The Sinking of the Rock

I am part of a writers' group that meets once a month and we take on a short story challenge with a different prompt each month. I thought I'd share a few of the results. 

The first prompt was the phrase: 'The sinking of the rock." This is what I came up with. Enjoy. 

The Sinking of the Rock

“What the hell were you thinking, Ethan?” Avery’s eyebrows arched an inch over his thick framed glasses in surprise. They almost touched his hairline, which receded further than was natural for a 12 year old and overly exposed due his Brylcreemed sweep-back. Ivy-league wannabe.

“Obviously I wasn’t thinking. Not about Marcus Carraig, that’s for sure.” I sighed. “He was all over Kalyn and then he was mouthing off at her. What was I supposed to do?”

“Uh, duh, brainiac. Keep your mouth shut and walk away.” Avery whipped off his glasses and pinched his nose while he closed his eyes in pretentious distress. Seriously, no pre-teen should act like a preppy lawyer. Pretender. “Ethan, you’re going to need to come up with a plan that saves your face and saves face. Carraig has been wrestling since he was in diapers. Getting your nose pulverized isn’t going make any points with Kalyn, or make you any prettier.”

            I groaned. “You’re a lot of help.”  I adjusted my backpack in discomfort, but it had nothing to do with the fifty pounds of textbooks inside. “She’s just so sweet and nice and cute. And he was saying filthy things just because she didn’t want to be mauled in public. I had to do something.”  I pulled at the hem of my plaid button down, and kicked a pebble down the front steps of the school entrance, scuffing my new Nikes in the effort.  “It’s all for nothing anyway. She doesn’t even know I’m alive.”

            “Ha, well, maybe she’ll pay attention when you’re dead and it won’t be all in vain.” Avery ruffled my blonde curls, adding further disorder to their mayhem. Who did he think he was, my mother? “Perhaps she’ll cry at your funeral. Closed casket though, cause your face will be too messed up.”

I grimaced and swatted at him but he jumped away. He adjusted his messenger bag over his leather jacket and pushed his specs back up his nose. He didn’t even need glasses. Faker.  “I gotta get to class. I’ll meet you here at three and you can tell me your plan.”  He slapped me on the back and smiled. It almost choked me up. At least he thought I could come up with a plan. Best, best friend a guy could have.

            “Ya, I’ll let ya know.” I hiked my backpack again, yanked my chinos up over my narrow hips, and headed off to class.

            I spent the better part of that morning wrapped up in my own head, with thoughts of Kalyn and replays of the look on her face when Marcus started calling her names. I’d fallen hard three years ago when Kalyn had given me a Valentine in the 5^th grade that had hearts all over it and was signed, ‘Love, Kalyn.’ It didn’t matter that my name wasn’t on it and it was likely a generic extra she’d thrown in my sparsely decorated paper bag.

But it made me take notice of her… straight, shimmery brown hair, pale green eyes and freckles. It wasn’t only how she looked but also how she smiled all the time and was always nice to people and kind. I’d never seen her be a catty witch like so many pre-pubescent girls morphed into by the time they hit junior high. I was afraid to be in the same room with most of them.

            It put me in a funk for weeks when Marcus Carraig noticed Kalyn last year. I bottomed out when she noticed him back and started hanging out with him and being nice to him, of all people.

Marcus was perfectly situated to be a bully. In the 8^th grade he eclipsed 5’8” and likely topped out at 135 or 140. At twelve and a half I was 5’2” and 88 pounds but there were even worse ways to not measure up. 

Marcus embodied the bad boy that every girl fell for. He’d been wrestling guys two years older for two years, dressed even more GQ than Avery and the guy rode a motorcycle to school every day. Granted it was on the back of his 16-year-old brother’s Honda but it still upped the cool factor for 13 year olds.

            Now Marcus had noticed me and in the worst way possible. I had been sitting in the commons that morning, wolfing my third granola bar and drooling over Kalyn on the bench across from me, when he’d plunked down beside her. He didn’t even say hello, just started nuzzling at her neck and panting away. She’d giggled and pushed him away but when she’d turned to him, he was all over her, mauling her, like ALL over her… It would have been gross if it had been anyone. But it was Kalyn. As I watched her react, all I could hear was the roar in my ears and my face burned with indignity for her. She pushed him away and didn’t even yell at him; she just got all teary-eyed and said his name in that disappointed way. Marcus just lost it.

            I’m couldn’t recall exactly what Marcus said but his face, when he spewed at her, will be forever entrenched in my mind. It was as malice and foul and belligerent as the words he literally spat at her. I just reacted without thought or reason.

            “Hey, you can’t talk to her like that!” I had no memory of moving but I stood in front of Kalyn and under Marcus. Towering over me, each of the six extra inches of height was blazingly apparent. “She has every right to tell you to back off.” It was eerily quiet in the pre-class conclave of the main foyer of the school.

            Marcus’ lip curled in derision and something entered his eye that I’m pretty sure wasn’t fear. More like a thirst for my death to slake his blood rage. “You pickin’ a fight with me, runt?”

            “Ya, if you don’t lay off her,” I shouted in a lapse of sanity.

He grabbed the front of my shirt and hauled me up against the wall. I was exposed as the fraud of a hero I parodied, in more ways than one. My shirt was rucked up around my neck revealing my feeble physique and a lack of oxygen caused my face to blush like the schoolboy I was. My eyes watered from pain and the whiff of sour milk as Carraig breathed his threats over me.

            “I’m gonna put your nose in the back of your throat, dumb ass.” I couldn’t look at Kalyn but just nodded affirmation, my lips blue, agreeing to anything in my shame and asphyxiation.

            “Carraig, put him down.” An avenging angel in the form the morning supervisor restored me. My vital organs were re-nourished with the return of blood flow to my body when Marcus released me to slide down the wall to the bench. 

            “After school, you pathetic wimp. Creekside.”  My breath left me in a whoosh again as Carraig rammed an elbow in my gut.

           

Even three hours later at lunch, I still imagined myself short of oxygen and I rubbed my chest sympathetically as I walked into the cafeteria. I wasn’t the slightest bit hungry but grabbed a pop and sat down at an empty table.

            Less than three minutes later, no fewer than eight parasites were hanging over me, languishing in the drama of my imminent demise.

            “Are ya gonna fight him?”

            “Man, you gotta run or he’s gonna pulverize you.”

            “You’re going down, brother.”

            “You can take him…if you can get someone to hold him down.”

            “Carraig’s a brute, man, but you just have to be faster than him.”

            “Seriously, you’re all so supportive.” I stomped out of the caff, but I could still hear them taking bets on how long it would take for Marcus to knock me out.

            I pushed out of the school doors and into the back parking lot, which was a mistake. I could see the arena of my coming slaughter. Beyond the school fields there was a narrow river that ran through the property. At a curve in its path, the waters pooled into a small inlet and the spot was sheltered from view by a thick copse of trees. Students engaged in numerous illicit activities at Creekside, as the location was called, while escaping prying eyes. It was the perfect spot for an evisceration. 

            I plopped down hard on the parking lot fence and reviewed my situation. I could run home at the bell I supposed but I wouldn’t escape my fate. Marcus wouldn’t forget and he’d corner me somewhere. I might get social points for at least showing up, for the three minutes it would take him to knock me flat. My rank on the adolescent societal ladder would hover somewhere between wuss and sissy, merely one rung up from coward.

As a wrestler, Marcus was big and strong, and I couldn’t let him get hold of me. If he got a grip on any part, I would be down for the count. Maybe I could be a little faster than him, and avoid him for a while, but I doubted I would evade the inevitable for long. I was calculating how long I would have to last with Marcus to avoid social obliteration and maybe achieve survivor status and a grudging respect, when a fleeting thought drifted in. I caught it and entertained it for a moment. As I mulled over a new possibility, my mouth twitched at the corners, then bloomed into a full-fledged grin at the prospect and a slight hope.

####

I stuffed my backpack into my locker and plucked at my shirt as it clung to me. The last bell of the day rang and a cold sweat broke on my brow. I checked my cell phone for the first time since the morning and I had twenty new texts. A record. As I scrolled through them, I could tell it was more of the same from lunch and I groaned. But my eye caught an unfamiliar number without a contact name and I brought up the message.

“Ethan, it’s Kalyn. I really appreciate you sticking up for me this morning when Marcus was being a jerk. You don’t have to do this. He’s just doing the stupid boy thing. ” I swallowed hard and blinked. My heart thudded in my chest and I think I hyperventilated a little. This was a great day! I had Kalyn’s number!

She was wrong of course. I did have to do this, now more than ever, because she was paying attention. And because I was a stupid boy too.  I texted her back.

“NP It’s fine.” I contemplated before hitting send. Seemed legit. Succinct. Understated. I pressed ‘send’ and immediately regretted it. Before I could add to this embarrassment of a conversation, Avery whipped me around.

“What are you doing? You gotta get out of here before he catches up with you.” I shoved the cell in my pocket.

“I’m not running.” I was indignant. “Seriously, you don’t think very highly of me.” I stalked off toward the back of the school. Avery skipped along beside me.

“I can’t let you do this, bro. It’s not good for your health.”

“Ya, well social suicide wasn’t on my list of things to do today, either.  So I’m picking the lesser evil.” Avery groaned but shut up.

The two of us marched across the field and like the Pied Piper, pupils filed out of the school woodwork to the siren song of my looming demise. By the time we reached the copse around Creekside there were nearly fifty spectators lining the half-moon clearing around the elliptical pool at the edge of the river. The willows hung out over the water and a floating dock bobbed at the shore of the narrow beach. It was a lovely spot for a butchering.

            I had about three minutes of hope as I stood by the dock with Avery, when there was no sign of Marcus Carraig. I revelled in the fantasy that he had been too afraid to show or at the least had forgotten about me. No such luck. 

            He strode through the trees and waded through the crowd in cocky confidence and my gullet soured.  I pursed my lips at the acrid taste of fear in my mouth. Marcus’ lip curled at the sight of me standing there and barked a laugh.

            “You got balls showing up, kid.” Kid. Seriously, he was six months older than me. “I’ll make this quick.”

            I spied Kalyn at the edge of the crowd behind Marcus, her brow furrowed in worry, I wasn’t sure for who. But I squared my narrow shoulders and straightened to my full five foot two…and a half. “Fine. Let’s do this.” I stripped off my button down, folded it and handed it to Avery, who gaped at me in horrid fascination. I pulled off shoes, then chinos revealing my gym shorts underneath. I flung them over Avery’s head.

            “What the hell are you doing, punk?” Marcus’ face was contorted in amused fascination.

            “I thought you wrestled,” I quipped.  A smile bloomed on Marcus’ face and he shook his head.

            “Oh, I do, punk and you are gonna regret this.” He stripped off his jacket, threw it at one of his buddies and stripped off his t-shirt. There were a few fluttery sighs in the crowd.  I cringed with the metallic taste of blood in my mouth as I bit my tongue. I clasped my arms and rubbed them, chilled in the air under the trees.

            Marcus hunched and started to circle around me. I mimicked his movements but tried to stay well away from him, stumbling now and then as I backed away. I had my back to the crowd, his to the water, when he charged. I dodged right and slipped by him but he reached out a hand to grab my flailing arm. It slipped from his grasp.

            “What the…?” I stood huffing by the water while Marcus stared confused at his hand, rubbing his fingers together. “You friggen bugger, you greased yourself!” he growled.

I smirked a little as I thought of myself in last period half-naked in the Home Ec. Kitchen with a bottle of olive oil. I snickered while the crowd tittered, but that was the wrong reaction. Marcus’ face fell like rain on a dark day and he thundered a roar as he came after me.

            I hopped to the right again, over a corner of the dock where it rested on the shore, and his fingers pinched at the loose skin on my side but again they couldn’t gain purchase. I stood ankle deep in the water on the far side of the dock, the black-grey sand mud oozing up between my toes. I stooped and grabbed two massive handfuls and fired them one after the other, muddy missiles, toward my target. One missed completely, but the other splatted directly on the mark in the middle of Marcus’ chest, leaving a dripping, mucky mess, sliding down to his pants. 

            He launched himself at me and hit me, head and shoulders, in my abdomen, and any general feeling of well-being left on a whoosh of all my wind. I gasped and wheezed as we fell into a foot of water, hard on my tailbone with Marcus grasping at my hips. I flicked my hair and the water out of my eyes, only to see the front end of a fist right before it crushed into my nose. A crack thundered through my skull and I felt liquid drain over my lip and tasted the salty brine of blood.

I kicked, and back-peddled and slithered out of his grip but left my gym shorts in his hand. I crab-walked into deeper water where I could stand without revealing my tighty whiteys. I knew I was trapped.

            I could float out into the river and be found days later, paled skin and bloated in death. I could walk out onto shore in humiliation. I looked up to the crowd and saw Kalyn, mouth in a firm tight line and eyes wide in fear and…something else.  I stood with the current gently swirling around my hips, blood dripping and rippling little pools of the water in front of me. I braced myself for the beating.

            Marcus, in a fit of rage and frustration, threw my shorts on the shore and bulldozed through the water toward me. I set my jaw, clenched my hands into fists, bowed my head and closed my eyes in a brief supplication to the patron saint of wimpy teenagers. When I opened them, my answer to prayer was before me.

            Slithering on the surface of the water was the longest water bandit I had ever seen. At least four feet of harmless water snake but slippery, dark and glittering in the light fluttering through the tree branches overhead. It looked like salvation to me. I didn’t question providence but grabbed the body around its substantial middle and flung it with everything I had at the oncoming behemoth.

            I couldn’t have had better aim if I’d really tried.

            The snake’s body hit Marcus smack in the middle of his nose and immediately wrapped itself in indignation around his head, curling over his ears and through his hair, its head hissing over his forehead. Marcus squealed, as high pitched and girly as my six-year-old sister in the midst of a hissy fit over the denial of chocolate ice cream on a weeknight. He twirled and twisted in the water, half-blinded by the body of the snake, clawing at his head and face.

            “Get it off, me! Get it off me!” he squealed as he thrashed by me into the deeper water.

As the besmirched bully passed by, I was propelled by chance and opportunity for escape, to the riverbank, where the trees might hide my indiscretion.  I crawled up behind the trunk of the massive willow whose branches arced out over the Creekside pool. Wrapped around one of the more substantial limbs was the water rope that the brave and fun-loving used to swing out and launch themselves into the deeper waters, where Marcus now stood peeling the water bandit off his face.

In a flash of brilliance I scrambled up the tree and unleashed the water rope. I gripped tight, took my target in sight and catapulted out of the tree on the end of the rope, curving around in a widely arcing swing. I tucked my knees up tight to my chest and as I sketched low over the water, shot my feet straight out and hit Marcus square in the chest just as he threw the water snake off his head.

I swear, he flew five feet, back arched, feet flying high in the air with the wide-eyed surprised look of the rarely defeated, before he crashed head first into deep water, feet askew and awkward.

I dropped off the rope as it rounded to the dock and ended up on my knees on the wooden platform. The crowd was hooting and hollering and at first I thought it was mocking. But when they started to chant my name, I presumed that they had appreciated my ingenuity in the face of adversity. I fist pumped both hands in the air and roared, tighty whiteys notwithstanding.

Avery walked up the dock with my clothes, as Marcus’ buddies helped him out of the water groaning and sputtering, to jeers of ‘Squealer!’ and ‘Afraid of a little snake, Carraigh’ and ‘He dunked ya good, Marcus.’

Avery shook his head and stood in front of me as I pulled on my pants.

“Nice swinging, Tarzan.” I just smirked and shrugged. “You know what Carraig means. Ethan?”

“Huh, what do you mean?” I stuttered.
            “Well, Carraig is an Irish name. It means rock.” I just shook my head and raised my eyebrows, not sure what he was getting at. Avery smiled. “He sure sunk like one.”

I laughed and Avery wrapped an arm around my neck. We walked off the dock towards Kalyn, waiting with a sweet smile on the shore of my success.