Austin Eichelberger
The soft crash of waves moves away from the dock, the square platform in the middle of Crater Lake that’s held in place by a heavy chain connected to the slick wooden bottom and rooted deep in the muck twenty feet below. Alex sits closer to the shore, his palms flat on the rocking planks, as I sit with my knees up, elbows perched on them. I glance behind me at powerboats humming across the water, the big brick houses across the lake from the state-owned stretch of sand, then turn my head to the beach, the girls sunning in their new bikinis, the clutter of guys drinking by the grill, Shana’s two kids in the water and her watching them from the little sandy crescent of the shore.
I watch Shana, one hand blocking the sun from her eyes, and remember leaning on my kitchen counter, finishing a Milky Way, as she promised over the phone that there would be enough people here that I wouldn’t even have to look at Alex, and that she’d be sure to keep an eye on him to make sure he wasn’t bothering me. That plan is certainly working out well. I hear laughter as the youngest kid, perched on a green inflatable crocodile, drifts to shore by the boat ramp and Shana pushes the float back out into the water. I wish it was shaped like something more docile—a duck or something.
“It’s weird, huh, Mark?” Alex turns to me, his tricep flexing like it would when he used to bend over me in the bed of his dad’s Chevy.
“What is?” I look at the land, at the tall pines that border the sand and then hold close to the uneven line of red-clay shore that curves out from the beach to make this tiny cove. I know the pattern the trunks make after coming here for years—in high school, Shana and I used to drink here when the moon was full because we could bring our boyfriends and there was plenty of space to sneak off, be alone with them. She brought Jason until they split up, then it was whoever she happened to be dating, a lacrosse player or a man too old to go to our school; I was always with Alex.
“That we’re all here together again.” He swings his hands around when he talks, like an orchestra conductor—we used to make fun of him for it, but he would just flick us off as one of his hands swooshed by. “It’s been, what, three years?”
“Four.” I gaze down and lower one of my hands to the wood beneath me to peel a large splinter from the dock. Fucking dangerous. “Since we were all together.”
“Damn, it’s been that long?” He turns his body toward mine now, spreading his legs across the dock so that his dripping feet sit on either side of me. “Doesn’t seem like it.”
I look up at him, the even-toned olive skin over his swimmer’s muscles, the dark blond hair that falls over his eyes, the bright red swimsuit. “No, it doesn’t.” I toss the splinter into the water where it floats like the inflatable crocodile by the shore; my mind, like I knew it would when I saw the float, shit, even when Shana first told me that we were coming to the lake, starts grasping for every image of a crocodile I’ve ever seen and places them all in the water beneath me. Sometimes it’s not crocodiles, but it’s always something. For years—beginning after Shana and I watched Jaws when we were eight—it was sharks, even in fresh water.
“So what’ve you been up to?” He looks straight into my eyes and leans back on his arms.
“Nothing.” It’s not worth mentioning that I’m still not over him and still haven’t left this podunk little town, that I work too much at the deli and drink whenever I’m not working. “You?”
“Well,” he says, turning to watch the birds in the line of trees to his right, “Darryl and I had a one-bedroom up in Richmond, but then he left a few months ago. I kept the apartment.” He pauses as the sparrows flit from branch to branch. “Got a job as a bank teller downtown.” Alex flicks his head back in my direction, moving the hair from his eyes. “You want to swim?”
I look down at my baggy t-shirt and loose jeans. “Nope.”
He blinks and pouts his lips. “Why not? You like swimming.”
“I used to like swimming. Now I just don’t enjoy it anymore.” The crocodiles beneath me swing just past my mind’s eye, stirring up sediment as they circle the thick chain beneath the water. “Besides, I didn’t bring a suit. That’s why I wanted to row out.”
Alex glances behind me at the paint-flaked rowboat I rowed to the dock. He had swum behind the boat, despite the fact that I had already told him to leave me alone. I give Shana a death-glance, but I know she’s too far away to catch it. I should’ve hit him with an oar.
“Oh.” He just looks at me for a minute, then stands, his calves and forearms suddenly solid and lined as he stretches. “Well, I’m going to swim.”
“Have a great time.” He does a perfect swan dive into the water by the boat, rocking the dock. I lean my head back and shut my eyes, the warmth from the sun creeping along my face and neck. I can just see the hungry crocs below, waiting in the shade while he dives before zooming up from the silt to catch his leg, his arm, his mouth opening to scream, bubbles floating to the top as the water turns red like in the movies. God, what an easy solution.
I hear Alex surface and blow water from his lips before going back under. May as well try to get a tan. I pull my t-shirt up, the soft cotton rubbing the point of my nose and along my arms; I try to ignore the skin that folds over the waist of my jeans—the weight that’s crept back ever since he left and I started volunteering for more shifts—lay the t-shirt on the dock behind me and lie back. I don’t know why he’s so stupid. I barely swam the last time we were here, just after graduation—it was sharks that time. I remember when we’d just arrived, I swam all the way out here with him, and shit, all I could think about was getting on this dock and lying in the sun together. We stole touches and stopped to kiss under the water until we reached the dock—remembering it makes my chest ache, even after three fucking years apart. The dock was new then, the boards freshly lacquered, the metal not yet rusted. I jumped in with a snorkel mask to try and follow the chain down to the bottom, and when I looked around in the murky brown, I could just picture rows of big, white teeth charging out of the depths faster than I could hope to swim. I knew they weren’t there, and I do now, but I still told Alex I was tired and made him stay close as we swam back. It’s always what I can’t see that scares me, the places where I know shit lurks but I can’t sense it. It’s why I shut my bedroom door when I’m alone in the apartment at night; you never know what’s creeping up behind you when you stop payin—
“Come on, just get in the water, Mark,” Alex calls as I sit up, water splashing onto my feet, speckling my jeans.
“No,” I say to his head, bobbing a few feet out in the blue-brown water. “I’m not wearing trunks.”
“So what? You have boxers. Come on, it’s fun.” He splashes more water onto the dock. I roll my eyes and lie back down as my stomach churns. Why is he being like this? He was the one who made me leave, told me he had grown past me, why the fuck—
“Come on, babe.” Alex’s voice is low and a little raspy, the same tone it would always fall to when he whispered to me. I turn my head to see his hands wrapped around the gray metal poles of the foot ladder, his eyes trained on me. Why the fuck did he just call me babe?
I cough lightly to clear my throat and sit up, folding my forearms over my lap. “You’re not allowed to call me that, Alex.” I look down at the near-white wood of the bleached dock, the twisting dark lines that show the color of the wood at its core. The dock rocks as Alex climbs the ladder and I exhale hard, the muscles in my hands flexing tight.
“Why not, Mark? I used to call you babe all the time.” He stands over me, smiling down, his abs flexed in the sun, drops of water shining on his skin. He may be a prick, but he’s a beautiful prick. Alex kneels, softly placing his hip, then his elbow on the wood beside me as my shoulders and neck tense. His wet fingers graze my bicep and the muscle jumps, the skin tight with goose-pimples. “Remember?”
The water and the crocodiles, the dock and the shore wash away as I look at the bright sky and the slowly moving clouds and think about that word, babe, that single fucking word. When he would squeeze my hand at home football games in the back of the bleachers and wink as he said it; the times when his jock friends would sneer as I waited for him at the pool and he would say it into my hair when they were out of sight; the e-mails he would start with it; the hand-written notes on Christmas presents and at my birthday; breathing it in my ear because I told him to be quiet while my parents slept in the next room or while we had his dad’s truck for the weekend; when he actually told me, “Babe, we had a good run, but I think Darryl won this one.”
I sit up and push his hand away. “Shut the fuck up, Alex.”
“What?” His stomach flexes as he speaks and I fold my arms over my belly.
“I said shut the fuck up.” I turn and grab my t-shirt, pull it over my head and stand, taking a step toward the boat as he scrambles up.
“What are you doing?” He steps in front of me, between me and the boat, the layer of fine hair on his chest catching and reflecting the sun’s light. Beneath me, a crocodile’s black eye gleams.
“I’m leaving, dumbass. I don’t want to be trapped out on this dock with you.” I stare at him, trying my best to keep a “don’t fuck with me” face on as a shiver runs through my knees.
He reaches out for my shoulder. “It’s just been awhile since I’ve seen you—”
I step back, over the shallow puddles he left on the planks, the dock and boat mashing together, our movement driving them into each other, forcing waves out toward the shore. “I know it has, Alex. And hopefully it’s going to be even longer the next time.” I turn back to the shore and step to the edge of the seesawing dock, my toes clutching the worn rubber bumper that goes along the rim. The crocodiles are swimming closer in my mind, lingering where my shadow cuts through the sunlit water—I need to get to that fucking rowboat—and my heartbeat doubles, my neck goes slick with sweat. The muscles of my legs feel like they’re going to explode as the sound of a speedboat swings nearer behind me.
“Mark. Come on. I just want to be close to you.” The dark green and brown ridges of the crocs split the water before me, their jaws opening as they twist and swim around the chain, as they wait in the shade of the dock, ready to flick their tails and break the surface with rows of jagged teeth and scales. “Like I used to be.” When I feel his fingertips on my back, I suck in a breath—filling my lungs despite the pressure in my chest—and leap clumsily away, kicking wildly at the claws and teeth waiting to slash and swallow me whole; the water moves coldly up my skin as the shore disappears from sight and Alex’s voice fades behind me into the din of rushing water.
#
Austin Eichelberger is a native Virginian who teaches as much English and writing as he can manage in sprawling New Mexico. Over sixty of his stories have appeared in journals and anthologies, including Flash: The International Short-Short Story Magazine, Eclectic Flash and Nanoism. More of his writing lives at austineichelberger.com.