Walking on Water

by Dwayne Phillips

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The first time I saw him walk on water was when we were both five years old. We were splashing about as little boys do in a simple water tank his grandfather used to water his cattle. The tank was maybe ten feet in diameter with small wooden platforms on each side.

He would run across the surface of the water barely wetting his toes.

At first I thought it silly of him to do so. The purpose of playing in the water tank was to get wet and cool down on the hot summer day. Why would he glide along the surface and stay dry and hot? He seemed to be having fun running back and forth across the surface of the water, so I tried. I leaned forward and charged across only to fall face down into the water. I must have done something wrong, so I tried several more times with the same predictable result.

He laughed at me as he stood on the surface of the water in the center of the tank. I walked to him, with my feet on the floor of the tank, and grabbed his legs to pull him down to my level in the water. I hung onto his legs and lifted mine off the floor of the tank. He didn't sink.

His grandfather put an end to the silliness.

"Hey boy, I told you not to do that when other peoples' around," his grandfather yelled.

That scared him, and he sunk to the bottom like you were supposed to. He hopped out of the water and protested, "But granddad, this isn't peoples, this is a friend."

"Same difference," replied his grandfather. "You stop that, now."

We both giggled and splashed without any more thought that you would expect from five-year-old boys playing in cool water on a hot summer afternoon.

Despite his grandfather's stern voice, he walked on the water every time we played in the tank that summer. Sometimes he would grab my arm and hold me out of the water as he ran in circles on the surface of the water. He would drop me in the water when I least expected it.

"Won't ya' granddad be mad?" I would ask.

"He ain't watchin' now," he would reply. "'Sides, this is fun, ain't it? Why can't you do it, too?"

I wondered about how he could do these things, but I couldn't. I concluded that it was because he lived with his grandfather on a farm. He didn't have a mom and dad like I did and like all the other boys and girls did. He didn't even have a grandma to live with his granddad. That must have been it. I had both a granddad and and grandma. In fact, I had two sets of them—one called my mother funny names and one that called my father funny names. He was lucky I guess to have a magic grandfather on a mgic farm with a magic water tank. All that magic, and the inattentiveness of a small boy, kept me from telling my parents about how he could walk on water and hold me up in the air while he did it.

The summer passed, and we started first grade. The Autumn brought cooler temperatures, and we didn't play in the water tank. The boredom of school and harshness of a teacher telling us what to do all day pushed the pictures of him walking on water into some recess of my mind. School was fun in that it held the promise of play with larger sets of boys and the lure of teasing girls. The months passed.

Winter came with Christmas holiday and a light snow. He and I played in the snow making a man out of the cold, sticky white stuff of dreams. A game of hide and seek perplexed me because he didn't leave any footprints in the snow once it was my turn to track him. I ran into a wooded area knowing that was where he was hidden as where else would a boy hide. I ran about in circles never finding him. He ended the game when he called to me from a perch on a tiny branch in a pine tree.

"Up here," he called.

I strained my neck to look up and find him. "How'd you get up there?" I asked.

"Walked up, how else?" was his answer. "Come on up."

I jumped repeatedly in vain for the lowest branch. "Can't make it," I cried.

He became bored with my hops from the snow and decided to come down to start a new game of sorts. He slid off the branch and, and then I couldn't describe what happened next. He came down to the ground, but he descended slowly, slower than you are supposed to descend. He came down softly, so soft that his shoes didn't sink into the snow. Instead, he stopped when the bottom of his shoes touched the top of the snow.

"Why don't ya' get in the snow?" I asked.

"Don't want to," he said. "Too wet and cold on my feet. I'll just stay on top of it."

"How'd ya' climb that tree?" I asked.

"Like this," he said. He then ran up the side of the tree and sat on a thin branch. The branch didn't bend with his weight. He didn't have any weight as he sat there. He then hopped down or glided down or flew down just like he did before.

I didn't understand. He wasn't on his grandfather's magic farm or in the magic water tank. He still had a magic grandfather, and I concluded with as much conclusion as first grader could muster that having a magic grandfather was enough for a boy.

I didn't tell anyone about his magic.

He hid his magic from all the other boys and girls and teachers and other adults.

Sometimes, however, he would forget. His forgetfulness usually came when we were competing with other boys. He could run faster than everyone else. I knew it was because his feet weren't touching the ground when he ran. At least they weren't touching it as hard as everyone else's feet. And he was clever in how he ran faster than everyone else. He always ran just a little bit faster. He was the fastest runner in first grade, but just half a step. He was the fastest runner in second grade, but just half a step. We hit third grade and were moved to a bigger school with more boys. He was still the fastest runner by just half a step.

In the fifth grade, we went to a county-wide field day in which the schools competed against one another in dodge ball, softball, and running. He was the fastest runner in the county, but by just half a step. In softball, he would hit the ball to the shortstop, but beat the throw to first base by just half a step. He would hit the ball to the left fielder, but stretch a hit into a double by just half a step.

I warned him about showing too much to too many people.

"Watch next time," he whispered to me. "I’m gonna' hit it to right field and run all the way to third base."

"No you won't," I said. "If you do, everyone will know."

"So what?" he spit at me. "I'm gonna' show these guys that we're better than them."

"I know we're better than them," I said. "But if you go too fast, these adults'll call your granddad and all that. Then what's he gonna do?"

That warning stopped him, at least for that day.

The next year brought more competition and more temptation to magic his way through it. We were allowed to play baseball, with a real hardball and uniforms and batting helmets on a real baseball field with a real outfield fence and everything. He ran faster than everyone else, but always beating a throw by just half a step.

One day he forgot himself as he stole second base after the catcher had the ball in his hands. I was "coaching" first base that inning. He beat the throw to the base by just half a step, but he didn't leave any footprints in the base path. I was the only one to notice the lack of prints in the dirt, but I was afraid that others would notice. To cover his non-existent tracks, I signalled time out and ran to second base. I set a world record for the number of steps required to trot between bases to ensure that there were plenty of footprints in the dirt.

"Touch the ground when you run, stupid," I whispered in his ear.

I was summarily ejected from the game for violating every rule of baseball both written and unwritten. "You can't go on the field like that," yelled the umpire. "What's the matter with you?" My mother was embarrassed at the time and furious later when we arrived at home.

Perhaps as thanks for covering his tracks, perhaps because the loneliness of being uniquely talented was too much, he taught me how to walk on water.

“It’s really not that hard,” he said as we met at the old watering tank on his grandfather’s farm. “You just think right.”

None of that made sense. None of his instructions made any sense either. Exasperated with impatience, he grabbed my mind and pulled me up to his level as he stood on the water in the middle of the tank. He elevated me to his level a quarter inch above the surface of the water.

“Do you feel that?” he asked. “Do you feel that little tingle in your brain?”

I responded with a searching silence.

“No,” he said. “Come on. Think. Concentrate. Close your eyes and concentrate until you feel that tingle, that charge in the middle of your head.”

I shrugged and, thinking of how great it would be to run at least half a step faster than everyone else I met, I followed his instructions. There it was. There was a little tingle in my brain.

“Got it now?” he asked.

I nodded slightly. I concentrated on the tingle. I concentrated as I had not concentrated in my life. I opened my eyes and saw that he was sitting on the edge of the tank and I was standing on the surface of the water.

I had it. I could walk on water. I could walk and run above the ground. I could run up the side of a tree and sit on a leaf at the upper reaches of a twig. I could float in air.

Life was now a minute-by-minute challenge. I had to show people what I could do. I had to impress the girls in school who, for some unknown reason, became more impression worthy each day. I couldn’t wait until the summer after next when teenage girls with real curves would wander down to the river beach where guys and girls splashed together. They would really be impressed with how far I could fly off the rope swing. They would really be impressed with how high I could climb in a tree. They would tingle inside when I would hold a hand and lift them up to new heights.

I beat the challenge. I was able to keep my feet and the rest of my body on the ground and obey some law of gravity. I still had the fantasy of impressing everyone, but I kept the mind trick under control. Life was great and going to be better.

Then I lost it. Puberty hit me, and I lost it. I couldn’t find that part in my brain that helped me defy gravity.

Then he lost it. Puberty hit him two weeks later and he couldn’t walk on water or run across the ground without touching it.

Then he found it again. A week of frustration ended when I saw him run up the side of a tree and laugh with each non-step. Once again, he could run across the cattle watering tank and across the river and everything else.

“Okay,” I told him. “Now tell me. Tell me, now that our bodies are growing hair, how to do it again. Tell me what the difference is.”

He refused. “No,” he said. “Not again. I can’t do it again. I can’t chance it.”

Something inside me died. In retrospect, I was heartbroken. My best friend in the world, the one person closer to me than any other, including my parents, had rejected me. He had something that he knew I cherished, but refused to share it with me.

I didn’t talk to him for a month. I couldn’t force myself to act like I had acted since we were five. The world was different, and I had moved out of his sphere.

He came to me.

“I have to talk to you,” he said.

I waited. I waited quietly, but with an expression on my face that screamed hatred.

“I don’t have any friends,” he said. “You are it. You are my only friend in life. You are the only person who knows about this except for my granddad.”

“And so that means…” I hinted with no subtlety or charity.

“I made a mistake earlier,” he said. “I shouldn’t have taught you how to do this earlier.”

“You shouldn’t have?” I groaned. “You taught me a gift. You taught me how to be special. You taught me how to be better than everyone else. You opened a world of chance to me, and you say that was a mistake?”

“Yes,” he answered. “It was wrong. Now you hate me for it. Now you hate me for showing you something special and demanding that I do it again. I can’t punish you like that.”

“Yeah, right, punish,” I said, shooting the “p” in “punish” like a shotgun blast.

“You don’t know,” he said. “You don’t know how hard it is to hide everyday.”

“Like you hide,” I said. “Everyone knows you’re the best, the fastest, the quickest, jump the highest, everything.”

“You have no idea how fast I can be. Nobody does,” he said. “You have no idea how much I have to hide all the time.”

“Sounds like a big problem,” I said with all the sarcasm I could muster.

It was a big problem for him. I scorned him; he hurt and went into hiding. He came to school everyday, but he quit everything. He stopped playing ball. He stopped running races. He stopped going to the river with the beach and the rope swing and the adoring girls.

People shrugged. They had seen this before. A boy hits puberty and drops out. The speed and grace of the boy evaporated when the boy trudged into manhood. There was nothing to see that they had not seen before.

He hid on his grandfather’s farm. There was school, and as soon as the last bell of the day sounded, he was gone. I wasn’t prohibited from visiting the once magic farm, but I wasn’t invited either. I stayed away, found new friends, and life just slipped from day to day.

Middle school came and went. High school came and went. I became a nerd who excelled with grades and looked forward to college and good earnings in the technology world. He disappeared into the gray and beige walls of the school and the dark green seats of the school bus.

I went to college. I don’t know what he did.

I graduated, got a job, a wife, and three kids. I don’t know what he did.

There were days when I wondered about the whole thing. We were little boys, and little boys have big imaginations. I probably invented the whole thing. He and I played about on his grandfather’s farm. We fought the Civil War in the woods. We chased dragons from the rocks in the back corner of the farm. We probably walked on water the same way—in our minds. Yes, it had been the imagination of boys. He couldn’t walk on water and he didn’t teach me how to either. Those magic days were just a part of the magic of being boys in a great big world.

Then I met him again. He called my office and we met for lunch. We didn’t meet in any place where I normally ate lunch. Instead, he picked a place an hour out of town. It was a gas station that had three picnic tables and served fried chicken and solace to farmers.

I arrived early and pulled a Coke from a machine that I thought had disappeared decades earlier. Then he came in. I didn’t recognize him on sight, but knew it was him when he spoke.

“Do you feel that little tingle in your brain?” he asked as he stood in the doorway.

I did feel a tingle. Maybe it was just for a moment. Maybe it was just for a flash in time, but I felt it.

“A couple of chicken dinners,” he said to the wrinkled woman behind the counter who dabbed sweat from her face and her armpits with a faded and torn dish towel.

I didn’t stand, but he sat. We didn’t shake hands or embrace or do anything that childhood friends are supposed to do. He turned a chair backwards and sat facing the table. I once saw a painting (was it a Rockwell or by a bad imitator?) that showed farmers sitting that way around a game of checkers on top of a wooden barrel. Had he become a caricature? Had he assumed the persona of someone that never really existed except in the minds of poets and painters?

“How is your life?” he asked.

I shrugged back from the spoken knife he had slashed in front of me.

“Okay,” I said. “Married, kids, job, all that. I guess I’m pretty good. You? Your grandfather?”

“Dead,” he shrugged. “My granddad is dead, that is. I mean, I’m not dead. My life isn’t over yet.”

I struggled to find something polite or even reasonable to say.

“How do you feel?” he asked. “I mean right now, right this instant.”

I twisted my mouth in a “what kind of dumb question is that” expression. Then my jaw dropped. I wasn’t seated in my chair any longer. From a distance it appeared that I was. My slacks hung a bit from my legs to keep contact with the chair, but I was floating above it. He was floating above his chair as well.

Then we weren’t floating.

“Yeah,” he said. “I can still do it, walk on water and the whole bit. Only…” he stopped.

I gulped. “And only what?”

“We were kids then,” he said. “I was a kid. I did the things that a kid did. Now I’m an adult.”

“And that means something,” I said.

“Yes, it does,” he said.

I rolled my hands giving the and-so-on sign.

“I travel a lot,” he said.

“How does a farmer have time to do that?” I asked. “You are a farmer. I mean you have the look and the…” I covered the inside of the gas station and chicken stand with my rolling eyes. “Farming is a more-than-full-time job as I recall. There isn’t much time to travel. Is there?”

“You’re right about full-time farming,” he said. “I guess I piddle a bit on the farm to keep up appearances. I manage to travel a lot in short periods of time.”

I chuckled. “You talk big,” I said with venom.

“Sorry,” he said.

“For what?” I asked.

“For everything,” he said. “I’m sorry I confided in you when we were five. I’m sorry I caused you to keep a secret from everyone, everywhere, everyday. I’m sorry I taught you how to do what I could do. That was a terrible thing to punish someone with. I’m sorry that I wouldn’t teach you how to do it again.”

I sat quietly. Thankfully, the woman behind the cash register interrupted us by putting styrofoam boxes of fried chicken and gravy-covered mashed potatoes on the dirty table in front of us. I opened my box and swallowed the aroma of fried meat and batter.

“You want to say something?” he asked.

Yes I did, but I didn’t say that. Yes, I wanted to scream at him for ruining my childhood and causing me to wonder about my imagination. And here he was acting like some martyr apologizing for the universe as if he created it. He had the power to ruin and rescue my life. That is why he called me here to humiliate me in front of a sweat-soaked, gas pumping, chicken frying woman next to the cash register. She was probably in on his secret and was getting a scream out of watching him levitate me and tug at my brain.

“Sure do,” I said. “But I don’t know how to put it all.”

“As I said,” he stated. “I travel a lot and I travel quick. I was in Baghdad last week—the Ukraine the week before. I pick up a little spare change on these trips.”

“So I guess you’re a quiet country millionaire or something,” I said.

“Yes, I am,” he replied. “Quite a few times over.”

“Well thanks for saving me from that lifestyle,” I said.

“Let me tell you something,” he said.

“Is this where you play god some more?” I asked.

“If you want to see it that way, you can,” he said.

“Sure do,” I said. “I wouldn’t mind being a millionaire quite a few times over.”

“You love your wife?” he asked.

I nodded yes.

“You love your kids,” he asked.

I didn’t nod that time. I didn’t want to honor his question with any reply.

“I don’t have those people in my life,” he said. “I can’t have them. People would take them hostage and threaten harm if I did.”

I rolled my eyes and took a few bites of fried chicken.

“I run through the air,” he said. “I guess you call it running. Some people call it flying. Some people call it flying fast. If you exit the atmosphere and re-enter, you can go to any spot on the planet in half an hour. That is what adults do if they can walk on water when they’re five.”

I ate my mashed potatoes.

“People pay me for that,” he said. “I mean there are a few people who pay me for that. The farm, my granddad’s farm is where I hide. I’m pretty good at hiding there as I’ve done it since Middle School. You remember Middle School don’t you? I think you had fun there. I think you had fun in High School, too. Didn’t you?”

I shrugged.

“Yes,” he said. “You did. I saw you having fun from the corners of the cafeteria and the window of the school bus. You didn’t ride the school bus in high school, did you? No, you rode in a car with other guys and girls and all that laughing that went on.”

“I’m not feeling sorry for you,” I said.

“I don’t expect any sympathy,” he said. “Consider this, though. What if Michael Jordan had come along sixty years earlier in the 1920s. He would have played in a Negro league and no one would have believed the stories people told about him. If someone had believed it and tried to move him into white leagues, someone would have killed him to stop a Negro from beating whites.”

“So you’re Michael Jordan ahead of your time or something?” I asked.

“Maybe something or someone like that,” he said.

We sat in that gas station for two hours. He talked and I softened.

His grandfather had taught him how to do it—how to walk on water, run up trees, sit in the leaves on the top of trees, and run faster than everyone else. His grandfather taught him when he was two. He was young enough that he didn’t remember being taught. His grandfather had learned it from his grandfather. His grandfather didn’t know if it went back any farther than that.

He was alone now. He had no friends and only had superficial acquaintances. The lady behind the counter who sweated as she sold gas and fried chicken was one of the people closest to him in the world.

“You know, when someone like Michael Jordan can do amazing things,” he said at some point during the two hours. “People applaud. After all, it’s entertaining. Those little jump high and move quick things are confined to a stage that doesn’t hurt anyone. But when someone like me can race across the world and isn’t bound by gravity, well that is different. Someone figures out how to gain a military and political advantage. Then those people who don’t like that someone figure it out as well. You have to hide, and I don’t mean hide the ability to levitate from teenage girls. I mean you have to hide yourself from everyone who can harm anyone near you.”

I didn’t say much in response.

“That is why I asked you to come here,” he said. “No one knows this place. This lady here, and I call her a lady for a reason, for an honorable reason, is trustworthy. She values trust and people more than money and power and everything that most people in this world value. I didn’t want to put you and your family in danger. That is why this is it.”

“This is what?” I asked.

“This is it. This is the last time we will ever meet. I won’t get to see the woman who cherishes you. I won’t get to see how your kids carry the same eyes, the same expressions that you carried as a kid. I won’t see in them the same thing I saw in you when we were kids,” he concluded.

He stood. Our styrofoam boxes lifted themselves from the dirty table and floated across to the trash can.

“Yeah,” he said. “I can do that, too.”

We went outside the garage to where my car and his rusted pickup truck were parked.

“Notice the dirt?” he asked.

I looked at the ground and saw two pair of footprints leading from the gas station door to where we were standing.

“I’m better at this than I used to be,” he said. “And I’m well grounded in transportation as well.”

He climbed into his pickup truck. The truck’s door creaked and the suspension groaned as he pulled away towards his grandfather’s magic farm.

No one can walk on water. That is just something in the imagination of little boys who escape the heat of summer afternoons by splashing about in small tanks where grandfathers water cattle.

The End