At the top of the helical slide above the Sternheimer pool at the Community Center where we swim, there is a bar at chest level from which to sling yourself into the wash. The enamel on the left side has been worn to bare metal from the ring fingers of countless mommies and daddies. Climbing the stairs, pausing to wave from the top. I limit friction to my heels and my shoulders, so that by the third rotation, I feel velocity in my back before the water. I always wish for two more turns in the auger, I always worry about kids in the deep end.
I go under for as long as I can; skimming the bottom, looking back above to the lights. The water is perfectly blue and I am near blind in it. Curved cement and Atlantean tile; I am banished Prince Namor, alone in the abyss. Whatever music plays in my head, breathes there from years below. I can stretch my limbs, coil and unraveling, I can swim. Outcast, rebellion, twisting, elongated. This building with a pool in its heart has a city block worth of names of builders, portraits of financiers, their testament to architecture. No masons names, no Mexican sheetrock hangers, no tile-setters, no carpenters.
Damn the names of carpenters. I can swim.
