I Can’t Swim

by Geno Petro

Chicago Broker Owner Realtor | RE 2.0 Blogger

Author website

I can’t swim; not a lick, stroke or otherwise. I got pulled out of the deep end for the first time when I was 4 years old and then again when I was 14. Both times I saw my quick, up-to-that-point-in-time life, unfold before me as I flailed wildly for help, until finally sinking below surface and fading off into the ether…. Both times I awoke choking up chlorine with a male lifeguard’s mouth on my mouth trying to breath life back into my waterlogged lungs. Both times I was left with the taste of stale cigarettes. I didn’t turn out gay but I did become a smoker soon after the second incident; luck of the draw, I suppose.

I was clocked in the 100 Yard (not meters) Dash under 10 seconds in the same, much younger life, but I never gave anyone reason to save me from myself in that particular venue. I was, unfortunately, forced to run the last leg of a Mile Relay once in high school and hit the asphalt pavement, face first, on the third turn. I had to be escorted off the track and into the infield by the cheerleaders, one of whom I did bum a smoke from, so I suppose the theme continued on in its own way.

I’ve never put on a gymnast’s uniform (okay…maybe once after a heavy night of tequila shooters in Tijuana, circa 1984) so there’s nothing really exciting to report on that Olympic front, either. I don’t do horseback riding, play basketball worth a damn, or participate in soccer, softball, or syncronized anything; men, womens or Soviet Block cross-gender. I don’t do long distance unless it’s covered in my AT&T plan.

I did ride my bicycle 23 miles yesterday morning—but it took me almost 4 hours, well off any competitive pace, so it’s probably not even worth mentioning here. Oh, and I did get into a boxing match of sorts one night with someone who may very well have been a ladies weightlifter from Azerbarijan but that ended in a ‘no decision’ from what I’ve been told. As I vaguely recall, she was making fun of my gymnast uniform. Again, Tijuana and tequila in a previous life.

And if you haven’t gathered as much thus far, I’ve been hunkered down in my TV room watching everything NBC since a week ago last Friday evening. I cancelled my weekend open houses so I could willingly suspend disbelief and imagine myself out-smoking the Jamacians (yeah right) out of the blocks and out-foiling the Frenchmen at their own coup foette, “HAY-laaaah!”

I’ve been letting all requests for showings go straight to voice mail and screening any phone number that doesn’t pop up on my Closest Contact list, People Who Might Die Soon list, or People That Owe Me Money list. When the daily mail arrives, if I don’t think a check is enclosed, I don’t open the envelope. I’ve waited four long years for these games to commence (even lip-syncing along during the Opening Ceremonies) and nothing is going to interrupt the 17 day fantasy that always ends on or around my birthday. This year It will be my 52nd (that’s 13 in Olympic years) and may very well be the best part of that dreaded day.

Oh yeah…someone gave me tickets to see Tony Bennett Saturday evening; so much for the Womens Volleyball Gold Medal Match with iced tea in hand and old dog at foot. All I can say is he better sing ‘Fly me to the Moon’ the way it sounds on the radio (like I said, I’m turning 52…iced tea, radio, oh my God…).

“I thought you loved Tony Bennett,” asked my lovely wife, Mona, after she noticed my lack of glee. Actually, she is the ‘someone’ who gave me the tickets.

“No. I love Frank Sinatra,” I tell her. “Tony Bennett is hardly in the same league.”

“Yeah, well Frank Sinatra is dead,” she says. “…and Ticketmaster doesn’t do dead.”

“Fine. As long as I don’t have to drive.”

“Fine.”

Great. Now she’s mad at me, too. You see, I get grumpy during the Summer Olympics; Winter too, for that matter. Every two years I come face-to-face with all the effort I didn’t exert over the last several decades; all the training I didn’t do; all of the medals I didn’t win—will never win.

I go down into the basement to look for my high school scrap book to prove…I don’t know…to my wife, to myself, to the universe…that I did perform at a competitive level at one juncture in this life. After an hour of wading through dim memories in dimmer light I finally locate the yellowed newspaper clipping I was searching for: Charlotte Observer Saturday May 25, 1974: 100 Yard Dash/10.2 seconds/Petro/Myers Park. I also find a faded picture of myself ponytailed, smoking a Camel in my track suit, flipping off the camera. I stare at the old leather bound book in wonderment, ‘Where’s my 9.9′?’ I call upstairs….

“Mona!. Where’s my nine nine?”

“Your what?”

“My nine nine. The page in my scrap book that has the record.”

“What record?”

“My high school Meet record,” I say.

“Meet record ? You can’t swim….”

“Not swimming,” I begin.

“…Every time you jump into the water some man has to jump in after you…”

And all at once, in one single hundreth of a second, I turn it all over. It’s not about the past, or records, or even personal bests. I finally conclude that at the very least, it’s probably about the commercials. At age 52 all I can hope for is to leave this life a responsible consumer (if not competitor), driving a Lexus off the Grand Canyon, or a Chevy pick-up truck into the dirt, or an Audi anywhere.

If I ever decide to drink again it will only be Budweiser (not tequila, thank you anyway) because hell, ‘it is beer.’ I make vows to never again waste my roll-over minutes and to forever stay at the Hilton Family of Hotels. (I will not, however, seek nourishment at McDonalds or fly United unless I’m starving to death and no Greyhound buses are available.) And finally, even though I haven’t touched one for several years now, I will never again taste a cigarette although if a smoker has to jump into a swimming pool to save me again, you probably won’t hear me complain. Unless of course, it’s menthol.