Susan Steinberg - Hydroplane - Fictions

you running heavy on the still cold sand,

you running breathless into light blue light,

the Ferris wheel small in the distance, static,

This will be about several things — no surprise, what isn't.

But I'll start with a convention I went to each year.

This, despite my brother's words, my mother's, despite it all. For we all know of conventions and the ones who, each year, go.

Let me say this. I wasn't one of those ones, you know. You couldn't call me a die-hard goer. I mean I went to this convention yearly, yes. But I know I could have lived without it. I wasn't one of those desperate die-hards, living for the day we all convened.

My brother — let's face it — was jealous. He had no conventions to call his own. He had hobbies, however, as a kid. Model airplanes, butterflies stuck with pins.

He caught the butterflies with his hands in the field behind our house. There was nothing much in the field. Wildflowers and tall brown grass.

There was a way he stood, bent and low, his hands an inverted cup.

He dropped the butterflies into a plastic bag. He sprayed something into the bag to make the butterflies stop flapping their wings. Then he tied the bag at the top.

From the field we could see the back of our house.

And the terror of this perspective.

My father went to conventions. Medical ones. Though he was not in the medical field. But he liked to meet people who were. Like, for example, nurses. Or those women who longed to be nurses.

When we were kids, my father said to me and my brother to choose a convention, any one, when we were grown. He said, It gets you out of the office.

So I, grown, chose a convention which seemed fitting at the time, its topic that is, which I won't divulge except to say it's in the field, though I am not, of showbiz. I saw the convention mentioned in the back of a magazine, and it looked to me to have potential, far more than my father's, which were often dull in dull hotels, men at tables in the saddest suits.

And they never gave us anything good. Tongue depressors with company names printed on them in red.

My mother, brother, and I spent evenings watching TV in the room. My brother built his model airplanes on the floor.

The room smelled of glue and paint. The fumes did something to my head.

My mother would say, without looking from the TV, Cap that glue.

My father went to cocktail lounges with friends from the convention. My mother waited up, ready to fight when he walked in late. My brother and I pretended to sleep.

My father would say, Can you let it go. He smelled of things. Sometimes we heard a crash.

We spent days at the beach if there was a beach. In rain we spent days in the room.

And now I associate hotel rooms with rain.

Which is to say the brochure arrived for the convention hotel — it arrived at the office — and I thought of rain.

The girls from the office looked over my shoulders. I pointed out the size of the hotel beds. They were very big, made for two, at least.

I pointed out, too, the indoor pool, the cocktail lounge.

The girls from the office, jealous I think, said, What a nice pool.

And there was the ballroom, the chandelier. I could see how the tables would get set up. I could see myself walking the ballroom at dusk, collecting things from the tables.

This year I would wear high-heeled shoes.

The girls from the office said, Why not swim.

Funny to be thinking of swimming. It was winter.

And I didn't even own a swimsuit.

Once, though, I did — it was two piece, blue — and once I could swim like a fish. I dove into waves and outswam my brother. He tried to outswim me but never could.

God I could tell you how he cried on the sand when a wave knocked him down to his knees.

In the room, later, I'd call him a baby and he'd catch me and pin me to the floor.

He'd whisper into my ear, You're dead.

I walked the ballroom in an evening dress and high-heeled shoes. I stopped at tables to have a look at the things the men were giving away. Pens, pencils. Handfuls of candies. The occasional tote bag.

I'd give the things to the girls from the office. They would fight for the tote bags. It was always this.

And I'll say right now — why waste time — that this year's convention was awful.

I blame, in part, a nonevent — I can say that now — which seemed an event as I, poolside, watched the men in the pool.

So I called my shrink from the room.

The operator said, What's your name, and I waited at first but then gave my name as one has to do this for collect.

The operator said, Well, how about that.

She said, My daughter has your same name.

And yes, I know — time has passed — how foolish it was to call my shrink collect.

On the first day, my shrink had said, Tell me about your father.

I said, He works in an office, and so on.

She said, Tell me about your mother.

My mother was dead, and my father had a girlfriend.

He said, I have a right to have a girlfriend.

My shrink said, How do you feel about that.

I thought up some jokes. How did I feel.

Well, I said, With my hands, of course.

When we went with my father to his conventions, I often ran up the hotel room bills. I called girls I knew from junior high when there was nothing else to do in the days. I knew many girls, though none of them well, and called despite how they likely felt about me.

My father pointed to the bills when checking out and said, You should have called collect.

He said, You'll send us to the poorhouse.

I sometimes imagined the poorhouse as a shack on the edge of some great road.

I talked with men in the ballroom before it turned dark. I laughed at their jokes.

So a man walks into a bar…

So a one-armed man…

A one-winged bird…

A horse and a nun walk into a bar and the horse says…

They loved to bend my ear.

It was so overwhelming. All those men. Their pathetic suits.

All those jokes to work through.

So a lady's car breaks down on the road, and she's walking along the roadside, and she sees a house with the light on — it's night — and when she gets to the house, she sees a man in the stable grooming the horses, and she walks up to the man and says, Mister, I'm wondering if you can help…

I looked into their eyes assertively. Longingly.

They were never looking at my eyes.

And I often laughed before the punch line. It was something with timing. Something with their timing. It was always off. Or was it too on. There was often this pause before the punch line. And I often laughed in the pause.

Well, I knew about jokes. I was one to make them when I could.

Even when shopping for the swimsuit, I thought up a joke or two to tell.

The salesgirl had said, Can I help.

And I thought up jokes. I mean could she help. Of course she could. But not in the ways she thought.

I mean she could have helped me to be more assertive for one. Better looking for another.

She followed me from rack to rack.

She said, Are you going to the beach.

I said, No, a convention.

She said, Oh, what for.

But I couldn't come up with anything good. So I chose a swimsuit from the rack and parted the fitting room curtain. The suit fit tight in places — I'll just say it — tight all over.

The salesgirl called from the other side, Let's see you.

I pushed aside the curtain. She looked and said, Look at you.

She said, Well, you'll certainly turn heads in that.

And I almost made another joke. I almost said, Which way do you think the heads will turn.

Okay. But I didn't say it.

There were times to keep quiet and I knew these times.