Jesse Goolsby - I'd Walk with My Friends If I Could Find Them

Fahran swats at a yellow jacket that sniffs around his feet and ankles. To his left a large man talks through the fence to a woman. They smile and their fingers meet through the Cyclone diamonds. Fahran attempts to hear what they say over the collective splashing. The man appears to be his dad’s age, but this guy’s belly hangs over the top part of his swimming trunks, and little dots of scarred skin speckle his forearms. On his back a peculiar snakelike tattoo winds up his spinal column. The woman has dyed pink into her blond hair and wears a sleeveless purple dress like the ones he’s seen on women in the bank. They stand close to each other and kiss. Fahran tilts his head so he can spy on their joined faces. They press their bodies against the fence, and after a few seconds Fahran glances around to see if anyone else notices, but no one looks their way, so he turns back to see.

The woman goes up on her toes, and still they kiss, all through one narrow gap. Finally they pull away, just their faces, and stare at each other. The woman says, “I’ll pick Emma up at four,” and turns away. The man shakes the fence before spinning around, his eyes catching Fahran’s on their swing toward the water. He strides six steps, past Fahran and his sunbathing mother, before launching his body into the air.

Fahran’s world stops. He doesn’t know what awaits, but something is already off: the angle the man’s legs form with his diving torso, the listing ash trees in the background, the wind, the smell of urine and sunscreen — everything mysteriously shifts and blurs. The water absorbs the man’s body up to his waist, but a halting, spastic jolt snaps his lower legs, calves, and feet concave. The tension squeezes Fahran’s face, and he waits for ten seconds for the man to emerge, until a woman in jeans and a white button-up shirt across the pool leaps into the water. In the hazy moments that follow, kids jump off the diving board and more carefree laughs enter the air. The dressed woman struggles through the three feet of water, and her labored stride grinds to slow motion.

In an eerie crescendo the screams arrive as a red blood-cloud blossoms out into the blue water. Fahran stands at the edge, gazing down into the gathering maroon. Help is still ten feet away, pulsing out waves in her mad, sluggish dash. One of the waves spreads the flowing blood enough for him to see the man’s submerged back. Fahran’s mother kneels beside him, leaning over the edge, her arms elbow-deep in the murk.

Whistles join the shrieking, and the lifeguards scramble. The clothed woman arrives and lifts the huge man up in a heap of water and blood and skin.

Fahran’s mother grabs his shoulder and spins him around, pushes him to the bench, but before he sits, he turns and sees the woman in the purple dress. She stands motionless in the middle of the sidewalk, then turns back toward the pool as if someone called her name, eyebrows up, curious. Her tangible happiness careens into alarm the moment her eyes focus. She stares right at Fahran, and yet somehow she knows everything. She pivots in her high heels, and her right arm flies up like a dagger into the air, starting her sprint. Her eyes and mouth open wide, and she covers the distance quickly, crashing into the fence, bellowing vowel sounds.

The lifeguards reach them and one boy bends down to start CPR, but when he takes the man’s chin in his hands the neck moves like jelly, and the lifeguard lets go. Kylie says, “Listen for breathing,” but the other lifeguard just kneels, eyeing his own hands. Fahran stands across the rattling fence from the woman, and for a minute no one touches the man. An amazed space settles around his body, a force field of nerves and fear and oddity. Already the body has lost its vitality, is now wet, unmoving muscle. Kylie bends down and edges her ear to the man’s mouth. She shakes her head, then clasps her hands, places them on the man’s chest, and pumps up and down.

Soon the paramedics arrive and take over and Kylie steps back. Someone asks, “Dead? He’s dead?”

As the paramedics press on the man, Fahran tries to understand how this body could be the same mass that dominated the afternoon five minutes ago. Later, when he reflects back on his life, he’ll understand that this was the moment when he began to believe in souls.

Eventually the paramedics slow the compressions. A stretcher arrives and more sirens fill the air. One of the EMTs turns his attention to clearing the area, save for the witnesses. Fahran’s mom tries to get Fahran out of there, but the manager says they need to stay to be interviewed.

The EMTs let the hysterical woman in the purple dress ride with the body to the hospital, and as they load the stretchered man into the ambulance Fahran notices that no one pumps on the man’s chest. The pool complex empties except for Fahran, his mom, the woman who jumped in the pool, and the lifeguards.

Everyone is quiet, waiting for the cops to show. The woman who jumped in the pool leans against the fence. They’ve given her a pair of oversized trunks and a Farmington High Scorpions T-shirt too large for her. She stands with her arms crossed, staring at the sparse hill and plateaus west of town. Her wet clothes hang over two chairs. Fahran’s mother approaches the woman, but she says, “Please, no,” and moves away from the rest of the group, to the other side of the pool.

The lifeguards gather near the entrance, and Kylie holds one of the boys in her arms. He touches his own face. They’re the same age, but she cradles his head against her chest and runs her fingers through his dark hair. She talks to him, and while Fahran can’t hear Kylie’s words, he imagines she’s saying, “It’s okay. I’m here. I’m here.” She might be singing to him, even, but whatever nurturing it is, Fahran hates the boy, hates his weakness, hates that he himself is not the one.

Fahran doesn’t want his mother to hug him or comfort him in front of Kylie, and she abstains, but her complete passivity surprises Fahran. When the cops show up, they speak with everyone else first. The woman who jumped into the pool exits under the late-afternoon sun, dazed, her drying clothes over her left shoulder. The lifeguards stroll out one at a time. Kylie, now wearing a towel, keeps her head down.

A short, plump cop talks to his mother, then walks over and takes a seat by Fahran.

“Okay, buddy,” he says. “This is important. Did someone push the man?”

“No,” he says. “He jumped.”

“Thanks,” he says, and starts to rise.

“Ask him another,” his mother says. “Please.”

Fahran is embarrassed; he understands his standing in the world, but the cop sits back down with a grunt. He has nothing to ask, he knows the drill, has all the answers he needs, so he sizes up the sky for a few seconds, searching.

“Um,” he says, “how far away from the fence do you think the woman was when the accident took place?”

The question surprises Fahran. He isn’t ready. He thinks about the man’s dive, the neck angle, the bag of limp limbs thrown on the no-diving picture.

“How far?” he repeats. He glances at his mother, who nods her head. “In feet?”

“Whatever, son.”

Fahran has no idea what the answer is, but he wants to say something.

“Thirteen,” he says, “steps. He had a snake tattoo.” The cop jots it down and leaves without a word.

On the walk home, Fahran’s mother, usually prone to lectures, hums a song Fahran doesn’t know. The day is still hot, and they pass through the shadows of the overhanging trees. Fahran’s tired mind negotiates the thousands of images still spiraling through him. When they near their home his mother stops short and says, “Ice cream.”

When they reach the porch the door flies open, and Fahran’s father, before taking them in, wraps his arms around them and thanks the stars for the five hundred dollars he won by scratching the correct four hearts on Hearts Are Wild!