Short People (Vintage Contemporaries)

by Joshua Furst

  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 har
d 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.

  But then I remembered how Jake went to the bathroom in the water and if he can do that I can do that too and, anyway, it doesn’t matter cause it’s like when you’re flying off the float and you go underwater, it’s like everything’s all the same thing so I thought that would be the same for poop too. And everybody pees in the lake so I don’t know what the big deal is. I wouldn’t have done it anyway if Jake didn’t say it was okay the other time and if I didn’t really have to go. And besides that I swam way far away from everybody before I pulled my swimsuit down and let my feet float up out of the water and stopped holding it in and stuff.

  Jake was right, though. It felt like—I can’t even explain.

  But then after I swam back, Jake started saying, “Hey, what’s that? Hey, hey, guys, look over there. What’s that?” and pointing behind me and stuff so everybody would look. I bet they wouldn’t even have seen anything if Jake wasn’t shouting and saying, “Look. Look. Evan just shit in the swim area.”

  Cause then everybody swam really fast and climbed on the float and started yelling at me and everything so I turned around to look cause how would Jake know anyway cause it was supposed to sink to the bottom. He was right, though, there were a couple of pieces of turd floating around.

  Everybody was all grossed out and they dived off the float and swam really fast to the beach to get away from the shitty water but Jake and Chewy stayed on the float to yell what a fag I am and stuff. And just to be mean Jake said, “How are we gonna get back to the beach now, Evan?” He said my name in this really mean way. “We can’t swim in shitty water.” And I couldn’t say everybody else did cause then they would have just been meaner to me. I chased after all the turds I could see and splashed them to outside the net but Jake and Chewy kept pointing and saying “There’s another one” every time so I would keep swimming around and around even when there wasn’t any left. Jake and Chewy were just making fun of me.

  But even though I thought I was gonna cry, I didn’t.

  I climbed up on the raft after that and stood there all slouchy like I didn’t care and I didn’t even look at Jake or Chewy, I just looked over at the other side of the lake like there was all kinds of important things I was thinking about that they didn’t even know. But even without looking, I could still sort of see them anyway and every time they said anything it was all mean and made everything else in my head disappear.

  “That was real smooth, Evan.”

  “What are you, stupid? You dense?”

  “Pud.”

  “What, did you think shit sinks or something?”

  “Fag.”

  “Pud.”

  “Fag.”

  “You stupid fucking fag.” It was Jake who said that.

  And then they waited to see if I was gonna get all spazzy for them, but I didn’t, so Jake acted like he was gonna be nice to me and forgive me and stuff. He said it was too bad I took a shit in the lake cause guess what him and Chewy did yesterday after everybody went to sleep, they went out in a canoe and found those girls and they had like beer and stuff for them to party with and they stayed for like three hours and went out in the motorboat with them and everything. He said how they all went skinny-dipping and how the one girl was sort of fat but with really big boobs but the other two girls were totally hot and even prettier than any girls back home. “We’re gonna go back there tonight,” he said. “The prettiest one, Becky, whose house it is, is gonna steal a bottle of peppermint schnapps from her dad for us all to drink. It’s too bad cause she said she had a crush on you and we should bring you with us, but now what are we gonna tell her?” And I couldn’t even ask him what about his fake girlfriend cause I was too sad that I couldn’t meet Becky now.

  Mr. Schultz came and yelled at us to all come in then cause the water was toxicated or
something and nobody could go in it till it got fixed. And even though he didn’t say anything, I could tell I was in trouble cause it was all my fault and everybody must have ratted on me after they ran away from the beach.

  Jake and Chewy and me swam in and Mr. Schultz made us all march back to camp and then he told them to go away cause “Evan has things to talk to me about.” And then right in the middle of camp where everybody could spy on us and see me getting yelled at he said how he called my dad to come pick me up and how I couldn’t even go to the snack bar or leave the camp till he got here and then I was gonna have to go home and all the grown-ups were gonna have a talk to figure out if I should get in bigger trouble like get my merit badges taken away.

  I tried to explain to Mr. Schultz about Jake and everything but then I got yelled at about how you shouldn’t rat on other people and how he didn’t want to hear my excuses cause that’s like talking back and he knows what he knows and I have to learn how to respect my elders and he doesn’t even care about what happened cause I’m always doing stuff to get in trouble and it’s gonna end right here and now.

  Even though I was grounded Mr. Schultz made me go get twigs when it was time for the fire and that’s when I escaped. Everybody was all busy filling jugs with water and cleaning out tents and stuff like that so nobody was watching me get the twigs. And there weren’t any twigs right by camp anymore cause we used them all up already so I said to Mr. Schultz, “We already got all the twigs by camp and the only ones left are still alive and stuff, so can I go farther away to get them? Cause getting ones that are still alive is against the rules.” Then, when he said okay, I went out all the way to where nobody could see me anymore.