Free Swimmer in the Secret Sea by William Kotzwinkle Page B

camp for American sports fell back into darkness. The villagers had thought of Laski and his wife as sports, with no visible means of support, until it was learned they were artists. Never having had such strange creatures around, except for old Coleman Johns, the mad inventor who had built his own automatic milking machine and promised to make a trip to the moon with a magnet in his pants, the country people left the Laskis alone. There was some talk that Laski, with his thick beard and wire glasses, resembled old Coleman enough to be his twin brother. Whenever Laski drove past the ruined foundation that had once been Coleman's home, he was overtaken by a strange nostalgia, as if he and the mad inventor had shared the same vision of this vast land, which made men build strange objects beneath the moon.
    Laski's sculpture was certainly odd. Likenesses of Diane filled the forest, her strangely beautiful face gradually appearing on tree stumps or on rocks. Old dead trees with gray bare branches had become Diane dancing, like a priestess of the wood. Eventually the ceaseless weaving of the weeds had made gowns of green for the statues, bright berry beads and buttons entwining the arms and legs, marking them as part of the endless dream of the deep pines.
    'The contractions are ten minutes apart.'
    Laski laid a firmer foot on the gas pedal. Baby's in a hurry.
    A ghostly light flashed ahead of Laski, leaping out of the darkness of the country graveyard where Coleman Johns lay buried and where Laski's headlights had caught the top of an old tombstone. The truck wheels spun on the turn, rear end lashing like a tail before coming straight again. Then darkness claimed the graveyard once more and the road was again lined by heavy forest.
    'Maternity?' smiled the receptionist. 'Do you have your papers with you?'
    Diane took them out of her purse. An orderly came across the waiting room with a wheelchair and Dianne sat down in it, still wearing her shaggy forest coat. Laski looked at the receptionist.
    `The orderly will take her up and you can follow in just a few minutes, sir. I have some papers for you to fill out.'
    Laski touched Diane's hand, and she looked at him, smiling but distant, as the orderly turned the chair and wheeled her off.
    The receptionist put a form into her typewriter and asked Laski questions about age, address, insurance—lifeless items holding him in his chair.
    A drunken young man, face cut and swollen, swaggered into the waiting room. Glassy-eyed, he approached the desk. The receptionist looked up. 'If you'll have a seat, please,' she said coldly.
    The young man leaned on the desk, but the receptionist ignored him, even though he was bleeding from a wound over his eye.
    Laski looked into the young man's eyes, expecting hostility. He found a frightened child making brave. The nurses will give him a hard time, thought Laski. Then the doctor will stitch him and he'll be turned back out into the night. But he was once the baby on the way and everybody rallied around him. The great moment was once his.
    An older man entered the waiting room and looked around for a moment, until his eye caught the young man's figure. He came over slowly, his walk and manner similar to the young man's.
    'What happened?'
    'Nothing much,' said the young man, striking a con-fident pose.
    'I haven't seen you for awhile.'
    'I've been around.'
    'You interested in working?'
    'Yeah, sure.'
    'You can go to work tomorrow.'
    'Oh no,' said the young man, shaking his head and touching his bruises. 'I can't do anything tomorrow.'
    The papers were completed. The orderly returned and Laski followed him down the hallway to an elevator. They rode together in silence, to the floor marked MATERNITY . The hall held a couch and two leather chairs. Beyond it was a door marked DELIVERY-NO ADMITTANCE .
    The orderly walked away. Laski sat down. This is where all the fathers wait. He stood, and walked slowly up and down. Now I'm pacing the floor like an