It was a long trek alone to the edge of the pool. I had
hopped the fence at a quarter to two, a.m. of course, going methodically
through the bushes, gripping the bars that criss-crossed through the old
wrought iron of the gate with the arches of my bare feet, holding myself steady
on the spikes that rose from the top. This wasn’t the kind of pool you wanted
to get caught in after hours. The people in this neighborhood, they were old
and white and Protestant and stern, as a whole. They took their fences seriously. The one around the community
pool looked medieval in its black stubbornness. But I had never really thought
much about the fence, not there. It felt natural, not even rebellious anymore.
It didn’t feel much different than walking in a door.
It was a
long trek alone to the edge of the pool. A few nervous rabbits had watched me
sneak in. I felt their eyes on me, or maybe God’s. I stood at the crack between
the grass and the pavement, that old kind of “this is a swimming pool” pavement
with those irritating piece of gravel in it. I toed the line with both
“Whatever” and “Well maybe…,” trying to remember why I had wanted to come here
alone in the first place.
I didn’t
feel any victory when I felt my naked skin immersed in slippery-warm. I had
barely made a splash. I felt nothing. I was skinny dipping in some yuppie
community pool at two a.m. on a beautiful July night and I felt nothing.
Some
things, you just can’t change.
The last
time I had plunged into the pool after hours with nothing hiding my ass from
the neighbors, it had been with Wrenna. We had made love in the shallow end. We
were earnest and happy then because we were eighteen. I had wanted the water to
make me feel eighteen again but all it did was make me cold when I came out of
it.
I had
lost my capacity for fire and I hated myself.
It was a
long swim alone from one end of the pool to the other. I lapped it carelessly.
I didn’t want to be anywhere. I hated the shallow end because she had been
there. I hated the deep end because she had never been there. I settled on
standing in the middle, between five and six feet of water, crouching a little
so the air wouldn’t graze my shoulders. I wanted the pool to be a womb and give
birth to me anew but all it did was make me remember the sound of her voice.
The
grass collected dew in drops too small for sentiment. The breeze ruffled what
was left of what she used to like about my hair. I heard a sprinkler go on a
couple blocks east. A dog barked, uneasy, feeling the streetlights become
louder than my breathing. They buzzed with the electricity that I was missing.
Somewhere,
less than five miles away I’d guess, Wrenna slept under a thin comforter in the
arms of someone who didn’t remind her of me.
I felt
sick with the smell of chlorine and I hated myself.
I didn’t
want to breathe anymore. I felt trapped in my sensory freedom, trapped with air
in my lungs. It would have felt more comfortable to drown.
I heard
the echo of her voice like a cloud between my ears, and I let out a long sigh
as I sank below the surface.
I felt good under water. Warm. My eyes burned
with the chemicals while I inspected my simple surroundings. A hole in the
ground, lined with cement, filled with the false blue of wet, altered nature, a
few bright lights looking wavy and fake when you were above the pool and
looking in, but down there they looked real, everything looked real. Bluer,
brighter, maybe, but real. And down there, it was truly quiet. Under the water,
all I could hear was the calm blood in my ears.
My lungs
started to ask a little more earnestly to be let back up to breathe. My mouth
was puckered, my cheeks puffed for no reason, resisting my most human need, I
must have looked ridiculous. I ignored my lungs’ request.
It came
to me while I was down there, my arms treading around me a little, my legs bent
out of shape on account of me being too tall for this depth to naturally
envelop me, my eyes searching the pool bottom for nothing with the kind of
listlessness they probably looked at everything with, in those days. It came to
me at first as just a little thought, a little spark in the drought-dry forest
of my brain.
You are nothing without her, the thought
suggested.
I opened
my mouth to answer I guess, my lungs truly burning by then, and I don’t know
how I was able to do it, but I was skinny dipping in some yuppie community pool
at two a.m. on a beautiful July night, feeling nothing, and then I let out a
scream.
I was
naked, completely naked, vulnerable and weak, my eyes shut to my plain
surroundings, my noise muffled by countless molecules of water, and all around
me I felt the emptiness of my chest, no air, no air, but somehow still, I could
scream. I was wounded. I was dead. I could still scream.
To say
it was a relief to come to the surface, I’d be lying. Instinct brought me
there. I felt dizzy and sick, pulling myself out of the pool, the animal part
of me distancing itself from water, the human part of me wishing you could
drown yourself without the insurance of a weight forcing you to go through with
what you started. I laid on the pavement, panting, for a while, not noticing
the stars or the uncomfortable feeling of the rough on my back. I didn’t notice
anything that was real. I was still living in the time when she had been there
with me. The panting then had been a different kind.
It was a
long trek alone, back to the car. I dripped from every piece of me, the
now-colder air feeding on the host of my was-warm body. I could feel my skin
glistening like fool’s gold. I was fake and flimsy and glad to breathe oxygen
maybe, but I knew it was true. I was nothing without her.
I sat in
the car for a long time after I got in, the heat blasting, my balls smushed
under me and into the 90s-velvet of my seat. I rested my forehead on the
steering wheel and kept my eyes open, the blur of it too close to my face. I was
delirious that night. I hadn’t slept well in three years. I hadn’t slept well
since I had slept next to her.
My head
turned to the right, my temple resting on the wheel, the still-wet of my cheek
feeling odd on the plastic. My eyes searched the passenger seat for nothing
with the kind of listlessness they regarded everything with, in those days. The
passenger seat, it was empty. It hadn’t always been so.
The last
time I had driven home from such a covert operation, it had been with Wrenna.
We had held hands, cold hands, resting them on the middle console. Her thumb
acted like a gentle little windshield wiper when we held hands, the
back-and-forth assurance that she was still there and we were still real. Her
wet, blonde hair had stuck to her neck. She had been wrapped in a
dusty-smelling Americana blanket that had bald eagles on it, and every time she
had gone to change the song on the stereo, the blanket had fallen to reveal her
almost in full, the not-perfectly-flat of her stomach, the not-perfectly-round
of her breasts. Back when I believed things could be perfect, she was perfect
to me.
The last
time I had driven home like that, naked and wet with my eyes full of things to
say, we had been laughing, she had screamed once, we had blasted Santana for whatever
stupid reason, and I had been happy, so happy, that she still loved me.
This
time, I drove home in silence. The wind swooshed with the acknowledgement of
humanity the few times I passed another car. The seat squeaked when I shifted.
I felt the weight of the air like I’d felt the weight of the water in the pool.
Somewhere, I thought, Wrenna isn’t dreaming about me. My lungs
burned. It was in reality that I was drowning.
You’re nothing without her, the thought
reared again.
I know, I responded. But I can become something without her.
It was that night that I decided
to change my life. I still haven’t seen Wrenna since then, and it took some
resistance every warm summer, but I never went back to the pool.
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