Going Down

I was seven years old when my father taught me how to swim. He said his daughter ought to learn like he did. We rode out to the lake in the '95 Chevy. It was bright red, and we sat on the back gate and licked ice cream cones in the sun at a gas station on the way. He told me that I ate my ice cream like a boy, and I laughed with him, a biteful of the treat making my teeth ache pleasantly. He tousled my long blonde hair, wearing a grin that was equal parts wistful and loving, and told me to hop in the truck, kiddo. I obliged, climbing the truck's step up to the passenger seat that dwarfed me, and closing the door, the belt buckle hanging beside me. The dashboard was warm, like the rest of the car, and it smelled like dust and polish. I nestled myself into the leather and waited obediently for father. He opened the door and settled himself into the car gingerly, shimmying into his seat. He looked over at me, and for a moment, his smile faltered and aged.

When we reached the old pier, I hurried down to the lakefront, tumbling in the grass halfway down and giggling with the carefree abandon of true youth. I didn't notice my father leaving his tackle box in the truck. I crawled down the length of the pier, the wood under my hands warm to the touch, and ignored the sand and knots that pressed into my palms and knees as I moved away from the sun. I laid at the end of the wooden path, my face hovering over the water, hair tumbling past my shoulders and almost touching the surface. My teeth were uneven and wavery, bared in a smile in my barely visible reflection.

I saw the shadow of my father fall over me.

"You wanted to learn to swim, right?" He said my name, and something in his voice weighted the corners of my smile. I rolled over on my back and looked at him, the vertical wooden struts of the pier extending beyond the bottom of my field of vision. The lines in my father's face weren't visible, with the sun behind him, but something in his posture, in his voice, made him seem older than I had ever remembered him. I lost my words, nodding hesitantly. I covered my eyes as he knelt, the sun blinding me, and shrieked as the world turned upside down.

When you breathe in water, it doesn't hurt.

My chest felt heavy when he pulled me to the shore. I was on my back, but I couldn't see the sky. He put his hands on my chest and leaned on me, and I felt something inside me break. Water spilled from my lips, with a sound like an orange being juiced. He pushed air into my lungs from his.

I woke up. I heard mother's voice, shrieking. I don't remember most of the words, only the hot feeling of tears on my cheeks, and a knot in my throat. I wrapped my arms around myself. I tried not to listen, to drown them out with something inside me.

"She's just a fucking kid!"

I didn't see him for a long time. I told mom it was fine, that it was just a mistake, that I fell in, that he had been in the car. Just please let me see dad. She just got quiet. I studied.

When I was twelve, I got ill. I puked for days. It didn't feel bad, just stung a little. I asked for him, for him to come put his hand on my forehead.

Father.

I learned to swim when I was thirteen. It was scary, at first, but I took it slow, with an older mentor. His name was Michael, and he was patient. He didn't get frustrated when I just let my feet dangle in the pool the first few times. He held my hand as we waded through waist deep water. His smile was gentle, and his teeth were straight. He showed me that it didn't hurt to be in the water. My confidence grew, and with it my boldness. I was swimming laps a day within a month.

He asked me to date him, a couple of years later. I said no as gently as possible. He was understanding. A few months later, I found he was dead; that he'd taken too many pills. I found him lying in a puddle of his own vomit next to the swimming pool in his parents' mansion. The smell of it permeated my lungs, and I spluttered, drowning in the stench as I clambered across the slippery floor to the phone. I didn't attend the funeral.

In high school, I broke into a swimming pool with three other kids. Eva, Joseph, and Merodach. We climbed through a basement window. We all wore different looks on our faces. Joseph, the youngest, was awkward but brave, and stood watch until we three were inside. Merodach was confident and cocksure as he slipped in. Eva wore a look of surprise and satisfaction as he helped her back in. They helped me down, despite my biting my lip and hesitating. The window frame was cold and hard, and it bit into my hand. Joseph passed us our bags and slipped in, looking reassured.

Eva slipped off her pants, her bikini bottoms sliding down a few inches until she pulled them up. My t-shirt and shorts stayed where they belonged. Merodach and Joseph wore the shorts they had come in. Eva jumped into the pool and swam back and forth while Merodach passed Joseph a beer. He raised one towards me. My eyes must have widened as I backed away and held up my hand, because he grinned, and put it back in the bag.

I was sitting with Joseph, leaning away from him and watching him drink, when Eva and Merodach bobbed below the surface, water splashing over her girlish squeal. When they came back up, they were a single creature, a Siamese twin joined at the lips. They pulled apart, and I averted my eyes, looking to Joseph. His lips were pulled together, puckered into an ugly, sphincter-like O. I leaned away from his closed eyes and scrambled to the pool. I dove in under the watchful eyes of Eva and Merodach.

I opened my eyes, the chlorine stinging them a little as I took in the warped lines of the pool's tiled surfaces. Merodach's hand was inside Eva's bikini, the string at her hips loosening. My thighs brushed against each other, under the water, and something subdued the urge to retreat to air. My chest pounded, and the edges of my vision blurred. Something grew between my legs, and as I felt it twitching around my thighs and sex, I fought back a rising bile, kicking to the surface where the air burned my cheeks.

Dragging myself to the edge, I pulled myself out of the pool and huddled against the wall, the dripping water from my shirt playing a staccato that couldn't drown out Eva's growing groans. Without looking up, I could see them pushing closer together, violent and profane. Joseph's hand on my shoulder was a comfort and a violation. I brushed his dirty hand away, and began to turn; to tell him I was fine; that nothing was wrong; that could we please go.

Merodach was kneeling over Eva on the other side of the pool. His head was turned away, but I could see in my mind's eye the terrible grin he wore, stretching his lips into long scars that ruined his face. His tongue lolled about, obscenely long. Eva's face was visible, her eyes rolled back and jaw slack, a low wail from her throat piercing through my mind.

I leaned toward them, pushing past Joseph's hand, my limbs barely responding. A dry heave pushed out of my throat as I looked down at the surface of the water. In my reflection, my face was lined with wrinkles and worry lines. I smiled, and only my gums looked back at me. My skin seemed gaunt and thin; my skull was staring back at me. I puked, my stomach trying to escape a body that was no longer my own, and it splashed into the pool with a sound like falling off a pier. My arms felt weak, and over a polyphony of inhuman voices, I tumbled headfirst into the water and nausea below me.

Underwater, I felt dirty. The vomit caked to my lips, and the thing between my legs trembled so that I thought I would lose my legs. I tumbled, losing track of the world and myself, my eyes closed and leaking tears that were invisible in the pool. Crying, lips pulled back in a grimace, breast throbbing, I opened my eyes. On one side, there was the blue light of the pool, and three shadowy shapes, lurking past the surface. On the other side, where I thought the bottom of the pool should be, a white light, with a single shape silhouetted before it. I turned to it, reaching out, and pulled myself out of the pool, onto a rocky shore. I spat, pulling myself out of the pool, and raising my head to meet whoever stood above me.

I sat cross-legged with my father, the sun burning through me, and raised my arm, the bone visible through the emaciated flesh. I could not see myself, but I imagined my father saw the same skeleton I did in the pool's reflection. I heard my father's voice, though I couldn't say what he said. I grimaced, my lips pulling back in an unpleasant rictus and the tendons in my neck straining out. I fell to my side, and sobbed, the scorched earth burning my cheek, as my lungs filled with water.