Part IV: Spin – God’s Wild Children: #9 (Chapter 74)
“Be back by four,” she said, “or else.”
She meant business: once, when I had failed to
come home on time, she called the police and told them I was missing. They put
an all-points bulletin out on me.
We rode the Riverside Park bus, wearing only our
bathing suits and flip flops, our towels wrapped around our shoulders; we did
not want to pay 10 cents for a clothing basket. We kept our coins in small
pouches, one of Nana’s sewing projects, pinned to our suits with a safety pin.
I liked going to the swimming pool, even with
Danny, because once we jumped into the water, he usually went his way, and I
went mine. Occasionally, he would come by and try to dunk my head under water
or pull at my feet, but I was a much stronger swimmer than Danny; he had
learned the hard way that I was a much more formidable foe in the water than
out of it, especially after the previous summer, when I had pinned him
underwater for over a minute.
If the lifeguard had not intervened, I would have
drowned the kid and then pleaded self-defense.
No one could ruin my days in the pool; I loved
swimming more than anything else in the world, even more than eating Bing candy
bars or Reese’s Peanut Butter cups. I never felt hungry while swimming. I felt
confident in the water, as if anything were possible, even thinness because I felt thin as I sped through the water,
my stomach flab drawn inward and almost flat, my arms and legs strong, each
limb moving in perfect synchronization with the others.
A water child:
Weightlessness.
I slice through the water like a dolphin, no
longer fat; the encumbrance of weight rendering me clumsy and uncoordinated on
land empowers me in water.
I am superior.
Svelte contemporaries sink like boulders.
A water nymph, buoyant and light. Front
flips, back flips, spinning side to side like a shooting top, head and
handstands. Anything is possible in the water: en pointe, water ballet, grace.
A fish: I breathe water. Water fills my
lungs, invigorating and elemental....
I have never been afraid of the water.
One day, long ago, someone lifted me
tentatively over the water – my toes point over the surface like a ballerina’s.
“What is this wonder, this cool liquid
tantalizing my feet?”
I signal acceptance of this strange place;
someone gently drops my body into the water, my feet, legs, thighs, stomach,
chest splashing through the surface and bouncing back up as another pulls me up
under my arms, cooing, “Big girl.”
I still hear the splash as I kick my feet on
the surface, splashing all miserable cousins, sending them bawling to their
mothers, my aunts.
Danny
yanked at my bathing suit strap.
“Time to go,” he said, pointing to the big clock
on the bath house: 3:15.
I jerked away. “I don’t want to,” I said, pushing
my strap back up. I headed for the deep end.
“APB!” he yelled, his hands cupping his mouth.
“Okay, okay, I’m coming.” I stepped out of the
pool, my body waterlogged, my suit an extra skin. I wrapped my towel around my
waist. Water ran down between my legs; I hoped that no one thought I was
peeing.
We each bought popcorn and a bottle of Hires at
the refreshment stand, outside the swimming area.
Both starved, we ate and drank quickly, gulping
handfuls of popcorn.
“I’m keeping my bottle.” Danny paid the guy in the
kiosk two cents.
“What do you want that junky bottle for?” I asked.
“That’s for me to know and you to find out.”
