Drowned

       
Mr. Kowalski's daughter was a swimmer. She was only a sophomore, but she had made varsity last year and the entire family was very proud. He had been a runner back in his day, and a fairly good one at that. Though he diligently attended every one of his daughter's meets, swimming made him uncomfortable. He would watch the sleek, distorted shapes of the swimmers as they streaked down the lanes and feel as if a huge weight were settling upon his chest.

Arms broke the surface of the water repeatedly, and occasionally mouths too, gaping like fish for a brief second before submerging again.

But not as often as they needed to. There was no way they could have enough air. He was sure of it.

Whenever he mentioned this, his daughter and his wife would laugh. But the thought haunted him. Every time his daughter turned at the end of a lane, it took her a second too long to surface. Every time his heart clenched painfully and his throat closed up.

You couldn't breathe under there.


Mr. Kowalski worked as English and Philosophy teacher at a small local high school. He was a veteran at what he did and headed both departments, but taught freshman and seniors exclusively. He enjoyed the balance between the high-strung leg bouncing and pen clicking of the freshmen and the chronic, cool, confident ennui of the seniors. Watching the transformation of their faces and bodies over the years also brought him no end of satisfaction. When they came to him, they were awkward, unformed, innocent, with remnants of the doughy softness of childhood still clinging to faces unravaged by age. By the time he sent them on to the next phase of their life, they were more complete. The boys' remaining ethereal childhood roundness was replaced by the chiseled features and muscle of manhood.

Mr. Kowalski liked to think that he was in some way responsible for this transformation, as if helping their minds grow did the same for their bodies.


Mr. K, everyone called him. He was well-known and well-liked among the students, famous for the cheesy jokes he told whenever he emceed for assemblies and also for the word "Un-BELIEV-able!", which he would shout in a deep voice whenever a student did something particularly well in class.

After that fateful day, when people used the word "unbelievable" in reference to him, it was in a soft murmur of disbelief and betrayal. If one of his students were present, they would repeat "un-believ-able" in humorless mockery of Mr. K's intonation, and then cough out a single morose chuckle.


The previous night, dinner had been unusually silent at Mr. K's house. He found his mind wandering to places he didn't usually allow it to go when sitting with his wife and daughter. They were sweet, enticing places, but they were just as terrible as they were pleasurable. They were so terrible that Mr. K, a faithful Catholic, could bring himself to confess them neither to a priest nor to God himself.

"John?" His wife's voice cut through his thoughts.

"Hmm? Oh, yes, definitely."

"I just asked you how your day was," she responded sharply.

"It was fantastic, dear. How was yours?" He managed a fake smile.

"Oh, you know, the same old thing. We're working on another one of those tax evasion cases. Marie says that Mr. Bernstein is trying to..."

Mr. K let his attention drift away from his wife's usual rambling mix of gossip and boring paralegal goings-on. His daughter Lindsay looked equally bored, moving peas back and forth, one by one, across her plate. She was in a teen phase where she would only speak to her parents in words of two syllables or less, preferably one word at a time. They had stopped asking her how her day was months ago, after being unable to procure any more of a response than "okay" or "fine."

An hour later, his wife was washing dishes as he graded papers at the kitchen table. Distantly he could hear pounding music from behind the closed door of Lindsay's room. After a few minutes, his wife set down the dish she was washing and sat down next to him at the table, turning her chair to face him.

"John, what's wrong?" She asked quietly.

He held up one finger and finished reading the page he was on before looking up at her. "Sorry, what was that?"

"You've been so distant lately. You hardly talk to me at all. You know just as well as I do that we haven't had sex in months. What's wrong? How can I help?" Her small eyes, ringed with an excessive amount of mascara, were already glistening with tears, ready to spill down her long, tired face.

"Nothing's wrong with me," he said a little more harshly than he'd intended. "Stop being melodramatic." He pointedly went back to grading papers.

"John, stop ignoring me!" She grabbed for his hand and he jerked it away. At that she paused, looking down at her lap and seeming to shrink in the chair. "I'm going to be gone for a week on business, John, and Lindsay's going to be at that championship in Iowa. I think you should use that time alone to decide why exactly you're in this marriage if you don't trust me." Her voice broke on the last word and she abruptly stood up and hurried out of the kitchen, one hand over her mouth.

For a moment, Mr. K was going to call after her, but he hesitated, and after a pause he went back to grading.


Terrible things waited in the bottom drawer of Mr. K's desk at home.

As it tends to be with most drawers, the important things were at the top. The things you need and use often; things that are necessary and straightforward. And in the same vein, the things in the bottom drawer are the things you only think you might need one day. Things that are misfits. Most importantly, in bottom drawers you put the things you want to hide. For some reason, it seems like people will be less likely to look there. They would closely examine the top, shuffle through the middle, and the bottom...nah, there's probably nothing important in there, they'd say to themselves.

Regardless of what Mr. K did that night, he was still not much different than anyone else. He put all the things he wanted to hide in the bottom drawer. Even so, although the drawers on his desk all had locks, he did not lock the bottom drawer. Living in a house with a wife who always reorganized his stuff when she cleaned and a teenaged daughter with a limited respect for personal boundaries, he never locked that drawer.

When the police came in to search the house the next morning, they opened the top, they opened the middle, and they opened the bottom--and there it all was, simple as that. Magazines, photos, and some old floppy disks, each item worth years of hard time in a state penitentiary. Mr. K could hardly have made it easier for them.


When he arrived at work on the day he ruined his life, Mr. K was in a strange mood.

He had quite a night planned, and he thought about it single-mindedly as he robotically unpacked his lesson plan and grade book from his bag. He was looking forward to the end of the day with excitement; he craved it, he longed for it, he needed it with every cell in his body. At the same time, he desperately wished someone, something would stop him. He would give anything for a reason to not be able to do what he was going to do that night.

He was so caught up in thinking about this that he didn't notice that his fellow teacher, Mr. Gray, had walked into the quiet classroom.

"You look chipper," Gray said.

Mr. K jumped, nearly dropping the handful of freshly graded papers he was removing from his bag. "Jesus! Scare me to death, will you?"

Mr. Gray did not reply, but instead perched atop a nearby desk and watched Mr. K with a slight smile twisting his lips. Fairly young, short-statured, high-strung, and impeccably well-groomed, he  possessed a cutting wit and intuition that alienated some people. His features and character were reminiscent of a bird of prey.

After a long pause, during which Mr. K had begun to shuffle papers, Mr. Gray spoke again.

"Something's up with you--don't even try to deny it."

"Deny what?"

"No coffee," Mr. Gray stated matter-of-factly.

"Excuse me?"

"You always have coffee. Every morning. Last time you forgot it, it was when Lindsay was in the hospital for that broken leg. You spent the whole day moping and complaining about how bad the stuff from the lounge is. I think 'watery mud' was the phrase." He looked pointedly at Mr. K's desk. "No coffee."

Mr. K felt a familiar weight settle on his chest as his heart began to palpitate violently. Struggling not to let his brief wave of panic show on his face, Mr. K groped for a sufficiently dismissive response.

"I overslept," he retorted lightly, attempting to sound offhand.

Gray still looked skeptical but didn't press it any further. "Anyway, you're coming to Brad's tenure party tonight, right? We need a designated driver."

"Oh, that's tonight? Dammit, I forgot. I made other plans."

Mr. Gray snorted disbelievingly. "Like what? Watching reruns of Dallas until you fall asleep on the couch?"

A group of shrilly giggling freshman girls walked into the room, taking him off the hook. He silently thanked God for a moment before gratefully turning his attention away from his friend and engaging in conversation with his students. After a few moments, Mr. Gray shrugged and left.

Mr. K took a deep breath that didn't seem to do anything to still his spinning head and thumping heart. At that point, part of him knew what he was getting himself into, and that same part welcomed it. One way or the other, he desperately needed this to be over--he could only stay underwater for so long.


Mr. K stopped at home first. He changed out of the shirt, tie, and khakis he had been wearing at school and into some jeans and, after much deliberation, a casual button-down shirt. An idea struck him, and he rummaged through his closet, eventually pulling out an old leather jacket he had worn in college. He was a little rounder around the middle than he had been back then, but his shoulders weren't as broad now. Heck, he didn't need to zip it up anyway. As a finishing touch, he put in a small silver hoop earring. He had gotten his ear pierced on an impulse last summer.

In fact, it had been an impulse similar to the one that had driven him to go on the internet last night. The impulse to organize this...rendezvous tonight.

He stepped back to look at himself in the mirror.

He didn't recognize the person staring back. His eye sockets looked dark, hollow--empty. His mouth curved down dourly. The way the too-small jacket stretched across his form was almost obscene. His jeans looked too new in contrast. He had only worn them twice before. He looked old and unfamiliar.

A rushing rose in his ears, like the invisible ocean raging inside a conch shell. His mouth went dry and his eyes involuntarily slipped out of focus. He ran to the bathroom and vomited until all that came out was stringy, acidic mucus, tears flowed from his eyes, and his face was pink with blood vessels burst from the strain.

Afterwards, he drank a glass of water, grabbed his keys, and left.


He didn't remember much of the drive there. The road seemed to swim before his eyes as he slowly navigated down it, suddenly very conscious of the speed limit and using turn signals. The roads became emptier and emptier as he exited suburbia until he was alone, his headlights cutting through the gloom, starkly illuminating the brush and scattered tree trunks as he passed. As the long drive progressed, he felt his nerves coiling like springs, tighter and tighter. He turned on the radio to distract himself, but out here all of his favorite stations were not much more than eerie static laced with distant, hushed voices. His thoughts, unbidden, continued to stray towards his destination. He barely noticed when the road turned from asphalt to loose gravel and from gravel to dirt ruts in low grass.

Even in the dark, it was easy for him to recognize the spot. Every weekend of the long summers of his boyhood, his father had taken him here to fish. For a moment, he felt like he was going to be sick again, but his perversely powerful subconscious propelled him onward, barreling toward an inevitable doom. He suddenly saw his daughter making that underwater turn again, but instead it was him, and instead he was pushing off into an endless underwater chasm and he was being pulled down, down, into that bone-crushing abyss--

He exited his car, collecting himself and trying his best to look appealing and mysterious. He walked down the old path towards the meeting place he'd chosen by the river, his heart beating triple-time. Last year's dry leaves crunched under his feet and branches clawed at his face in the darkness. His coat snagged repeatedly on saplings, as if the forest were trying to pull him back. But he was beyond turning back now. All rational thought was pushed from his mind by the overwhelming want. A few more steps and it was his, what he dreamed about endlessly. Just a little bit further, over that rise painted silver by the thin light of the moon.

He broke unexpectedly into the clearing and stumbled a little as he was released from the clawing grasp of the forest. He heard the river rushing nearby and the lazy whisper of the night wind on tall grass. And then--

--the muffled muttering of a police scanner and the dull clunk of flood lights switching on, bathing him in blinding light. He automatically raised an arm to shield his eyes and stumbled a few steps backward. He felt rough, sweaty hands forcing his wrists behind his back and into handcuffs. A voice spoke from behind him.

"John Kowalski, you are under arrest for soliciting sex from a minor. You have the right to remain--"

His mind was not registering. Where was Sk8erpunk92, the curious, blond, naïve 14-year-old (who wasn't, like, sure, but he thought he might be gay and wanted to try it with an older guy first) he had spoken to online just last night?

"--silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you--"

As he was pushed out of the direct glare of the flood lights, he made out two police cruisers parked in the middle of the clearing and three more police officers leaning against them, hands resting on the butts of their guns.

"--in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney, and to have--"

Mr. K gaped wordlessly. "Wait, wait," he heard himself whimper.

"--that attorney present during any questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer--"

"Wait, this is...this isn't...I..." He thought he was starting to cry.

"--one will be provided for you at government expense."

As those sweaty police-hands, one on his head and another behind his back, pushed him down and into the back seat of one of the cruisers, he felt the lung-crushing weight lift from his chest.

The thing is, he didn't know if this meant he had been rescued or if he had finally drowned.