Slowest Member on the Junior Varsity

The first to arrive when the sleepy-eyed coach grunts good morning and undoes the rusty lock, he starts each day facing the water alone— the shimmering skin over the cold deep end holding the calm of sunrise before his mind bellows start. He plunges in to tame the water before the water tames him back—cutting meat and treading at the Y each weekend only keeping the pounds in place. On the deck stool with his fake leg stretched before him, the coach rasps his creeds from the Navy.There’s standing tough and moving tough, he tells them.Whichever one’s tougher,that’s what you do. On the cold mornings, the slowest tries standing tough, his feet buckled in at the water’s edge and every still joint its own heady fix. When he moves, he moves to reach the finish line. The team is mired in last, not quailing from the season’s end the only victory left. All around, hungry, he eyes the greater meets: the varsity team that shreds the water twice as fast, the seniors’ cars and flaunted car keys. Is every test decided by the one before? Do the mind, the joints ever forget? He stares down the water, his body cold and primed for the tournament, finals, anything assigned.