Leaving the Atocha Station - Ben Lerner [28]
ME: i hate new experiences
CYRUS: emasculating teasing. Something about that being what was wrong with poets
ME: the new poems are great, btw
CYRUS: I guess I should mention we were smoking a lot of that Acapulco Gold
ME: so what happened with
CYRUS: or whatever it is. Very staticky. Or at least I’d been smoking it. Vaguely reminiscent, incidentally, of certain Topeka strains, but more powerful. Anyway we walked along the river and it eventually opened out and where it was wider we encountered some people swimming
ME: americans?
CYRUS: Locals. There are no tourists here in winter, it seems
ME: right
CYRUS: There were two men swimming, or one swimming and one more like wading. The current looked pretty strong. One of the men, his girlfriend was on the bank—in a swimsuit—and he was trying to convince her to get in, to swim
ME: don’t like where this is going. she was scared of the current?
CYRUS: Maybe. Maybe just the cold
ME: what is the weather like there
ME: madrid: cold and raining constantly
CYRUS: Warm to hot. It was like 80. Which is unseasonably warm, I guess. The air is filthy. But the water still chilly. Anyway, Jane—we were on the opposite bank as the swimmer’s girlfriend—Jane wanted to swim
ME: she had a swimsuit?
CYRUS: and did get in the water, although I told her I didn’t think
CYRUS: Yes, we both had swimsuits on under our clothes. It was not, I told her, a good idea, because of the current
ME: knowing her, i’m sure that was a goad
ME: might egg her on
CYRUS: Yes. She got in and while the current was strong was fine. Then the other swimmers, they were saying to the girlfriend, see, this girl got in, no problem, and then Jane started telling me to come into the water. So there I was opposite the girlfriend on the bank, both of us being pressured by the swimmers to join them. The girlfriend and I kept looking at each other with nervous smiles
ME: if one of you got in the other would have to
CYRUS: I felt that
ME: a game of chicken. you two should have left the others and gone off and had
CYRUS: Or at least if she got in I would have to. But she probably could have remained on the bank
ME: a wonderful life together!
ME: right. she would not be emasculated
CYRUS: but I was, I admit, feeling the pressure. Jane was there with these other men in the water, the current clearly manageable. I felt cowardly and American
ME: you have to stay strong—cowardice of your convictions
CYRUS: Yeah, well, I got in. The current was actually stronger than I imagined. There were pockets of strong current. Where the river narrowed a little farther down I could see what looked like serious rapids
ME: and then the girlfriend jumped in
CYRUS: Well
CYRUS: not at first. But now everyone kind of turned to her. We’d all become one group, somehow. And her boyfriend had changed from teasing her to encouraging her, his arms open, lovingly—it’s fine, I promise, I’ll protect you, etc. We were
ME: how bad is this going to get?
CYRUS: also encouraging her, I think. And laughing and screaming at the cold she jumped in. She was fine at first
ME:!
CYRUS: but as she kind of splashed around—she didn’t really know how to swim, it didn’t seem. I don’t know, she moved somewhat downriver where the current became pretty strong, and she was getting upset
ME: so someone went and helped her?
CYRUS: Things
CYRUS: things got very bad very fast. she went underwater for a second, and when she resurfaced, she was a little farther down and totally panicked
ME: jesus
CYRUS: She was screaming and water was
ME: jesus
CYRUS: getting in her mouth and she was struggling against the current in the wrong way
ME: couldn’t somebody get her
CYRUS: Her boyfriend was trying but there were enough stones and other shit that it was taking awhile. And he wasn’t much of a swimmer either, didn’t know, I don’t think, what to expect from or how to manage the rapids. Jane tried to go
ME: tried to catch her?