The high diving board is the first thing you see when approaching Forest Swimming Pool. It stands like a guard tower over the fence-enclosed pool. I’ve been watching this high diving board and the activity that surrounds it for thirty years. As a child I couldn’t wait to go off that precipice. When my turn came I did the best cannonball possible for someone wearing surfer trunks and not wanting to get his hair wet.
In those days we called the cannonball “wicked.” That’s if you did it just right. If you timed it perfectly you could curl your body and smash into the water a few inches from the pool’s side. The closer you came to the side the better, because you swamped the girls who always hung on the pool railing. Girls who always asked you to try just one more.
Today I sit at the edge of the pool and watch my daughter enter the shallow end of the world. Soon she will follow the slant of the pool and venture into deep water. And I suppose she will also hear the call of that high diving board. No one can avoid its presence.
The high diving board. This is where things start. If the performers on the high dive pierce the water like arrows, then that’s what is copied in the deep end and tried in the shallow end. If the holders of the high board wear cut-off jeans, you can bet that cut-off jeans will be the uniform of the younger swimmers. The high diving board. This is where style and duty are set. Of course, in this water world the style setters are the young about to become old. Water butterflies spiraling and glancing into the light.
On this day, like all days before it, the young were practicing their art. These teenagers held time in their arms. They were on center stage, masters of the pyramid and the secret of flying. Today the boys were wearing layered garb. Boxer underwear showed beneath their outer trunks like some new flag. Every motion of this young guard was practiced significance. Even the act of getting out of the water was ritualized. They popped from the pool like someone jumping a fence, then threw their long heads of hair backward and forward, sending out plumes of moisture.
These underwear divers were somehow different from the ones who came before them. They seemed to attack the board as if trying to crush it. With violent thrust they crawled into the air, arms and legs grabbing invisible hooks. Twisting and contorting, they plummeted downward. At first they seemed out of control. Then, as if programmed, each diver followed a given course. One leg was pointed down and the other was pulled with both hands tightly against the chest. The falling body resembled a snake — hips to the side of the leg entering the water, head and shoulders pulled in the opposite direction. Each entered the water like a corkscrew, and the water exploded upward. The splash seemed higher and more violent than any cannonball or kamikaze crash. A percussional “thud” followed the upturned water as it drenched the onlookers.
The girls at poolside screamed for more. Adults looked on, remembering the day they climbed the sky and broke the water. The younger children watched intently. Younger boys wore their boxer underwear under their store-bought swimsuits. They yelled “Can-opener” and mimicked those who dared the high board. Younger girls yelled “Gross” and waited for the day they would be splashed.
At first I didn’t notice the old man standing next to the high dive. In fact, I don’t know how long he had stood there. Old men usually stay away from the high diving board. But there he was, standing erect, holding on to the ladder with one hand. He was wearing slippers and a white terry cloth robe. In thirty years of watching the high diving board I had never seen anyone dressed in robe and slippers.
The young men didn’t seem to see him at all. In their surge to the top of the ladder they splashed water on the old man and jostled around him as if he were some part of the apparatus. A few of the younger children waited patiently behind the old man and then realized he wasn’t in line but merely watching the action from the board. The man in the white robe seemed mesmerized by the depth-charge splashes caused by the young men. He stood for an hour or maybe more, judging the intricate form and balance required to do a can-opener. How the body must twist upon hitting the water and how the extended leg must sit under the body at impact and the pull of the arms to arch the back. The old man watched as, over and over, the young turks performed their water explosions. We all watched.
The young men crashed closer to the side of the pool. Waves of water were pushed into the air. The smaller children were driven from the pool by the increasing bravado and daring of these high-flying divers. Perfection was close at hand — the perfect entry into the water, as close to the side as possible. The angry propulsion of water into the air, so high that the diver can push to the surface and be drenched by water he had sent to the sky. Young men raced to climb the ladder and try again, to hurl their bodies into the perfect trajectory. A rhythmic beat of bodies flying off the board and bombing into the water held the pool captive. Observers — young and old — held their breath and moaned approval with each successful crash. The young men responded by throwing their heads back, placing themselves in an aura of water. They raised their arms in the air signifying a triumph over the water. The water was being beaten into the air by human endeavor.
Then, abruptly, a voice drowned out the water’s sounds.
“Hey, what are you doing?” one of the young turks yelled, pointing upward. “Get off the board — you’re going to hurt yourself!”
The old man was climbing to the top of the high dive tower. One of the young men hurried up the ladder, reaching for the old man’s arm. He grabbed the sleeve of the white robe, and it slid off the old man and landed in a puddle at the base of the tower. The lifeguard, suddenly aware of the drama on the high diving board, blew his whistle and gestured for the old man to climb down.
Attention fixed on this frail figure at the top of the tower. He seemed so alone and out of place, yet somehow determined. He tugged on a black jockey-style swimsuit that glistened against his pale skin. He walked carefully to the edge of the diving board. The board bounced softly with each of his steps, then became still as the old man rolled his arms as if to pump air into his body.
This confident gesture calmed the lifeguard and served as a magnet. Everyone was watching this old man on the high diving board, wondering what it was he wanted, what he would do. Was he going to try a can-opener or some last plunge?
“He must be drunk,” an older woman offered. “Why doesn’t he sit here like the rest of us? He’s going to hurt himself!” she continued to explain.
The man in the silk swimsuit stood on the edge of the diving board — now motionless. An unusual silence weighed in the air. Everyone turned to look at this figure balanced on the end of the board. A collective gasp pulled the air from the board as the old man bent his legs and in slow motion sprang into the air. The old man arched parallel to the water. He hung suspended above the board like some glider. Arms spread wide. Head held up. Chest pushed out. Back cupped like a bow. Legs pinned together. Toes pointed. At the pinnacle of his jump he began to fall toward the water. Still he held that position — flat against the air. At the last second the old man pointed his head and arms downward and sliced into the water. His straight body caused hardly a ripple. There was no customary expulsion of water or sound of water and body compressing against each other.
When the old man broke to the surface the poolside audience was cheering. Old ladies and young children were clapping and yelling congratulations. Comments and speculation followed the old man as he picked up his wet robe and walked slowly along the pool side toward the gate. As he passed me I noticed the lady who had labeled him drunk was standing and whispering, “Bravo, bravo.” I watched as the old man walked through the gate. At first I didn’t think he would even turn around. But he did — just for a moment. He turned and looked in the direction of the high diving board.
The young men in underwear trunks were reclaiming the tower. They pounded on the board, sending out the sound of firing cannons. Then the first underwear flyer took to the air. I looked quickly to see if the old man was watching. He was. And if the young man on the board was aware of the old man. He was. The young man banged into the air. Higher than anyone had gone. Feet downward, he curled one leg under his body and grabbed the other with one hand. With the free hand he gestured defiantly with an upraised middle finger. That solitary finger scratched the sky on its downward trace, then disappeared in a current of water.
The body of the young diver crashed into the water with a thunderous convulsion. I wondered if the young man was all right. A jaunty flip of the head and spray of water from his long hair announced his well-being. And triggered a torrent of other underwear divers. Now they sailed into the air and into the water in flights of two, then three, and four. The high diving board was theirs. The young men paraded their explosive skill. The girls screamed. Again and again the young men slammed into the water. Buoyed by their art and their importance, they played and relaxed around their board. They chided the younger boys who tried to duplicate their feats. Sometimes they offered advice, or simply behaved as bullies. Arrogance is the right of those who own the high diving board.
In the midst of this celebration no one seemed to notice a small boy about nine years old go off the board. After all, it wasn’t a significant event — just one little kid going off the board surrounded by older, more interesting, better divers. For the underwear swimmers this skinny kid didn’t warrant attention. There were more important, more familiar things to notice and praise. So the swimmers in underwear suits just didn’t see the small boy. Didn’t see him walk precariously to the end of the board. Or note that he didn’t do the customary bounce on the board. When he went off the board he didn’t aim his feet downward like all those around him, or make his body into a fist. The small boy swept his arms sideward and hovered in the air for a second. For that moment he flew suspended by the air. Head up and chest out. Back arched. Legs together. With a downward thrust, he entered the water with his hands and arms clearing the way for the rest of his body. There was no expectant splash. And no one noticed the small boy’s smile as he pulled himself from the pool.
I looked quickly over my shoulder to see if the old man had witnessed this sight. He was gone. And when I looked to see if any of the young underwear divers had cared about the event, I found them too busy and too delighted in their own presence to see or care about the achievement of a small child. As for myself, I kept my vigil of the high diving board. There were more children that day trying the new dive. There would be more tomorrow.
This true story is included in a new collection of Ron Jones’ work, No Substitute for Madness — A Teacher, His Kids, and the Lessons of Real Life, published this year by Island Press, Star Route 1, Box 38, Covela, CA. The paperback is $8.
We’ve published Ron Jones’ stories before — “We Killed Them” (Issue 59) and “There Is No School on the Sixth Floor” (Issue 45) — and the new book includes those as well as “The Acorn People,” an account of handicapped kids who become mountain climbers, pirates and kings at a summer camp and “The Third Wave,” about a Nazi-like takeover of a high school; both stories have been made into television films.
— Ed.
©Copyright 1981 Ron Jones
