Billy’s neighbors had an in ground pool put in the year before Billy’s family moved into the house beside them. So on that scorcher July day that they first moved themselves into the new place his neighbors were involved in a blossoming love affair with their pool. It even had a deep end! Their mom had given Billy a tour of their backyard lingering on the pristine new pool because she was sure that he and her son, a year younger than Billy at eleven, would be quick friends.
So the day they moved in, Billy bummed around the driveway in his swimsuit trying to be within view of the neighbors who were already out, splashing and yelping. He stood on his toes and hit a branch against the chainlink fence just to sort of alert them to his presence. To let them know that he was here and definitely ready to swim.
The oldest son, the one that Billy was to be friends with, waved and shrieked as he was pushed from behind into the water. He scrambled out, sopping tshirt clinging to his bony frame, and made his way to the fence. His thin lips stretched wide into a manic smile and as he got close to Billy he shook his longish hair and Billy was misted with overchlorinated droplets.
“My birthday party is tonight, you wanna come?” the boy asked.
“Uhmm. Yeah I think I could come. I have to ask my mom,” Billy said.
“Cool. My name’s Jason. Jason Johns. There’s gonna be girls at my party,” Jason said.
“Ok. I think my mom will still let me go…”
“Cool. I’m gonna go swim. You can’t come over now because my aunt and uncle are here but come over at five. Everyone is going to get here for the party at six.”
Jason turned and leapt back to the pool, diving head first into an inflatable donut that his younger sister was lounging on and Billy laughed to himself as her flailing body was somehow launched whistling and screeching into the air.
—
Billy and Jason sat in Jason’s cool, stinky basement and played a videogame while everyone started to arrive. The first few minutes were awkward as Billy was introduced to each person as they showed up. He was adrift in their already fluming friendships as they all recited lines from movies he hadn’t seen and laughed in unison. Soon though, he recognized a few of the movies and threw out a few hammy quotes himself and that was that. Billy was in, called upon for his opinion and looked upon to crack a joke at the right time from then on. At least, that’s what he hoped. That’s what it felt like for a good hour before they had cake and opened presents.
After cake, Jason’s mom told everyone to change into their swimsuits. There were six boys and six girls and they were all already wearing their swimsuits and ready to swim immediately. Within sixty seconds, everything was wet and chlorine slippery and Billy had gotten two dive rings from the deep end without goggles on. The phone rang inside and Jason’s mom ran to get it.
“You all be careful! I’ll be right back!” she shouted behind her.
Jason was wrestling a girl on the inflatable donut, a cute girl with wavy red hair and this wide eyed look that made her really precious, but as soon as his mom went inside he stopped and shouted for everyone’s attention.
“I’ve got a game we can play,” he said. His hair hung in wet strands past his eyes. “We’ve got enough goggles here. First the boys put on all the goggles and close their eyes. Then the girls take their swimsuit bottoms off and walk around the edge of the pool while the boys swim underwater and look at them. Then the girls can have the goggles and the boys will do it.”
“That’s sick!” the red haired girl said.
“I’ll do it,” a boy near Billy said. “I’ll do it first, alone, even.”
Jason was already handing out goggles to all the boys and putting his on. Billy got a pair of goggles shaped like stars. He didn’t want to do it.
“I won’t do it,” the red haired girl stood with her arms crossed, outside of the pool now. “That’s a stupid game. It’s just wrong.”
“You have to do it,” Jason said. “Everyone is going to do it.”
He looked over his captive audience as everyone looked down into their pruning hands. Billy couldn’t tell who did and didn’t want to play the game but it was obvious that no one felt comfortable with it.
“I don’t have to do that,” the girl said. “And I won’t.”
Jason marched to the white deck table near the deep end and grabbed a can of coke. He opened it softly as he walked toward the red haired girl and dumped it over her head. She stood beneath the fizzing stream for a few seconds as she realized what he was doing. Billy watched the bubbles slide over her wide open eyes for a moment before she let loose an agonized scream.
She shrieked and wailed and Billy saw her cute face go ugly in pain and she cried and whimpered between animal shouts.
“My eyes! It burns my eyes!” she screamed and collapsed onto the ground, clawing at her eyes. “It burns all my skin!”
“That’s just the carbonation,” Jason said. “Shut up or my mom is gonna come out here.”
The girl lay shivering and whining in pain as Jason cannonballed into the pool and re-soaked her. She looked like Billy’s dog right before it died and he saw that she was an animal even as she was human and his head swam as his body sank. Underwater, it was cool and dark and still. He listened to the blood beat against his eardrums. As he resurfaced, Jason was talking again to the group.
“–was rinsed off when I splashed her. Are we gonna play this game or not?”