ࡱ> GIF ;bjbj GH~3*11111EEE8}$E8::::::$g !f^1^11sd1188:,,_ѝE d0 $0:Ro!ndo!o!1^^ o! :  RUINED WATER By Natalie Sypolt West Virginia Fiction Writers Competition, First-Place Prize Today is Thanksgiving, and Maggie and Mom are sitting at the table, peeling potatoes. They cube them and drop them into a pan of murky water that sits between them. Moms potatoes are smooth and white. Maggies are chopped and little specks of brown cling to them even after they fall into the water. I stand in the doorway, just there listening and waiting for something to happen. Id felt a secret coming, felt it in the air like some people feel snow, and I knew it wasnt in the front room with Daddy and Uncle Jimmy or out back with my brothers. John Simpson, Mom says, and I nearly lose my lean on the wall. She doesnt look up at me but keeps right on peeling, cubing, dropping. Yeah? I say. What are you doing there? Just thought Id help. I see Maggie look at me and roll her eyes. I dont know why Dan Vee wont just quit. Maggie is back on the talk theyd been having before Mom saw me hanging at the door. Can you imagine it, Mommy? Diving down there? Risking your own neck, just to find nothing butGod, I shiver to think of it. So they still havent pulled it up? Mom doesnt take her eyes off the knife. My face goes hot, and I hold myself to the door to keep from moving. The rivers too rough. You know how it gets around this time of year, and if it starts snowing, I dont know. Part of me wishes theyd just forget it and let them be. You know they cant do that, Maggie. And poor Chad. Didnt you and Dan Vee go to school with him? I remember a sound bite from the TV news. All the local stations had fallen on Green River soon as the news broke. The babys daddy had said, Im not moving from this river bank until they bring him up and put him in my arms. Right here in my arms. The news people loved that and kept playing it, over and over in a loop. Every time you turn on the TV, put him in my arms. Some 16 year old babysitter had been driving and made it out alive. The neighbor boy was still in the car. The girl said he could have made it out but wouldnt with the baby there, all crying and still strapped in. I dont know how to feel for that girl, Maggie says and more marred potato chunks go plunk into the water. Mom motions me to the table, but I cant move. I guess I want to feel sorry for her. John Simpson, Mom says and hearing my name makes me jump. Come take this knife. Moms chair makes a squeaking baby scream as it scratches the cracked tile floor. The sound pulls me to the table and pushes me into the warm seat. Maggie wants to smoke. I can tell because she is chewing gum so hard that sometimes her teeth hit together. I pick up Moms knife and try not to press too hard. I suppose I should start on the noodles, Mom says. Noodles? Maggie is at distraction, watching me cut and stab my poor potato. Oh, who cares? Do you know hes barely eaten since this all started? I make him dinner, and he just stares at it, like its something he dont understand. No one should have to see what hes seen, Maggie. You cant be so hard on him. Some mothers would come and hug their girl, but mine just stands there. He couldve just kept on with the Department, going in for fires and car wrecks, but he wanted to do the extra training, learn how to be a diver. Dan Vee always has been a strong swimmer, I say and they both look at me like Id just broken a glass or screamed murder. He was on the swim team. Maggie wants to say, Dont talk, Johnny. Thats what she wouldve said when we were both still kids and not just me. I picture my sisters husband, high school swim team captain, pushing through lanes of water. Id been just in the seventh grade when hed graduated, but I remember standing, cheering him on, screaming louder than Maggie because Dan Vees winning meant more to me than it did to her. After, hed come out of the locker room, his hair still wet and all of him smelling like water a hundred boys had sweated into. Hed come out and looked so easy in his skin that I didnt know what else to do but turn around and run. Im in high school now but cant swim worth a damn. My three brothers are all good at sports. Always playing football or deer hunting or driving beat up pick-up trucks. My oldest brother Danny drives to community college and Peter works for the Foodland. Caleb is a senior and Im a junior, but at school we dont know each other. Toughen up, they tell me. Sissy, they say. They hit me on the arm, hard but then laugh like its a joke. Sometimes Mom tells them to leave me be, but mostly she just pretends. In September I came home and my brothers were waiting for me in the backyard. I knew something was wrong, but didnt run cause maybe I knew itd been coming, and then they pulled me in, first like a hug and then like hell, hitting and kicking. Yelling at me to fight back, to be a man god-dammit because it was time. They didnt think that Id roll up into myself and cover my head and let them. And there was Daddy, standing in the doorway, his arms crossed, watching. Finally, I heard Mom say from the kitchen window to let up. I didnt look til they were gone, and I heard the screen door thrap shut. No one came back to check on me. When I could, I got up and walked. There I was at Maggies door, leaning heavy against her porch railing because it was hard to breathe. Oh, good God, Maggie said when she opened the door and saw me, bloody and dirty. What happened, Johnny? Her hands fluttered over me like she was afraid to touch, and I tried to think something about her, something nice, but it was like my brain was all swelled up. Jesus H., John. I heard Dan Vees voice from behind Maggie, and when I did, I pushed her away. I saw some look on her face, hurt like she knew it was Dan Vee I come here for and not her. Dan Vee took me downstairs and got out his kit full of white bandages and other stuff that smelled like hospital. Maggie and Dan Vee had one of those finished basements with wall-to-wall carpeting and an old sofa and some other little touches like a TV and a mini-refrigerator. Last year, Dan Vee put in a pool table and taught me how to play. I tried not to wince as he cleaned my face, rinsed the blood and said it wasnt as bad as it looked. My shirt front was wet from my nose bleeding. Dan Vee helped me peel my shirt off, real gentle over my head and the pain from my side blew so hot white that I couldnt breathe. Let me see, he said and put his hands on me, pressing around my ribs, moving his thumbs slow. His motions were firm and sure, and I felt like I could be any boy. Car accident. House fire. Happy to have Dan Vee take care of me. I dont think theyre broke, he said. But you best go in and get x-rays, just in case. Dan Vee, Maggie was at the top of the stairs then, looking down at us. I saw she had the phone in her hand. Dan Vee squeezed my shoulder and told me to hold tight. He went up stairs to talk to Maggie and I knew that she knew, that shed called home and now was going to tell Dan Vee. When he came back down, he threw me a t-shirt, dark blue and clean, so when I pulled it on, it smelled like soap and not like Dan Vee. I waited for him to say something about my brothers, but he just pressed a band-aid over the cut in my eyebrow. Maggies gonna drive you home, he said, looking me right in the eye. You call if you need to or if your pain gets worse. Okay, Johnny? He didnt say he thought my brothers were wrong, but he never told me to leave when I started coming over most days after school. * * * I suppose it sounds selfish, me wanting him just to quit, but I dont care. Well have this baby soon and who knows what kind of daddy hell make after seeing all these dark things? Maggie rubs her hand in a circular motion over her big belly. Its the hand with the knife, and I watch the little silver blade press on the dark blue fabric of her shirt, tight fitted over her and Dan Vees baby. I wondered how that drowned babys skin looked, what Dan Vee saw when he looked in those back windows. Maybe blue like on TV, or maybe the cold water, like ice, had kept him perfect. That might be even worse. If he looked alive, and Dan Vees brain said alive, but then Dan Vee couldnt pull him out, hed have to leave him there and that would be worse than seeing a dead blue baby. Where is Dan Vee? I ask, trying not to sound like I wanted it too bad, trying not to care. Maggie says, Where do you think? I was there at their house a couple weeks ago, playing pool with Dan Vee when Maggie came home from work and started giving me shit. Christ Johnny, she said. Why are you over here so much? Dont you have any friends? Dan Vee was sitting in a beat up recliner, waiting on me to take my turn, and Maggie dumped herself down into his lap. The next thing I know, shes got her shirt pulled up over her belly and is telling Dan Vee to put his hand on her. Right here, she was saying and pressing his hand to her stretched white skin. I watched as his big hand found the place, the sweet spot where the babys foot jabbed at Maggies insides. I remembered the cat wed had when I was little and how you could feel the kittens moving around inside her. You okay there, John? You look a little green, Dan Vee said. He and Maggie were both looking at me. Maggie rolled her eyes, but I thought I saw a smile at the edges of Dan Vees mouth. I was just thinking of that old barn cat Sugar. You remember that one time when she had kittens in your underwear drawer, Maggie? God, what a mess. Go home why dont you? Maggie pushed herself up and rolled her shirt back down over her round belly. I wondered if Dan Vee wanted to wash his hand. I lined up my shot and watched as the cue ball went barreling into the side pocket like Id meant it to do. Scratch. Damn, I said. Your turn, Dan Vee. Maggie stomped back up the stairs and slammed the door when she got to the top. Dont get me wrong, John. I love your sister, Dan Vee said. But girls? Theyre nothing but trouble. Trouble, I said like I knew. I made up some story then without even thinking, about a girl at school named Bonnie, who didnt exist but still gave me nothing but trouble. Dan Vee laughed and gave me a beer out of the mini-fridge. I knew I shouldnt cause Mom would give me hell, but I took it anyway. Dan Vee clapped his big hand on the back of my neck, the same big hand that had touched Maggie, and told me I was All right. * * * Im still just on my first potato, worrying the knife around and around. Its getting real little, but I cant quite manage to get it clear. I can take Dan Vee over some dinner, I say. Youd like that, wouldnt you? Maggie says, voice full of hatefulness. Thatd be nice. Mom acts like she hasnt heard Maggie at all. No. Maggie says. Im not going to stay long. Maybe he shouldnt be left alone. I didnt want to say it, but I heard him crying last night, Mommy. He thought I was asleep, but I wasnt. I felt the bed shake. This is what shes been holding in, all along. Mom asks her, What did you do? I know how they all say its okay for them to cry, but thats for boys like Johnny, not for men like Dan Vee. Hes never in all the years Ive known him. I just kept pretending to be asleep. Mom doesnt say anything but nods a little, and I know thats what she wouldve done too. I hate my sister for saying that Id be crying and for pretending to be asleep while Dan Vee lay there, so alone with that dead baby face in his head. I picture myself getting up from that table, pushing back my chair and dropping the potato knife. Maggie and Mom would both look at me like they dont understand. Id go out the back door and walk to Dan Vees. When I got there, my face would be freezing and red. Id almost not be able to feel my fingers when I pounded on the door. Or I wouldnt pound. Id just go in and find Dan Vee in the basement. Hed be down there playing pool or watching football. Or maybe hed be there with his head in his hands, with his shoulders shaking and noises like a baby makes coming up from him. What I saw myself do next was what didnt fit, what I didnt know how to see. Me wiping Dan Vees tears. Putting them on my own burning red, frozen red face. Dan Vee laying his big hands there to warm my cheeks, my nose, my mouth. Thats when I felt the truth. The secret Id been following hadnt been Maggies or Dan Vees. Itd been my own. Johnny! Maggie screams. Shes looking at my hand, and then I see the slice down my palm, top to bottom like its supposed to be there, like the life line or love line or fortune line. The cut is burning and running red. Mom comes at me with a dish towel and is saying to put my hand above my head, but I cant move and before she wraps me up, I see blood drip into the pot, turning the potato water red. Ruined.     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