Munching slices of Moscow salami, and eyeing home-style kolbasa as I bend to unload groceries into the fridge, I realize my neck no longer hurts on the left side. It now just has a mild pinch in the back right, fresh from today’s diving class.
Scott Donie caught at high exposure
Scott Donie, my diving instructor, is amazing to watch. He must be over 40 now, but to see him bouncing playfully up and down, 10 feet higher than the diving board before launching, flipping, twisting, tucking, piking, and otherwise masochistically hurtling himself upside down, head-first, backwards, ever vigilant of his place in the world of four dimensional space/time, spinning relentlessly towards the dispassionate pale blue tank of chlorinated water ready to swallow him up or not, whichever the case may be, and to appreciate such a feat is a symbol of a privileged life.
He is a blur of reflected light that is incomprehensible to the naked eye but perfectly understandable in both theory and on film. To watch Donie is to witness a master blithely following through the everyday routine of his art without the least bit of pretension or the slightest inkling of the extraordinary value of his creation to society.
My appreciation of the master has, of course, not lead to any significant results in my personal edification in the matters of grace and good fortune. I am still the albino hippopotamus claiming credit for my utterly unintentional ability to flop myself like an inverted (or retarded) beached whale that has absolutely no place being in the bloviated oceans of the diving world in the first place.
My pale white skin is perfectly understandably blotched with purple and red (neglecting for a moment the sprouts of pure black pubic hair emanating from my shoulders and other parts), a result of the countless wars the underdog has fought against gravity.
The inside of my upper lip even began to bleed today after I doggedly pursued a full 1.5 forward tuck. I immediately began to consider myself a latter-day Greg Louganis. In diving terminology, a forward 1.5 tuck means that the hippopotamus, despite its better instincts, proudly hurdled itself off of the diving board, grabbed its own knees with its independently-thinking arms, and flipped around and around in a fetal position one and a half times until it decided, as a result of the incomprehensibly intricate computations of the hippo-brain, that it had probably by this point flipped around enough. So the hippo opened up out of the fetal position and into a full stretch of the arms and legs, just as its head and full length of its body (as if it were flat!) made a perfect head and belly flop into the unforgiving waters of the NYU Coles Recreation Center diving tank, like a C.B. Sullenberger entering the Hudson River, but without the good intentions or the horizontal momentum.
The term “belly flop” really does not do justice to a 6 foot oneish, 208 pound beast that has spun through the air a scandalous 1.5 times within only a few feet (trust me, I don’t jump very high) before smashing full-bodiedly head-first through the high surface tension of the heretofore serene diving tank. The impact of my face, flattened like a Korean pancake head, didn’t agree with the physiognomy of my teeth. Scott Donie is compact and fit.
Given that I had earlier written about my vision of a perfect forward half twist, I felt compelled today, being the last day of class, to work to realize my dreams. Several times I launched, only to find myself significantly overshooting the target and splashing my shoulders first, and then my upside-down back into the water, instead of a straight entry broken by the fingertips. This overshooting is actually a relatively benevolent mistake, given that the shoulders lessen the impact and break the water before the rest of the body hits.
However, the third time’s the charm. And on my third attempt I felt it. I knew it was the one. As soon as I returned back down to the board from my hurdle, I could tell that I was in the zone… yeah, I was feeling it. I launched (not proper diving terminology, but appropriate given the improbability of my success). I felt myself sailing through the air like a myopic pigeon gliding confidently towards a negligently dropped whole-grain breadcrumb.
Split seconds turned into seconds as I extended my left arm, like a ballroom dancer reaching out to her partner, and I initiated the twist. The twist initiated all right. The twist initiated as evenly as Tetsuo‘s power drill finding its place.
This was the one, the one I’d been dreaming about. No more night obsessions would haunt me now! I dropped my jaw and lolled my tongue in ecstasy as I prepared for entry, upside-down and backwards. There would be no bubbling froth… no tsunamic ripples in the waters of my perfection. This was going to be as smooth as an adopted African child‘s behind.
Bruno with adopted African child
I should have known better. When Richard, my 69 year old fellow diving enthusiast originally from Scarsdale, who’s stomach requires its own seat in the sauna and is no-doubt as tasty as my home-style kolbasa and could easily feed a family of 10 in the unforgiving Russian taiga for months, pulled me aside the way only a Jew knows how to pull aside another Jew, and said, “Amos, we big Westchester guys only need to take one step before jumping”, I should have taken the hint. But I resented being grouped into the first person plural with such a man, and I refused to believe that our limitations, his and mine, were really one and the same. Is that my future? No! I take four steps, asshole, like everyone else, and I’m going to show you how to do a forward half twist, you fat fuck.
Russians devouring a raw deer
Bang! The entire back of my Westchester body smashed into the water like a Manhattan crane operator crashing through the facade of a well-built luxury apartment block. For a moment my entire body went numb as I slowly sank into the water like a vision of death departing. Richard is a wise old man. The numb throbbing pain actually felt good (and I later thanked Donie for showing me the joy of self-immolation).
A tingling sensation gradually returned as I continued to sink, only remembering where I was as if I were an apparition, a punctured tire sinking unhygienically into the uneven Mexican pavement. I had never actually been upside-down or head-first, only backwards and horizontal until that fateful impact. I bobbed my head back above the water to see the stunned faces of my fellow divers standing at full attention like awe-struck passengers on the wing of US Airways Flight 1549, asking in unison, “Are you alright?!”
On my way to the gym before diving class, a sidewalk grate exploded 20 feet in front of me and yellow smoke hissed out onto the street. I’ll miss diving class.
good one
i havent laughed so much in a long time