Off the Deep-End II

I’m not ready, but with every step forward of my quivering legs, that fact matters less and less. I have decided I’m going to dive into this death pool even if it kills me. 

I am thoroughly convinced it will kill me.

Baywatch, having become equal parts life coach and spiritual advisor as we inch ahead, checks on me periodically with words of encouragement. When he sees they aren’t helping, he tries to convince me to leave the line.

“Little Dude,” he says, “you don’t have to jump. You know that right?”

“Yes, I do.” I reply defiantly.

“You do? Why?”

I think about the question and remember a line my brother’s little league baseball coach screamed to his players during every practice when he believed they weren’t putting their best effort into each play. I give this answer to Baywatch.

“Well, because you gotta commit.”

I leave out the part about a family trip taken to Wild Water Kingdom, a water park in Pennsylvania, a year ago. There, on a day not much different than this one, I climbed the stairs to a hundred foot slide confidently, only to reach the top, look over the railing, and watch my nerve and my ego say fuck this, before bailing over the guard rail, leaving a timid little ten year old to make the embarassing trek back down that hundred foot tower to retrieve both traits alone. With this shame still in my heart, I know there’s only one way I’ll be leaving the line, and it is off the edge of the diving board.

My body, ignorant of its normal functions, begins to break down in unexpected ways. With three people ahead of me for the diving board, my mouth goes dry; two people, and clearly the missing moisture has made its way to the palms of my hands which are now sweating so heavily droplets are falling from the tips of my middle fingers onto the sizzling concrete. I try to wipe them off onto my swim trunks, but that doesn’t help much. Clearly, every sweat gland in my body is pumping into my palms, so I resign my hands to their annoyingly ridiculous fate.

When Baywatch finally gets to the front of the line, he turns to look back at me, and after casting me a winning smile and two thumbs up, steps forward to the edge of the diving board. Flouting the “one bounce per dive” rule, Baywatch takes one small bounce before a leap that launches him upward, and propels him forward. The sound of a lifeguard’s shrill whistle cuts through the air in protest as Baywatch backflips gymnast-perfect, before plunging feet first into the pool; Billy Kidman would be proud. A couple of mississippis pass and Baywatch’s head breaks the surface. He swims easily to the edge of the pool, climbs up the ladder, and out of my life’s story.

It’s my turn now.

My legs, usually sturdy and dependable, have suddenly become jelly-like. I stare up at the diving board and wonder what it would take to abort this adventure without embarrassment and only a minimal hit to my ego. In my mind, a list of excuses unfolds.

I just ate? Leg cramp? Stomach cramp? Mysterious blindness in one eye I’ve just self-diagnosed? Are ‘eye cramps’ a thing? Of course they are. It’s a rare condition, deep levels of stress bring it on. Yeah, I should seek medical attention immediately. No, it can’t wait until I dive! I’ll be dead then, and I’m sure that’d only make it worse.

“Hey Kid,” a brusque, surly voice screams from somewhere behind me, snapping me out of my inner monologue, “shit or get off the pot time!”

I wonder if he realizes how close I am to actually soiling myself, but the cottonmouth I’m experiencing removes any desire to ask. His admonishment has garnered grumbles of approval up and down the line. With all eyes now squarely on me, there’s no way I can, as he puts it, “get off the pot.” I swear loudly in my mind before grabbing the cold, silver handrails of the diving board.

I take a step up. And another. And a third. I’m on the board now, surprised by the traction of it’s surface. My heart, quick-tempoed by nature, has become a hummingbird’s in my chest in both size and rhythm. 

I do not feel brave. I suddenly understand why, even with the sharp end of a sword pressed into their backs, mutineers forced to walk the plank still hesitate; the narrowness of the diving board makes the pool seem wider, deeper, and more ominous than when I stood beside it just a moment ago. With the sun beating down on me, I walk this plank, staring out into oblivion.

Standing at the end of the diving board, I do my best to mirror the actions I’ve just witnessed Baywatch pull off easily. I raise both of my arms to the sky where they meet, right hand over left, middle finger over middle finger; I straighten my back and square my shoulders; I close the space between my feet. Stalling for time, I look to my left; the line for the diving board snakes around the pool. To my right, and a hundred miles away it seems, sits a lifeguard who is laser focused on cleaning his fingernails with his teeth. I wonder if he’ll reach me in time if my moment of truth goes sideways, but the infantile way his fingers take turns dancing in his mouth doesn’t exactly instill me with confidence.

Realizing there’s nothing left to do but jump, I bend my knees and attempt the two bounce method Baywatch performed effortlessly. The first bounce I get minimal lift, on the second I get even less. As I land and crouch for my leap of faith, my right foot shoots out behind me uncontrolled. Instead of a leap, I tumble, swanton bomb-like, head over feet into the deep-end; Jeff Hardy would certainly not be proud. As panic and disorientation set in, and I sink into Davy Jones’ locker, I can’t help thinking that commitment is seriously overrated.

***

I am standing outside of the northern entrance to the Museum of Modern Art. Annoyance is setting in. I shoot Peppy a “where are you?” text that is ignored as the minutes tick by, and play with the zipper on my jacket absentmindedly. We have been dating for two months and she is rarely on time. As I’m rarely on time to anything I deem unimportant, it doesn’t bother me on most occasions, but a Police Officer has just come out of the museum and is standing at a distance I imagine, he imagines, is close enough to keep an eye on me, but far enough away to avoid my suspicion of profiling. He doesn’t know there are no cops above suspicion in my universe. 

We make eye contact; his are smiling, mine, not so much. I am gearing up for a staring contest I’m sure I’ll win, when I feel two taps on my left shoulder. I turn.

“Did you miss me?” Peppy asks, smirking.

My first answer is “no.” Whenever I’m forced to wait in public, the only thing I miss is the comfort of my community. Standing around while Black can be a lot.

My second answer is “Yes.” Peppy is genius, and worldly, and compassionate. She loves flowers and reads poetry in bed. She is cultured enough to side-eye me foregoing the use of my steak knife, but understands freedom enough to keep her comments about my lack of decorum to herself. Her hair is all curls, and bounce, and smells of jasmine. She is full lips, and soft hands, and hips, and curves, and hour-glass comparisons. She is stories of an early childhood spent in Russia, and No, I don’t know what a ‘Toys R Us’ kid is, and America isn’t so perfect, and explain ‘Captain Planet’ again, and I only have two PHDs, I’m not that smart. She is ‘heels to dinner’ fashion, jeans and t-shirt sensibilities, and red leather jackets comparable to Michael’s. She is my thriller, out of my league, above my station, down to earth. But more important than any of this, she is a Human. Being. One who, when not around, I miss quite a lot, so my answer falls somewhere in the middle.

“I mean, yeah, but you know I hate waiting Peppy, so catch 22.” I say annoyed.

“I don’t think that means what you think it means,” she starts, “so you waited a little, Jerrald. Am I not worth the wait?” She asks, pirouetting on the spot.

“Of course. You’re a regular Prima Ballerina over here, but you’re worth the wait like I’m worth punctuality, and we’re all worth a bit more than we give each other credit f--” I begin, but she kisses me mid-rant, crumbling the mountain high monologue my speech was rapidly becoming.

“Look, you’re right. I shouldn’t have been late. I didn’t respond because I know you hate it, and figured we could skip the song and dance. I’m here now, I’m sorry. Your move, hun.”

With no moves to be made, I take Peppy’s hand, kiss her quickly, shoot one last look of daggers at the Police Officer sent to surveil me, who is now staring at Peppy incredulously, and together we make our way into the museum.

Because of a new exhibit, the MoMA is a lot more crowded than usual. Peppy and I make our way through the rooms as casually as we can while being jostled by the crowd of casual art savants that surround us. In front of Monet’s water lilies, I fall into contemplation. I know he painted well over two hundred pictures he named “water lilies,” and I also know he painted most of them with the burden of cataracts obscuring his vision. I’m wondering what a writer’s equivalent to losing their eyesight would be, but when I turn to ask Peppy this question, I hear a man speak in a stage whisper, removing any thoughts of Monet from my mind.

“He seriously needs to get the fuck out of the way,” he says annoyed.

I turn, wondering who would have the audacity to go with entitlement over a simple “excuse me,” and am now staring at a man who is clearly used to having his whispers acknowledged as if they’re blaring out of a megaphone. He is excellent posture, manicured fingers, and two perfect rows of teeth as white as any colgate smile I’ve ever seen. 

The woman he’s speaking to looks as if she’s stepped out of a Vogue magazine photoshoot. She is all legs, and I don’t get out of bed for less than half a million dollars, and I figure, used to having people listen to the people she’s with. 

But I am surly, and Bronx-born, and always one comment away from going feral. And mostly, I’m unimpressed. I open my mouth to ask this guy, respectfully of course, how much force he thinks it would take for me to put his head through one of the water lilies in the paintings, but Peppy, reading the look on my face, steps between me and this couple.

“Don’t.” she says icily, glaring at me.

“Just once,” I say dejectedly, “just once, I want you to let them buy their button, babe.”

“What does buying buttons have to do with anything?” she asks, genuinely confused. “Is this a machismo, wait, machismo is the word, right?”

I nod.

“Okay, yeah. Is this a machismo thing?”

 In this moment, I’m convinced I’ve found a keeper. I laugh genuinely at her complete lack of pop culture knowledge, throw my arm around her shoulders, and she leads me away from the water lilies. When she isn’t looking, I give colgate smile the finger with my free hand. This is a small win.

***  

“Where to next?” Peppy asks. She is sliding her arms into her jacket as I hold it open for her. We have just exited the museum and with the entire night ahead of us, we’re deciding next moves.

In response to her question, I reach into my pocket and dig out a small glass phial containing a joint. I shake it earnestly in front of her face, smiling.

“I was thinking Central Park, the arcade is beautiful after dark, and Bethesda fountain is beautiful too, when the whole world isn’t mucking it up. Shall we?”

“We shall,” Peppy replies. She slides her hand into mine, gives it a small squeeze, and we step out into the night air of the city, away from the MoMa.

At the “LOVE” statue on 55th street, a strange moment unfolds. As Peppy and I stroll, hand in hand, past a vagrant woman sitting atop a flattened cardboard box, she speaks to us. She is haggard and ragged, and clutching the base of a shopping cart that I assume houses all of her worldly possessions. I look into the homeless woman’s vibrant green eyes, and before Peppy can pull me away, I am engaged in conversation.

“That’s nice,” Val, because she’s clearly a Valerie, says, pointing at me and Peppy’s interlocking hands.

“Right?” I ask, faking excitement over this simple act of companionship. I bring Peppy’s hand to my lips and kiss it tenderly. Val stares at us blankly before continuing.

“So, where are you sleeping tonight?” she asks. 

The question is odd, but working in a profession that lends itself to long stretches of solitude, I understand that sometimes even a small amount of conversation can make a person feel like a part of the larger world. I also understand that the larger world will do its best to ignore those it deems only worthy of a small amount of conversation. As I am not of this world, I choose to humor her.

“I mean,” I begin, “I haven’t really given it much thought, but most likely I’ll be sleeping in my bed.”

“And you?” Val asks, jabbing an accusatory finger in Peppy’s direction, “Where are you sleeping?”

Peppy, clearly annoyed with the increasing invasiveness of this inquiry, stares daggers at Val before pressing her figure against me and answering the question.

“I’ll be in bed with him,” she begins, “but we won’t be sleeping.”

I am embarrassed, Peppy is over it, and Val is either oblivious to the shift in energy that’s just occurred, or doesn’t care.

“No, I don’t think so,” she says cryptically, “I don’t think so at all.”

“Is… is this…” I begin, feigning surprise and raising my voice, “is this a racial thing?”

Peppy burst into laughter and I seize this moment to pull her up the street away from our close encounter of the transient kind.

While waiting for the traffic light to change at the corner, Peppy tells me the way I wait to cross the street is dangerous. I tell her I don’t see what the issue is, but I do. I am three feet off of the curb, in the street, with total disregard for my safety and an indifference to oncoming traffic. Or at least that’s how it appears to her. I explain that all of my years playing a game called California coupled with my ingrown disdain for walking behind people on busy New York streets has made me a master of crossing intersections.

“And a master can’t be expected to wait on the curb with the rest of the peons, can he?” I ask.

“Don’t know,” Peppy shoots back, “but the master is going to get himself killed. And what’s California?” 

The light changes; the large red hand on its screen becomes a hurried white guy, and we make our way into the street as I explain.

“Ah, California,” I begin staring up at the sky smiling as if this game was gifted to me from the Gods themselves, “California is a game my friends and I made up when we were around eleven years old. That was a wild year for me. Y’know I almost died that year? Not playing California, mind you, but if I had, would there even be a California? Chicken and the egg, I guess.”

“You keep calling it California, but I thought you didn’t see California until you were like thirty, Jerrald. I’m confused.”

“Don’t be. We called the game California because one of my friends, Jebbo, refused to play. He grew up in the Bronx like we did, but he was born in Cali.”

“Oooooh,” Peppy says, “makes sense. Okay, how do you play California?”

“So California,” I begin, chuckling because none of this makes any sense, “is a pretty straightforward game. All you have to do is cross the street without getting hit by a car. The caveat is you can only play California when the light is green.”

“This sounds like a dumb game Jerrald.” Peppy says irritably.

“Oh, it is. You have to start crossing if you’re not on the curb when the light turns green. You can’t go back to the curb, you’re not allowed to run, and you’re not allowed to stop. All you can do is speed up, or slow down the cadence of your walk. Wanna play?”

“No,” Peppy replies shortly, and there is judgment in her voice, “I was right, it is a stupid game, clearly.”

“Of course it is,” I reply, ignoring the shift in her tone, “but most games are stupid. This one has the added bonus of being dangerous as well. I read somewhere once that the average impact a football player is hit with being tackled, is about the same as being in a car crash; if that’s true, then California is like football, but you get to skip degenerative C.T.E. and go straight to the dying part.”

“Why would anyone  in their right mind play a game like this, Jerrald?” Peppy asks, and I still hear that note of judgment in her voice, “it’s idiotic.”

“Of course it’s idiotic, Pep,” I continue nonplussed, “You’d have to be an idiot to play, and an idiot to get hit by a car.”

“Not everyone who gets hit by a car is an idiot, Jerrald. If you were hit by a car, would you be an idiot?” Peppy asks, she lets loose her grip on my hand, now visibly upset.

“Actually, cars ran over my left foot twice,” I begin matter-of-factly, pretending not to notice her withdrawal from me, “and yes, one of those times, I was an idiot.”

“And the other?” she asks, her cheeks reddening.

“My foster mom ran over it accidentally while I held the gate to her backyard open so she could park her car. I’m not entirely convinced it wasn’t intentional. Still, that other time? I was the idiot.” I say this with an air of finality. The mention of my foster mom has suddenly made California taboo, but Peppy is not done making her case.

“I don’t understand how you can generalize a whole group of people when you don’t know all the different variables that can lead to car accidents, frankly, you sound stupid and arrogant. So don’t. Just don’t.” She says this with the same tone in her voice used to talk me out of the confrontation in the museum, but now, I take it as an unjust silencing, and press on with my critique of failed froggers. 

“Do I? Because as far back as I can remember, there are two things you are taught daily as a child, from the moment you step outside with legs that support your body. Don’t talk to strangers and look both ways before crossing the street. The crazy thing is, you can ignore the former rule if a stranger is telling you the latter. Of course, there are asterisks.”

“Asterisks?”

 “Yup. If you have the light, look both ways, step out into the street, and then are hit by a car, that’s the driver’s fault. If you’re standing on the curb, and a driver jumps said curb and hits you? That’s the driver’s fault. But I don’t see how any other situation where you find yourself in the street and get hit, isn’t your fault unless a car literally falls from the sky on top of you, and even then, if the light’s green, I’d say we’re in a grey area.”

“This is stupid Jerrald. Can we just drop it?” Peppy asks, her voice shaking. I can’t. For reasons I don't explain, it is important to me for her to see this issue my way. I press on.

“Also, why are you talking about idiots who get hit by cars as if they’re a protected class of people? This isn’t a civil rights campaign. The way I see it, the Lord works in mysterious ways. In this case, natural selection, GTA style.”

“My friend was hit by a car and died!” Peppy screams, turning the heads of several people around us as we cross another intersection towards Grand Army Plaza. There is now a marathon of tears racing down her cheeks.

I, realizing I’ve walked into this street and onto a minefield, have few options. We’re in California now; I’m not allowed to walk it back, and this rule coupled with the intense self-consciousness and embarrassment I’m feeling having been shouted at in a bustling public space make me sure I don’t want to.

Time freezes. I stare at Peppy wondering how next to proceed. I ask myself if an apology is warranted, but believing I wasn’t wrong, I decide it would be insincere of me to give one. I ask myself if I’ll ever feel comfortable enough to speak freely in her company after this, but I know the answer. I try to move through the world as invisibly as possible, and standing under this spotlight on Grand Army Plaza, just outside of the most famous park on earth, with people still casting furtive glances at the two of us, I don’t believe I can if she is beside me. I ask myself if I love her, but decide the answer to that question is irrelevant. I learned a long time ago, love is not enough. I ask myself a million more questions. Tell myself sternly, ya gotta commit, then ask Peppy just one.

“Well, did he look both ways?”

***

I am alone. Again. 

It was bound to happen, I suppose. In the two decades since that diving board slip, I never learned when to admit I was in over my head, mainly because I don’t realize I am before it’s too late. But life is long and comes at you fast, and I am still learning. 

And yeah, there may be a lesson in here somewhere about sticking the landing, or quitting while you’re behind, or checking your ego, or looking both ways before crossing your girlfriend, but if there is, I can’t teach it.

I’m clearly not the guy who learns the lessons.