Cote Smith - Hurt People

At the top there was little room to stand, just a ledge you would fall to your death from if you weren’t careful. I sidestepped across the scoreboard to the end of the other side, a spot usually reserved for my brother. I leaned over the edge, peered at the pool of dirt below.

“This is my favorite place,” I said.

My brother sat down and let his legs dangle. “That’s because you’ve never been anywhere.” He had that jerkiness in his voice again. I tried to ignore him. I looked up at the horizon and tried to find the building farthest away. All I saw were prisons.

“Neither have you,” I said. “Where have you been that I haven’t?”

“Nowhere,” he said. “I haven’t been anywhere either.” I watched him closely after he said this, but he didn’t say anything more. The wind picked up, and I hugged the scoreboard. I thought about saying something mean, to tease more information out of my brother, but when I opened my mouth, there was a cloudless thunder.

“It’s five,” my brother said.

“What happened to the music?”

“We’re too far away.”

He didn’t move. He just sat there, his back against the scoreboard, his eyes closed like he was sunbathing at the pool.

“We better get back,” I said.

“She won’t go anywhere without us,” my brother said.

“She’ll be mad.”

“Of course she will.”

“She will.”

“Look, we’re already late,” he said, opening his eyes. “We still have to return the cart, right? We can’t leave it here. So we’re already late.”

“You’re going to make us later. You’re going to get us into trouble again.”

He stood up. “Again?” he said. “Us? You were never in trouble in the first place. You should have been.” He walked over to me quickly, crossing the narrow ledge without holding on to anything, or looking down to check his footing. “You know, I’m sick of you, you little liar. You follow me around, a little lying baby, doing what I do, wanting the things I want, but you’re too afraid to go get them.”

I bent my knees to brace myself. “No I’m not.”

“You wanted to drive the cart, so I drove the cart. You wanted the gun, so I grabbed it.” He grabbed me by the shirt. He could throw me off and there would be no witnesses. No one to call my brother out in court. “You wanted to go to the pool, to learn the Gainer and all the other cool pool moves, so I went and made friends with Chris.”

“That’s not what I wanted,” I said.

“Liar,” he said, and leaned me back, dangling me over the edge. I could feel the nothingness beneath me, the empty air between me and the ground. “You better tell me what I said is true,” he said. “Or it’s a long way down.”

I tried to grab his arm. He leaned me back farther, until I was sure I’d fall.

“OK, OK,” I said. “You’re right. You’re right.”

“Say it. Say you’re a baby.”

“I’m a baby.”

“A lying baby.”

“I’m a lying baby.”

“Say I’m smarter than you.”

“You’re smarter.”

“Smarter than you’ll ever be.”

“You’re smarter than I’ll ever be.”

He grinned at me and opened his mouth in fake shock, pretending he’d lost his grip. Don’t, I said. He pulled me up to him. “Ha. You really thought I was going to drop you, didn’t you, dummy?”

He ruffled my hair, pushed my face. I punched him away. I sat down, swung my feet off the edge like I was at the pool, kicking them safely in the shallow end. I looked around until I found the cafeteria window, small, far away. I imagined someone watching what just happened from the window, my brother dangling me over the edge. It would look like something out of a movie, or one of my brother’s epic toy plots. Me, the good guy in serious trouble. My brother, the bad. The villain who only won in the worlds my brother created.

My brother peered over the edge of the scoreboard, as if the pool waited below, waiting for his best move. It occurred to me I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been in the pool, in the actual water.

“What do you guys talk about?” I asked my brother.

“Who? What do you mean?”

“You and Chris. Tell me what else you guys talk about, or I’ll tell Mom what just happened. I’ll tell her and Dad about you and Chris, sneaking out to the pool — everything.”

There was a second of silence, and I felt my brother look at me. But I didn’t look at him. I already knew the faces he was making. Anger, mixed with worry and disbelief.

“You’re blackmailing me?” he said. I didn’t know what that word meant, but felt I should say yes. My brother kept his back to me, and the sun baked his shadow into the scoreboard. “Unbelievable,” he said.

He put his head down in thought, his hand on his chin, as if he were weighing the options.

“I can’t tell you,” he finally said. “I’m not supposed to.”

I pulled up the tongue of my broken-laced shoe, got up, and walked over to my brother’s side. I sat down and put my hand on his shoulder, as if to say, It’s OK. It’s me, your brother. If I were wearing a wire, this would be the part where I leaned in close and said, Don’t worry, I won’t tell a soul.

“Fine,” he said. “But I can only tell you what isn’t a secret. Got it?”

I nodded and scooted closer, so the only thing in between us was the wind. OK, my brother said, here is what you can know.

* * *

Chris was a lifeguard. Or he had been, at one time. This was the first thing my brother revealed. When he was a teenager, still in school, Chris spent summers working at the city pool. That’s how he knew so much, so many moves. That’s where he got those trunks. What happened? I asked. Why doesn’t he work there now? Well, my brother said, he was fired. For what, I said, licking kids? No, he said, for falling in love. My brother blushed, embarrassed he’d used such a stupid word. This was Chris’s story, he reminded me, not his. These are his words, not mine. Anyway, Chris met someone special. At the pool. Someone he couldn’t live without. But he’d never had these feelings before. He didn’t know what to do with them. He was too afraid to tell anyone, scared of what they might think or say, so he kept them to himself. What place is safer, more secret, he said, touching his chest, than right here? He didn’t act. He waited. From his lifeguard perch, he studied the one he wanted, making sure they were worth the risk. Making sure his feelings weren’t a fluke, some sick joke the world was playing on him. But the feelings did not go away. They grew stronger. He couldn’t concentrate. If the one he loved came for a swim, it became impossible for Chris to focus on anything else. His mind was right, but his heart felt like it was drowning.

What did he do? I asked.

He acted, my brother said. He took a chance.

And?

And it didn’t work out. Chris left a note in their locker, tucked it into their pants pocket. That way they would find it later, Chris imagined, in their room when no one was looking. They would read it and finally know how Chris felt, how he’d fought and waited. How if he could love anyone else, he would.

The loved one never responded. Never met Chris at the park across the street from the pool. Never let Chris share a snow cone.

She ignored him? I said.

I guess. She stopped coming to the pool. Or she came once, but only to report Chris. To get him fired.

Oh, I said. That’s sad.

There’s more.

Before he left, Chris stole her membership card, with her name and address. He went to her house, at night. He brought flowers and candy. The neighborhood was quiet. No lights were lit. He climbed her porch and knocked on her window. Nothing. He waited and waited. He grew tired of waiting. He lifted the window and crawled inside.