From the Shallow to the Deep
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~

The first lesson was a lecture in a small room that smelled like wet towels. Philip hated it already. He sat in the back of the room observing the fifteen or so other boys who were lucky enough to be learning how to swim. They were all gung-ho types, staunch little men; some were actually taking notes because they wanted to remember everything Boss said, get everything just right. They were excited; couldn’t wait to get their suits on and get into the water.

The swimming instructor insisted on being called Boss as if he had no other name. He was a short, swarthy man in his early forties with a face like a movie gangster. He wore a gray sweatshirt and black swim trunks with a whistle on a string around his neck. His legs were thick and short, disproportionate, covered with black hair. Philip wanted to laugh because he had more hair on his legs than he did on his head.

“Now, none of you are babies,” Boss barked, the gruff drill sergeant whipping the raw recruits into shape. “If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a baby. Or a sissy. Sissies are even worse. So if there are any sissies or babies among you, you’re welcome to leave now.”

There was a murmur in the room as the boys all attested that they were manly enough for what was coming. Philip sighed loudly and wished he was some place else.

“Everybody must have his own suit and his own towel,” Boss said. “If you arrive for your lesson without either of these two items, you will not be allowed to participate. You will fall behind and end up failing the class and we don’t like failures. Now, do we have any failures here?”

“No!” the boys shouted.

“Good! Now, your suit may be any color you like. Except pink. I wouldn’t recommend pink.”

The boys laughed appreciatively.

“And it must be presentable.”

“What do you mean by ‘presentable’?” somebody asked.

“Well, you don’t want your balls or your ass hanging out, now, do you?” Boss said.

The boys laughed loud and long. Philip hated Boss for his crudity and hated everybody else for laughing.

“Now, we all know what horseplay is, don’t we?” Boss said. “That’s another thing that will not be tolerated here. You will have fun, of course, but you’ll have to follow instructions and do as you are told at all times or you will be sent home. Whenever you hear me blow my whistle, that means that you are to stop what you are doing, whether in or out of the water, and listen to what I’m about to say. The whistle is the signal for you to stop and listen. Is there anybody here who doesn’t understand this?”

“No!”

“All right, then! Over the next eight weeks each and every one of you will learn how to swim like a champion. Are we all champions?”

“Yes!”

“Is there any one of you who doesn’t firmly believe in his heart that he is a champion?”

Philip ached to raise his hand and dismiss himself, that he was sick or was expected somewhere else at that moment, but he was too embarrassed to speak up. They would all laugh at him and he was sure Boss would say something to make it worse.

“Now, at the end of your eight weeks,” Boss continued, “you will take a final exam.”

A collective groan went up.

“It’s not the kind of exam you take sitting at a desk with a pencil in your hand, though. It’s an exam that will consist of swimming the length of the pool, from the shallow to the deep, and back again. And that’s not all. Each of you will be required to dive at least once off the high dive.”

“How high?” somebody asked.

“Thirty feet.”

“What if we can’t do it?”

“Then you fail the class. You will have wasted your time and mine and made a complete ass of yourself in the bargain. Is there anybody here who thinks he can’t do it?”

“No, sir!”

“All right, then. Be here on Friday at two o’clock, suited up and ready to swim. And that doesn’t mean two minutes after two, either. It means two on the dot!”

“Yes, sir!”

After the others had left, Philip hung back to have a word with Boss.

“I won’t be here on Friday, sir,” he said. “Or any other day.”

Boss looked at him with distaste. “And why not, may I ask?”

“I’m not really a pool person. I don’t care for this whole scene.”

“Then why did you sign up?”

“I didn’t. My father signed me up without consulting me first.”

“You won’t get your money back.”

“I don’t care about that, sir.”

“And what’s your name?”

“Philip Jennings.”

“Philip Jennings what?”

“Philip Jennings. Sir!”

He marked Philip’s name off the class roll and left without another word.

That evening at the dinner table, Philip’s father asked, “Wasn’t today your first swim lesson?”

“Yes,” Philip said, looking down at his plate.

“How did it go?”

“I quit.”

“You what?”

“I said I quit the swimming class. I won’t be going back.”

“After the first lesson?”

“It wasn’t really a lesson. It was just talking.”

“I’m not going to let you quit.”

“I already have.”

“You can’t do that! Do you know how hard it was to get you in that class? They have a waiting list. I had to pull some strings to get your named moved up on the list.”

“They can let some other poor sucker take my place,” Philip said.

“Other boys your age would kill for the chance to learn how to swim!”

“I’m not like them, sir.”

“Sometimes I look at you and I wonder what’s wrong with you.”

“There’s nothing wrong with me, sir. I just don’t want to learn how to swim.”

“You’re a quitter. Just like your mother.”

“She would never have signed me up to do something she knew I would hate.”

“How do you know you hate it? You’ve never done it!”

“The pool scares me. I see myself dead in it.”

“Nobody is going to let you die!”

“No, sir, they won’t, because I’m not going to do it.”

“When I was fourteen years old, do you know what my father would have done if I had defied him the way you’re defying me now?”

“No, sir.”

“He would have knocked my head off my shoulders!”

“Rather extreme, don’t you think?”

“You’re the weirdest kid I’ve ever seen!”

“You haven’t seen many.”

“When is the next class?”

“Friday, but I won’t be there.”

“You’re going to go if I have to take you myself and stay there the whole time. Do you want the other kids to see what a big baby you are? That you have to have your father there to make sure you do what you’re supposed to do?”

“It couldn’t be any worse than it already is.”

“I think you should leave the table now! I don’t want to have to look at your face any more today.”

Philip stood up and carried his dishes to the sink. As he was scraping the plate under the faucet, he said, “Do you know that new thirty-story office building on the south side of the park?”

“I drive by it every now and then. Why?”

“They have an observation deck on the top floor. Open to the public.”

“So?”

“Anybody can go up there, even a kid. Even me.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m not saying anything. Just that it’s a long way down, that’s all. Just saying.”

After stacking the dishes, Philip went upstairs to his room and locked himself in. He kicked off his shoes and lay on his back on the bed, tired from the awful day. He would take a nap until about dark and then get up and sit at his desk and read to try to keep from thinking about drowning in the pool.

Copyright © 2023 by Allen Kopp