Nightswimmer by Joseph Olshan

Author:Joseph Olshan [Olshan, Joseph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4804-2155-4
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2013-05-22T15:16:00+00:00

THIRTEEN

I TOLD YOU THIS in Vermont while we were standing on an incline above the Ottauquechee River, a mile or so before the Taftsville covered bridge. I’d shown you the River Road because I loved its eeriness, the banks overhung with willows, the dark-shingled cabins with spindly steps that scaled down to brackish-looking water that swirled along like televised weather patterns. We’d stopped my car at a rope swing and now I climbed on the hood to gain some more height. Casey sat on his haunches by the rear wheels of my car, his lanky body erect and attentive, waiting to see what I’d do next.

I jumped up and swung down and out over the river like a pendulum, and as I gained the top of the far arc, I let go and plummeted into the water. A moment later there was a splash nearby; Casey had bounded down the bank and leapt in. He swam determinedly toward me, his beautiful hound’s head above the water, breasting the slight current with his white chest and the white tips of his paws.

“Good going!” you crowed down to me through your cupped hands. Then you clambered down the bank, grabbed the rope, climbed up again, swung out and dropped into the water next to me.

Farther downstream we could see a rope line of big orange foam buoys draped like a necklace from one bank to the other, preventing pleasure boats, as well as swimmers like us, from going over the steep falls just beyond the bridge.

“This was my favorite thing to do last summer,” I explained as we stood in shallow water and as Casey paddled leisurely back and forth between us. “I used to come here and swing out when I got really depressed.”

“Depressed? You mean, over Greg?”

“I even jumped from a few railroad bridges into the White River.”

“What were you doing, simulating suicide?”

“Sometimes a little exhilaration is a quick pick-me-up.”

You looked doubtful for a moment but then you nodded.

I took you to a place called Lake Echo for a longer swim. There, as we made our way out toward the middle, I could see that you had a fairly even stroke, just needed to keep your elbows higher, to relax and shoulder-roll a bit more, but basically it was all there. I swam a long, easy crawl, watching how the water deepened vaultlike while shafts of sunlight trolled the depths. At one point I dove way down. With my back to the bottom I watched the surface glittering above me like a living mirror, whose silvery skin was broken by Casey swimming in vigilant circles as he waited for me to surface. When finally I could see your body crossing above, I came up for air. “Do you know how to eggbeater?” I asked.

“Eggbeater?”

I explained that eggbeater was treading water with the legs so that one had free use of the hands.

“What’s the point of doing that?”

“Besides being the key to playing water polo, it allows you to swim and eat a tuna sandwich at the same time,” I said, laughing.

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