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Today’s as good a day as any, he thought, as he approached the astroturfed square abutting the East River. Though not enjoyed by many with any reasonable degree of common sense, it is technically legal to swim in both the East and Hudson Rivers which flank either side of Manhattan. The tacit knowledge is that each of these bodies of water is filthy, laden with the pollution from hundreds of water taxis and the residual debris of millions of trapped and lonely and tired people. While some parts of the Hudson River, just outside of the city, are generally immune from this sort of odious abuse, the East River, by contrast remains a devastatingly harmed body of water and historically so. It’s also a body of water in the midst of an identity crisis. Despite its name’s suggestion, the East River is not a river at all; it’s a salt water estuary that connects to Upper New York Bay and serves to physically disconnect the city from the North American mainland—a process already achieved superficially by policies and a perceived priggishness. The section of the East River which divides Brooklyn from Manhattan is exceptionally narrow and subject to erratic changes in current direction and strength. This section carries the scars from the wharf period of early Dutch settlement when New York was embroiled in trade wars and protected this strait from intruders by way of creating embankments, which were more like water-side massifs comprised of excrement and animal carcasses. These sludge walls would sink passing ships and over time created a more dramatic narrowing of the sound, which ultimately made the waters even more challenging for pre-industrialized  travel.

Though today seemed like a day to ignore to past ecological atrocities and instead acknowledge the present and abundant beauty that on rare occasions presents itself plainly within this constructed hell. In this small recreational square in Brooklyn, the natural world seems to be mocked by its obvious facsimile in astroturf, like a bad painting, repurposed for a postcard and yet notwithstanding, people are exercising their obvious predilection for relaxation and escape from a world stressed by explosions, illnesses and hatred. On the other side of the fake grass, the East River appeared abundantly blue as if closer to its glacial provenance, and at a glance, absent of the centuries of abuse, carnage and abandoned vessels. On a day like today, it would be easy to acknowledge only the beauty in this world and ignore the pain.

“I’m headed in for a swim,” he said. “I’ll be right back.” He found his place in one of the designated circles and unmounted his bike. He removed his backpack and received an insouciant nod from the woman next to him in hers. His bike was simple and black, likely purchased from one of the many up-cycling bike salesmen in the city whose business is bred out of a facility for cutting locks. His backpack was filled with various items one might take for a long bike ride on a day like today: a bottle of water, a snack bar, a bike lock, a wallet, a mobile phone charger, along with a small mound of forgotten and bothersome loose change, and several receipts to never be referred to again.

In a moment, he was gone from his circle and at the water’s edge, holding onto the round metal railing intentionally selected to fit the refurbished industrialism aesthetic of the area. Just below the railing is roughly eight feet of atmosphere, often occupied by a subtle mist that on calm mornings and with closed eyes feels like a Maine coast. He leaned over the railing to notice his own reflection, broken up by the turbulent saltwater. Across the channel is Manhattan. From this distance it looked less imposing and less fixed than when walking amongst its steel innards. Less the monolithic fixture of gross domestic product and kinetic energy and more of an abstraction. A notion. He looked up from the broken image of himself to inspect the windows of a large building in the Lower East Side. He thought about how many lives were in each, only to feel resounding shame for dwelling in such obvious cliche. But he couldn’t resit being overwhelmed by the enormity of presence and completely lost in the notion of abundant choice. Of how many different lives he could live and could have lived until now. In an instant, the rivers of all the decisions he’d ever made poured through the channels of his mind until he finally concluded that he wasn’t worth any of them. A loud seagull cawed above him and for some reason seemed louder than the helicopter roaring to his right. He turned to see if the myriad of people were still behind him, listlessly milling the turf. Beyond them, the large brick facade of a decrepit sugar factory was being gutted, the first stage in its denigrating journey toward luxurious homogeneity, he thought. Clang, clang, another hit against the rotten pipes before the union takes its break. The laughter of the women behind him began to separate, now. Then the barking dogs from the manicured playground. A distant siren, then a truck in reverse. Every sound an isolated experience as he imagined the life behind every one and what decisions brought them to the place of operating the police car, or walking the dog or breaking the old pipes. 

Again, he became lost in the innumerable opportunity of choice and he moved between the world behind him and his broken reflection like an unsure hound and in an instant, he dove into the water. Immediately, the pressure from thousands of tons of glacial erosion, hundreds of years of wharfing, sunken ships, and two centuries of commercial progress muffled the sounds of the anodyne world above. The sirens turned to a distant howl and the laughter went away completely. Here, there existed no dogs, no consumers, no Gods—just a sublime and palliative absence. For a few moments, he drifted in complete isolation, removed from every choice anyone will ever make while the salt water slowly overtook his pours. 

As he rose to catch his breath, he opened his eyes to a new and more terrifying view of the city. He realized that being engulfed in its wake was worse than being at the foot of any skyscraper or any bank, in any doctor’s office or in any meeting. In between Manhattan and Brooklyn, the sounds from both places overwhelmed him in a confluent orchestra of panic. He longed for the isolation he discovered underwater as if he had been away from it for years. So he dove down again.

As he drifted deeper into the straight he came upon an area of remarkable depth and opened his eyes to find a blackness like he’d never seen before. He thought about how he’d draw the dark blue curtains in his room in Brooklyn and sleep for days on end, until the inalienable ache of everything he’s ever hated dissipated just enough to leave. As he swam, his eyes burned and the water grew even darker. He was unaware of the extreme depths in this channel. A heavy sludge from what must have been a passing ship was coming toward him. And now, the isolation that he’d fallen in love with became infiltrated by the world above. He looked to the surface for an escape route but found more darkness. The ship was above him and seemed to extend for miles. Darkness below and everything he’s ever hated above. He swam furiously, neither ascending nor descending and careful not to release the precious breath he had within him.

Above the water, the taciturn woman from the circles began to notice the man’s prolonged absence. She noticed his backpack as well as his up-cycled bike. She removed herself from her own yoga routine and found a place along the industrial railing to search for him. Over the edge, she only found the rough chop of the strait and her own disbanded silhouette. Another woman who didn’t notice the man’s absence but noticed the strangeness in the woman leaning over the edge, walked over to her.

“He said he was going for a swim,” she said.

The two women scanned the water until their eyes met landfall across the straight. What ordinarily seems like a small distance to Manhattan, one that takes approximately five minutes by car without traffic, seemed infinitely far and out of reach. They both noticed the large cargo ship and continued their expectant search. She looked back to his circle, hoping he might have appeared.

Under the water, he continued to swim from one darkness to the other, and for the first time, it wasn’t darkness he lusted after, but light. For the first time, he missed the crowds of people busying themselves with their insipid tasks and artificial obligations. He missed doctors appointments and waiting in lines to refill his litany of medications. He missed the women he’d never slept with and the men who were points of envy. At this moment, he wasn’t afraid of decisions and the limitlessness of choice, for what was before him was utter monotony. As he waded through an uncertain depth, he became numb to the stinging sensation of the salt water and he couldn’t remember if he had ever closed his eyes in the first place. Occasionally, small phosphenes would float before him and offer a false optimism of light having broken through the surface. He made the mistake of focusing on the absence of sounds around him until that silence became noise itself, pushing into him like a pressure that traveled infinitely inward. And he begged for a reprieve. He made a conscious effort to open his eyes, but couldn’t tell if he was looking up or down, so he turned his body, carefully maneuvering himself in small increments as if stuck in an avalanche. He tucked his arm but couldn’t feel it moving. He threw his leg behind him, but failed to feel the water shift. The absence of the physical world preyed on his consciousness and any security he felt in what was absolutely true began to erode.

***

“He said he was just going for a swim,” the engorged police officer said to his colleague, who was peering over the edge to the same nothing and the same rough water with a different silhouette.

“That’s a big drop, you know what, I’m saying? I mean plus, they don’t really know how deep this area is. I mean, if he were to do it tethered, that’s one thing. You can’t forget the rope!” They laughed and looked down the pier to find dozens of other medical and rescue personnel filing in toward the water. A rescue boat manned by at least five nautical officers slowly encroached on the embankment.

“They said he was a young kid, too.” the officer said to his colleague as he wiped the thick, gravity-defying sweat from his inflamed forehead.

“It’s too bad, too. Today’s a great day to go swimming.” more laughter.

Over a passing radio, EAST RIVER DROWNING VICTIM rang loudly through the air. Another police officer found shade near a firetruck and radioed into his dispatch for guidance, asking, “how do you want to play this? There’s a lot of crowd here and the water’s a mess. I’m not sure we’re getting him out clean.”

Three strong men pulled a brightly colored hose out of the truck and began pressurizing some other men in yellow suits. At least twenty other men stood around, some in life vests and others perhaps reliant on their own buoyancy. As muscle has a higher density than water, the fitter officers relied on suits and buoys. A few men brought forward a ladder and together, they tactlessly guided it into the water.

“We’re going to need the sixteen!” one yelled.

On the water, three boats now encircled a small area near the pier, telegraphing to the mass of onlookers some veiled moments of hope. Men with binoculars scanned the surface and hoped to identity a shadow indicative of human presence, but the sun eviscerated any semblance of life. It only showed them their own reflections. Women in PARKS shirts attempted crowd control as the recreation slowly transformed to concern en masse.

“What kind of fucking gonzo show is this?” one woman said to a wide-eyed man waiting on a bike, camera-phone in hand.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before.” he replied.

“You’ve never seen a dead body?” she asked, well-assuming that the rescue mission was quickly becoming a gross misnomer.

“I have, but not one like this. I’m curious, that’s all.” he said.

“Well, I think it’s gross. I think all these people should go home. Including the cops.”

“What if he’s trying to get out? I heard he just wanted to go for a swim.” he replied.

“Look at all of this. For one guy who decided to go swimming? Think about where these resources could be going. The sheer scale. The excess. The money! All because he decided to swimming.”

A large helicopter floated above them and drowned their debate on city resources. More officers arrived, along with a stretcher and medics. The wind from the helicopter created more chop in the water and someone on the radio provided direction to have it ascend. 

“Get back up there, you’re roughin’ the chop.” they yelled. Some officers closest to the crowds lowered the volume on their radios, while others didn’t seem to mind what became public consumption. As the police presence grew, so too did the curiosity of the salivating crowd, partially hoping for a survival story filled with heroism and ecstasy but also lusting after a potentially gruesome presentation of death. They had never seen anything like this.

When he was above water he believed in medication. He believed that the absence of human connection fostered his addictions and his inalienable loneliness. He believed in simple clothes and routine checkups to monitor anxieties. When he was above water, he rarely thought about his father or phoned his family and instead focused on how relentlessly he was being judged against his own expectations. Under the surface of the water, he believed in nothing more than the earth’s sublime power. There is nothing spurious about the earth’s power, he thought. It is exactly as strong as it portends to be. Any tectonic rumble that he’d ever felt or any wind that had ever touched his cheek was an augur of a much larger happening somewhere else, he concluded. This was all suddenly clear to him, as was his utter deference to the material world. Not material in the sense of objectivity or consumption, but from the standpoint of matter and how it all came to be. Above water he believed in science and conclusive evidence, but rarely cared enough to investigate any sort of scientific process. Under the water, he believed in science and all that, but prayed for the Gods.

Again, his limbs went numb and with his eyes opened or closed, he made a conscious effort to rise to the surface. Putting his full faith in the principles of science, he attempted to float, hoping that the air which had been slowly dissipating from his lungs and servicing his organs would propel him closer to the doctors, closer to the people on the astroturf, to the anxieties, the women, the Gods. His chest cried out for the sirens above ground and for the laughter and the insolent noise. And in fact, he did begin to hear the sirens. He heard the helicopter, too. And as the sound came, so too did the light. Finally, the oil from the passing ships, ironically there to save him, began to dissolve in the powerful currents and he rose slowly to the surface as if lifted by an aquatic escalator. The backwash from the idling boats provided some orientation and he understood how close he was to the surface. Close to the news casters now making this more than just a swim. Close to his circle, to the light, to his dark room.
But just as he rose, a ladder pierced the water like an Indian dagger jutting into a Dutch colonialist. The surface again seemed dangerous. In his inebriated state, he meandered the possibility of staying here in this water that enveloped him in warmth and pressure. He closed his eyes and this time was aware that the phosphenes were a mirage and not the actual light he had seen and he opened his mouth, believing in the scientific knowledge that the sudden intake of water would stop his float. The immediate rush of air threw his vocal cords into spasm and brought to halt, all of the routine procedures in his body which kept him lighter and held him closer to life. They stopped not of their own accord, but through gradual attrition by way of darkness. When the body’s processes stop on land, its blood pools in the lowest place, closest to the Earth, though in water, it’s not allowed to settle; it only slows and submits itself to the will of the current.

“Damn, we just missed him.” an officer said from the boat. The others beside him stood around, holding poles with nets on the ends and depth finders and other pieces of technology similar to the kind that fishermen use.

“Should we call it in?” another asked with his hefty radio at the ready. From the boat, the captain looked up to the pier and signaled to the crews readying themselves to either pull or dive, that the mission is likely canceled. In an instant, the twenty or so men standing by became ten, then none. And before long, the astroturf was cleared of hoses and ladders of the wrong length and strong men in yellow suits. The day was still a fine day to go swimming, but most of the curious denizens went home to satisfy their pornographic urges, to make dinner and get into jumbled arguments. Whatever it was that they would set off to do, was all happening behind little windows and metal doors. Some would be doing all of these things while extremely poor, others would be doing the exact same, but with abundant wealth. By the evening, another crop of people would flood the turf and play games with their children and sit in circles by the water. A few of them might close their eyes and let the damp mist transport them away from this place.