Breathing Underwater

by Alex Flinn

  I only see my own face, reflected in the glass.

  3:00 A.M.—beach behind my father’s house

  I’m sitting here with a flashlight, Caitlin’s pen, and my journal, which, in addition to being smudged, torn, and rippled, is now pretty much covered in wet sand. I have to finish it, though. I don’t want to, but I have to.

  The pain in my brain was at tumor level by evening. Yet, somehow, I had a front-row seat, watching Saint O’Connor and company, in wigs, dancing to “Short Shorts.” Caitlin squeezed my hand, and through the deafening laughter, I heard her voice.

  “I love you, Nicky. You don’t have to be a football hero for me to love you.”

  I pushed her back, her words like a hand clutching my throat. Onstage, Saint ground his butt. I glanced away. Then, I noticed the dolphin on the calf of one of the wigged dancers. Tom. He wore a red bouffant wig, kicking and strutting with the others—without me. They belonged together. I was the oddball. For the first time in my life, I wanted to go home. Finally, the lights came up for intermission.

  “Wasn’t Tom funny?” Liana said. I noticed then that the seat by hers was empty. “He wanted it to be a surprise.”

  I started toward the doors. Cat stood to join me, but I said, “You following me to the men’s room?” She shook her head, sitting.

  I stayed away a long time. When I returned, Tom and Saint were there, wigless. Caitlin was gone.

  “Where’s Caitlin?” I said.

  “And congratulations on a fine performance to you too,” Tom said. Then he saw my face. “Nick, I’d have asked you to do it with us, but you’d have said it was stupid.”

  “It was stupid. Where’s Caitlin?”

  “Backstage.” Liana’s face was smug. “Mrs. Reyes came looking for her because she’s listed to sing. We wouldn’t let her wimp out.”

  I looked around, unable to believe she was really gone. I started to protest that she wasn’t dressed to sing. Then I realized she was. The aqua dress she wore was my favorite. I thought she’d worn it for me. She wore it to sing. She’d tricked me. I rushed up the aisle and crashed through the doors.

  The courtyard outside the auditorium was empty. No one saw me run across or around to the back. No one heard the pounding, screaming in my head. I beat the stage door, but no one answered. My lungs felt overfilled. I was sweating, almost crying. My knuckles throbbed. I fell to the ground, exhausted, and sat, eyes closed, seemingly for hours. Finally, I dragged myself back to the auditorium and fell into my seat.

  Caitlin’s solo was next. The song she sang was sexy, about love and meeting the man of her dreams. I felt every eye on her. Slut. I watched her face for some sign she meant me. Nothing. Not a glance my way. My neck muscles tightened. My eyebrows were frozen in position, my mouth paralyzed in a smile. The ungrateful bitch had betrayed me. I felt like shit, and it was her fault. All she wanted was to control me, use me. And I’d let her. I’d let her humiliate me, but this was the last time. She couldn’t treat me like this.

  When the lights came up, I bolted for the door.

  I stood behind the auditorium, waiting. Caitlin was one of the first people out. I grabbed her arm. She turned toward me, hope written on her face.

  “Did you like it, Nicky?”

  I didn’t answer. The door opened, and more people crowded out. Derek patted her shoulder. “Good job, Caitlin.” He moved on.

  “Good job.” I mocked her. I yanked her away and out to my car. The parking lot was deserted. Cars were shadows, illuminated by towering light poles. I pushed her toward my car, parked near the back.

  “Get in!”

  She struggled against me, somehow managing to break free and run several steps before tripping. I caught her. I tried to carry her back to the car, but she yelled and kicked and thrashed against me.

  We were under a light pole, our shadows tall as dinosaurs. I threw her against it. My mind was reeling, detached from my body. All I could think was to show her she couldn’t do this, couldn’t defy me, treat me like I didn’t matter. Caitlin’s face was white in the glow. She sunk to the ground. All the time, her mouth moved, forming no words. Finally, she said, “Please, Nick… I … Mrs. Reyes said … and Tom and Liana. I thought you’d like it once you saw.”

  “Bitch!” I slapped her across the face and reeled back from the force of the blow. Her head smashed the lamppost. I stumbled, regained my footing. I advanced on her, yelling, “Why?”

  She began to sob, holding her hand to her cheek as if those little white fingers would shield her. “I don’t know, I don’t know.” Over and over she said it.

  I hit her again. This time, my fist was clenched, my feet set. The earth shuddered to a stop, gained momentum with my fist. Knuckles meeting her jaw. Words streaming forward without even knowing. Her white hand, flying up, away from her face, no protection. Fingers floating against darkness. I was small, weak. Gaining power, though. Gaining power by taking it from her and the words coursing from my throat. I hit her again, not seeing her face, couldn’t make her real if I wanted. Only anger, red, violent, on me like a cloak. My hands closing around her neck, barely knowing who she was. Then she was on the ground, not even crying, whispering something I couldn’t hear.

  “Get up!” I screamed.

  “No.” I could barely hear her. “Please, Nick. No more.”

  “Get up!” I leaned to pull her toward me. I didn’t see her face then, but I see it now, bruised, broken. Blood seeped from one nostril and out her mouth. Only her eyes were Caitlin’s eyes. Caitlin’s blue, blue eyes stared at me, pleading. Her hands still struggled to protect her face. I pulled her up, pulled her toward me so I could hurt her.

  Someone walked by, heading for a car. And another, and another. Caitlin called weakly, and I laughed. A dozen people passed like nothing. I dragged her up again, my arm arching back. No one could stop me. Then, hands on my shoulders, pulling me away. I lost my hold, and Caitlin staggered to the ground. I turned. Knuckles met my jaw. Stumbling backward. Knees, then my head hit asphalt. Everything was black, starry. When I woke, seconds or hours later, someone was crouched over Caitlin. Others came, so many faces. Liana. Derek. But I couldn’t make out the figure in the lamplight, the one holding Caitlin. The person who’d hit me.

  Then I saw the dolphin silhouette on his leg.

  APRIL 12

  * * *

  7:15 A.M.—my bedroom

  “Caitlin?”

  “Who’s this?”

  “It’s me.” Then, quickly at her intake of breath, “Don’t worry. I’m not trying to get you to take me back.”

  “Will you stop calling me?” she says, over my words. “Please. I could tell—”

  “Go ahead. Call the police. Have your boyfriend amputate my face. I deserve it. I deserve it. Just listen a sec, okay?”

  I take her silence as agreement. Out front, someone’s mowing the lawn, and I say, “Look, I know you couldn’t like me anymore, not after what I did. I know that now. I just…” Why is this so hard? “I’m just sorry. I thought I meant it before, but I didn’t know. I mean, it’s like apologizing for stepping on someone’s foot. You say you’re sorry, but you don’t really understand how bad you hurt them.”

  I stop talking, out of words. Caitlin fills the lull.

  “So beating me up is like stepping on someone’s foot?”

  She sounds tired.

  “No. No. I’m screwing this up and I don’t deserve you even listening to me, but I get it. I mean I understand how bad … how much I hurt you. How much I could have…” Neysa’s eyes haunt me, and finally, I say, “Look, I’m just sorry. You didn’t deserve what I did to you. I loved you so much, Cat.”

  The lawn mower stops, and silence fills the room. Caitlin’s voice startles me.

  “I can’t believe that anymore, Nick.”

  The line goes dead. I hold the phone until its angry clatter reminds me to hang up.

  JULY 11

  * * *

  Mario’s class (last day!!!)


  So why aren’t I doing a goal-line boogie in the doorway? Who knows? Nerves, maybe. Mario said there’d be a final, and I haven’t studied, haven’t taken notes. I clutch my journal and thank God no one will read it.

  There are five guys now. Across the circle, A.J. enlightens us about the gymnastic abilities of a girl he met at driving school, and I tune out Kelly’s latest spin on why did the Cuban cross the road? I realize I know more about these guys, and they about me, than anyone I’ve ever met, so when Tiny sends around a phone list, I write my number—though I’ll never call anyone.

  It’s Tiny, also, who says, “What about the final, Mario?”

  Groans, but Mario silences us, saying, “Chill, hombres. This final’s for me, not you. And there’s only one question.”

  “What’s the question?” Ray says.

  Mario leans against his desk, flanked by pictures of his wife and son. “It’s been six months. We’ve talked a lot, shared some memories, said things we wish we hadn’t, maybe even made some lifelong friends. Question is: What was this class about?”

  I jiggle my hand on my knee, avoiding eye contact. Around me, there’s silence, like the first day again. Finally, Ray, with his gift for stating the obvious, rescues us. “That’s easy. It’s about not hitting women.”

  Give the man a prize.

  Mario says, “Okay. Who else?”

  “It’s not just that, right?” Tiny says. “I’ve been telling Donyelle all that stuff about primary emotions and expressing anger. It’s that too, right?”

  Mario nods. He surveys the circle, his eyes resting on each of us. An idea’s forming in my head, but I don’t mean to speak.

  Still, it pops out. “I think it’s about being a loser.”

  Except that wasn’t what I’d meant to say.

  “Who you calling a loser?” Tiny says.

  I stand. “Me, Tiny. I’m a loser. That’s what my dad says, anyway. Loser. Failure. I tried to prove him wrong, finding things I could control, like my grades. And Caitlin. When she said no, or I’d think there was someone else, there’d be this voice in my head, almost too soft to hear, whispering loser. You’re a loser, a mistake. And I had to drown it out, had to win, no matter the cost.” I feel a bead of sweat on my forehead. “But, what it cost was Caitlin. Hurting her made me a loser.”

  I sit, silence engulfing me. Beside me, Tiny and Ray eyeball their shoes. Someone speaks.

  “How do you stop the voice?”

  The speaker, surprisingly, is Kelly.

  “My daddy says that shit, too,” he adds.

  “I don’t know,” I say. I turn to Mario. “Do you?”

  Mario laces his fingers behind his head, glancing at the ceiling. Then he looks at us. “If I said it’s something you have to figure out yourself, you’d call me chicken, right?” We nod, even some who won’t look up, and Mario says, “Then, I guess you’re ready to hear about me.”

  There’s silence except for the sound of Mario’s chair legs scraping floor tiles as he joins the circle. Then he begins.

  “My wise uncle Gustavo used to say, ‘You can tell a man there are fifty billion stars in the sky, and he’ll believe you. But if he sees a sign saying wet paint, he has to check for himself.’” We all laugh at this joke we heard as kids, but Mario holds up a hand, saying, “Don’t laugh at the truth. We accept without question that we—human beings—are the center of the universe. Talk about hubris. But when a woman says, ‘I love you,’ that won’t go through our skulls.”

  I thought of Caitlin saying she loved me that last night. I’d barely even heard it.

  “It’s easy to believe what’s in books or even television commercials, but no one teaches us to believe in ourselves. Our parents slept on the job there, didn’t they?” He looks at me and Kelly. “They let us cry one or one hundred times too many and said we were failures until we knew it like a religion. And once you join that Church of Fear, Jesus or Buddha or Cousin Kevin’s Cult of Wonders down the street may look good, but that Fear is what holds you until finally, when a woman says she loves you, you know she’s lying. Or it’s just a matter of time ’til she sees what you’re really like and finds someone better. And that adds up to a lot of fear.”

  “How would you know?” I ask, glancing again at his photos.

  “I know because Fear’s a friend of mine,” Mario says. “My father trained me in its ways from birth. Seven years ago, I was neck deep, sinking faster than burnt sugar in flan. I had my degree, my practice, and a wife who said she loved me. Then I started hearing my father’s voice.

  “Teresa wanted to have a baby. First Papi thought that was fine—keep her in her place. But when she started showing, he was there, whispering, ‘She doesn’t love you. She won’t stay once the baby comes,’ and I tried to drown him out, yelling louder and louder and making Teresa cry until one day, yelling wasn’t enough. I pushed my pregnant wife from a moving car.”

  The room is silent. Mario wipes a tear, but clearly, one is all he’ll allow himself. Wife and baby smile from his desk.

  “Teresa lost the baby, and I lost Teresa. My father got off scot-free. I couldn’t blame him for what I did. He wasn’t there, just me. Teresa told everyone it was an accident—she learned fear at her own mama’s knee, so I got away with it.”

  Slowly, it dawns on me. Mario was one of us, one of the walking wounded. And now—he’s fine. What’s to stop me from ending up like him? Nothing. “What happened?” I asked.

  “Somehow,” Mario says, “I ended up in a class like this, not planning on learning anything. But in the end, I retook the class. And again. And again, until finally I taught my own class. I don’t have all the answers, and I don’t know how to stop your voice, Nick. But hearing it is a good start.”

  “Hearing it?”

  Mario walks to me. “Don’t let that voice be your elevator music. Turn it up ’til it’s like you’re by the speaker at Lollapalooza. Then, turn it off and listen to something else.

  “For me, the voice stopped when I decided to teach these classes, to work with men like myself. I told my father about my new life plan and got his voice in stereo. I watched him, yelling, hopping like a live fish on a frying pan, and I thought: If I met this idiot at the supermarket, I wouldn’t ask his opinion about whether the tomatoes were fresh. I stopped listening that day, and after a while, the voice moved out.” He looks at me. “You can’t respect yourself if you’re letting someone beat you up—inside or out. What you learned here is only half the equation. The other half is self-respect.”

  He stops talking. He sits, staring at his hands a long moment. I have something to say but, rather than interrupt him, I raise my hand. When he acknowledges it, I say, “I think I know what you’ve been trying to teach us.” This time, I have the words I want.

  He nods for me to go on, and I say, “It’s about being a man, isn’t it? A real man. Not just about who’s bigger or stronger or who gets more women. But…” I stop. Everyone’s looking at me, and I don’t like it. I sound like a wuss.

  But Mario says, “Go ahead. You’re on the right track.”

  I think about not liking to talk with everyone’s eyes on me, and I say, “It’s about doing the right thing even if you don’t want to do it. About taking responsibility for your actions, like you always told us.” I think of Caitlin and add, “It’s about letting go when you really, really want to hold on so bad.”

  Mario looks at me a second, then nods. “You passed the test, Nick.”

  I glance away. It wasn’t what I wanted to learn. What I wanted was Caitlin back, not the knowledge I’d lost her forever. But I have. How will I learn to deal with it?

  Now, Mario’s talking again, saying he’ll report back to the court that we all completed our requirements. He dismisses us for the last time.

  After everyone else leaves, I approach him.

  “I want to retake the class,” I say.

  I expect raised eyebrows—I haven’t been a model student—but he says, “Yes. I’d like that.
”

  I tap my toes, silently, inside my shoes before saying, “See you next week, then.” I start to leave, then turn back and shove my journal toward him. “Could you read this? I mean, if you have time.”

  He takes it. “I’ll find time.” Then he does something shocking. He puts the notebook on his desk and holds out his arms. I hesitate a moment before stepping toward him and letting him take me in. I’ve never hugged a guy before, never really held anyone but Caitlin. The warmth of it surprises me.

  We finally separate. I’m out the door before I remember all the things I wrote about my father. I reach for the knob, wanting to ask for my notebook, say I was kidding about coming back.

  Then I decide I don’t care—I’ve been trying to breathe underwater too long. It’s time to get some fresh air into my lungs.

  JULY 11

  * * *

  1:00 P.M.

  I’m watching television, remembering, maybe, what Mario said about self-respect or maybe my point-of-no-return gesture of giving him that notebook. That’s the only way to explain the following:

  My father is asleep;

  A Marlins game blares on television;

  My sneakers rest on the hand-carved fruitwood coffee table;

  Along with a juicy can of Mountain Dew.

  Thus summoned, my father enters. I don’t move. He storms to the television, slaps the off button three times before it works, then kicks my feet off the table. Except he misses and hits the can instead. It flies toward the ceiling, drenching the sofa, the rug, the table, and my father in a tidal wave of piss-colored liquid. He starts yelling.

  I don’t move. I feel my brain short-circuiting, trying to carry me to an alternative reality. I can’t go. I concentrate, instead, on Mario’s words. Respect yourself. Mario’s yelling louder than my father, and to shut him up, I look in my father’s eyes. For the first time, I don’t see myself.