Being Clem Page 13

“Yeah. I’d stay if I could, but…”

  “All right then,” I said, turning back to the meet. “See you Monday.”

  Langston left out, and I sat back down. The pool was still hot and stuffy, but the bleach smell disappeared. I took off my jacket and watched another set of swimmers step up. I leaned forward in my seat waiting for the whistle and the next race to start.

  I got a whole education in swimming just sitting in the bleachers. First off, there were all kinds of names for swimming when I just thought you got out there and swam or you didn’t. But there’s a whole lot of ways to get across a pool. Breaststroke, backstroke, freestyle, and my favorite, the butterfly, the one where your arms come out of the water and make a big wide circle. It doesn’t look much like a butterfly’s wings, but it sure is pretty to watch. I watched so long, I was about the last to leave. I didn’t know what time it was, and I knew I was going to have a lot of explaining to do to Momma when I got home, but I’d have to worry about that later.

  As I stood up, the coach was by the pool, picking up towels and the glasses left behind by the swimmers.

  “Hand me those goggles, would you, son?” he said to me.

  I looked down at another pair of glasses near the edge of the pool.

  “These?” I asked him.

  He nodded.

  I laughed. “You called them googles?”

  He laughed back. “No, they’re called goggles. Guess you’re not a swimmer?” he said. “You have a brother swimming for DuSable?”

  “Nah, just watching.”

  He looked for a minute. “Weren’t you in here last week? I told you to come back for a meet, right?”

  All of a sudden, I felt ashamed. I nodded and handed him the glasses. “See you later,” I said, walking toward the doors.

  “Can you give me a hand for a minute?” he asked.

  “I… uh… got to get on home… ,” I said.

  “Just be a minute,” he said, grabbing at the ropes in the pool they used to make the lanes. “Everyone likes to swim, but no one likes to help clean up,” he added, smiling.

  “Why don’t you make the swimmers help?” I asked him, unhooking one of the ropes at the end of the pool like I watched him do.

  “Ahh, they’re hyped up after their win. They want to get in the locker room, shower and change, go meet their friends. You know the drill.”

  I didn’t know the drill, but I nodded like I did.

  Just then one of the swimmers walked out, still in his bathing suit with a towel around his neck. I’d noticed him at the meet sitting on the bench more than he was in the pool.

  “Coach. Sorry, I forgot we were supposed to help get these up,” he said, grabbing the lines I was helping with.

  “Too late,” Coach told him. “I already got Mr.—What’s your name, son?”

  “Clem… Clem Thurber,” I told him.

  “I already got Mr. Thurber to help me.” The coach winked at me.

  The boy turned and looked at me. “Thurber? You got a sister at DuSable?”

  “Yeah, I got a sister,” I said. This was a question nearly everybody asked once they found out my last name was Thurber. “Clarisse is my sister.”

  “Clarisse?” he said, like he never even heard her name before. “You have a sister named Annette?”

  I had to keep my mouth from dropping open. “Annette…yes, my sister Annette,” I said, sounding like I didn’t even know my own sister.

  His face lit up. “Tell her Anthony says hello,” he said, flashing a smile.

  “All right, Anthony, this isn’t an episode of Blind Date,” the coach told him. “Get over there and help Mr. Thurber get these lane lines up.” He was smiling.

  “Where do you go to school, Annette’s brother?” Anthony said, flashing that smile again.

  I couldn’t wait to get home and see Annette’s face when I asked her about Anthony. All that talk about “I know a couple of boys on the team” and “my friend Linda’s brother.” Looked to me like Clarisse wasn’t the only one with admirers.

  “I’m at Haines,” I told him, feeling like I might as well have been saying I went to kindergarten.

  “Haines? I went to Haines too. You planning on swimming in high school?” he asked me.

  I shook my head no.

  “Why’s that?” he asked. We finished pulling up the ropes, and we rolled them up neat on the pool deck.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yeah, a lot of us go for basketball instead. Is that what you play?”

  I shook my head again.

  “Thanks, boys!” Coach yelled from the end of the pool, heading into the locker room.

  I thought about my decision to stop pretending to be something I wasn’t.

  “Because,” I said, looking him in his eyes, “I’m too afraid to swim.”

  THIRTY-NINE

  Annette had more questions than answers when I raced in the house to tell her about her Anthony.

  “What were you doing at a swim meet?” she asked me.

  “Why weren’t you there if your boyfriend was swimming?” I asked her, laughing.

  “Didn’t you tell Momma you were at the library?”

  “I went after I went to the library.” Annette wasn’t giving me anything to work with.

  “Did they win?” she asked.

  “You mean, did Anthony win?” I couldn’t stop laughing.

  “You really are a child, Clem,” Annette said. “Anthony is in my math class, and he’s in French Club with me.”

  “Is that where you two French-kiss?” Now my eyes were tearing up, I was laughing so hard.

  “I don’t have time for this,” Annette said.

  “Don’t have time for what?” Clarisse said, walking into the kitchen.

  “Annette’s boyfriend, Anthony,” I blurted out, wiping my eyes.

  Clarisse looked at Annette. “Anthony? Anthony Stokes?”

  “Yup,” I said, though I didn’t even know if that was his last name.

  “I knew it!” Clarisse shouted.

  “Will the two of you stop it?” Annette said, looking away.

  “Wait.” Clarisse turned to me. “How do you know Anthony?”

  “Because he was someplace he wasn’t supposed to be, sitting up at the DuSable swim meet when he was supposed to be at the library,” Annette said.

  “I can’t go to a swim meet?” I asked them.

  “Aren’t you the one too afraid to even go near water?” Clarisse said. Annette hit her in her arm and they both got quiet.

  “What?” I said.

  Annette rolled her eyes at Clarisse. “You always have to go running your big mouth?” she said.

  “So how long are we all supposed to pretend Clem ain’t afraid of water?”

  I stood looking at them and couldn’t find one thing to say. Annette came close to me. “Momma and Aunt Dorcas said you—”

  I looked at Clarisse. “I just don’t like swimming!” I yelled. “Doesn’t mean I’m afraid.” I could feel the tears starting and I knew I couldn’t cry in front of Clarisse or tell her I was afraid, or I’d be hearing about it for years.

  “It’s okay to be afraid of something, Clem. We all are. Right, Clarisse?” Annette said.

  Clarisse looked like she wasn’t sure how to answer, then nodded her head yes, but I could tell Clarisse ain’t never been afraid of anything in her life.

  “Yeah?” I said to them. “What are you afraid of?”

  “Bugs,” Annette said. She looked at Clarisse.

  “Me too,” Clarisse said finally.

  “Is that why we always ask you to kill them?” I said.

  “All right then. Sometimes I’m afraid of…” Clarisse looked around the room.

  Annette laughed, “C’mon, Clarisse, everybody’s afraid of—”

  “Sometimes I’m afraid people won’t like me,” Clarisse whispered so soft we barely heard her.

  “What? You?” I said. “Everybody likes you.”

  “Everybody knows me. T
hat’s different from everybody liking me,” she said.

  I never thought about that.

  “Everybody likes Annette. Everybody likes you. I’m scared nobody likes me.”

  Me and Annette were quiet.

  “Now you all have nothing to say?” Clarisse said to us.

  “We’re just surprised is all,” Annette said. “Everybody likes you, Clarisse.”

  I nodded my head so I looked like I was agreeing with Annette, but when I thought about it, I realized Clarisse was hard to like. The way she was always bossing everybody, and half the time she seemed so mad, she looked like she’d sooner fight you than speak to you.

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Well, nothing I can do if they don’t,” she said, heading to the icebox. “Is Momma gonna be late again?”

  I took my books out of my satchel and started on my schoolwork. Annette did too. Clarisse cut up an apple, and we all sat at the table quiet. In one day I went from hiding being afraid of swimming to just about everybody knowing, and I still didn’t know if there was a way to stop being afraid. It didn’t look like Annette was trying to stop being afraid of bugs, and Clarisse didn’t look like she was trying to make people start liking her. Maybe I just had to be okay with being afraid of swimming.

  I heard the front door open and Momma call out, “I’m home.”

  Annette got up from the table, and I followed. Clarisse didn’t move. Just as I reached the kitchen door, Clarisse grabbed my hand.

  “Squirrels,” she said.

  “What?” I said, thinking I hadn’t heard her right.

  “I’m scared of squirrels too.”

  I opened my mouth and she said, “Remember when we stayed that summer with Uncle Kent?” I nodded yes. “And sometimes I would go in the house saying I was too hot to be outside?” I nodded yes again. “It wasn’t because I was hot. It was because of those squirrels. Look like big ole rats with bushy tails. I thought I was gonna faint every time I saw one.”

  Clarisse smiled big. “But that’s our little secret,” she said to me.

  I walked out to meet Momma laughing so hard, she must have thought I lost my mind.

  FORTY

  When Langston told me his daddy had him staying in all the next Saturday to make up for the chores he missed last week, I didn’t tell him I wasn’t going to the library either. I found out from Annette there was another swim meet, and I packed up my satchel like I always did when I was heading off to the library, but then I turned down Wabash and went straight to DuSable High.

  I went early this time, and when I walked into the pool area, the first person I saw was Anthony.

  “Annette’s brother,” he said, smiling that bright smile.

  “Hey, Anthony.” I smiled back. “Annette says to tell you good luck today,” I told him, even though Annette didn’t say nothing like that.

  “She did?” he asked.

  He walked over. Now that I knew all of the events, I asked him, “What are you swimming?”

  “Just the freestyle and the relay,” he said. “Both second heat.” Heat wasn’t something I knew. He could probably tell by my face.

  “Fastest swimmers are in the first heats, slowest swimmers come in the heats after,” he said. “I’m the slowest.”

  “You looked fast,” I told him.

  He hit my arm. “That’s ’cause you don’t swim.” He laughed. “Oh… sorry ’bout that,” he said.

  “It’s all right,” I said. “Good luck.”

  “Look for the last person getting out the pool.” Anthony laughed again. “That’ll be me. Oh, and stick around after, I gotta talk to you about something.”

  Annette wasn’t lying when she said the DuSable team was the best in the state. It looked like the DuSable swimmers beat the other swimmers by a mile in every heat. And Anthony might have been the slowest person on the DuSable team, but he wasn’t the slowest in the pool. I stood up to watch when he swam his freestyle. He stretched his whole body out and just as soon as the tip of his finger touched the wall, he flipped over, pushed off, and did it again. He finished third in his freestyle heat, behind two other DuSable swimmers but ahead of the other team, and second in the relay. By the time the meet ended, my throat was sore with all the screaming I was doing, and my back hurt from leaning forward in the hard seats. DuSable won again and just like the last time, everybody ran into the locker room and left the coach out at the pool cleaning up. Only this time, Anthony stayed behind too.

  “Me and Mr. Thurber will take care of this, Coach,” Anthony told him. The coach looked like he was happy to hear it.

  “You boys sure?” he asked us.

  I nodded yes, glad to be helping at the pool again.

  Me and Anthony worked quick. I unhooked the lane lines and rolled them up. I picked up the towels and goggles. Anthony moved the benches near the wall and when everything was all straightened up, he came over and thanked me.

  “Good job, Annette’s brother.” He gave me skin. “So, I got a little deal for you,” he said, sitting down on the bench.

  “I’m listening,” I told him.

  “Now, I ain’t the best swimmer. But Coach says, I keep working, he could see me one day swimming in college. Maybe even get a scholarship by the time I’m a senior.” Why someone would be swimming in college I didn’t know, but I didn’t want to stop him.

  “So I was thinking… didn’t you tell me you don’t know how to swim?”

  “Yup,” I said.

  “Well, I can teach you,” he said.

  I looked at him sideways.

  “Nah,” I told him. “I don’t think anyone can teach me how to swim.”

  “I said the same thing,” he said. “Until I didn’t.”

  I stopped listening and kept shaking my head.

  He reached out. “But you gotta do me a favor, though.”

  I stopped shaking my head.

  “Annette,” he said.

  “Annette?”

  “Yeah. You gotta put in a good word for me with your sister,” Anthony said.

  Now I laughed.

  “You think Annette cares what good word her little brother is putting in?” I laughed again. “I may as well jump in the pool right now and drown.”

  “Wait a minute now,” he said. “I can tell you’re a smart dude. You just gotta be smooth. I have an older sister too. Trust me, this can work.”

  He looked so sure, I almost believed him.

  “I can’t do it,” I told him.

  “Not even for love?” he asked, putting his hand over his heart and blinking his long eyelashes fast.

  “Oh, now it’s love? Annette said you were only in her math class.”

  “Did she tell you I’m in French Club too?” he asked.

  “So?”

  “I will have you know I’m the only young man in the French Club,” he said. “And it ain’t because I love le Français.”

  “You really are in love,” I said.

  “I’ll take that as a oui?” Anthony said, blinking his eyelashes again. Listening to him speak French like Annette made me think maybe they would make a nice boyfriend and girlfriend.

  “And you really think you can teach me to swim?” I asked him.

  “Absolutely,” he said, looking serious. “First time I got in the pool”—he laughed, shaking his head—“I was splashing and kicking so bad, they had to pull me up out of there. Go on and get changed.”

  “Wait. Now?” I asked him.

  “You don’t ever want to wait till you have to. ’Cause then it may be too late,” Anthony said, looking serious. “I just got hired as a lifeguard at the YMCA over on Wabash.”

  I never met anyone who was a lifeguard. “You ever have to save anyone?” I asked him.

  “Not yet, and I don’t want you to be the first one, Annette’s brother,” he said.

  “How did you get a lifeguard job if you’re not a good swimmer?” I asked, half believing him.

  “Well, first off, I was being modest,” he said, la
ughing. “I may not be the fastest swimmer, but that don’t make me a bad swimmer. Huge difference. And second, I had to pass a lifeguard test. Which I did”—he flashed that big white smile—“with flying colors.”

  I’d bet Anthony could give Aunt Dorcas a run for her money in the classroom. But he sounded like he was telling the truth.

  “And I had to quit my other job to take the lifeguard job. Now you gonna ask me questions all day or do you want to learn to swim?”

  “What was your other job?” I couldn’t stop asking questions.

  “So I guess you really don’t want to learn to swim,” Anthony said, still smiling. “I was a paper boy. Had my own route since I was younger than you.”

  “You make a lot of money as a paper boy?” I asked. I kept promising myself I was gonna stop asking Anthony questions, but something about him made me keep asking more. I wondered if I was trying to get as much information as I could so I could use it to torment Annette when I got home. But I remembered seeing those paper boys marching in the Bud Billiken Parade behind the big shot Abbott in his fancy white car.

  “You ever march in the Bud Billiken Parade?”

  “Course I did!” Anthony just about yelled. The sound in the room made echoes off the walls. “I was always right up front. Played trumpet in the newsboy band. You see me?”

  How Anthony thought I would recognize him from the Bud Billiken Parade I don’t know, but I nodded my head.

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “All right, enough of this small talk,” Anthony said. “Over there in my bag is an extra set of trunks.” He pointed to the bench against the wall. “They may be a little big, but pull the string tight at the waist and they’ll get the job done. Go get changed in the locker room. I’ll be waiting.”

  “Coach ain’t gonna mind you teaching me to swim?” I asked him.

  He looked around the pool deck. “You see a coach in here?”

  I walked to the bench and went to get the swim trunks.

  FORTY-ONE

  All the way home from my first swim lesson with Anthony I thought about my daddy. How I spent all these years looking at his pictures and hearing stories about how strong and brave he was and thinking that there was no one in the world less like my daddy than me. I thought if my daddy was alive to see the war end and come home to Chicago like all the other soldiers and daddies, he’d be ashamed to have a son so afraid to get into water he threw up on himself, wet the bed, and spent one whole week with his face in the water crying like a baby. But today, with Anthony holding on to my stomach underneath the water and my arms and legs stretched long like his and goggles on so the water didn’t sting my eyes, and the water feeling good, I started thinking maybe my daddy could be proud of me after all.