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Authors: Joshua Furst

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Short People (7 page)

BOOK: Short People
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I held my stomach really tight and my eyes were all like they were burning and I yelled, “Tell me her name, you fucker! Why won’t you tell me her name?” and I rocked the canoe back and forth as hard as I could so the sides almost touched the water and Jake started crawling over the seats and stuff so he could get up by me and he said, “You wanna fight, fag? Is that what you want? I’ll beat you up if that’s what you want so bad.” So I rocked even harder than I thought I could until he fell in the water and the canoe tipped over and I fell in too.

I hid in the upside-down part where it’s like an air space cause then if Jake wanted to say sorry or whatever he couldn’t just do it like he didn’t mean it, like everything was all cool and stuff. The water was echo-y and extra loud under the canoe so I couldn’t hear anything outside and there were like white glowing lines from the water reflecting all over the metal. It wasn’t really dark or anything so I held the wood things and waited for him to come say sorry. He didn’t even have a choice, cause he couldn’t swim that far back to camp and I wasn’t gonna let the canoe get turned upside up until he did.

He didn’t for a long time, but that was okay cause there was lots of air in my air space. I started to get scared, though, like maybe he drowned or got twisted up in the lily pads and hit his head on a dead log or something, so I put my head underwater and opened my eyes just to see if you could see down there. I wished Jake would come and say sorry soon and then I’d never talk about his stupid girlfriend again even if she was fake cause then at least he wouldn’t be dead. Floaty things kept swimming between my legs and I was getting really really scared. Well, not really, but sort of, cause I didn’t know what happened to Jake.

Then the canoe started shaking really fast and bouncing around and I spazzed out and screamed really loud and then Jake came up inside the canoe and spit a big wad of water at me. He was grinning, though, and I laughed, I was so happy it was just him.

He said, “It’s cool in here.”

“Uh-huh.”

And then it was like I wasn’t mad at him anymore even though I still wanted to be. He shouldn’t have been so mean to me, though, even if I was acting spazzy and stuff, cause I was just trying to figure stuff out about him and there was no reason for him to be mean. It seems like if he was my best friend like he always used to be he wouldn’t make fun of me and try to make me mad and everything. I’m not a baby or a fag or a pud or any of the things he said I was, I just wanted him to keep being my best friend.

After that was the stupidest thing I did, but I thought he was being my friend again and I had to cause I didn’t want him to really turn into like he didn’t care and not be my best friend anymore just like that. And I was starting to think maybe it was my fault and stuff, so I did the stupid thing. I asked him how come if he didn’t want to talk to those girls anyway, he had to be all mean to me to show them how cool he was.

“No reason,” he said.

I couldn’t stop trying to find out if he hated me, so I said, “Really? No reason?”

“It’s never cool to be un-cool with girls,” he said.

“But—”

“They were ugly anyway. Come on.”

“Wait, though,” I said but he swam out of the canoe. I stayed inside cause maybe he’d come back then but he didn’t and I had to swim out too so I could keep talking to him.

“Evan, get on that end and—”

“Wait, though, Jake.”

“No, you have to be farther than that, Evan, all the way at the end. It’s lighter then.”

“But Jake, wait.”

“What?” and he sounded all mad again.

“Don’t yell at me, Jake. I mean, just don’t yell at me, okay? Please?”

He didn’t say anything but he looked sort of less mad then.

“I . . .” I didn’t want to say something wrong right away because then by the time I said something right he’d be mad at me again and he’d yell at me and never be my friend again, so I made up in my head what to say over and over again but Jake looked like he was going to be mad again anyway so I said, “Because I don’t want you not to like me anymore, Jake. You’re always acting like you don’t like me and stuff now . . . Cause . . . Why don’t you like me? Jake? How come?”

“Can’t you just go to your side so we can turn the canoe over? Or do you want to get me on KP, too?”

“But can’t you just tell me, Jake?”

“Don’t be a . . .” I got like all crinkly cause he was gonna say pud or fag again, but he didn’t, he said “girl” and I started to cry and I didn’t have anything more to say then.

Both of us looked at each other for a long time and I got the sniffles trying to make myself stop crying. I didn’t even think about anything except trying not to go underwater. My head was all like my brain was burning up and Jake wouldn’t stop looking at me.

Then he said, “I didn’t mean that, Evan,” and I felt like I couldn’t be a Boy Scout anymore.

It started getting really dark when we figured out how to turn the canoe upside up by pushing really hard and then when it fell back the other way sort of throwing it really fast. When I got in Jake had to let me step on him and I thought it was gonna turn over again but it didn’t and I held it so Jake could get in too but he swam away.

“Where are you going?”

“Just relax. I’m going over here—I gotta take a shit.”

“In the water?”

“Yup.”

“But . . . you can do that?”

“Yup.”

“But isn’t that like bad and stuff?”

“Nope.”

“But won’t the fish eat it and get sick?”

“Nope.”

That’s why Jake was my best friend, cause he could do things that nobody told him were okay but he just knew. It was such a cool thing of Jake.

“It feels good too. Like free. You feel the water go all around your balls and you just let go and”— and he made like an “Ah” and an “Ooo” sound like his muscles were all tight and then when he was done, he smiled. “Like that,” he said. “Heaven.”

Then we rowed back to camp not talking or anything but not like we were mad at each other either . . .

Jake told me this story about this cool thing he did with Chewy one day. They went to the gas station and stole a porno magazine and a book of sexy letters from people who wrote to
Penthouse.
It was really cool except it was with Chewy and he doesn’t like me. The way they did it was that Jake went in before Chewy and asked the guy if he could buy some cigarettes and when the guy said no he got all mad and started saying how not fair that was and everything and then the guy got all mad too and they started to fight and stuff so that when they were fighting Chewy could take the stuff without the guy seeing. And then Jake walked out all in a huff and Chewy bought a pack of Skittles and they went and looked at the magazines and Chewy even let Jake keep the
Penthouse
thingee. I saw it. I bet that’s why Jake and Chewy are like best friends and everything now.

But what if Jake was friends with Chewy and with me too? If like me and Jake went camping and Chewy came with because Jake told him how cool I was even though I’m no good at sports and stuff. And then Chewy wouldn’t be mean to me anymore and we could all be best friends and be Eagle Scouts together. That would be great.

Chewy’s already a First Class Scout and everybody likes him. He’s called Chewy cause he got drunk with this girl at this party once. He just got sort of drunk but he got her so drunk she couldn’t even stand up or anything. And then they like went into a room where there was nobody there and they kissed and played with each other’s things and Chewy even got her to let him see her boobs and stuff. He didn’t hit a home run though cause the other people were spying on them and they like opened the door really fast and turned on the lights and when they did that Chewy was chewing on the nipple part of her boob so it was all sore and stuff and then the girl barfed and everybody got mad at her cause she was gonna make them get caught having a party. And that’s why Chewy’s Chewy. If he wasn’t so mean to me he would be really cool . . .

The other thing Elkhart Lake’s got is a really great beach part where they have a float in the deep end that you can dive off and everything. They got a net thing that goes all around it to keep the fish out and all these red and white floaty things that tell the motorboats not to come in.

We get swim time every day for like an hour. That’s the funnest part, cause then we can play king of the float.

You’re not allowed to swim in the deep end except if you take a swim test with every different kind of stroke around the whole edge by the net, otherwise you have to stay in the baby part where it’s only like up to your knees and there’s no splashing or diving or nothing. The swim test’s really hard cause everybody’s watching and you can’t stop or slow down or anything or else you fail. The good thing is you get to try again until you pass but I didn’t have to. I passed on the first try even though I didn’t think I could cause when I try to do the butterfly I just stay in one place and go around in a circle over and over again. They decided that was okay cause I did everything else really good. Chewy said they were just being nice to me cause they thought I was gonna cry, but he had to take the test like fifty times before they let him not swim in the baby part and he was just jealous. I wouldn’t have cried anyway cause I’m not a crybaby.

Swimming in the deep end is really cool when there’s a whole bunch of people and we can play king of the float and everything. Even though I’m sort of weak, I do pretty good sometimes cause I’m really writhey and slippery so it’s really hard to catch me. That’s what I’m good at is keeping everybody from throwing me off. I’m not so good at pushing people off cause when I do I fall off too, but I can stay up for a long time if I just keep writhing away. I even won before by staying up while everybody else pushed everybody else off until I was the only one left.

The funnest thing is to get thrown off so you go way up in the air before you come down. What you do is when you know you can’t stay on any longer, you make yourself get really light and let one of the big guys throw you way up in the air. It’s really cool cause then your stomach goes around and around like a roller coaster and it’s like you’re gonna stay up in the air for a really long time until you’re underwater and you don’t even know when you stopped being in the air and started being in the water, like the air just got thicker or something. It’s really weird cause it’s like everything’s the same thing and the hard things and the soft things and the air and the water and even you and everything else are just pretend different. But it’s not weird in a bad way, cause it’s still sort of really cool.

Today I could barely stay on for two seconds. Chewy was king of the float and he figured out this way to push you off before you were even on, like you’d pull yourself up and Chewy would kick from way far away when you were still only half over and for like a long time nobody could un-king him.

It got to be no fun anymore so we stopped trying to get up. We just treaded water and acted all bored and then Chewy told us how he could whip our ass and how we were chicken and he made like squawky sounds and then he sat down in the middle of the float and told us we were the ones being boring. I bet he knew it was his fault but he had to act like it was all our fault anyway cause he won and got to be king and no way would he ever think he did something wrong cause it’s winning that counts.

Then everybody got all together to try and figure out how to un-king Chewy so it would get fun again. We treaded water in like a football huddle and nobody could figure anything out till I said maybe if we all climbed up at the same time, like count to three or something, cause then there’d be too many of us and we could probably get up but first we should all be like we don’t care and like we’re not doing anything. Everybody thought that was a good idea and we went to get in our spots and I swam to the other side by going under the float and through the big chains and stuff tied to the bottom of the water and Chewy didn’t know how I got there or anything and then we all treaded water in our places and looked at each other like who was gonna count to three.

Chewy was thinking he was so cool and everything that he didn’t even see we were getting ready to un-king him till we were all halfway up the float already and stuff and then he looked scared till he said, “Hey, Jake, tag team!” and helped to pull Jake up so they could tag team against everybody and Chewy could win again and everything. Even though it made Jake a traitor he didn’t even care.

I was the only one who could get up cause Chewy and Jake’s tag team was good enough to throw everybody off. I got right in back of Chewy and made myself way low to the float so I could slide on my stomach and stuff and then I grabbed Chewy’s foot and pulled really hard even though it got all twisty trying to make me let go. I tried to get his other foot too so I could have them both and like pull him off with both of them but he kept stepping really hard on my fingers so I couldn’t. The good thing is, though, he couldn’t kick the people climbing up, anymore, so our side started winning. And then instead of trying to get his other foot I twisted my body all around his legs and made it so he couldn’t move and I started to like roll back and forth but he still wouldn’t fall down so I just stayed like that so everybody else could get Jake off easier without Chewy helping and stuff. Then when that was done everybody started pushing Chewy but that was harder cause he’s so big and he was even heavier with me on his feet so he sort of just moved a little closer to the edge every time and my back was getting all scraped up by the AstroTurf the float’s made out of. We got right by the edge and then everybody pushed all at the same time and Chewy fell in the water but he pulled everybody else in at the same time and my back got even more scraped up cause when I tried to get off Chewy’s leg he kicked me in the face.

Jake was king of the float then cause he climbed up when we were all falling in . . .

In the dictionary when I looked it up once, it said a fag is a pile of sticks . . .

The other thing was in the middle of king of the float I started to feel like I had to go to the bathroom but I tried really hard to hold it cause I didn’t want to miss anything. It was number two so I had to squeeze my muscles as tight as I could down there and it made it really hard for me to come up with an idea of what kind of thing we could do to un-king Jake even though I wanted to cause everybody was coming up with stupid ideas like we should turn the float upside down or like bounce it up and down and stuff even though Jake would still stay on that way. I couldn’t even tell them how sucky their ideas were and how Chewy was probably a spy cause all I could think about was that I couldn’t hold it anymore or I’d get a stomachache and I didn’t know what to do.

BOOK: Short People
5.15Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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