Chapter 14 #4
I was soon wearing only my minuscule navy blue Speedo with two narrow red and white racing stripes.
I’d never owned a Speedo before, because I rightfully lacked the physical audacity; even Brock wouldn’t appear in a Speedo, because, as he said, “They make you more naked than being naked. The only guys who can justify Speedos are Olympic athletes, because they’re in ultimate shape and it’s their uniform.
” While I’d checked out other guys in Speedos, especially at the beach, they reminded me of girls with eating disorders wearing crocheted bikini tops and Daisy Duke cutoffs, to prove they can. Speedos are a fashion pathology.
I’d shaved my legs, chest, and pits, in my ruse as a diver, but this only made me more exposed.
I wanted to hunch over and cover myself, but didn’t: I was acting the role of Sky Collier, Olympic titan.
Someone not merely comfortable with public near-nudity, and plummeting from a very high tower into a small rectangle of water, but who lives for these gauntlets, a being who’s mostly dolphin.
I straightened my shoulders and sucked in my gut, convincing myself I had abs.
I wasn’t overweight, and if I squinted in heavily shadowed light from a carefully angled floor lamp I could almost detect abs, in the aftermath of a rigorous gym workout (of sit-ups, hanging leg raises, and planks, which I’d manage by promising myself a Snickers bar as a reward), but today I’d psychologically own that grail, that most prized male attribute: a swimmer’s build.
This was the phrase that guys most often lied about on hookup apps.
Claiming to possess a “swimmer’s build” means “I’m smaller than a mobile home. ”
Reggie was watching me, cheerleading my efforts.
I confronted the ladder, grasping a rung.
The moment became circus-like, as if I were an acrobat in spangles on my ascent, with my life on the line, and no net.
Was the pool a net, some assurance of preservation?
Why do families bring children to watch aerialists—why not unfold webbed lawn chairs and wait for grisly car accidents at busy intersections?
Shut up, Sky, I scolded myself, and climb the fucking ladder.
There was a lower diving board halfway to the top, and for a second I speculated: What if I pretend to be confused, like a cyclist pedaling into the Tour de France with training wheels, and his mom saying, “You’re doing fine!
Use your handlebars!” Why hadn’t I been issued a helmet and kneepads and maybe an airbag?
I kept climbing, rung after rung, until my foot slipped and I dropped, my lower body dangling in the breeze, swinging out over nothing, as I heard collective gasps.
I willed my toes back onto the ladder while thinking, Now this is how you hold an audience’s attention—with a suspenseful near-calamity.
I resumed my task, as I could sense the popcorn being stuffed into riveted mouths as viewers asked each other, “Did he do that on purpose?” “Is he stoned?” and “Does he have life insurance?”
At last, my eyes were level with the upper diving board.
Do I have a problem with heights? Do I get nauseous within ten feet of the windows on even the third floor of any skyscraper?
Had I once laboriously grappled up an extremely minor tree in my family’s Long Island backyard, in pursuit of a merit badge in Outdoor Activities, only to be rescued by a member of the fire department after I’d clung to a wavering branch for an hour?
Had I once made my way up a mountain in New Hampshire to impress a bearded, oat milk?chugging guy, and upon reaching the not-very-lofty summit made the mistake of gazing out at the majestic 360-degree panorama, only to go fetal and squeeze my eyes shut while promising God I’d never be mean to anyone if He could magically teleport me back to my rental car?
Do I have a fear of heights? No, I HAVE A FEAR OF FALLING AND DYING.
FUCK YOU, I told myself. YOU ARE NOT YOU. YOU ARE SKY COLLIER, INTREPID, MEGA-TRAINED AMERICAN SUPERSTAR. YOU ARE THE MERYL OF MEN’S DIVING.
I stepped two feet onto the diving board, where there were still railings.
I did something else, because I couldn’t stop myself: I glanced around, at row after row of thousands of people staring at me, expecting artistry; at the girdered ceiling over my head; at the vast open air that engulfed me; and then, even more hideously, at the water so far below.
BAD IDEA. Was the world, and most specifically the diving world, out of its mind?
Who invented this unbelievably masochistic event?
Who’d decided, Wouldn’t it be a great idea to put a tiny little person way, way up, and have that person fly through the atmosphere, somehow contriving not to land headfirst on the concrete and tile surrounding the pool, but within the postage stamp?sized area of blue liquid, cleanly and precisely, without causing any visible splash?
When would this ever become a handy knack?
As with math, card tricks, or nibbling chocolate-covered insects, when would anybody ever really need to do it?
I briefly shut my eyes, AN EVEN WORSE IDEA.
Because this made me dizzy and compelled me to conceive of myself hanging off the diving board upside down, clinging by my fingertips, after a grossly humiliating last-second panic attack, as opposed to my current, intestine-churning, knee-rattling panic tsunami.
Instantly opening my eyes, I took three deep breaths, which is something every online advice listicle recommends for anxiety, as in, “Take three deep breaths, find your core, think of three things you’re grateful for, and then stick the gun in your mouth anyway. ”
I was an actor. That’s why I was a Tux. I was embodying a character who could do this.
FUCK THAT. I was an American paragon, about to give my life, or at least significant portions of my anatomy, for my country.
FUCK THAT MORE. I remembered my dad teaching me to swim in our backyard aboveground pool when I was five years old.
By profession, my dad is a teacher, so he can help people who are convinced they can’t master something, that the syllabus is beyond them.
I’d been quaking: at swallowing water, at getting water in my eyes, at sinking to the bottom as the neighborhood, particularly other kids wearing cooler sneakers, pointed and chortled.
My dad held my body horizontally as I practiced paddling my arms and my feet.
He had me put my face in the water for a moment, then a bit more.
He didn’t let go of me, but let me float, with his arms inches away.
He told me, “You’re doing great. You’re a natural swimmer.
You’re almost there. Nothing bad is going to happen. Don’t listen to your mother.”
And then, very gradually so I didn’t notice, he withdrew his hands, so I was unassisted.
I moved my legs and arms in flailing but workable unison and suddenly I was across the admittedly not-very-wide pool, but I’d reached the opposite side, which I gripped, unsure of how I’d crossed this suburban ocean.
My dad swam over to me, saying the straight-guy equivalent of “I love you,” which is “Great job!” We hugged, because we’d done something together: we’d begun to teach me not only to swim but to stop being afraid of everything, which was a habit I’d developed.
Okay. My dad was with me. My shoulders relaxed.
I stepped forward another two feet, beyond the railings.
My balls vibrated. And pinged. Jesus Christ. Because I’d been sure I wasn’t going anywhere near the water, earlier that morning I’d slid my phone into my Speedo and then, amid my mind-rupturing trek to the diving board, I’d forgotten all about it.
Who was calling me? My mom? Had I forgotten Mother’s Day?
Was it the candle shop, to ask if I’d be coming in this week?
No, none of these people had this number.
It could only be Reggie, who knew I couldn’t answer my phone because such devices were forbidden during an event, plus, by reaching into my Speedo, I’d be minting a new Olympic event: an athlete playing with himself on the high dive.
Reggie could only be scrotum-dialing me for one reason: to bolster me, to remind me he was there for me, however far below.
He was sending his very best wishes, via my nutsac.
I loved him for this, while it dawned on me: the phone was also pushing my junk forward, so for the gay guys watching, and zooming in on my crotch, my package would come off as astoundingly enormous, barely containable by my suit.
No matter how catastrophically I dived, I’d be memed forever as “That Diver With The Incredibly Big Cock, I Mean, What Is He Packing?”