Breathe

Breathe. 

That’s how you get through anything, Aunt Gertie told me. If you breathe you stop talking to yourself, stop telling yourself that you can’t endure another minute. Focus on breathing and you won’t be thinking. You won’t be worried or afraid. Just stay right where you are. Inhale. Exhale.

Just breathe and you’ll be all right.

I can’t breathe very well just now. The black canvas sack over my head is smothery and the cords around my wrists and ankles are too tight and every time we hit a bump I launch into the air and slam back down onto the seat. The driver smokes a lot of cigarettes and the smell makes me sick. He’s also playing the radio so softly you can only sometimes make out the song, another thing that infuriates me.

But I can’t get mad, not now. All the emotions would rush up together, overwhelm me. I need to stay in the present.

Breathe.

She wasn’t my real aunt, just one of the neighborhood old ladies who volunteered at the Wyckoff, New Jersey Recreation Center.   She worked the entrance booth, checking the passes of everyone who came to use the pool, taking money from day-swimmers, making change, polite and smiling to everyone.

When I was nine I had a pass. My parents both worked full-time, so they took advantage of the city summer program where you could drop your kids off at seven in the morning and pick them up at six in the evening, sunburnt and exhausted.  There were some rudimentary activities like beading baskets and clay art, but for me the real attraction was the pool. I loved to be in the water.

I’d show my pass the old lady, put my clothes and lunch into a locker and jump in the pool, where I would stay as long as I could. My main problem came at 9:30, when a lifeguard named Ty gave an hour-long swim lesson. Ty was a bandy little guy who wore a whistle all the time and used it profusely. He yelled at his students like they were Marines and though his class only required a quarter of the pool he allowed nobody else in the water while he taught, including and especially me.   I would try to hide underwater or down by the deep end, but he invariably would find me and holler until I climbed up onto the concrete and sat in my puddle waiting until at last his class ended.

Midway through the summer, the old lady from the booth came out and politely told Ty that he should let me stay in the water because I wasn’t bothering anyone. Amazingly, Ty backed right down and I was able to quietly swim to my heart’s content. On my way out to the parking lot to wait for my parents that evening, I stopped to thank the old lady. She didn’t hear me at first, but eventually I was able to express my gratitude.

“It was a pleasure,” she said. Then, eyes twinkling, “You want to know why I did that?”

“Why?”

“Because you’re just like me. A water baby.”

I can breathe now that I’ve managed to work my way out from under the black hood. I’m lying in my swimsuit staring up at the grimy roof of some kind of 1970s car. The driver is a guy I recognize from the pool, one of the gang who hang out in the parking lot smoking cigarettes and looking at the girls. Once in a while the cops come through and run them off, but they always come back. They remind me of the actors in the background of Happy Days or Grease, a nameless bunch not part of the action, trying to look cool and failing. We made fun of them.

I think this guy is the one with the greasy ponytail, but I can’t tell because he’s wearing a seaman’s cap that hides his hair. Maybe he planned this, or maybe it was spur of the moment. Whichever it was, he took advantage of opportunity.  Normally we stayed open until eight on weekdays, but a lightning storm made us clear the pool and close up early. I sent Briana and Roy home because the supervisor has been on me to keep hours low, and I don’t mind stacking the beach chairs up and taking down the umbrellas by myself.

I was putting the kick-boards into the locker when he came up behind me and dropped the black sack over my head like he was catching a rabbit. His wiry arms went around and he lifted me up, crushing the air out of me. I started to kick, but he hit me on the side of my head hard enough to make me see white. Next thing I knew I was flat on my back with him whipping nylon cord around my ankles like one of those rodeo calf-ropers. He did the same thing to my hands, cinching them so tight it made them go cold.

He slammed the doors, fired up the engine and took off. It was only then I remembered to scream. He reached back and pounded me a couple of times, not quite as hard as before but still painful.

“You shut up now,” he’d said in a southern drawl that sounded fake. “Won’t do you no good anyhow.”

I liked to hang out in the ticket booth with the old lady. She told me to call her Aunt Gertie. She was stone deaf, but good company, quick with a laugh. She told me that when she was a little older than me she had gone to the Olympics and won one gold and two bronze medals. When I seemed to disbelieve her, she gave a half-smile and produced them from her purse. Three round discs, each saying VIII OLYMPIADE, PARIS 1924. The  red ribbons were faded to brown, but the medals were real enough, and heavier than they looked. The gold was heaviest of all and still shone like new.

She pinched my cheek and leaned over to me. “You let me know when you want to learn to swim for real, Jill. I’ll show you.”

She started coaching me the next day, wearing an old lady swimsuit with a ruffled skirt and puffy sleeves and getting into the water with me. She taught me the the butterfly and the breast stroke but dismissed them as worthless. “Eight-count American freestyle is the stroke for you,” she yelled. “It’s the most efficient. I set records with that stroke.”

I was an eager student with natural ability, willing to put in the long hours required to build the stamina and strength for longer events. My parents seemed relieved that I had found something to do with myself and didn’t mind that I spent so much time with this old lady I barely knew.

Ten years passed. My folks split. My dad was the better parent, but I stayed with my mom because she lived near to Aunt Gertie. Using her pull with the newly formed US Masters’ Swimming organization, Aunt Gertie arranged for me to be able to swim all year round.

She coached me even after she started getting sick, sitting poolside in her wheelchair and giving me the thumbs up. My best event was the 800 meter, and I even managed to beat Aunt Gertie’s 1919 record of 13:19. This didn’t matter, since the current record was held by an East German woman with shoulders like Larry Czonka. 8:40:68.

I was not quite good enough to be an Olympian. When I failed to qualify even for the Juniors, I wanted to quit.

“Keep at it, Jill,” Aunt Gertie barked. “First time I swam the Channel I was at the midway point, floating face-down. I was resting, focusing on breathing in and breathing out. The fools in the follow-boat thought I was dead and grabbed me. Rules say if you touch somebody during a Channel swim, they’re immediately disqualified. I tell you, when they hauled me into that boat I was mad as hell.” She smiled and pinched my cheek. “But you know what? I raised nine thousand dollars in a year, a hell of a lot of money then.  I hired my own crew and went back. I will always be the first woman to swim the English Channel. Sometimes getting mad is the best thing for you.”

I’m mad now, bouncing in the back seat. I need to pee. My hands are blue, and I don’t want to think about what is going on with my feet.  My hair keeps whipping me in the face and I can see it’s going to turn green because I didn’t get a chance to wash it with UltraSwim.

The driver keeps smoking and listening to his shitty music. What the hell is he thinking?

“Excuse me, sir?” I call out. “I really need to go to the bathroom.”

He turns back to look, one hand on the wheel. “How’d you get that sack off?”

“It just came off. I mean it. I need to pee real bad.”

“Just go, then,” he said, turning back to the road. “You’re wearing a swimsuit.”

“It’ll get on your seat. You’ll never get the smell out.”

He seems to consider this. “Goddamn it,” he says, and in a little while we turn off the smooth road and onto a bumpy one. His cigarette smoke rolls back into my face and I cough.

“Don’t like the smoke, girly?” he says, reaching back to crank the window halfway down.

The air is moist and swampy and I can see the trees outside rubbing against the car. We drive for a long time. He keeps glancing back at me, eyes gliding over my stomach and legs in a way that makes me go cold inside.

We pull over and stop. He shuts off the car and the silence seems immense, the engine ticking as it cools. There is a slow rise in the chorus of frogs and bugs. He sits tapping his fingers on the wheel and not looking at me. On his forearm I can see a tattoo. Even in the fading light I can read it. BORN LOSER. 

 

            Even though I couldn’t qualify for the Games, I was offered some swimming scholarships. I chose Clemson over Ohio State because I erroneously believed it was close to the ocean. Aunt Gertie was in hospice by then, seeming to have aged several decades in just a few years.

Still, I knew she was proud of me. I swam more than ever, my plan being to take up ultra-distance open water events. There were a few in the Netherlands I knew about, some as long as ten kilometers, but I wanted to start with a swim from Los Angeles to Catalina Island.

As an athlete I could lodge free in the dorms all year round, so to save money I stayed here in Clemson over the summer instead of going back home.  I got the head lifeguard job at the pool. That’s why I wasn’t there when Aunt Gertie died.  I didn’t feel too bad. I knew she’d understand.

She’d be disappointed now, me captured like a chicken off a fence by some classic-rock joker who smoked and probably had a fucking Confederate flag painted on the roof of his car. No, I think. She wouldn’t be disappointed. She’d be furious.

I close my eyes and call her fury to me, inhale and fill my giant swimmer’s lungs with rage.

“Still have to pee,” I say, smiling.

“All right,” he says, getting out and muttering something like get it over.

He opens the rear driver side door and holds it for  me. “Scooch on out, now.”

His eyes don’t leave my torso as I undulate toward him. Good, I think. I make it to the edge and he reaches to haul me up by my wrists. The sudden pressure hurts so much that I gasp, but I hide it. I can’t have him feeling sorry for me.

I smile into his weedy face. “Such a gentleman.”

He takes a wicked-looking knife from his belt and I feel my guts loosen, but I keep my smile and bat my lashes. “Is that for my feet? I’d appreciate if you could cut them loose. I have to spread my legs to pee.”

He shakes his head, blushing.

“Please,” I say. “I promise I won’t run.”

He smirks. “Wouldn’t do you no good anyways. Nowhere you go I won’t catch you.”

“Well then, no reason not to,” I purr.

He points to a fallen log. I hop over to it, turn around and sit. I stretch my legs, looking down at my muscles beneath tan skin. He holds the knife like a tusk as he advances, then hesitates.

I wiggle my feet. He slides the blade between them. It’s so sharp that the cord seems to disappear altogether, bringing a rush of pain to my feet so sudden and intense that I almost pass out, but I hold his gaze, smiling.

“Oh, that feels good,” I croon. “Thank you, sugar.” I stand up, my feet feeling like they belong to somebody else.  “One more favor. Can you help me with my swimsuit?  I need to take it off.” I roll my shoulders like Betty Boop. “Worth your while.”

He doesn’t need a second invitation. He jabs the knife into the log, then stands in front of me, breathing hard with shaking fingers that reek of cigarettes as he slides the Speedo straps down my arms. My boobs pop out in his face and with all my force I bring my knee up between his legs, my clasped fists smashing his nose as he doubles over with a look of astonishment. He collapses like a dropped towel and I fall on him, pounding and pounding with all my strength, using my swimmer’s shoulders and back as I try to batter him into the soft earth. My hands are so numb they feel like steel hammers.

After a while he stops moving.  I go to the knife and slice the wrist cord, bracing this time for the rush of pain. When it’s over I can feel my fingers.

I wrench the knife from the log and throw it into the dark woods, give him one last kick in the balls for good measure, then walk to the car. It’s a rusted-out El Camino, the type of car we jokingly called a rape-mobile.  The keys are still in it.

I start the motor and throw it into reverse, the headlights rolling across his prostrate form. I consider running him over, but the rage is leaving me and I turn in a tight circle to go back the way we came.

I’m almost to the highway before I remember about breathing.

 

 

This won a round of the 2018 NYC Midnight Short Story contest, though I was later eliminated from the contest.