CHAPTER ONE

JOHN, DETROIT

John Charles Bing looks down at the water in the new swimming pool of their new home. And how sparkling blue it is, blue doesn’t get more sparkling than this.
His dad stands in the water, waist deep, the two of them here, home, on a hot, very lazy summer afternoon. Sunday in Detroit, Michigan. The day smells of barbecue, trees smell of hot pine needles, and the water smells of something sharp, like stuff his mom used on him when he cut his leg.
‘Come on, jump in,’ his dad calls, patting the watery, sparkling blue ahead of his stomach, encouraging him. As his dad does this, John sees his dad’s legs wave at him from under the water. His dad’s legs suddenly look very wobbly.
‘Water’s fine.’
But water is not fine. Chokes little boys.
John looks around for his mom. Whenever he needs a little help, he looks for her, but his mom is inside their new house. They only moved in a few days ago, and she has much to do. She is working on putting up curtains and tidying up. She is a very tidy person, and she does not like even him to leave things lying around, like his old wooden alphabet blocks.
‘Sissy!’
His dad’s sharp, hissy voice knocks a couple of birds out of the tree nearby. John sees the birds swoop low, over the blue water right in front of him. And fly away, fast. Fast, and free.
His dad said things like Sissy, Be a man, or Men don’t cry, whenever he did something his dad did not like. Something exactly like not jumping into a swimming pool when he does not yet know how to swim, and his dad wants him to learn how to swim A man’s way. And fast.
His dad is here, inside the sparkling clear pool, waiting, expecting.
So what’s the problem?
Why is he hanging back, not doing it, like his dad wants?
John puts up his little arms and makes as if to jump in the water.
‘There’s my man.’
He was always being My man when he did something his dad wanted: Like put his hand in a closed box where his dad had placed a spider, and squash it dead, unseen; or back a bird out of a tree with his BB gun. Little tests his dad set for being a man.
John wonders what it will be like: water rushing up his nose. Already he’s had a few slips in the bath. Once, when he slipped, he choked. A bad feeling, choking. After that he was very careful around water. Water collapsed. Fell to pieces and went into his nose and mouth and stopped him breathing.
‘Quit being a little girl.’
John gets set again.
He doesn’t like being compared to girls. As to why this is so he can’t really say. But whenever he didn’t do what his dad wanted, his dad did that, told him not to Act the girl.
His dad sings, ♪Johnn-eee wants a d-oo-oo-ll for his biii-ir-thday!♫
What is he to do?
He can’t swim.
And his dad is driving him crazy.
His dad will catch him, of course, but by then water will be up his nose. Maybe he’ll even choke, and then he’ll take off for heaven above. Get planted in the ground in a box, like his granddad, then climb out of the box, somehow, and fly up to heaven, somewhere past clouds and even stars.
Everybody says heaven is a mighty fine place, a good place to spend an afternoon or forever. But do little boys who don’t listen to their dads get there? According to his Sunday school teacher, Miss Molly McGee, they surely didn’t.
He looks at the distance across the slippery sparkling blue between himself and his dad.
It looks too far.
He wants to be a man, and not a sissy.
But this is simply too far, a jump too long.
His dad moves closer, closing the gap between them.
‘Hey, little sissy,’ his dad slaps surface water at him with the flat of his hand, ‘you want a dress for Christmas, and a nice soft little pink pants with pink ribbons like Julie?’
Julie, his cousin. Julie’s mom and his mom are sisters, born the same day even.
When his dad speaks of giving him a nice soft little pants with pink ribbons, like his cousin Julie, John has a rush of many, many things to his brain. Confusing him completely.
Suddenly, Has to jump.
So he jumps.
And in the air, he sees his dad back away!
Back away!
He feels he is in the air forever.
Feels his heart go mad.
He hears a big splash, more like a roar in his ears.
Water collapses, he sees the sides of the swimming pool under the water, and he tastes water before it rushes through his nose and mouth.
He beats his hands and kicks his legs wildly under the water which carries on going to pieces and giving him nothing to hold onto. Just breaks up, melts in his hands.
Where is his dad?
Is he, John, already on his way to heaven?
He tries to thrash closer to his dad, but he is stuck in something that is always slipping out of his hands, forever coming apart.
Then he tries to catch a breath, and this becomes the very worst thing he has ever done in his life. By far, far the worst thing ever in his little life.
Is this the way to heaven? His Sunday school teacher told them often that the road to heaven was filled with pain.
He chokes on the swimming pool water. He thrashes about wildly, choking, feeling his feet slip and slide across the bottom of the pool, crabbing, feet dying slowly under him.
He thinks he has reached his dad.
Oh thank you, God!
But, amazingly! Terribly! Horribly! Terribly terrible and horribly horrible, as he grabs his dad, his dad seems to push him off. His own dad!
He chokes and thinks his heart is breaking up.
It is very horrible, the horriblest time of his little life, his terriblest time ever. By very, very far.
He thinks he is seeing red and black.
Hell!
Hell is a black, black place with big red fires...He sees them.

Later, when his dad has pumped the water out of him—he comes around with his dad pumping his chest—he lies at the side of the swimming pool, a hot pain in his heart and lungs. The pain gets hotter each time he breathes.
For a long time, he doesn’t know how long, he lies on the side of the pool, shaking and crying. Also, he is knocked silly. Shocked and knocked silly. Doesn’t begin to know what’s going on, what to make of anything at all.
‘Quit that crying.’
John whimpers.
‘Quit that!’
He feels his teeth chatter. His little boy body shakes. He tries to control himself, and can’t. He keeps wondering why his own dad did this to him.
Why? His own dad.

Later, when he is unable to stand not knowing any longer, he asks. Asks his dad why his dad didn’t help him earlier.
‘I was waiting for you to ask. Took you so long?’
John’s teeth chatter. What is he to say?‘Don’t trust anybody. Never trust anybody. Today you learned not to trust anybody. I taught you a big lesson in that...Not trusting anybody. Remember today and you’ll go far, Johnny boy. You’ll save yourself many times, and you’ll thank me many times for today.’