Swimming practice after lunch— yes, my coach is a maniac— is almost called off. None of the squad members can concentrate. The locker room is abuzz with the latest rumors about the Declaration.
I wait for the room to clear before getting changed. I'm just slipping out of my clothes when someone walks in. “Yo,”
Poser, the team captain, says, ripping off his clothes and slipping into his extra- tight Speedos. He drops down for push- ups, infl ating his tri-ceps and chest muscles. A dumbbel sits in his locker awaiting his biceps curls. His Buffness the Poser does this before every practice, jacking up to the max. He has a fan club out there, mostly fresh-men and sophomores on the girls' squad. I've seen him let them touch his pecs. The girls used to gawk at me, the braver ones sidling up and trying to talk to me during practice until they realized I pre-ferred to be alone. Poser has thankful y drawn away most of that attention.
He does ten more push- ups in quick succession. “It's got to be about a Heper Hunt,” he says, pausing halfway down.
“And they should forget about doing it by lottery this time.
They should just pick the strongest among us. That would,”
he says, fi nishing his push- up, “be me.”
“No doubt about,” I say. “It's always been brawn over brains in the Hunt. Survival of the fi ttest—”
“And winner takes all ,” he fi nishes as he pushes out ten more push- ups, the last three on one hand. “Life distil ed down to its raw-est essence. Gotta love it. Because brute strength always wins. Always has, always will .” He runs his hand over his bicep, looking approvingly, and heads out the door. Only then do I ful y remove my clothes and put on my trunks.
Coach is already barking at us as we jump in and continues to berate us for our lack of focus as we swim our laps. The water, always too cold for me even on a normal day, is freezing today. Even a few of my classmates complain about it, and they almost never complain about the water temperature. Water at cold temperatures affects me in a way it doesn't anyone else. I shiver, get something my father called “goose bumps.” It's one of the many ways I'm different from everyone else. Because despite my near identical physiological similarity with them, there are seismic fundamental differences that lie beneath the frail and deceptive surface of similarity.
Everyone is slower today. Distracted, no doubt. I need more speed, more effort. It takes everything in me to stop shivering. Even when the water is at its usual temperature, with everyone splashing away, it usual y takes a ful twenty minutes before I'm warm enough.
Today, instead of getting warmer, I feel my body getting colder. I need to swim faster.
After a warm- up lap, as we are resting up on the shal ow end, I am almost overcome by a sudden urge to kick off and swim the forbidden stroke.
Only my father has seen me use it. Years ago. During one of our daytime excursions to a local pool. For what ever reason, I dipped my head underwater. It is the fi rst sign of drowning, when-ever even the nose and ears dip below the surface. Lifeguards are trained to watch for this: see half a head submerge underwater, and they're instantly reaching for their whistles and life preservers.
That's why the water level, even at the deep end, goes up only to our waists. It's the depth that gets to people, renders them inca-pacitated. If their feet can't touch bottom without their jaw line sinking below water, a panic attack seizes them like a refl ex. They freeze up, sink, drown. So even though swimming is considered the domain of adrenaline junkies, those will ing to fl irt with death, real y, it's not. Here in the pool, you can simply stand up at the fi rst 16 ANDREW FUKUDA sign of trouble. The water is so shal ow, even your bel y button won't drown.
But me that day, dipping my head underwater. I don't know what possessed me. I ducked my head below and did this thing with my breath. I don't know how to describe it except to say I gripped it. Held it in place in my lungs behind a closed mouth. And for a few seconds, I was fi ne. More than a few seconds. More like ten.
Ten seconds, my head underwater, and I didn't drown.
It wasn't even scary. I opened my eyes, my arms pale blurs before me. I heard my father yel ing, the sound of water splashing toward me. I told him I was fi ne. I showed him what to do. He didn't believe at fi rst, kept asking if I was okay. But eventual y, he came around to doing it himself. He didn't like it, not one bit.
The next time we went swimming, I did the same thing. And then some. This time, with my head underwater, I stretched out my arms, stroked them over my head, one after the other. I pul ed on the water, kicked my legs. It was awesome. Then I stood up, choking on water. Coughed it out. My father, worried, waded toward me. But I took off again, arms reaching up and over, pul ing the water under me, legs and feet kicking the water, my father left in my wake. I was fl ying.
But when I swam back, my father was shaking his head, with anger, with fear. He didn't need to say anything (even though he did, endlessly); I already knew. He called it “the forbidden stroke.”
He didn't want me to swim that way anymore. And so I never did.
But today I'm freezing in the water. Everyone is just going through the motions, even chatting to one another, heads smiling above water as hands and feet paddle underneath like pond ducks.
I want to stroke hard, kick out, warm up.
And then I feel it. A shudder rippling through my body.
I lift up my right arm. It's dotted with goose bumps, grotesque little bumps like cold chicken skin. I paddle harder, propel ing my body forward. Too fast. My head knocks up against the feet of the person in front. When it happens again, he shoots a glare back at me.
I slow down.
Cold seeps into my bones. I know what I have to do. Get out of the water before the shivering gets out of control, escape into the locker room. But when I lift my arms, goose bumps — disgustingly like bubble wrap— prickle out, obvious to all. Then something weird happens to my jaw. It starts to chatter up, vibrate, knock my teeth together. I clench my mouth shut.
When the team completes the lap, we rest up before heading out for the next lap. We've all paced ourselves too fast and have twelve seconds before the next lap. It's going to be the longest twelve seconds of my life.
“They forgot to turn on the heat,” somebody complains.“Water's too cold.”
“The maintenance crew. Probably too busy talking about the Declaration.”
The water levels off at our waists. But I stay crouched, keeping my body underwater. I trail my fi ngers over my skin. Little bumps all over. I glance up at the clock. Ten more seconds. Ten more seconds to just fl y under the radar and hope— “What's the matter with you?” Poser says, gazing at me.
“You look sick.” The rest of the team turns around.
“N-no- nothing,” I say, my voice chattering. I grip my voice and bark it out again. “Nothing.”
“Sure?” he asks again.
I nod my head, not trusting my voice. My eyes fl ick at the clock.
Nine seconds to go. It's as if the clock is stuck in Super Glue.
“Coach!” Poser yel s, his right arm motioning. “Something's wrong with him.”
Coach's head snaps around, his body half a beat behind.
The assistant coach is already moving toward us.
I raise my hands, up to the wrists. “I'm okay,” I assure them, but my voice trembles. “Just fi ne, let's swim.”
A girl in front of me studies me closely. “Why is his voice doing that? Shaking like that?”
Fear ices my spine. A soupy sensation steals into my stomach, churning it upside down. Do what ever it takes to survive, my father would tel me, his hand smoothing down my hair. What ever it takes.
And in that moment with the coaches coming toward me and everyone staring at me, I fi nd a way to survive. I vomit into the pool, a heaving green yel ow mess fi l ed with sticky spittle and gooey saliva. It's not a lot, and most of it just fl oats on the surface like an oil spil . A few colorless chunks drift downward.
“That's so disgusting!” the girl shril s, splashing vomit away as she jumps backward. The other swimmers also move away, arms and hands slapping at the water. The green slick of vomit fl oats haphazardly back toward me.
“You get out of the water now!” Coach yel s at me.
I do. Most people are too distracted by the vomit in the pool to notice my body. It's ridden with goose bumps. And shaking. Coach and his assistant are making their way to me. I hold up my arm, pretend I'm about to upchuck again.
They stop in their tracks.
I run into the locker room, bent over. Inside, I make retching sounds as I towel off and throw my clothes on. I don't have much time before they come in. Even with the clothes on, I'm still shivering. I hear them getting closer now. I jump down onto the fl oor and start doing push- ups. Anything to get my body warmer.
But it's useless. I can't stop shivering. And when I hear the fi rst voices cautiously enter the locker room, I grab my bag and head out. “I don't feel wel ,” I say as I walk past them.
Disgust pul s their faces down as they step aside, but that's okay. I'm used to it, that look.
It's the way I look at myself in the mirror when I'm alone at home.
You live too long trying not to be something, eventual y you wind up hating that thing.
In en glish literature class right before the Declaration, no one can concentrate. all we want to do— including the teacher, who jettisons any pretense of teaching— is talk about the Declaration. I'm quiet, trying to thaw out, coldness stil dug in deep in my bones.
The teacher insists the Declaration is about another Hunt.
“It's not like the Ruler is going to marry again,” she says, her eyes stealing up to the clock, counting down the minutes to two A.M.
Final y, at one forty- fi ve A.M., we're led to the auditorium.
It's bubbling over with excitement. Teachers line the sides, shifting on their feet. Even janitors loiter in the back, restless. Then two A.M.
arrives and the screen above the stage is fi l ed with our nation's sym-bol: two white fangs, standing for Truth and Justice. For a frightful moment, the projector sputters and blanks out. A groan ripples across the rows of seats; technicians fl y to the projector that sits, heavy and unwieldy, like all audiovisual equipment, in the center of the auditorium. Within a minute, they have it up and running again.