Playing Dead

Nobody wants to play outside. Gabe hides under a blanket tent, playing with action figures. I'm tired of action figures. I kick a rock all the way to the pond where the water is choppy and white. A few ducks float on the waves, quacking hello. I could run home and get bread for the ducks, but they are bobbing away, quacking goodbye now, and I can feed them some other day.

I dig a gray stone from the wet sand by my right foot and, still crouched, toss it, wrist up and out and away. Skip, skip, plop! Only three skips, if you count the last. Not very good. Greg Thompson can skip a rock six times. I look by my sneakers for more stones, but they are too big or too round or not stones at all but pieces of beer bottles or broken clamshells.

The ground smells of clay and bait. I inch forward, crablike, gathering stones with my small hands. My hunt brings me to the weedy section of water where dads and older boys sometimes fish, but no one ever swims. I choose one last stone: a round white pebble, smaller than the others, with a red stripe through its middle. Brushing the sand from my knees, I stand and look ahead and see him.

He bounces on the waves, doing the best dead man's float I've ever seen. His hands float like Frisbees on the water. His feet don't kick and his head doesn't shake from holding his breath too long.

The cold and sandy stones itch in my palm. I begin counting. When I reach twenty, my right knee twitches and I close my eyes. Behind my eyelids, he bobs up and down. I open my eyes. He's still there and he's in the weedy water and he's too small to swim alone.

I drop the stones and step back. His hand touches a slimy green lily pad. I run away. Sand disappears under my sneakers, then gravel, street, grass, and wood.

"Mom!"

"What is it?" She comes from the kitchen, wiping her hands with a dishtowel. Gabe follows her, his Dino-Men blanket hanging from his shoulders like a cape.

"There's a boy in the pond. Floating. He's not moving. I think he might be . . . he wouldn't. . . ."

"What?" Gabe asks.

"He wouldn't stop bobbing!"

"Okay," Mom says. She pushes me onto a kitchen chair. Then she grabs the phone. While she tells the operator where we live, Gabe stares at me across the table as if I am some new dinosaur he's discovered.

"Stay here with your brother," Mom orders. She opens the screen door before turning to ask, "Where?"

"The weedy part."

Gabe and I watch her run until she passes the trees and we can't see her.

Gabe wraps his blanket tighter about his shoulders. "Who is it?"

"I don't know. I couldn't see his face."

"George?"

"He's at his cousin's house today." I do not say, "George is bigger than the boy in the water."

"Charlie?" he offers. Charlie is our neighborhood bully. He's big with freckles like chicken pox. Charlie often tells Gabe he can't join our games because he is too little or too stupid.

Before I can disappoint Gabe, a siren squawks. A policeman leans his head out the window of his car, mouthing the numbers on the houses. I run onto our front porch and point to the end of the road. "Down there!"

The officer nods. An ambulance follows him, chirping, its red light spinning slowly, just like the ice cream man's truck. Neighbors step outside to ask what's going on.

"What seems to be the matter, John?" Mrs. Higby shouts at me from across the street. She didn't miss my direction to the policeman. She doesn't miss much.

"There's a boy in the pond," I call.

"Who is it?" several voices demand.

"Charlie," Gabe yells.

Everyone shouts. Cries about his poor mother echo until the ambulance starts screaming, its light spinning much faster. I cannot make them understand that the boy is not Charlie. Mom reappears, her steps brisk, her face tired. She climbs the porch, ignoring our neighbors' yells. "Helen? Is poor Charlie okay?"

She grabs Gabe and me by the shoulders. "Get into the house, boys," she whispers. We get.

Someone raps on the screen door and I am startled awake. I jump from the top bunk, superhero style, and shuffle to the kitchen. Kenny, Greg, and Matt, beach towels slung over bare shoulders, stand, gray and fuzzy behind the mesh screen squares.

"We thought we'd go swimming. The cops took the yellow tape away. We can use the pond again. You want to come?"

Gabe's bare feet slap against the kitchen tiles. He totters behind me, still half asleep, his hair in spiked tufts. He rubs his eyes.

"I can't. I promised Gabe I'd play a game with him. See you guys later." I spin to face Gabe, whose brows have bent over his blue eyes.

"Not a word," I warn him as the boys clunk down our porch in their flip-flops.

"But you--"

"I know. I know. I just don't feel like swimming right now, okay?"

"You really want to play a game?"

"Sure." I don't.

"What one do you want to play?" Gabe kneels before the battered green box that contains his game collection.

"You pick."

He squirms like a puppy and recites each game's name from memory before picking "Handyman Joe." He likes Handyman Joe because he can win and because he wants to be a carpenter when he grows up.

Gabe's "You lose a piece!" wakes my parents from their Saturday sleep-in. Mom wears her short pink bathrobe. Her hair sticks up like Gabe's. Her eyes widen when she sees us playing together quietly. "You boys want breakfast?"

"After breakfast, we could go fishing," Dad says, rubbing his prickly jaw. He blinks, his lips flatten, and his cheeks turn pink. It's the face he makes when he realizes he's forgotten a birthday or to buy milk.

"Never mind," he says. "Why don't we go to the zoo instead?"

"Yeah! We're going to see bears!" Gabe cheers. He has loved bears ever since Mom first read Blueberries for Sal to him. Before he decided to be a carpenter, he wanted to be a bear.

"Sound good to you, Johnaroo?" Dad asks, crouching so that he can look in my eyes.

"Sure," I agree. Dad hasn't called me Johnaroo since I was a baby.

He glances up at Mom. Her mouth puckers. "It sounds great," I add. Dad's face loosens as he rises and puts an arm around Mom. "Let's eat those pancakes," he says.

"But they're not made yet," Gabe says.

"Shut up," I say.

My parents frown, but they don't scold me. Mom grabs Gabe's hand and tells him, "You can add the bananas to the batter."

Arriving home from the zoo, Gabe hugs his new stuffed polar bear to his tummy. I race past him up the steps and grab the newspaper tucked inside the screen door.

"John!" Dad yells, in his get-your-knife-out-of-the-toaster voice.

"What?"

"Could I see the newspaper?"

I shrug and hand the paper to him. I see the picture. It's a school photo. You can tell by the boy's combed hair and stupid smile and cloudy background. The caption reads: Jed Lawson, Age Seven, Drowning Victim.

Drowning Victim. I glance at the date at the top of the page. I haven't seen a newspaper in three days. Not since I saw him. Mom sends me out to collect the paper when it arrives. Not this week.

Dad folds the newspaper under his arm.

"I'm going to put Joe the Bear on my bookshelf, next to all my bear books." Gabe hops past me into the house.

I follow him inside and stop in the kitchen. My parents pass me. Dad's loose change jangles in his pockets. I lean my face against the cool metal of the humming refrigerator. Mom whispers something to Dad and kisses him on the nose. The hum moves through my cheek, rubbing fast, and I wonder if this is what a mistake feels like being erased. Rub, rub, rub. I wonder where my father will hide the newspaper tonight.

I wade into the gold water and take a deep breath. "Ready?" Charlie calls and Greg and I nod, our bodies in the tight "get set" position. "Go!"

I dive forward. Underwater I kick, kick, kick my feet to swim as fast as I can. My chest feels like it's been hit with a softball, but I keep kicking. I'm going to win this time.

The strong tug on my leg scares me. No fair. Greg's cheating. I push upward when a harder tug pulls me further backward, deeper into the water. My eyes sting when I open them. No fishes. No Greg. No nothing.

He's swimming beside me, only he's not swimming, he's floating. In the middle of the water he's still doing a dead man's float. I push backwards. I don't want to be near him. I want him to go away. Please just go away.

The floating boy begins to twitch, and, before I can escape, he lifts his head and Gabe's blue eyes stare out of a fish-eaten face. A weed sticks out of his teeth, the five that are still left on top. There's no bottom to his mouth.

I wake up then, push my sheets away, and climb down the ladder from the top bunk. I kneel beside the bottom bed and watch Gabe sleeping, his right arm wrapped around Joe the polar bear. My eyes squint until I can see his chest moving up and down, up and down. I rest my forehead against the damp wood of the bed frame and exhale slowly.

I crouch there until my knees ache, and then I push Gabe toward the far side of the bed and lie down beside him. His hair smells like molasses and is sweaty damp. I can't stop shivering. I snuggle closer to Gabe, bumping him awake.

"John?" he whispers.

"Yeah?"

"What are you doing here?"

"You had a bad dream. I could hear you."

"Ohhh," he murmurs. A few seconds later, "Could you stay a little while then? Until I fall asleep?"

Gabe moves closer to me and I gently rub his arm. "Sure," I tell him, "I'll stay."

"Vroom vroom," Gabe growls, pushing his Corvette past my yellow T-Bird Matchbox car. I circle my car around the dust puddle in the driveway and yell, "Yeehaw!" Having a baby brother is a good excuse to play with my old toys.

"When I can drive, I'm gonna buy a red truck," Gabe says.

"I'm going to get the fastest car in the world, like the Batmobile," I tell him.

Greg, Matt, and Charlie interrupt our driving. Charlie carries his older brother's football. I hurry to stand, leaving the car in the dust puddle.

"Hey, John, wanna play?" Matt asks. Charlie throws the ball at my head. I catch it before it hits me, and Charlie's smile slides down his face like ice cream dripping from a cone.

"Sorry, Gabe, no babies allowed," Charlie says, although Gabe has not asked to play and is not looking at Charlie. He knows better.

"Can I watch?" Gabe asks, directing his question to me.

"Sure."

"You can be our goal line," Matt offers.

Matt and I team up against Charlie and Greg. We're winning by six when Charlie calls a time out. Matt and I talk about our school plans. He has the latest model of the best water gun. His mom says he can't take it to class to show off.

"I'm going to bring my stuffed bear Joe!" Gabe yells from the end zone.

"I'm going to join the acting club," Charlie says, his time out finished.

"What?" Greg says.

"Sure. I've been working on an impression all week." Charlie's smile is the same one he uses to persuade younger boys to give him their lunch money. "Want to see it?"

No, but I don't say it. We all nod. He lies down on the ground, hands at his sides, legs apart. Then he inhales loudly, puffs out his cheeks, and rolls his eyes back so that you can see the whites.

I rub my hands together to hide they're shaking a little.

"Yuck," says Matt.

"What the hell is he supposed to be?" Greg asks.

I turn from Charlie's swollen face. "I don't know, a pig?"

Charlie's breath explodes. He stands and glares at us. "God, you're such losers. You couldn't even guess."

Matt shrugs and sets up the line of scrimmage. "So what were you?"

Greg sets the football, and I begin counting, "One Mississippi, two Mississippi." I have to reach seven Mississippi before I can rush and tackle. Greg hikes the ball to Charlie, who holds it for a second before saying, "Jed Lawson, dumbass."

I rush on "five Mississippi" and throw myself at Charlie's hard body, knocking him to the ground. His body breaks my fall. I stand and wipe bits of grass from my jeans.

"You blitzed without calling," Greg says. He watches Charlie wriggle, holding his leg and moaning.

"Did you hear what he said?" I say.

"Jed Lawson," Gabe answers. He grins as he watches Charlie squirm on the ground.

"That's right. He made fun of the kid who drowned in the pond."

Charlie stops moaning and stands. Gabe steps backward.

"What the hell, John?" Charlie gasps, his hands fisted.

I don't flinch. I just stare ahead and breathe. In, out, in, out. I won't talk about the dreams of Jed Lawson or the nights spent wondering what souls look like. And I won't let Charlie twist him into an impersonation.

"I'm going to kill you," he says in a voice that used to scare me.

"No, you won't."

His freckles flash against his skin like red fireflies. He stares at me. I stare back. "You blitzed without calling." He sounds like Gabe when he accuses me of grabbing the bigger brownie.

"I'm tired," I say, and I am, so tired. "Let's go home," I tell Gabe, propelling him forward with my hand.

"You hit Charlie!" he yells as he skips beside me. "I can't believe it!" His hands flap about his face like crazy butterflies.

"Yeah. He's an ass."

Gabe hee-haws with delight. I laugh because he sounds exactly like a donkey. I laugh until we reach home, until tears run down my chin. I laugh until my mother has to slap my face.

"I'm fine," I croak through a sore throat. I have stopped rocking back and forth on the kitchen chair. "I'm fine now, really. I promise. I'm not scared to die."

"What did you say?" she asks, petting my hot cheek with her fingers.

"I said I'm fine. I'm okay now. Really."

She stops stroking my face. "John, did you--"

"Is John all right?" Gabe interrupts.

"Yes. He'll be fine. Do you boys want some cookies?"

"Sure," I say, and Gabe says chocolate chip and we do not talk about Jed Lawson, not then, not ever.