Maybe during college after a brush against Penn we stood on the Penn dock and held hands. Maybe I had my arm around you to keep you warm, but probably we stood there, shoulder to shoulder, shaking. It was late. It was raining sideways. The wind had come out of nowhere, and the current was driving the novice guys’ four toward the falls.
Both the men’s and women’s crews had brushed that day against Penn. Too long. Too hard. Too many crews trying to get into the dock before dark made the crews more voice than muscle and bone. No lights on the boats. Just the light from inside the boathouse bays and the decorations for tourists, the white lights outlining Boathouse Row. Not much light cast from the open doors showed white caps on the water.
All of the women’s crews were in. Drenched as we were, we ran to meet every crew, grab their oars, run them into the bay, run back and help carry the boat inside. There was no time to do anything but run.
One crew was still out there in the swirling water we could hear. Even the coaches were on the dock, not on the water. The coaches called directions from their megaphones. The cox’n was new, the rowers were novices, and we hoped they didn’t really understand that 750 meters downstream something could kill them. None of the experienced rowers said anything. We knew how cold water strips breath away, wears down the muscles, gives swimmers a moment to wonder if they would be better off dead, should let go, and then the lungs kick in and everything inside craves air. Almost all of us have fallen in at some time. But none of us had dealt with cold water, wind, inexperience, and a fucking waterfall.
Two years later you did.
We stood there on the dock in the Schuylkill with water dripping down our windshirts, between our breasts, soaking into our underwear. We stood there without saying anything, wanting our words to be throw-lines the rowers could grab.
And somehow they rowed against the current, against the wind, and came close enough to the dock that we could grab oars and pull them in. They threw their water bottles and shoes at us so we could get their stuff more quickly. They got one foot up and out, and we grabbed their oars. And the bigger guys grabbed the boat and lifted it up and onto their shoulders, walked it into the house. The novices huddled in the house and dripped and shifted their feet back and forth.
The only time I heard you swear was then.
“Holy shit,” you said.
Maybe we laughed. Maybe we slapped each other on our soggy backs as we walked into the boathouse. I wish I could remember. There’s so much I’m forgetting so fast.