I Sailed with Magellan by Stuart Dybek Page B

guy?”
    â€œGrandpa,” he answered, the only time I ever heard him use the word. After that we never went back. If my father continued
to visit, he did so secretly. Only later did I learn that the place to which we drove was Dunning, the state mental hospital that people then commonly called the insane asylum.
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    The beach house was shaped like an ocean liner with a huge orange smokestack. Lights glowed from its portholes; the air smelled like red hots and popcorn. People padded barefoot through sandy puddles slopped along the concrete decks, shouting in different languages. Men showered in open stalls in front of changing rooms, spraying sand off kids little enough to go naked.
    As always, Mick and I stopped at a huge concrete drinking fountain where water gurgled from a dozen metal pipes, water rusty tasting and cold as if pumped straight from the lake. When he leaned for a drink, I plugged two of the pipes with my fingers and water shot up Mick’s nose. He chased me down to the lake, his cheeks bulging with a mouthful of water to spit.
    â€œDoesn’t it feel kinda stupid running into the lake with your mouth full of water?”
    He opened his mouth for a comeback, and the water dribbled out, breaking me up. I waded out laughing, and he came after me, both of us splashing sheets of water at each other. I dove under, and when I came up, Mick was chest deep, jogging up and down in time to the waves while milling his arms through the air as if he were doing the Australian crawl. His cheeks bulged; he’d gulped a mouthful of lake water to spit.
    â€œYou really think you’re swimming?” I yelled, recalling how I’d once done the same thing. But the Army helicopter whirring in overhead drowned out my voice. Everyone stopped and stood looking up as the helicopter hovered in to land behind the barbed wire of Meigs field, an airstrip that bordered the beach.
    We’d always come here to Twelfth Street Beach. It was where
Sir taught me to swim. But tonight he was going to take us off the Rocks, where the water was deep.
    â€œThe Rocks is where we used to swim when I was a kid,” he said, “me and my friends. We used to get out there around eight in the morning and not take the streetcar home till after dark. That was the life. Johnny Weissmuller used to swim off the Rocks with us.”
    â€œWho’s Johnny Weissmuller?” Mick asked.
    â€œWho’s Johnny Weissmuller? You never seen Tarzan of the Apes?” Sir beat his chest and gave an ape call. People on the blankets glanced at him and laughed in a friendly way. He was different whenever he got around water—younger, grinning, kidding around.
    â€œSo who were you guys? The Apes?” Mick asked, always quick to get one in on Sir. Mick had made up the nickname Sir one night when we were all watching Leave It to Beaver and Dad said how nice it was that Wally and Beaver called their father “Sir.”
    â€œApes is right—you shoulda seen us. Talk about tan! Italians would call me paisano. You shoulda seen this lake. People don’t realize how da-damn dirty it’s getting. When I was a kid you could see the bottom off the Rocks.”
    â€œWhat’s down there?” I asked.
    â€œA bunch of rocks. But who knows how old? They coulda been there when this was Indian country. Hell! Maybe rocks from back when it was all glacier with saber-tooths and mammoths. We used to dive down to see who could bring up the biggest rock. Weissmuller could swim faster and farther than any of us—one time I tried to swim to the pumping station with him, but hell, more than halfway I gave up. I coulda made it out there, but I was afraid about getting back. He didn’t tell me a boat was gonna pick him up. But I could dive deeper and stay down longer than anyone, even old Tarzan. Things were so clean then we used to swim in the Chicago River.”

    â€œYou mean the Drainage Canal!”
    â€œWith the