Golden Fields and the Backstroke

Brook had never stopped moving, although she felt rather settled at the moment. She had an excellent view of New Orleans - especially at night, and her bathtub was huge. While she let the water work its way to belly button level, she read her letter from Wayne - the invitation to his wedding and volleyball tournament in Golden Fields, Alabama. It might be interesting to see some familiar faces for a change. A couple of years ago such a thought would have been a nightmare, but now she saw it as refreshing , and she missed her old friends. Some of them she hadn’t seen in ten years.

She pulled her dark brown hair out of its ponytail and let it swish behind her butt. She took off the oversized black tee-shirt that she slept in and looked herself in the mirror, saying this is what it is to be Brook Stephenson, pure, underneath the hood - dark skin, small breasts, square feet, knobby knees, green eyes, and the quirky smile that blows all cover of sophistication, but who wants to be sophisticated? Miming a backstroke while still peering in the mirror, she noticed that she still had some of the right muscles for swimming. She missed the water in Golden Fields where she would skinny dip by moonlight with Wayne and some of the other wilder kids, drinking cheap beer and leaving the cans out there in the grass.

Someone rang her bell, interrupting her reminiscence. She intentionally neglected to look through the peephole and see who it was. It turned out to be Hedge, whom she was expecting anyway because they were supposed to go see some band that their friend Fran knew. He came in and paced around then looked out the window for a minute before he finally sat down on one of the many piles of throw pillows that were scattered around the floor. His nervous intensity and deadpan voice were endearing qualities to her. He said, "Did you realize that you're naked?"

"Yeah, so?" She winked half-seductively at Hedge. She liked him. He had pretty hair - blond, shoulder length, bangs hanging into his cherubic face. She didn't know if she could ever seduce him, though. Seduction required too much of some kind of egoism that she had trouble facing. "Is that what you're wearing to the club?" he asked.

"No, stupid." She went into the other room to find some clothes. She yelled through the wall, "Do you want to drive me to Alabama in a couple of weeks?"

"What for?"

"Some old friends of mine are getting married. There will be free food and music."

"Sounds great." She couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic. She would just have to bring it up again later.

Brook came out of the bedroom in a black tank top and a colorful skirt, her hair up and glasses on. She saw her reflection transposed over the New Orleans night in her window and it did not remind her at all of her friends whose utopian dreams had drowned in Golden Fields Lake years ago. She had spent a lot of energy being angry and frustrated with Wayne and others for not living up to their ideals that their friendship had spawned. But something drew her backward, just as the current her arms created in the backstroke drew her toward an estimated point behind her head. She could not see this point between her timed and limited glances, but she trusted in its existence. Touching base with that point healed the stretched out wounds that time and distance had poked in her heart. She followed Hedge downstairs and into his pickup truck, and they rolled.

Fran had frantic black ringlets of hair and wore paint-splattered white overalls. She had a curious talent for imitating animal noises. She used one of these, a horse's neigh, to greet Brook and Hedge. After going to the bar and getting a beer, she came back and sat down with them. "What's up?"

Brook answered, "I'm going to Alabama on the sixth. My best friend is getting married."

Hedge said, "I thought I was your best friend."

Fran interrupted. "People like us have many best friends because we are incapable of singling out one person above all others. We think too critically, and we approve or disapprove of many aspects of people. We also have many favorite books, many favorite writers, many favorite songs, movies, and so on. Right, Brook?"

She agreed although she had a better idea. Some people have best friends that they met at an early age, maybe they lived next door. They do everything together for all their lives: scouts, school, sports, college, etc. She, Fran, and Hedge, and Wayne too, were different - part of transient tribe of people who become engrossed in each other's lives for brief periods and then one or the other moves on somewhere else. They rarely write because they know they will see each other sometime even if it takes a couple of years. This is how she could forgive Wayne for not calling her for so long. This is how she could forgive her own detachment from people to whom she had felt so close. To call someone her best friend was just to acknowledge that person as one of her tribe.

The band started to come on the stage. Hedge said, "What's the name of this band again?"

"Crispy Scab," said Fran. "They want me to sit in with them later on."

"Oh, yeah?" said Brook.

"Cool," said Hedge.

The band started playing particularly noisy, inarticulate grunge. Fran commented in fragmented shouts about the texture of this or that guitar tone and how the bass player could achieve a certain kind of sound because he knew his electronics so well. Hedge and Brook watched and nodded occasionally to Fran's observations. After the first set, Hedge said he had to leave and asked Fran if she could give Brook a ride. Everything was settled, and Hedge left.

The singer of the band came to talk to Fran, and Brook went to look for the bathroom. She searched every corner of the club for it. As the pressure built up inside her bladder, she thought about Serrano's photograph of a crucifix submerged in a tank of urine. The paradox of that picture had astounded her. One the one hand, it was a radical statement in favor of Catholicism, identifying Christ with the fluids of the body. On the other hand, she recalled that medieval infidels had Europeans prove their rejection of Christianity by forcing them to piss on the cross.

Brook wandered behind the stage and found a locked door marked by a hand-written sign as "unisex restroom - out of order." She decided she would persevere, and if it got to be a burden, she would walk down the road to a gas station.

The second set was about to begin, and Fran was getting on the stage. The band started playing a slow dirge, and Fran chirped, howled, and whinnied in the background. Someone sitting at the bar got Brook's attention by yelling practically right in her ear, "Hey, honey. Y'like whishkey?" The intrusion seemed to come from a fuzzy gray orb of hair, half-hiding an inexplicable smile, and flattened underneath a baseball cap that advertised a brand of chewing tobacco. He said, "Come 'ere and sit in my lap."

She said, "No." She looked at his protruding belly, hardly hidden under a pinstriped short sleeve button down shirt that was half tucked into his brown polyester pants. He smelled like whiskey, cigarettes, and puke.

"Aw, come on. I won't bite."

As quick as a splash, she had an inspiration, and she edged toward him, and playing coquettishly with his collar. She said, "What's your name?"

"Reggie." He giggled absurdly. She made eye contact with Fran who gave her a quizzical look. Brook sat on Reggie's lap, continuing to watch Fran sing. This was the moment that marked the end of her stay in New Orleans. She felt Reggie's erection pressed against the lower part of her back. She made sure Fran saw the stream of water dripping down her leg, darkening the brown polyester of Reggie's pants. As she released the urine from her body, she felt free to move on again to reaffirm her membership in the transient tribe. Reggie suddenly realized what was happening. Fran could not sing any longer because she was laughing too hard. Reggie yelled, "Hey, Bitch, what are you doing?"

Brook stood up in the midst of his exclamations and said, "I thought you would like it." Fran stepped off the stage, and the both ran off to her car, laughing hysterically. Fran was her best friend.

When Hedge and Brook arrived in Golden Fields, Brook told a couple of people about the pissing incident. A few people found the story hilarious. Others were simply confused or disgusted. When she saw Wayne later on, the first thing he said to her was, "I hear you like to pee on people now."

She said, "Well, it was just one incident. It was a spontaneous joke." She knew it was more than that really. But she could not explain that it was just like the photograph of the crucifix in the tank of urine. She didn't have to explain. Wayne might make a sarcastic comment about it, but he would not judge her.

Anyway, it was Wayne's wedding, and he didn't have time to judge her. He had too many relatives pulling him aside to take his picture or to ask him about his plans. Brook and Hedge walked around the Fields, occasionally bumping into Brook's old friends. She introduced them to Hedge, and conversations were not as awkward as she predicted they might be.

Hedge got involved in the volleyball, and Brook walked by herself down to the lake. Half-crushed aluminum cans nestled in the weeds on the edge of the water. Inhaling the mystical smell of the lake and its muddy age, she felt herself back at the finish line. She undressed.

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