34 is the slowest in the pool, which shouldn\u2019t surprise anybody, because he\u2019s new. He started swimming a month ago, probably because his mom told him to lose weight. He has these chubby cheeks, and his swimsuit is a size thirty-four, hence the name. All of us wear thirty-two or smaller, and his suit hardly even fits.<\/p>\n
Jake saw it first. 34 changed out of his suit in the bathroom stall and crumpled it into his gym bag when he sat to dry his feet. Jake was spraying Axe and there was the tag, reaching over the zipper like it wanted to be seen.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou wear a thirty-four?\u201d he asked so loudly, so incredulously, we all knew to respond.<\/p>\n
\u201c34! 34!\u201d We chanted.<\/p>\n
34 made it too easy. He zipped his bag and ran off. I watched him waiting for his mom under a tree at the end of the parking lot. When I drove away, he was scratching the dirt with a sapling stick.<\/p>\n
If coach puts you in the same lane as 34, it\u2019s like you\u2019ve done something wrong, which you have because it means you\u2019re getting closer to the slowest on the team. 34 lumbers through the water. If it sounds awkward, that\u2019s because it is. His legs trawl the bottom and he comes up for air every second stroke. I was the lane over and watched him finish late every time. Coach would tell him to hold up when the rest of us started each set. He peppered 34 with advice, which Jake said was how to diet. Sometimes, towards the end of practice, 34 would hang off the wall. Coach asked him to stay late and tread water. We watched his fat legs kicking below the surface, cheeks ripe, tomatoes souring under his swim cap. We\u2019d shower, change, and only the slowest of us would see 34 coming back, towel around his waist. Jake always took his time. He\u2019d sit on a bench behind 34 and ask him questions.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow was practice, hot shot?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSwimmers should have some body fat to help them float, but not that much.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re not getting any skinnier until you can swim better.\u201d<\/p>\n
34 slid his clothing on over his bathing suit and slipped out without a word. His mom was already in the parking lot. He got in the passenger seat, still a zombie. It wasn\u2019t like she brought him McDonald\u2019s after practice, like Jake would\u2019ve thought. They just sat next to each other, wordlessly. They looked like they were going to war.<\/p>\n
My dad asked about practice over dinner.<\/p>\n
\u201c34 is struggling,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201c34?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s new.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s his name?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s because his waist is a size thirty-four. He\u2019s a fatass.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s absurd.\u201d<\/p>\n
But it wasn\u2019t really. If you looked at our team together, you\u2019d find him and have to ask, \u201cWhat\u2019s he doing here?\u201d My dad asked if I wanted ice cream, and I just said, \u201cHomework.\u201d I went upstairs and locked the bathroom door behind me. My clothes puddled by the toilet and I slid the scale out from under the sink. I was up half a pound. At practice, I\u2019d felt it in the waist of my 32. I dry-swallowed two Bisacodyl and vowed off breakfast in the morning.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Jake had always been the fastest in our grade. He swam all year and went on night runs. I sat next to him on the bus to a meet once and he talked about the suburbs at night\u2013strange bugs and rodents that slithered from hedges, undaunted by the sound of his feet slapping the pavement.<\/p>\n
At one point, I was something like his number two, but I\u2019d watched as others closed the gap. That fall, I\u2019d hurt my knee during cross country, icing on the sidelines after for weeks. The time gathered on my waist, and I\u2019d clench my stomach and butt during AP history to strain the muscles. By swim season, it hadn\u2019t gotten any better. I went from a thirty-one to a thirty-two and sighed when 34 sauntered into the pre-season meeting, hiding under a sweatshirt and baggy jeans. He was already there by the time Jake arrived, patronizing him with a welcome to the team. The rest of us looked and whispered.<\/p>\n
Maybe others could breathe when 34 joined. Maybe he was the best thing to happen to our team.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
On Friday, the air crackled above the pool. There was a party that night, a meet the next morning. Coach was under the impression we kicked faster, harder, smoother to burst into the next day\u2019s race. Well, everyone but 34. He skulked down his lane like a pedal boat.<\/p>\n
Coach detained me after practice to run some extra drills. I had to swim the fly tomorrow. It had been my specialty a year ago, and now the undulations pinged my knee. When he started to deconstruct the stroke for me, it seemed like he was giving up faith.<\/p>\n
By the time I reached the locker room, the party crew had vacated. Only 34\u2019s bag remained. He was showering and belting something embarrassing, like The Fray. I lingered over his open bag, expecting Three Musketeers wrappers, a carton of apple juice. His swimsuit lay on the bench, a balloon deflated. I scooped it in my palms and felt how full it was, felt all that it could hold inside. I stepped my legs through and pulled it up, the fabric drooping a bit from my pelvis.<\/p>\n
When the faucet turned, I dropped trow, slunk to my locker, hustled to the shower. By the time I emerged, 34 had gone. Shadows rustled under the tree where he liked to wait. My dad muted Animal Planet when I got in, asked about 34, and all I said was, \u201cHe\u2019s fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was a new bottle of Bisacodyl on the bathroom counter. My dad had IBS so he could say that was why we went through so much. I swallowed a handful before bed and felt how far 34\u2019s gym bag was from me. He\u2019d be alone in his room, eating his junk food, watching his TV, not at the party, either. Maybe he emerged from his cavern to gaze upon the stars, finding the company of owls, praying mantises, ladybugs gone nocturnal.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Jake insisted he wasn\u2019t hungover in the morning. He came in wearing sunglasses, chowing down on a breakfast sandwich wrapped in aluminum foil.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou should\u2019ve been there,\u201d he said to me. We were leaving the locker room. 34 was already in the pool, running drills with Coach. Maybe he came every morning for remedial lessons. Maybe he was hustling all of us, would be our big victor today. \u201cHow much longer till that fatass quits the team?\u201d<\/p>\n
I shrugged. When Jake left, I clasped my hands over my hips. I could slide two fingers between my pelvis and the nylon.<\/p>\n
In the butterfly, I worked from my abs, feeling them wrestle away 34, Jake, my body too. We were a snake shedding its skin. We were a larva, slouching towards our cocoon. \u00a0I came in third, which was good enough, judging by Coach\u2019s shrug.<\/p>\n
We won. Jake\u2019s hangover did not deter him. He barely got first and then stood at the pool\u2019s edge when 34 paddled through the free. His mom sat in the stands, hands folded in her lap, while other parents cheered and hollered. He finished thirty seconds after the others. He crawled out of the pool and vanished into the locker room.<\/p>\n
34 was gone when Coach wanted to award him the Golden Goggles, the team spirit award for a job well done, a \u201ccourageous\u201d first swim meet. With nobody to pass them to, he slid them onto his forehead, rubber straps slapping his receding hairline. After the pool cleared out, I found him in his office.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll bring the goggles to 34,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
They sat on the passenger seat. If I brought them to him, maybe he would think it was a joke. Golden goggles might break the camel\u2019s back.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I\u2019d swallowed three Bisacodyl in the bathroom and passed my dad in the kitchen. \u201cI\u2019m going out,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
He lowered his eyebrows, expecting I\u2019d been chugging his Miller Lites in my bedroom, saw instead my running shoes, shorts. He passed me his Hi-Vis vest and said, \u201cYou don\u2019t have to go now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
He poured himself a glass of tap water and sighed, \u201cLord knows I\u2019m trying.\u201d<\/p>\n
I asked him what he was trying and he looked at me and said, don\u2019t give me that. So I opened the door and called, \u201cI\u2019ll be back soon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Our suburban streets wound like intestinal folds, like the undulations of sea vegetation. Houses notched along the curves, finding privacy as long as homeowners didn\u2019t look through the backyard, where the folds crashed into each other. I sucked in my stomach so my ribs tightened my skin.<\/p>\n
Each curve conducted me along the track. The goggles slapped against my collarbones. I wouldn\u2019t know 34\u2019s house if I passed it. I wouldn\u2019t know which window to peek through for him, eating his night snacks, sitting in silence, in a compartment separate from his mother. So I ran faster, vaulted higher off the pavement, blurring the parade of night rodents in my wake.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Paul Anderson was sitting across from his daughter Katie, who was daring him to leave the queso in front of her younger brother, Ben. Pizza hadn\u2019t gone well. Katie had watched Paul try patching the dough. Ben squeaked in delight when Paul peekabooed through the holes. When the dough dribbled in the oven, Paul said, \u201cLet\u2019s go out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Taco Bell was closest. He strapped the kids in their car seats and scanned the radio for something \u201ckid-friendly.\u201d Ted Kaczsynski had just been arrested. They\u2019d identified him as the Unabomber. Whenever the sketch of him appeared on the news, his wife, Sara, made Paul change the channel. Katie found it upsetting. If the news wasn\u2019t upsetting Katie, then the train that ran behind their house was. At night, the tracks ushered through cargo trains so long, Paul could rush to Katie\u2019s room when he heard her first screams, prop her by the window, and point out graffiti on the sides of cars until it finally disappeared.<\/p>\n
Katie was the fussier one and wanted Sara at bedtime, so Paul would put Ben to sleep. He\u2019d read two books then nod off besides his son. Already two, Ben wasn\u2019t talking, only babbling. Sara brought him to the speech therapist at the elementary school, to a child psychologist who watched him play behind a two-way mirror. After they\u2019d read their younger kids to bed and Paul had checked on Amanda, their oldest, who read herself to sleep, Sara would sigh, \u201cI just don\u2019t know what\u2019s wrong with him.\u201d Under the sheets, her hand would glide over Paul\u2019s flaccid penis and rest with a sigh on his chest.<\/p>\n
It was unrelated, but Paul knew Ben was gay. It wasn\u2019t that he liked his sisters\u2019 dolls. Paul just knew. It was a fact.<\/p>\n
Ben stood onto the seat and stomped his feet. Katie looked straight at her dad. \u201cHe\u2019s shaking his rump, Dad. Daddy, he\u2019s shaking his rump.\u201d Butt was one of the words Sara did not allow.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know, Katie,\u201d Mr. Anderson said. He lifted Ben by his toddler armpits and sat him down. \u201cSit, Ben. Eat.\u201d Mr. Anderson pinched the soft shell taco before Ben\u2019s face until he took a bite.<\/p>\n
The thing is, Paul thought he would know if Ben was gay. In the early days of Sara, there had also been Joey. Joey was a year above them, an economics major from New York City. Paul had never been to Manhattan, but he liked listening to Joey talk about it when they worked on problem sets and smoked weed out the window.<\/p>\n
One night, weeks before Joey\u2019s graduation, Joey asked, \u201cYou have a girlfriend?\u201d<\/p>\n
A chill gouged Paul. Joey\u2019s roommates were never home. Joey wore shirts with so many buttons undone and pants that Sara called \u201ckinda faggy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joey brushed hair from Paul\u2019s forehead. He kissed Paul.<\/p>\n
Paul grabbed his things and left Joey\u2019s room. He counted the days until Joey\u2019s graduation. When Sara asked what happened to Joey, Paul just said, \u201cI think he likes me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ben was stomping on his chair again, and, as Katie quickly pointed out, shaking his rump. \u201cBen, behave.\u201d A mother with a bevy of redhead children in Jump Rope for Heart shirts watched, smiling, clucking her tongue. At least she\u2019d had to come here too.<\/p>\n
Sara would be home with Amanda in the morning. They\u2019d gone to New Jersey to see her parents. One of Sara\u2019s parenting magazines ran a feature last month about how each child needed alone time with each parent. Paul was wondering when his time alone would come.<\/p>\n
Because he did go back to Joey\u2019s room. He did join a group of Joey\u2019s friends for a weekend in Provincetown, telling Sara only that they were going to the Cape. He did still get Christmas cards and birthday cards from Joey mailed to his office. Joey called Paul baby daddy, said he\u2019d gone soft in the suburbs. Paul locked this correspondence in his desk drawer.<\/p>\n
Because he did love Sara. Because two gay men had been stabbed in Boston in the Public Gardens last week, kissing on their walk home from dinner, only seven PM on a Sunday. Because he did love his kids, and there were some things Mr. Anderson could never do.<\/p>\n
Ben\u2019s face flared red. Katie wailed in the seat across from him. \u201cDaddy, Daddy, do something.\u201d Tortilla chips littered the table. Queso dribbled down Ben\u2019s chin. What had they said about infant CPR in that first aid class? The one when another dad made strong eye contact at Mr. Anderson and Mrs. Anderson kept saying, \u201cEarth to Paul, Earth to Paul.\u201d Did Ben qualify as an infant? He patted Ben\u2019s back. He shouted for help, and the redhead mother hurried over. \u201cI\u2019m a nurse. Can I help your son?\u201d And she had the chip out his throat while all her redheaded children watched somnolently. Katie screamed and moaned, and none of the redheads reacted at all.<\/p>\n
The woman slid the chips in front of Katie and petted Ben\u2019s hair as he drank from a cup of water with both hands. \u201cYou need to stick to soft shells, buddy. Your daddy should know that by now.\u201d<\/p>\n
He and Katie split the remaining chips. He guided Ben through each bite, starting a refrain of \u201cChew, chew, chew\u201d that Katie sang the whole ride home. At traffic lights and stop signs, Mr. Anderson jumped when he saw drivers in aviator sunglasses and hooded sweatshirts. He wanted Katie to keep singing, to stay ignorant of everything that lurked outside their car.<\/p>\n
When they got home, the kids begged and begged to sleep in his bed, Katie whining and Ben just shouting noises. They fell asleep watching The Little Mermaid<\/em>. When Mr. Anderson heard their little snores, saw their kid hands clasping each other, he went downstairs and poured vodka in a plastic Peter Pan cup. He sat on the back lawn, watching for fireflies, listening for the rush of the train behind their house.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 34 is the slowest in the pool, which shouldn\u2019t surprise anybody, because he\u2019s new. He started swimming a month ago, probably because his mom told him to lose weight. He has these chubby cheeks, and his swimsuit is a size thirty-four, hence the name. All of us wear thirty-two or smaller, and 34’s suit hardly even fits as it is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":16906,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","writer-michael-colbert"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16899"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16905,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16899\/revisions\/16905"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}