Surface Tension Read online

  Everyone is annoying me. Especially Steve. I was going to take him up to the waterfall with me, but I just don't think he'd appreciate it. I tell everyone I'm going for a walk, but I don't tell them where I'm walking to.

  I go out the driveway and up the road to the top of the hill, where the old graveyard is, and cut through the barley field to the trail that goes down the gorge. This is the faster way to go.

  It sort of takes the fun out of it, going down the trail instead of walking up the creek bed, but it just takes so long that way.

  There's not as much anticipation this way. Not the same is-the-waterfall-here-or-is-it-around-the-next-corner, heart-in-my-throat, I-hope-there's-a-lot-of-water kind of thing. It's just, go down the trail, turn the corner, try not to slip on the slippery rocks, and I'm here.

  I guess there's a pretty good amount of water this year. It's not the best and it's not the worst. It's in the middle.

  I take off my socks and shoes, sit at the edge of the pool, and let the minnows nibble at my toes for a while. There are butterflies swirling around a bush on the gorge wall, and the water and the air mixing together makes me happy.

  I don't feel really happy, but happy enough, I guess. Happy in a sad way. Melancholy, is that the word for it? Happy that I'm here and happy that the waterfall is still here, but kind of sad that I don't feel the way I used to about it.

  The adults have decided to throw themselves a party tonight, just to raise a little hell and get under the minister's skin. Mr. and Mrs. Richardson and my parents' friends Roger and Kay and Norm and Bonnie are all coming. Dad went to the supermarket and bought so much beer. I haven't seen that much beer anywhere except for in a supermarket.

  Norm is kind of the main party planner, because he just really likes to party. He's bringing his sound system, which should be interesting, and he is also planning a few “surprises,” according to Dad. I don't know what that means.

  The Richardsons are letting us use their parking area for the party, partially because they hate the minister and partially because they just want to make sure the party isn't going to spill out onto their lawn too much.

  Steve and I don't really have anything to do. It's not our party. We're not even invited really, so we open up the garage door and put out a couple of lawn chairs and sit down to watch the show.

  Norm is dressed up as Elvis. He's in the full costume, with the wig and the jumpsuit and a giant pair of gold sunglasses. He keeps saying “Hey, baby” in this weak Elvis impression.

  Dad is wearing his beer helmet from his fortieth-birthday party. It's a novelty hat that he puts two beers in, and then a couple of tubes come down from the beers into his mouth. I guess that's the quickest way to get drunk, because he's already dancing around in a way that's hard to watch.

  Norm's sound system is even louder than I thought it would be. He's blasting oldies, and he and Dad are dancing together like a couple of fags. This would be too embarrassing to watch, except now it's so bizarre I can't stop watching.

  Steve stands up and goes to the back of the garage. He comes back with a beer in each hand. He hands me one and opens one for himself.

  “Where did you get that?”

  “I stole them from the cooler.”

  “Nice.” I open my beer and take a gulp. It tastes like crap, but as long as I get a little buzzed, it'll be fine.

  The adults are listening to Motown and dancing in the dark on the driveway. Norm goes over and turns on the headlights in his truck and then goes around to all the other cars and turns the headlights on in all of them too. All the headlights are focused on the minister's house, and I don't think that's an accident.

  Steve chugs his beer and gets us both another one. Motown is pretty good music, especially when you've had a beer. All of the adults are dancing around in the headlights now, and they're casting these gigantic shadows across the lawn and onto the minister's house. Even the Richardsons are out there dancing. I never thought I'd see that.

  They turn the music up even louder, and Norm starts stripping out of his Elvis costume. Bonnie's helping him. Gross.

  Steve stands up and chugs his beer, and I do too, because what else are we going to do?

  Steve walks over and starts going through all the paint and crap at the back of the garage.

  He says, “Let's fuck something up.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don't know. Want to make a cross and burn it on the minister's lawn?”

  I hope he's joking. “Nah, let's fuck something else up.”

  Steve doesn't say anything. He goes through an old box filled with screws, dead fuses, and mousetraps, until he finds an old bottle of bleach. That's awesome. That's perfect. This is going to be hilarious.

  We saw this prank on Jackass one time, where they bleached somebody's yard and made a bunch of fucked-up designs and shit. It was hilarious because the grass all died in the pattern of the designs and the guy who lived there got really mad.

  We take the bottle of bleach and walk around the back of the cottage. Everyone is on the other side, drinking, dancing, and singing along to the music. I would do it right here on our little patch of lawn, but I'm afraid they'd figure out that it was us.

  I motion for Steve to follow me, and we slip down into the creek. I'm the master of figuring out ways around my parents. We jump out of the creek on the other side of the Richardsons' garage and run around the back of the house to the woodpile, where the Richardsons' and the minister's yards meet. I can hear my dad and Norm singing “My Girl” together, but luckily I can't see them. I hope I don't act like that when I get old.

  I was thinking that we'd do this on the minister's yard, but his is really patchy and dead anyway. I don't think he'd even be able to tell.

  Steve squats down behind a tree. The Richardsons' yard is so green and spongy. I say, “You want to just do it here?”

  “Sure.”

  On the show, I think the guy drew a big cock and balls, but that's too complicated. I'm trying to think of something that's simple and also doesn't right away say “Teenagers did this.”

  I know, a big cross. That way Mr. Richardson will think the minister did it. Besides, he already hates the minister anyway; it's not like they're going to become best friends.

  I whisper to Steve what I want to do and make the symbol of a cross on my chest like a Catholic. He nods. He takes the cap off the bleach bottle and runs with it across the yard in a straight line. This is going to be awesome.

  I show him where the second line should go, and he pours that too and then goes over both lines a few more times, until the bleach is all gone. The music is still playing and I can hear my parents singing along with “Tears of a Clown.” We're good. We just need to get rid of the bleach bottle and get back to the cottage.

  Fuck, somebody's coming. I hear heavy footsteps on the ground, coming fast from somewhere. Steve darts into the darkness, back toward the creek. We should split up. I go the other way.

  I run across the yard, along the property line, toward the old apple tree. Ow, fuck. I fall. I think I stepped in a hole. I heard something pop in my ankle. Feels like 188 degrees in there all of a sudden.

  I try and get up and run again, but my ankle collapses. Somebody is coming. This is not good. I can hear the footsteps. I'm afraid to look up and I can't run on my ankle how it is.

  Steve is gone in the darkness. I try and get up again, but I can't put any weight on my ankle at all. It crumbles underneath me again. I lie facedown in the wet grass and try and crawl away.

  Whoever is behind me is getting closer. Oh fuck, I hope it's not Mr. Richardson. I don't want to get fucking arrested.

  I roll over and look at the person standing over me. He's backlit by the headlights from the party, but I can tell who it is by the silhouette. It's the fucking Sinister Minister. Oh shit. That's even worse than getting caught by the cops.

  He's probably going to take me hostage and put me in the back of his white van and kidnap me. Or just flat out murd
er me right here.

  He's just looking down at me. He isn't saying anything. His white hair is blowing up into the air and he almost looks like an angel from that movie about angels with Nicolas Cage in his black trench coat.

  He reaches his hand out to me, like he wants to help me up, but the only problem with that is I fucking hate the guy. I don't want to touch his creepy, pasty-white Christian Con federate hand. Fuck that.

  I shake my head a little. I'll just lie here until my parents see me out here, or Steve tells them I'm here, or something. I'll just lie here until someone comes and saves me.

  The minister hasn't moved his hand. He's just holding it out there, waiting for me to take it. I don't want to take it. I don't want to give him the satisfaction of having held his hand out there long enough for me to take it.

  I keep waiting for my parents to come rushing over here and save me, but it's been a few minutes now and I don't think they're going to. I just don't think they're going to.

  Oh fuck it. I reach up and take his hand and he pulls me to my feet in one motion. I can't put any weight on my ankle, but I think I've got good enough balance to hop my way back to the cottage.

  I say, “Thanks,” and hop over to the apple tree a few feet away.

  He doesn't say anything. He just stands there backlit by the headlights, and then once he sees that I can get from one tree to another, he turns around and goes back into his cottage.

  I hop back into the cottage without anyone seeing me. I can't

  find Steve anywhere. I wonder if he got caught on the way back.

  I go into the bedroom. He's in bed already. What the fuck?

  I say, “Dude, you totally abandoned me.”

  “Fuck, did you get nabbed?”

  “No. Kind of. The minister saw me.”

  “What did he say? Is he going to tell your parents? Am I going to have to go home on a bus or something?”

  “No, dude, he's not going to talk to my parents. He's not as bad as he seems.”

  “Really?”

  I don't know why I said that. I'm not sure why I think that. I stand, leaning against the wall, on one foot. What else is there to say?

  I say, “So are you going to bed, or what?”

  “Yeah, aren't you?”

  “I don't know if I can sleep. My ankle is killing me.”

  “Oh well, dude, at least we didn't get caught.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  I'm sitting at the picnic table looking at the sunrise while everyone else is still sleeping. I couldn't sleep because my ankle was hurting so much. It isn't broken, I don't think, because I can put a little bit of weight on it. It feels like it did when I sprained it in soccer. I put some ice on it and it's resting on the bench and it's feeling better.

  I lie back on the bench and watch the sun oranging up the black sky. I feel peaceful for the first time this summer. Maybe I should sleep out on the picnic table for the rest of the time here.

  Mom wakes up first and comes outside in her purple bathrobe with a cup of coffee in her hand. I almost never see her in the morning before she's had a cup of coffee, especially the morning after she's gotten all drunk with her friends. I don't know what time they all left, but it had to be after midnight.

  She sits down next to me at the picnic table, and I have to sit up so the table doesn't flip over on top of us. That would be a great America's Funniest Home Videos moment.

  She takes a sip of her coffee and rubs between my shoulders with her other hand. She must have done that when I was a baby, because it always makes me feel weirdly sleepy.

  She whispers, “Good morning,” as quietly as she can, and I can't tell if she's whispering to not ruin the serenity or if she's whispering because she has a massive hangover.

  I don't say anything. I feel like asking “How drunk did you get last night?” but I don't. I'm not mad, but it was a little disgusting what she and her friends were doing. I hate it when they act like teenagers.

  Steve and I are the teenagers. We're the ones who are supposed to do stupid shit and then be hung over the next morning. I feel like going back to bed. Maybe I can get some sleep now.

  “I'm going back to bed.”

  I get up and start hopping across the lawn on my one good foot, but Mom notices and switches into Mom mode. She's not whispering anymore. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. What is happening with your ankle?”

  I look down at it. It's not very pretty. Purple and swollen to twice the size of the other one. “Uh, I don't know. Good night.”

  “Wait. Come back here. Let me look at that thing.”

  “Why? It's fine. It's just swollen.”

  “It's not just swollen. It's bruised too. What happened?”

  “Nothing.” I start hopping away again, but she comes over to me.

  “I'm not letting you go back to bed with your ankle like that.” Mom studied nursing for a while in college, so she thinks that she can diagnose things. Usually, I don't care, but now I just want to get back to bed.

  “Mom, are you a doctor?”

  “No, but—”

  “Are you a nurse?”

  “No, I'm not—”

  “Then let me go back to bed.”

  I turn around and start hopping away again on my one good ankle. I expect her to start after me or say something, but she doesn't. She just lets me hop across the lawn.

  I'm about to get to the screen door, but with all this hopping, my ankle is really hurting now. I get to the screen door, and just as I'm about to open it, I glance back at her one more time.

  She's just looking at me. It's like she can tell how much it hurts and is just waiting for me to ask for help. The shitty thing is that it really does hurt. I don't know what to do.

  I look at her and I don't say anything, but she can tell by the look on my face that I've given up.

  We're on our way to the emergency room, and my foot is up on the dashboard. Fuck, the bottom of my foot is really dirty from walking around with no shoes on. I wish I had time to wash it. This is going to be embarrassing.

  I'm staring out the window watching the Sunday-morning sunshine spread over the hills. I used to think this place was beautiful, but I don't know why I thought that. It's just a really crappy area. It's so cheap-looking. Look at that barn. It's totally collapsing and no one is doing anything about it. That's why we can afford to come here every summer, because this is like the ghetto. We have a cottage in the ghetto. Well, the rural ghetto. What's that called—the boonies?

  I don't care. It's terrible. It's such shit. There's not even anything to do around here. It's just swimming and waiting for time to pass. I don't know what I ever saw in this place. I really don't. It's just a fucking crapper.

  Mom is listening to NPR and humming along with the theme song from the show. I wonder why you get so boring when you get old. Look at her. She's a mom and she's a wife, but she doesn't have a passion for anything. She doesn't have any real reason to live.

  What is she doing in the world that's making it better? She's driving her son to the emergency room. Whoop-de-fucking-do.

  “Mom,” I say, “what did you want to be when you were a little girl? When you grew up, I mean.”

  She glances over at me and gives me one of those looks like she's expecting me to attack her. Do I attack her? Was I going to attack her? I don't know. Maybe I was going to, but now I sort of feel sorry for her. “Why do you ask?”

  “Just curious.” I try and make my voice sound a little less threatening than it did the first time.

  “You really want to know?”

  “Yeah. Why, is it like a big secret or something?”

  “No. It's just you never asked me anything like that before.”

  “So, I'm asking now.”

  She looks at me sideways. She's still a little tentative. “When I was a little girl, I actually really wanted to be a doctor.”

  “Really?”

  “Yup, I wanted to study medicine. I had this big old anatomy book I took from my
parents' bookshelf that was filled with these amazing color drawings of the human body. And I used to sit up in my room and go through the whole book, page by page. I used to pick an artery in one of the pictures and follow it all the way through the body.”

  “Wow.” That's weird. I've never imagined my mom being a little girl before. I mean, I've seen pictures of her, but I've never actually imagined what she was like when she was little. Now, in my head, I've got this picture of her dreaming of being a doctor. “So why didn't you become a doctor? Not smart enough?”

  She smiles. I think she knows that was a joke. “No, I met Dad, and we decided to get married. And then I put my career on hold for a while, while he got his business started, and then we had you.”

  “Oh, so do you like hate me or something because I ruined your dreams of becoming a doctor?”

  “You're joking, right?”

  “No. Not really.”

  “No. I don't hate you. I love being your mom, and I wouldn't give that up for anything in the world.”

  “That's corny.” She doesn't say anything after that. Whoops, maybe I was just an asshole, but she was being corny. It was like an after-school special in here all of a sudden.

  The emergency room is filled with people. I thought it would be empty except for us on Sunday morning. I thought everyone would be in bed or in church.

  There are at least three people here with bloody hands wrapped up in dish towels. I whisper, “Mom, why do you think there are so many people here with cuts? Do you think there was like a knife fight or something?”

  She looks around like it's the first time she's noticed anyone else is even here. “I'm not sure. It might be bagels.”

  “Bagels?”

  “Accidents with cutting bagels. I think there are a lot of those on Sunday mornings.”

  “Hmm.” I didn't know that.

  One of the women behind a counter calls my name, and they wheel me back into a room.

  I hope my ankle isn't broken or something. That would suck for soccer. The doctor comes in and asks a bunch of questions, touches my ankle, which really hurts, and then sends me back out to get an X-ray.

  They push me back into the room and I lie down on the butcher paper. I'm so tired. Even with these bright white lights staring down at me, I feel like I could go to sleep.