by Suzanne McWhorter
Claude and I picked our way around the sharp rocks that covered the bed of the creeks running through North Lake, Middle, and South Lake parks. Our bare eleven-year-old feet had learned by trial and error the best paths to take to avoid the sorts of jagged cuts that made moms pay too much attention to how kids spent their summers. We splashed through the cool, dirty water, made even more opaque by the shade from the clusters of trees high above us.
“When do you have to be back?” Claude asked between the splashes of water he used to try to get caked mud off of his face.
“Whenever. Mom has a late work thing so she won’t notice.”
“What about your dad?”
“He never notices anything.”
We had come to point in the creek where, at this age, the water was deep enough for us to swim. Another growth spurt or two and we would have to find a new location. I had just recently mastered the art of the dog paddle, but Claude seemed to be made for the water. Whenever my mom took us to the community pool, Claude always raced straight to the diving board and hit the deep end without hesitation. I couldn’t go under water without holding my nose.
This was one of those Northeast Ohio summer days where the air felt like gelatin and every single particle that you passed through clung to the omnipresent layer of sweat on your body. Claude dove under the water and came back up with two needles and a beer bottle.
“I think we should start a collection,” he said, waiving one of the needles around while making lightsaber sounds, “like that mermaid movie you watch all the time.”
I splashed out of the water in my Ariel impression and started to sing, but Claude cut me off a few notes in, “Hey, I bet I can get enough height for a cannonball off that rock over there.”
“Do you really think it’s deep enough to jump into?” I asked, but Claude was already jumping before I finished the question, needle-lightsaber still in hand.
I thought the splash he made would dry the creek. I closed my eyes on impact, and plugged my nose out of habit. When I looked, the creek was still full and Claude was staring the trail of watered down blood making its way down his arm.
“What happened?” I waded over to him as fast as I could without catching anything sharp on the bottoms of my feet.
“Must have cut myself with the needle I guess.”
I took off the t-shirt I’d worn over my bathing suit and held it over the cut with one hand. The other hand I put on Claude’s shoulder and it occurred to me that I couldn’t recall having ever touched him before. Maybe by accident when we were playing, and you couldn’t really count something like tag, because you have to touch everyone when you play tag. But to leave my hand on him, skin to dirty adolescent skin. In the heat we stuck to each other the way my thighs stuck to the vinyl booth seats in the diner, except better than that. About a half a mile away on the street, a driver laid on the horn of his car. Claude and I both jumped. I did not let go.
Suzanne McWhorter is a graduate of the NEOMFA in Cleveland, Oh. She is currently teaching English at various universities in the Cleveland area while continuing to write. Her work has appeared in the Pea River Journal and Embodied Effigies.