Things We Lost to the Water: A Novel

by Eric Nguyen

  “Name’s Howie,” the boy said.

  “Ben.” He looked out into the water, trying to find the pink cap.

  “What brings you here?” Howie asked.

  “Here?”

  “This summer, I mean. Today. Right now.”

  “Oh,” Ben said. “My friend’s out there. The pink cap? She’s trying out for the swim team. Wesley High has a swim team.”

  “You go to Wesley?” Howie asked.

  “We’re both going to Wesley,” Ben said. “Freshmen.”

  “It means we’re supposed to hate each other.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I graduated from Caddo last month,” Howie said with a wry smile. Dimples appeared on edges of his lips. The lips themselves were full and red, swollen in the prettiest of ways. Ben stopped himself from staring. “We’re rivals,” Howie continued. “That’s what you should know. Cowboys and Warriors? They don’t get along. Never have and they never will.”

  “What?”

  “Wesley, your mascot’s a cowboy. Caddo, we have Chief Red Corn. You didn’t know that?”

  “I don’t go there yet,” Ben said. “We haven’t even had orientation.”

  “Well, cowboys and Indians don’t get along.”

  “Of course they don’t. The cowboys stole land from the Indians. I read that in a book somewhere.”

  “Well, you’re a cowboy now.”

  “What?”

  “You’re a cowboy, now, white man.” Howie put on a thick, ridiculous country accent. “You gotta get over that.”

  “Hey!” Ben reached over for a friendly shove, but his body began to fall. Howie miraculously caught him. How strong he was, how his muscles bulged, and how they didn’t even shake holding him up.

  “Whoa there, cowboy,” Howie said. “Be careful, now, you.”

  * * *

  —

  Because of Addy, they went to the pool every day. And every day, to Ben’s surprise, Howie was there, too. Ben and Howie sat by the pool and talked as Addy practiced her breaststroke and butterfly, her backstroke and freestyle.

  Ben told Howie about his love for books and writing. His favorite writers were Charles Dickens, John Steinbeck, and that guy who wrote Lord of the Flies. He felt he was smart for saying all this and wondered if Howie was impressed. Howie told Ben he never got into reading. When asked what he liked to do, he said he played sports. Junior varsity football freshman year, varsity baseball sophomore through senior, wrestling during junior.

  Ben said he couldn’t imagine being finished with school and that Howie was lucky, at least for being done with high school. It wasn’t that he didn’t like learning. He liked books and the feeling of knowing more about the world around him. He went to the library every week and could finish a regular-sized novel in three or four days. All the same, his classes were slow and he became bored. Teachers mistook this for stupidity and laziness, and one summer, even, he’d had to retake seventh-grade math.

  It disappointed his mother. “The son of a teacher has to retake classes,” she said and shook her head.

  And the teacher, a short, elderly man who wore a cowboy hat and a handlebar mustache, said if he was struggling with homework, “just ask your pa for help. I bet he’s a smart man.” Ben didn’t correct him. “Orientals are very good at the mathematics. Just ask him for help. No shame.” It wasn’t worth the effort, any of it.

  If it were up to him, he would skip the whole rigmarole and travel the world and learn from that instead, maybe even write a book.

  “Like Jack Kerouac,” Howie said.

  “Like who?”

  “He’s a writer. Was a writer. Dead now.”

  “Never heard of him.” He took out his notebook and penciled in “Jack Carrot.”

  “You’ll read him in tenth grade,” Howie said. “On the Road or Going on the Road or In the Road or something like that. I don’t know. I’m not that smart, you see.” He laughed. “Anyway, he went everywhere and wrote about all the places that he went.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “I don’t know,” Howie said. “I never finished reading it.”

  “Oh,” Ben said. He closed his notebook, leaving the pencil in as a bookmark.

  “He drove from Boston to California or something. But this was in the fifties, when cars weren’t that good, so it was a big deal, I guess,” Howie said. “My point is there’s a whole country out there.”

  “Tell me about it,” said Ben.

  “There’s an entire world.”

  “Yes, there is.”

  When Ben asked Howie what his plans were after summer, Howie told him he was going to Lake Charles for college. “Undeclared for now. Until I figure it all out.”

  “Will you ever figure it all out?”

  “Maybe.” Howie said it confidently and pulled down his sunglasses. Ben reached for his, which he’d bought at a souvenir shop only after meeting Howie. They looked at each other conspiratorially.

  * * *

  —

  When August began, Howie told Ben he wanted to teach him how to swim. “All this time here,” he said, “and you don’t even touch the water!”

  After Howie led Ben to the pool, he told him to lie down.

  “No,” Ben said. “Bodies don’t float. Unless they’re dead.”

  “Don’t be silly.” Howie held his wrist. “Relax. Relax.”

  “How can you be from New Orleans and not know how to swim?” Addy asked. Ben almost forgot she was there. She lay in the water to demonstrate. Howie did the same, and they both floated effortlessly, arms out, legs out. Ben wondered if, from above, they looked like floating flowers. The two moved their arms, and slowly their two bodies started to move more purposefully. Ben looked one way and then the other. His eyes settled on Howie.

  Howie made him nervous. Numerous times he found himself shaking when he talked to him or was close to him. Yet it wasn’t an uncomfortable feeling. He liked it. He wanted it to linger.

  Ben turned his head to where Addy was and she was gone. He looked around.

  “Addy?” he called out. “Addy?” Where was she?

  Suddenly, something latched on to his leg. By reflex, he let out a scream. What was happening? He shook his leg, but it moved laboriously, sluggishly. He couldn’t swim and he would die. He tripped and went under and in an instant everything became blue and there was no air. He began moving his arms, karate-chopping the water. But he wasn’t going anywhere.

  In the next second, he was above the water again. He breathed in all he could. Addy held one arm, Howie the other. When he realized he was alive and safe, he remembered what had happened.

  Addy had disappeared. Addy pulled me under.

  He stared at Addy, furious. “Addy! Why you do that for?”

  “I was just playing,” she said.

  “That wasn’t funny,” Ben said. “Why would you do that?”

  “I was just joking.” She let go and took a step back.

  “It wasn’t funny. It’s not funny, Adelaide Toussaint.” He took his arm from Howie’s grasp and left the pool.

  * * *

  —

  That night, Ben returned to the pool with Howie. He told his mom he was going back to the pool and wouldn’t be home until late. When she asked him who he was going with, he said a friend.

  He was going to learn how to swim. He felt determined. The reasons for knowing how to swim were numerous: Addy wouldn’t be able to make fun of him anymore; it was an important skill to have in case the city sank—because it was below sea level, he read somewhere, and the water could just pour in like in a bathtub; he was Vietnamese, and Vietnamese people are supposed to know how to swim. And Howie had offered to teach him.

  The pool glowed. At the entrance, Howie motioned his head to the fence. “Climb,” he sai
d.

  “I can’t climb,” Ben replied.

  “You can try.”

  Anything for Howie. Anything.

  Ben held on to the metal and stretched an arm upward. Next, he took a step up. With another movement he slipped and gasped aloud, but, to his surprise, Howie caught him and pushed him up. After some more struggle, he found himself at the top and dropped down to the other side. He landed on his feet. Howie followed after.

  Together they walked to the pool’s edge. At the shallow end, Ben removed a shoe and sock and touched the water. At the cold shock, he pulled back. Howie began stripping off his jeans and T-shirt.

  What surprised Ben was that, though he had seen Howie shirtless—nearly naked—countless times, it always gave him a sense of—what word was there for it? Awe? Excitement? Wonder? The sight of Howie’s skin made Ben’s heart stop for a second, then the next he would feel it beating too fast and catching fire and burning him alive.

  It felt strange, but he didn’t want to feel any other way. Soon it began to make sense: the way boys were supposed to want girls was the way Ben wanted Howie. Wanting—what a strange feeling, what a queer idea to have toward another person! You could want food, you could want rest, you could want safety, and—it dawned on him—you could want a person, too.

  He was terrified. What had he become? What would his mother think? (“The son of a teacher…” she would scoff with enough shame in her voice for their entire family, his dead father—the college professor! the hero! the martyr!—included.) Or his brother, the tough boy—no, a man now—who hung out with the Southern Boyz? The realization had scared him, and he couldn’t look at himself in the mirror for the longest time until the day Addy pulled him under and he nearly drowned. He’d left the pool in a huff and headed for the locker room to change. There, he passed a mirror and he couldn’t avoid it, that image of himself. He looked at his reflection and it was like he saw himself—really saw himself—for the first time. There had to be a word for that, too.

  “Dunk yourself in first,” Howie said when they were hip-deep in the water. “Get a feel for it.” When Ben didn’t answer, didn’t move, he added, “It’s just water. Good ol’ H-2-and-O. Remember that. It’s just water.”

  “It’s just water,” Ben repeated.

  “The whole world is covered in it.”

  “Yes,” Ben agreed.

  “I think we’re made of it, too.”

  “We are.”

  “On the count of three. Okay?” Howie said.

  “Okay.”

  “One. Two. Three.”

  Down.

  Ben had expected a trick, had anticipated the feeling of Howie’s hand on his head, pushing him down, but he bent his knees and he opened his eyes and he was underwater and still alive. Everything was blue and bright, but now it wasn’t scary. There was a strange serenity to it. A strange but peaceful silence. He stood back up.

  “Good,” Howie said. “Very good.”

  They would try to float next. When Ben said he was unsure, Howie laid his own body in the water and Ben watched as he floated.

  Howie had a beautiful body. Ben wanted to say it aloud. Beautiful. He mouthed the words instead. Like a secret. Then he, too, lay down. He was prepared to sink, but he didn’t. To his astonishment, he floated. More than that, there was a feeling of weightlessness, of floating in not water, but air.

  Looking at the sky, Ben saw himself reflected in space.

  And there it was: he was wrong. From above, they didn’t look like flowers. Not even close. They were both stars, the two of them. Together in the water. Floating. Free.

  * * *

  —

  A kiss. A kiss getting out of the pool, walking toward the edge of the pool. Walking and still up to the waist in water. A kiss in the pool with water at the waist. A kiss in the pool at night with water and hands at the waists, wet hands on the waists, as they stand in the pool, standing to kiss, to try—because I have never done this before—but really it is nothing—but have you kissed a boy before—but I have kissed plenty of boys before—but plenty of boys, plenty of boys in pools? plenty of boys in pools?—of course plenty of boys, but never plenty of boys in pools—so I’m your first boy, your first boy in a pool—yes, you’re my first boy in the pool, ha-ha—okay—ha-ha, you’re funny—a kiss: a kiss in the pool. Two boys in the pool: two boys kissing in a pool.

  * * *

  —

  After the swimming lesson, Ben and Howie went out for ice cream in a place in the Quarter with a cow on its window and its doors propped open because the AC was always broken. Howie said it was the only place to get ice cream in New Orleans because they had more toppings than anywhere else and their scoops were fist-sized huge.

  They took their bowls to a secluded booth in the back. A lightbulb with a stained-glass cover hung above the table, making the shadows green. After they ate a spoonful of their sundaes and tried each other’s, Ben asked Howie how long he’d felt that way.

  Howie nodded. “Since I first saw you, honest,” he replied, and they both blushed. When Ben asked Howie how long he’d felt anything, Howie recounted one winter when he was a junior at Caddo.

  The boy was named Anderson. Anderson was a senior. Anderson and Howie were both on the varsity wrestling team. One time after practice, the two of them stayed behind to work on a takedown. For it to work, Howie had to take hold of Anderson behind the knees and push him up, then slam him down. The problem, he said, was that Anderson was bigger; he’d hold his ground.

  “Anderson,” he said now, pushing his spoon down into his ice cream and picking it up. He placed it gingerly into his mouth and swallowed before continuing. Ben watched his Adam’s apple jump. “He was all big muscles. Pecs the size of grapefruits, I swear; calves bulging like baseballs. Sturdy, built guy. Beautiful.” Howie spoke nervously and his eyes twitched back and forth, watching and waiting for something. Then he set down his spoon when one of the shop’s employees started to clean the next booth over. She took her time wiping the table with a white rag in slow, large circles. Ben and Howie sat silent, moving spoons in their sundaes but not eating.

  When the worker left, Howie went on. “At Caddo, we had open showers, a square room with showerheads lining the walls. Usually, only the real buff seniors like Anderson used it. I stayed away from that.” He fidgeted with his spoon and Ben leaned in closer, feeling himself sliding off the vinyl seat. “Anyway,” Howie said, “when we were done that night, we hit the locker room. I was gonna change and drive on home, but Anderson started to tease me. ‘You’re gonna stink up the highway….’ he says. ‘I swear that’s you smelling up Route 10,’ he goes. ‘I always thought that was roadkill or something,’ laughing all the time. He grabs my shoulder and play-shoves it and goes off to the showers. I hear the water turning on, the sound of wet feet on tiles.

  “I didn’t want to admit it to myself, but even then I knew Anderson was…he made me feel a certain way, you know? So maybe it was that, or maybe I really did stink or whatever, but I go and strip off and walk to the showers. The whole time, I try to keep my eyes on the floor, you know, and go to my own showerhead, far, far away from him. And I’m soaping myself up when I start feeling a hand massaging my neck.”

  Ben filled up his spoon with melted ice cream, lifted it a few inches, and dropped it back into the bowl. He didn’t know how to respond, anticipating what happened next. He did it four or five times before Howie began talking again.

  “We did stuff in there, us. And we did it for the rest of the season. And the rest of the year, though we both played different sports. In my mind, we went steady, but he was thinking something else. I don’t know. He moved off to college, went up north or something. He hasn’t kept in touch. We haven’t been talking.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ben said. He felt sorry and saw the hurt on Howie’s face even if he was trying to hide it.

>   “Nothing to be sorry about,” Howie said. “Nothing at all.”

  “Do your mom and dad know?” Ben asked.

  “No. Yours?”

  Once, his mother found his journal. In it, he had written his innermost fantasies: stories of boys holding hands under moss-cloaked oak trees; men kissing on camping trips in the woods; men touching each other out in a secluded bayou at night. She showed it to him and asked him what it was. She had an angry frown, and he had never seen her like that before. He told her it was all fake, it was something for school, and that she’d misunderstood everything because she didn’t know English anyway. He threw away the journal that same night.

  “My mom? No,” he told Howie.

  “What about your dad?”

  “Dad? My dad’s gone.” He didn’t want to say “dead” because it always made him look pitiful; he was tired of pity. It was the same reason he never said aloud that he would have wanted to know more about his father beyond the vague descriptions his mother gave, to have just one glimpse—for curiosity’s sake, of course. But people would pity him for that and he would be embarrassed for their pity, would not know what to do with it. “But my mom’s boyfriend lives with us,” Ben added.

  “What would he think?”

  “I don’t know,” Ben said, trying to imagine what Vinh would say. “What he thinks doesn’t matter. He’s not my dad.”

  “My parents would rip me to shreds. My dad especially,” Howie said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  After ice cream, they walked around the Quarter, which was quieter than Ben expected. Howie pointed out a used bookstore (“Because you said you like books”), a candy shop that specialized in pralines (“ ’Cause you sweet!”), and Club Paradise, a gay bar (“I’ve been there once or twice or maybe more,” he said and broke into a boyish laugh). As they approached Toulouse, Ben got them to turn around because he didn’t want to pass his mother’s work, though he knew at this time of evening no one would be there. They ended the night watching ferry boats in the Mississippi, and Howie drove him back to Versailles.