Ross Timberlake

It had been eight years since he first waded into the pond. Now he was back, waist-deep in Silas Pond with seven other kids his age. His first dip happened after his father pulled the car into a turnout beside the small pond. He had driven around for nearly an hour, looking for a place to let his family out. Finally, he stopped and ushered him and his brother to the rocky edge while his mother sat in the car, pleading, and pointing at a beach full of people not half a mile away, the beach he had driven by twice, as fast as the speed limit would allow.

            “This is better,” his father snapped, “we have the place to ourselves.” Minutes later, Louie was crying, and his mother was screaming as she slowly, ever so slowly, pulled shards of glass from his foot, and he cried harder, bleeding onto her white slacks.

            “If being newcomers to this town is going to hurt my boys,” she sobbed, “I’m not staying.” He learned years later, when his mother signed him up for his first summer of swimming lessons, that his father didn’t know how to swim.

            “But I’ve seen him swim,” he said.

            “You’ve seen him walking in water up to his neck and thrashing his arms,” his mother said. “Anyone can do that.” It made him wonder how many times he had watched his father nearly drown. 

            Bunny, the swimming lessons instructor, looked down at them from the dock. They had two more days of lessons before the lifesaving class was done and his summers would be free of swimming lesson misery. Bunny had paired them up for the summer two months before. His partner was Jenny Noel, a lanky girl who was a class behind him in school. They knew each other from the Junior High band. They both played trumpet, but Jenny was good. He was lazy and always followed her lead. Attention to details wasn’t something that came naturally to him, making him prone to worry. He dreaded the next two days of classes and tests on everything he hadn’t learned. He confessed as much to Jenny. “If I ever had to save someone from drowning?” he said, “I’m a goner.”

            In the middle of the breathing exercise (head down hold, turn head sideways up: breathe), he inhaled water and choked, coughing hard enough to unleash an embarrassing long string of snot from his nose. 

            “You okay?” Bunny asked, bending down. “Try pinching your nose and blowing …slowly.”

            “Louie,” Jenny commanded, “Head down!” She thumped him hard on the back until he spat out water. He would never have a handle on the breathing thing and had done it right maybe once. He’d been faking the swimming stuff for years and was amazed he’d gotten away with it.

            “Thanks,” he said. He felt dizzy, swaying in the breezy pond.

            “What happened?” Jenny asked.

            “I don’t know,” he said, “I was thinking of something.”

            “Or not,” she said.

            They watched the pair on the float wobble as waves from a passing motorboat slapped at the oil drums beneath it. Frankie Lane, who swam like a fish, and Susie Lucas, would be tested first.

            Bunny spoke to them through a megaphone. “Frankie?” her voice squawked through the horn. Frankie waved that he could hear her fine. “Susan is going to get in the water and swim to your right, okay?” Both of them waved and nodded. “Susan will tread water for a minute and then act as if she is drowning. Okay? Frankie? You will approach Susan from behind, get her head above the surface, secure her around the chest, and bring her to shore using the sidestroke. Do you want me to repeat those instructions?” Frankie waved her off. Susan gave a thumbs up. “Okay. When I blow the whistle, you can begin.” They waved back, ready to go.

            “I’m glad they’re first,” Jenny whispered. “They’ll show us how it’s done. If they have trouble, we’re all in trouble.”

            He heard her, but he wasn’t listening. He watched the swimming lessons bus back up a little knoll into its parking space by Daisy’s Snack Shack. A few moments later, Ronnie Davis hopped down its steps and strutted over to the shack.

            Ronnie had been the swimming lessons bus driver every year Louie had taken lessons. He picked them up at the fire station every Wednesday morning at twenty minutes to nine. He always greeted them with a broad-lipped grin. When they were seated, he’d look at them in the wide rearview mirror above him and say, “You already to dance?” And they’d all yell “Ready!” and off they’d go.

            Some mornings Ronnie wasn’t so pleasant. He could be ugly and silent; on occasion, he looked beat up and bruised. No one thought much of it. He worked on his family’s farm, so getting kicked by a horse or cow probably happened all the time. But there were stories about his father Clay beating him too.

            “Do you know how Mr. Davis got that shiner,” he heard one of the girls ask Miss Daisy after lessons one day. 

            Daisy had owned and operated the Snack Shack for as long as anyone could remember, and if anyone new anything about anybody in town, it was her, besides, she was somehow related to Ronnie. “Let’s just say Clayton’s a little loose with a milk pail. And you didn’t hear it from me,” she told the girls.

            Ronnie was in his twenties and a high school dropout. For him, the writing was on the wall. His future was made, but he was well-liked around town and had  a “hard worker” reputation, his badge of honor. He was better known for the company he kept, mainly his girlfriend, Bunny Belanger. If there was a marriage made in heaven, the circulating gossip suggested, it had to be Ronnie and Bunny. They had locked eyes at a Grange supper when Bunny was still in high school. Ronnie was beer buying age when they met. From then on, they were a number and inseparable.

            Louie watched him climb on a picnic table and light a cigarette. He wore round sunglasses, and his hair was slicked back in the style of the day. He smoked his cigarette slowly, admiring Bunny on the dock in her bright red one-piece bathing suit.

            Louie looked at Bunny too, and he was hoping she would look at her watch and decide it was time for the lesson to be done for the day. Frankie had rescued Susan in less than five minutes, and Susan saved him successfully as well. They stood on the beach toweling off, accepting praise from some parents who had come to watch. Bunny picked up the clipboard at her feet and looked down at the rest of the class shivering in the water.

            “Next Wednesday will have to be a long class so tell your parents we’ll be testing until everyone has had a chance,” she said. She read the order of the pairings, and to his relief, he and Jenny were last.

            They had twenty minutes to wait before they loaded back on the bus. Some kids used the changing stalls, which stood in a row, constructed in three groups of ten and separated by narrow openings to the street. Each stall was the size of a small closet and separated from the next by knotty pine boards that had split, been split, or had knots that fallen out. Everyone had heard the story of the birthmark on Bunny’s back, but no one knew who it was who had actually seen Bunny naked. And there were stories that Bunny herself had started the rumor. It didn’t matter. Louie and his friends could only imagine.

            As they waited, he, Frankie, and Todd Parkinson went down to the little dock where Daisy tied up her rental boat. It was a small aluminum boat powered by a seven-horsepower motor.

            “That’s what I want when I get older,” Todd said.

            Frankie slapped him on the shoulder and said, “You can go out in mine. My dad said he’d get me one, maybe even bigger, when I pass lifesaving.” Frankie slapped Louie on the shoulder and said, “I’d bring you too, Louie… if you knew how to swim!” Frankie and Todd laughed and ran off down the beach. Maybe they had noticed Bunny heading in the direction of the stalls.

            He stayed on the dock watching a bloodsucker curl around a cat-o-nine tail. “I hate water and everything in it,” he thought. 

            They were supposed to leave the pond at noon, and now they were running half an hour late. When Ronnie finally appeared and climbed behind the wheel, he looked different. His morning grin was gone, and from where he sat, Louie thought he was shaking as he got the bus underway.

              Frankie and Jenny had called him several times, but he was done talking. He asked his mother to tell them he wasn’t home if they called again.

            “They just want to help,” his mother said.

            “It’s not their problem,” he said.

            “There’s a problem?” his mother asked.  

            “I just don’t see why it’s such a big deal,” he said. “I know how to swim. I took the lessons. I don’t want to be a lifeguard. I don’t even like swimming. Why do I need to take a stupid test? I’m not going to pass. I don’t want to pass!”

            She looked at him curiously. He knew that look and wasn’t surprised when she said, “Well, young man, I am hoping you step up and do the right thing. At least for Jenny. She deserves a little respect, don’t you think?”

            “I wouldn’t do anything to hurt Jenny,” he said, leaving the room, “I don’t want her to fail because of me.”

            He rode his bike to the old elementary school to hang out with his friends like he did most summer days. Todd and Donnie were there, along with some kids from away who were in town for the summer. They had bikes too, so they all tore off on a trail that went through the woods and came out on a ballfield a half mile away. 

            It had been raining for several days, and the threat of storms still hung close overhead. On good days they would’ve had their baseball mitts looped over their handlebars. Donnie had a canvas rifle case slung on his Western Flyer that would occasionally hold a bat or a fishing pole. Without their baseball gear, they sat in a dugout and shared a cigarette one of the new kids had stolen from his mom. After a while, they wandered onto the field. They told the new kids about the businesses painted on the outfield fence and the people who owned them. It was a lazy, do-nothing kind of day that eventually led to an imaginary baseball game. 

            “I just hit a ball up the middle,” Louie said, running down the first baseline to claim a base hit.

            But Todd dove into the mud near second and, with his left hand raised, jumped up and proclaimed, “It was a low liner, and I caught it just before it hit the ground. You’re out, Louie!”

            Louie wouldn’t have it! He ran up to an invisible umpire yelled, “Are you blind. I’m safe. That ball hit the ground first.” And he went on like that until a chainsaw, somewhere close by, started, followed by a tree coming down. They all stopped to listen and wonder.

            “They’re cutting down the elms,” Todd said. “My Dad said they got some kind of disease, and they could fall on people.”

            “A disease?” one of the new kids asked. “Could I catch it?”

            Donnie said, “Yes, and you will turn purple, and your ears will fall off.”

            “Shut up, Donnie,” he said, “that isn’t true, and you know it.”

            “Yeah, well,” Donnie simmered, “what if? Everything’s changing.”

            “Yeah,” Todd said, “and it’s all happening this summer. Can you believe it?”

            “What do you mean?” Louie asked. They got back on their bikes.

            “The other day? After swimming lessons?” Todd started, leaning on his bike.

            “Yeah?” Louie asked, “what?”

            “That afternoon, my Mom was in the A & P, and she saw Bunny, and she had a black eye,” Todd said.

            Louie couldn’t believe it. “A black eye? Like a real black eye?”

            “Like somebody clocked her?” Donnie asked.

            “She told my Mom someone flew out of a changing room so fast that she got hit right in the face. It happened so fast she couldn’t get out of the way.” 

            “You’re kidding!” Donnie said.

            “Nope, that’s what she said. Mom thought her arm was broken too,” Todd went on.

            “Jesus,” Louie said, “Did she go to the hospital?”

            “I don’t think so,” Todd said, “She said Ronnie was by the lockers to help her, but that isn’t what Frankie and I saw. We saw them squabbling about something, and then Bunny saw us, and we ran up to the bus. I bet he hit her, and not with no door.”

            “I hope she’s okay,” Louie said. “She should dump that jerk. I heard she’s going to college, and this is her last year teaching swimming lessons. We probably won’t see her again.”

            “Nah,” Donnie said, pedaling into the lead, “she’s going to marry Ronnie. Just watch.” Before he disappeared down the street that would lead him home, he yelled, “Good luck, Louie! You’ll need it!”

            They rode down a little hill on the street that ran through a section of town that was lined with large draping elms and centuries-old homes. Louie’s family lived in one of those homes under the dying trees.

            He and Todd stopped at the end of the street. Todd looked up at the browning, curling leaves. “Wow, Louie, look at that,” he said, pointing up. “They really are dying.”

            “Yeah,” Louie said. He hadn’t noticed until then. 

            “How does this happen?” Todd said. 

            “Just does,” Louie said. They watched the tree service trucks pass and park behind the fire station. They counted a fleet of fourteen trucks that would line the streets in town for weeks.

            The day he was to save Jenny Noel was the coldest August day on record. When he parted the shades, hoping to see lightning and torrential rain, he swore he saw snow spitting from the sky. Then he heard the chainsaws. Wood chips and sawdust floated by. He opened the shades wider and saw ropes dangling from the elm in front of their house. 

            Louie could hear his father in the kitchen complaining about something before he left for work. He could never leave the house without being pissed off about something.

            “They better not screw up my lawn,” he said, “my cherry tree flowered for the first time this year, and it damn well better be here next year. Bastards. I hope the hell they know what they’re doing.” He slammed the door on his way out, leaving Mom shaking her head.

            Louie sat down and waited. He didn’t know what to say, though he had so much on his mind. She put a plate of French toast in front of him. It was his favorite breakfast, and he ate it in silence. She went into the next room with a cup of coffee and turned on the radio. He listened to her humming along with a popular song. She sounded happy like she had no worries in the world.

            They both heard the loud cracking start, and she ran into the kitchen and grabbed him. “Get under the table, Louie,” she said. “Quick. Under the table.” They pushed the chairs aside and scrambled under the table, and he felt her shake as she huddled over him. A loud crash followed the cracking, something landing on the roof and ground, and then another loud boom. There was a moment of silence before they heard men yelling and screaming. She got up quickly. “Stay there,” she said and ran out onto the porch. She returned and calmly told him to call the operator and tell them there had been an accident and they needed an ambulance at their address. She grabbed a drawer full of dishtowels and rags and ran back out of the house.

            Louie made the call and waited by the window with the phone. He didn’t dare move. He couldn’t see the destruction, but he could hear trucks moving and a chainsaw start. He peeked out the window to see several men dragging another man to a flat spot of ground. The man looked limp and a roped trailed behind him. From where Louie stood, it looked like he was missing a leg. His mother followed them, kneeled, putting towels on the man’s leg and directing the other men as to what to do. She seemed very calm, as though it were something she had done before. 

            She held the towels on the man’s leg while the ambulance attendants carried him to the ambulance. Louie stood on the porch and watched the chaos. He was helpless. There was nothing he could do, and no one to tell him what to do. He decided the best thing he could do was to meet the bus, and for some reason, that made him feel suddenly heroic.

            She was back in the kitchen, stuffing the bloody towels in a bag. She looked at him and somehow smiled. He had his swimming lessons bag over his shoulder. “You’ll be good,” she said. He started to ask her about what happened, but she pulled him close and said, “Don’t worry. It will be all right.” She kissed him and led him to the door. “Now go. I don’t want you to miss the bus.”    

            He walked down the driveway through a clearing that had been cut through the fallen limbs. He passed by the tree service men, the police, and volunteer firemen unnoticed. Looking back from the end of the street, he could see his father’s cherry tree poking through the fallen elm and wondered if that meant they knew what they were doing.

            The rest of the kids were already at the fire station waiting for the swimming lessons bus and talking about the accident. Louise told them what he’d seen and when Bryce Powell asked if he was scared, Louie said, “Wouldn’t you be if you thought a tree was going to crash through your house and kill you?” 

            After all that could be said about the event, the girls wandered over to the benches in front of the station and chatted amongst themselves. The boys stood waiting at the curb.

Bryce looked at his watch. 

            “What’s the time, Bry?” Todd asked.  

            “Five past,” Bryce said, looking at his watch again.

            “She’s late.” Louie was talking about Bunny, who always drove by fifteen minutes before the bus arrived. She would wave to them from her high school graduation present, a red Ford Mustang convertible. Louie stared down the street, watching for her.

            Todd suddenly grabbed his arm. “Yeah, Louie. I almost forgot,” he blurted, “Jenny called me before I left the house and told me to tell you that she’s sick and won’t make it today. She said she was sorry, but she said she thought you’d want to know.”

            Louie felt the bottom of his stomach drop out, and the panic hit. This isn’t good, he thought. This isn’t good at all. Could he run back home like he had forgotten something?  

            “Hey, there’s Bunny,” someone shouted, and they all watched a car they’d never seen before crawl by and disappear down the hill.

            “Did you see?” Todd asked.

            “Not really,” Louie said. “It may have been Bunny in the passenger seat. Did you see who was driving?”

            “No, did you?” Todd said.

            “I think it was a woman,” Bryce said, “I don’t know. They had girlie hats on.”

            He thought about Bunny as they waited. He wondered if she was hurt like they said. He really liked her. She was easy to have a crush on. All the boys had a crush on her, and all the girls wanted to be like her. He hoped she was okay.

            “It’s quarter of ten,” Bryce announced.  

            “What do you think?” Louie asked Todd.

            “I don’t know,” Todd said. “Think we should call someone?”

            “Yeah, I guess,” he said, “I could run home and call the school.” Perfect, he thought. He knew if he got home, he would make an excuse to stay there. 

            “If he comes while you’re gone, should I ask him to wait?” Todd shouted.

            “No,” Louie shouted back. He started to trot down the street and met the bus as it came around the corner. “Oh, no,” he said. Maybe it’s not our bus, he thought. He could pretend he hadn’t seen it. He looked away, hoping to alter the course of the day. Didn’t he just see the “Missing Cat” he’d seen on a flyer at the store? Shouldn’t he chase it? “Screw it,” he said and went back, no excuses.

               The new driver was a man he’d seen working at school, mowing lawns, and sweeping the halls. Everyone called him “Stub.” He was a friendly, outgoing man who whistled a lot and hummed as he worked.

            “Guess you’re it,” Stub said as Louie climbed on, folding the door shut behind him.

            As the bus pulled away, one of the girls asked Stub about Ronnie. “Where’s Ronnie,” she asked. “Is he sick?”

            “Don’t know,” Stub said as he went through the gears. He chuckled. “ They handed me the keys and told me I was driving the bus today. That’s all I know.”

            “But where’s Ronnie?” Jeri Briggs asked.

            “I think maybe they let him go or something,” Stub said, “I don’t know for sure.”

            Louie and Todd exchanged glances. “I wonder what happened,” Todd said.

            Louie shrugged. “All I know is I can’t take my test if Jenny isn’t going to be there.”

            Todd looked around the bus. “Hey, Tony isn’t here either,” Todd said. Tony was always the last one on the bus and often missed it. He and Jeri Briggs had been paired up for the summer.

            “He’ll show,” Louise said, “his mom will bring him.”

            “You better hope so Louie,” Todd said. “You wouldn’t want to save Jeri.” Todd laughed. Jeri was a large girl who struggled with a mysterious, adolescent weight problem and Todd was right, he’d never be able to save her. 

            When the bus turned onto the pond road, he sank deep into his seat, below Stub’s sight line. He felt ill and clutched his knapsack to stop his nervous shivering. He looked up through the window as the bus met the dense fog that spread out from the pond. It must be freezing, he thought. He hated cold as much as he hated water and the thought of jumping in made him shake harder. He was scared.

            It was just a matter of time before they would start looking for him. He peeked out the window. The kids were wrapped in towels, and Bunny and a young woman he had never seen before wore windbreakers. The new woman held a clipboard with a whistle dangling from it. She was talking to the class. Bunny had been standing behind her, but then walked away, disappearing between the changing rooms.

            When the bus door suddenly swung open, he ducked behind the seat. He heard someone climb the steps quickly and stop.

            “Louie?” Bunny asked in a low voice. “Are you here?” She started down the aisle.  

            “I’m here,” he called out. He pulled a coin from his pocket and dropped it under his seat, an excuse for hiding. 

             She touched his arm and asked, “Hey, what are you doing? Are you all right, Louie?”

            “Yep,” he said. “I lost my lucky coin.” He held it up and forced a smile.

            “Your what?” she asked. She sat beside him, and when their eyes met it made him want to cry. “Oh, Louie,” she said, putting her arm over his shoulder. “It’s going to be okay.”

            “Yeah, I know,” he said, looking at the coin in his palm, “My father gave it to me.”

            “Then it’s special,” she said. They had never been that close, and he could feel her gentleness and it felt good.   

       “I had a good luck piece once, too,” she said. She grazed her hand over her chest, remembering the presence of the chain. “I used to wear it around my neck. It was a heart. A silver heart pendant.”

            He thought he remembered seeing it. “Did your father give it to you?” he asked.

            “No,” she said, “he took it away.”

            “I don’t understand,” he said, realizing if he could keep her talking, he could distract her from dragging him off the bus.  

            A tear ran down her cheek. “He didn’t give it to me,” she said, “Ronnie did.” She paused, then stood up, and softly took his arm.“Come on, Louie, you’re going to be late.”  

            “Wait,” he pleaded. “I can’t do this.” She sat down again, her bare leg touching his. He dropped his head. He was feeling the panic he always felt when the truth was inevitable. He shook. “I’m scared,” he said.

            “I know,” she said, “me too.”

            He looked out at the kids in the water. The new woman was on the dock directing them. “Who’s she?” he asked.

            “That’s Julia. She’s taking my place,” Bunny said. She gazed over his head, folded her hands in her lap, tilted her head back, and sighed. 

            “Why?” he asked.  

            “I’ve been asking myself that a lot lately,” she said. She half-turned to him and said, “Promise you won’t tell anyone?”

            “I promise,” he said and thought, I don’t want to hear this.  

            Her gaze was focused on the front of the bus. “Why did this have to happen to me?” she paused, “It’s such a mess.” She stopped again. “It just got out of control.” She started describing her life for the past two years. “I was fifteen. Mom always said I was fifteen going on thirty. That’s when it happened the first time, with Ronnie.”

            He tried to listen, but the terrible events that had brought her to this moment disturbed him. He rocked slowly back and forth, trying not to listen to anything but the hum in his head, so he just heard fragments: “…then on my father’s desk…and his father said he didn’t, but I’m sure he did… his mother and father took me to New York… beat me and made me promise… Ronnie went wild… happened again and hurt me bad this time… found out and the sheriff came… fired for what he did… and I lied about my age…”

            She stopped and started to cry. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”

            He felt like he should hug and console her somehow, but he couldn’t.   He didn’t know what he could do.  

            “You must not like me much right now,” she said. She wiped the tears that had removed some of the makeup from around her blackened eyes. He could see someone had punched her.

            “This is horrible. I don’t know what to say. What are you going to do?”

            “Huh!” she blurted and tried to laugh, “What now? Oh, God. I guess I haven’t much choice. Daddy’s made that pretty clear. ‘Til I turn eighteen, I do what he says.”

            “But college…” he started to ask.  

            “I’m pregnant, Louie.” She buried her face in her hand. “I’m not going anywhere.”

            A truck drove by and parked down the road behind the changing rooms. The kids were back on the beach, shivering and waiting for instructions. Julia looked around, looked at her clipboard, and looked up and down the beach. Maybe for Bunny. She didn’t know what to do either.

            He and Bunny sat in silence and watched them. “She’s looking for us,” she said. “I think we should go down and let her know you have an ear infection and can’t swim today.” She turned and smiled at him, “Okay?”  He tried to smile, too, as he stood to follow her.

            Julia saw them as they started down the little knoll and waved. Bunny waved back.

            “Wait,” Louie said. He turned and ran back on the bus. He had forgotten his backpack, and as he was retrieving it, the truck had turned around and pulled up beside Bunny. Ronnie jumped out and grabbed her before she could run. Louie froze.

            She screamed as Ronnie pulled at her, ripping her windbreaker. “Let me go!”        

            Louie stood at the front of the bus and watched Ronnie drag her toward his truck. “Shut up! Shut the fuck up,” Ronnie yelled. “Get in the truck.” He slammed her against the truck, holding her and reaching for the door handle. “Get in the damn truck!” 

            Bunny had been shielding her head, but now, with her back against the truck, she looked up at the bus and yelled, “Help me, Louie! Louie, help!” She pushed away, but she didn’t run. She stood away from the truck and tried to speak to Ronnie calmly. “It doesn’t have to be this way, Ronnie,” she said in a pleading whisper. She glanced at Louie, safe in the bus. “We just need some time, you know?” 

            Ronnie pushed his hair back and looked at her. He laced his hands around his head. He sounded like he was moaning. He slammed a fist against the truck. “Fuck this,” he yelled. “I don’t want time. Time is up.” He reached in his jeans and pulled out a knife. He flashed it at her. “Hear me? Time is up!”

            Louie rummaged about the cab, looking for something he could throw at Ronnie or charge at him with. Nothing. He dropped into the driver’s seat and tried blowing the horn that didn’t work. He pulled a lever and that released the brake. The bus started to roll down the knoll. Ronnie didn’t notice until Bunny lunged out of the way. Louie held the wheel steady and didn’t look out. He sat in the bus and waited.