“[H]e fell in the dust and clutched the ground with his palm.”
—The Iliad, trans. A.T. Murray
Memories of my father’s accident are silhouettes.
Shadows transform in my closet, taking human shape. I blink, and they disappear.
*
If you watch someone preparing to dive frame by frame, there is a moment where their arms are suspended perfectly, stretched to either side, they are facing forward, their legs together, shadow beneath, the outlines of their reflected bodies rippling.
§
A memorial display in the vestibule is covered with photographs. The red of the bathrobe sticks out—my father is standing in front of the camera, one arm around his brother, the other outstretched. He had walked into a grocery store wearing only this and boxing gloves. He and his brother tried to convince people that he’s a boxer. They left the store with a case of beer under each arm.
*
I did not see his face before the dive, but I imagine he was smiling.
The red of the water enrobed him.
*
In Greek, Hector means “to have” or “to hold.”
*
When I was six years old, my father went on a weekend trip to an amusement park with my brother and I had to stay home because I wasn’t tall enough to ride the roller coasters and they were chasing thrill. When they talked about the trip, I cried.
After they returned home, I received a postcard in the mail with no postage on it. On the front were pictures of the tallest roller coasters I had ever seen, and when I flipped it over, my father’s handwriting sprawled out his apologies that I couldn’t join them.
*
Hector, holding his crying son—whose fear of his father’s helmet should have been a sign—lifted him up in prayer, hoping that one day, people would say, “He is a better man than his father!”
*
My father’s uniform hangs in my closet. I run my hands along it. It has lost his shape.
§
In 1926, when professional boxer Max Baer was still just 17 years old, he and some friends stole wine from a lumberjack. The wine encouraged the boys to get louder, until the lumberjack took notice. He realized the empty wine jugs on the ground were his, took off after the group. Baer was at the back as the boys began running. The lumberjack caught up to him.
*
I took swim lessons for five years. Standing on the cold tile, waiting for permission to enter the water, the diving board scratching the bottoms of my feet.
We practiced how to raise our arms above our head, grasping one hand with the other to create a flat surface with our palm. I was told not to hold my hands in high prayer; instead, the flat surface of my hands would protect me if I hit the bottom of the pool. On the tiled floor, we practiced the movement—arms out, arms up, hands clasped, knees bent.
We did this for weeks before we were allowed in the water.
*
I never mastered the art of diving. I was too afraid of hitting my head, didn’t trust my hands to protect me. Instead, I would break through the surface of the water horizontally, my skin red and hot, stinging.
*
For three years after the accident, I dream of botching dives, jolted awake by the water knocking the wind out of me.
*
Baer struck the lumberjack and watched him crumple to the ground.
§
My mother said she could feel my father’s presence. At the dinner table. During bedtime. In the car. A song would come on as she was driving, and her forearms would tense, her knuckles whitening as she gripped the steering wheel, and then she would take a breath, and she would sigh: “He’s here.”
*
Is he?
*
My father sent my mother a video tape while he was deployed. In the first frame, he is nowhere in sight, and then he emerges from a hot tub, water splashing as he beams at the camera.
*
Palinurus stood at the front of Aeneas’ ship as they sailed toward Italy, his expertise unquestioned as they traveled stormy waters. Neptune calmed the sea, but for a price. The God of Sleep drugged Palinurus. He fell into the water to his eventual death. The gods sacrificed him—one life lost to save many.
*
I think of divers when I talk to God.
§
I am fifteen the first time I ever put on boxing gloves. I need help fastening the Velcro. For an hour, I push my arms away from my body, left hook, right hook, jab, power punch, the sound of my gloves hitting the focus mitt vibrates off the walls.
For the first time in years, I am able to wake up without needing to catch my breath.
*
1930: Max Baer vs. Frankie Campbell.
In the fifth round, Baer forced Campbell against the ropes, landing punch after punch, until the ropes were holding up Campell’s body and the referee intervened.
§
Churches are too quiet.
I am always angry. I struggle not to yell, even when I am praying.
*
My father returns to New York with an honorable discharge. He never speaks about the war. Just the sand, just the camels, just the hot tub they made on base. Never the war.
*
My mother said that this was all in God’s plan.
He surfaced just as Palinurus washed ashore after his plunge into the sea. Death takes what it wants.
Which part was God’s plan?
*
I go to church—while everyone bows their heads in prayer, I clasp my hands tightly, and silently address the father I have lost.
I would take an answer from either.
§
When the lake is at its calmest, it can almost be a mirror.
The water was brown. He dove in anyway.
*
Before there was Palinurus, there was Elpenor, who was part of Odysseus’ crew. While staying on Circe’s island, Elpenor drunkenly climbed to the roof of the palace to sleep. It is a long way down as he falls to his death the next morning. Unnoticed, no burial awaits him.
“Elpenor, how art thou come to this dark coast?”
“Ill fate and abundant wine.”
*
Every Veteran’s Day, my father would make a trip to my school, dressed in full uniform. He brought a posterboard of photos—of the desert, the camp, camels. We asked about the sand because it seemed to go on forever. There were no guns, there was no enemy. Only the desert and my father.
§
Most of what I know about my father has come from my mother’s lips.
The thing about apologies is you can’t say them for someone else.
§
Baer stayed by Campbell’s side during the wait for an ambulance.
*
In mid-fight, Hector knew and cried out, “My time has come!” The battle continued. Hector’s helmet gleamed beautifully.
Death cut him short.
*
Twelve hours before Campbell was pronounced dead, Baer offered Campbell’s wife, Ellie, a hand to shake, to hold.
*
The Department of Veteran’s Affairs Alcohol and Drug Dependence Rehabilitation Program provides assistance to eligible alcohol and drug dependent Veterans. The programs offer various forms of treatment including detoxification, rehabilitation, and psychiatric care. Treatment programs are located in the VA medical centers and clinics.
Before he dove into the water, my father set down his beer.
*
My mother asked him to leave. He begged to come home. She told him to get help.
*
The last photograph that he and I took together was in the living room of the house I grew up in. It was taken before they told me he was leaving. We are both smiling.
§
When Frankie Campbell was pronounced dead, Baer cried. He offered Ellie his hand. She held it, relaxed, fingers uncoiled. “I’m awfully sorry.” He said his fists were not meant to kill.
*
Having killed Hector, Achilles keeps the Trojan warrior’s corpse. But Priam would do anything to get his son’s body back. So the gods grant him safe passage into the Achaean camp, and the old man faces iron-hearted Achilles.
“I have endured what no one on earth has ever done before—I put to my lips the hands of the man who killed my son.”
§
My mother used to tell me that saying “I’m sorry” only means something if I also mean I will not do whatever I’m apologizing for again. To repeat it means that you were only acknowledging you were wrong.
*
Baer almost quit boxing.
But he does not quit. And neither do the images of Campbell flooding his dreams.
*
Churches are silent.
I stare at arms outstretched, legs together, head up.
I clasp one hand over the other to protect myself if I hit bottom.
*
Sometimes I still wonder if he loved his shortcomings more than me.
*
Baer looked healthy on the day he died. The first wave of pain in his chest subsided, and the doctor laughed at his jokes until Baer was struck with a second attack. In his last minutes, he looked the doctor in the eye as his body failed him and, like Hector recognizing the end was near, he said, “Oh God, here I go.”
*
I wonder if, in his last minutes, my father glimpsed his own end as Hector and Baer did. Did he silently speak his own final words? Or was he too far gone?
§
The last image I have of my father alive.
He is standing on the edge of the dock facing forward, toes curling over the wooden planks, his legs straight and pressed together, arms outstretched on either side of him, palms facing out.