#50 Norman

I locked the car and began walking across the parking lot towards the aquatics center. The sun was beating down on me and it made the prospect of swimming seem a little less unappealing. Six years of lap swimming had taken their toll on my enthusiasm.

I continued through the parking lot, willing myself onward. As I walked, I unzipped my duffel bag and removed my half-consumed bottle of Aquafina. It seemed ironic, to me, that I could casually consume a substance that would only minutes from now be trying to choke me. "Become one with the water" I muttered under my breath. I chuckled as I was reminded of something that Jeff had said.

As I stepped over a parking block, I was startled by the screeching of tires on the asphalt behind me. I turned sharply just in time to see the dirty, beat-up, bumper-sticker-plastered, Chevy Metro squeal into a parking space that I had occupied only a split second earlier. "Norman!" I exclaimed in a disgusted tone. "Damn that son of a bitch." My pulse quickened , as did my pace. I reached the glass doors and was halfway across the lobby floor before Greg reminded me that I had to sign in. Greg laughed at me. "Norm's not out there is he?" he asked with a smirk on his face. I scrawled my signature across the sign-in sheet and hurried off to the locker room. I would be safe there.

Norm, despite his morbid obesity, had an exceptionally small penis and he always wore his bathing suit under his clothes so that he could avoid the locker room. He was a short, pasty-white, fat guy with a thick dark 'fro, beady eyes, and an over-abundance of body hair. I was pretty sure that he was the type of guy who was a level ten dungeon master with a hopeless porn addiction, and an affinity for homemade up-skirt voyeurism videos. He probably laid around at home, naked, in a pile of fried chicken, eating, and burping-the-worm to pre-recorded Girls Gone Wild commercials.

To be perfectly honest, I had absolutely no factual evidence on which to base my evaluations and speculations regarding Norm's private life. However, I had always considered myself to be an astute judge of character and I was reasonably confident with my speculations. I only knew his name because he had signed the sign-in sheet before me a couple of times. There was, however, an abundance of justification for my hatred.

It all began four years earlier. The pool was crowded and I had been forced to share a lane with Norm. It was clearly Norm's first day and I had been confident that he would prove to be nothing more than just another New-Years-resolution loser. I, on the other hand, was a honed athlete. Years of swimming had developed my endurance. I could swim up to four miles non-stop. My stroke was flawless. I swam freestyle, breathing every three strokes, and flip-turning at the end of each length. I had great pride in my aquatic maneuvering prowess. Obviously, I had to pace myself in order to successfully swim such great distances. Norm, however, was oblivious to this fact.

He would wait for me at the end of the lane and as I went into my flip-turn, he would push off of the side and flail about as he performed what I assume he thought was the butterfly. He would beat me to the other side by about a yard, drag his fat ass halfway out of the water, lie there wheezing and gasping, and still manage to display a snide triumphant look on his face. I could tell that he was one of those ultra-competitive egomaniacs. Norm would swim maybe five laps like this and when I finally finished my mile, he would be there waiting for me with that look on his face. That look that said "Hey, dude, I can kick your ass and I haven't been swimming nearly as long as you, you speedo-wearing faggot."

Nothing had changed over the last four years. Much to my dismay, Norm became a regular at the pool. He always managed to secure a lane next to mine, and his mere five laps of flailing "Norm Stroke", as I began calling it, were as pathetic and unathletic as they were on the first day. I was always greeted after my swim by his smug countenance which bore his trademark your-welcome-for-the-ass-whipping smirk.

I'm not completely sure why it had never occurred to me before. Perhaps, subconsciously, I had always considered it a waste of time. For some reason, though, on this particular day it seemed to be the logical thing to do. Today I would swim sprints. I would not swim my usual mile. I would fly through the water like a greased torpedo, Norm would choke on my wake, and I, not he, would don the victory smirk.

I strolled out onto the deck and approached my usual lane. The flopping of Norm's man boobs echoed across the pool as he waddled along behind me. Norm had extraordinarily disturbing nipples, the fat juicy kind that made you think about doing bizarre things like clipping jumper cables to them. Yuck! A chill went down my spine as I allowed myself to contemplate the extensive magnitude of Norm's nastiness.

I paused, adjusted my goggles, and plunged feet-first into the water. I loved being the first one in. The tranquility was soothing. The sound of bubbles and the faint and distant clicking and humming of the filtration system welcomed me into the depths. I exhaled, letting myself sink to the bottom. For a moment, I was weightless, I was free, I was happy. There were no deadlines here, no mortgages, no alimonies. I felt as if I had returned to the womb...

My trance was brutally violated by the tremendous roar of Norm's colossal girth raping the surface. I looked up at him. His WWF swimming trunks were bloated with air and the pockets had ballooned outward and were flapping about in the bubbles like the pectoral fins of a killer whale. The fogging lenses of those cheap K-mart goggles did little to conceal the beady eyes that stared down at me over that beefy triple chin. Norm looked like Baron Harkonnan as he floated there. Fat was Norm's only ally in the battle against drowning.

I pushed off of the bottom, performed a sharp dolphin kick, and shot gracefully to the surface. Norm had already curled his pudgy legs up beneath him and planted his feet against the side of the pool. I took one deep breath and followed suit. The sheer explosiveness of my start must have come as a shock to Norm, who had grown used to my typically relaxed starts. I surged forward, allowing myself to streamline just below the surface. Norm was history. I could hear him thrashing around behind me. My visions of ultimate victory were premature, though; for what would transpire there in the following strokes of that ill-fated competition, would forever alter my perception of Murphy's Law.

It was the single most horrific cramp that I have ever experienced. I was halted mid-stroke as my right leg folded up behind me. A stream of bubbles accompanied my muffled scream as it erupted from my mouth. I foundered there, temporarily paralyzed in my agony and able only to float face-down with my mouth wide open like a stunned catfish. The lane-rope bobbed up and down chaotically in the frothy turbulence as Norm passed me. I couldn't let this happen. The throbbing cramp seemed trivial as I contemplated the ramifications of defeat. I swallowed hard and began pulling with my arms and kicking with my left leg. I edged forward, propelled by a stroke that was nearly as spastic as Norm's. I labored valiantly to regain the lead and, though I was gaining steadily on Norm, I knew that there was not enough time to close the gap.

Mysteriously enough, the cramp released me from its malevolent clutches at the exact second that Norm reached the opposite side. The cramp had drained me and I barely had the strength to drag myself out of the pool. I lay there on my back, gasping, and staring up at the girders above.

Theretofore, Norm and I had never exchanged words. Body language had been sufficient. Norm's voice was just as I had imagined it. It was deep and scratchy and it had an arrogant tone to it. "Ya know, ya swam pretty good there, pal" he said sarcastically. "Ya did ril good there at tha beginnin'. I recon ya need to work on yer endurance, though" he said.

The words seemed to roll off of his tongue in slow motion as he sat there with that smug grin. The lyrics to one of my favorite songs began to play in my head...faint at first and then louder. I could see Norm's mouth moving but I could no longer hear him. All that I could hear was Chet Thrasher's demonic voice screaming in my head. "Kill! Kill! Kill! Take what you desire!" Chet screamed as the stratocaster blared away.

I sat up abruptly and took a swing at Norm. The blow failed to connect. Norm leapt to his feet and began bouncing up and down with his fists up. His breasts flopped rhythmically, spawning enormous waves of lard that propagated down his gut. "C'mon, let's do it, bitch" he growled. "Want some git some. Bad 'nuff, take some!" he snarled. I tried to stand and as I did so, I was met by a gut wrenching kick in the ribs. I collapsed onto the cold tiles and looked up just in time to see Norm closing in for another kick. He never got the second kick off. An expression of shock replaced his sadistic grin as he was gang-tackled by a mountain of police officers.

"Sir, are you alright?" the police officer's voice was muffled and distant as I sat there with my mouth hanging open. I watched as several police officers dragged Norm away. It would be several moments before I would manage to regain my composure.

I never saw Norm again and I found out later that afternoon that he was wanted in eight states for the production of illegal up-skirt voyeurism videos along with three counts of goat sodomy. His arrest, however, had been for the murder of a coworker whom he had stabbed in the face with a bovine rectal thermometer earlier that day.