Geese Are Never Swans

by Kobe Bryant

  At least I will, too.

  * * *

  “What’s this?” A few days later, my mother finds the Swimming World profile of me and dangles it in front of my face the moment I walk in the door after practice.

  “What does it look like?” I push past her and collapse onto the couch in the living room. My sense of bleakness has been intensifying of late, coupled with a desire to stop moving because there’s no meaning in movement when we’ll all be dead someday anyway. I’ve been upping my training to compensate for what feels like laziness.

  “Don’t be a smartass,” my mother says. “This is a really big deal.”

  “I know.”

  She pulls the magazine in front of her and stares down at the tiny photograph they printed of me. I’m standing in between Coach Marks and Fitz, and the look on my face is one of intense concentration. “I had no idea you were this serious.”

  “You could’ve asked.”

  “When’s your next meet?”

  “We’re going to Portland in two weeks,” I say.

  “The Speedo Invitational?” She perks up. “You know, I swam in that way back when.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Hold on.” She scoots out of the room and returns with a framed photograph of herself from years ago. She’s standing on a podium in this giant swim jacket, holding a trophy. All sun-kissed and shining, she’s practically glowing, and the look in her eyes says the world is hers for the taking.

  “I was seventeen that year,” she says. “Took first in the hundred-meter and two-hundred-meter backstroke. Second in IM. It’s a big deal, getting to go up there. Trust me.”

  I’m the big deal is what I want to say. Instead I shrug.

  My mother lingers. “What’s Colin saying about your chances?”

  “Who?”

  “Your coach.”

  “Oh.” I touch my temple. I knew that. “He thinks my chances are fine. He wouldn’t send me if he didn’t.”

  “God, they loved Danny in Portland.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  She’s startled by this question. “What do you mean? Everyone loved him.”

  I roll my eyes. “I didn’t.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “Well, what did people love about him? What made him different from anyone else?”

  This flicker of reverie comes over her, a bright flash of bliss. You can always spot it—the color rising in her cheeks when she’s thinking about Danny in some context other than his death. “He just had this way of making people feel special when they were around him. I don’t really know how to describe it.”

  “Sounds like a cult leader,” I mutter.

  “Not at all. Danny was too independent for that. It was more like he could make you feel lucky to be close to him.”

  “Is that how he made you feel?” I venture.

  She smiles. “Sure. Sometimes.”

  “How do I make you feel?”

  My mother looks down at me, her reverie broken, and she’s frowning again. “What kind of question is that?”

  “Just what I said.”

  “I don’t know. You’re different. More serious.”

  “Different in that you don’t feel lucky to have me around?” I ask.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You kind of did.”

  Her eyes narrow. “Don’t put words in my mouth, Gus. You always do this. It’s like a fucking trap being with you.”

  “I’m not doing anything. I asked a question. I just want to understand why.”

  “Why what?” she says.

  “Never mind. God.”

  She pulls the photograph of herself toward her body. Holds it close and out of my view. “Well, if you want me to be honest, that article that woman wrote. It sort of made you sound a little . . .”

  “A little what?” I ask.

  “Cold,” she tells me.

  54.

  My mother’s right about one thing: Portland is a big race. Fitz and I are the only guys from our team going, and when I look up who else is registered it’s clear every top junior in the country is flying in to attend the three-day meet. It’s one of the few events this fall that counts as a qualifier for the junior national team, although their selection process is a little more complicated—aka subjective—than it is for the national team.

  Regardless, I don’t have my sights set on the junior team. I want the real deal, but Portland still holds value for me. A good showing against the elite juniors will push me up in the rankings and make me eligible for my first nonjunior event in Vancouver in early December.

  The path for someone my age making it to the national team and the Olympics isn’t an easily laid-out one, because it’s not supposed to happen. Not for guys anyway, who tend to mature later. But it is possible in a black swan sort of way, and I have no problem asserting myself as the guy to beat all odds.

  “You’re sure I should be swimming in all four events?” I ask Coach Marks as the Portland meet approaches. Even without a relay, he’s got me entered in the 200 m free and 400 m free, as well as both distances in the IM. “You don’t think I should focus on the freestyle? That’s my best stroke.”

  “What do you want to do?” he counters. We’re standing out on the pool deck after evening practice. It’s cool October weather, a quiet night at the club. A pair of thirteen-year-old twins are warming up for a late clinic with Coach M while their parents watch from the bleachers, and this may not be the optimal time to be discussing something so significant. But it’s the time I have.

  “I want to do the right thing,” I say. “I want to do what’s best for me.”

  “So do I.”

  I wrap the towel around my waist tighter. “Well, you’re the coach. You’re supposed to know what that is.”

  “But I don’t.”

  Is this a joke? “Why the fuck not?”

  “I don’t know you well enough to know what’s right for you.”

  “How can you not know me?”

  Coach Marks tilts his head. “We only met four months ago.”

  I fume. “So you took me on—knowing full well what my goal is—and now you have no clue how to get me there?”

  “Is that really how you see it?” he asks.

  “Absolutely.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “That’s all you have to say? That you’re sorry? I pay your fucking salary!” I don’t mean to raise my voice, but it happens and the twins and the parents are all looking at us, their eyes wide and worried, like a herd of spooked deer.

  Coach Marks folds his arms. “I don’t think you want to hear the rest of what I have to say.”

  God, I hate this. “I just want to win.”

  “I know.”

  “Then that’s what matters. Not anything else. You don’t need to know me any better than that to do your goddamn job.”

  “Go home, Gus,” he sighs. “This isn’t your time right now. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  55.

  Yeah, well, fuck Coach Marks and fuck my mom because you know what? I go to Portland, swim in all four races, and I dominate.

  Everything.

  56.

  I know the drill this time. I play it humble up there on the award podium, smiling, waving, and limiting myself to one-word answers when people yell questions at me like:

  How did you do it?

  Or:

  What did your brother teach you?

  And, my personal favorite:

  Are you doing this for him?

  All the while, Coach Marks doesn’t leave my side. No doubt this is for his benefit more than mine, but I don’t blame him. What happens in the water’s up for grabs, but there’s a whole script to winning and it’s best not to deviate from it.
/>   It’s a script I couldn’t help but glean from Danny. He really had the role down and he basked in it. I’ll give him that. He was the guy who’d stay and answer every goddamn question, even if the person asking it was a kid from some local paper. In that way, Danny really did make people feel special. Like they were lucky to know him. But I knew him better and there wasn’t an action he took or a kindness he faked that wasn’t done solely for his own benefit.

  I feel like this is what most people won’t acknowledge about the heroes they choose to worship. They know they’re being used, and they know their adoration is indulged for advancement or validation. In return they ask only that their heroes suffer for their glory, and the cycle of abuse continues.

  It’s sick, really, and while I go through the motions, I’m not as convincing as my brother. It’s not long before interested parties move on to asking questions of Coach Marks. Danny still occupies a place in their minds—all they want to know is how I match up against my brother. Which of us is the best.

  Clearly uncomfortable, Coach Marks squirms and shifts his weight around before finally demurring: “Danny Bennett was a once-in-a-lifetime athlete and I count myself lucky to have had a chance to work with him. But Gus here is his own swimmer and that means he brings his own unique mind-set and talent to the pool. Don’t look to his brother to see what he’s capable of. Watch him. And only him.”

  57.

  Watch me.

  This is the mind-set I bring back with me to California. Back to everything. I even write it on a piece of paper and tape it to the foot of my bed so it’s the first thing I see when I wake up in the middle of the night, and I ride this high straight through the month. The national rankings come out and it’s confirmed; I’ve qualified for Vancouver, meaning I’ve earned a real shot at qualifying for the Olympic Trials next June.

  Well, it would be an understatement to say this steps up the intensity of my training. The intensity of my focus. But this isn’t a bad thing. The mounting pressure, the need to perform, it all feels right. It all feels like fate of my own making.

  My mother is properly awed by my accomplishments and even offers to let me leave school for an online program, which is an opportunity I jump at. She knows what it takes to compete at the level I’m aiming for, and the weak part of me longs to ask if she regrets not letting me swim when I was younger, not letting me chase what Danny wanted. Maybe it would’ve made us both stronger in the process. To know that she could love us equally despite his talent and in spite of mine. The problem, of course, is that she doesn’t.

  So I don’t say anything.

  58.

  A few weeks later, I’m busy adjusting my fins in the shallow end before practice one evening, when Raheem and Caleb get into a screaming match over by the outdoor shower. I don’t know what sparks it, but I can’t say I’m surprised. Something’s been brewing between them lately.

  Or maybe it’s something else, like the fact that this whole process has begun to feel needlessly cruel to my teammates. Now that we are deep into autumn, every practice is cold and dark. In fact, we’ll be back here and in the pool before the sun comes up tomorrow morning. Either way, the fight descends into a total shitshow. I look up right as Fitz steps between them, trying to hold them apart. A lost cause, if I’ve ever seen one; Raheem and Caleb are like pit bulls. More bite than bark and as game as they come. Vince bolts toward the fray but I savor this shit. Half dragging myself from the water, I lie belly down on the pool deck to watch all hell break loose.

  “Motherfucker!” Raheem gets a couple swings in, but Caleb laughs and taunts him until Fitz shoves him to the ground. Vince is in the mix by this point, restraining Raheem from kicking Caleb in the goddamn head, and this is when Coach Marks shows up, lumbering in out of nowhere, waving his arms and hollering for everyone to calm the fuck down.

  “Are you kidding me?” he bellows. “What the hell is going on?”

  Blood stains the tiles from where Caleb’s skinned knees opened up, and Coach M promptly kicks him and Raheem out. I figure the odds are good they’ll kill each other in the parking lot. Then Fitz has to get the bleach to clean up the blood, which is a biohazard; I can tell he’s pissed about it all and I don’t blame him. But I also can’t keep the grin off my face.

  “Seriously, Bennett?” Coach Marks snaps. “This is funny to you?”

  I bite my lip. “Kind of.”

  “Get in the goddamn water and start warming up.”

  I do, and it’s one of my best workouts ever. I’m electric—this is my proof. I’m not like the other guys, who crumble under pressure. Danny crumbled in spectacular fashion, but for most, failure comes in the form of mediocrity. It’s ordinary, which is what I hate about it. Along with all the rationalization about why it’s best not to try.

  I mean, look, you can tell yourself that taking a day off is self-care or self-compassion or whatever you want in order to justify staying in the same lousy place where you already are. Either way, failure’s failure and letting yourself get distracted by girlfriends or egos or shit that’s happening online, all it does is take you out of the game and give someone like me an opening.

  And it’s one I’ll take.

  Every goddamn time.

  59.

  Something’s not right. I wake up a few days later to find my mother in the kitchen cooking breakfast. It’s still dark out—barely five a.m.—but already she’s got coffee brewing, a small pitcher of cream out. And she’s pulling food from the fridge—eggs, bacon, OJ, the works.

  “Hey,” I say warily, because this is not a sight I’m used to.

  “You want something to eat?” she asks.

  “Sure. What’s going on here?”

  “What does it look like?”

  “I have no idea,” I say, and it dawns on me why this feels so surreal. Getting up early and making breakfast is something she used to do for Danny. Not all the time, but she did it when he was training for something big. Danny loved it, obviously. He loved it anytime he was fawned over and reminded how special he was. My mother played this role for him perfectly. Well, she’s probably the one who created his need for adoration in the first place, just so she could fill it. But I have vivid memories of the way she’d grip her mug of coffee, steam spiraling out of it, and watch Danny eat while she hung on every word he said about how much better he was than everyone else.

  I get dizzy, thinking about this. There’s nothing good in using other people to get what you want, and there’s nothing good about being used. But what about people who like being used?

  What then?

  “I just thought it’d be nice to make you something,” my mother tells me. “We haven’t spoken in a while. Other than swimming, I don’t know what you’re up to these days.”

  I take a seat at the counter. “Where’s Winter?”

  “Still sleeping.”

  I nod and watch silently as my mother cracks eggs, slips a pat of sizzling butter into a cast-iron pan. There’s an energy to her actions that unsettles me. It’s at odds with how bad she looks. Her eyes are red and puffy, and her face has aged in some way I can’t pinpoint. It’s the quality of her skin that’s deteriorated—not the color or anything, but the actual texture.

  “How’s work?” I ask.

  She shrugs. Coughs into her elbow. Keeps cooking.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “You don’t want to talk about work?”

  “I need a break from all that, Gus. I’m serious. Too many bitchy brides and mothers-to-be. It’s draining my soul.”

  “But it’s your job.”

  “That doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

  “It means you have to do it.”

  My mother glares at me, all previous cheer gone. “Oh, so you’re an expert on life now? Thanks a lot.”

 
; “It’s common sense!”

  “Don’t yell at me.”

  “I’m not yelling.”

  She drops her spatula with a clatter. Gestures at the eggs. “Your breakfast is ready, kid. Don’t bother thanking me. I’m going to go lie down.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I can’t talk to you right now. I’m too tired for this.” She wanders out and while she does indeed look tired, this is her way of ending a conversation she’s not interested in having.

  I glance at the clock. Five minutes before I have to leave. I wolf down the eggs she’s made and a glass of juice with fish oil added to it because I need the fat. Oh, and for all the drama of her exit, my mother doesn’t go far. I can hear her coughing in the living room, and I should probably clean up and wash the dishes, since she did cook breakfast for me. That would be an appreciative thing to do, but seeing as she told me not to bother, I don’t. I leave everything in the sink for her to find.

  60.

  Caleb’s not on the team anymore. Coach Marks makes this announcement during evening practice, even though it’s been like a week since the fight. Raheem’s returned with his tail between his legs, so the facts must be on his side. Or maybe Caleb’s the one who called it quits on his own. I really don’t know and it’s not like I have enough goodwill with any of my teammates to just go up and ask.

  Either way, his return feels like a bad omen. Not to mention, the workout sucks. Rain starts falling before we get in the water, and in addition to the announcement about Caleb, Coach Marks tells us that the team’ll be on hiatus for the next four days due to some family obligation that he has. It sounds like bullshit to me, but everyone else acts like it’s some kind of treat to get to sit around on their ass. Well, I vow to make my way out to the Clayton Valley pool every night and every day so that I can train on my own. I’ve got a schedule to stick to and I’m not letting any obligation get in my way.