The Great Big One

by J. C. Geiger

  Cheers. They come to him, his new friends.

  And Charity. Mostly, Charity. Charity says I’m so proud of you, and has anyone ever been proud? The way she holds him, the crowd, the eyes and hands and bodies around him, telling him again, like they’ve told him from the start:

  You are loved. You belong.

  For a weightless moment, he believes them.

  SIXTY-NINE

  THE BUGGIES CAME QUICKLY, IN A STORM OF PALE DUST.

  Griff was only halfway through his first solo piece—Charity had not yet sung. The vehicles overtopped the dune in a blaze of lamplight, disturbing the crowd. A man walked from the haze, ahead of the others. He wore a broken-in cowboy hat adorned with a red feather. The man he’d seen leading the charge that morning.

  “So sorry,” he said with a slight bow. “We’re going to need that piano.”

  “What?” Griff asked. “I just started.”

  “I can tell you,” the Cowboy said, pursing his lips, “I would love nothing more than to see you with this piano. Right, boys?”

  The tone reminded Griff of his father, about to give a consequence. Two men in his crew nodded supportively.

  “Can we just do one song?” Charity asked.

  “Breaking my heart,” the Cowboy said. “This Steinway here is a damn fine instrument, but not at all waterproof. Orders from Simon.”

  Other men fanned around the instrument with tools. One with a double-braid rope hung in the crook of his arm.

  “So no show tonight?” Griff asked.

  The cowboy shrugged. This wasn’t right. He’d won the piano. Two men gently closed the lid. They unfurled a large blue tarp. It sheeted out to the wind. Charity shook her head.

  “The storm is moving the other way,” Thomas said. “The piano will be fine.”

  “Can’t we say no?” Charity asked.

  “We say yes,” Stitch said. “We say yes and we go to the lagoon.”

  Lagoon! Lagoon!

  Like Mirror, Mirror, like the mention of noodles, another desert spell had been cast.

  The idea seized hold of the crowd and they were moving again—their whole existence, shifting like the dunes. Moments bloomed with firecracker suddenness, just as quickly gone to ash. The crowd dispersed. Many came with them, toward the lagoon. Charity grabbed his hand. Strangers gave compliments like gifts:

  You did it, blew me away, you’re amazing, man, are you in a band, want a drink?

  Griff didn’t know how to respond, but he took the drinks.

  Time slipped. Maybe 2 miles later, the distant roar of the buggies rumbled behind them. He couldn’t tell where the piano was headed. The drinks tasted good. The dunes smoothed down to flat earth. The brush softened to shrubs and desert trees reached for the moon with their bent, pineapple logic. Air thickened with the pulp of clay.

  Ahead, dancing in the tops of trees with leaves, the refractive glint of water.

  “Almost there,” Stitch said.

  This idea of swimming, Griff hadn’t fully considered. What underwear did he have on?

  “What about the show?” Griff asked.

  “Don’t worry,” Stitch said. “It’ll happen or it won’t.”

  Won’t?

  Thomas ran by in his underwear. His feet made wet little slaps.

  “That’s one eager beaver,” Stitch said.

  Would there be magic communal swimsuits, like the clothing at Mirror, Mirror? Did he remember how to swim? Griff looked at his wrist.

  “The bracelet,” Griff said. “Stitch, can I have it back?”

  Stitch looked at him blankly.

  “The black-and-white paracord I threw you? Before I played?”

  “Ri-ight,” Stitch said. “I gave that to—Alea?”

  “Is that a question?”

  “I gave that to Alea because, you see, it seemed important. And I am hammered. I was ready to hit on that cowboy for godsakes. That’s like, Stockholm or some kind of syndrome—”

  “Moon rising!” Rumblefish yelled.

  From behind him, a half dozen naked bodies. Running. Parts moving in ways Griff had never seen parts move. Bouncing, swaying, and seven naked butts in the moonlight looking very cute and entirely spectacular and he laughed again.

  “This can’t be real,” Griff said.

  He came from a clothed family. This did not happen.

  “Just remember,” Stitch said, “This is as real as anything else.”

  Stitch pulled off her shirt. A white bra with sunflowers, and this time Griff did not whip his head to look elsewhere—and he saw her scar. Jagged, puckered skin from spine to hip bone. A deep cut.

  Griff drew a sharp breath.

  “That’s real too,” Stitch said. She touched it. “I’m not shy about it here. I walk around with that thing all day.”

  Griff took off his jacket. His shirt. In solidarity, he felt like he should. Boots. He stuffed his socks inside. Bare feet on mush. Soft and quaggy. Now this was real—him walking publicly in gray underwear. Wearing the backpack felt strange, so he carried it.

  They approached a low-slung canopy of trees.

  Another herd of naked runners. Bobbing away like white-tailed deer. All singing a song from the Band:

  Rush away, the water here gets thirsty too—

  “Surreal,” Griff said.

  “Shouldn’t be,” Stitch said. “There are only two sure reasons we’re all here. To sing and get naked.”

  They parted dangling willows and stepped onto sun-warmed stone, contoured like an elephant’s back. Griff followed Stitch’s dim form through the trees. Water. Laughter. Griff clutched his clothing to his chest.

  Through gaps in green, he saw the lagoon.

  Moonlight blazed in a half dozen emerald pools clustered around a massive central crater. Sprawling, spectacular. Everyone naked. In the water, splashing, laughing—so naked. Plain to see. A full moon is subtle as a spotlight.

  Thomas tripped, removing his underwear.

  “Whoopsie doodles!”

  Dozens of bodies, all kinds—more bodies than Griff had imagined seeing in a lifetime and—my god, gorgeous humanity! The bodies, surprisingly beautiful. So many shapes and shades and sizes and ages and it should’ve been terrifying, mortifying—but it wasn’t. It was a complete thrill.

  A giggly, campfire feeling. Like everyone telling the same secret at the same time.

  Charity in underwear.

  “Hey,” she said, walking toward him. Very slim blue bra, blue underwear. This was different. Every cell at attention. Griff remembered the clay underfoot, soft, squishy, keep calm. His gray underwear would not tolerate any display of excitement. He tried to distract himself. Azure bra. Cerulean bra.

  “Glad you waited,” she said, standing close.

  Careful.

  He had not been swimming since October. His wrist was bare, which was wrong but a burning engine of YES in his chest and Charity in underwear, reflected in the lagoon. His own mirrored face settled in the water—mouth, nose, eyes—stop!

  Griff shoved his foot in the reflection, disrupting the image.

  “How’s the temperature?” Charity asked.

  “Amazing,” Griff said.

  “Going all the way?” Charity asked.

  This wildness. The part of Charity he’d glimpsed in practice room 5, coming out to play. Like the moment just before he’d felt her teeth, nipping the lobe of his ear.

  “Ready?” she asked, reaching behind her back. Bra strap.

  He’d never even seen Charity in her bra. Light blue bands scooping just above her nipples and the thinnest straps holding the fabric between her thighs, red alert, blood rush—

  “Let’s a play a game,” she said.

  “Okay,” he said.

  “The game is: Maintain eye contact.”

  She removed her bra. Let it drop.

  Impressions of color and curves. Unfair. My god.

  “Good job,” she said.

  She bent, looking up at him, and pulled off her un
derwear.

  She stood. Her eyes held his eyes like two chained dogs.

  “Okay,” she said. “Your turn.”

  Now he needed to move. How does one gracefully expose a penis? Sad turtle or angry missile—so rarely just right, he couldn’t tell what was happening down there. She would not look anyway, then—whoopsie doodles—stomping his underwear into wet stone and standing. The air felt strange over his whole body. Tingling.

  Charity looked down. She smiled.

  “Well.”

  “Hey!” Griff said.

  “I lose,” Charity said.

  She turned and leapt into the water. A glimpse of her—a hot flash of a vision he’d keep forever and he leapt in naked and the fresh water grabbed hold of him.

  His whole body woke up alive.

  A scissor kick, limbs gliding through water tickly smooth graceful and the sudden revelation we are not primates, reptiles—WE ARE FISH! Ha! Death Valley was once a salty sea, and we are fish! Bare in the water, like being unzippered from more than clothing—you could escape the whole trap of humanity. An erasure of self. He followed Charity’s bare body through the blue. They dipped beneath a stone bridge and surfaced in a wider pool, dozens of swimmers. A group, singing—

  Where we go, we go together—

  We can’t stop the race—

  And Griff knew the words. Could feel them tingling in his skin. The water felt conductive, carrying the refrain.

  You belong, you belong—

  “How can a swimsuit make such a difference?” Charity asked.

  It was true. A tiny piece of cloth, blocking out so much—worse than a blindfold. We are fish trapped in tiny bowls and stuffed into clothes and ah, This Aching Life!

  Someone called his name. He followed Charity.

  Pulled his body through the water, as far and fast as he could go—then gone!

  Charity vanished.

  Feet flashing, she dipped beneath a curve in the stone. More calling:

  Griff!

  No! He laughed. He’d hide! Treading water, he brushed the stone with his toes. He held his breath, went down, probed the rock, and—there! A hole! The mouth of a tunnel!

  You could get trapped. Suffocate.

  Big yellow signs with stick figures—

  Griff filled his lungs with air and went under.

  Chest tightening, he pulled himself against the rock, felt for the opening. Two hard downstrokes and he was inside, moving headfirst through darkness. Stone ceiling. He swallowed hard, pawed his way toward trembling light. He kicked, pulled at the water, looked up. A blue oval wobbled and within it, a body. Charity pedaling water. Blood rushed. He kicked hard, broke the surface, and her eyes were wild, hair wet and plastered to cheeks, and they were alone in a small stone room. Moonlight spilled through cracks in the stone.

  “You made it,” Charity said.

  “Had to,” he said.

  She hummed a bar of the first melody they ever played together. They were inside of a song. She reached out, touched his bare shoulders.

  He touched her shoulders and water stirred when she got close. She pulled him close. He pulled her closer. His hands, alive in a new way. Her skin pressed against his, the fullness of her body and her lips, a trembling universe.

  Kissing like breathing.

  Music without words.

  SEVENTY

  SOMEHOW, ALL THAT TIME LATER—THEY WERE STILL CALLING Griff’s name.

  The words came to him faintly, drifting through thick air.

  Griff pulled away from Charity like he was nudging backward into the world—they’d been wrapped in each other, a top spinning slow and fast on the dark glass of time, tilting, sparking, and the dizzy hum of it shook deep in his chattering bones. Her eyes, full of awe and wonder and him, brimming with the question HOW?—how could there be so much pleasure, just narrowing the space between bodies?

  Every droplet of water was alive.

  He laughed. Laughter fit here. The sound ricocheted and Charity laughed and he dipped beneath the water, passed through the blackout tunnel, back to the world. He gave a kick and exploded to the surface.

  “Griff!”

  How long had they been gone? The sky was clear. No sign of the storm.

  Thomas was out of the water, prowling around naked.

  “There he is,” Malachi said.

  “Thought we lost you,” Stitch said. They smiled, treading water.

  “Is the show starting?” Griff asked.

  “No, no,” Malachi said. “Simon wants you to check in. I put the radio with your clothes.”

  “Okay,” Griff said.

  His stomach churned. What was Thomas doing? Griff swam closer.

  “Thomas!”

  Thomas was shaking his head. Picking up pants, putting them down. Griff swam until his toes touched and he could stand. Water hugged his waistline. Thomas pattered over, biting his lip. Looking embarrassed.

  “Just need to find—” Thomas began.

  Wait.

  “Did Stitch give you my bracelet?”

  “What? No.” Thomas shook his head. Whispered. “It’s Neapolitan.”

  “You lost your rat?” Griff asked.

  “Shhhh,” Thomas said. “Let’s not incite panic. It’s not like her. She chewed through her case.”

  Griff pulled himself onto shore. His clothing and the backpack were right over there, actually. Just below those palm fronds that sloped like a pair of mad eyebrows and—

  No clothes. But that was the place.

  “Missing something?” Rumblefish asked.

  A whole group had paddled over.

  “Oh my,” Alea said. “It’s almost as if your clothes are no longer in the place you so carefully put them.”

  Charity laughed.

  “Look at that bod, though!” Stitch said.

  Griff turned toward them and reared back with a howl.

  Did he do that? He did. They howled back. It was wonderful.

  “We’ll give you hints,” Stitch said. “Brrrr. Chilly.”

  Griff continued walking left.

  “Freezer, bro,” Rumblefish said. “Ice truck.”

  He turned right.

  “Warmer,” they said. “Oooh, smoking.”

  Laughter felt so good, the steady purr of it.

  He ran his tongue along the backs of his lips, which felt thin and pleasantly raw from kissing. Would they kiss again? He felt gently held by the air. Warm desert wind, happy exhausted body. Smells of stone and desert mud.

  Griff stepped up and pushed through a brittle curtain of shrubs. Farther up, a small clearing. And his clothes! Neatly folded. On top of his pack, someone had placed a little white flower. He took a deep breath—held it in his chest until it throbbed like a breath he’d been holding since October. His eyes found the moon.

  “Oooooooooowwww!!”

  Release. In the distance, new friends howled back. Like they’d always be there.

  Please don’t end, he thought. Please never end. Still a show. Still Charity. Still a thousand paths to explore and brilliant strangers to meet. Griff felt his toes curling around the edge of the next big something. The whole runway of the night and the rest of his life spread out in front of him, naked in the moonlight and there, just a flickering rustle in the undergrowth and damp bristles brushed his ankle—

  —tickling things from the bushes, small, writhing, darting. Thin tails whipping over toes flashing eyes rippling from the brush, dozens, hordes, a living carpet over the bare skin of his feet JUMP RUN LEAP—a skittering tide of fur claws tails teeth and rats rats rats.

  SEVENTY-ONE

  HIS FOOT CAME DOWN ON ONE—

  —crunch, pop—

  Bone-splitting and still naked, greasy-footed, leaping on a prickled stump gasping—sucking air to scream:

  “Rats!”

  Flooding the stump, a swarming, leaping river. Sunbaked desert kangaroo rats with black button eyes tumbling down the embankment toward the nude lagoon, little splashes plippli
plip paddling bodies because rats can swim, hold their breath—

  Screaming.

  Rats pouring in thupathupathupa and Griff’s inner stopwatch clicked START. Instinct activated. Underwear on, pants, shirt. Boots laced, mind tracking time, sniffing the air, accounting for wind speed. A deep part of him, waking up. Griff grabbed his backpack—a rat hopped with flashing eyes. He screamed. From the lagoon—more screaming, but the rats were not the thing to worry about.

  A lumbering creature crashed at him through the thicket, bearing down. Griff leapt and twisted toward Naked Thomas.

  “Shit, Thomas. I thought you were Sasquatch.”

  “See all those rats?” Thomas raised his eyebrows. “Something’s up.”

  “You’re a genius,” Griff said. “Please put your pants on.”

  Charity appeared, clothed. A branch brushed against her neck. She shrieked and slapped it. Ripped it off. Shuddered.

  “What’s happening?” she said.

  “Let’s get out of the trees,” Griff said.

  The three of them slipped through the brush, descended the stone slope onto the white desert floor. Griff pressed his palms to the dust. To feel the earth shake, one sometimes needed to be still. He closed his eyes. Nothing. Above, a clear sky stretched all the way to the mountains. A distant, dark boil of clouds.

  Griff’s thoughts fumbled for the answer. The answer was a word. Too slippery to grab with all the drinks and adrenaline. He knelt to his backpack and removed the drone, began to unfold the wings.

  A burly voice screamed Rat! but the rats had mostly gone and left them with a riddle.

  He snapped on the propellers.

  Where’s the emergency?

  The drone hovered with a needling buzz. A small crowd gathered. Looked up as the drone gained altitude, beacon blinking red. Griff drove it straight toward the mountains, in the direction the rats had come from.

  “What is it?” Malachi asked, squatting beside him.

  They watched the landscape reel past in the viewfinder.

  “I hope nothing,” Griff said.

  The prickling in his skin knew better.