Geese Are Never Swans

by Kobe Bryant

  Not now.

  Not ever.

  * * *

  “That was a shitty practice,” I grumble to Coach M when we’re done. It was worse than shitty, actually. The rain’s driving hard, and none of my splits are where they need to be.

  “Maybe you need to do less to do more,” he offers.

  “I don’t think it works like that.”

  He shrugs. “Well, okay, then. I’ll see you next week.”

  Fucking hell. Why does nobody care? It’s as if I’m all alone in having standards. In wanting to be something more. I march into the changing room and make a beeline for the empty showers because I’m freezing. The hot water is a luxury that turns to torture the instant I step out of it. With a shiver, I bolt for my locker and I’m surprised to see Vince and Raheem and Fitz still hanging out. They’re avoiding the rain, I guess, and I don’t want to talk to them, but it’s hard not to eavesdrop on their conversation when they’re standing right next to me.

  “Did you see this?” Vince hands his phone to the other two and God knows what they’re looking at, but it makes them smile.

  “What time should we get there?” Raheem asks.

  “Johnny’s telling people to come by after eight.”

  “Can I bring someone?”

  “Who?”

  “Don’t know yet.”

  “Yeah sure. I mean, I don’t care. It’ll be packed. Everyone’s home for break.”

  “What break?” I ask without even meaning to. I really don’t know what they’re talking about.

  Fitz turns and gives me a funny look.

  “Thanksgiving,” Raheem says. “It’s Thanksgiving break. You know, for people who actually have to go to school.”

  “Oh,” I say.

  “Hey, you should come tonight,” Vince says to me. Fitz clears his throat and Raheem looks away, but Vince is undeterred. “I mean it. You should hang with us outside of this pressure shit. It’ll relax you a little. You’re too tense all the fucking time. It’s not healthy.”

  “Come where?” I ask.

  “My brother’s throwing a party. He’s home from USC and our folks are out of town. Shit’ll be crazy. He’s kind of a douche but he knows everyone.”

  “Tonight?”

  “We’re the last house on Blue Canyon. You know where that is?”

  “Yeah.”

  Vince grins. “So what do you say?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Come on. We don’t have practice until Monday. Nothing wrong with having some fun.”

  “I can’t,” I say.

  “Why not?”

  I squirm a little. “Actually, I can. It’s just . . . I don’t want to.”

  “Jesus,” says Raheem. “Come on, man. That’s just rude.”

  Fitz snorts. “Thanks for the honesty, Bennett.”

  “What am I supposed to say? I don’t like parties.”

  “It’s fine.” Vince slips his phone into his pocket and gives me a half smile. “Maybe they don’t like you, either. We better get out of here. And, Gus?”

  “What?”

  “You’re not going to tell anyone, right?”

  “Like who?”

  “Like Coach M.”

  I shake my head. “About your brother’s party? I don’t care about that. I just don’t want to go.”

  He sighs. “You already said that.”

  “I know.”

  “So we’re cool?”

  “Yeah,” I tell him. “We’re cool.”

  61.

  My mother’s passive-aggressive nature is still going strong by the time I get home. This manifests in her refusing to get off the couch, where she’s hunkered down in a pile of blankets, claiming she’s sick. Well, her forehead is burning, so it’s not total manipulation, but it’s sort of the last straw when I end up having to go out again to pick up Winter from her extended-hours day care because they call and ask what the hell is going on.

  I consider leaving her there because what’s the worst that could happen? CFS takes her and gives her to people who might actually take care of her? But I know I’d never hear the end of it and besides, I don’t want to get charged with child abandonment or anything, since I told the person who called that I’d come. My mother’s sleeping at this point, with her breath all wheezy and painful sounding.

  So I go.

  Rain continues to fall as darkness does, too, but fog is the real hazard—reducing visibility to a mere few feet in front of the Mink’s headlights. Traffic’s cruel this time of night and the two-mile drive to the preschool campus, which is located in the basement of a Presbyterian church out by the wooded Iron Horse Trail, is an exercise in impatience. Cars are sliding every which way or else creeping along like slugs, and I’m nearly rear-ended twice. The second time, it’s a truck that almost hits me. It stops so close my throat clenches up, making it hard for me to breathe.

  I reach the preschool. Gasping, shaking, I run through the rain into the warm building only to get yelled at and lectured about late fees, even with the extra hours I know my mom pays for. It’s nearly seven thirty, and I realize the teachers want to go home but that’s no reason to bitch me out. I’m doing them a favor by showing up in the first place.

  “The overtime will be on the next bill,” one of them says.

  “Yeah, I don’t deal with that shit,” I tell her.

  “Yeah, well, that shit is my job,” she snaps.

  I bite my tongue and grab my niece and shove her into her car seat and get her buckled. She starts crying and her nose is running and she’s got a dry cough, so she’s probably sick, too, and this day is getting worse by the minute.

  Back in the driver’s seat. The fog’s grown denser and the traffic thicker. I turn music on for Winter, loudly, in part to entertain her and in part to drown out her wailing. A headache hammers behind my skull and a dark sense of doom thrums its way through my nervous system. It sends grim thoughts pinwheeling through my mind:

  I want to die.

  I hate my fucking life.

  Night torments me on the drive back—a thick, snaking darkness that even the fog can’t hide. It wants me, I think, and I refuse to turn my head, to look at anything other than taillights in front of me, illuminating wet streaks of red-gold danger. My hands are shaking, but I hold myself together and get us home at last.

  I grab Winter, shield her from the rain. I just want to get inside and lock myself away. There’s no practice in the morning—I can sleep until three. I can sleep and not wake up again, my traitor brain whispers. With a gasp, I race up the stairs, water dripping into my eyes, before bursting through the front door. Panic nips my heels but I make it. Slam the door behind me.

  My mother hasn’t moved from the couch and, if anything, looks worse than when I left her. Bad enough to set off alarm bells in my head. Her wheezing’s intensified and she can’t stop shivering. I clutch Winter to me and feel utterly helpless.

  “It’s the flu,” she croaks. “I need you to get a prescription filled for me. The doctor’s called it in.”

  “What? When?”

  “Now. It’ll be at the Walgreens on North Main. But you’ll have to put Winter to bed first. I can’t do it on my own.”

  62.

  I shiver and nod. In her feverish state, I don’t think my mom knows what she’s asking of me. Putting Winter to bed should be easy. It would be if it didn’t involve going upstairs.

  For a moment I hesitate, briefly considering allowing my niece to sleep in my bed and my taking the floor. But I’m better than that, I tell myself. At least, I want to be. I turn and walk toward the staircase in the front hallway. In doing so, I adjust Winter’s body in my arms, hiking her closer toward my shoulders. She’s heavier than I remember, her sleeping head tucked against my chest, and all my dry-land training and conditioning doesn�
�t seem to matter now. The weight pressing down on me is nearly unbearable as I approach the stairs and take the first step. Then the next.

  This is how I get there. One labored, miserable step at a time. For all the months I’ve avoided this journey, I haven’t forgotten an inch of it. I haven’t been able to. There’s the view through the railing. The shadows on the wall. When the second-to-last stair squeaks beneath my feet, I lose it. Sweat starts pouring down my face, and with a gasp I rush forward as best I can, hurrying toward Winter’s bedroom in a desperate attempt to outrun the memory of what happened here and what I saw.

  My efforts are in vain. The upstairs hallway looms and spins, as distorted as a fun house. As familiar as the truth. I pass what was my bedroom, a small dormered space that once separated me from the rest of my family.

  My neck stiffens. Three other bedrooms lie ahead, but I look at nothing but the door to Darien’s—now Winter’s—as I push my way in. Piles of clothes are heaped on the floor, but I’m confused. Something’s different in here. It’s the bed, I realize. It’s been pulled away from the wall and the window, which isn’t how I remember things, but I guess it’s safer for Winter this way. She was still in a crib last time I came up here. I walk to the bed, where I lay her down gently, pull her shoes off, and toss a blanket over her. She squirms once, but I stroke her hair, whisper good night.

  She settles and I back the hell out of there, pulling the door shut behind me. But it’s too late. My mind’s caught up with my body, and all my memories come crashing down, threatening to overwhelm me, to keep me locked in timeless despair. I’ll always be six and forgotten. I’ll always be sixteen and I’ll never forget. I slip and catch a glimpse of Danny’s room from the corner of my eye. The door’s not open and I try and remember whether it was open on that day. The day—

  I don’t know how it happens, but the next thing I know I’m sitting halfway down the stairs with my head between my knees. This is bad, I think. Also: I can’t do this anymore. But I grip the railing above me and try focusing on the sensation. Wood on skin. The muscles in my arm. Anya from therapy group once mentioned that this was her way of dealing with panic attacks. “Find something in the present and hold on to it,” she said. “That’s it. That’s your anchor. That’s all you need to do.”

  In water, anchors sink, but there are worse things in life, so I follow her advice. I hold the railing and I keep holding it. I keep focusing on where I am and how it feels to exist. The cramping in my knees. The sound of blood rushing to my head. Outside, a gust of wind rattles the house, throws rain against the windowpanes.

  “Gus!” my mother calls to me. “What’s going on? I need you.”

  “I’m coming,” I mumble. “I’m almost there.”

  63.

  Back in the car. Back in the rain. She needs me mixes uneasily with I hate myself. But this is who I am. The dutiful son who burns bright with resentment. Although it’s possible I’ve had it backward all this time. Maybe I don’t resent all she asks of me while giving me nothing. Maybe I don’t let her give me anything, just so I can be resentful.

  It’s what keeps me going, after all.

  It’s what feeds me.

  My brain’s addled. Sick. Stuck on an all-too-vivid cycle of what happened in Danny’s room the last time I went in there. I hate him for what he did, and I hate myself even more for caring. Control isn’t everything in life, but it absolutely should be.

  The pharmacy is on the other side of town, and while the traffic’s thinned, the rain’s grown heavier, slicker. It’s a slow ride, sloshing through standing water and battling with the defroster, but I use the time to try to clear my head. I focus on swimming and the fact that I’m less than a month out from Vancouver. It sucks that we’re taking a break because Coach Marks has family stuff going on, but there’s still a lot I can do on my own. At the moment, I’m less worried about my speed and power than I am about my technique. Something’s off about my turns that I can’t articulate but need to fix. It’s the transitions that make a champion. It’s the perfection.

  I pull into the Walgreens lot. My head’s still prickly, my stomach taut, but I’m damn glad to be here and not on the second floor of our house. Pulling the hood of my sweatshirt up, I exit the car and walk quickly toward the store entrance. Once I’m inside, the sliding doors shut behind me with a hiss, as if I’ve been consumed. Fluorescent brightness taunts my aching head, but I navigate the aisles of junk food and makeup and diet pills and Squatty Potties and find my way to the pharmacy window. There’s a line, a listless staggering that’s punctuated by constant coughing. I stand and wait because I have to, and my gaze flits to nearby shelves where I spy everything from allergy medications to enemas to a kit claiming to be both a paternity and ancestry test. That last item feels like some heavy shit to be looking for in a Walgreens.

  My turn. I use our insurance card to pay for the Tamiflu and some sort of nasal-related medication. The cashier says the pharmacist wants to consult with me on how to use the second one, but there’s no way I’m sticking around. I turn to go, and in the next aisle over I notice a young woman cradling a case of beer in her arms. She’s wearing a rain-spattered Oregon Ducks jacket and her dark hair falls below her ears and I freeze at the sight of her—an instinctive response. I know who it is, but it’s been so long. I don’t know what to do so I just stand there, bag of medicine gripped in one hand, as she heads for the register.

  Eventually I trail after her, watching as she pays for the beer, dumps it in a cart, and heads outside. I continue to follow, which feels creepy, but I also can’t help myself. In the parking lot she skirts around puddles and walks toward a familiar late-model Ford Explorer packed with other people her age. I can hear them. They’re loud, laughing while she loads the beer in the trunk, and she laughs back. Then she gets into the driver’s seat. Turns on the ignition.

  By this point, I’m on autopilot. I keep my hood pulled tight and sprint across the rain-soaked lot to the Subaru. I’m pretty sure I know where the Explorer’s going, and while I didn’t want to be there before, suddenly, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.

  64.

  I hang back so as not to be noticed, and when it’s clear where we’re going, I hang back even more. The road we’re traveling on is twisty, winding high into the hills. I know the way and I know the road, but the swirling ground fog renders the journey near impossible. Visibility is minimal and there are no streetlights up here. I slow the Mink to a crawl, straining to keep track of the guardrail that hovers between me and tragedy.

  The road continues to climb as I reach Blue Canyon and cut a left. Trees reach over the road, their shadows dancing dark and long. Coyotes, mountain lions, turkeys live up here. Smaller animals, too, which you can tell in the daylight by the number of crushed bodies strewn across the asphalt.

  Soon Blue Canyon splits and the guardrail vanishes, and the road grows narrower, reduced to a single lane. Cars are parked on the left side of the street only, but even those have been maneuvered half onto the sidewalk to keep from being sideswiped. I’m afraid of both hitting vehicles and plummeting over the edge. The fog blows down from the north, gusting against the windshield and swirling over my lights. I don’t know which way is up or down. Front or back.

  I inch forward because not moving feels more dangerous. More than once, I consider turning around and forgetting this whole thing, but I can’t even figure out how to do that, so there’s really no choice.

  Then finally: lights. Plus dozens of cars, trucks, and SUVs that are jammed along the crumbling cul-de-sac and parked every which way. The house itself is worthy of note—four stories of glass and natural wood that overlook the valley below and the mountains beyond, and I’m kind of stunned to realize I know nothing about Vince or his family or how they came to own a place like this. It has to be worth millions.

  Spotting the parked Explorer wedged tight in a space that’ll be hell to back out of,
I’m gripped with newfound determination. This journey has to mean something. It has to be worth the struggle. So I park against a red curb, not far from a fire hydrant, and step out of the car. Parties have never been my thing—it was true, what I told the guys—although I tagged along with Danny to a few when I was a freshman for the same reason I’m doing it now.

  Because I’m weak.

  And lonely.

  Those parties were always the same. Me forcing down warm beer on an empty stomach and hoping nobody talked to me while Danny played the golden boy—laughing and fist-bumping with everyone he saw. He rarely drank but rarely needed to. There was no social lubrication he didn’t already possess, and with his gorgeous girlfriend on his arm, he represented perfection. He had what everyone wanted.

  He had what I wanted.

  All of it.

  I head up the drive, long strides, hands in pockets. Light rain spatters my face, my hair, and music streams from the house. The people who are standing outside drinking and smoking seem pretty mellow, although most of them are older than I am. This isn’t a typical high school scene, that’s for sure.

  Once inside I quickly lose my nerve or whatever it is that’s brought me here, doggedly chasing down a ghost in a Ford Explorer. Her, I don’t see. Not anywhere, but it’s dark and noisy and bodies are packed tight into every corner.

  Sucked through lanes of human traffic, I’m shuttled toward a large room with a vaulted ceiling and a whole wall of windows. It’s hard to see where the rest of the house goes. This place is too big. Every angle, every doorway is shrouded with mystery, and every part of me is on edge. But there’s nothing to be gained by cutting my losses and I make my way through the crowd.

  I push forward as best I can.

  65.

  Moving deeper into the house, I take in all the activity around me: the groups of girls taking photos, the guys playing drinking games. And there’s even a couple making out on a white leather couch. The couple intrigues me most, partly because of why I’m here and partly because I’ve never done any making out of my own. Not for lack of wanting, I guess, but making out with a girl isn’t one of those things you get to do just because of wanting.