay right where he is—Danny’s fate becoming a cautionary tale; don’t stray from the man who made you—but seeing as Adam’s best interest is in no way mine, I mostly hope he’ll fail.

  No one says a word. Everyone gets down to business, shoving their shit into lockers, checking their phones, popping their fucking zits in the mirror. And I get it. It’s a weekday at
dawn, that hazy space between night and day, truth and lies. A time when there’s no point asking questions whose answers are more easily found in silence.

  “Coach is here,” someone announces, probably for my benefit, although I don’t acknowledge this. The guys start the slow shuffle outside, and the adrenaline’s back. I’m ready, more than ready, every muscle beneath my skin twitching and champing at the bit to get out there.

  But I’m cautious and I make sure to bide my time. To not look too eager. I am also taken by surprise when one of the guys swims upstream and walks over to me.

  “I’m Javier.” He holds his hand out as a smile crosses his lips. He’s on the younger side, still baby-faced and thin of chest, but I stare at him and I’m wary right from the start. It’s definitely possible his friendliness is genuine, but the alternative puts me on edge, the notion that kindness is being weaponized as a means to disarm me. Seeing as I can’t read this guy’s mind or know his intentions, I’m left to trust my instincts, which tell me that the best defense is a good offense.

  So this is the path I choose, and the reason I ignore Javier’s waiting hand, his eager smile. Instead I get up, brush past him, and walk outside to join the rest of the team.

  20.

  Back on the pool deck, I try holding my own despite feeling off-balance. The moon, my one grounding element, is gone, and the sun, which is peeking over the distant mountains, casts long shadows and coats the world in an eerie pinkish light.