Deep End

                              We are all broken. That's how the light gets in. ~Ernest Hemingway

                       
                                 


She was about 8 years old when she learned how to 'swim'. Her Grandmother's latest husband, Lenny was the one to show her. In her little yellow polka dotted bathing suit she would cling to the edges of the pool walls happy as a clam. Lenny would waddle in on the pool ladder with his gut hanging over his swim trunks, cigarello dangling from his mouth, held in place by long yellowing teeth.

"Did you finish your lunch"? Grandma would ask me from the kitchen window above her sink.
"Yes Grams!" she would answer not knowing why she felt so scared and uncomfortable suddenly.
"Ya wanna learn how to swim?" Lenny asked, making his way towards her end of the round pool.

Before she could answer, he picked her up out of the water and threw her into the deep end of the pool. Smack dab in the center where it was deepest. Shocked and swallowing water, she would try and paddle to the sides where she felt safe and her toes touched the bottom only to have Lenny block her way, pick her up and toss her back in the deep end. Her breath getting short as her throat and lungs filled with water, she began to drown and fought excruciatingly to get back to the sides of the pool where she was happy and safe only to have him and his damn grimy hands pick her up and throw her back to the middle. This is how she learned to swim. To tread water in the deep end until he dragged his fat ass out of the pool for a beer and she could safely return to clinging onto the pool's edge.

Being good at treading water in the deep end would become a signature lament for the rest of her life.


CJ Ellis