by Jeff Strand
“Here, have a pet,” I said, handing it over to Darren. The couple at the other table smiled and returned to their meal.
I had a sudden mental image of Killer Fang, decapitated and cut apart, flecks of his blood hitting my face as we caught Darren in the act…
“Pretty good,” Darren remarked, inspecting the dog and clearly unaware of the irony. He flicked the knot that served as its nose. “Is it housebroken?”
“No, it still leaves air all over the place.”
“I think I’ll name him Spot.” Darren set the dog on the edge of the table. “I’m sorry I forced you to make a balloon animal in a public restaurant. I can give you the names of several top-notch therapists if you want.”
“I’ll probably survive.”
A couple minutes later Stephanie arrived with our burgers and fries. “Oh, how cute!” she exclaimed, looking at the dog, then at Darren. “Did you do that?”
“Nope, it was my friend here.”
I expected her to look disappointed, but instead she turned to me and smiled. “What else can you make?”
I shrugged. “A few different animals.”
“He’s being way too modest,” said Darren, as Stephanie put our plates down in front of us. “Alex, you can make a flower, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well then make our lovely waitress here a flower.”
“Oh, no, you don’t have to do that,” said Stephanie.
“Sure he does. It’ll only take a minute.”
I could feel a burning sensation in my face and was pretty sure that my cheeks were fluorescent red, but I didn’t want to drag out the embarrassment by protesting. I took out a few balloons, selected another green one and a red one, and shoved the rest back into my pocket.
“He has to stretch them to avoid killing innocent bystanders,” Darren explained as I began the process.
I inflated the red balloon and twisted it into what resembled the bloom of a rose, then inflated the green balloon to serve as the stem. I twisted the two together and handed them to Stephanie.
“Thank you,” she said, taking a pretend whiff of the scent. “This is probably the best tip I’ll get all day. If you two need anything else, just give me a holler.” She left, taking the rose with her.
“I bet you could improve on that tip,” said Darren.
“Uh-huh. Right. Eat your burger.”
“I’m serious, buddy.”
I stuffed a french fry into my mouth. “No, actually the word is ‘delusional.’”
“Wanna test that theory?”
“Maybe next life.”
“Once again, your loss.” Darren picked up his hamburger and took a huge bite, then set it back on the plate and wiped some ketchup off his lips. “But don’t worry; I’ll wear you down in time. Then we’ll have some real fun.”
I didn’t see Darren during the first week of classes, which was fine because I was busy soaking up the College Experience. The cafeteria food wasn’t bad at all, I liked my classes, and even if I didn’t make as many instant friends as I would have hoped for, it wasn’t like I was sitting in a corner wallowing in misery.
Will was a perfectly decent roommate, primarily because he was gone most of the time. He was annoying when he was around, but it was nothing I couldn’t handle, and I quickly got used to the pictures. If I ever found a girlfriend, I’d bring up the subject of perhaps taking them down so as not to disrupt a potentially amorous mood.
Darren called Saturday morning. Early.
Well, it was early to somebody who’d stayed up all night eating cold pizza, drinking an entire vending machine’s worth of Mountain Dew, and discussing the deep meaning of Calvin and Hobbes with some guys on his floor.
As the phone rang, Will said something incoherent from his top bunk that I translated as “Please answer the phone in a hasty manner so that I am not required to hear that ring any more than necessary, as I consumed a substantial amount of alcohol the previous evening.”
“Hello?”
“Alex? It’s Darren.”
“Oh, hi. How’s it going?”
“Are you dressed?”
“Why? Did you want to have phone sex?”
Will raised his head. “Hey, I want to have phone sex. Who is that?”
“It’s my mom,” I told him. Into the phone I said: “I just got up. Why?”
“Because we’re going fishing.”
“We are?”
“Yep.”
“I don’t have a fishing pole.”
“That’s okay. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
“I just got up.”
“Then I’ll be there in twenty.”
“Make it half an hour.”
“Dude, we’re going fishing, not to the opera.”
“Fine, twenty minutes.”
“Don’t wuss out like that,” Darren told me. “If you want me to be there in half an hour, say half an hour. Stand up for your right to take a girlish thirty minutes to get ready.”
“Be here in half an hour.”
“Will do, sir.”
I hung up. “I’m going fishing,” I informed Will.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. To catch fish.”
“You’re not cooking them in my microwave.”
Exactly thirty minutes later, there was a knock on the door. When I opened it, Darren was outside, in shorts and a red T-shirt. “Ready?” he asked.
“Yep.”
“Good, then let’s—Holy freakin’shit look at those pictures!”
“They’re my roommate’s,” I said, gesturing to Will, who was still in bed. “He’s a little off center.”
“And proud of it,” said Will.
“These are kind of cool,” Darren proclaimed, moving in for a closer look. “Whoa, nice work on the blonde. She won’t be performing motor functions anytime soon.”
“That’s Jessica Runyon,” Will offered, sitting up. “She was the second victim of the Bay Area Butcher back in 1985.”
“Never heard of him, but the man can sure use a knife.” Darren turned to Will. “So, you’re a homicide major, huh? Made your first kill yet?”
“Nah, that’s not until my sophomore year.”
“Damn those prerequisite classes. Alex, you ready to go?”
“Way past ready.”
Chapter Twelve
Darren drove us through such a complicated series of dirt roads that I started to wonder if he was taking me out to the middle of nowhere to be hunted for sport. Seriously. But finally we arrived at the edge of a large pond, so perfectly round that it almost seemed man-made. The water glistened in the sunlight. I wasn’t usually the type of person who’d be impressed by something like water glistening in sunlight, but I had to admit, this was a beautiful pond.
“Nice, huh?” asked Darren, shutting off the engine.
“It’s great. Does anyone else know about it?”
“I’ve seen people around here every once in a while. It’s a great place to bring dates. Not that we’re dating.”
“I’ll keep my hands to myself,” I promised.
Darren reached across the passenger seat and opened the glove compartment. After searching for a moment, he removed a large hunting knife with a black handle and a leather sheath. The blade looked about eight inches long. “We’re carving spears from scratch,” he explained.
“You don’t have professional spearfishing equipment in the back?” I joked, even though I couldn’t help but be a little nervous about that knife. “I’m disappointed. I wanted one of those spear guns like the kind they mount on the side of a ship.”
“Do they really mount spear guns on the side of ships?”
“I dunno,” I admitted. “It may have been in a movie. Maybe Moby Dick.”
“Moby Dick sucked.”
We got out of the van and Darren removed the knife from its sheath. He held up the blade so that it flashed in the sunlight. “Me hunter. Me get stick. You hunter. You get stick, too. It stick-g
etting festival.”
There were plenty of trees to choose from, so I searched until I found a branch about four feet long and the diameter of a quarter. I pulled and twisted it until it was mostly off the trunk; then Darren came over and helped finish the task by sawing it off with the knife.
I jabbed the stick back and forth in the air like an angry native. “Yep, this’ll work.”
After Darren found and cut off his own branch, we sat on a large rock next to the water. Darren removed his shoes and socks and tossed them out of the way, then let his feet hang down into the water. “Don’t worry,” he said, “my foot odor shouldn’t kill more than a third of them.”
“And if it does, we can just scoop them off the surface,” I remarked.
“Yeah. You can go ahead and take off your shoes, too, if you want. I’m pretty sure there aren’t many leeches.”
“Nah, I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Suit yourself. The water’s pretty nice.” He ran his finger along the edge of the blade, then held the knife out to me. “Wanna go first?”
“No, I’ll watch and learn from your expert technique.”
Darren began to cut away at the end of his stick. He looked up at the sky and smiled happily. “How often do you get outside like this?”
“Not that often,” I admitted.
“Did your parents ever take you camping?”
“Nope.”
“You probably never even played outside with your friends or anything, did you?”
“Well, yeah, I did that,” I said. “I wasn’t into sports or stuff like that, but we’d mess around at the park and run around the neighborhood sometimes. But mostly I just watched TV, read books, went to the movies…that kind of thing. At least until I got shipped off to boarding school.”
Darren blew on the end of his stick and wiped off some extra splinters, then resumed sharpening it. “I never really liked any of those things.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. They’re okay, I guess, but I like to have some control over what’s going to happen. When you’re watching a movie, someone else controls everything. It’s all made up before you even get into the theater. Even if you went back and beat the crap out of the projectionist you couldn’t change it. I don’t like not having any say in how things turn out.”
“But isn’t that comforting sometimes?” I asked. “You get to forget about your problems for a couple of hours.”
“My problems usually aren’t that bad.”
“Mine aren’t either, I guess. I just…I like being entertained. I love to laugh. I’ve probably seen almost every comedy ever made.”
“And it doesn’t bug you, watching some actor doing something that you know is stupid and not being able to slap some sense into him?”
“No, that’s part of what makes it funny.”
“Comedies aren’t so bad, I’ll admit. But I just about have a stroke when I get dragged to a horror movie. ‘Don’t go into the attic, you idiot!’ ‘Turn around and pay attention to the psycho with the ax, you brain-dead fuck!’ It’s more stress than it’s worth.”
With a satisfied nod at his makeshift spear, he handed the knife to me. I accepted it and began to cut the end of my own stick.
“Not like that,” said Darren after the first stroke. “Never cut toward yourself.”
I reversed my cutting direction. I’d fully expected to bumble through the whole procedure, probably ending up with something the size of a pencil, but the hunting knife was seriously sharp and it wasn’t long before I had my own perfectly serviceable spear.
“All right,” said Darren, pushing himself up to a standing position. “Let’s go poke us some fish.”
I removed my shoes and socks and pulled up my pant legs. We waded into the water, stirring up dark clouds as our feet sunk into the slimy muck. “You’d tell me if this pond was a haven for broken glass, right?” I asked.
“You’ll be okay,” Darren assured me. “Just don’t step on a crab.”
“Ah, yes. The ponds of Arizona—the perfect breeding ground for crustaceans.”
“See? You at least know enough about the great outdoors to be sarcastic.”
Darren stopped once the water was knee-high, and I followed his lead. We stood about ten feet apart, holding our spears with the points facing the water.
“Now what?” I asked.
“We wait for the water to clear.”
“All right. Let the thrillfest begin.”
We stood there without speaking for a moment, as if silence would cause the muck to settle faster.
“So, do we just sort of stand here until a fish swims by?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you even know if there are fish in this pond?”
“There are. I’ve seen them jump.”
I was quiet for a long moment.
“We don’t stand a chance in hell of catching a fish, do we?”
“I wouldn’t think so. Not standing knee-deep in a mucky pond with a couple of sticks.”
“And why exactly are we doing this?”
“When you woke up this morning, did you think you’d wind up going spearfishing?”
“No.”
“Then that’s reason enough.”
I thought about that, and then broke into laughter.
“What else would you have done today?” Darren asked. “You would have watched a movie or two, wandered around campus, looked at some of your roommate’s freaky pictures, pretended to study, and gone to bed. By Monday, the whole day would be gone from your memory. But instead you’re here with me, and I guarantee you that ten years from now you’re going to remember the time you stood in a pond with a stupid fake spear looking like an absolute ass.”
Now my laughter was getting out of control, and I had to jam the spear into the pond floor to keep from topping over as my body shook.
“You’re disrupting the water!” Darren exclaimed. “The fish are gonna escape!”
For reasons that I couldn’t even fathom, that made me laugh harder. I wiped a tear from my eye and lifted the spear out of the water. “Look! I caught some slime!”
“Hurrah! We’ll eat well tonight, my friend!” Darren shoved his own spear into the ground and scooped up some black sludge. “I’ve caught some, too! The gods are smiling upon us this day!”
With a flick of his wrist, Darren sent the sludge flying at me. It wasn’t a direct facial hit as was no doubt intended, but it splattered all over my shoulder.
“Sorry,” said Darren. “Muscle spasm.”
“That’s okay,” I assured him, bending down. “I have no intention whatsoever of retaliating. I’m just going to reach down into the water for reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with revenge and get myself a nice, gooey handful of pond glop.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“Okay, here we go. I’ve now retrieved a huge handful of slime in an action that in no way is related to anything having any connection to vengeance.” I flung the muck at Darren, who dodged just in time. “Damn.”
Instantly we both threw our spears aside and crouched down, scooping up as much pond glop as possible. And then the missiles flew. It wasn’t long before Darren had several blobs stuck to his chest, arms, and legs, and I found myself almost completely coated.
“All right, all right,” I said, spitting out a particularly flavorful mouthful. “Truce.”
“No truce. But I’ll help you get cleaned up.”
Darren rushed at me, arms outstretched. I tried to grab some muck off my shirt to throw for a vicious close-range hit, but didn’t make it in time. I let out a loud grunt as Darren tackled me and we both splashed into the water. I prepared to wrestle myself to freedom, but Darren backed off, allowing me time to sit up.
“Do you surrender?” Darren asked.
“You got my wallet all wet.”
“You’re a college student. There was nothing in it anyway. Do you surrender?”
&
nbsp; “How about…no!”
“Fine. I hope you’re hungry for pond scum!”
My fearsome opponent charged, and I nailed him point-blank in the face with a previously hidden handful of muck. Darren cursed, threw his hands up against his face, and stumbled backward.
“Are you okay?” I asked, genuinely concerned, although I also scooped up some more ammunition in case he was faking it.
Darren nodded through his hands.
“Did I get you in the eye?”
“Your clump had a rock.”
“Oh, jeez, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to!”
Darren lowered his hands, revealing a small red mark. “It’s okay. No big deal.” Then he gave me a wicked grin. “Except that you’re seconds away from gaining about fifty pounds in pure pond crap.”
The battle raged again.
I lost. Big-time.
By dunking ourselves underneath the water a few times, we managed to get mostly cleaned up. I had some mud deep in my ear that I couldn’t quite manage to get out and which I explained to Darren would probably later cause me severe hearing problems and ultimately death. Darren told me to quit being such a pansy and to accept my imminent fatality like a man.
We wandered around the area for a while to give the sun a chance to dry our clothes. As demented as it sounded, I felt a lot more relaxed around Darren now that we’d pummeled each other half to death with muck.
We listened to music, talked, and laughed the entire way home. It had been a great day.
I couldn’t believe it. Darren and I were friends. Actual friends. I wondered what Peter and Jeremy would think about that.
They’d understand. People change.
Two weeks after classes started, I saw her again.
Darren and I were at the library, doing homework. Or, to be more accurate, I was doing research for an English paper while Darren sat at our table scoping out hot college chicks.
“Check her out,” Darren said, pointing to a brunette with gargantuan breasts. “If she ever toppled over she’d bounce right back up. She can suffocate me with those things anytime.”