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Back Wild Swims Save as PDF
Chapters (21)
  1. Praise
  2. Title Page
  3. Dedication
  4. CONTENTS
  5. IN A DEER STAND
  6. SUN DOGS
  7. HYGGE
  8. BY SYDVEST STATION
  9. BETWEEN OFFICES
  10. THE FAIRGROUND
  11. COMPACTION BIRDS
  12. PERSHING SQUARE
  13. HONEYSUCKLE
  14. ON NARROW PAVED PATHS
  15. INSIDE ST. PAUL’S
  16. THE FREEZER CHEST
  17. MANITOBA
  18. WILD SWIMS
  19. PUSHKIN PRESS
  20. ALSO BY DORTHE NORS
  21. COPYRIGHT

He tapped me on the shoulder and said that a man was a man and that he was a twit. He wanted to admit that he’d lost our bet. I’d actually gone and done really well on the finals, he said. I didn’t say anything, but somebody clapped, and he said, “There was something about a pizza, wasn’t there?” and I said, “No.” And he said, “Yes there was,” that he wanted to spring for a pizza, and I said I didn’t want a pizza. “Yes of course you do,” Henrietta said, but I didn’t want a pizza. “You can take your pizza and stick it up sideways,” I said, and I said it so everyone could hear, for at that point I’d already found the room in Copenhagen, university lay ahead and Jutland behind, so fuck what they thought. It got quiet. Mark said that well, if that was the way I felt about it. “That’s the way I feel about it,” I said, and Henrietta said, “Now stop it, Mette, of course that’s not the way you feel,” and Mark said that I was obviously bearing a grudge, and Henrietta said it was embarrassing, and Mark said something about small minds, and Poul said well he’d be happy to eat a pizza, and Starling turned the stereo back up, while somewhere on the periphery our English teacher put his glasses on. I placed my hands on my knees and gazed at them, my fingers had glossy nails, blue by the cuticle, and what I remember most after Mark left was Henrietta leaning over me. “Shame on you,” she said, and I’d like to know if she ever did anything about it, the incest.108

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MANITOBA

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THERE’S A FAINT GLOW BEHIND THE MAPLE, BUT IT’S probably no one. The road is wet, drizzle, they’re sleeping now. It’s one in the morning, and he can see his face indistinctly in the living room window. They came last week, pitched camp across the road, pup tents and a large common tent. They’re fourteen or fifteen, and they’ve brought leaders with them. But late in the evening they run around on the road, or they stand over there and scream. It’s high summer. He can hear everything; it’s the neighbor’s field. The neighbor owns the ground down to the river and insists on his property rights. “It’ll be nice with some youngsters,” the farmer’s wife said when she stood in his hall and briefed him on their coming.