Luke Goebel - Fourteen Stories, None of Them Are Yours

IT WAS STILLsummer and the days had been long forever. The moon was a long stretch of yellow and the waves sparkled on the blackened sea. Keiko was wrestling a dog. The new dog that Other had lured to camp that afternoon.

“It's simple,” Keiko told Other, back at the store's back parking lot. “You're going in the store and you're going to steal some meat. Good raw meat. Black Styrofoam trays of meat. Once you get it, we'll cover you with meat juice, pin strips of meat onto you, and you'll go running through the park. Whatever dogs chase back are ours.”

It was of no use to argue. Keiko was the boss. And he was old, though he claimed to be sixteen. He was a big guy, with huge hairy thighs squeezed into a pair of old black bathing shorts.

“This is going to be great,” Keiko said. “This means more dogs for us. Hot poopoo. Piss!”

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In the moonlight, Keiko and the new dog struggled for control. The dog howled and Keiko made sharp cracking sounds, landing elbows or fists to the dog's side and head. The troop watched from a distance, their fire burning itself in the wind. They didn't circle in to watch Keiko as they had earlier in the summer, when Keiko punched and the new dogs fought with their teeth, with vigor and honor and braveness.

The boys knew this from experience, and they didn't want to watch. Instead they drank warm beer in cans, sipping slowly, and licked their upper lips for moisture. Not one had enough lip fuzz to catch any drop-sized glints of beer, but they licked anyway, imagining mustaches and the tickle of wet hairs on their tongues.

Winds came and swept the ash off the coals, making their fire burn brighter. Flames cast long shadows across the sand, and waves roved across the grainy sea. Keiko punched and the new dog growled. Then cried. Some of the boys wished silently for the dog.

“Dog sounds alright,” Other said.

“Yeah,” some boys agreed. Earlier that day, they reclined and watched the sky as big as anything, happy to have time in the world.

A billowy cloud had been shaped like a whale and another was a long feather but also a dragon-shaped sword, and then there were streaks of white that blended. At night, the clouds were ash and smoke. The dark was close beside them, kept back only by the rise and fall of firelight in wind. The booming of waves in the surf.

In the morning they would find a band of blackened sand and cool chunks of charcoal. In the mornings, they never missed their mothers. But at night, sitting and listening to a dog get hurt, some longed for home.

“Let's go to that dance,” Cutlass said. “The one those girls were talking about.” Worm agreed. So did Gill. Cutlass seemed most ready to go, his wingborn curls mooning out from his face. He cut his hair with a knife whenever he wanted, and now he was ready to go. But they couldn't go unless Keiko agreed.

Other laughed, “Are you kidding? Keiko will never let us.” But no one seemed to pay attention. They heard the dog cry and saw it run sideways from Keiko. He started back toward the fire. Closer, the flames lit Keiko and they could see he was bleeding.

“What are you looking at?” Keiko said, slick with dog slobber and grease. He spit into a palm and rubbed his bleeding hand through his hair.

“Any you going to wrestle the new dog?” he said. “No? What are you so quiet for? All miss your mothers?”

“We want to go to this dance tonight,” Cutlass said, but Keiko just laughed. He inspected his hand, sucked at the wound. “None of you gonna wrestle? Not one?”

“There's going to be girls at it.”

“Girls! What do you need them for?”

“I don't. But haven't you ever wanted to know about them? What they smell like?”

“What they smell like? Lick your own hand and smell it. That's all.”

Cutlass looked into the fire and he felt sorry. He wanted to lick his hand to smell it, but he would have to wait until no one was looking.

They started all talking about the dance, roaming in line from tallest to short to medium and then to shortest of all. They were dark and silhouetted by the moon, tromping away from the fire and farther from the sea.

Keiko led because Keiko always led, and Other followed.

Behind Other was Cutlass. And behind Cutlass was Gill. Behind Gill was Worm. And behind Worm was Void. Then came Baxal. After Baxal followed Chance, smoking a cigarette that was mostly just filter. He dug them up on the beach or picked them off the ground at the store's back parking lot. Bean was last, the youngest of all. And after Bean came one of the rotten dogs. Bean chased the dog off with a stick.

“Look at that cloud,” Cutlass said, mouth holding a wad of spit. Then he spit the spit as far as he could, arching so the moon was in his sights. For a moment the whole beach smelled like how he imagined a girl would. Then the dog came back and Bean chased it with the stick.

They reached the parking lot and saw the gymnasium with its orange external lights protected by metal cages. They made toward the stairs and Keiko circled back to the end of the line to be last. He tried to slip through the doors, but the chaperones moved and blocked the entrance.

“Where do you think you're going?”

“In.”

“Surely not,” said the woman chaperone. “This is a preteen dance.”

“Good thing I'm preteen, then.” Keiko went to push her. A man stood between them with his arms. “Alright, Mac,” he said. “What are you trying to pull?”

“Look, I'm fifteen. I have a hormone imbalance. Those are my friends.”

“You're bleeding,” said the man. “You got school ID?”

“Home-schooled.”

“Sorry. But you're not getting in,” the man said. “This is a secure area.”

“I'll remember you,” Keiko said and he glared, rubbing the bite mark on his face. “I'll remember,” he said, but sounded more sad than threatening. There was bullying and sexting and terrorism and things for chaperones to worry about — shootings — God, good chaperones had plenty to worry about.

Inside the boys were looking around, letting their eyes adjust to the lights. They had spent their summer around campfires, and for the first time they were back inside a school gymnasium.

They saw girls — wearing tube tops with scalloped straps, padded bras pushing their little cleavages up toward soft necklines. The boys could smell the scented lotions, the deodorant sprays, and the chewing gum they thought was from the girls’ sweat. These girls lived in houses. Boys woke in the dunes, where they hid, far down the coast in the grass — with a new dog sleeping by their face, fur rank with mildew and salt. Sometimes it was Keiko they woke beside, his big thighs up against them, but here were real girls, eighth graders. Some wearing black skirts and pantyhose, bright lipsticks and gold jewelry. Plus interesting footwear. Blue towel-looking shoes with big cork bottoms, and shiny red platforms with open-toe fronts, three toes squeezed together. There were plastic ones with hard bows that made the girls’ calves push up. Some wore strappy numbers and stood on pencil-thin sticks. War was fine anywhere else if America had footwear like this! Some girls had white toe-nail polish on the ends of their toenails, and some reminded Cutlass and Gill of sisters back home.

With Keiko, every morning had its chores: finding wood, stealing food. It was good living at the beach. There were structures to build up and old ones to tear down, dogs to steal and return for rewards. There were all sorts of grand adventures — swim races in the sea — and a time each day to sit and ponder questions like how far the sky was from the ground or if dreams weighed anything in their brains at night. America had been getting funny. Families all were heartbroken in weird houses. But the whole world was at the beach, free.