Swim the Fly

by Don Calame

  “Can we agree on that?” Mom repeats, blowing a thick stream of organic smoke out the window.

  We all mumble “Yes” and “Sure” and “Of course” as we get out of the car, but I can tell by the secret smile on Grandpa’s face that he has every intention of following through with his plan.

  The bottoms of my pant legs hover around my shins as we walk toward the funeral parlor. I’m glad that Kelly and her family only just moved to the neighborhood, because that means they won’t know the Hoogenbooms and Kelly won’t be here today to see me in last year’s suit. I tug my pants a little lower and run my hand through my hair just in case.

  “How did Mr. Hoogenboom die, anyway?” I ask.

  “It was his feet,” Grandpa says. “He kept telling everyone they were killing him but nobody believed him.”

  “Is that appropriate?” Mom says as she strides ahead.

  We approach the funeral parlor and Grandpa Arlo holds the door for us. “Chop-chop. Look alive.”

  Peter and I laugh. Mom doesn’t.

  “I don’t find that funny,” she says, taking one last, long drag on her cigarette before flicking it onto the pavement and crushing it out with the toe of her scuffed black dress shoe. She blows the smoke out of the corner of her mouth as she enters. Peter, Grandpa, and I follow her inside.

  The lobby is all gray and gray-blue and smells like sprayed pine and awkward silence. It’s refrigerator cold in here and my body gives a quick shudder from the sudden shift in temperature.

  A removable-letter sign in a pedestal stand greets us just inside the door. It reads: HOGENBOOM SERVICE — MOONFLOWER ROOM.

  Grandpa squints at the sign. “Hogenboom?”

  “They must have run out of o’s,” Peter says.

  “Maybe they thought nobody would notice,” I say.

  “Maybe they knew Ray’s disposition.” Grandpa laughs.

  “Of all places.” Mom shakes her head in disgust. “You’d think they’d have some respect here.”

  “Death is just another business,” Grandpa says, then leads the way down the hall to the Moonflower Room.

  The space is set out symmetrically: a square of seats on both sides with a row down the middle. This could just as easily be the setting for a small wedding if you replaced the coffin at the front with an altar. You could even leave all the bouquets.

  There are probably two dozen people here, some sitting, others standing in clusters. All of them in Sunday church dress. Everyone speaks softly, like Mr. Hoogenboom is just sleeping and they don’t want to wake him.

  The first thing I do is scan the room for cute girls. You’d think that being in a room with a dead body might push those feelings down deep inside you. But no. It’s like trying to force a kickboard to stay underwater; unless you give it your full, constant attention, it eventually explodes to the surface.

  Mom strides right over to Mrs. Hoogenboom, who sits in the front row, surrounded by people with heavy eyes. Grandpa waits in the back. He stands up tall, smooths his hands over his jacket, and combs his fingers through his hair.

  “Come on,” Peter says to me, pulling on my coat sleeve.

  We head straight to the front. I see immediately that it’s an open casket, and that nearly-missed-hitting-a-parked-car-with-my-bike feeling rushes through my body. Cold, clammy fingers grasp the back of my neck.

  Peter and I step up onto the raised platform where the coffin is laid out.

  “There he is,” Peter says.

  At first glance, the body in the casket looks more peaceful than I’d imagined it would. Mr. Hoogenboom seems like he really could be asleep. Except for the fact that he’s not breathing and is wearing a lot of makeup. The more I stare at him, the more I realize that the face only sort of resembles Mr. Hoogenboom. Like someone didn’t get it quite right. Like in those wax-figure museums. Where you think maybe they used look-alikes for models instead of the actual famous people.

  “You almost want to touch him, don’t you?” Peter says.

  I didn’t believe Coop, but Pete’s right. You do kind of want to touch Mr. Hoogenboom’s face to see what it feels like. To make sure he’s not there anymore. I remember when Sean and I found my cat Milkshake sprawled out under a bush. She’d been hit by a car and I had to feel her body to make sure she was dead and it felt cold but it also felt empty. Hollow. Like a piñata or something.

  Mrs. Hoogenboom has placed a few things around Mr. Hoogenboom in the coffin. There’s a dried, flattened white rose. There are two Buffalo Sabres hockey ticket stubs. There’s a picture of Mr. and Mrs. Hoogenboom when they were teenagers, laughing and sharing a hot dog at a carnival.

  “Can I ask you something, Pete?” I say.

  “As long as it’s not for money.”

  “How did you get Melissa to like you?”

  “I don’t know,” Peter says. “She just liked me. Why?”

  “Never mind.”

  “You’ve got the hots for someone?”

  “No. I don’t know,” I say. “If I did, though, what would be a good way to get her to talk to me?”

  “You do realize it’s a little weird, you asking me this over Mr. Hoogenboom’s dead body?”

  “That’s the thing,” I say. “I can’t stop thinking about her. She’s like a pebble in my shoe. But in a good way.”

  “Does she know you exist?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I guess you have to get her to notice you somehow,” Peter says. “The professional pickup artists all say you need to look like the ripest berry in the bunch. The most interesting. You should do something interesting.”

  “Like what?” I say.

  “I don’t know,” Peter says. “But it has to be something big. Really big.”

  MS. LUNTZ BLOWS HER WHISTLE. The white whistle she wears on a black string around her neck like a talisman. The squeal of it screams in your ears. It’s higher-pitched than most whistles. It’s more grating. More piercing. There are rumors she had it specially made by Hungarian gypsies, whittled out of a human femur. And it’s been said that each screech of her whistle is like a curse. I don’t know who started the rumor, but I believe it.

  “Let’s go, people. Out of the pool,” Ms. Luntz howls, her voice hoarse from all the yelling she’s been doing during practice. She sounds her whistle again.

  I hoist myself out of the pool and hurry over to my towel. Coop and Sean are close behind me.

  “If she ever takes that whistle off, I’m going to steal it, tie it to an M-80, and blow it the hell up.” Sean says this a little louder than he should, because his fingers are jammed in his ears.

  My skin had adjusted to the temperature of the pool water and now the air feels icy. I wrap my dark-green towel tight around my hunched body. The towel is old and frayed. I catch one of the loose, wet threads in my mouth. I clamp down with my teeth and pull. The string doesn’t snap, just unravels a bit more off the end.

  “Over here, people. Come on, come on, come on,” Ms. Luntz bellows, rapping her clipboard against the fence. “Before the next eclipse.”

  Kelly is only six people away. She pats her beautiful face, her smooth forehead, her little swooped nose, with her powder pink towel. I can’t help but stare. It’s like there’s Kelly in crystal-clear focus and then there’s the rest of the world, fuzzy and pointless.

  I feel a smack on the back of my head. It’s Cooper.

  “Dude. Keep gawking like that and you’ll be tenting your Speedo.”

  I shake myself out of the trance and follow Sean and Coop into the herd surrounding Ms. Luntz.

  “Your effort today was pathetic,” Ms. Luntz says. “Disgusting and completely unsatisfactory. Week one, I can excuse the apathy. But we’re in week two, people. Continue on this way and we won’t be able to beat a team of amputees.”

  Coop, Sean, and me share a look of disbelief.

  “I expect everyone to step it up tomorrow,” she says. “The workout I put on that board should not pose a problem.” Ms. Luntz
points to a chalkboard leaned up against the back wall, the words smeared and streaky. “You should be able to finish it with time to spare.” Ms. Luntz fixes on us with her shark eyes. “I don’t think three people got halfway through this morning.”

  I feel Kelly before I see her. Stepping up near me. Just behind my right shoulder. It’s like she causes a wake in the air, warm and cool at the same time. My skin reacts. Tingling. Goose bumps. I have to catch my breath. It takes everything I have, every ounce of willpower, not to turn and look.

  I can just see her out of the corner of my eye. She’s right there. Wet hair tousled, cheeks rosy. I swallow the lump in my throat. I inhale, my lungs shaky, my head spinning.

  “Now, to add insult to injury,” Ms. Luntz says, “I just got a call from Mrs. Porter. Apparently, her brilliant son Steven chose to go dirt biking yesterday and broke both his legs and his right arm.”

  “Ouch,” Sean says.

  “Good thing Stevie’s a lefty,” Coop says as he mimes jerking off with his left hand.

  Sean laughs but I pretend not to notice. I don’t want Kelly thinking I find that kind of thing funny.

  “I won’t go into how idiotic it is to go dirt biking in the first place,” Ms. Luntz says. “Or how selfish it was for him to do this during swim season. All I will say is that his moronic actions have left me with a big gaping hole.”

  Cooper is about to say something disgusting, but I surreptitiously whack him before he can get it out.

  “The hell?” Coop says, giving me a look.

  I shake my head quickly and motion furtively toward Kelly.

  Coop cranes his neck and looks past me. He groans and rolls his eyes. “Traitor,” he whispers.

  I shoot him a death stare, but he just starts chuckling.

  “So, then, I need to put this out to the team,” Ms. Luntz says. “Who’s going to step up and fill that hole?”

  I clench my jaw and glare at Coop.

  He bites his lip, trembling with stifled laughter. “Don’t look at me, Fun Police.” He holds his hands up in surrender.

  I dart my eyes to the side. Kelly unwraps a grape Tootsie Pop and slides it into her mouth. The slick, sticky lollipop rolls around on her tongue.

  I’ll never look at a Tootsie Pop the same way again.

  “We all know that over the past five seasons, Steven has finished second only to Tony Grillo in every butterfly event they’ve competed in,” Ms. Luntz says. “And we’re all aware that the boys’ fifteen-and-over one-hundred-yard butterfly is the hardest event there is. But these are important points for our team to get. I know it’s a lot to ask, but with the addition of Kelly to our team, I really think we have a shot at taking gold in championships this year.”

  Nobody moves. Nobody volunteers. A few guys shift their weight from one leg to the other. A few clear their throats. Most just look away, not wanting Ms. Luntz to catch their eyes.

  A one-legged crow lands on the fence and squawks loudly.

  “Well?” Ms. Luntz says, machine-gunning her pen on her clipboard. “We don’t need you to win. We just need you to place. Most of the teams don’t bother entering a swimmer in the butterfly, so all it really amounts to is finishing. Otherwise we don’t get a single point from the event.”

  I see Sean shaking his head. “It’s a suicide mission,” he mutters.

  I stare down at the concrete. I need to cut my toenails. I curl my toes under my feet.

  Without thinking, I look over at Kelly. She turns and our eyes connect. She pulls the lollipop from her mouth and smiles. I smile back. Her eyes are so clear, so green. They’re the color of the water you see in those travel pictures. Where the man and woman are snorkeling and they’re holding hands, and it’s like they’re the only two people in the world.

  Kelly looks away, like she’s shy or something. Still smiling. Her neck flushes slightly.

  “Come on, people,” Ms. Luntz says. “Who is the hero here? Who is going to challenge themselves? Who is going to swim the fly?”

  And it’s like some force outside of me suddenly grabs my right arm and thrusts my hand high into the air, and the words tumble out of my mouth before I know what’s going on.

  “I’ll do it.”

  The entire team turns and looks at me. I feel my face get hot.

  “Matt Gratton?” Ms. Luntz coughs like she’s got a fleck of popcorn stuck in her throat. “Well. That’s . . . unexpected. But I guess . . . we don’t have any other option.” She sighs, clicks her pen, and scratches something on her clipboard. Presumably my name.

  I look over at Kelly, who nods and says, “Way to go,” before she walks off.

  Coop turns to me, blinking hard. “Holy crap, dude. Are you nuts?”

  “YOU TOTALLY STEPPED IN IT,” Sean says. “There’s a reason most of the other teams don’t enter swimmers in the fly. Because nobody can do it.”

  “It’s his pants hamster.” Coop nods. “It short-circuited his brain.”

  We’re walking up to the mall. Sean wants to go to EB to check out the latest Ring of Light game. I can’t remember if it’s Ring of Light 3 or Ring of Light 4. I play video games but nothing on the scale of what Sean does. He came in fifth place in the Xbox Live Worldwide PsychoNinja Online Tournament. And fifth place in that is way different from fifth place in a swim meet where there are only five swimmers; there were thousands and thousands of people playing in the PsychoNinja tournament. Coop and I were pretty impressed. It’s too bad you can’t use a thing like that to pick up girls. Though don’t think Sean didn’t try.

  “You don’t honestly think that swimming the fly is going to get you anywhere with Kelly, do you?” Coop says.

  “I don’t know.” I shrug. “I wasn’t really thinking about it.”

  “Yeah, right.” Coop laughs.

  “Man, oh, man,” Sean says. “You are up shit creek without a paddle, without a boat, without a kickboard, without water wings, without —”

  “You can shut up now,” I say.

  “Yeah, Sean,” Coop gibes. “Leave the poor guy alone. He already has it bad enough. You don’t have to remind him how horrible it’s going to be. How torturous four laps of butterfly are. Not to mention the fact that he can’t even do one. You don’t have to bring up the fact that he might drown. He already knows that. He knows how embarrassing it’s going to be. Don’t ya, Matt?”

  “Thanks, Coop,” I say. “You’re a real pal.”

  Coop and Sean double over with laughter.

  “You guys are feebs.”

  “Sorry, sorry.” Coop can barely catch his breath. “Seriously, though. You’re probably right. I’m sure Kelly finds the sight of a scrawny, pasty, white dude flopping around in the water like a spastic salmon very hot.” Coop convulses his whole body, his arms flailing, his tongue waggling.

  Sean nearly falls over in hysterics at Coop’s impersonation. And I can’t help it — the whole thing is so ridiculous that I start to crack up, too.

  We laugh ourselves to tears all the way up to the glass doors of the Rockville Mall. And I’m laughing, for sure, but there is also a drop of acid in my stomach that’s eating away at my insides.

  We spend about twenty minutes in EB, trying out the new games. Sean’s Ring of Light game has been delayed, so he just buys a Demon’s Basement strategy guide.

  We make our way to the food court, flip a coin, and decide on Mr. Taco. I order a number four combo meal: a Burrito Excelente, chips, and a root beer. Coop gets the same. Sean gets the number two: three cheese enchiladas, refried beans, and a horchata shake. We find a table by the window and sit with our trays of food.

  “That looks totally disgusting,” I say to Sean, stifling a laugh.

  “You don’t know what you’re missing.” He scoops up a sporkful of cheesy brown goo and stuffs it into his mouth.

  Coop unwraps his burrito. “Dude, didn’t anyone ever tell you never to order the number two at a Mexican restaurant?”

  “Screw you, okay?” Sean says. “It’s not my fau
lt they call it a number two.”

  “It’s your fault you ordered it,” Coop says, laughing.

  “Yeah, well, it’s your fault you’re such a butt-wipe, so . . .”

  Coop and I share a look. It’s almost unfair, ragging on Sean when his arsenal of put-downs is so lame.

  Coop clears his throat. “Okay, moving right along.” He takes a sip of his root beer. “It’s time to get down to business. We’ve got less than two months to figure out how to see a naked babe. In the flesh. Who has any ideas?”

  We all think for a minute, eating and drinking in silence.

  “Okay. I know,” Sean says, sitting up tall. “We could get fake IDs and sneak into a strip club.”

  Coop teeter-totters his head. “That might work for me. Because I look mature. But Matt here’s got a baby face.” Coop scrunches up my cheeks with his free hand and I smack it away.

  “And you’re like, what, three feet tall, Sean?” Coop continues. “I guess you could sneak through the bouncer’s legs, but where does that leave poor Matt?”

  “Why do you always have to be such a load?” Sean slurps his shake.

  “You should talk. You are what you eat.” Coop points at Sean’s plate of burnt sienna mush.

  “That’s like the second funniest thing ever. Right after your face,” Sean says.

  Coop laughs. “Dude, we’re gonna have to work on your comebacks or you’re never going to survive in this world.”

  “What about binoculars?” I say. “We could spy on Mandy Reagan’s house.”

  “I don’t know.” Coop screws up his face.

  “She’s the hottest girl in school.”

  “True. But her dad’s a gun freak. I heard he’s a crack shot, too. Still, it might be worth it. Almost.”

  Sean wipes his hands on his napkin. “Mandy takes tae kwon do at the community center.”

  “That’s great, Sean,” Coop says. “What other interesting facts do you know about her?”

  “I’m saying we could hide in the girls’ locker room, douche.”