A Brave Man Seven Storeys Tall (20 page)

—And how far do you take this?

—All the way. As far as I'm concerned, Aristotle's three laws of thought are only a useful approximation and should be torn down.

—Ah. I get it. That's why you were so insistent that we see this game against Serbia and Montenegro, a plural singular. You wanted me to make the connection myself.

—That was a coincidence. We're here for my son, Owen.

—You said he was an athlete. In water polo?

—Yes.

—Will he be here today?

—That's my hope.

—Your hope. I suppose I don't need to ask why you lost touch. There's only ever one reason.

Burr faced Baudrillard and waited for the full explanation.

—Men in our profession don't have less-stubborn children. Ever. You said before that he
was
an athlete. Is he now a trainer or a coach?

—He's only twenty-two years old. He had a horrible injury in November. The plan had always been for him to anchor the US team in Athens in 2004, then Beijing in 2008, then give up water polo entirely and focus on his real life. He surprised everyone by making the Sydney roster at just eighteen. But this was supposed to be his year.

Baudrillard looked at Burr critically, wondering how an Olympic physique could have emerged from this slightly pearish form.

—His bags were more or less packed for the training facility in Colorado Springs when in his final collegiate game, in a horrible instance of brutality, an opposing player punctured his eye, rupturing it instantly. He had surgery and then basically disappeared.

—How basically?

—Totally. No one has heard from him in six months. I asked everyone at his school. I even hired a consultant to tell me how to proceed. This is the only place we could guess that he would be.

—Then I suppose we have to find tickets. Let me handle it—scalpers are my people.

Burr didn't want to get arrested on the eve of his talk, but he could easily picture Gaskin's pleased reaction to the page-five story: N
OTED
I
NTELLECTUALS
A
RRESTED IN
T
ICKET
S
CALPING
S
CANDAL.

Baudrillard took the lead:

—I can't see anyone but cops. The Metro is always a safe bet for contraband. Scalpers. You have to take your hat off to whoever neutered a term for state-sponsored genocide.

Burr hesitated, then finally asked a question:

—So you're a Marxist?

—Recovering post-Marxist, maybe. I went to rehab in the early eighties. You're never fully recovered. But the last thing I want to do today is talk theory. We'll save all that for tomorrow.

Burr understood the playful reproach, but had no idea how Baudrillard sounded so much more authoritative just by putting a
post
in front of something. The problem with Burr's background in classics was that he always used
pre
and rarely
post
.

He repeated the observation to Baudrillard.

—My goal is always to be ahead. Working-class origins kept me from ever having academic ambitions. Keep your university; to me it's just a factory. All I want is to be ahead until I die. Actually, to be so far ahead that I have to say, “
Putain
, I forgot to die!”

They swam against the current of painted-belly tourists. Plastic whistles of neon pink blasted over the calm conductor calls of the departing train. After they'd made it halfway down the stairs, the crowd began to drive them back to the light. Baudrillard knifed his shoulder forward and Burr followed. They trod over feet until they were past the crowd.

Only two types of people remained in the station after the surge had passed: young people in concentric rings, heads resting on thighs, feet touching feet, and thumbs either holding open paperbacks or rolling up Zig-Zag papers; or mid-thirties men in Hugo Boss jackets with fanny packs worn low and facing front like nylon codpieces.

Burr made eye contact with one of the scalpers, which was enough for the man to briskly walk over.

—Two for water polo, please.

Both Baudrillard and the scalper laughed at Burr's succinctness.

—Track and field, yes. Got tickets to everything. Empty stadiums. You name it. Hundred-meter-hurdle final ticket will cost you a hundred bucks apiece, face price is two hundred. Basketball is three fifty for the pair . . .

Baudrillard took over the negotiations.

—Can you help us with water polo or not? The game is in an hour. USA–Serbia.

The scalper asked another young man with a fanny pack, who, after texting a friend, shook his head.

They returned to the afternoon glare, empty hands shading their eyes. Burr was puzzled at how the scalpers could make a profit selling tickets below face value.

—Are we sure those tickets aren't fake?

—The scalpers get most of their inventory from no-shows in tourist groups. Which is a fantastic idea, actually. Let's cut out the middleman, as they say.

Baudrillard led them to a nearby parking lot with monstrous tour buses of silver, blue, and white. A flamingo-pink bus passed two sky-blue buses, a sideways sunset as it slowly rolled to the curb. Baudrillard waited by the door, offering a hand when the tour operator alighted. As the passengers stretched and snapped pictures, Baudrillard glanced through a schedule on the operator's clipboard. He returned, shaking his head.

—Danes. Unless you think your son has a newfound interest in handball, I suggest we look elsewhere.

Before he could finish, Burr was at the steps of a green and red bus apologizing for his Italian.

Baudrillard smiled from the sidelines, tamping his hand-rolled cigarette on his left wrist.

Burr held up two oversize tickets, their silver holograms a green flash in the sun.

A
ny man wearing a shirt was overdressed. Baudrillard, who was sitting on his jacket and had now rolled up his sleeves, looked more the part than Burr in his linen suit. The game was still fifteen minutes from starting, but the crowd was already chanting. The Slavs seemed disappointed that the American fans wouldn't engage in friendly banter. Instead, the former Yugoslavians contented themselves with heckling the citizens of other Balkan nations who hadn't been able to get a better ticket than the USA game.

—Did you sit us on this side because you think I'll root against America?

—No, that's all the guy had. And this way I can see the whole US contingent and look for a parent who could help me find my lost son.

The phrase
my lost son
hung in the air.

—Excuse me. I see a guy I know. I'm going to ask him if he's seen or heard anything.

Burr apologized to the dozen fans he filed past, circled around to the USA stands, and climbed to the top rails, attentive as a concession vendor. On his descent, he found one father, himself an Olympian. He was confused by Burr's gesture, which looked like he was asking the man to roll down the window. The father finally stood, commanding a wave of interceding fans to stand, and walked to the aisle without taking his eyes from the US squad firing balls into goalposts and passing back and forth with a dizzying pace.

Screeching bagpipes accompanied some sort of rap music on the PA. To talk over the music, which was exhorting the fans to jump around, was nearly impossible. Burr motioned for the father to lean down and yelled in the man's ear:

—Have you seen Owen?

Now the father appeared to recognize Burr. His tight jaw loosened and he clapped Burr on the arm.

—How's he doing? Is he here?

—Well . . . yes. Somewhere. I just lost him. Have you seen him around?

—Afraid not. Wish him my best. It was a real loss to the team . . .

The second chorus began quickly after the first. This time fans were actually jumping. Burr nodded like a bobblehead doll, and the Olympian father smiled and rejoined his family.

Burr walked back to Baudrillard, defeated. Baudrillard, loath to talk theory off the clock, tried to lift the mood.

—Who was that guy? Is he competing?

—He could be.

—We're in the belly of the beast. I never feel comfortable at these things. The experience is so fascist. We are so far removed from the field of play that the athletes are no more than their fascia.

It took Burr a moment, but he processed the comment and became animated; a real theorist was engaging him as an equal.

—There's an important performative difference with water polo: you and I cannot, nor could we ever, compete in even a rudimentary fashion.

Baudrillard smiled.

—I swim quite well.

—With all due respect, I doubt you could tread water while a hundred-kilo man tries to drown you. I know I can't do it. I have enough trouble just floating.

—You're proving the hyperreality of ritualized combat. Most sports begin as a mutation from something that once existed. Unlike football, a sport that historians argue is a simulation of kicking the decapitated head of a Danish prince through town, this sport is a simulacrum. Grown men swimming around and throwing a ball into a net is symbolic of nothing. It lacks a referent. Water polo is perfect. I can't imagine a sport with less of a link to reality.

—Athletes represent nations.

—You're assuming nations exist, which is clearly wrongheaded when watching Serbia and Montenegro. Did your son ever seem to represent anything?

—He didn't appear to think much about it. His movements seemed compelled.

—Narcissus was compelled.

—Narcissus was impelled. The desire came from within.

Burr still said things like this involuntarily. He kicked himself for it. He kept making mistakes. Now that he was inside the Olympic venue, he realized how wrongheaded he'd been to bring them here in the first place: if Owen had any attachment to the team, or competition more broadly, then he would find it impossible to look on as a spectator. Even Burr felt the tension to do something, to compete. Baudrillard, however, looked bored to tears.

—We can leave if you like.

—Absolutely not. Friendship would be so much simpler if people understood that criticism, for me, is rarely a condemnation.

The teams finished their warm-ups and then huddled around their coaches. The American coach, in a polo shirt, clapped and exuded calm. The Serbian coach, in safari khaki, kept one finger pointed at the pool and hammered down his arm until every player knew that nothing short of total dominance would be tolerated.

Seven men on two sides lined on their respective goal lines. They drove their legs in eggbeater kicks, waiting for the referee's inhale, not his actual whistle, to crash toward the midline, led by a sprinter bearing down on his opposite number.

Each of these sprinters could have been swimming in the fifty-meter final with a slightly different training regimen and a radically different attitude toward violence. At this level, the best swimmer on each team is very close to the limit of human performance. As a result, the race for that yellow Mikasa ball floating in the middle of the pool is always tied for the first thirteen meters. It's the final two meters that dictate who wins the tip-off. The winner is he who swims harder at the charging player—imagine running toward a brick wall and accelerating right before impact.

Burr, who knew what was coming, was mesmerized by the obliviousness of that yellow Mikasa ball, caught in the middle of two arrowing forces: >•<

The water rose slightly over the sprinters' caps and fell off in a great trough behind the advancing V. Both sides met in-phase and swelled a meter over the pool's edge. The USA sprinter timed his last stroke perfectly and tipped the ball back to his side, simultaneously turning his back to the Serb and crashing into him.

The crowd roared, not for the players, not for the result, but for the sheer spectacle of colliding waves. Baudrillard applauded.

—Beautiful.

Burr thought of responding with a line from Book 20 of the
Iliad
, the crash of conflict as Achilles reenters the fray, but bit his tongue and clapped. His companion had in one word absolved him of decades of shame at feeling the beauty of sport.

—That's going to be tough to top, Baudrillard continued. It's like beginning a symphony with a crescendo. Like . . .

—Like . . .

—I'm glad neither of us knows the first thing about classical music! I've always had an allergy to high culture.

The Serbian hole defender kneaded the points of both elbows into the trapezius of the USA hole man. He kept both hands palm open and faced the ref, showing that he wasn't fouling even though the American was thrashing about. A wet entry pass came from the wing. The Serb leapt for the ball and was whistled for a foul. After a kick-out pass the fight resumed.

—Total disregard for the whistle, apparently.

—I've watched this dozens of times, and I can't tell you a thing about the fouls.

—They can't touch the bottom?

—It's ten feet deep.

—They're like centaurs. The boundary of the water creates a doubling of distance between spectator and athlete. It is a skin that we cannot . . .

Burr couldn't keep his eyes off the bench. He tried to compare the grown versions of these players to the teenage versions he had seen on the junior national team. Come to think of it, that was the last game he had seen. The only player who might recognize him was Wolf Wigo, who was always at the center of the action in the pool. Burr was startled by the roar that swept over his section at a Serbian goal. The head coach gritted his teeth, looked at the clock, then looked at the stands.

—If I look too closely there—

Baudrillard pointed to the spot just before the goal.

—I get vertigo.

—It's called the hole.

—Fitting as a locus of disappearance.

It certainly was for Owen, Burr thought.

The first quarter ended, giving them a moment to talk.