"My borrowed life," Tracy repeats, realizing
as the words are sliding out of her mouth that she is essentially repeating
each thing the man, Dikko, has said. She tries to focus her eyes and her
thoughts, tries to get a grip on her circumstance. It seems to her somehow that
this conversation is important, even though in her stupor she doesn't
understand how she figures that.
The light begins to focus and images
solidify and come into play. Tracy
is still on the gurney that she can't see, but now they are near a pool in the
summer.
The light changes from the blue-white
from the machine of light, to a bright yellow. It is a summer sun, and she
recognizes the scent of chlorine and pine trees cutting through the putrid
urine and blood stench of the ambulance.
The noises of people splashing and
playing in the pool come into focus. They call out to each other.
A hairy man with several gold chains and
an ambitious hair-do is sauntering around the pool, trying his best to look
casual as he dips a bare toe into the water every few steps. None of the glossy
females seem to take notice. He nonchalantly looks like he was expecting more
of a reaction.
There is a woman sitting at the shallow
end, her feet dangling in the pool, her yellow swimsuit blending in with the
sunny day. She holds a book and barely takes notice as a few drops of water
from the gigolo bounce onto her leg. The suit is an old fashioned seer-sucker
with large white buttons. Tracy
notes that it would cost a fortune in a vintage clothing store.
The sun sneaks behind a cloud, and as the
scene gets darker it is somehow easier to see.
That's when Tracy notices it. A small hand in the water.
It's a few feet away from the edge, just past the shallow end, where the base
of the pool slopes off to offer deeper water.
The hand is joined with another and a
small head that can't break the surface of the water. The child's hands are
splashing frantically, windmilling back, splashing, but not efficiently enough
to bring her little body up, not enough for her to lift her lips to precious
air.
No one notices.
A colorful ball is still thrown. A
tow-headed boy, as brown as dirt, cannonballs into the water. Music plays.
Yellow seersucker bathing suit turns a page.
And a little girl is dying.
A little girl died in her pink and white
polka dot bikini, with a ruffle on the butt, and a top that tied in the back
that she tied all by herself.
Her mother used to struggle to wash and
dry her long blonde hair, her gentle waves that fall to her tiny waist. It is
an argument the woman will lament for the rest of her life. The memory will
send her into a hysterical spiral of self-blame and pity. If she could only
comb through the precious tangles one more time. She will never be able to stop
thinking this, even as the very memory rips her heart again and again.
The little girl dies. Her hands are
barely moving. Tracy
wants to get up, move, leap from the gurney and jump in the water to save her.
She doesn't realize it, but tears are streaming down her face in hot streaks.
She can't help.
She can't save herself.
The little girl is dead, and Tracy is paralyzed and
prevented from doing anything.
She hears great, wrenching sobs, and
looks, thinking it is the mother who has finally turned around to look for her
girl, and has instead discovered the grim truth. But it's not. It's Tracy , and it feels like
every sob is ripping her apart. The burning and sticky thud of her injured
shoulder is nothing compared to the tear in her gut.
Then the man, the gigolo, the Bee Gee
wannabe who spent an hour in front of the mirror making sure his hair was
feathered just right, and sprayed into place, abandons his quest to get laid.
He is the only one who sees the girl in
the water, and he awkwardly leaps, falls, jumps, belly flops into the water.
Dana "Papa" Georgio becomes an unthinking hero.
As soon as his entire body is wet, he's
leapt out of the water again. The entire operation was one fluid motion. In the
water. Scoop. On deck.
He tips the tiny neck back, and breathes
into her mouth. She's so small, he doesn't know: cover her mouth? Don't cover
her mouth?
It doesn't matter. His actions were so
swift that two puffs are enough to send a stream of water out of her nose and
mouth, and then she's coughing and snotting, crying and screaming hysterically.
The frolickers finally notice the little
girl's drama, and gather to ooh and gawk, and gather to offer help.
Her mother was talking to a friend. Her
wide sunhat adorned with a colorful scarf flies off unnoticed as she stumbles
over to the spot where her little girl's life has just been saved. She explains
through her own tears that she was watching, she thought she was watching the
whole time. The woman is nearly hysterical with relief, perhaps knowing
somewhere deep inside her sub-conciousness how dire the situation could have
been, and almost was.
Unknowingly this act has also saved her
own life, for if the little girl had been allowed to die, the mother would
herself sink into a world of grief, so convinced that her little precious is
now an angel. She would commit suicide after a few years of diving into a
bottle, and struggling and clawing at therapy and sanity.
Then Tracy feels like she and Dikko and their
machine of light are retreating, pulling away, like a tunnel again. The pool
fades, if it ever existed at all.
"I remember that. That man… he saved
me. I remember his breath tasted like an orange tic-tac and he smelled like
coconut," she says incredulously, "I started taking swimming lessons
at the indoor pool downtown, and wasn't allowed in the water by myself for
years."
"That was your first life, it was a
shame to have it taken so young," Dikko says stoically.
"But I didn't die. The man saved me.
My mother sent him a Christmas card for at least twenty years."
"You don't think you died, because
you didn't meet one of me then. It’s never explained to someone until they
reach their last life, their borrowed life," Dikko says matter-of-factly. Tracy imagines that he's
had this conversation before. Perhaps many times.
"How many lives does someone
get?"
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