Synopsis
Pie Jesu {Chicago, Ill.}
Jake tried to kill me, Lizzie had said.
A lie, of course. But she spread it far and wide before she left California for Indiana: He tried to choke me, she’d repeat.
But—Christ!—it was just a hug, and it went down like this:
Hannah had burst into our room, turned on the light, and demanded to know which one of us was taking her to practice. Lizzie kicked me under the sheets—evidently it was my turn—but I kicked her back, club swim had been her stupid idea, just grant me a little rest.
“Up and at em!” Hannah said, grabbing a corner of the duvet and yanking it off our bodies. But she covered her mouth and shrieked when she realized Lizzie was naked.
Lizzie jerked the duvet up to her chin. “Get out!”
“You’re so hairy,” Hannah said.
“Nobody asked you to rip off our sheets.”
“Do you always sleep naked?”
“Out!”
“You could at least shave, Mom.”
“Jake!”
“God, that hair!” Hannah said. “How can you stand it?”
Was Hannah talking to me? I rolled over and looked at them both; the set and shape of their mouths were strikingly similar.
“I’ll sic your father on you,” Lizzie said.
Hannah extended her perfectly still hand. “See how I tremble.”
I sat up and told her to go get breakfast, I’ll be right down, Christ. I rubbed my greasy face and looked at my lustrous hands.
“Does she always sleep naked?” Hannah said.
“Often enough,” I said. “Now go get breakfast, I’ll be right down.”
Hannah gagged and slammed the door behind her. I leaned in to kiss Lizzie, but she covered her head with her pillow and pushed me away. “No thanks for getting rid of her?”
“Your breath smells like garbage.”
I tossed away the damp sheets, pulled on my pants, and looked at myself in the bathroom mirror. The wrinkles had begun their invasion, of course, but overall, I looked youthful, still blond, no gray. I stuck my head under the bathroom faucet, and the water cooled me.
When I walked into the kitchen, Hannah proclaimed that under no circumstances was I wearing those stupid pajama bottoms to her swim practice.
“They’re not pajamas,” I said.
Hannah shoveled yogurt into her mouth. “They’ve got an elastic waistband and flared-out bottoms,” she said. “You’re treading on serious Dad points.”
I didn’t need more Dad points; I got them when I tripped up the steps or drank plain hot water. I got them when I farted in the bathroom, enjoying the blue-tiled acoustics. Got them when I cried watching reruns of The Wonder Years.
“There are reindeer on them,” Hannah said, crushing her yogurt cup and tossing it like a Hoosier into the recycling bin, a three-pointer.
I snuck back into our room and opened my closet, found a pair of jeans and pulled them on. They were tight, but not so tight that I couldn’t breathe. Surely, Levi’s were okay.
We parked, and Hannah dashed out of the car with her mesh bag full of gear: fins, pull buoy and paddles, goggles, a purple chamois towel that didn’t absorb shit, and a swim snorkel with the team name—Stingrays—printed on the yellow shaft. There was a small fortune in that bag, not to mention the yearly dues, three thousand dollars, which Lizzie promptly shelled out every fall. But Hannah was happy in the water, and after a good practice, she’d grin her three-grand smile, accentuated with sunburned cheeks and brittle hair.
I slipped on my Ray Bans and plopped myself into a chaise on the shady side of the deck. I sipped my coffee and flipped through the latest issue of The New Yorker, then watched Hannah’s coach, Ashley, a recent Stanford swimmer who held several records in breaststroke. Ashley always seemed to coach the swimmers on my side of the pool, which was nice, because everything about Ashley was fantastic: her stacked brown hair; her dark eyes; the way her chin accented her crooked smile; her broad shoulders and muscular legs. But it was Ashley’s warm personality that I liked most; she talked to me as if I mattered, as if I were Jake—a rather cool guy, might I add—and not only a dad. Or maybe Ash was just trying to keep her distance from the parents on the other side of the pool. I wouldn’t have blamed her—they all seemed to think their bratty shits were Olympic material, and the only thing they talked about were swim times: A times and double-A times. Triple-A. Quad-A. I wasn’t even sure what Hannah’s best times were, but those things were irrelevant to me; I was the dad who supported his child in a reasonable manner, not like those parents eight lanes over. I had a life outside my dadness: cycling, a writing hobby. Meaningful work editing shitty manuals—well the work wasn’t all that meaningful, but at least I was good at it and created a decent product.
Ashley caught sight of me, then walked over, keeping her gaze on Hannah. Blond fuzz grew from her thighs. She smelled like lemons. “Hannah’s been swimming really well,” she was saying. “Just needs to focus on technique.”
I closed my magazine and watched Hannah. She was swimming backstroke, her arms smooth and confident. “Seems to have her mother’s genes,” I said, resting my sunglasses on my forehead.
Ashley flexed her tanned toes and looked at me. “You ever think of learning?”
I laughed. “Hannah put you up to this?”
“No,” she said, smiling, “but what’s keeping you?”
“Never feels like the right time.”
Ashley slipped her left foot from her sandal and scratched her calf, perfectly balanced on one foot, a flamingo. “Just sounds like an excuse to me.”
“I nearly drowned once,” I said. “In a pond.”
“Got to face your fears, Dad!” She slipped her foot back into her sandal and slapped my back. “If you change your mind, let me know.”
What was this! Letting her know if I changed my mind? My face flushed, and Ashley walked to the other side of the pool to direct the next set. She had biker’s legs, and I wondered if she rode.
After practice, I took Hannah to Seaside Coffee for a scone and a large-iced chai, her favorite after-swim breakfast. She ate her scone quickly, slurped her tea through a bamboo straw.
“I got you an awesome Father’s Day present,” Hannah said.
“A tie?”
“You don’t have a tie sort of job.”
“A really nice pen, then?”
Hannah swirled the ice in her cup, then placed it on her empty plate. “No, not a pen,” she said. “I never see you write.”
“Scotch?”
“Nope.”
“Bourbon,” I said.
“It’s not alcohol!” She punched my arm. “You’ll find out next Saturday.”
“Father’s Day is Sunday.”
Hannah grinned. “Such a smart daddy!”
Lizzie was on the patio when we got home, her pale feet in the sun, the rest of her body in the shade. She had a book in one hand, a cup of coffee in the other, and a half-eaten everything bagel balanced on her knee. When she saw me, she closed her book and asked about practice. I told her it was fine.
“What did they swim?”
“Laps,” I said.
“Very funny.” She took off her white, movie star sunglasses and tucked them into the pocket on her T-shirt. “Strokes?”
“All of them?”
She took a bite from her bagel. “Did you even pay attention?”
“I was reading,” I said, “but every time I looked up, she was swimming.”
“I pay a lot of money for swimming, so we need to be sure Hannah gets the times she deserves.” She sipped her coffee and set it on the side table.
“Daddy spends lots of time talking to Coach Ashley.”
We both looked up, and Hannah smiled at us from her bedroom window, her arms casually resting on the sill. She was wrapped in a towel.
“Go take your shower,” I said.
“Mom, you don’t need to get mad at Dad,” she said. “He’s being present with me.”
I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing—Hannah had mimicked Lizzie perfectly.
“Take your shower,” Lizzie said.
Hannah disappeared from the window, and Lizzie looked at me. “Pay attention to the sets, not the coach.”
“She’s the one who talks to me,” I said, and it was true: I had never initiated a conversation with Coach Ash.
Lizzie scratched her neck, leaving a long, red streak across her throat. “Just bring home some useful information.”
“You take her if you want the info,” I said. “I don’t speak your swim lingo.”
“You’d learn if you paid attention.” Lizzie perched her sunglasses on her nose and leaned back into her chair. “What did you and Ashley talk about?”
“Ash told me that Hannah was swimming really well.”
“Ash?” Lizzie said. “You call her Ash?”
“Everyone calls her Ash,” I said. “Not a big deal.”
“I certainly don’t call her Ash.”
“It’s true, Mom, we all call her Ash.”
We both looked up at Hannah, and she waved.
“Shower now, or you lose Internet.” Lizzie could be fierce.
Hannah looked at me. “Listen to your mother,” I said.
“You guys are so unfair.” She did a dramatic twist away from the window, and I went inside. Lizzie followed, put her dishes in the dishwasher and shut the door with her hip. I loved that move, the way it puckered her shorts just above her butt. I heard the shower run.
“I’m going to my office,” Lizzie said. “I’ve got a big case.”
I put the kettle on the stove, watched the flames unfurl along the sides of the All-Clad. “Okay.”
“You don’t mind?”
I looked at her, tried to gauge her mood, but her voice was flat, as was her face. I told her I didn’t mind.
Lizzie’s left eye twitched, and she dried her hands on a dish towel. “You sure?”
I reached out to touch her, but the kettle whistled, and I turned to fill my otter mug, the one Hannah gave me for Christmas: No Otter Dad Compares To YOU, it read. I sprinkled in some instant coffee, then went to the fridge for a little milk. But when I turned back for my coffee, Lizzie was gripping my mug in her hand. Trembling waves of black coffee sloshed over the rim and ran down the sides. Her knuckles were white.
“You don’t care,” she said.
Of course I care, I insisted, but she didn’t believe me, found me self-centered, narcissistic, and a terrible lover to boot. And then she doused me in hot coffee.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” I said. I wanted to throttle her, to grab her hands and bend them until I heard her bones crack, but my anger passed quickly, and my thigh was soon blistered up. Lizzie flung the mug into the sink, and I reached for her after it shattered—I wanted to tell her that we were okay, that I forgive her, we can work this out—then swung my arm around her neck to bring her in for a hug. But I should have known better: She slapped me hard across my face.
“Don’t fucking trap me like that.” She slammed the door behind her.
I was stunned. I scribbled a note for Hannah and left it on the counter—out for a walk, meet at the beach?—then walked out the door. The tide was out, and there was a dolphin rotting in the sand. Some boys were kicking it, trying to break through its dull skin. I wished it could swim away, but it just lay there, pathetic, and took the beating from the boys. “Let it fester in peace,” I said.
“Fucking weirdo,” the oldest boy said.
I turned away and cried, I couldn’t help it, and the blister on my thigh popped. The serum ran down my leg and into my sandal.
And that’s what went down, my word versus Lizzie’s. Was I the jerk? I acted honorably given all the facts, but truth is slippery, I suppose, and instantly becomes fiction when we commit it to memory.
But I do miss my mug.
We all went to swim practice the following Saturday. Lizzie stood in the pool gutter, focused on Hannah’s technique, but from where I sat on the deck, Lizzie appeared to be standing on water, a real Jesus. What did she see in Hannah’s stroke? Why did she frown? Hannah looked so elegant. I put my magazine down and walked to the edge of the pool, hanging my toes just inches from the water. “Olympic material, right?”
“Olympians don’t drop their elbows.”
I nodded seriously.
“Her forearms should be vertical at the catch,” Lizzie said, “her palms the fulcrum of her pull.”
“Indeed.”
“I can’t believe her coach hasn’t said anything.”
“She’s got thirty other swimmers to keep track of.”
“She needs an assistant.”
“You should offer,” I said. “You’d be great.”
Lizzie laughed. “I’m not qualified.”
“You set records at Blaurock,” I said. “Of course you’re qualified.”
“Division III records don’t necessarily make a good coach,” she said. “And besides, I’m too busy.”
Ashley walked over and commented on how good Hannah was swimming.
“She’s dropping her elbows,” Lizzie said.
Ashely watched Hannah for a moment, then said that, yeah, maybe she was dropping them a bit, but still, she looks superb.
“Just like her mother,” I said, but Lizzie tensed when I put my arm around her waist.
“You swam?” Ashley said. “I didn’t realize that.”
“Fly,” Lizzie said. “Free, too. Nothing too competitive.”
“You still swim?”
“Lizzie’s amazing,” I told Ashley.
Lizzie pushed my hand away. “I burned my buoy and paddles after my last collegiate meet,” she said. “It’s been a long time.”
“Well, your daughter’s gifted,” Ashley said. “She’ll go far with good training.”
“She’s also a strong biker,” I said.
Lizzie explained that I thought Hannah would make a good triathlete. “I just got her a new Cannondale,” I added. “If you think she’s fast in water, you should see her on pavement.”
After practice, Hannah ran toward me with a goofy grin on her face. She was carrying a brown paper sack from the Safeway. I asked her what was up, and she tossed the sack into my lap and told me to open it.
I put my magazine down. “Now? Shouldn’t we do this at home?”
“Just open it,” she said. “You’ll see.”
I looked around. Ashley had pulled off her shorts and was standing in her suit. Lizzie was talking to her. They were across the pool near the diving well. I opened the bag and pulled out my striped board shorts. “Swim trunks?”
“Check the pocket,” Hannah said. “Hurry up!”
I pulled back the Velcro on the side pocket and fished out a note. “For Daddy on Your Father’s Day” it said in Hannah’s loopy cursive. I unfolded it:
Three reasons you should learn to swim:
- 1) It will keep your heart strong.
- 2) It will make your daughter (me!) happy.
- 3) It will change your life.
I folded up the note and slid it into my pocket. “Thank you so much.”
She pointed to the locker rooms. “You can change in there,” she said. “We’ll be waiting in the water.”
“Now?” I said. “We?”
“It’s your Father’s Day present!” Hannah said. “Coach Ashley is giving you a lesson today. Mom said it was a wonderful gift.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“Are you surprised?”
“I am,” I said, “but do you think we could do this another time?”
Hannah grabbed my hand. “Absolutely not,” she said. “You won’t do it otherwise.”
Well, that much was true; my girl knew me well. “All right,” I finally said. “I guess I have to change.”
“He’s gonna do it!” she shouted at Ashley and Lizzie.
In the locker room, I stripped off my shirt and stood in front of the mirror above the row of gleaming sinks. I sucked in my stomach. Pushed out my chest. I attempted a flex—there had to be muscles somewhere in this body. When my ears grew hot, I exhaled, and my body resumed its limpness. I rubbed my pecs—small breasts, really—then took off my shorts and slipped out of my underwear.
Homo domesticus in his natural state.
I stepped backward and looked at my naked body. It wasn’t too bad, not really, not if I was being honest with myself. Maybe better than most guys my age? And weren’t those biking muscles there in my legs? Abs are for douches. My penis was functional, worthy even. I flicked it a couple of times, tried to wake it up, but it ignored me. It certainly worked as it should, though, even if it took a while longer and didn’t last quite as long. Lizzie always came.
I stepped toward the mirror and flexed my arms again. There were zero muscles anywhere on my upper body. Zilch. A sucky specimen of the male type. Maybe swimming would do me some good. Physically for sure, but maybe even my dadness would improve? Grow closer to daughter Hannah? But only if I didn’t drown.
Homo domesticus returns from hunt empty-handed, losing trust of mate and child.
I turned sideways and tried to study my profile, a look-at-yourself-without-trying-to sort of move, but all I saw was slumped shoulders. Pathetic. And I thought of all the boys on the ball field at recess who took obvious steps toward home plate when I came up to bat. I nicked the ball once, but I ran all the way to second before I realized that the catcher had caught my hit. “I got your ball in my mitt,” he called out. I pulled the bill of my hat low over my face and sulked off the field. I was an out.
And apparently, I still am, because, suddenly, there was a man looking at me in the mirror, a young guy with dark hair and a thick neck—Jesus, where’d he come from?—and I pounded my chest like an idiot. “I’m just seeing what’s here.”
He scanned my body. I wanted to tell him there was nothing to see, I’m not built like you, but then I looked down.
Homo erectus.
Why that now? And how did I not notice? That scared me even more.
I blushed and wrapped myself in the safety of my towel, but my erection poked through the folds, a nervous stagehand peeking through the curtain at the pre-show audience. I explained that I was just getting changed, that boner has nothing to do with you, these things happen—haha!—it’s just the breeze, right? And I’m sure it has even happened to you?
He stepped around me and silently washed in the sink. “Enjoy your swim with Ash,” he said finally. He shook the water off his large hands, then walked out the door.
I looked down; the stagehand was gone, probably picking his nose in the dark. Fuck. I dropped my towel and sat on the bench, then slid my legs into my threadbare board shorts. I stood, tying them, and Hannah’s thickly folded note rubbed against my ass.
She was swimming laps when I came out of the locker room, while Lizzie, who was holding Hannah’s mesh equipment bag, sat cross-legged on a diving block at the end of the lane. Hannah did a flip turn, splashing water onto Lizzie’s legs. The drops gleamed on her bronzed skin, and she was sexy—water did that to her. I swung my arms and stretched, mimicking the swimmers I’d seen on Hannah’s YouTube videos. I asked Lizzie if this whole thing had been her idea.
“Not at all,” she said, “but it’s a good one.”
Hannah popped her head up below us. “Are you ready?” She looked like an otter.
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” I said. Hannah heaved a wave of water on me and Lizzie laughed, but I scolded her: “If you want me in the water, let me take my time.”
“Don’t be such a grouch,” Lizzie said. And then she pushed me in.
I opened my eyes and blinked in the hazy light; my phone read nearly three o’clock. I packed my bag and watched the flow of the Chicago landscape. The gleaming skyscrapers along the skyline moved slowly, as if slogging through the watery depths of Lake Michigan, while the abandoned cars in the trash-strewn lots next to the tracks whizzed by. It were as if the rich had figured out how to delay death while the down-and-out careened toward it. My arms were bricks, and I skidded my tongue across the back of my teeth; they felt like fuzzy sweaters. When the train slowed and the rail yard widened, we slipped under Union Station and lurched to a halt. Folks stood, but I sat for a bit, watching people exit with all their baggage.
I wandered down Adams Street, found a pub, ordered a couple of beers and a pizza, then crossed Michigan Avenue and headed toward the Art Institute. Several banners announcing the museum’s current show—PERMANENCE—snapped in the hot breeze. There were lots of families out and about, energetic young parents with dazed kids in strollers, along with those checked and chastened by their shitty teens. One mother, slumped against a pole, phone in hand, yelled at her daughter to get away from the road, goddammit. The girl, maybe two or three and wearing yellow shorts and a grubby white shirt with a red stain down the front, ran in front of me. I grabbed her arm just before she reached the street. She gazed at me through her long curls then shrieked, and her mother was on me in a flash, striking my back with her phone. I dropped the handle of my roller bag, and it fell over. People stopped walking and held up their phones.
“Get your goddam hands off my kid!” The child jumped into her mother’s arms. “You some sort of perv?” She began hitting me again, but a police officer pulled her off me.
“He tried to take my kid,” the mother said. “Did you see it?”
I picked up my bag, rubbed my cheek, and the officer, whose badge read L. Kosanki, said that she saw what had happened and chided Mom for being careless. “He likely saved your girl,” she added. “Pay better attention.”
“But he grabbed her,” she said. “Look!” The mother pushed up her daughter’s sleeve, and there were my red fingerprints splotching her brown arms. The child whimpered.
“A bruised child or a dead child?” Kosanki said. “Your choice.”
The woman tried shoving the officer, but Kosanki cuffed her, and the child fell. The little girl landed on her feet, eyes full of light, a beautiful little girl. Jesus, no need for arrests, I told the officer, just a little misunderstanding, but Kosanki ignored me, even after the mother repeated what I’d said: Did you hear? You can let me go, no big deal to him. Backup arrived, and someone in the small crowd yelled Fuck The Police! and the mother apologized, but Kosanki pushed her into the squad car anyway, then questioned me a bit, got my name and number, told me that they’d let me know if they needed anything, and off they went. The mother turned, and her glare stung me through the rear window.
I cut through Grant Park, crossed Lakeshore Drive, and walked along Lakefront Trail past Monroe Harbor, the Yacht Club, and DuSable Harbor. I crossed the Chicago River and didn’t stop until I made it to Navy Pier. I got a drink and watched the boats slip by. I half expected Anna to pop her head up out of the water like the seals at Point Lobos, but she didn’t. I glanced at the TV—the Cubs were winning, and I thought of Grandpa Stolzfus working in his wood shop, listening to the Cubs on WGN. Home was close. I felt it pulling me under.
The Art Institute was closed when I returned, but there was a woman bent over the front steps, sprinkling something—coffee grounds, maybe?—onto the concrete. She wore cut-offs and a loose green T-shirt with a bicycle printed on the front. Her curly, dark hair was pulled back into a loose bun, but stray strands brushed against her brown cheeks, which were scattered with freckles. People pressed close, but she carried herself with radiance, as if she were Queen of the Steps. I watched her for a bit, then moved in a little closer. She scooped a discarded yogurt cup into a plastic bread bag, ladled out some grounds, then dusted the grounds across the concrete steps, shaping them into long, vital lines with her fingers and the side of her hand. These lines soon took the shape of birds and vines and flowers. She smiled when she noticed me, told me to take a look. Grounds were smeared across her cheek and caked under her pink-painted nails. She stepped back. “Endangered birds,” she said.
“Amazing,” I said. “What kind?”
She stretched her arms above her head and cracked her spine. She was tall, her features lean: small breasts, slim waist, narrow wrists. Her shoulders were well muscled, and she had athletic legs, bicycle legs, like Hannah’s. “This is a bird of paradise,” she said. She took a small paintbrush from her pocket and leaned into the bird’s tail feathers, adjusting the shading, then stepped back and studied the composition. A dad with two small kids clapped and put a dollar in her basket before walking off. I don’t think she even noticed.
“Well?” she said.
I looked at her exquisite lines and was completely stunned: How had she done this? With coffee grounds, no less? It was better than any drawing I’d ever seen, and I told her so. But why was she doing this here?
She pointed to the banner hanging from the facade of the building. “Who wants art in a stuffy gallery?”
“Lots of people, I suppose?”
“Only those attached to the stench of permanent collections.” She tucked her supplies into the basket attached to her handlebars. “And that’s the problem, because when you die, that’s it.”
She had six dollars in a tip jar. I asked her how she got by.
“Dumb question.”
“How do you live?”
“I just showed you.”
“But what about these?” I asked. “How do you show your work?”
“Did you see it?”
I nodded.
She smiled. “That’s all that matters.”
“But what will you do with it?”
She asked me if I’d ever heard of Mierle Laderman Ukeles. I had not, and she explained that Ukeles was a performance artist, she once wrote a choreograph for front-end loaders at a landfill, did crazy shit like that, and I asked her what that had to do with her. “It’s the doing that’s important, not the product,” she said. “It forces us to question art as commodity.”
“You’re a performance artist, then?”
She lightly tapped my nose with the tip of her finger. “Don’t try to name it!” she said. “Would you like the honor of sweeping it up?” She removed a small hand broom and dust pan from the pannier fastened on her bicycle rack.
I looked at the birds perched on their branches, at their swooping tail feathers cascading down the concrete steps, at the epiphytes—the ferns, orchids, and bromeliads—growing on the tropical branches, all perfectly shaded with layers of coffee grounds. I couldn’t do it.
She yanked the broom and dust pan from my hand and gave me her camera. I had disappointed her. “No one can seem to do it,” she said. “Film me sweeping it up.”
I pushed the record button, she smiled and waved, bowed theatrically, laughing all the while, then swept it up, all of it—the feathers, the bodies, the branches, the plant life—reverently swept it all until the steps were bare. I stopped the camera, and she poured the grounds into a glass jar. I asked her what she planned to do with the grounds.
“Off to Grant Park,” she said. “You mind pushing my Ruby?”
I grabbed the rubber handles on her bicycle and kicked up the stand. Her bike made a nice clinking sound while we walked. I wished I’d ditched my suitcase at the hotel. We crossed Jackson Drive and headed toward the Buckingham Fountain. The wind was brisk off the lake, and I saw glimpses of it between the stacked buildings along Lake Shore Drive. It was odd being in the Midwest yet so close to a large body of water. I didn’t feel small here like I did in California, where the water presses you up against the steep hills, where the land slips so easily from your feet. Here it was all open, even given the gray buildings springing from the ground like iron weeds. I breathed in the air, felt my chest expand.
“Here we go,” she said, opening the jar and widening her stance. “Watch.” And when a big wind came off the lake, she hurled the grounds into the air and her drawing was gone, just like that.
“Did you see it?”
I told her that I did, but who really cares where used coffee grounds fall?
We stopped for coffee at a sticky McDonald’s. She told me her name was Diana, then opened two dozen packets of sugar and poured them onto the table. I sipped my coffee and watched her work the sugar until she had replicated the birds that she’d drawn on the steps. I asked her why she didn’t just draw her birds with, you know, a pencil or something, and she said that she wanted something more ephemeral, something that would ultimately disintegrate, because that’s what art’s about, nothing lasts forever.
“That seems to be the opposite of what most artists want,” I said.
She slashed her finger through the sugar birds, then made a quick, crude drawing of a tick. Its lines were thick, nowhere near as delicate as the bird’s. “The soft underbelly of art is ego,” she said finally, “and I’m sucking it dry.”
An associate, a young woman, marched around the counter and came to our table, wet rag in hand. Her co-workers stood stock-still behind the registers and watched.
“Ya’ll can’t be pouring sugar all over the place,” she said, red lipstick smeared beyond her lip lines.
“So sorry,” Diana said. “We’re just getting ready to leave.”
The worker—Amanda, according to her name tag—cocked her head sideways and looked at Diana’s sugar drawing. “Is that a turtle?”
“A tick,” Diana said.
The boys behind the register laughed.
Amanda grimaced. “Because?”
“Ticks are useful.”
“You’re disgusting,” Amanda said, tossing her rag on the table. But Diana stopped her, asked if she could film the moment she wiped the table clean.
Amanda thought for a moment, then straightened her back and pushed out her ample chest. “Sure, why not.” The boys behind the counter whooped and hollered, egging her on.
Diana pulled out her camera and began recording while Amanda fell into character, a perturbed McDonald’s employee with a sopping dishrag, a role she performed with relish. And after the table was clean, Amanda called over her co-workers and we all watched the movie two or three times, and then Diana got Amanda’s contact info and promised to send her the video when she got home. Amanda high-fived her boys and they all returned to the counter.
Diana told me that she has a preacher friend who says that her artistic process is an act of transubstantiation. “In fact,” she said, “the crystals on the table become more than atomized sugar.”
But what is it when the grounds are swept up and flung to the void? Or sugar wiped off a table and scattered across a greasy floor? “It seems pointless,” I said.
She glanced out the smeary window, then looked at me, her brown eyes warm. “Still a drawing, just a different form.”
I must have looked confused, because Diana grabbed my arm and brushed her warm fingers from my wrist up to my elbow. “What’s this?”
Trick question, I thought, but I couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I said arm.
She smiled. “Your skin lines.” She had lettuce stuck between her teeth.
I just sat there with her fingers on my forearm.
“Means you’re not pointless,” she said. “Means you’re the sum of your points.”
I’d never considered that.
“And you don’t cease to exist when you die,” she continued. “When your skin fails, you become something else, something atomic and molecular—something wonderful—and you live on, your scattering points forever you, but forever not.”
“Reincarnation,” I said.
“Resurrection, actually,” she said. “One big art-act.”
Diana’s sister arrived to pick her up, and I followed her out, helped her hoist Ruby onto the bike carrier. She hugged me awkwardly, said she hoped to see me again, thanks for the good conversation. I watched them leave, then Amanda was at the door.
“Your suitcase, sir?”
I took the black handle. There was a thin line of coffee grounds on the cement from the McDonald’s entrance out to the parking spot Diana’s sister had occupied.
“Do you think she’ll really send it to me?”
I looked up. “I’m certain she will.”
The water was cold. I floated just below the surface, then began to sink. Panicked, I lifted my head and grabbed a quick breath, gulping lots of water in the process. I was prepared to sink again, but my toe scraped the bottom of the pool. I could stand, thank God, so I did, and the terror dissipated. I coughed and caught my breath, then Hannah jumped on my back, her nails digging into my skin. Lizzie pulled out her phone and took a picture of us, which we later mounted in a sleek metal frame—me with a rigid smile, Hannah rapturous. Ashley jumped in the water and swam to me. Hannah fell off my back, going under and pushing her way between my knees, then popped up and squirted water in my face from the gap between her front teeth.
Ashley said that the secret to swimming was learning how to float. “You have to trust the water to hold you.”
“Like this, Daddy,” Hannah said. She floated effortlessly, as if the water were actually trying to toss her onto the deck.
“Do what Hannah did,” Ashley said.
“Yeah, Dad,” Hannah said, “do what I do.”
I plugged my nose and tipped my head backward, but Ashley grabbed my knees. I stood. “Don’t plug your nose,” she said. “You need as much of your body on the surface as possible, so put your arms above your head.”
I was worried I’d get water up my nose, but Lizzie said that if I just relaxed, I wouldn’t. Easy coming from a swimmer. I leaned back again but chickened out and caught myself with my feet. Hannah laughed, called me a rock, and Ashley suggested that she and Hannah help me float, just lie back—that’s it, we’ve got you, spread your arms wide, let the water hold you. I lay there, my eyes above the water, my ears under, everything muffled, the sky bright blue. I shut my eyes, focusing on the four hands touching my skin, and then, quite suddenly, I was floating. I heard Hannah’s deep giggle, her clapping, but I didn’t dare look, no, I kept my eyes closed, because this floating was amazing. But then I felt it, that bolt of fear of being pulled under, and when I tensed, I sank. But Hannah was there, her soft hands back on my back, her voice in my right ear, You’re doing great, Daddy, then Ashley’s in my left, You’re okay, everything’s okay, and I floated a little longer, the sun warming my weightless belly. The bottom’s there if I sink, I told myself, I can touch here. And then I did. I looked around; all three cheered me on. Lizzie wiped away a tear.
Ash told me that I did great, and Hannah said, “Easy, right?”
I told her that it was, let’s try it again, but maybe a little deeper this time, and while I floated, they pushed me out—me the barge, Ash and Hannah the tugs—and I floated in the deep end. I could hardly believe it. And when I finished, I twisted around and grabbed the lane line. “It’s fun,” I said.
Ashley climbed out of the water and sat on the ledge. Her hair was longer and darker when wet. “Want to try swimming backstroke?”
“Sure he does!” Hannah said, treading water next to me.
Fine, I thought, get it over with. Make her happy.
Ashley went into full coaching mode and told me that I was going to stay on my back and kick, not hard—your knees shouldn’t be popping out of the water—but a nice solid kick that comes from your hips.
“Think you can do that?” Hannah said.
“Sure,” I said. I turned over onto my back, let go of the lane line, and floated. I began to kick but soon discovered that my body dropped if I kicked too hard. But when I kicked in even measured beats, I actually moved. Maybe if I quit disparaging the water, it would stop trying to kill me. It would be an uneasy truce.
When I reached the end of the pool, I stood up. “You swam!” Hannah said. “I can’t believe my dad just swam!”
Lizzie told Hannah that she should probably hop out and shower off, and though she grumbled, she obeyed her mother. I watched her walk to the locker room, pulling a wedgie from her crack.
Ashley tossed me goggles. “One more go?”
I strapped the Vanquishers onto my head, leaned back, and steadied my breathing. I kicked, leaving the harbor, and through my foggy goggles witnessed Ashley laughing with Lizzie. But they soon slipped out of view, and it was just me and the sky and the water. Everything felt great—the gentle kicking, the ripples and swells sloshing against my head, the deadened sounds—and I suddenly understood why my girls were obsessed with water. Maybe I could be a swimmer, too. Maybe I’d wax into a better father, husband, and lover. And then my fear blindsided me: The water’s deep here, you surely realize. My gut tensed first, then my legs, arms, back. At least twelve feet, untouchable. I tried to swallow the voice, but my knees jerked up to my chest—they were beyond my control—and I sank like an anchor, coming to a rest on the drain. I exhaled, and my last breath went up in dancing, haughty bubbles with scintillant lines. The sun was shimmery, the surface far away. So, this was it. How embarrassing, erased by a Father’s Day gift.
But something nudged my rear—fingers, maybe?—and began pushing me up, faster, pressing through my board shorts. I looked down, and in the white bubbles was a hand, barely distinguishable, more bulge and surge than human. It sent me, and then I was airborne. But Ashley was there when I hit the water, and she rolled me onto the deck.
Lizzie snorted. “You got another hole in your butt.”
I twisted around and thrust my thigh out, lifting my leg slightly. Sure enough, an abbreviated portion of my ass was squeezed through the tear in my trunks. My face reddened.
Ashley squatted and touched my exposed skin. “What are those marks?” she said.
I flinched—the red blazes seared like sunburn.
“They look like fingerprints,” Lizzie said.
I sat up and stared at the drain, but the water was still.
I wore my yellow scuba mask when they baptized me. It was the only way I’d do it, and Dad had agreed to it, though his mockery was ruthless. Mom, however, told him to knock it off or I’d never get baptized, and was that what he wanted? No, it wasn’t.
I was nearly fourteen and had spent the early part of the summer preparing: I read scripture; I prayed lots of prayers, some rote, most fervent; I examined my soul; I thanked God before every meal; and, more importantly, I avoided looking at breasts. My inward studies eventually culminated in an examination with Pastor Silas:
Do you believe in Jesus?
Yes, of course.
Was he the Son of God?
Yes.
Sent for the forgiveness of sins?
Indeed, I’m nothing without Christ, I told him.
“And you’ll walk with him unto death?” Silas said.
Death seemed far off, an old person’s affliction, but sure, I’d take a couple of nails for my Lord.
Silas smiled at that. “And do you accept the hustle and bustle of the Holy Spirit?”
I told him that I didn’t see the necessity of confessing that, exactly, because didn’t calling on one get you a trio of superheroes? And wasn’t Jesus enough?
“Indeed,” Silas said.
I’d shilly-shallied because Holy Spirit tried to kill me when I was nine. Perhaps it wasn’t technically the Holy Spirit’s fault, but shouldn’t an all-knowing God keep an obese pig farmer from crushing an innocent boy?
At Cowlick Creek, our little church planted in the sandy lowlands near the Kankakee River, you lined up for healing. You lined up, waiting for the touch from Pastor Silas. You lined up, waiting for the oil. You lined up, waiting for the wind. And then, if the Spirit chose, you fell over. Usually there were elders—Dad included—who caught the slain, but even four strong elders couldn’t contain Tubby Martin, who’d limped up the aisle, buttressed with the massive walking stick he’d hewn from an oak. He looked at the wooden cross and requested deliverance from his bad knees.
A stomach ache had sent me to the cross that Sunday morning. Tubby was in front of me, and the gum lady was in front of him, her lopsided sausage legs stuffed into her Sunday stockings. She often went to the altar for some evenness, and after church, while she handed out sticks of Juicy Fruit, we asked her when her legs would level out, and she always told us that it took time to grow extra leg, just you wait and see.
Pastor Silas prayed, and the gum lady went down, and while she was out, an elder pulled off her stockings and we witnessed the miracle of the ever-leveling purple-mottled legs. Jesus was praised. But when Tubby Martin tried stepping around the gum lady’s prone body, which wasn’t easy given his bum knee, he inadvertently stepped on her new leg, and, tottering like a drunk over correcting a turn, swerved sharply. And, in a flash, Tubby Martin was on top of me.
Mom said that I was blue when they rolled him off. And when you came to, Dad added, you asked for the sun. And so that’s what we did, Mom said, we dragged you out to the parking lot and the sun pinked your back, just like that, another miracle we all witnessed.
The following Sunday, we found Char, Mom’s pianist, sitting in the front pew staring at the ghostly indentations in the carpeting where the piano had been. “It was gone when I got here,” Char said.
Mom sat next to Char, and Dad opened the utility closet next to the stage. As if a piano could fit in there. “Not in there,” he said. “I’ll check downstairs.”
Mom shuffled her sheet music and tightened the belt on her flowered skirt. “What will we do without a piano?” She looked at me, waiting for an answer, but I shrugged then watched a gray moth bump against the window.
“I’m sure it will show up,” Char said. “Pianos always do.”
Just then Dad came up the steps with a crisp slip of paper in his hand. “I found this taped to the office door,” he said. “It’s from John Martin.” And he read the note:
Due to unforeseen circumstances involving particular parties—some earthly, others heavenly—the piano, which, I might add, was donated by the aforementioned (me), has been rendered, unfortunately, mute to particular parties, namely, the congregation at Cowlick Creek, on account of my having knee doctor bills now, not to mention a seepy bruise in my lower vertebrae vis-à-vis that youngster—and likely ne’er-do-well—Jacob. May Godspeed you in your future endeavors,
—John (Tubby) M.
Dad crushed the note and tossed it at the poor moth. It flapped around on the carpeting, and we sang a cappella that Sunday. But without the piano, our sotto voce hymns were no match for Pastor Timothy’s vibrant falsetto.
Dear Timothy, our beloved youth pastor.
I wanted to wring your neck when I was twelve, because it was you who made me fear the Holy Spirit. I hated you for it, but the girls loved you, including Carrie, my beautiful crush. I’m sure you noticed her height and knew her age—three inches taller than me and two years older—but did you love her thick blond hair as much as I? How she pinched it from her eyes with blue barrettes? Or were you more partial to the watermelon gloss on her lips or the jasmine lotion on her skin? And what about those cozy sweaters? Or, in summer, the denim shorts she chose to accentuate her long legs? How she paired them with cropped shirts that flaunted her narrow navel? I didn’t like it when she went on about your sexiness, how your long, dark hair shimmered under the church’s fluorescent lights. Or how your leather cowboy boots squeaked when you walked. She liked your snug jeans—everyone did—the ones with the little hole in the crotch that blazed your perfect swagger. And those stained and worn T-shirts: Did you want your nipples so prominently displayed? But the best thing about you, Carrie told me, was the love you kept with your dog-eared Bible, the one with the worn leather cover. “Have you seen how he carries it?”
Of course I had—we all had!—but I played stupid.
“He hugs it next to his hip when he walks,” she said. “God! Even my mom thinks it’s sexy.”
But sex and power are two sides of a copper chip. You’d been preaching a series on the power of the Holy Spirit, your texts from I Corinthians, and that night you promised us miracles. It had been a hot, stagnant summer, and I was glad this series of yours was nearly over. I stared at the ceiling fan, and though it wobbled noisily, I couldn’t feel the wind. I was thirsty, but the water from the fountain tasted like a bucket of nails.
After we sang, you shifted your guitar to your back and lined us up in a long, snaking row across the room. I eyed the door—I didn’t like the looks of this at all—and then you began praying for us, starting with Matt, who stood near the window. You rested your hands on his head, your soon prayers nothing but babble, louder and louder, until Matt hit the floor with a thud, glossolalia spewing from his mouth like vomit. You moved to Davey, and moments later, he was writhing on the floor for the Lord. And then Albert, poor Albert, hit the floor with a boner. I realize that we shouldn’t have called him Boner Bertie, but he shouldn’t have worn sweatpants to church. We were cruel.
Carrie, though.
Her breasts wobbled and heaved when she hit the floor, and she lay there, still as stone, hair splayed in a golden plume above her head. But why did you kneel next to her? You hadn’t done so with the boys. I watched you pray, chin uplifted, your mouth in motion, and then you put your hands on her breasts. I couldn’t believe it. You held them there forever, but Carrie, in her sorry state, didn’t notice. I knew you had pastoral privileges, but this seemed a bit lavish.
My friends dropped one by one. You came closer, your Stetson cologne filling my nose. Your boots were encrusted with stoney mud, the wooden cross shameless around your tan neck. Did you notice when I moved down a couple of places? Soon, my friend Ross was babbling on the floor, Jesus Christ. And then you leveled your gaze on me, lips moving, nonsense spewing from your mouth. I didn’t, at first, understand your words, but in a flash, a deep comprehension swelled in my gut, and even when I put my fingers in my ears, the words gushing from your mouth were loud: You are mine, and I will hold you until you’re safe.
I took a couple of hesitant steps, then sprinted from the fire in the room and ran to the church bus. I kicked its deflated tire and cried, ashamed that I’d fled the spirit, sorry that I’d given you the OK to rest your hands on my love. Why was Jesus so fucking blind to it all? A breeze stirred the cottonwoods above the bus, and the cold rain was unleashed moments later.
On the way home, Mom asked me about the youth service, and I told her it was fine, nothing new. I was in the backseat, watching the wiper blades push the rain around. Dad’s face flashed in the rearview mirror when a car came at us in the opposite lane. He looked tired.
“You seem kind of quiet,” she said.
I told her that I was just tired. Dad adjusted the AC, aimed the vent on me. The cool air felt good, maybe even reliable.
“Anything special happen?” Mom said.
The rain picked up, and I smelled it through the vents. “Nothing special.”
Mom was quiet for a bit. “Ross’s mom said all the youth were speaking in tongues.”
Dad turned up the radio when “How Deep Is Your Love” came on: We belong to you and me, the Bee Gees sang. “You’re my savior when I fall.” Mom turned it down, but when I protested, Dad reached for the knob to turn it up.
Mom slapped his fingers away. “We’re trying to have a conversation, Duane,” she said.
Dad turned it off. “Talk to your mother,” he said finally.
“Some people fell, some didn’t,” I said. “Everyone sang, and then it was over. Can you put the Bee Gees back on?”
“Char said that Ross didn’t see you in the room.”
“Oh, Cheri,” Dad said, “it’s not a big deal.”
Mom sighed. “Maybe next time.”
I leaned back into my seat; the song was probably over by now. I should have told Mom that there wouldn’t be a next time, but Dad had switched the radio to AM, and we listened to Paul Harvey’s nostalgic inanities instead.
Afternoon haze and pale, white sun. We filed from the church and streamed the AC in our cars. Dad put his arm on the seat and turned around to look at me.
I held up my yellow scuba mask. “I’m ready.”
He nodded, then pulled onto the road. All the cars fall into line behind us. I asked if all those people were coming to my baptism, and Mom told me that they were, an expression of faith only counts if people witness it. We looked like a funeral procession.
Cowlick Pond was a few miles from the church, and once we were gathered at the water’s edge, Silas said a few words about surrendering ourselves to God and carrying our crosses every day, even unto death. We swatted mosquitoes and sang a couple of choruses, then Dad and Silas slogged through the reeds and into the pond, still wearing their Sunday clothes. My toes touched the water; it wasn’t cold. A green dragonfly settled on my scabbed knee, and when I tried to shoo it away, it hopped onto my finger. I raised it up until it was at the tip of my nose. What did it see through its glimmering, compound eyes? How did I look to it? Did it fear me? It didn’t seem to, but who knows the minds of bugs?
Mom pushed me forward and whispered, “They’re waiting.”
The dragonfly zipped away, and I slipped the yellow mask over my face, pressing it until I felt my upper lip pucker against the rubber seal. Silas, anchored in the water like an old piling, planted his hands on his narrow hips, but Dad reached for me, arms outstretched, his eyes a bit watery. I took a hesitant step forward, then another, but the watery grasses brushing against my ankles panicked me and I almost fell. I quickly steadied myself, however; a premature baptism wouldn’t count.
The water was up to my neck when I finally reached them. Silas put his hand on my head, asked if I believed in Jesus, my redeemer. I nodded. And did I pledge to walk with him, even if it meant my death? I nodded again; we’d gone through this already. And did I believe in the power of love? We hadn’t discussed that; what, exactly, did he mean by love? But before I could answer—maybe he thought I’d say no—he shoved me under. Everything was a murk, but there were Dad’s slacks, the beige polyester clinging to his thighs, and there his leather belt, the one with the buckle that spelled out his name in block letters. There were the fish, nipping Dad’s feet, lured to the crevices in his skin, and there the water snake slipping through the reeds. But what was this right hand gripping my left ankle? It was reaching up from the mud, trimmed nails perfectly white, and when I tried to move my leg, the stray hand pressed into my Achilles with unbelievable strength. I tried to pry it away, but a left hand shot up through the muck and grabbed my right wrist. My lungs tightened. Silas, at last, found my arm and tried to pull me up—my baptism was complete, and I was part of the kingdom now—but I was stuck. I heard his muffled voice, then Dad’s hands were under my armpits. But the perfect hands around my ankle and wrist wouldn’t let me go. Light flooded through the water, and through my squints, I watched a face pressing itself through the mud. Long nose. Wide forehead. Thin lips. Dark hair streaked with algae. This was it, then, this day my dying, death through baptism. And then she opened her eyes. Her mouth was still, but her voice loud: Alles Gute zum Geburtstag.
I wasn’t ready to drown. Not today, not ever.
I kicked at her hand with my free foot as hard as I could, and when disintegrated back into mud, I clawed up Dad’s back like a cat climbing a tree. The congregation laughed at this holy moment—look at the wonderful mercies of God!—but I ripped off my mask and flung it as far as I could. It sank, and a skein of geese appeared, seven of them, geese way out of season. They circled the shitty pond, perhaps considering their options, until, at long last, they untucked and splashed onto the water. They weren’t graceful or even close to elegant, but that didn’t keep those on shore from oohing and aahing. The geese paid them no mind, though, and paddled directly toward the three of us in the water. We lumbered toward the grassy bank and tried to shoo them off, but they pecked my neck until I bled. The geese acted like they owned the place, and maybe they did: Who, after all, knows the mind of a wild goose?
Once on shore, Dad noticed a fat leech stuck to his ankle. He fished his wet wallet from his pocket and scraped the leech off with his Visa card, while Pastor Silas inscribed a blank page in my Bible. His notation was my official baptism certificate, and I read it several times in our car on the way to Grandpa and Grandma’s for Sunday dinner: This is to acknowledge that Jake gave expression of his faith in Christ through water baptism on June 17. At this time, he surrendered himself to the Lordship of Jesus, acknowledged Christ’s blood for the forgiveness of sins, and dedicated himself to the cause of Christ, even unto death. Grandma had made a pot roast—it was perfectly moist—along with boiled potatoes and green beans sprinkled with slivers of bacon. We ate blueberry pie with Valpo Velvet ice cream for dessert, the perfect meal to celebrate a not drowning.
After Mom and Grandma went to the kitchen to clean up, I followed Dad and Grandpa to the family room. Grandpa turned on the TV and switched the station to Channel 9, then lay back in his recliner, hands folded across his extended belly. The Cubs were on, losing to the Phillies. Grandpa watched an inning, and when the broadcast broke for commercials, he looked at me and said, “Well, we got another one in the flock.” He was asleep before the game resumed.
Dad asked me why I stayed under the water so long, and I told him that the water was nice, comfortable even.
“You had bricks for feet out there,” he said. “Water’s supposed to make you lighter.”
“Not if you’re a sponge,” I said.
Dad laughed, then nodded off. Dishes clanked in the kitchen. Water ran. Mom’s voice mixed with Grandma’s. They laughed.
I felt the ghostly impression of her fingers around my ankle. Leon Durham came to bat. I lifted my pant leg, rubbed the growing bruise. Durham swung and missed, a strike. Dad and Grandpa snored. I settled my fingers onto the imprint of hers, but they didn’t align, not quite. There was a foul, then Durham struck out and a commercial flashed in my face.
Anna was floating in the Chicago River, a greasy otter breaking ripples under the bridge. She looked rubbery, as if her feet and arms were being pulled in opposite directions, but when she saw me, her body snapped together and she clambered onto the sidewalk, wringing her mermaid shirt. The milky sun had barely warmed the morning air. A white-rumped sandpiper perched on a weather-worn piling. “Fancy seeing you here,” she said at last.
“I wondered when you’d show up,” I said.
She removed her goggles and planted her face to the sun, then asked me what was up. I told her that I was on my way to Union Station, heading to Elkhart. Dad would be picking me up.
“Haven’t been there in a while.” She refilled her goggles with saline. “Care if I tag along?”
I had coach on the Capital Limited, and Anna sat next to me, shuffling a deck of cards. I tried to focus on the scenery, but there wasn’t much beauty, just junked cars and the decrepit mills. Anna suggested we move to the lounge car for a beer.
“You’re nervous about seeing Lizzie,” she said after a few sips.
I cradled my silver can. “Not planning to.”
“You’ll see her. And you’ll see Hannah, too,” Anna said. “In fact, that’s the first thing you plan to do, visit her stone.” I finished my beer, and she glanced at my necklace. “She’s weighing heavy around your neck.”
I asked her how she knew my plans.
“Easy,” she said. “It’s what every former father does.”
And then it hit me—I was a strikeout of formers: Father. Husband. Lover.