In the spirit of summer and digging up old short stories, below is one that I wrote in 2016 when I was part of a fiction writing MeetUp group in Nashville. It came from a fearful daydream that I had while swimming in my parents pool one summer evening.
Poolside
He flicked the nubby cinder of the Camel Blue, landing it between the rocks and the wooden fence that his dad had built over a decade ago. The once slick, straight boards were now faded, splintered, and bowed at the ends. He stared at the potted hyacinth and rose bushes, which were fading like memories about him, and he stared blankly amidst the daily retreat of the sun. He went slowly underneath the crystal blue water and when he rose again it was dark; darker than it had been when he had begun to swim his nightly two laps underwater. His chest heaved as he placed his arms atop the chipping sand-colored paint of the concrete landing. He traced the unfilled grooves and flecks of paint stuck to his hand as he pulled them away, revealing the faded aquamarine below. He stared through the rivulets of chlorinated water and his vision finally became clear as he put on his glasses in the hazy pre-moon dusk. He felt lazy. His parents had graciously let him move back in after an eight-month stint playing soccer overseas. His parent’s friends, who worked a smattering of managerial blue-collar occupations, still thought he went off to be an American football player in Spain and were quite confused when at a dinner party, he did several impressive tricks with a soccer ball. He brushed the matted hair out of his eyes and scratched his scalp and turned…squinting to make out the vermiculate brick of the house his parents had built two decades ago…this house that now echoed the phrase, “You need to get a job.”
He sat and thought for a time. What about when he was an old man? Would he be happier that he settled for something…some desk job, or if he tried out for another league in the fall? His eyes went along the white bumper of the kidney bean shaped pool and he settled, his elbows grating against the painted divots. Three and a half feet in the shallow and eight and a half feet in the deep end, he repeated instinctually. His thoughts settled like flakes in a snow globe and he believed somewhere deep down that there was hope and that he would make it out of this temporary slump. It was either that or tonight would be the night that he would come clean about the thoughts he had been having and turn himself in to the psych ward…the one that was nestled in the woods off of exit seven. His parents didn’t know that he knew about the handgun in the shoebox in the closet or about the handle of Maker’s in the sewing room filing cabinet. One for sleep and the other to think about sleeping forever. Ultimately, as with most things, he was unsure. He thought of the time he spent playing in the fields that lay just beyond the wooden fence…running and hiding in wheat that was up to his shoulders. The creeks he would wade through most summers. The baseball and basketball games in either the side-yard or in the back driveway, followed by his mom’s chicken and dumplings or taco pie.
A commotion interrupted his darkly thoughts, which took several seconds to register. A click followed and the clink of a metal screw upon concrete.
“Shut the fuck up,” the voice whispered.
He froze.
“We shouldn’t be doing this. It doesn’t even look like rich people live here.”
“Relax, I heard that they’re good with money. That’s what my cousin said at least. They gotta have something valuable lying around. They’re older from what he said. They’ve gotta at least have some pills or something.” He scratched his forearm as he spoke. “The gun is just for expediency.”
“What does…”
“So we can get in and out quick-like, you dumb fuck,” he interrupted.
“Shhshhh” he quieted the short, stubbier one.
“Besides, I think they’re out of town.”
“It don’t look like they’re out of town. There was lights on in the big window up front and it looked like a tv was on.”
“Well, we’re prepared, in any case.”
“You look through the back rooms and I’ll deal with them if they’re even here. Worst case, they’re probably asleep in their recliners. They probably won’t even know we were here. An in and out job. Got it?”
“Got it,” he whispered.
The sliding glass door opened, crisscrossing patterns along the concrete steps with the slight light emanating from the room beyond.
“Oh my God,” he whispered.
“I have to do something. My phone…shit! It’s inside.”
He rose slowly out of the pool, just as the door was sliding shut. He grabbed a loose limestone boulder from near the corner of the sided garage and approached the house, his entire body trembling. A trail of water in-tow, he thought of his dad lecturing not to come into the house until he was completely dry. He stopped and composed himself and judged the rock to be around 14 pounds and held it with a curled hand as he strode toward the door. Cold drops of water fell across his shoulders and dripped down his body and he shivered as he began to climb the stairs.
The door was slightly ajar and he slowly pried it the rest of the way with his forearm. Slowly and slightly at first and then as far as it would go. The sound of the first gunshot echoed through the house when he first entered and it was deafening even as far away as he was. He braced as he heard several more shots, along with a great cacophony of yelling coming from the living room. He again picked up the rock.
One man stood at the threshold of the hallway, unmoving. He stared at the three open bedroom doors and seemed to be distracted and deep in thought, unsure as to how to proceed.
He passed the man and sat the white, dusty rock down on the kitchen table and grabbed a serrated knife from the knife block. He steadied himself, approaching the hallway man, and aimed for where he thought the heart would be and pushed as hard as he could until the blade stopped just past the hilt. The strange man made a gurgling sound and slumped onto the floor with a great look of shock on his face.
He slunk into his childhood bedroom, quickly rummaging through his childhood toybox and grabbed a buttoned canvas packet that contained two throwing stars. He unbuttoned it and slid the shiny object of vengeance from its holster. He cradled the heavy rock like a baby in one arm and held the ninja star near his side as he crept toward the raised voices in the living room.
“I feel like a goddamned idiot, but what the fuck else was I supposed to do with this kind of notice?” He chuckled slightly and a lone tear ran and disappeared into his beard.
“I hope my parents are okay.”
He walked slowly across the linoleum of the kitchen, trying not to make any noise, and entered the living room where he knew he would come out behind the other men. He entered the room and threw the star into the oscillating dark where the man was rummaging through a chairside drawer.
“Ow, what the fuck!”, the man yelled out, “what kind of shit are you trying to pull on me?”
When the man turned around there was immense surprise in his eyes as his last vision on earth was a large white boulder in the arms of a lanky man with shaggy hair catapulting towards his face.
He cringed at the sound of it making contact with the man’s forehead. The man went cross-eyed and sank to the floor, and never moved again. He sat stunned for a moment as he saw a silhouette of his parent’s prized lamp on the wall, outlined in spray of blood.
The shoulders of the final man’s black leather jacket rose and fell in the wake of his heavy breathing. He had begun down the hall to check on their friend just as he had entered the living room and turned back to see lifted hands like a penitent, stretch far back, and then an object hurdling towards him. The boulder hit the man just behind the left ear and he let loose a high-pitched scream before hitting the ground.
When he flicked the light on, there was a circular spray of vermillion that trailed from the eggshell white ceiling past the blue, painted wallpaper and down, onto the floor where it pooled atop the stain resistant carpet.
He passed out and when he awoke, the first rays of the dawn light were hitting his face through the living room mini blinds.
“Why am I alive?” he wondered, “the one who wanted it least in this whole debacle.”
He slowly peeled his face from forearm, breaking apart the congealed blood which was not his own. He twitched as a frond of blood flowed into his eye. He sat up and his entire underside was wet and viscous. He hurt. He felt groggy and as his vision cleared, he somberly took in the scene and walked towards the landline in the kitchen to call the police. He sat and waited and all was quiet and serene, save for the deafening silence that the dead had left in their wake.