One wall is blank with a large delineated rectangular space paler than the rest of the wall surrounding it, left by the bulletin board I took down finally and stashed somewhere in the closet. No, not just somewhere. I know the exact spot: left-hand side when you face the sliding doors, stuck behind a cardboard carton filled with old meet results and stacks of age-group ribbons in tiny silk-backed cases, the ones there are no room for any more downstairs in the den where they put up those glass showcases for my medals. There, and in the living room, entire shelves are filled with the big and small trophies I’ve won, have been winning, for how many years? fifteen years. Since the age of six. A long time to be winning.
It was good to stash the board away, to silence all the snapshots and their voices. Putting it out of sight helped. The voices diminished, came from inside instead of from the pictures, now never sound in the day any more, only in the dark when I open my eyes. But there’s this price to be paid: my choice of clothes has become, shall we say, definitely limited. See, I’m afraid to open the closet door.
Big brave champ, huh? Monster, animal.
Fucking bunny rabbit, Delgado. You pussycat.
I open my eyes all the way to an orderly girl’s room, with nothing in it any more to set it apart from other girls’ rooms in similar homes in similar towns in America. Now, though, the silence makes old remnants of ripped-apart stomach bubble up inside, the fronts of my thighs are damp, shudders travel in thin wavering lines from the knees up, then back down. I consider the closet door, how I could rummage wildly through the barrier of hanging clothes, pushing boxes of ribbons and medals aside until I can see their faces again and hear their voices again and feel them surround me the way they used to, barking like seals, holding kickboards to pound the water, the joke we would chant at each other when Kemo Sabe wasn’t around, boards splashing in rhythm:
Dog meat! Dog meat! Dog meat!
Then give the war whoop. Our rebel yell.
My hand slips along the wall, shuts off the light. I bend down slightly with one foot forward, one back on the starting block, in perfect position. Always did have to work on my dives. In the dark I open eyes wide. Slide down along the wall to crouch, flabby, out of shape, thighs can’t take it any more. In one dark corner I sit.
Dives.
Swing the arms, grab a fatless thigh in each hand and gently shake, try to loosen up the muscles stretched long and taut so close to the surface.
No good. Cold creeps down my. spine. Under white lights the pool glitters blue. Over the intercom, this blaring metallic voice announces lane assignments, names, school teams. I try not to listen.
THIS IS THE 100-METER BREASTSTROKE. TWO LENGTHS OF THE POOL.
Yes, sure. Two. Thank you very much. In case I forget?
I lean, roll a little on the balls of my feet, trying too hard and I know it. No good. Screw all this for today, huh? Let’s call the whole thing off.
The beep sounds like a mini-cannon. Dives, dives. I get off the block too late and know it. My timing’s shot from the word go and I know it. Plus, lately, my walls have begun to just suck. The first and only one’s still too far away.
Spectator shouts roar to the high ceiling, an indistinguishable echo. In the bright-lit pool, bodies glide. This is the slowest stroke, the oldest stroke. It may appear to the observer to be a manifestation of perfect ease and grace, but from the inside when you do it all out, as perfectly and as fast as you can, when you do it to win then you look monstrous surging out of the water, a creature from some dark lagoon with foreign bug-goggle eyes. It wrenches every fiber of every muscle and it burns you all up with effort so that when you touch the wall to finish you have forgotten how to breathe, have forgotten everything but the naked agonized rasp in your empty lungs and heart. The 100 demands such complete control, so much raw strength. Yet the entire event will be finished in a little more than a minute. If you think about it, it seems unfair.
That’s what I trained for every day since the age of six. Fifteen years. Two workouts a day including holidays, unless I was sick or tapering.
Television cameras pan to a ceiling shot. Announcers’ voices pipe in louder than the shouts and echoes. All those experts, media talking heads, pretty faces whose agents have bartered with networks for their few minutes of air time. Their voices and comments will blare out to thousands of homes while I’m swimming—while I’m failing—voices I will hear later, cringing, because someone has thoughtfully recorded it all for me on videotape.
“Uh-oh. It looks like Babe Delgado’s off to a slow start, John.”
“That’s right, Bill. She’s a little late off the block with that dive. Now, she is the top-seeded swimmer in the final here of the women’s hundred-meter breaststroke—that means she came into this heat as the fastest qualifier. But if you’ve followed the career of this young lady, you know that she’s had some trouble maintaining a high level of performance this year and last—”
“That’s right, John. Her performance has been erratic. You’re the expert! What accounts for this kind of slump?”
“Well, Bill, it’s difficult to say. These kids train so hard for so long, you’ve almost got to expect it sooner or later. Who knows? Something’s got to give. But, believe me—and I went through this myself!—if you’re a true champion, you come back stronger than ever.”
“Well put, John. Now they’re approaching the halfway point of the women’s hundred-meter breaststroke final, here in Indianapolis. Oh! You can see that quite a race has developed between Penny Johnson of Stanford—she’s in lane three in the middle of your television screen—and Martie Rourke of the University of Florida, in lane one. Martie is from Australia, but she goes to school and trains in the States—and if she can take this final, here in Indianapolis, what a surprise it will be!”
“That’s right, Bill. Martie swims with the Australian national team. And it’s a testament to the toughness of this competition, to the high quality of the field here in Indianapolis today, that Australia’s national champion in this event could qualify no better than second to last. These kids are fast.”
“It looks like Babe Delgado is back in the race now, John!”
“Well, Bill, she’s playing catch-up right now. She can see Penny Johnson next to her in lane three, and she knows that she has to make up at least that half a length to beat her—see her looking over now! You never do that in the hundred, never! Babe Delgado has got to be a worried young lady at this moment!”
“It looks like she’s pulling even with Penny Johnson, though! But she can’t really see what’s going on over in that first lane there—that’s at the top of your television screen—can she, John?”
“No Bill, she can’t. And that’s going to cost her right now, as she gives it everything she’s got. We’re coming into the final ten meters of this race. Remember that these kids are dead tired now, Bill. This is the part of the race where nobody has anything left. This is what separates the men from the boys—excuse me!—these are girls down there, aren’t they? But I can tell you from my own experience, a champion digs down deep at this point and comes up with the goods.”
“Tell me, John, do you think Babe Delgado will come up with the goods?”
“Hard to say, Bill.”
“There she is in lane four, Babe Delgado of Southern University, which is one of this country’s big collegiate swimming powers, John—”
“You can say that again.”
“Will she make it? Oh! She’s neck and neck with Martie Rourke, over in lane one at the top of your screen, and she’s passed Penny Johnson!”
“Yes! But Penny is coming back! It’s down to the last couple of meters here, it’s going to be one-two-three for these three talented girls, Bill. And they touch the wall!”
“And here we have the final results, John—what a surprise this is! In first place is Martie Rourke, the plucky Australian from the University of Florida, who actually came into this final with one of the slowest qualifying times!”
“That’s right, Bill. And it just goes to show you what sheer willpower can do. Martie Rourke was just not expected to win here today. She had the disadvantage of coming into this race with one of the slowest qualifying times—which meant she was over against the wall in lane one, and that’s a disadvantage to a swimmer. I know what that’s like.”
“I’m sure you do, John. Can we see some more results on the board here—yes, there we go!”
“Right, Bill. As you can see, Babe Delgado, who used to be the American record holder in this event, hung on to pass Penny Johnson for second place. But the time is not particularly impressive.”
“No, John, that’s right. That’s not a fast winning time—in fact, they were all way off record pace. Now, Martie Rourke, the winner of the women’s hundred-meter breaststroke final here in Indianapolis, swims at the University of Florida, but she competes internationally for Australia. So that still makes Babe Delgado the top American woman in this event here today.”
“Right, Bill. But Babe Delgado cannot be happy with her performance here today, and she cannot be happy with that time! It does look like she’s having another bad year. Now the question really is, will she qualify for the Olympic Trials next summer at all? Two years ago she was the American record holder. But it just goes to show you how quickly things change in this sport. If I was Babe Delgado right now, Bill, I’d sit myself down and do some serious thinking.”
“And you can see that Bart Sager, the coach at Southern, isn’t very pleased.”
“No, Bill, you’re right about that. Bart Sager expects his swimmers to win. But I’ll tell you, if I was heading for the Pan Am Games or the Olympic Trials, I’d want someone like Sager in my corner. I would say that he and Babe Delgado have some talking to do!”
“Well, that concludes our coverage of the women’s hundred-meter breaststroke final, here in Indianapolis. As a disappointed Babe Delgado, the former American record holder in this event, gets out of the pool. Coming up we have the final of the men’s four-hundred-meter freestyle. But first let’s pause for a word from our sponsors.”
There’s that dangerous squirm of the muscles, numb and electric, moving under the skin like sacks of worms. I can’t feel anything yet though and when I stop fighting to breathe I pull myself out somehow, walk dripping across the wet tiles to where he’s waiting. No color left on me any more. I feel how pale I’ve become, almost as pale as him.
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?”
“Yes, I’m sorry. I blew the dive—”
“I know you blew the dive.”
“But it’s my walls—”
“What do you mean, your walls? What’s wrong with your walls? There’s nothing wrong with your walls!”
He shifts from foot to foot, helplessly furious, ringlets of icicle hair plastered against his forehead. His face is broad and handsome, glaring down.
“I’m sorry.”
Why is it like that, my mind stuck on two words like a record with needle grooved into one track, seems everything these days is a constant apology. And I’m sick of it all. Sick of the water. Of Kemo Sabe, Mister Pale Face here. The whole team. Sick of myself.
“You’re sorry.
I’m
sorry. If you want to get to the Trials you’re going to have to qualify, you know.”
“I know. I know.”
“Good. Then we all know. Go on, go relax. Take a shower. We’ve got relays coming up. You
are
planning on doing the medley relay, aren’t you? Well, I want you to hit that dive. I want you to nail it. Go think about it.”
“All right.”
“Go think about it.”
On my way out to go think about it Hedenmeyer grabs me, smiling. I pull away. His forearms are thick, naked and red where he shaved off all the hair.
The row of bathroom stalls is deserted. I head for the farthest one and throw up. But what comes out is just colorless liquid, clear and pure. Later I walk past the recovery room to the far side of the lockers and sit on a bench, wrap myself in a towel, try to stop shivering.
“Yo, Babe.”
Her hand gently guides my head, presses it against a Lycra belly. Liz tugs each ear, strokes my hair.
“You going to shave all this off for the Trials?”
“What Trials?”
“Come on, doll, they didn’t name you Mildred for nothing, right? Don’t worry about it! You crying?”
“No.” I glance up at the laughing eyes. “I’m all right.”
‘‘Just don’t worry, Babe.”
“I’ll be okay. Really. Really and truly,
cross my heart.”
“Okay. Okay. I’ve got the two-hundred coming up, gotta go.”
“Well for Christ’s sake,
go
then. Don’t worry about me.”
“Who’s
worrying,
Mildred,
God.
It’s like, I just want
you
on the fucking
relay
with me next summer,
okay?”
“Okay.”
To please her, I laugh.
“Don’t listen to him, Babe. He’s a jerk.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Kemo Sabe him stupid, lotta smoke, no wampum. He’s just jerking off. Everybody
else
knows you. I mean, you can deal, right? Just remember.”
“Go on. Go on for the two, then.” I squeeze her hand and push her away, half-crying, half-grinning, watch her walk out to do the thing no one beats her at. Call to her,
“Hey.
Good luck. Like, kick butt, part the waters, make them eat dog meat, you monster.”