by Kate Gray
Taylor / Sunflower
The day of the race on the Schuylkill was eights and geese and nervous girls. Rambo’s jacket carried the giant T for St. Timothy’s in gray on her back. Eight oars in unison moved the boat away from the Canoe Club dock. The knock of the blades turning in the oarlocks added a regular beat to the geese honking in the boat wakes.
You were downstream. You were there under the water that flowed from where I stood to wherever your body was. You were somewhere on this river where we sprinted against Penn in ’81. I looked for you on the docks that bounced with each girl’s steps, in the launches packed with referees, on the riverbanks where cattails turned from brown to gray. I couldn’t find you.
There was nothing I could do any more.
The T on Rambo’s back got smaller, and she turned the boat upstream. Even at this distance, I saw three and four seat were not parallel to the other backs.
Down the ramp, an eight came black and wobbly. The cox’n kept one hand on the bow ball. I waited at the bottom of the ramp. Behind the eight, carried by our rival school, Warrenton, came Crisco, Cris Copeland. Tall like an elm, she paused at the top of the ramp. She looked at the river and took in current and wind and wakes. Her baseball cap was a silhouette against the gray clouds. She didn’t look at her crew until her cox’n yelled, “Way enough,” and the girls took too many steps with the eight on their shoulders.
Crisco’s steps down the ramp were loud on the metal. She said, “Back two steps.” The girls stepped back. Crisco walked under the shell, put hands on each gunwale. Her cox’n gave the commands to lift, and the boat rose up over their heads. Crisco couldn’t extend her arms fully or she would lift the boat out of reach of the girls. She was six foot, two inches, and one of the strongest women on the National Team. We had rowed together for a season, she at six seat, me at five. For a season, I read her back.
At the start of a race, her back was short sentences and fear, a child in the face of a father’s rage. In the middle 1,000 meters, her back was graffiti and living on the street, straight As in high school. In the last 500 meters, her back beat the songs played in every lesbian bar, “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” Nothing stopped that back.
Crisco watched her crew get their oars, take off windshirts, and toss them on the dock. I walked up behind her, and with both hands, tugged her sweats down. They dropped a couple of inches and stuck. She spun around.
“Hey, Crisco,” I said. She spun around partway, enough to lean down and wrap one arm around my waist. With one swift motion, she flipped me upside down. In front of her girls and everyone else on the dock, Crisco picked me up like a salt shaker and shook me upside down.
My feet in the air, my hands hitting the dock, my head came close to wet wood. I smelled rot.
“Alta,” she said, “how’s the view, you rascal?”
“Crisco,” I said. The blood pooled in my forehead. “Don’t make me hurt you.”
“Oh yeah, like you could.”
“Ladies,” the dockmaster said, “don’t do that.” A man with a Henley Royal cap, blue jacket, clipboard, and bullhorn, looked down his glasses at us.
Crisco shifted me to her right hip, then bent her waist enough for me to get my feet and hands on the dock. My butt was in the air, but then I folded into a kneeling position before her, sat back on my sneakers, and laughed. Crisco’s big buttery face, with her wide cheeks, broad forehead, and blue eyes, was summer in the middle of October.
“Coach Co,” her cox’n said, “we’re ready.” The girl came to Crisco’s waist and looked more like a blueberry with all the clothes she wore. The girls sitting in the rowing shell were sunflowers in October turning to Crisco.
“Okay, Wolverines,” Crisco said, “this is it. Stay long. Stay connected. For heaven’s sake, stay in front of St. Timothy’s.” The girls looked from their coach to me, obvious in my maroon and gray windshirt.
Since they had won last year, and St. Tim’s hadn’t, our start time was after theirs. The boats went off every twenty seconds, and the goal was to pass as many boats as possible. I had coached my girls to catch the Wolverines.
“Okay, Melanie,” Crisco said, “they’re all yours.”
From the end of the dock Crisco watched her crew head up the race course. I joined her there, and side by side we stood over the dark water, rising and falling when wakes washed through. The river was girl-voices over PA systems, geese, and launch motors. Without turning, Crisco put her arm around me and pulled me into her side.
“It must be hard for you to be here,” she said, “on this river.”
“Kind of,” I said.
Only Alex and I had talked about you. Only rowers knew what it was like to lose someone whose back you knew. I couldn’t talk about you to someone who knew and still coach a race on this river.
“Thanks,” I said. “Your girls look good.” I stepped away from her arm.
“We lost a lot of seniors, a building year.” She looked down at me and winked.
“I better get to the start. See you later?”
“Maybe I’ll see you coming next time,” she said. “Come to the bar tonight.”
“What bar?”
“Sneakers. It’s Third and Market.” She turned and faced me, put her hands on her hips. She was too bright and too strong on a cloudy day on the Schuylkill.
“Heads up,” a cox’n called.
“Ladies,” the dockmaster said again, “please get out of the way.” His clipboard was at his side, and his glasses slipped farther down his nose.
“Crisco, I’ll see you tonight.”
“Taylor,” she said, “may your crew eat our wake.”
My bike was on its side on the lawn. No locks, no helmet, bikes were all over the grass by the bike path. Coaches rode along the river, one hand on the handlebars, one hand on stopwatches, timing the strokes per minute of their crews.
On the other side of the Strawberry Mansion Bridge, I spotted our maroon and gray blades. The girls were under-stroking a crew they were passing. The chop on the river was a cross wind, and starboard side was down. Rambo yelled, but all I could hear was the low tone of her voice.
In two strokes they pulled even with the other boat. That crew was breaking apart. They were an accordion, two seats moving forward, six seats moving back. St. Tim’s was moving through them. The silhouettes of the two crews were nearly the same, except our crew was fluid, not broken, and then Crystal at bow, her thick shoulders and bushy hair, showed St. Tim’s gaining. The bow of the boat surged and receded, surged and receded, and with each surge they gained a few inches. Soon, Tiffany and Jenny and Carla were ahead of the other crew. Carla’s big stroke, her focus, moving the boat.
This was the moment that would change them. Right here, right now. After this moment when their past pain melted away, this moment of rolling oars, sliding seats, and one voice calling, when their race and SAT scores and social status made no difference, nothing would be the same. This moment plugged them into the essence of service, into a love that lasted forever. Or the belief that this love would last forever.
I pressed the watch at Buttons’ stroke and pressed again when Crystal’s went in. Their stroke was a thirty-one, a little low, but they moved. The starboard blades splashed, and Crystal’s blade dug into dark water. Even still, they opened water on the other crew. Another boat was twenty ahead, and Rambo was sure to have it in her sights. She’d take each one.
The last race you and I rowed on this river we were supposed to win. At the start you took us off at a forty. In the first ten strokes, we were half a length ahead. At the settle, when crews shift from explosive pace and position to race pace, we were a length up on the other six boats. That was a different kind of race, a sprint, not a head race like this one. It hurt in a different way.
We didn’t win. Despite the announcer at the grandstand saying, “If they row like this, they’ll be unstoppable.” Despite your words to our cox, Leslie, “Keep going.” The pain in your voice pushed the balls of
my feet away from me so hard that I almost split in two. Despite each stroke that I willed my blade into water. Each stroke your blade kept going. I kept going.
But six seat stopped. Her name was Nancy. Each catch felt like shoveling mud when she stopped. Her hernia got clipped between muscles. Her winter training of barbells and squats now turned us to straw. Straw oars moving mud.
At the finish line, she doubled over, and it took awhile to get referees to notice. She was loaded into their launch and into an ambulance on shore. Surgery that night. We lost.
For 2,000 meters, the whole way back to the Canoe Club, I cried. You didn’t. After loading the boat on the rack, stacking the oars, I reached for you, and you walked past me. You said, “Not now.” It turned into not ever.
A few hours after the race, after loading the St. Timothy boats, the award ceremony, the knock was tinny on the beige metal door. My hotel room smelled like Lysol, a pine veneer over smoke or dogs or vomit. St. Timothy’s, a school for families owning farms, for sons of Du Ponts, didn’t spend much for off-campus accommodations. The rowers were returning to campus with their trophy in hand. I was staying in Philadelphia one more night on my dime.
“Just a minute,” I said.
All nine of the crew on the dock, getting their medals and flashy trophy. Today they won the Head of the Schuylkill. In their eyes was sunrise and graduation and chocolate sundaes. They hugged and hugged and screamed and hugged. And I watched the ceremony from the riverbank; I was an enormous river rushing downstream.
The door to my hotel room opened, and Carla stood, fresh-washed, her curls stretched out and wet. She looked up and grinned, a little whistle in her look when she saw me. My loose jeans, blue and black flannel shirt, and my hair up were not the St. Timothy’s dress code. Off-duty meant pants with seams and clothes bought somewhere besides L.L.Bean.
“Carla,” I said, “why aren’t you on the van?”
“They’re waiting,” she said. “You left kind of fast after we loaded the boats.”
The door still open, I took up the doorframe, crossed my arms. “I just wanted to get back to the hotel.”
“Got a date?” she said. “Oh, you’re doing that cute thing, like a fly does when you touch it. Back up, shake your head.”
“Don’t start.”
“Inquiring minds want to know.”
I don’t want her to add up the way I don’t touch students, the quick exit today, no guys ever calling or dropping by on the weekends.
“None of your business.”
“Then it is a date.”
My hand started to close the door. She stepped closer to block it.
“Wait,” she said, “you should know. Just listen, please.” In her voice there was child and woman and teammate.
I kept the door part closed, part open. “What?” I said.
“We won for Sarah,” she said.
My hand dropped. The name in the doorway. The name out loud. Explosions went off inside me, and my eyes went crazy, a thousand places, no place the same, and then, I charged her, my hands pushed her shoulders, backing her into the hall, my face hot, and my voice. She flattened against the wall, and I didn’t know what I would do next. Every inside part of me wanted out.
“Fuck you, Carla.”
The hall echoed, even with carpet and all the doors closed. My hands gripped on her shoulders, her shoulders pinned to the wall.
“Miss Alta, I’m serious.”
“Quit messing with me.” I was eyes. I was voice.
“Rambo called a power-ten for Sarah. I swear. The boat picked up. We won because of her.” Her words were little. Her eyes in my eyes, her shoulders in my hands, her back against the wall, Carla was caught and pleading and girl.
She looked at one of my eyes and then the other to see what I was going to do. I looked at her eyes to see if she were playing with me. A breath went in, and my shoulders went down. I pushed away from her shoulders and stepped back.
My hand on my forehead, my other hand on the wall.
“And that’s when we really moved on Warrenton,” she said.
My steps into the room turned me from storm to rain. My shoulders curled in.
“We all know, you know?” She took a step into the room. “We pulled for you and her.”
The words had to stop. I turned around. Her eyes were dark brown, like the cornfield in rain. We stood there like that. No words. The two of us.
“Thank you, Carla,” I said. The words were quiet, almost shy, like we were meeting for the first time. And I opened my arms.
She walked right into my arms, and I wrapped around her, and in that moment, all the hugs I hadn’t had moved into my arms. I didn’t let go. She leaned into me, and I felt her hips against my hips, her hair soft on my cheek. She was warm. She was really warm. And I wanted to hold her.
The cabbie didn’t say much when I told him where I wanted to go, “North Third, between Market and Chestnut.”
He said, “You won’t stay.” His bushy eyebrows took up most of the rearview mirror.
“Why’s that?”
“Only dykes and gangbangers on that block.” He hacked up a wad of spit from his throat, but he couldn’t spit in his car. He swallowed.
There was a heat that came up my neck, a hot place in my throat that pushed words out. “I’ll fit right in.”
And that was all we said to each other until we arrived. It took the ride over potholes on the Philadelphia streets for my face and neck to cool. I paid the fare and not much tip.
“Sneakers” was in pink neon on a black sign, flat against the front of an old rowhouse. The streetlight was down the block a ways, and the shadows of stairs and cars reached across the sidewalk.
Up the stairs to Sneakers were women leaning against the railing. Their leather jackets and jeans blurred their shapes. At the top of the steps someone sat on a stool to the side of the entrance. The rim of a captain’s cap was the pink of the Sneakers sign. The person had leather pants and a leather jacket and chains hanging low off the leather belt. Standing up, the bouncer was taller than me.
“ID?” the tall one said. The voice was low like a truck on a street.
“Excuse me?”
“Your ID and five bucks.”
The door opened at the same moment I handed the bouncer my driver’s license. Through the open door, the beat of Donna Summer was fast. The first woman out was bleached blond with hair cut so short it stuck straight up. Another woman’s hand was down the back of the blond woman’s pants. They laughed and bumped when the blond woman paused by the bouncer.
“See you, Janie,” she said, “gotta get some shut eye.” She winked.
Janie, the bouncer, turned toward the pair. “You gals have fun. Be careful.”
The blond gal stopped again. Her eyes moved over me like a rake and scraped every inch. “That’s a cute one. No charge.”
“Sure thing, boss,” she said and watched the two down the steps. She turned back to me. The five dollars in my hand went back in my pocket. My jeans fell on my hips just right, and for the first time since starting my new job, I felt dressed just right. “Stamp your hand.”
A pink triangle stamped on my right wrist, big like a brand.
“Step right in, honey,” Janie said. “They don’t bite unless you ask them to.” Her big hand was loud on my shoulder.
Sneakers inside was cigarette butts, neatsfoot oil, and wine coolers. Smoke hung in the air about five feet off the floor. The entire bar was two rooms, a large one with most of it a dance floor complete with disco ball and revolving light turning the dancers different colors. Women all butched out in black and flannel didn’t notice their skin turning red, blue, pink, purple as the colored lens turned clockwise. There were tables with women, leaning toward each other, and tables with nothing but bottles, glasses, and ashtrays stacked. Women sat on women’s laps. Some were bundles of bodies against the walls. Some shouted into each other’s ears, and some said nothing and stared at the women doing the bump an
d hustle on the dance floor.
On one side there was a bar with a mirror the length of the room, and women were three deep. Plenty of women looked in the mirror while they waited; everyone checked out who was there, with whom. In a side room there were pool tables with women who looked like Janie chalking their cue sticks and bending over the green pool table tops to line shots up.
“Taylor,” I heard behind me. Two arms reached under my arms and around my waist. Crisco heaved me up and down.
“Saw you coming this time,” she said and held me off my feet.
“Crisco,” I said, “you can put me down now.” This morning, when Crisco turned me upside down, I smelled the rot of the dock with your body somewhere in the river. I wouldn’t look for you here, in a dyke bar in Philadelphia. In the bar I smelled wet ashtrays and spilled liquor going rank, and the sweat of women wanting not to be alone. The women nearby turned and smiled and raised their glasses to us.
She let me down and held me still. “You’re nothing but skin and bones, Alta.”
I leaned back into Crisco. Her arms loosened enough that I could breathe, and we stood pressed against each other taking long, slow breaths. Her arms were not Mark’s arms holding me before I stepped into the funeral with you not in the coffin. Hers were not Carla playing with me. Crisco’s arms were holding me so I could hold myself up.
“There you go,” she said. Her cheek was soft on my cheek. My arms reached behind her back and pressed her closer to me. I felt her thighs press against the backs of my legs.
The DJ changed the song to the BeeGees’ “Stayin’ Alive,” and women jumped up from the tables. Crisco and I cleared a place for us to sit.