was all Eddie had time to take in before he went under again.
Eddie hit bottom, pushed off, came up, looked for Jack. Jack was skating away, skating in a clumsy way he had never seen before. Eddie had that thought. Then he thought: he’s going for help, and getting his frozen hands on the ice again, he kicked with his legs and tried to push himself up with his hands. The ice broke away, and Eddie started to go down again. Then something hit him in the face. His stick. He reached for it, got it in his hands. His hands were awkward things now, barely able to grip, and his shivers were beyond control.
Eddie took the stick, reached out as far as he could, scissored his legs with all his strength, tried to dig the blade into the ice. Pull. Kick. Pull kick. He flopped onto the ice, up to his chest. Some of it broke off beneath him, but not all. He kicked, pulled, wriggled, flopped up a little higher; and finally right out of the water. Eddie didn’t get up, didn’t skate, but crawled all the way to the river bank, frantic.
He was crying now, crawling and crying. “Jack, Jack.” But Jack wasn’t there. No one was there. He came to the bank on the downtown side, pulled himself up. The house was a block from the river. Eddie walked there in his skates. He didn’t know what else to do.
The back door was always unlocked. Eddie pushed it open, called, “Mom, Mom.” The house was silent. He had to tell someone, but there was no one to tell.
Eddie poured a steaming bath, lay in it, wearing his clothes and his skates; lay there until the shivering stopped. After that, he felt sleepy. He got out of the bath, unlaced his skates-that took a long time because of the wet laces and his sausage fingers-stripped, dried himself.
Eddie went down the hall to the bedroom he shared with Jack. The door was closed. He opened it. Jack lay in the bed, still in his Bruins sweater. He was doing the shivering now.
“I got scared,” he said.
Jack was eight, Eddie seven.
Eddie, leaning on the bridge rail, looking down at the water, didn’t hear the squad car stop beside him, didn’t hear the door open and close. The wind was blowing harder, drowning out other sound, and his attention was elsewhere.
The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around:
It cracked and growled, and-
A voice said: “You Eddie Nye?”
Eddie turned. A cop was standing there, all bundled up except for the bare right hand on his gun butt.
“Yeah,” Eddie said.
“Just saying hi,” the cop said. “Wouldn’t want you to feel all-what’s the word? — anonymous, or nothing.” He waited, perhaps for Eddie to say something. When he realized it might be a long wait, too long in weather like that, he said, “Enjoy your visit,” got in the car and drove off.
Eddie stood on the bridge. Snow collected in his collar and the tops of his shoes, and on his bald head. After a while he laughed, a little sound, lost in the wind. Vic had dropped a dime on him. Who else could it be?
Eddie walked quickly off the bridge, into downtown, amused. Good old Uncle Vic.
It was time for that steam bath.
5
“You a member?” asked the man behind the counter at the Y. He had the valley accent too.
“No,” said Eddie.
“Then it’s three bucks. Plus fifty cents for a towel.”
Eddie handed over the five, received lock, key, towel, change.
“Locker room’s down the hall, second on the left,” the man said. But Eddie knew that.
In the locker room Eddie stripped, stowed his clothes, his money, Prof’s cardboard tube, and locked up. Hanging the key around his neck he went through the showers toward the steam room at the end. He hadn’t thought about swimming; a steam bath was all he wanted. But the door to the pool was propped open with a bucket, and he couldn’t help seeing the still, blue quadrilateral in the door frame. He went back to his locker, dressed, returned to the counter.
“Rent swimsuits?”
“Used to. No demand now, not with this AIDS business. You can try the lost-and-found if you want.” He pointed to a box by the scales.
Eddie looked through the box, found a faded Speedo that would fit. If AIDS spread through the lost-and- found, no one had a chance anyway.
A few minutes later he was standing by the pool at the deep end. Same pool. Twenty-five yards, eight lanes, no springboard. Eddie had it all to himself, except for a man sitting in a chair at the other end with a towel around his neck, talking on a portable phone.
Eddie stepped up to the edge in lane five. Lane five had always been his favorite, he couldn’t remember why. Maybe there hadn’t been a reason. Jack in four, Bobby Falardeau in three. Two high-school state championships, athletic scholarships for him and Jack-Bobby hadn’t been quite good enough, hadn’t needed the money anyway-if he had to sum it up, that would be it. But that left out the swimming itself.
Eddie stood by the pool, motionless, toes curled over the edge. He smelled the chlorine, felt cool air rising from the water. The man at the other end raised his voice, said: “Three is the final offer. They can take it or leave it.”
Eddie dove in. Almost not registering on his consciousness was the impression that there was something familiar about the man’s voice.
Eddie glided. The glide went on and on, slowed to the point of swimming speed. But Eddie didn’t want to start swimming. He wanted to keep gliding through that cool blue, to feel it all around him. That was it: not so much the swimming itself as just being in the water. If there was a heaven, it must be a watery place.
“First time in the islands?” asked Mrs. Packer.
Eddie turned from the window of the little plane, turned from the sight of that clear blue-green sea with coral growing like forests on the bottom. First time in the islands, first time on a plane, first time he’d met a woman like Mrs. Packer.
“That’s right, Mrs. Packer.”
“Evelyn, please.”
“Okay.” But he didn’t say her name. She was older, for one thing. Then there were her painted nails, her makeup, the smell of her perfume, her long tanned legs, her self-confidence.
“I could tell by the way you were making big eyes at the scenery,” Mrs. Packer said. “Sometimes I think the planes should just turn back right about here and not bother landing.”
“Why is that?”
Mrs. Packer laughed, laid her fingertips on his forearm. “I’m just being cynical.”
She took her hand away, but he continued to feel the spot she’d touched, hot, like a local infection.
“Are you talking about the poverty?” Eddie asked, remembering something Bobby Falardeau had said; the Falardeaus went to the Caribbean every Christmas.
“There’s worse poverty in Miami. I just meant tropic isles.”
“Tropic isles?”
“And all that goes with them.”
The plane rose suddenly, bumped back down like a car running over something in the road. Not a hard jolt, but enough to throw Mrs. Packer, half turning, onto his chest, with her hair, full of smells, all good, in his face.
“Sorry,” Eddie said, disentangling himself. The infection began to spread all over.
