Zoology. Ben Dolnick

the money to open it back up. One of the major regrets of my life. No, the major regret of my life. And you know why that happened? Rats. You get bathroom pipes coming up from the sewers and everybody thinks it only goes one way, but really rats are climbing right up those pipes, and man, you’d come into the bathroom and there would be rats just crawling right out of the toilet. My old man—man, you should have seen my old man—he’s in there with a broomstick he sharpened up like this so it’s just like a spear, and he’s stabbing those fuckers in the toilet, and man, it’s like a war zone in there. And me and my big sister are standing outside the door telling customers someone’s in there working on the pipes. This went on for like two years, rats in the kitchen, rats in the bathroom, one fucking rat even ran right through the restaurant under people’s legs one time, and I think that’s what did it, I think somebody went and told the health inspector to come bust our ass. One of the biggest tragedies ever to happen for all of New York.”

      Ramon had a son in the army, and I tried sometimes to steer the conversation toward him, because on the slowest, hottest afternoons I liked to daydream about being in the Middle East, riding around in a tank with a gun against my shoulder and the desert blowing around outside.

      “My son, third infantry, stormed right into Baghdad on March twenty looking for Saddam. Oh yeah. Stormed right in there with guns drawn ready to kick ass. Last Saturday of every month he calls up on the phone and you know what the first thing he says is, every time?” I’ve heard the first thing his son says about ten times more than his son has ever said it, but I always raise my eyebrows. “He says, ‘How are the Mets? How’s Piazza?’ Every time, that crazy fucking kid, from the middle of the desert, and all he cares about is how are the Mets, this from a kid who stormed right into Baghdad looking for the worst guy since Hitler.

      “You know, I meet people who are against the war, people you see going around with the handouts and chants and everything, and I tell you what—I respect everything they say, I listen to it, I nod my head. But I don’t care whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat or a goddamn Martian, when our country’s at war you gotta support our boys. My son didn’t decide we should start a war, but as soon as it got going, he made sure he was on the first plane over there, and you know what I call that, no matter whether I think George Bush is a great president or not? I call that courage.”

      Sometimes I imagined Ramon with a faucet on the top of his head, and when he’d been talking too long I could just reach up and twist it to off.

      * * *

      I decided to start swimming for twenty minutes every afternoon, first thing after I got back to the apartment. It would be as good as a shower, and maybe I’d burn off my stomach. Being on my feet all day I felt like I might be losing weight, but I was putting it all back on each day at lunch. On Fifty-sixth there was a place with Reubens, and every night, in bed, I promised myself I wouldn’t get one the next day, and every lunchtime I decided I’d worked enough that morning to deserve one. My high school PE teacher, Mr. Delia, told me when I was a senior that if I swam ten laps three times a week for the whole year he guaranteed I’d lose fifteen pounds. I stopped after two weeks, though, and ended the year five pounds heavier than I’d started. This time I promised myself I’d be disciplined.

      Pool locker rooms smell just like pool locker rooms, even in a place as fancy as David and Lucy’s building: bleach and mold and person. When I was a kid I used to go to the Somerset pool all summer. Fifteen minutes out of every hour were adult swim, and I’d sit on the steps shivering while Dad and Walter played water H-O-R-S-E. Mom never swam, she just liked to sun. Even on cool days, when she had to drape a towel over her back, she’d wave her hand to get me out of her light. I hated it, having my wrinkly mom lying belly-up on a beach chair with pubic hairs crawling down her thighs. I had a crush on the lifeguard, a high school girl with brown hair and a tattoo of a dolphin above her anklebone. Abby. Once, during the worst of my crush, I saw her at United Artists in the popcorn line with her friends, and she smiled at me, but like an idiot I rushed into the bathroom and stood in front of the sink until I knew she’d be gone.

      This pool was simpler. It was indoors, on the eighth floor, and, the first time I went, it was totally empty except for one old man swimming laps and wheezing in the far lane. A matchstick of an old man who I’d seen before in the elevator, always headed out for a run. A sign said, SWIMMERS ARE UNSUPERVISED AND RESPONSIBLE FOR OWN SAFETY. Four big windows looked out from one wall way above Fifty-third Street. Lucy swam first thing every morning, before she went up to her studio. I thought about her peeling off her bathing suit and running hot water over her boobs, and to stop myself I dove in. It wasn’t much of a dive, but it wasn’t a belly flop either, it was more like a tumble. The water felt cold for a second, and I let myself sink down so my feet tapped the tile, and, blowing bubbles, I rose back up and gave a big “Aaaaaaahhh,” because aside from the skinny old man there was no one there to hear me.

      I started to swim, and the water felt chunky. Which sounds gross, but no, it was wonderful, it was chunky the way Jell-O’s chunky if you take it out of the fridge too soon, like every time I swept my arms big, solid pieces of water were being pushed back and I was shooting through empty space. I love looking at my body underwater. Every little arm hair waving and the three freckles in a line along my left wrist, my hands looking so huge and weird, every nick and dry-skin flake like it’s under a magnifying glass. What an amazing thing to be, a pink ape underwater! I love thinking in the water. For some reason it feels like I shouldn’t be able to do it, but I’ll putter along the bottom, my belly just barely clearing the tiles, and over and over I’ll think: I’m thinking! I’m thinking! Here I am thinking!

      It only took two laps for me to start to get tired, and to start to wonder if ten minutes a day might be a better plan than twenty. I decided I’d rest for a little, then swim a couple more laps and see how I was feeling. I was holding on to the edge when a tall girl about my age walked in holding the hand of a skinny black-haired boy, six or seven years old. OK, I was peeing. The girl had thick brown hair, and it wasn’t that she was fat (but she wasn’t skinny), it was just that she was big, much taller than me, maybe heavier. If a lumberjack had a beautiful daughter, I thought, this could be her. She wore a blue T-shirt over her bathing suit and no shorts.

      In case the water turned cloudy I had to start swimming again. Breaststroke is easiest for me, so that’s what I did. I can usually go the whole length of the pool with only three breaths, but after a few strokes the top of my chest was starting to burn.

      I was resting again on the edge, pretending not to look at them. She was sitting on a pool chair reading a book while the boy jumped in and climbed out and jumped in and climbed out again and again and again. She had her left leg crossed over her right, and she looked like she was waiting for someone to fit a slipper onto her little curved foot. Her hair looked like it would weigh five pounds by itself. When she talked I thought she was going to tell me to stop looking at her, but instead she said, “Would it be all right if you watched him for a minute?” There was some little something in her accent—I thought she might be from Minnesota.

      “No! No, I can watch him for a year if you want!”

      She laughed loud and bright and went into the locker room, and I climbed out and went and sat in her chair. I started to open her book—it was purple with a crumbling cover—but my fingers left dark spots, so I turned it over and left it alone. The old man climbed out, shook off like a dog, and left. The kid didn’t seem to have noticed that I was watching him now. “That’s not bad jumping,” I said.

      “I’m the best in my group. My dad says I’m the best jumper he might have ever seen for my age.”

      He’d stand on the edge, gather himself for a few seconds, then jump in and move his arms and legs like he was being electrocuted before he hit the water. “Do you want me to show you the knee bounce?” he said. On the edge of the pool he got down on his knees and he hopped in and seemed to smack his chest, because when he came up he had a red splotch. “Do you want me to show you the flying kick?” For this one he jumped and stuck one leg out and gave a karate yell. “Do you want me to show you the double twister?” He bent his knees, jumped the highest I’d seen him, spun around, and on the way down smashed his face so hard on the edge