If there was a heaven it was a watery place.
In lane five, his old favorite in the pool of his hometown Y, Eddie kept swimming. At first he’d had no rhythm, no technique at all, and had tired quickly. Weight lifting had made fifteen years go faster; it had also made him clumsy in the water. He thrashed up and down lane five for a dozen lengths, twisting around on the surface after each one like a beginner. His mouth filled with the taste of tobacco, nicotine-stained snot streamed from his nose. He decided to quit after ten laps-if he could swim that far … But on the very last length and without warning, his lungs suddenly cleared, the tobacco taste disappeared, the snot stopped flowing; and his body began to remember. On their own, his hands and forearms found the right angles, sculling, not pushing, and he felt himself rising higher in the water, going faster. He recalled the sensation of just skimming the surface that he’d felt when he’d been racing at his best; he wasn’t skimming now, but he wasn’t thrashing either. As he came to the wall, he piked, even remembering to spread his feet as they came over, touched, pushed off, streamlining himself in the thumb-hook position, then rolled as he slowed to swimming speed.
Flipped the turn, he thought, goddamn; and found himself smiling for a moment underwater. He kept going.
Eddie swam. Length by length, lap by lap, he watched the bottom tiles slide by, and his mind shut down, as though its power source was being diverted elsewhere. He stopped thinking, stopped remembering, stopped counting laps, strokes, breaths. His body took over. It swam him back and forth in the old hometown pool. Time shrank to the vanishing point, at last and too late. If there’d been a pool at the prison everything would have been all right. Eddie lost himself in that cool blue rectangle, and stayed lost until someone swam by him in lane six.
The other swimmer’s body was unfamiliar: pale, thin-legged, with a roll of fat hanging over the drawstring of the swimsuit. But he knew that powerful, big-chested stroke, with its slightly too-strong counterbalancing kick. And now he could place the voice of the man who had been talking into a portable phone by the side of the pool when he’d come in.
Bobby Falardeau was waiting for him at the far end, treading water. Eddie pulled up, shaking droplets off his head. For a moment, Falardeau, studying his face, his shaved head, looked puzzled.
“Eddie?”
“Bobby.”
“Son of a bitch. I knew it. I was watching you and I said to myself there’s only one guy I know swims like that.” There was a buzzing sound. “Just a sec,” Bobby said, and climbed out of the pool. He picked up his phone, lying on a chair, and listened. “Dump it,” he said, clicking off.
Eddie climbed out too. “Christ,” said Bobby, “you’re in shape.” Pause. “That must be the silver lining they don’t tell you about.” He laughed.
“Silver lining to what?” Eddie knew the answer; he just didn’t think it was funny.
“To going to-you know.” Bobby leaned over the pool, blew out his nostrils. “But you’re out now, right?”
“Went over the wall day before yesterday.”
There was another pause; then Bobby laughed again. “That’s a good one.” His face grew solemn. “I got to tell you, Eddie, I feel really sorry-”
“Forget it.”
“Right. Put it behind you. Look to the future.” Bobby nodded to himself. “What’re your plans?”
“Steam bath,” said Eddie. “Take nothing with me. Quit smoking.”
Bobby blinked. “I mean for what you’re gonna do. That kind of thing.”
“I saw Vic.”
“Coach Vic?”
“What other Vic is there?”
“He’s a sad case, Eddie.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you saw him you know.”
“His drinking?”
“He’s a lush.”
“He says you laid him off.”
“Bullshit.”
“You mean he quit?”
“I haven’t got a clue what he did. We sold out in eighty-six. We had nothing to do with anything that happened after that.”
“You sold Falardeau Metal and Iron?”
“BCC bought us out. One of those junk-bond things. You know.”
“I don’t.”
Bobby shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. Turned out they just wanted the railhead anyway. And the equity, of course. They sold off what they could, borrowed to the hilt, the usual.”
“The usual what?”
“Procedure.”
“But what happened to the plant? Vic’s job?”
“I just told you.” The phone buzzed again. Bobby answered it, listened, said, “and an eighth,” clicked off.
“What about your job?” Eddie asked.
Bobby shrugged again. “Gone with the rest. It’s business, Eddie.”
“But what are you doing now?”
“I’m retired.”
“Isn’t it a little soon?”
“I keep busy,” Bobby said. “We’ve got this investment company now. It’s no picnic.”
“You and your dad?”
“Me, actually. The old man’s not really involved anymore.”
“What happened to him?”
“Nothing. He’s in Boca Raton.”
Eddie nodded, but he wasn’t getting it. He glanced at the pool, saw that the waves he’d raised had subsided to ripples; the surface would soon be calm again. He’d always liked that calm surface, liked being the first one in. Now he understood why:
The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free;
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.
“You all right?” Bobby said.
“Yeah.”
“Had a funny look there.”
“I’m fine.” He was hungry, that was all. When had he last eaten? He remembered: in F-Block. Eddie walked to the other end of the pool to get his towel. Bobby followed.
“We had some times in this pool, didn’t we, Eddie?”
“Yeah,” Eddie said, toweling off.
“You were something. You had a scholarship offer, didn’t you? Clemson?”
“USC.”
Bobby shook his head. “Isn’t that something?” he said. “I ended up swimming for Dartmouth. Just about my speed.”
“That’s nice,” said Eddie, starting toward the locker-room door.
Bobby followed. “Best exercise there is,” he said. “I’m still in here three, four times a week. Nothing strenuous. Long slow distance, keep some of this fucking fat off. But you know something, Eddie, I had an idea, watching you. A crazy idea.”
Eddie stopped and turned.
“What’s that?”
“It’s kind of crazy, like I said.” He looked Eddie in the eye; Eddie didn’t remember Bobby having that look. “Thing is, I think I could beat you now.”
“Do you?”
“Just a hunch,” Bobby said. “You a gambling man, Eddie? I hear a lot of gambling goes on in … those places.”
“I knew a bridge player once,” Eddie said. “He liked to gamble.”
“There you go. What do you say?”
“To what?”
“A little action. One-hundred free. How does that sound?”
“For money?”
“Just to make it interesting.”
“How much?”
“You name it.”
“A hundred,” Eddie said.
“Dollars?”
“Dollar per yard,” Eddie said. “Just for the sake of fearful symmetry.”
Bobby stared at him for a moment, then laughed. “It’s great you didn’t lose your sense of humor,” he said, holding out his hand. Eddie had been wondering when they would shake hands. They shook; in greeting, or simply sealing the bet?
They walked around toward the starting end, Bobby stretching his arms above his head, Eddie trying to remember where he’d read about fearful symmetry. It must have been years ago, long before he’d discovered “The Mariner.”
Bobby took his place in lane six. “Do we need a starter?”
“No.”
“We’ll just use the clock, like in the old days.” A big clock with a red second hand hung on the wall at the other end. “Second hand touches twelve, we go.”
The water was still again, flat blue. The second hand rounded six, ticked up the other side. Eight, nine, ten. Bobby got into his crouch. Eddie had forgotten about that. He bent his knees, trying to find the right position. Eleven. One, two, three, fo-the red hand was a full click away when Bobby sprang off. Eddie followed, a hurried dive so steeply angled he almost touched bottom. By the time Eddie hit the surface, Bobby was half a length ahead. In seven or eight strokes, he stretched it to a full length.
Eddie had forgotten his racing dive. Now he forgot about sculling too, lost his feel for the water, fell into a crude imitation of Bobby’s powerful stroke. He thrashed on, falling farther behind, thinking: What the hell are you doing, jailbird?
Bobby hit the first turn, flipped it well, smoother than in his racing days. That observation threw off Eddie’s timing. He forgot to spread his feet, pushed off crooked, started his roll too soon, forcing himself to stroke too soon. Bobby gained another half length. Two days out of the pen, jailbird, and racing for all the money you’ve got.
Bobby gained another stroke or two by the second turn, flipped it nicely again. Eddie did better on his second turn, not perfect, but better. And in the calm of the glide, he realized he’d been thrashing. Like an animal: a freestyler needs finesse. Feel the water, feel how it gives against the palm, curls around the fingers. Feel it: an obvious psychological trick, but it worked on him. He began to scull, rising up in the water; not yet skimming, but moving faster. Bobby’s big white kicking feet came back to him a little at a time: the one or two strokes he’d lost on the second turn, maybe more. He was about a length and a half behind when Bobby hit the last turn.
Eddie didn’t see how Bobby handled it. No time. He came to the wall, piked, flipped, rolled, glided, stroked twice, breathed. Perfect. He glanced at Bobby. Half a length now, and closing. Stroke stroke stroke stroke breathe. Stroke stroke stroke stroke breathe. Eddie closed a little more, almost skimming now. Bobby glanced back; his eyes widened. Stroke stroke stroke stroke stroke-and then, in mid-pull, his body failed him, all at once, as though someone had switched him off.
How long had he been swimming before Bobby challenged him? He didn’t know. It could have been twenty minutes, it could have been two hours. Enough so that now he was done, just like that. He almost stopped right there in the middle of the pool.
But he knew-there was no time to think, he just knew-that if he stopped it was over for him. So he kept making the motions of swimming; and at the same time a voice in his head, his own voice said: Go, Nails. Not yelling, not screaming, simply saying go, and calling him by that name.
My real name, Eddie thought: me. A surge of something-energy, adrenaline, endorphins, something-pulsed through him, lifted him. And then, at last, he was skimming. He didn’t feel exhaustion, pain, fear, despair. He felt nothing but the cool blue, pushing him forward, helping.
Go, Nails. Go, Nails. The voice didn’t stop until his hand smacked the wall, hard: he hadn’t even seen it coming. He got his head up in time to see Bobby touch.
Bobby couldn’t say anything at first. He just hung onto the edge of the pool, gasping. After a while he got his breath back. He said: “Fuck.”
Eddie climbed out of the pool. His muscles ached, but he made sure he got out in one smooth motion.
“Very cute,” said Bobby, still in the pool. He was smiling, but too broadly, and his voice was too loud. “The way I paid for you to get into that kind of shape.”
Eddie turned. “How’s that?”
There was a pause while Bobby made an effort to hold the words inside. They tumbled out. “You’ve been sucking at the public tit for the past fifteen years or whatever the hell it is, that’s how, and I’m a taxpayer like you wouldn’t believe.”
Eddie came back to the edge, looked down at Bobby. Bobby’s hair was plastered down on his forehead, his face was red. “If you win, say little,” Eddie said. “If you lose, say less.”
Bobby went redder, but kept his mouth shut.
Eddie walked away, into the locker room, showered, changed. He wrang out the Speedo, dried it under the blower, stuck it in his pocket. Another possession, added to the $1.55 left from the gate money, the $100 bill from El Rojo, and Prof’s cardboard tube, which didn’t belong to him. He went out into the lobby and sat in a chair. It was a wooden chair, hard and uncomfortable, but Eddie was almost asleep when Bobby appeared.
Bobby looked good. His hair, still damp, was slicked back; he wore a dark suit, glossy black shoes with little holes in them-Eddie knew they had a name but didn’t know what it was-and had a glossy black fur coat over one shoulder. He walked over to Eddie. Eddie rose; it took a lot of effort, but he didn’t want Bobby standing over him, not with all that wardrobe.
Bobby had recovered his self-confidence, or at least his composure. He took in Eddie’s wrinkled trousers, the bright green short-sleeved shirt, the dirty prison sneakers. Then he reached in his pocket and pulled out his roll. It was a thick one, jammed into a gold money clip. He peeled off a hundred-dollar bill, one of many, and handed it over. Eddie found himself staring at it, like a bumpkin.
Bobby laughed. “You and Jack couldn’t be more different, you know that?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Bobby stopped laughing, stepped back. “Nothing. He’s at home with money, that’s all. Big money.”
“He is?”
“Sure. Who do you think sicced BCC on us?”
“Jack did that to you?”
“Hell, yes. It was brilliant. We’re set for life.”
“Who’s we?”
“Dad and me. Who else is there?”
“Vic, for one,” Eddie said. And the whole fucking town. Bobby shrugged himself into his fur coat. “He didn’t have any shares, Eddie. This is America.”
They didn’t shake hands again. Bobby went out. Eddie had a drink from the fountain and left soon after. He was almost at the bus station when he realized he’d forgotten his steam bath.