Swimming at the Kroc Center

My first day at the Kroc Center I got punched in the face. The kid was a monster, looked like one with his goggles and cap on, but he was strong, too.

It was a cheap shot, though, because I was worried about getting kicked in the face in front of me when the kid reached over his lane and took a swipe.

I stopped swimming and stared at his black goggles.

He had a friend coming right behind him, a bald-headed little beetle-eyed monster too.

So I let it be.

The next day I went back to the pool and noticed there was a gang of them.

They all lay sprawled around the end five lanes stretching their backs, hundreds of them it seemed, wearing the same skull-capped, swim suited-colors with lean, long shoulders like nails and I was glad I had left it.

At the other end of the pool a group of women circled and kicked their legs under the water.

Then from somewhere music came. It sounded like a war drum, bouncing off the concrete walls. The circle's instructor shouted to the women over the music to kick when each beat struck. The women kicked and kicked.

Then came the shrill shriek of a whistle from the back end of the pool where the gang was.

It sounded like a toddler crying, but with anger, like when it knows mom is ignoring it.

The gang jumped in, the water struck by a thunderstorm.

I like swimming, I do.

I like the feeling you get coming out of the water like when your eyes and ears ache and your skin feels tight over your core like someone had taken the whole suit and removed a piece before stretching it over again.

I waited for a turn outside the middle three lanes. Those were open for us regulars.

Others waited with me.

A man walked ahead of us.

His wife was a good wife, she said, "Honey, but there's aline."

"Anyone can swim," he said, and he was gone in the waves of the lane.

The Kroc has 12,000 members.

I did a story on that once.

'They don't all use the pool," the Kroc's spokesman said at the time.

"I know," I said.

Back at the lane, I saw a friend cut in at the other end. I was waiting for him when he came up on my side.

I said, "there's a protocol, you know."

It caught him off guard. You see that type of behavior in the bars downtown, a guy gets picked on, ignores it only to pick on someone smaller a little later.

I got a spot in a lane and kept my distance from the foot ahead of me.

It kicked me once anyway.

"Sorry," I said.

On the lap back I had to make room and hit the lane divider. I thought it was the kid on the other side, but it didn't hurt so bad, so I went back under.

That's the best part of the water, under, when the pounding goes away.

Then the kiddie pool closed next door.

You hear it close, not by the sound of a door being locked or a switch being shut but by the voices and cat calls railroading through the locker room to the other side.

It looked like a volcano when they came. Floaty tubes, in the air like the antennas of giant insects. Then came cannon balls and screaming.

Wake built.

Women kicked.

Pounding, driving techno music kept thumping and under was no longer any good - lost forever like when your buzz evaporates in Europe and you have to hide in the bathroom or fall asleep in a park or at the tram stop.

I tried a couple more laps, but the same kid from the day before got me again.

He had a whole mess of friends so it would have been stupid to say anything.

You see that downtown too, someone gets brave when they got a mess of friends.

I kept trying, but couples hung around each other's necks at the end of the lanes.

I don't know if any of them were kissing. When you see that downtown you try to look away, too.

But I cut my laps short, started turning around before I reached either end. Guys get brave when girls are around, you know, so it's better not to give them that chance.

That's not just downtown, that's anywhere.

I didn't chance it.

I got out and drove to the lake and put my toes in the water.

It was 59 degrees.

"It's because the winter was so long and cold," someone told me.

Someone's always explaining or starting something.

I jumped out anyway.

It was cold. It hurt a heck of a lot, but I like swimming, I do.

I like to look at my shoulder muscles in the mirror after a good swim like they'd grown. I like that maybe best of all.