Geese Are Never Swans

by Kobe Bryant

  I want them to believe I’m supposed to be here.

  My 200 m heat’s called over the loudspeaker, and Coach Marks reaches to pat my shoulder while giving me one last useless pep talk (“Don’t go out too fast!” “Make your turns count!”). Then it’s time. I stand and gaze out at the crowd, and I know the damage has been repaired. Not between me and Caleb or Raheem. But between me and them. Everyone who’s watching. Everyone whose energy and passion I plan to exploit.

  Squaring my shoulders, I hold my head high as I walk to my lane. The deck’s wet, cold beneath my feet. In movies, whenever there’s a big race or competition, the crowd goes silent at the start, their collective breath bated. But in reality, there’s always noise and movement. There’s no such thing as silence. Or calm.

  Only vision.

  47.

  I step up on the block with a shimmer of disconnect. Of imbalance.

  Breathe, I remind myself, and I take a page from Danny’s playbook by focusing on the way my heels press down against the gritty surface beneath me. It may be holding me up, but at least I’m the one on top. I don’t bother looking at the other racers. That’s not energy I’m willing to expend today. Instead I bend at the waist, adjust my goggles, and set my sights on the surface below.

  It’s electric right now. The water is charged. Alive.

  I lift my head.

  The horn blows and I’m gone.

  48.

  Everything’s faster in a race. Too fast, almost, but my entry’s sharp, clean, followed by the wild rush and squeeze of cold-struck lungs. Any hint of panic and this is when you fail, when the liquid underworld sucks you in and pulls you under and has its way with you. It’s all over then, and there’s nothing you can do because the start doesn’t happen when you hit the water but in all the times you’ve hit it before.

  Bubbles clear. The black lane lines come into view and I surge forward with full-body force. There are no limbs down here. No mind separate from the body. There’s only execution and form. Swimming or stillness. My whip-crack dolphin kick propels me along the cool belly of the pool until the laws of physics shove me to the surface and I corkscrew my way into my stroke.

  My pace is strong, even, pure torque and pull, and I surrender to the near-perfect rhythm of my ability. This is the speed I’ve practiced and the power I’ve mastered. It’s only when I’m confident in what my muscles, my blood, and my breath tell me that I push for more. Then more again. It holds; there’s no slipping in my timing, my strength—I want this. I want it all.

  I can’t tell where anyone else is, but it doesn’t matter. The path to victory is the one I fight for. I push my speed again, chewing through the water, and after the first turn, I know I’ve got this. It’s in me. I take the second turn clean and throw myself into the final hundred.

  The crowd cheers, a wild, throaty roar, and something’s happening. This race is close or someone’s making a last-minute break. My body responds before my brain can tell it what to do but I rise to the call, imploring every part of myself to Push, push, you stupid bastard. You’re nothing if you give up now. Do it, you asshole.

  The pain sets in. My lungs burn, my arms tire beneath the drag of the water, but the last fifty’s where the work goes. Not the day’s effort, what I’ve done in this pool—but the countless laps, the stolen hours at night, the years of self-loathing and the lifetime of guilt. This is what it’s been for. This is when it matters. And so I fight and I keep on fighting. There’s no fade in my homestretch. No weakness in my attack. Only a full-throttle sprint for the end.

  First my hand hits the wall, then my head, knocking my goggles askew and ringing my ears. The crowd continues to roar but why? I see nothing but foam. Chlorine burns my eyes, water rushes up my nostrils, down my throat, but I whip around to look at the scoreboard. The letters, the numbers, defy me, and I can’t tell for sure how I’ve done until Coach Marks comes, grabs me by the arm.

  “Did I win?” I gasp. “Did I make the final?”

  He laughs. “You did more than that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Apparently, you just set a pool record.”

  49.

  It’s all gravy from there. I beat out Fitz to take first in the finals. I beat my earlier time, too, and no, I don’t grandstand up there at the awards ceremony. But I could. I’ve earned it.

  I’ve earned real attention, too, although I know this is fleeting. Renee Matheson tells Coach Marks they’ll definitely be running a feature on me in the next issue. It’s great news, obviously, although any swimmer can have a good day, a good race, some earthly moment of godliness. It’s what I’ll do at the next meet and the next and the one after that that will define who I’ll become and how I’ll be talked about. But the seeds of interest have been planted. I just need to keep winning from here on out.

  Fitz isn’t happy with me after the meet. I don’t blame him. I wouldn’t be happy with me, either. He doesn’t say any of this, but I get the feeling he expects me to thank him when we’re alone again, back in the hotel together after our team dinner out at some shitty chain restaurant. Or at least acknowledge his leadership, the kindness he’s shown me since I joined the team.

  I don’t, though. I’m too tired.

  I fall into bed.

  And sleep.

  50.

  The flight out of San Diego is an early one. I oversleep my alarm and have to scramble to get ready, meaning I’m the last one to the lobby. Once we’re in the sky, though, all the other guys crash. Even Coach Marks, who has his tablet out and is pretending to read, nods off, a slight line of drool running from the corner of his mouth. It’s the hum of the engines, I suppose, the dimming of the lights.

  I resist returning to my dreams. Too much is spinning through my mind. Too many things I need to do. My future will require doubling down on my efforts and even though it’s what I wanted, something feels wrong. Misguided. It’s hard to explain, but almost by instinct I push away thoughts of how I stood at the edge of the ocean two nights ago. How I craved something I couldn’t find. I want to believe I found it at the meet yesterday. And to that end, I spend the next sixty minutes staring out the window at the sunrise while mentally reliving my best race in the hope that it’ll clear my head. Brighten my mood.

  But it doesn’t.

  The descent into Oakland begins with a steep dip and roll that leaves me clammy. Sitting up straight, I lean forward to glance around the cabin only to find that everyone’s asleep. Hungover, maybe. Or dead. There’s another jolt, a sharp one, and I feel my breakfast rising in my throat. Fuck. I squeeze my eyes shut, grip the armrest, and tell myself planes are supposed to move with the wind, not resist it.

  I stay like this until the plane touches down and the lights come on and everything and everyone around comes to life again. Vince pulls his phone out and turns it on before looking over at me.

  “You okay?” he asks.

  Am I?

  “Yeah,” I say.

  51.

  It’s a relief to be off the plane and outside, but my stomach remains unsettled because my mom doesn’t show up at baggage claim. Or anywhere. She also doesn’t answer when I text asking where the hell she is, so when Coach Marks offers me a ride, I have no choice but to accept.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  “No problem.”

  “So where do you live?” I ask once we’ve boarded the shuttle that will take us to long-term parking.

  “Alamo.”

  “You drive all the way from Alamo to Lafayette? Every day?”

  “Indeed.”

  “How’s the traffic?”

  “It’s fine.”

  “Why don’t you move closer?”

  “I don’t want to be closer.”

  Fair enough. Fifteen minutes later, we’re in his Lexus, turning onto the highway. I press my head into the seat back and squint
out at blue sky, but the air looks smoggy. Unclean. My stomach cramps and I flip on the air-conditioning. Tap my fingers against the door handle.

  “How’re your muscles this morning?” Coach M slips a Tic Tac into his mouth. Offers me one, which I decline. “You sore?”

  “Not really.”

  “You should be.”

  “Are we swimming tonight?” I ask. “Is there practice?”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “Well, then what’s next? What’s the plan? When’s the next race?”

  “Recovery comes next.”

  “What?”

  “We go home and sleep, Gus. You need to rest.”

  “No, no, no. I don’t want to sleep. I don’t want to fucking go home, either. I want to do something.”

  Right then his phone chirps and Coach Marks answers it, shoving a Bluetooth speaker in his ear. I don’t know who it is he’s talking to, but his side of the conversation is boring. I catch a couple snips of “Can you get a second opinion?” and “I can swing by later but make sure she’s drinking water,” which makes me think of either an ill family member or an ailing pet. I tune out what I can and sink lower into my seat.

  He hangs up as we cruise into Lafayette and head for Lynnwood Court. I don’t have to give him directions. He knows where I live.

  “Sorry about that.” He nods at the phone.

  “It’s fine.”

  We pull up to the house and my mother’s car is right there in the driveway. She’s definitely home and she definitely didn’t care enough to come and get me or even to tell me she wouldn’t. Coach Marks pulls up in front of the house and sets the brake, lets the engine idle. I sit there for a moment, but she doesn’t come running out to greet me.

  “Everything going all right at home?” Coach M asks.

  “How would I know?”

  “Your mom’s an intense person. She’s . . .”

  I turn to look at him. “She’s what?”

  “She’s very sad.”

  I roll my eyes, grab my bag. “Yeah, well, she should be.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means everything in her life’s a mess right now. That’s not something she’s equipped to deal with. It’s pathetic.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Should there be more?”

  “You tell me,” he says, and I know there’s something deeper he’s asking for, something darker. But there are answers he doesn’t need to know and ones I don’t need to say.

  “Thanks for the ride.” I reach for the door.

  He lifts his hand in farewell. “No problem.”

  * * *

  When he’s driven away, out of sight, I scramble to where the Mink’s parked at the end of the cul-de-sac. Unlocking the passenger-side door, I slide in and open the glove compartment. It takes a minute of digging through the trash my brother stuffed in here, but I find what I’m looking for.

  It’s the envelope. Thick, creamy, and sealed. And sure enough, the address written on the front is in the city of Alamo.

  52.

  After San Diego, school starts to fade into the background, a white-noise hum. This is a relief, even though I try to keep my grades up. It’s just hard to get myself there every day. There are too many people. Too many distractions. I’m not interested in school, in general, although in econ we learn something that catches my attention. It’s called black swan theory—the name given to phenomena that are completely unexpected but have a huge impact on the world. Like a dinosaur-killing meteor. Or a devastating plague. Or a reality-show host winning the highest office in the land.

  According to this theory, the events themselves aren’t notable so much as the way we respond to them. In the aftermath of a black swan event, it seems that human nature compels us to tell every single person who will listen why whatever it is that just happened makes fucking total sense. Despite the fact that no one saw it coming. Or because no one saw it coming. I guess the deeper point has less to do with how well we do or don’t understand the world with any amount of certainty than with the bare truth that none of us has any idea how to sit with uncertainty.

  I’m sure there’s more to it than that, like the way we use lies to cover for failure. But what I took away from the whole discussion is that swimming is kind of a black swan sport. It relies so heavily on tradition. On what came before. There are programs and coaches and legacies that consistently churn out champion after champion after champion. You’d think this achievement would be worth something—everything—and yet nothing gets people on their feet and cheering more than the swimmer who comes out of nowhere.

  The one they never saw coming.

  This is me in the wake of the Swimming World spotlight, which gets printed in their October issue and attracts a lot of attention. Not only am I Danny Bennett’s little brother—I’m utterly unheard of. I may as well have jumped in the pool for the first time this year for all anyone on the national level knows. My high school times were good but not that good, which only adds to the mystery of how I did what I did in San Diego, and my success is chalked up to:

  Genes

  Grief

  Reincarnation

  Not necessarily in that order. But no matter the cause, my story makes people want to keep watching me, which is perfect because the other thing that happens in the wake of the Swimming World spotlight is that I keep winning. Better still, I’m getting faster, closing in on my brother’s best times. Closing in on destiny.

  But I don’t stop and bask in these accolades. I know better. It’s when shit’s clicking that you have to push harder. Get angrier. Be more willing to suffer.

  I tell the team this, every chance I get. They don’t want to hear it, but that doesn’t mean I don’t try. A rising tide lifts all ships or whatever and I’d sure as hell like to be lifted a little bit every now and then. And I mean, they sort of owe me, don’t they?

  “What the fuck are you going on about now?” This is Raheem, after I bring up the team’s lack of drive after practice one day.

  “I’m talking about really competing. Getting serious about what we’re doing here.”

  “You don’t think we’re serious?” Vince gives me a long look.

  “Not really. This whole club is kind of unmotivated.”

  “What’re you doing here, then? You came to us, remember?”

  I throw my hands in the air. “I guess I thought you’d be tougher than nine workouts a week.”

  “Oh, are you a coach now?”

  “You know the junior national team is doing twelve pool workouts a week. That’s not including dry-land training. Look, I’ve been telling Coach M. Over and over. But it’s not enough. If we all—”

  “So go swim for the junior national team,” someone says from behind me. I turn around but can’t tell which of them said it.

  “I would if I could,” I say.

  “Really?” Vince gives me a withering glare. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty happy right where I am.”

  “Me too,” echoes Raheem.

  “Fuck happy,” I tell them. “Is that really what you’re here for? That’s all you want out of this?”

  “You think we want to be like you and walk around pissed off all the time?”

  “You should. If it gets you what you want.”

  Raheem stares at me. “Your brother could’ve used a little happiness in his life, don’t you think?”

  “No, I don’t,” I snarl. “He didn’t need happiness. He needed to be a better goddamn swimmer.”

  Vince shakes his head. “I think you’re sick, too, man. I mean that. You need help.”

  “At least I fucking win.”

  “Yeah, Gus,” he says with a sigh. “At least you fucking win.”

  53.

  Along with the magazine artic
le, October brings a different form of salvation: my mother’s absence from the house. I can’t say I don’t love this. This time of year is a blessed mix of wedding and crush season up in the wine country, meaning she’s booked solid with photography jobs through the end of the month. She can’t get out of them, either. Some of these events were reserved more than a year ago and my mom’s partner can’t do it all herself. Not even with the assistant she’s brought in.

  This is a good thing, for a lot of reasons: my mother paying the bills being the biggest one, followed by her staying out of my business. But even I know it’s not healthy for her or Winter to stay locked up in this house all the time. So I breathe a sigh of relief when she enrolls Winter in a preschool during the week. I also end up watching her sometimes, although I try to discourage this. It’s not that I don’t like my niece—I do—but being with her has a way of making me so sad.

  “What did we do?” I whisper to her on those late evenings when we watch television together in the living room. She sits pressed tight against me, like she wants us to stay attached. Like she wants to ensure I’ll never leave. As it gets late and she gets tired, she does this thing where she shoves her thumb in her mouth and wraps the rest of her hand inside this sorry scrap of a blanket square she showed up with. It must smell like her mother—or else she imagines it does—because her head droops and her breathing slows, like a Mack truck settling into a gentle snore. Once she’s all the way out, I don’t take her upstairs, where her bedroom is. Instead I lay her on the couch, pull a blanket over her, and whisper again, “What did we ever do to deserve this?”

  Winter never answers, and this is fine. Obviously, I know what I did to deserve my fate, and I know I’m projecting my own unhappiness onto her. I don’t want Winter to feel the way that I do. But if she does, I tell myself, at least she’ll know she’s not alone.