by Ron Irwin
Wendy drowned a few months after that photo was taken, on an Indian summer day during Tom’s last season as quarterback for the Niccalsetti Lions. She’d been outside with my father one Sunday afternoon doing support work for him for extra cash. She wanted to go for one last swim and Tom came with her, drove her in my father’s truck down to Miller’s Point and let her out for that quick dip in the river. He sat in the truck in the small parking area, the radio set to the football game. She had worn a swimsuit to the site because the whole week had been unseasonably hot and she had known she would want to cool off on the way home. My brother had been emphatic about that, that she wanted to jump in the water just to cool off. And so he hadn’t bothered to get out of the truck, had stayed in the cab because the football game was on. It was a late afternoon and the Bills were coming back on the Colts and there were rumors this would be the year the Bills might hit the Superbowl—they had a new quarterback and things were turning around. Tom took this as an omen, believing that if the Buffalo Bills could actually win the conference, then anything was possible, such as, for instance, the Niccalsetti Lions hitting and winning the state championship. So he sat there with Wendy’s door open, drinking the one beer our father allowed him (and not me, never me, Dad was already worried about me, and not Wendy), sipping it with his sunglasses on and his shirt off, looking out into the sun and the endlessly sparkling lake and listening to the Bills actually take it to the Colts, just squeeze them like they had the Dolphins and the Raiders. And just as the last downs were being counted he stepped out of the truck and shaded his eyes and looked for my sister and called her name, and then walked, and then ran down to the dock and to the end, not really terrified yet but definitely scared, with a cold feeling in his stomach because Wendy was supposed to be just cooling off, but where was she? And he scanned the little park where I’d come a million times in the night with my friends and there was nothing to see.
Later, they’d find her and the doctor would say she was probably pulled under by a cramp. The water was cold with the impending fall and she might have drowned swimming up for air after that first, bracing dive. She just dove into the water and disappeared. It seemed impossible. The doctor was sure to tell us that it was nobody’s fault, that whoever was watching her would have had to have been right on that dock and very fast and a strong swimmer to have saved her. All of the things, of course, that Tom was. But the truck was parked yards from the dock. Whoever was sitting in the truck could really not have been much help on that bright day, especially some distracted underage kid drinking beer.
I set the picture aside. “Thanks for putting that stuff away for me, Car.”
She nodded at the computer. “Somebody had to do it.”
“How many cigarettes do you have left in your bag?”
“I quit. This you know.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“Maybe half a pack of stale Camel lights.”
“Can I have one?”
“You don’t smoke, either.”
“I’m asking as one non-smoker to another.”
“No. Get your own.”
The compulsion would pass in a minute. What I wouldn’t mind, in fact, was a drink, but we had strict rules about opening bottles in the daytime. Pretty soon there would be nothing to stop me from pouring myself a cold one at eight in the morning if I wanted. The thought wasn’t comforting. Now she was leaning forward and nearsightedly squinting at the rough script, then looking back up at the computer and doing the math on the time in and out for each sequence.
“Stop looking at me work, Rob. It’s creeping me out.”
“I’m never going to be able to take this desk with me, wherever I go. In case you were worried about that.”
She paused. What was going to happen to the desk hadn’t occurred to her. She shrugged. “I don’t want it here. After, you know, whatever.”
“It doesn’t fit the décor, right?”
“It’s not that. It’s not mine. Sean gave it to you, not me. I have a desk.”
“You could sell it.”
“You sell it. I don’t want strangers coming here to look at how I live. Go to eBay right now, if you want. Or take out an ad.”
“I don’t want to sell it.”
“I don’t either.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
“So, then, you’ll hold on to it for me?”
“I’ll hold on to it. Yeah.”
“It won’t offend your minimalist, postmodern taste?”
She threw me a filthy look.
“I’ll just store it here for a while and get it later.”
“And while we’re on the subject, there’s not much point in boxing all those invoices and bills that took me hours to collate.”
“I guess not.”
“Then leave them there. It’s not like I’m going to vaporize just because you’re leaving.” She turned back to the computer, muttered something under her breath.
I piled the bills neatly back into the desk, squared them off on the work surface, tucked them into the letter galleys. She kept her back to me while I did it, and I took my time. When I was finished, that desk was ready for some serious inventory, the records were right at our fingertips. It was not a dump zone anymore. It was a filing area, a depository of records, a history of our life together. I gently rolled down the articulated cover and locked it. I ran my hand over the smooth oak and slipped the key into my pocket. I was smiling. It was something I had in reserve.
13.
My first practice in the tanks. I entered the dank and musty cavern to find Channing in the semidarkness conferring with Ruth and Connor. Wadsworth and Perry were already perched on their respective sliding seats located on the island that divided the water troughs, Perry at port and Wadsworth behind him at starboard. They were rowing at a slow rating, about twenty-three strokes per minute, I guessed. Like theirs, the two empty sliding seats in front of them had crude adjustable foot stretchers with black sandals bolted to the bottoms. The seats had been pulled from dead boats past. The oarlocks extended over the tanks and we used carbon fiber oars that had been shortened so that we couldn’t rip the water channels apart. The tanks themselves were just wooden corrals with their own brackish streams. On each opposite wall was a row of streaked, filthy mirrors, so even a rower practicing alone could work on his stroke. I watched Wadsworth and Perry, already covered in a film of the water’s slime and their own sweat, breathing dust as they rowed. It smelled like a place more suited to slaughtering animals than to rowing.
The tanks set the oarsmen up on a high plane so that their form could be scrutinized and picked apart. I had never felt so exposed as I climbed up, shook out my arms and rolled my neck, telling my heart to stop clenching up in my chest. I breathed deeply through my nose. The air was ripe with the odor of growing, vegetative things. The humid heat of the room did not appear to bother Channing, who finally noticed me and nodded at the two empty seats with some irritation. “Let’s go, gentlemen.”
Wadsworth and Perry held up their rowing and waited while Connor climbed into the stroke seat—the front seat we all followed—and I slipped in behind him. Connor pushed his oar into place and took a tentative stroke. Channing turned to Ruth and nodded, then took a step away from the tanks. Ruth stood on tiptoe by the video camera mounted on a tripod and focused it on us. I watched the red eye beside the lens blink, blink, blink in time with my heartbeat and tried to look impassive, not wanting my fear to be recorded. I focused intently on Connor’s neck.
Ruth was dressed in her usual blue sweat suit and her ridiculously small running shoes. She climbed up on the edge of the tanks and squatted down, ensuring that Connor and I were tied in properly. “You guys have ten minutes, okay? An easy pace, maybe twenty-five strokes a minute, I’ll track you on the watch. Connor, Coach is going to be watching you. Rob, your finishes have to be smooth today, hear me?”
I jiggled the oar, nodded. I watched the stiff, precise movements o
f the others and refused to believe that I, too, looked that regimented behind an oar. Without the motion of the boat, the wind and the speed, we were robots.
“Ready? We’ll start with the pick drill, that’s arms only, on my command … and go.”
Connor began the curt, chopping strokes of the drill using only his arms, his back straight, pulling each stroke to his chest and slowly recovering the blade.
“Don’t feather your blade,” Ruth yipped. “Square blades. Come on, Connor, square ’em up.”
Connor flipped the oar up. Ruth hadn’t looked at my strokes yet.
“Connor, your outside elbow’s too high. Rob, slow down that recovery. I said slow. Are you deaf? No. That stroke’s not slow. Still not. That one is. Yes. Thank you, Rob.” Ruth narrowed her eyes. “You two aren’t together today. Get it right, or I swear I’ll make you do picks all day. Don’t look at me Rob, head in the boat.”
Ruth may have looked like a child bundled up in huge sweats, but her voice was harsh and low and she made a point of being cruel to Connor. She jumped off the ledge of the tank and walked over to him, put her hands behind her back and watched Connor rowing in silence. Then she leaned forward slightly and said to him in a stage whisper, “Your timing’s off, Captain. Way off.”
She took a step back, “Add the backs in three, and one … and two … and three … and now with the backs, come on, keep it sharp.”
Adding the backs lengthened the recovery. I felt a tug in my legs as I caught each stroke. I bowed forward, pushing the oar over to the middle of my shins and snapping off the catches in time with Connor. The splashes from the four of us were louder now. I could hear Perry breathing harder with the exertion.
“Knees down, Carrey. Come on, that’s it. Follow Connor. Connor, head up. Concentration starts now.”
Channing came over to the tanks, his hands shoved in his pockets, and stood behind Ruth. Ruth glanced back at him, and Channing nodded once. I could not see his eyes in the gloom. Ruth turned to us. “Let’s go half slide gentlemen, in three, on my count, and one … two … three … and half slide. And half again, don’t get lost in it, Carrey.”
My half slide mimicked Connor’s exactly. My knees bent slightly, my outside arm plunging between them, gathering length. As we moved into the half slide strokes, water began to slop over the side of the tank.
“Move the rating up two on three. One … and two … three … and up two.” Ruth reached into her sweatshirt, brought out the rowing timer and clicked each stroke into the little computer. “Twenty-seven on the dot. Nice.”
Channing shook his head. “You’re erratic, Rob. Smooth it out.”
Ruth stepped right back up to me. “You heard the boss.” Ruth held up the timer again, in front of my face, and clicked in three strokes. “Coach is right. Twenty-eight now, what’s wrong? Am I bugging you, Rob? Smooth out, full slide, full strokes on three, and that’s one … and two—lengthen … three—lengthen … full now, thank you.” A single spot of sweat sprung out in the center of Connor’s back. He was pulling flawless strokes, one after another. He was dropping the oar perfectly into the water, creating a quick backsplash that wet my inside arm and the length of my blade. Water was running down the mirrors to our left, splashing out of the tanks behind us.
Channing said, “You look strained, Robert Carrey. Relax. We’re all friends here.” I tried to loosen my shoulders, to breathe easy under his gaze.
Ruth clicked two strokes into the timer. “Still at twenty-seven, Coach.”
“Try him now,” Channing said.
Ruth clicked in the strokes. “Yes, twenty-eight.”
“Carrey, slow the hands. I’ll only ask you once. Slow them.”
Ruth stepped up to me. “Slow down, Carrey. Make it up on the slide.” She was just out of my line of vision. I put all my concentration into my hands, willing them to slow.
“Ruth, keep track of Mr. Payne. He thinks we’ve forgotten him.” Channing’s eyes hadn’t moved from me.
“Is that right, Connor?” Ruth shuffled over to him. The tanks were high enough so that Connor was sitting at waist level to Ruth. Ruth crossed her arms and watched him. “I’m putting this stroke in the computer, and this one, and this one. Sorry, Coach, they’re at twenty-eight.” Connor cocked his head for a moment, took a deep breath in exasperation as he rowed.
Things were going wrong.
“Slow down Mr. Carrey for us, Ruth.”
“Eyes forward now, Rob. I want one stroke off this timer.” It wasn’t easy. A slow, even rating is as hard as a fast, high rating. Connor’s head was forward now and his slide slowed only a fraction. The backsplash of his strokes spattered me with tiny, distracting showers as I tried to focus. The slow rowing made me vulnerable. My shoulders had stiffened and I could feel the panic beginning and was trying to quell it. It was a desperate scream in the back of my mind. Stay focused. Stay clear. Stay focused. Stay clear. Ruth clicked in three strokes and said, “Now you’re low, Rob, twenty-six.”
“This is very interesting, Mr. Carrey.”
“Now you guys are about right. Twenty-six and a half … and now you’re on.” Perry was breathing hard, but he was ripping the oar through the water. Our movement created its own ionic breeze.
Mr. Channing moved toward me. “It looks as if our new recruit doesn’t like our low ratings.”
I didn’t move my eyes or my head. I kept them focused on the growing spot in the center of Connor’s back. Eye movement in the tanks was instant death.
“Rob’s on track now, Coach.”
“Really? Bring them down to twenty-five, Ruth.”
Ruth turned to Connor. “Down two in three. And that’s one … and two … and three … down now, Connor.”
Ruth clicked us in. “Rob’s good for it.”
“He’s shaky, if you were to ask me.”
“Rob, smooth it out. Nice and easy.”
“Find out if Carrey can follow this stroke rating.”
“Carrey, steady now, you’re looking good.”
“But not strong.”
“Hands, hands, Rob.”
“These two oarsmen are not rowing together, Ruth.”
“Stay with Connor, Rob,” Ruth hissed. “Come on. That’s a good stroke. That one’s good. That’s a bad one. Good stroke. Good. Good. Bad. Bad.”
“Rob’s off again.”
“Rob Carrey, fuck, twenty-five and steady.”
“He’s not doing it, Ruth. And watch your language, my dear.”
“Rob, follow smooth now, Connor, up one, still low, up a stroke, still low, now you’re high, that one’s just right. Stay there. Good. Good!”
Channing didn’t think it was good. “I’ve had enough of this. Have them stop. I have other rowers to take care of. Carrey, if you can’t slow your hands and follow Mr. Payne, you’re no good to us. You’re wasting everyone’s time. Ruth, please stop the film.”
We stopped rowing, our oars askew over the swirling water, and I realized there were two others in the room—Perry and Wadsworth—who had rowed evenly throughout the ordeal, through Channing’s chastisement and Ruth’s relentless criticism.
I didn’t look at Connor when I hopped off the tanks. I yanked my sweatshirt over my head and pulled on my sneakers. The hot, furious feeling was boiling up inside me and the disgusting stale air in there made me want to throw up. Channing glanced up at me and I ignored him. Connor turned in his seat, his face red, and said, “Practice isn’t over, Carrey.”
“It is for me.”
* * *
Outside it was already gray. I was breathing hard and shaking. Connor pushed through the sliding doors still sweaty from the tanks and started right in on me. “You have the classic sculler’s problem. Fast hands. You’ll get through it. You’ll see on the video tonight. Watch your hands.”
Go away, I thought. I stood in the cold blast of wind coming off the river, realizing just how hot it had been in there. The leaves on the trees leading down the drive hadn’t been stripp
ed yet, but they soon would be.
“You thought this was going to be easy, didn’t you?” he said. “It’s not. You’re going to have to get better. You don’t have to take it like such a baby. That’s what these sessions are for. If you storm out of a room like that it sets a bad example to the rest of the team. There’s months of this ahead of you, Carrey, before they even select a boat. This isn’t Niccalsetti, where a little luck and some brass balls will win you your races.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Grow up. Pull yourself together. Channing is going to be harsh every day. He’s like that with all the recruits, all the kids from Boston and Philadelphia who come here thinking they’re hot stuff and find out they’re not as great as they thought. If you want to succeed here, you have to do better than that, and not get frustrated.” He grabbed my arm, spun me around, and I came close to outright hitting him. “You’re in a whole new world. Adapt to it. Try to live up to the reputation you have. Do you think you’re the only guy they’re going to abuse down there? You know what really blew it for you? Look at me. Do you know what it was? It wasn’t your speed on the slide, or the way you were leaning out of the boat on the recoveries.”