Ben 1992

That summer, Addy wanted to join the swim team. In her front yard, she’dstretched like a swimmer, straightening her legs and touching her toesbefore racing across the grass as Ben watched from the porch.“Imagine that’s me in the water,” she would tell him.By July, she was ready for the pool, all the way out in Gentilly, and Benfollowed along despite not knowing how to swim.He sat on a vinyl lounge chair off to the side with a book and watchedboys jump off the diving board, each yelling playfully before hitting thewater.“I get seasick just looking at it,” he told Addy.“Don’t, then,” she said.“I can’t help it.”Another boy hit the water and Ben imagined himself doing the same, butinstead of popping up on the other side, he’d drown and die. He shook hishead and returned to his book. There was summer reading to do, and he wasalready ahead, with two of the three books done. He read a chapter beforedeciding it was a good time to stop. He let the book lie open facedown on thechair and left for the concessions stand.By the time he got back, a skinny, older white boy and what must havebeen his father sat in their chairs. The father had a bad, uneven tan that madehim look like he was wearing a pale shirt. The boy was just pale all over.Ben’s book sat on the concrete, closed.He ran over. “Hey, hey, hey!” he yelled. He waved his arms in the air toget their attention. “Don’t you see our stuff?”“What stuff?” said the boy. His voice was sharp and it sounded like he waschewing gum or had something in his mouth.“Our stuff,” Ben said, then to clarify, “our bags, our towels, my book!”“Where?” The boy held his arms in the air and shrugged his shoulders,cool—Ben would remember later—as a glass of lemonade. “Where? Where?Where?” The boy was mocking him now. And his father, having set down hisglasses, walked away.“There,” Ben said.The boy looked under the chair and picked up the book. Water hadsplashed on the cover; a dark patch stained the front. “Oh,” he said. “These?”“Duh, those!” Ben reached over and grabbed his stuff with such force thateverything fell out of his hands and scattered on the ground. He picked it allup and began to leave.“Hey, you! Hey, kid!” the boy called after. His voice was loud, tightlycoiled, controlled. “You forgot something.”Ben looked around and saw the boy waving Addy’s shirt and shorts, bothhot pink. He turned his head toward the pool. Addy was still doing laps,oblivious to what was happening. He imagined what he’d tell her. “This whiteboy…” he would begin with a smack of his lips, the way they always beganwhen they told stories about the crazy white people they met—This whiteman thought I stole something from his store; this white lady thought I wassomeone else because apparently all of our kind look the same….Ben walked back and grabbed them. “My friend’s,” he huffed.“This white boy…” he said to himself. Addy would enjoy his story.—Addy came up and, without drying, took a seat next to Ben. Her bodysqueaked against the vinyl.“What happened?” she asked. “Why you change seats? Took me a goodminute to find you.”“So this white boy took them,” Ben started, putting his book down, “whenI was getting snacks.”“You shouldn’t leave our stuff alone, Ben,” she interrupted. “You knowhow folks around here are.”“But our stuff was there.”“But nothing. You know how people are.”Addy was raising her voice; he was raising his. He imagined peoplelooking at them, assuming they were a couple. He felt embarrassed andlooked down at his hands.Addy smacked her lips. “Just be careful. That’s all I’m telling you. That’sall I’m saying.”She dried herself and he returned to his book, though he couldn’tconcentrate. He read and reread the same sentence over and over a dozentimes before Addy started talking again.“Can you help me with this?” she asked. He looked over and Addy heldout a bottle of waterproof Hawaiian Tropic. “I’m supposed to reapply everyhour. It says right here on the bottle.”He grabbed it and Addy turned away. He squeezed the lotion onto hishands and spread it across Addy’s back, first with only a finger, then,hesitantly, he used both hands until her entire back was all white and pasty.Under the sun, the chemical scent of the Hawaiian Tropic intensified. Itreminded him of cleaning supplies and made him gag. He tried to think ofsomething else, anything but Addy’s skin and the smell and texture of thelotion until he spotted the boy sitting where they’d sat. Shirtless, the boystretched out on his chair, faceup, his sunglasses reflecting the sun. Even fromthis distance, Ben saw his breathing.“Make sure you don’t miss a spot,” Addy interrupted. “I don’t wanna getcancer.”“You’re not going to get cancer. Who gets cancer?” he said. “Done. I’mgonna wash my hands in the bathroom.”“Just use the pool,” Addy said.He looked at the water, then back at Addy, and nodded and walked to theedge of the water, where he bent his knees into a squat. As his hand broke thecool surface, Addy dove in. The drops of the splash scattered in the air, andfor a second Ben saw a rainbow. He let his hand sit as she became smallerand smaller the farther away she swam. Soon the pink cap was out of sight.His eyes wandered back to the boy, but his seat was empty. He let out a quietsigh—of relief or disappointment, he wasn’t sure—and, when the lotion wasgone, headed back to the chairs. To his surprise, the boy was there.Ben couldn’t help but smirk as he ran. “You again,” he called out, trying tosound serious and angry, but all he wanted to do was giggle. “Do you takeeveryone’s seat? Is that your thing? Is that what you always do?”“Are you new here?” the boy asked.“What?”“I’m here every summer,” the boy continued. “Been coming here everysummer, and it’s just—I’ve never seen you before.” He took off his sunglassesto reveal serious blue eyes.“It’s ’cause I live in New Orleans East,” Ben said. He felt himself blushing.“Don’t you have your own pools there?”Hearing that, Ben felt offended. He looked around. He and Addy were theonly nonwhites here. He straightened his posture. His chest tightened and thehair on his skin stood up.“It’s a free country, you know. Anyone can go anywhere if they want to.It’s written in the Constitution. It’s, it’s…”“Relax,” said the boy. “Relax. I’m from Metairie. There’s no pool there,either. No good-quality pools anyway. There’s no pools in New Orleans East,either?” The boy barely moved his lips when he talked. It must be the reasonfor his accent—part mutter, part muddled melody.“Yeah,” Ben said, calming down. “There’s nothing in New Orleans East.There’s one stretch of highway, strip malls, then there’s the apartments andhomes. Not the most fun place.”“Metairie isn’t, either.”They agreed that neither New Orleans East nor Metairie had much goingfor it. The boy stretched out on Addy’s chair and Ben found himself watchingthe boy, examining him. Ben took a seat himself, and his muscles relaxed.“Name’s Howie,” the boy said.“Ben.” He looked out into the water, trying to find the pink cap.“What brings you here?” Howie asked.“Here?”“This summer, I mean. Today. Right now.”“Oh,” Ben said. “My friend’s out there. The pink cap? She’s trying out forthe swim team. Wesley High has a swim team.”“You go to Wesley?” Howie asked.“We’re both going to Wesley,” Ben said. “Freshmen.”“It means we’re supposed to hate each other.”“What do you mean?”“I graduated from Caddo last month,” Howie said with a wry smile.Dimples appeared on edges of his lips. The lips themselves were full and red,swollen in the prettiest of ways. Ben stopped himself from staring. “We’rerivals,” Howie continued. “That’s what you should know. Cowboys andWarriors? They don’t get along. Never have and they never will.”“What?”“Wesley, your mascot’s a cowboy. Caddo, we have Chief Red Corn. Youdidn’t know that?”“I don’t go there yet,” Ben said. “We haven’t even had orientation.”“Well, cowboys and Indians don’t get along.”“Of course they don’t. The cowboys stole land from the Indians. I read thatin a book somewhere.”“Well, you’re a cowboy now.”“What?”“You’re a cowboy, now, white man.” Howie put on a thick, ridiculouscountry accent. “You gotta get over that.”“Hey!” Ben reached over for a friendly shove, but his body began to fall.Howie miraculously caught him. How strong he was, how his muscles bulged,and how they didn’t even shake holding him up.“Whoa there, cowboy,” Howie said. “Be careful, now, you.”—Because of Addy, they went to the pool every day. And every day, to Ben’ssurprise, Howie was there, too. Ben and Howie sat by the pool and talked asAddy practiced her breaststroke and butterfly, her backstroke and freestyle.Ben told Howie about his love for books and writing. His favorite writerswere Charles Dickens, John Steinbeck, and that guy who wrote Lord of theFlies. He felt he was smart for saying all this and wondered if Howie wasimpressed. Howie told Ben he never got into reading. When asked what heliked to do, he said he played sports. Junior varsity football freshman year,varsity baseball sophomore through senior, wrestling during junior.Ben said he couldn’t imagine being finished with school and that Howiewas lucky, at least for being done with high school. It wasn’t that he didn’tlike learning. He liked books and the feeling of knowing more about theworld around him. He went to the library every week and could finish aregular-sized novel in three or four days. All the same, his classes were slowand he became bored. Teachers mistook this for stupidity and laziness, andone summer, even, he’d had to retake seventh-grade math.It disappointed his mother. “The son of a teacher has to retake classes,”she said and shook her head.And the teacher, a short, elderly man who wore a cowboy hat and ahandlebar mustache, said if he was struggling with homework, “just ask yourpa for help. I bet he’s a smart man.” Ben didn’t correct him. “Orientals arevery good at the mathematics. Just ask him for help. No shame.” It wasn’tworth the effort, any of it.If it were up to him, he would skip the whole rigmarole and travel theworld and learn from that instead, maybe even write a book.“Like Jack Kerouac,” Howie said.“Like who?”“He’s a writer. Was a writer. Dead now.”“Never heard of him.” He took out his notebook and penciled in “JackCarrot.”“You’ll read him in tenth grade,” Howie said. “On the Road or Going onthe Road or In the Road or something like that. I don’t know. I’m not thatsmart, you see.” He laughed. “Anyway, he went everywhere and wrote aboutall the places that he went.”“Where did he go?”“I don’t know,” Howie said. “I never finished reading it.”“Oh,” Ben said. He closed his notebook, leaving the pencil in as abookmark.“He drove from Boston to California or something. But this was in thefifties, when cars weren’t that good, so it was a big deal, I guess,” Howie said.“My point is there’s a whole country out there.”“Tell me about it,” said Ben.“There’s an entire world.”“Yes, there is.”When Ben asked Howie what his plans were after summer, Howie toldhim he was going to Lake Charles for college. “Undeclared for now. Until Ifigure it all out.”“Will you ever figure it all out?”“Maybe.” Howie said it confidently and pulled down his sunglasses. Benreached for his, which he’d bought at a souvenir shop only after meetingHowie. They looked at each other conspiratorially.—When August began, Howie told Ben he wanted to teach him how to swim.“All this time here,” he said, “and you don’t even touch the water!”After Howie led Ben to the pool, he told him to lie down.“No,” Ben said. “Bodies don’t float. Unless they’re dead.”“Don’t be silly.” Howie held his wrist. “Relax. Relax.”“How can you be from New Orleans and not know how to swim?” Addyasked. Ben almost forgot she was there. She lay in the water to demonstrate.Howie did the same, and they both floated effortlessly, arms out, legs out. Benwondered if, from above, they looked like floating flowers. The two movedtheir arms, and slowly their two bodies started to move more purposefully.Ben looked one way and then the other. His eyes settled on Howie.Howie made him nervous. Numerous times he found himself shakingwhen he talked to him or was close to him. Yet it wasn’t an uncomfortablefeeling. He liked it. He wanted it to linger.Ben turned his head to where Addy was and she was gone. He lookedaround.“Addy?” he called out. “Addy?” Where was she?Suddenly, something latched on to his leg. By reflex, he let out a scream.What was happening? He shook his leg, but it moved laboriously, sluggishly.He couldn’t swim and he would die. He tripped and went under and in aninstant everything became blue and there was no air. He began moving hisarms, karate-chopping the water. But he wasn’t going anywhere.In the next second, he was above the water again. He breathed in all hecould. Addy held one arm, Howie the other. When he realized he was aliveand safe, he remembered what had happened.Addy had disappeared. Addy pulled me under.He stared at Addy, furious. “Addy! Why you do that for?”“I was just playing,” she said.“That wasn’t funny,” Ben said. “Why would you do that?”“I was just joking.” She let go and took a step back.“It wasn’t funny. It’s not funny, Adelaide Toussaint.” He took his arm fromHowie’s grasp and left the pool.—That night, Ben returned to the pool with Howie. He told his mom he wasgoing back to the pool and wouldn’t be home until late. When she asked himwho he was going with, he said a friend.He was going to learn how to swim. He felt determined. The reasons forknowing how to swim were numerous: Addy wouldn’t be able to make fun ofhim anymore; it was an important skill to have in case the city sank—becauseit was below sea level, he read somewhere, and the water could just pour inlike in a bathtub; he was Vietnamese, and Vietnamese people are supposed toknow how to swim. And Howie had offered to teach him.The pool glowed. At the entrance, Howie motioned his head to the fence.“Climb,” he said.“I can’t climb,” Ben replied.“You can try.”Anything for Howie. Anything.Ben held on to the metal and stretched an arm upward. Next, he took astep up. With another movement he slipped and gasped aloud, but, to hissurprise, Howie caught him and pushed him up. After some more struggle, hefound himself at the top and dropped down to the other side. He landed onhis feet. Howie followed after.Together they walked to the pool’s edge. At the shallow end, Ben removeda shoe and sock and touched the water. At the cold shock, he pulled back.Howie began stripping off his jeans and T-shirt.What surprised Ben was that, though he had seen Howie shirtless—nearlynaked—countless times, it always gave him a sense of—what word was therefor it? Awe? Excitement? Wonder? The sight of Howie’s skin made Ben’sheart stop for a second, then the next he would feel it beating too fast andcatching fire and burning him alive.It felt strange, but he didn’t want to feel any other way. Soon it began tomake sense: the way boys were supposed to want girls was the way Benwanted Howie. Wanting—what a strange feeling, what a queer idea to havetoward another person! You could want food, you could want rest, you couldwant safety, and—it dawned on him—you could want a person, too.He was terrified. What had he become? What would his mother think?(“The son of a teacher…” she would scoff with enough shame in her voice fortheir entire family, his dead father—the college professor! the hero! themartyr!—included.) Or his brother, the tough boy—no, a man now—whohung out with the Southern Boyz? The realization had scared him, and hecouldn’t look at himself in the mirror for the longest time until the day Addypulled him under and he nearly drowned. He’d left the pool in a huff andheaded for the locker room to change. There, he passed a mirror and hecouldn’t avoid it, that image of himself. He looked at his reflection and it waslike he saw himself—really saw himself—for the first time. There had to be aword for that, too.“Dunk yourself in first,” Howie said when they were hip-deep in the water.“Get a feel for it.” When Ben didn’t answer, didn’t move, he added, “It’s justwater. Good ol’ H-2-and-O. Remember that. It’s just water.”“It’s just water,” Ben repeated.“The whole world is covered in it.”“Yes,” Ben agreed.“I think we’re made of it, too.”“We are.”“On the count of three. Okay?” Howie said.“Okay.”“One. Two. Three.”Down.Ben had expected a trick, had anticipated the feeling of Howie’s hand onhis head, pushing him down, but he bent his knees and he opened his eyesand he was underwater and still alive. Everything was blue and bright, butnow it wasn’t scary.