Surface Tension

by Brent Runyon

  Dad is so funny. He shoots her a look over his reading glasses and says, “Panda is a great name for a dog, dear.” But he's being sarcastic, so it's funny.

  I say, “Yeah, why did you name it Panda? Did it have trouble mating?”

  Dad says, “What did you feed it—bamboo?”

  We laugh at Mom, but it's okay, because she doesn't mind when we pick on her. She likes it better than when we pick on each other anyway. She just smiles and deals out the five-hundreds, the hundreds, and all the rest into three neat little stacks in front of her.

  Dad does the real estate and Mom is the banker. I don't do anything except straighten up the Community Chest and Chance cards and put a five-hundred-dollar bill in the middle of the board. Mom eyes it but doesn't say anything. She's a stickler for the real rules, so she doesn't like that we put the money in the middle, but it makes it more fun. It's like winning the lottery if you land on Free Parking.

  Before we roll to see who goes first, Mom makes the same speech she always does: “Now, I want you to promise me something, and I'm very serious about this.”

  “What?” We both know what she's going to say, but we also know that she's going to say it no matter what we do.

  “I want you to promise me that when I beat you, you're not going to cry. Can you promise me that?”

  “Yeah, whatever, Mom.” She always makes that speech, and she always has, ever since I can remember. It used to make me mad when I was little. But now I just want to beat her.

  We roll the dice to see who goes first. I get a two. I go last. I always have the worst luck. Dad lands on Reading Railroad. Mom lands on Oriental. I land on the stupid Chance space, and the card says to go back three spaces, so that puts me on the Income Tax space, so I already have to pay a hundred and fifty dollars before I even get to do anything.

  Dad rolls an eight and buys States Avenue. He's smiling. His teeth are so crooked and yellow. I've never really noticed that before. It's gross.

  Mom rolls a four and is just visiting Jail. I don't like the way she moves her dog. She taps it on every square like it's a kangaroo. A dog named Panda that hops like a kangaroo. Why doesn't she just jump ahead four spaces? It's so easy to do. I mean, there are ten squares on each side.

  I roll an eight and land on stupid Electric Company, which is the biggest waste of time in the whole game, because no one ever lands on it, and then even if they do, I don't get very much money for it. I've got a feeling this game isn't going to go very well.

  Mom has both Boardwalk and Park Place. Dad has all four railroads and most of the red and yellow properties, and all I have are a few random properties and not much else. It sucks. It's just like the worst feeling in the world, losing at Monopoly. Seriously, it's just like being a bum or something. Being totally broke with no money and no chance of ever getting any money. And plus, whoever is winning is just so happy with themselves. It's sickening. Totally sickening. It's like some rich asshole telling a homeless guy to get a job.

  I just don't have the feeling that anything good is going to happen.

  It might be possible if I were playing with my friends, but my parents are so competitive that doesn't seem very likely.

  Mom has hotels on both Boardwalk and Park Place, and Dad has taken all the green properties right next to them, and he's trying desperately to build up some houses on them before Mom totally cleans his clock. I have thirty-six dollars, most of it in ones, which I got when Mom landed on my stupid Electric Company space and had to pay me four times the amount on the dice. Dad's got a monopoly on the orange properties. I've been sitting in Jail for the last two turns, partially because I don't have the money to get out, but mostly because it's too depressing to do anything other than sit in Jail.

  It's not even the losing that bothers me that much. It's just how everybody turns into such an asshole when they're playing Monopoly. Especially Mom. She's so competitive. It's not even what she says—she's just acting so cocky and full of herself. She's been humming the same tune for twenty-five minutes. I don't know what it is, but it's so annoying.

  “Can you stop humming?”

  “Why, you don't like my singing?”

  “No.”

  “Sorry.”

  My turn. I know I'm going to roll either a six, an eight, or a nine. And then I'm going to be out of this game.

  Eight. Finally, some mercy. I hand all my money and properties to Dad and stand up and go out the screen door and walk out across the grass toward the lake. It's stupid, but now I feel really bad about myself, like really bad.

  I just about want to go and drown myself in the lake. I walk barefoot through the wet grass, and all the little clippings get caught between my toes.

  The rain here smells like metal. It smells like iron or something. I wonder if it's pollution or acid rain or what, but it smells like metal.

  It's like it's raining copper pennies. I should get some of those pH strips we use on our hot tub and test the water around here. I bet it's filled with lead and acid and oil and poison. I bet this whole place is just filled with terrible stuff.

  I'm either going to skip stones or go for a swim, but I don't really want to do either. I don't want to do anything, so I sit down on the beach and look over at the Richardsons weeding. They're amazing. They get like one day off a week, and they spend it on their hands and knees, digging weeds out of the rocks. If I got only one day off a week, that's not what I'd be doing with my time.

  Mrs. Richardson looks up at me from her weeding and smiles. Wow, that's cool. I smile and wave back, and she motions for me to come over.

  “Hello, Luke.”

  “Hi, Mrs. Richardson.”

  Mr. Richardson looks up from his weeding and says, “Cool Hand Luke.” Older people like to call me that sometimes. It's from some old movie I haven't seen.

  “Hi, Mr. Richardson. What are you guys working on?”

  Mrs. Richardson says, “Oh, we're just working on our yard here. Trying to make it look nice for our big family picnic next weekend.”

  “Oh cool.” That sounds awesome, actually. I wish I were in their family so I could come to their picnic. I wonder if I can get myself invited. “Can I help?”

  Mrs. Richardson looks up at me with her eyebrows raised. I guess she wasn't expecting me to say that. “Well, sure, if you'd like to. You see that pile of sticks over there?” She points to a pile of sticks on the other side of the beach.

  “Yeah.”

  “What we need to do is take all those sticks and branches and stuff and carry them all the way over here to this big pile.” There's a huge mountain of sticks and stuff piled right in front of me that for some reason I never noticed before. That's got to be the tidiest mountain of sticks ever. “Would you mind doing that for us?”

  “No. I'd like to do that.” I actually wouldn't mind that at all. It's weird. At home I wouldn't ever volunteer to do something, but working for the Richardsons seems like more fun.

  I'm not the weakest kid in my school, and I'm not the strongest either, but I can carry a pretty big bunch of sticks, no problem. I carry them all over, and it only takes me three trips. I try and stack them on the pile in a way that's sort of organized, but I'm sure Mr. Richardson is going to redo it later. He's just that kind of person.

  I walk back over to the Richardsons to see if there's anything else I can do. I say, “So what are you going to do with that pile of sticks?”

  Mr. Richardson says, “We'll have a bonfire at the end of the summer.”

  That's a lot of sticks. I say, “I wish I were going to be here to see that.”

  They both look at each other, just like my parents do when they want to ask each other something without speaking, and then Mrs. Richardson says, “Well, we just might have to move it up a few weeks so you can participate.”

  “Really?”

  Mr. Richardson says, “Only if the wind is blowing in the right direction.”

  “Which way is that?”

  “Away from the house.”
Oh right, that makes sense. He thinks of everything.

  I walk down to what used to be our little stretch of beach and look for a perfect skipping stone. It's weird, because I skipped probably a thousand stones last year, but there are all new stones on the beach this year. It's like they're restocked in the winter like how they do with the fish.

  I look for ones that fit right into my finger, like they were made just for me, but a little crooked still. The ones that are perfectly oval and flat are too perfect. They just never do much.

  I want to bring a collection of these rocks back home with me so I can show my friends what they're like. We could skip them across the pond where the rope swing is. That's one of the things I hate about where we live—there are no good skipping stones anywhere. Once in a while, I can find one that's halfway decent, but it still doesn't skip like even the worst one from around here.

  I like how when I get a really good skip on a flat day like today, the ripples are far apart at first and then get closer and closer together.

  It turns out that Mr. Richardson is a really nice guy. I thought only Mary was the nice one, but ever since the minister moved in and I helped with the sticks, the Richardsons have been treating us like we're the world's best neighbors.

  Mrs. Richardson even told Mom that we could cut through their yard now and that I could shoot hoops at the basket in the driveway whenever I wanted. She even showed me where the secret key to the garage is, but I already knew that. The best part is now we can use their dock. I think they feel sorry for us because our beach is right next to the minister's dock.

  I get a running start from our picnic table. I run across our lawn, and theirs, and pick up speed when I get to the stone walkway. I make sure I step on the big, flat red stone because that one is always warm.

  I hit the dock and run on my tiptoes because I don't want to get splinters. It slows me down, but I'm still going fast. The boards of the dock get wider where the dock makes a right turn. Most docks are straight, but the Richardsons' dock is shaped like the picture you draw when you're playing hangman. If it were straight, I could sprint the whole way, but I have to take the ninety-degree turn a little wide.

  I pick up my speed again, past Mom and Dad, and hit the second-to-last plank like it's a diving board. I spring off it and fly through the air. I can see my reflection for a split second.

  I hold a huge breath of air in my lungs, hit the water, and go deep. I swim with just kicking. I swim along the bottom, near the brown rocks and the clumps of minnows. I lose my momentum from the dive and switch to the breaststroke.

  When my lungs are about to explode, I come up for air and turn back to look at the dock again. Mom is standing up with a worried look on her face. She's always worried that I'm going to drown. I swim back and dry off and lie on a beach towel in the sun. I close my eyes.

  At the end of Richardsons' dock, we can barely even hear the minister talking on the phone. It's almost like he's not there.

  We're all sitting out in the sun. Dad's drinking a beer, Mom's got a wine cooler, and I'm having a Coke. I don't get to have a Coke that often, so it's kind of a special thing. I've been ripping through this bag of Chex Mix too.

  I can hear a boat motor gunning it from not too far away. It sounds like a pretty big engine, like maybe a 200 or a 250.

  It comes around the point and shoots by us. It's going so fast it's almost skipping across the water, like a perfect skipping stone. It looks like there's a dude and a chick in the boat. The chick is driving and her blond hair is whipping around her face.

  I think that's Mike and Eliza. They slow down and bring the boat around so it's coming right toward the dock. It is Mike and Eliza. They're down for the weekend. I guess Mike's finally got his speedboat in the water. He calls it the Purple People Eater, because it's made out of this sparkly purple fiberglass.

  Eliza cuts the engine and turns the boat just right so that it eases up to the side of the dock. Dad and I stand up and Mike throws us a rope. I'm about to catch it, but Dad reaches in front of me and snags it. He was throwing it to me. Mike pushes a couple of those rubber protector things over the side so the sweet purple fiberglass doesn't get scratched up by the dock.

  Dad sits down and uses his feet to keep the boat out away from the dock anyway. I do the same, but my legs aren't quite long enough to steady it.

  Mike doesn't have a shirt on, and Eliza is wearing a bikini top and a pair of shorts. Wow, what a set of tits. She's sipping on some kind of alcoholic beverage, and she's wearing a pair of dark sunglasses. She says, “Any of you hotties want a ride?”

  I say, “I do,” before she even finishes the question and before I look up at Mom and get the head nod. Mike gives me a hand and I climb right into the back.

  Mike says, “You guys sure you don't want to come?” I really hope they don't say they want to come. That would suck.

  My parents shake their heads, push us off, and throw the ropes back into the boat. This is the best thing that's ever happened to me.

  Mom yells out something about a life jacket as Mike starts the engine up again. Eliza brings me over an old orange life jacket that slips over the head, instead of the cool blue kind with the zipper. Mike and Eliza aren't wearing life jackets.

  She says, “Will this fit?”

  “Yeah, I think.”

  She leans over a little bit closer and whispers, “You only have to wear it until we're out of sight.” I've got a boner.

  The air smells like the perfect mix of gasoline, oil, and lake water.

  The seats are white leather with purple on the sides. There are only four seats, so I sit in the back, next to the engine.

  Mike guns it and the bow goes way up in the air. I have to hold on so I don't fall out into the water. My hair is blowing in the wind like crazy, and I have to squint to see.

  This boat is so cool and so fast. It's like a purple bullet going through the water. I bet it's the fastest boat on the lake.

  We head toward the power station on the other side of the lake. I've never seen this side up close before. Mom and Dad and I tried to canoe across once, but we got so tired of paddling we had to turn around before we got halfway.

  Mike pulls back on the throttle and we slow way down. They look back and they're both laughing at me. I must look funny. My hair is blown way back and my eyes are watering.

  Mike says, “Want to drive?”

  I say, “Sure,” take off my life jacket, and move into the driver's seat. Mike shows me the throttle and the steering wheel and says, “Have fun,” and then goes over to Eliza and lights a cigarette. I didn't know they smoked.

  Apparently, they don't smoke that much, because they only have one cigarette, which they pass between each other. Is that weed?

  I point the nose of the boat toward the power station and push the throttle forward a little. The boat feels like it wants to go faster, so I push it a little bit more. Mike opens a beer, drinks it fast, and then crumples up the can and drops it in a paper bag with about ten other empties. Did he drink those all today?

  He taps me on the shoulder and takes the wheel again. I stand in the space between them and hold on to the backs of their seats. When the boat hits a wave, my knuckles touch their sticky backs.

  Mike has slowed down the boat a little so he can talk. He says, “You know the Boy Scout camp over there?” pointing back at our side of the lake.

  I don't, but I say, “Yeah.”

  “Me and Eliza were over there one time. I was fishing.”

  Eliza takes over the story. “I was sunbathing on the front of the boat, you know, topless.”

  “Yeah.” I can imagine.

  He says, “And we kind of drifted over into the area where the Boy Scouts were doing their canoe races.”

  She says, “And I was like, ‘Shit. Mike. Start the boat.'”

  He says, “But the engine wouldn't start, and we kept drifting closer and closer to the canoes. I was …” He mocks himself trying to start the boat. “And she was …�
�� He pretends he's Eliza sitting up on the front of the boat waving to the Boy Scouts.

  I thought she would have at least tried to cover up, but I guess not. She says, “Oh well, they were going to have to see a pair of tits sometime.”

  Mike's laughing. “Yeah, I bet they didn't think they'd get that merit badge at Boy Scout camp.”

  He laughs harder and Eliza hits him and then they kiss. Shit, why did I quit going to Boy Scouts?

  Mike guns the engine again and turns the boat back toward the dock. I guess our little joyride is over.

  The road on our left and all the houses look a little different from out here on the water. There's a big house built on the edge of the rock wall that I've never seen before, with a long wooden staircase down to a fancy boathouse and a weeping willow growing next to it. The branches drip all the way down to the water.

  I'm so lucky that we moved into a cottage where the land is flat and we can walk right down to the lake. What if we moved into one of these other houses and had different neighbors? That would be terrible. Even if our cottage is small and a piece of crap, at least we live next to the Richardsons.

  The night feels warm tonight and I want to be outside. Mom and Dad usually go down to the lake one last time to look at the water and the stars, and I don't usually go down with them. Usually, I stay inside and read, but tonight I want to go. We walk down to our little patch of beach and get our chairs out from where the minister put them next to the woodpile. This could be nice, but now we're all aggravated because of the chairs and because of the floodlight at the end of the minister's dock.

  I don't know why he put that in. I don't know what he thinks he needs to see out there. Now our whole beach is lit up like a prison after an escape.

  Even Mom is mad about it. She says, “That minister is pretty sinister.”

  That's her idea of a joke, and Dad laughs at it.

  Mom says, “The Sinister Minister—it sounds like a mystery novel.”