Full Circle

Manny

Cocaine and ecstasy are Manny's favourites. Combined, they are a holy
alliance that pushes him to limits that he could never envisage being
straight. Manny is a chemical rollercoaster rider.

Waves of adrenaline and endorphin crash his cerebral shore in turn,
reinforcing and complimenting the next. Fuck he feels good, locked into
himself; he's a big skin bag of power. He's done some crazy shit
before; but this?

Right now Manny's halfway in his journey to the twenty metre board at
the city baths. The lights are off; he broke in using a key retained
from his summer job here as a pool attendant. Sweet memories of the
budding teens, self conscious and shiny exposed to his umpire gaze.
Manny has never done the twenty metre, certainly not in the dark. In a
way the dark has helped him get this far.

Climbing the aluminium ladder to the stage minus an audience, he is
vaguely aware that this vertical jaunt is his solitary right of passage
in contrast to his peers. He stops halfway and wonders whether the
drugs are helping or hindering him. Helping, definitely. Manny looks
back over his naked shoulder at the city beyond his reflection in the
huge glass windows. The city never seemed less symbolic. Manny makes
perfect sense to himself; he is the symbol of this city.

A small stumble as he finds his feet on the chill concrete platform.
An uncontrollable smile at his own decisiveness and capacity for untold
mischief unfurls across his handsome jaw. He lived through the incident
with the crane, the swim to the island, the car surfing and not to
mention the escape from Marseilles. "Leave him." His father would say
to his despairing mother as he lurched in from another shellshocking
night of cheap thrills and epithelial shaves. "The young have too many
brain cells to be going on with as it is. Why do you think they're
driven to destroy them?"

As mischief goes, Manny regards this as a feat rather than a stunt.
He's about to make this happen. This didn't just present itself as a
opportunity like the other things. Manny stands on the edge twenty
metres above his destiny. This is what he came to see, his own
reflection in the dark pool below. His overhanging toes waggle in the
fresh air and a silent breeze skirts his nostrils inducing a welcome
but unexpected rush. Manny forces his arms out to the side and takes
one final determined deep breath.

Rebecca

I barely have enough breath to force back into him. It took me ten
minutes to get Manny out of the water. I'm not strong in the ways that
count right now. I'm not as strong as Manny. I mean he's crazy. Speak
to anyone, they'll tell you. It's not like he has a death wish, perhaps
he does. I don't know.

It's funny when you read a book or see a film where the story goes full
circle. There's a sense of satisfaction that everything in the world
has revolved to a point where it stops so you can start again. Six
months ago I started again and fell in love with Manny. The only
circles I had eyes for were the swimming goggles that hung around his
muscular neck and his beautifully symmetrical nipples stamped on his
smooth chest.

Twice a week became three times a week soon after I saw him. I spent so
long in the pool that my fingernails were bleached by the chlorine and
my hair was as dry as old rags. There was no doubt that he had noticed
me. I didn't even do a great deal of swimming and as I floated idly by
dreaming of him holding me in the water like a baby, he'd smile and
look the other way. One day I followed his gaze.

At the end of his rainbow were a gaggle of older girls, slim as they
were attractive. Rarely were they in the water, only to heave
themselves out after an occasional dive from the lower platforms. The
elegant seal skins cut through the blue like darts and I knew instantly
that I was a pup amongst lions.

Before I'd begun to think of the danger involved, I was up on the
twenty metre board with barely enough strength to walk to the
precipice. Now that I think about it, I guess it wasn't about showing
Manny I was crazy too; I barely knew him then. It was a child's
response to healthy competition. The next thing I remember with clarity
was coughing and spluttering into the face of my angel Manny. I had
been knocked unconscious by my inelegant splash. As it turned out Manny
had been impressed by my stupidity.
"'Becca, you are fucking whacked girl, that was so, so crazy." He'd
learnt my name and at the time that was somehow more important than the
fact that he'd saved my life.

Saving someone's life will always come between two people like an
unbearable pressure in a blocked pipe. Gratitude is never enough, the
expectation is too weighty, the debt hugely exponential. "It was
nothing," soon comes to mean everything. The rescue becomes the only
precise definition of what there is between you both. I wouldn't be
here if it hadn't been for you. You continue to hang around because you
owe something that you can never quite repay.

Now I have the perfect opportunity to write off my debt but there is
no-one here to cash my cheque. Manny has been unconscious for twenty
minutes and I can feel that there are only a few degrees left to turn.
There is no word to describe a circle that finds itself incomplete.