Who He Is: Justin Wong

For the greater part of the last 18 years, there has been a silent war being waged between me and my brother.  The battles were always brief and indirect.  Clashing in the open just isn’t our style.  All of our bouts and their outcomes were concluded to be illegitimate – SAT scores, school grades, and best times in swimming were all declared void because of the two year age difference.  He took the old school SAT out of 1600 while mine was the new one out of 2400.  He attended Stuyvesant High School, where they don’t give weighted averages for AP classes.  We started swimming at the same time, meaning I had a two year head start on him relative to our ages.  We just didn’t think it was fair to use our separate performances under vastly different conditions to answer the questions that everyone asks: Who’s smarter? Faster? Stronger? Better?  People seem to take pleasure in labeling one of us as superior – some kind of strange amusement in pitting siblings against one another in their minds.  Both of us think otherwise.

It wasn’t until the 2005-2006 PSAL Boy’s swimming season that we were finally forced to race each other head to head.  Throughout the season, we were hitting similar times, and everyone knew that it was going to be Stuyvesant and Midwood swimming for the City Championship.  Everyone knew about the two brothers, both breaststrokers, who had spots on their respective rosters.  Beyond that, I can’t tell you much.  I’ll let my brother speak now:

“‘Oley! Oley, Oley Oley….Oley!’

‘Oooooooh!’

These are the noises ringing through my ears right before I step up on the unsteady white diving block.  ‘JUSTTTTIIINNNN’

‘GO JEFF!’

These are the barbaric noises both teams are screaming.  ‘Hey, you two Wongs, turn around!’  A click and a flash.  A picture to remember this event forever.  A picture to remember the butterflies in my stomach.  A picture to remember the butterflies about to escape along with my chicken salad I had that afternoon.  This was the 2006 PSAL City Finals.  Two teams duking it out for the city title.  But everyone knew Stuy would win, and nothing was going to change that fact.  Midwood didn’t have a chance.

However, the real excitement was coming down to the two brothers racing each other in the 100 yard breaststroke.  This was a joke.  This was merely an exhibition match to show which team had the better Wong.  Brother against brother, Wong against Wong, Justin against Jeffrey.  Was it really necessary to have to see which one of us was the better swimmer? I guess our coaches thought so.  I didn’t.  I really had nothing to prove to anyone, not even myself.  I knew I was faster than my younger brother.  So what really happened during this particular race?

Neither of us performed our best.  I know I certainly didn’t.  A 1:09 low for the last meet of the season is something I definitely shouldn’t be proud of, nor is a 1:08 high for my brother.  ‘Quiet please. Quiet please.  This is the 100 yard breaststroke.  Each swimmer will swim four lengths of the pool breaststroke.  Swimmers, take your mark.’ BANG! I can hear everyone scream, ‘GOOO!’ just as I leave the blocks.

Diving a bit deep is never a good start for a race.  This is especially true if the side you’re starting on is four feet deep.  I barely missed scraping my face against the tiled bottom.  ‘Awesome, I didn’t break my face, but I’m still half a body length behind.’  As I try to catch up to my brother, my stroke count skyrockets up.  Not good; at this rate I’ll be dead by the last lap.  I manage to pull half a body length ahead on the third lap.  I glance to the right with my peripherals.  I only have a quarter of a body length now.  We hit the turn; I slip.  Nice, my streamline also breaks.  I pop up back to the surface about halfway before I usually do.

Now my brother is half a body length ahead.  Time to speed it up.  I take twelve strokes on the last twenty five as opposed to my usual eight.  Also, do you remember at the beginning when I said I was going to be dead tired? Guess what, I was.  We hit the finish.  I take a look over my shoulder at the clock.  Lane 4: 1:09.1, Lane 3: 1:08.9.  Touched out.  I let him win.

There’s a silence for five long minutes, my brother has a smirk on his face.  I look at him, he looks at me.  I smile and tell him to watch out tonight; he’s going to wake up with two broken legs.  Just kidding.”

He wrote that for his own IDC class.  I found it, read it, and forgot about it until this project came along.  I knew that I had to tell this story to set the record straight.  I could only use his story because I don’t remember any details from that day – it’s all a blur to me.  I see how self assured he was that day in direct contrast to me, a boy of 15 years, struggling and fighting to escape his brother’s shadow.  I didn’t believe it at the time, but I think he really did let me win.  In our first public battle, he played the older brother and helped me find my confidence.  He let me win so that I would believe in myself and work hard to get even faster in the years to come.  To this day, my parents refuse to admit who they were cheering for.  I don’t blame them.