The complex featured a selection of swimming pools and three water slides, twisting tunnels of bright coloured plastic which plunged thirty feet into the water, jiggling like innards each time they were used, and a hidden machine which produced six-foot waves. The smell of chlorine was sharp close to the pools, and even the foyer was warm and damp. In the changing rooms at the back of the building wet swimsuits and towels slapped to the ground beside the benches and outside the stalls with the finality of things attracted by magnets, and steam rose from the threshold of water through which all new arrivals were required to pass. For a while I just stood by the railing and watched others pop from the slides with all the surprise of people whose chairs have been pulled out from under them. A siren erupted every half hour, and those on the lip of the pool with their feet in the water twisted round on their palms and slipped over the side. Then the machine was switched on and the contents of the pool sloshed over its edges, slapping the steps at the opposite end where the concrete floor hurried up at an anxious angle, and the water was so shallow it was still almost white. Because Ricky dared me I climbed the scaffolding which led to the slides. Someone behind me gave me a push, and I was carried down on a thin sheet of water, my hips riding furiously up the sides of the tube. All I could see was the white mouth of the exit swinging far in front, at the centre of a world which was otherwise yellow, backlit and uniform and almost translucent, and I thought of small, pallid insects and what they might see traversing the contours of delicate blossoms, following the easy confluence of grooves.
When we got home my mother of course was the first to spot it, and she saw it as soon as we stepped from the bus. At the bottom men and women with various weapons stood with bowed heads against the ruins of battle while others fired a volley into the folds of a banner strung up with barbed wire and printed all over with shields and crests. Above all this a golden youth towered, her gaze flung backwards over her shoulder, her right arm raised and beckoning to the dark silhouettes of the marchers who followed her—Opportunity! Culture! their placards promised, Houses! Jobs! Education for All!
PREVIOUS WINNERS OF THE DRUE HEINZ LITERATURE PRIZE
The Death of Descartes • David Bosworth, 1981
Dancing for Men • Robley Wilson, 1982
Private Parties • Jonathan Penner, 1983
The Luckiest Man in the World • Randall Silvis, 1984
The Man Who Loved Levittown • W. D. Wetherell, 1985
Under the Wheat • Rick DeMarinis, 1986
In the Music Library • Ellen Hunnicutt, 1987
Moustapha’s Eclipse • Reginald McKnight, 1988
Cartographies • Maya Sonenberg, 1989
Limbo River • Rick Hillis, 1990
Have You Seen Me? • Elizabeth Graver, 1991
Director of the World and Other Stories • Jane McCafferty, 1992
In the Walled City • Stewart O’Nan, 1993
Departures Page 16