The Rocks by Jacob Malewitz, A Short Story on F Scott Fitzgerald Super Novel

 The Rocks

By Jacob Malewitz

Wordpress, 1 white vest

2 Shirt Blue

F scott Fitzgerald In Manhattan, 4 short story

I remember a dream that stays with me through the years. It was during a period of sleepless nights for me, and the sleep itself was a relief.  The dream was of a Japanese man who has just been beheaded.  Still conscious after his head is severed from his body he sees a light beckoning to him.  He smiled as the light washed over his face. 

I sat there that day, one day before we all went to the rocks, staring at the basketball rim.  I didn’t want to play, I just wanted to see the empty court one last time.  I had never been good at basketball—I was cut from the freshman squad and never went to tryouts again—but I enjoyed the nervousness it had brought out of me.  I had never conquered my fear of the basketball court.  Inevitably I had to move on. 

I remember the day I was cut from the basketball team.  I had been anticipating basketball season because of the prolonged depression I had during football season.  I rejoiced in it and the first few days of tryout I was flawless, but on the third and last day of tryouts I cramped up (or choked) and played terrible.  Maybe I had eaten too much at lunch, maybe my nerves got the best of me, yet I still thought I had a good chance going into the locker room to see who the coaches would choose.  Long story short, I got cut.  And oh did I cry when I got home.  My mother and father thought It was part of some catholic school conspiracy, I tried my best to quell those doubts.

My eyes were glued to the court, to the dream, and even though school was out I didn’t want to leave.  It wasn’t quite over though, there was still the school magazine which would be sold over the summer to earn money for the school.  The designated size of the magazine had been one hundred pages, but there was such a buzz over it that a large number of students had tried to get published in it; word was the three entries considered to be the best would have a chance at five hundred dollars in prizes.  I had worked my way into being lead editor for the mag, only one man was above me and that was our English teacher Mr. Ryan.  It took me years  to get the job, and though there was no pay I had something awfully nice to put on my resume.  Being lead editor on a school magazine was nothing to be passed over without a glance—it had merit. 

As I said getting the job wasn’t easy.

The English teacher I had my first two years of high school had never liked me.  I always said the wrong things at the wrong time and this seemed to irritate her.  When we got a new English teacher I rejoiced.  I felt renewed.  My chances of getting published were great.  And it was great.  My junior year I had more stories published—two—than anyone else.  I felt like John O’Hara, like Kipling, like James. 

Not only did Mr. Ryan give me a second chance he enjoyed talking about things off-topic.  He thoroughly enjoyed comic books and would always talk about what he was reading while we would be discussing Frankenstein and Beowulf.

I walked out of the gym to Mr. Ryan’s classroom where the literary magazine editors were gathering.  There were four of us: Mike Lee, Ann Padges, Katherine Sipkey, and Arnold Ronders.  Lee was a theologian and a film fanatic; he was in charge of the essays and was expected to publish one film review himself.  Ann was a cheerleader who wanted to be taken seriously, especially in ways that manifested themselves in her art; she was in charge of poetry and knew her iambic pentameter like the back of her hand.  Katherine was partial to sculpting, but she was also the best photographer in the school which made her head of photography and images.  Arnold was probably the fastest reader of all of us—faster even than Mr. Ryan—and was in charge of checking grammar for the mag and was supposedly going to do a profile of a famous writer from our area.

As I walked in I saw that Mike, Ann, and Mr. Ryan were the only ones in the room.  

Mike was a short, pudgy, asian man a year younger than me.  He always sported thick glasses and a smirk on his face, as if he were keeping a secret no one could know.  I always thought of him as a friend but I wasn’t sure that he felt the same way; it always seemed as if he was carrying a burden on his shoulder, and whenever we were lucky enough to find beer he would double my output.  Ann was a cute girl who wore her black hair tied up and always had an affinity for tall sox (I always thought they were sexy and I could imagine them being wrapped around my butt.)  Mr. Ryan was dressed in a dress shirt with a red tie.  He had blue eyes and a shaved head, about my size at five-eleven.  

I saw Mr. Ryan was busy looking over something. I walked towards Lee, who appeared to be doodling in his notebook.

“Your late Keyes,” he said and stopped scribbling (I could make out words, this was no doodling.)

“Sorry,” I replied “caught myself drifting in the gym.  How goes the film essay?”

“I’m deadlocked,” he got up and pointed to a brown box filled with VHS tapes, “I’ve narrowed it down to two movies from this box.  Jarmusch’s Dead Man and Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove.  What do you think?”

“I’d go with Dead Man, I’ll take Jarmusch over Kubrick any day of the week.  It’s the minimalist thing.  All the New York papers write about Jarmusch, and he’s still alive.  So you could slip in bits about his life up to now.”

“I think your right.”  He sat back down and pointed again, this time to Mr. Ryan’s desk.  “He’s got all the fiction submissions under his desk.”

I smiled.   “Guess its time to get busy.”

I looked over to Anne.  I could see she was busy pouring over poetry submissions.  

Anne saw me staring at her, she grinned and spoke.

“Some of these guys have talent.  I mean some of them do, like this Ode to Peanut Butter, this is great, I’m gonna publish it, but others, like this one about a merchant ship going to sea; they tell a story but not in the way that is enjoyable or for that matter interesting. Even Hemingway would say the key to good writing could be found in poetry.  Every now and then I come across a poem that has a reasonable chance to get published somewhere else.  I always tell the person they should give it a shot, it always feels good to help a fellow writer.”

“I’ve never been a poetry guy myself,” I responded.  “I always preferred short fiction, novels, and biographies.”  I said this and then walked over to Mr. Ryan’s desk. I set the stories on a desk next to Anne and sat down.  We continued to talk, about how a good story or poem is crafted, about life after school, things like that.  Lee popped in Dead Man.  The movie opened on a train, heading to the city of Machine, where Depp’s character is hoping to find a job waiting for him.  As I watched the movie that day I was reminded of why I had enjoyed the movie. First there was the music done by Neil Young, then there was one of my favorite actors in Depp, lastly there was Jarmusch’s minimalism (he would never tell a story too complicated to be entertaining to the viewer.)  

I looked at my first short story. 

I usually I gave each story one page to hook me.  The first few stories I peeled through pretty fast.  I read all of them, not because they had a particularly good beginning but simply because I felt like doing so. In truth all this reading was really a crash course on what to do when I focused on my own writing. 

Sometimes when I try to write I find that there is another voice speaking to me.  He just tells me a few words, here and there, and when I’m done and look over what I’ve written I wonder where some of the words came from.  This isn’t too odd.   Many writers have a second voice telling them what to write.  

After reading through another story I walked to Mr Ryan’s desk.  He was looking over at some bill and didn’t look happy.  He mutters something to me, and after deciphering it I figure he said to wait a second.  I look back at the TV and find Lee’s eyes are focused on it.  He’s filled a whole page with notes already.

“What can I do for you Peter,” he says to me.

“I had an idea for a cover, if you think it would be a good one.  Paul O’Neil draws a lot like Gus Van Sant, who did a really good cover for Zoetrope.  I thought if we paid him some money he might do it.   What do you think.”

“Paul O’Neil is quite a talent.  I remember him working on a dragon during study hall here.  He worked on it for weeks and it filled like six pieces of loose leaf.  He has quite a hand.  I think I could probably swing paying him.  We didn’t pay for last year’s cover though, see if he’ll do it for free and if not offer him fifty.”  After he said this he grabbed all the papers on his desk and put them into his briefcase.

“I’ll ask him,” I said with resignation, “I really think paying will be for the best. He’ll put more work into it.”

“Well,” Mr. Ryan said, “if not he’ll at least have something nice for the resume.”  He stood up with his briefcase in one hand, his keys in the other..  “Look I have to go home and see the wife.  I’ll see you tomorrow.  Still have a lot of work to do.”  He smiled.

“Oh but this is supposed to be the fun part.”

“Look,” he said, “be a teacher and you’ll have fun your whole life.  Then you’ll get a summer vacation and tenure and before you know it you’ll be a happy old man sipping tea working on a garden.  That’s the life.”  He walked to the door.  “See ya tomorrow Peter, don’t spend too much time on that fiction.  We still have a month to go before we publish the magazine.” 

I ended up taking everything home shortly after he left. I was glad to be finished with high school.  It was time to move on to college and a new-way-of-life. 

I drove home and when I pulled in I saw my father sitting on the porch.  I walked up to him: he was silent except for the sound of his breathing.  Inside the house I could hear the dishwasher running.  He always had a chore for me when I returned home from school and I suspected doing the dishes would be my next job.   

My dad was sitting on the porch drinking some coffee when I approached.  He was a tall man—standing 6’3—and had broad shoulders.  My father talked in a manner that was extended and pleasing to all involved.  He had an inclination to tell a lot of stories and he always would do this as we ate dinner. 

I lit a cigarette and sat next to him on the porch  He appeared to be lost in thought.  

I had lived with my father for two years now.  Ever since my problems with drugs had been too much for my mother.  My mom just didn’t know how to handle me—I’ll admit—but my dad did.  He put me to work and encouraged my schooling much more than she ever did.  He said no drugs would be allowed..  I’m not sure how it worked, but it did and ever since I had been clean of drugs.  I had to lose a lot of my friends in school—this wasn’t easy—and started to get involved in more extra-curricular activities.  I tried and tried to get a job on the school magazine.  When my grades improved there was little reason to keep me out of it, and eventually when Mr. Ryan took over the mag I was allowed an editorial position.  He knew little of my past, but surmised that I had a “wicked future” ahead of me.

As my dad stared out at the sunset I spoke.  “Brought a lot back with me,” I kicked my bag, “an editors work is never done.” 

He looked at me, and then to the bag.  “Fiction submissions huh?”

“Yes sir.”

“How many you got.”

“Over fifty, I brought half of them with me.  The rest will have to wait until next week.”

“Any winners so far.”

“There was one,” I said, “a horror story with a good twist.  This girl gets killed in a car accident and then starts leaving messages on someone’s answering machine.  Pretty spooky.”

“A girl dies and then starts to leave message on someone’s answering machine—that is spooky.  That all you got.”

“The other ones I read weren’t horror.  There was one about a farmer and a bear that I found interesting.  I’ll write them a letter of encouragement.”

“One of the perks of the job.  You get to encourage the losers.”  He laughed and stood up.   I took one big puff of my cigarette and put it out.  The wood boards creaked as he walked over them.  I followed him inside. 

The next day I woke up early, around six.  Your supposed to meet them, I thought, your supposed to meet them at the Lions Den, and early.

I left my house immediately, a cigarette sticking out of my mouth.  It was Saturday and a morning dew was lying on the ground.   I walked through it and jumped into my car.  I headed towards the Lions Den.

It was the perfect place to meet, the perfect place to drink.  I had lost my drug buddies but I still had to party sometimes.  Jack Daniels would be passed around in volume on those mornings and nights.  I would sip it first, and then gulp.  The buzz would kick-in a minute later.

The Lions Den was a group of six couches surrounded by trees, bushes, and shrub.  In the middle was a fire pit.  We kept the bottles under the couches.  Some days the bottles wouldn’t be there.  The Hamilton brothers had taken them. The couches weren’t in good shape, rain and the sun had pelted them down to the bone.  But we weren’t there to sit, we were there to drink.  

I was the first one there that morning.  I looked under the couch and found myself a bourbon.  I sipped away on it while I waited for my friends.  I started a small fire with some leaves and my lighter.

Kurt came along after I sat there for about twenty minutes, and Mike soon after him.

Kurt was a soccer player who was in his junior year in high school.  He was a short kid with a head full of blond hair, it was always curled into braids by his girlfriend.  He was a well-spoken young man—he had a place on the debate team.  He was no writer, or even an editor, his dream was to get a athletic scholarship for college and to study music.  He loved to play the guitar; yet it was his athletic abilities that had the most potential.

He sat next to me with a wide grin on his face.  He reached under one of the couches and pulled out a bottle of Jack Daniels.

“What’s the grin for, “ I asked.

“I might as well be flying; I was just offered an athletic scholarship by Depaul.”  He smiled and sipped some of the drink.

“Wow Depaul.  Hell you could study business there…I heard there business school is pretty good.”

“No that’s not for me,” he said. “Art is where I want to be.  They’re known for the film and music schools.  That’s for me, art…art and nothing else.  That’s how I want to live my life.  I mean business is business, but in art I have found my higher calling.  I have put to much work into my art just to leave it by the wayside and quit.”  He shrugged and took another sip of the Jack Daniels.  My gaze caught his.

I said, “You have to follow your dreams, you know.  But don’t burn in any bridges on the way to your envisioned career.  I never wanted to be a writer until I got into high school, and never even thought of editing until I found out about the job.  Editing is far different than writing, but for some reason I enjoy it more.  Better than slaving away turning big rocks into small ones, but you could be a teacher as a fall back career.  There are always jobs for teaching kids music.  And if you enjoy it all the better.”

“I’ve never been much of a writer,” he said,  “and I cant imagine myself doing what your doing.  Debate is enough for me, extra-curricular wise.  Scribbling away in some notebook doesn’t appeal to me.  I remember going to a music camp once a few years back…they encouraged us to write our own stuff.  At first I hated it, dreaded it.  I just wanted to play other peoples music, that was funner, but then I found a new appreciation for people who write music.  And in the end I was glad of what I had written, even though it wasn’t any good.  I’ve written off and one since then.”

I said, “There are no deadlines for novels or short stories. But being an editor pushes you to work harder.  Writing isn’t an easy business.”

I heard footsteps crumbling leaves in the distance.  

A form appeared at the edge of the woods, not fifteen feet from us.  I could tell by his height that he was probably Tony, Tony Kastich.  Tony was an Italian who was probably the toughest of all of us.  He talked with a slight lisp, his father had bashed him in the face as a kid scarring his mouth and making it hard for him to speak.   His dad, a drunk, always shoved twenties into his pockets and told him to buy him some beer.  Knowing he was already drunk he would just leave the house and go to the Lions Den with the money.  We would buy liquor with it.   Hell we had bought half the stuff we had with his money.

“Hey Tony you bring any money.”  I yelled out.  I saw him reach into his pocket and pull something out.  He held it high in the air and tried to yell something I couldn’t make out.    

When Tony reached the den he showed us a crisp new twenty.  His dad worked construction and had been involved in construction on just about every school in the area.  He made good money, good enough to keep his drinking habit going.  But he got so drunk at night that Tony would often leave the house--seeking shelter in the den.  Sometimes late at night when I meandered my way there I would catch him there crying.  These nights were usually on the weekends—when Tony’s father would have no worry of getting up for work—and I started to make a habit of going to the den and seeing if he was there.

Tony was smart but a poor student.  His grades were low because he never studied.  It was hard for him to study around school because he was quite shy.  He couldn’t study at home because he always had to worry about his dad getting wasted, and never brought his homework to the den because he said he would just do it later.  He really didn’t drink much, least not as much as the rest of us.  He said it upset his stomach.  

“Hey guys.”

“Tony,” I said, “Tony how goes it.  Haven’t seen you since, oh, yesterday.”  He smiled and took a seat on one of the couches.  He looked underneath it and spotted a bottle, but did not caress it or give it as much as a second thought.  

“How’s the, hows the magazine, Pe…Peter.” 

“Busy,” I said.  “Why didn’t you enter a story.  You have a good head on your shoulders, you should put it to use.”

“I know,” he grinned, “I though..thought about doing a poem.  Somethin about…about(the T was very strong with the second attempt) you know, something that was scary.  A…a scary poem.”

I said, “oooh, something scary.  A ghost or a monster.  Any scary story should have a ghost or a monster. That’s this editors two-cents for you.”

He nodded and said, “Ya, ya, a scary one with a ghost.  A ghost that is a good ghost but doesn’t know his own strength.  He helps peep, people…or I mean tries to, but it only hurts them, them in the effort.

“You should have tried it out, put your pen to the pad and write.”  

“Maybe, maybe I can show it to you if I ever write it.  I need help wit--with it.”

“Sure Tony sure,” I said, “Let me have a look at it if you ever find time to write it.”  I could tell he didn’t want to speak anymore, he was nervously biting his nails.  Sometimes he got frustrated with his speech impediment.  In school he always had the same trouble.  Teachers could barely understand what came out of his mouth, and his hand writing was atrocious.

Tim showed up shortly after Tony did.  He had a cig in his mouth like me and had a book in hand.  He wasn’t smiling but seemed to be in a cheery mood.

Tim was about a head shorter than me, he was always clad in khakis and dress shirt (he said he spent all his money on formal school clothes so he couldn’t even afford a pair of blue jeans) and had a pair of thick glasses.  He loved music and he listened to everything he could get his hands on, as if it were some psychedelic drug, and the artists ranged from Bach to Velvet Revolver.  He loved reading Stephen King and Herman Wouk.  

As he approached I stared at his shoes, which were a pair of dirty Converses.   He took each step as if the next wouldn’t be there.  His shoes knocked up a cloud of sand as he walked.

I yelled out to him, asking him what he brought.  He didn’t answer, keeping his head parallel to the ground.  I wondered if something was wrong.  ----------------------------------------123

“Got into a fight with my parents before I left.  My mom said she smelled alcohol on my breath the other night.  Damn gum didn’t do shit.  My dad wasn’t even going to let me leave, I had to escape through the back door.  It should be alright, let them cool down.  Can’t drink though, no telling what would happen. “ He looked at the book and back to me.  “I brought this for you Peter, figured you might get a kick out of it.”  

He tossed the book to me and I caught it just over the fire.  It was called Youngblood Hawke.  Tony muttered something I couldn’t here, then motioned for me to hand him the book.  I did and then pulled out my pack of cigarettes.  “

“Maybe you can’t drink Tim but you can smoke a cigarette,” I tossed the pack to Tim and he caught it.  He took a seat next to Tony, who was reading the back of the book.

“So,” Tony said, “so he he’s a writer in this book.  The protag---protagonist.”

“That’s right.  I read it in two days.”

“Shit that’s like 700 pages. “ I said.  “How the hell you do that.”

“No sleep,  just couldn’t put it down.  Sometimes I’ll read a book in a month, other times in a matter of days.  It’s just depends on what kind’ve book it is I guess.”

I thought about what Tim said about reading.  I had always been a slow reader growing up—unless I was reading horror, I gobbled that stuff up—but as I grew older I began to read much faster.  I had read a wide range of books; these included my favorite author Stephen King and biographies of authors like Henry James and Richard Yates.

Tim sat down and we all peered down into the fire.  It could catch you, this fire, and grab on to you when you tried to break free.  I kicked a few more leaves into the fires and they were consumed. 

 “Well hello there boys what’s for supper?” a voice called out in the distance.   I recognized it immediately to be one of the Hamilton boys.  They always tried to raid our liquor supplies at the Lions Den.   We had never been able to get rid of them, though they rarely showed up when we were there.  That was fortunate because I had a lot of things to say to the dropouts.  We all stood up, ready for trouble.  I saw the glint of metal.  “Nobody move,” there was a quick movement towards us, towards Tony.  Before I could blink there was a knife to his throat.  “Allright pull out the wallets and booze.  I’m cleaning you boys out.”   Tony barely looked startled, and there wasn’t a trace of fear in his eyes.  They were both in cheap clothes, unshaven, and dirty.  From the little I knew about them they had dropped out of school early in 6th grade and had been home-schooled ever since.  They had never pulled a stunt like this before and I wondered why they were doing it, risking a lot just to get some money  “I’m not seeing wallets,”  Tommy yelled, “don’t you guys care about your friend.”  He moved the blade an inch closer to Tony, who was staring at me, holding off a grin.  We all gave them our wallets.  “We should leave the booze,” Travis said nervously to his brother.  “I don’t like doing this, what if they call the police.”  “What you thinking,” Tommy said back to his brother, “they’re all drinking here, and underage.   You think the cops will think that’s cute or what.”  Travis said, “I still don’t like it.”  “Okay leave the booze lets hit it.”   I heard the quick movement of their feet running across the grass and dirt.  Travis was running faster than his brother, I could tell he didn’t like being involved with the crimes that Tommy committed, but he had little choice.  And as fast as they arrived the Hamilton boys left us.  I looked to the sky and could see a storm was coming, clouds filled the sky and rain and maybe thunder were on the way.

I looked at my watch and decided it was best to leave now and avoid any further trouble. We all gathered our things up to leave, Tony seemed calmer than any of us in doing this; he methodically put his booze under the couch and stood up, stretching his arms high into the air.  I stood up to and tossed my cigarette into the fire.

We all left that night agreeing not to tell anyone what happened.  We would have to each tell our parents we had lost our wallets, which wouldn’t be easy to do, but we were left with few options.  We drank a little more—happy to still have booze—and then one by one we all left the Lions Den.

When I got home my father was sitting fast asleep on the front porch.  There was a beer setting next to his chair, and his arm was precariously holding his head up.  

I went up the stairs and to my room.  Lying next to my backpack was a stack of stories.  I went back downstairs and started some coffee—the clock read 12:00.   No time better than the present, I thought to myself.

I ended up reading stories for four hours that morning.  The two notable stories were by Chris Reaves and Alan Peterson.  I knew both of them, they were juniors, Chris on the basketball team and Alan on the football team, and it was more than out of the ordinary for people like them to enter stories in for the magazine.  They both sought something special to put on their college resumes, and I could tell they had put a lot of work into these pieces.

Angels.  Demons.  Both of the stories had religious connotations.  They had failings but there was just enough wordplay to put them in the good pile.  

After reading these two stories the phone rang, I ran downstairs and answered it.  It was Tim.  “Hi,” he said, “are you busy?”  

“No I’m not.  Just finished my days work actually.  What you up to?”  

“Me and Tony just scouted a new spot, a water hole south of the Lions Den.  You want to go swimming?”  

“Well I guess, I’m not done with all my work.  But I’ll go.”  

We talked for a few seconds more.  We agreed to meet at the Lions Den.  Tim sounded excited about it and I didn’t mind getting out of the house—though I was leaving work that had to be done.-------------------------------------------123 

I left the house and hit the road.  

While driving I thought about the stories that were still fresh in my mind.  I was surprised that they were written by athletes, usually jocks don’t have the mind needed for art—but these two were different than your stereotypical athlete, there was much more to them than could be seen.  I had doubts about there potential, and of my expertise in the field of editing.  I had chosen two stories that would need some work, but I wasn’t sure yet what had to be changed.  I had fun reading them.  I had half-a-mind to just leave them as they were, rough.  But they needed to be touched up in certain areas, punctuation and theme were my main problem with the two stories. 

 I heard a siren.  A police car passed by me followed by an ambulance.  I slowed down.  I then hit the gas pedal and drove fast the rest of the way to the Lions Den.  I parked in the woods, nearly a hundred yards from the den, and walked the rest of the way there.

 Tim and Tony were laughing about something.  Tim had a drink in his hand and Tony was smoking a cig.   As I sat down they were still giggling about something.  When I asked what was so funny Tony held out two twenties.  “My dad,” he said, “Is drunker than a skunk.”  He wiped his lip with his hand and took another drag of his cig, “he mumbled some—somethin—god damn—damnit.”   He wiped his lips again. 

Tim stood up.  “You ready to check out the water hole.  There’s a bunch of cool rocks by it too.”  

“Yes,” I said, “let me get a swig of bourbon before you go.”

“Don’t get drunk before you swim.  I don’t want to fish you out of there.”

“I’ll be fine, just a sip.” I searched under one of the couches for my favorite bourbon.  Searching with my hands I felt the glass touch my fingers.  I picked it up and took a gulp of it.  I put it back underneath the couch and said I was ready to swim.

The rocks were huge.  So huge I felt I was lost just standing next to them.  The water hole (which was a mixture of gray and blue and had a hint of yellow because of the sun) had a ten foot plunge, and I worried that there might be rocks in the water, sharp enough to cut you a good scrape.  Tim had the same notion and jumped in first, saying he would check it out.  Tony grinned and was about to jump in right where Tim had hit but I held him back.  I said “Just wait a second, wait until he’s out of the water.”  Tony waited.  Tim surfaced and swam to the water’s edge.  Tony tore off his shirt and jumped in.  When he did I saw a flash of light in the rocks above the pool of water.  Tony hit the water hard, to hard, and I couldn’t see him through the water.  Tim looked startled by Tony’s plunge and was about to jump in, but his nerves got the best of him and he waited.  I was in the same plight, I was rethinking how smart jumping into a water hole was, and for a few seconds there I couldn’t move. There was a current in the water, I could see small waves forming at one end of it.  We waited a few long seconds and then Tim looked at me—fear was in his eyes—and then jumped into it.  I ran down to the side of the water hole and did the same.  Neither of us could find him.  The current had grabbed him, taken him from us.  Desperate Tim used his cell phone to call the police.

After an hour of searching in the water the police could not find his body.  But my thoughts weren’t so much dominated by his inevitable death, more by the flash of light I had seen as he jumped in. What was that, I thought to myself, what the hell was that I have to find out.  My imagination told me it was a doorway; a doorway opening to let someone in, to bring another soul to heaven.  

The police used scuba divers, nets, everything they could possibly think of to find his body.  But it wasn’t meant to be found, I knew this. “What the hell were you thinking, “the sheriff said, “by God he never had a chance in there.  The divers wont go back in, they say if u get about ten feet down you hit a current.  Now who the hells idea was to jump in here, you don’t even know what’s in there.  There coulda been rocks, another one of you could’ve drowned.  God damn kids.”  He shook his head and walked away.

I looked at Tim and could tell he was holding off tears.  He looked in bad shape.  I wasn’t going to cry, what had happened had happened, but I knew this wasn’t the end of it.  I was going to find out what really grabbed Tony, then, a few days later, I would grieve for him. 

Later the sheriff walked us to our cars, still grumbling about how stupid it was to jump into that water.  My mind was elsewhere as he spoke and I don’t remember a thing he said.  I could tell Tim was trying to listen him but his mind looked as far away as mine was.   The sheriff spoke again and this time I listened.  “Now who’s idea was it to do this.  I know you kids got it rough right now, but tell me, tell me who’s idea it was.”  Tim responded, tears running down his face, that it was his idea.  He had found the water hole while walking home earlier, he had thought it would be a good spot for swimming.  He had planned to tie a rope to one of the trees so we all could fling of it.  He smiled as he said this.  

We got in our cars and said our goodbyes to each other.  

On the way home I thought the entire situation over through my mind again and again.  Tony jumping, flash of light from the rocks, hitting water.  Could he have broken his neck, I thought, and sunk to the bottom?  Or was I missing a piece of the puzzle?  

The house had always reminded me of where I had come from.  Brick by brick it was pieced together, similar to building a life step by step.  For a decade my father had owned it.  I would visit it every few weeks, staring at it and my father blankly.  It took me years to understand the real reasons my parents had split.  Moving on wasn’t something I dealt with well.  

When I walked to the door I could smell something cooking.  I walked in and could see my dad was in the kitchen fixing supper.  I told him what had happened.  Baffled he asked why he hadn’t been called.  “I didn’t think to dad, I’m sorry.”  

“No I meant that damn sheriff Smith, why couldn’t he have called us.”

“I know he called Tony’s parents.”

“Well what the hell were you thinking jumping in a damn hole.  Damnit Peter you have to think smarter than that.”  He shook his head.  “Of all your friends,’ he said looking me in the eyes, “I liked Tony the best.  He had a bad father and it’s hard for kids to live like that, living with an alcoholic you know.  He was a lot smarter than any of you boys gave him credit for.  I think deep inside you all knew he was the most intelligent of all of you.  Not like we haven’t had to deal with this before, we know how to grieve in this household.”

I thought about telling him about the light I had seen, just before Tony jumped in.   I saw him jumping in my mind, his body flying through the air, and then he landed with a thud.  The rocks had swallowed him up, forbidding him to leave, I wondered what his last thoughts were.  In near-death experiences you always hear stories of your life flashing before your eyes in a matter of seconds.  What did Tony see, or was he just unconscious falling to the bottom of the water hole.  I wondered if his dad even understood what the sheriff had said to him as he called him.  I was standing there and the sheriff had to repeat himself five times, and then he hung up the phone with a frown.  “That kid’s dad was never good,” he said, “not good at all.”

We ate in silence.  Or at least it felt like silence.  My father tried to talk to me about something but I wasn’t paying attention.  After I was finished I went upstairs.   I really didn’t feel like doing any work, I was having a bad day.  There had always been deaths in high school, usually alcohol related, but how would Tim and I explain this.  

I sat at my desk and leafed through the works I had read over earlier.  I had left two in the good pile and five in the bad pile.  Looking over them I saw why I had made the decisions I made.  I was good at telling whether a story was good or not.  It seems like common sense, story always trumps style, but over the years of reading the magazine I had seen bad decisions made.  

I put the good stories in a manila folder and the bad ones in the rejection stack, which had been growing and growing ever since I had begun editing them yesterday.  Not feeling up to looking over any more I laid down on my bed and stared at the ceiling. 

It began to storm.  I saw flashes of lightning through my window, and then seconds later loud thunder echoed into my room.  The light reminded me of the one I had seen shortly after Tony’s plunge into the gaping water.   It was more like a spark of light than a crack of lightning, it was a crisp color, more like the color of a light from a car headlight. 

I walked over to my desk and lit a cigarette.  I pulled out a new story and set about to reading it.  It was a short story—about three pages long—and was written by Omar Thomas.  I knew him.   He was a foreign exchange student from India originally.  

The story was far different than anything I had ever seen before.   It told the tale it was trying to tell, and ended not answering all the questions the reader was hoping would be answered.  Not sure what to do with it I put it in between the rejection stack and the good stories.  I wasn’t ready to call it good just yet, this particular story would need a second look.  

The second story I read that night was fairly short as well—at least by my standards—and stood at only four pages.  I enjoyed it and put it in the good pile without a second thought.

I put my cigarette out and tried to get some sleep, but the sleep wouldn’t come, I had many things hanging over my head.  For the first time in years I began to cry.  I stopped myself after a few seconds of it.  After the tears dried I fell asleep in my bed.  

I was woke up early the next morning when I heard the phone ring.  I heard my dad scramble out of bed to get to the phone.  When he answered there was a long pause followed by a “Hello sheriff, expected you to call yesterday.”  He walked downstairs with the phone, perhaps not hoping to wake me, but I was awake and got up.

My mind was racing from one thought to the next as I walked down the stairs.  When would his funeral be?   Did the sheriff find his body?   What if his father is sober and wants to press charges?  I shook my head of these thoughts, what had happened had happened.  There was little we could do.  We could just think ourselves lucky to still be alive.  It was stupid to jump in the water hole in the first place, we made a mistake in doing it and it had cost us a friend’s life.  

I could hear my dad talking as I walked down the hardwood stairs.  I think he heard me and he opened the screen door and walked into the back yard.  

I poured myself a glass of orange juice and sat at the table, wondering all along if Tony’s body had been found—I really wanted to know.  I looked to the back yard.  I saw my dad say something, a goodbye perhaps, and hung up the phone.  He pulled the screen door open—it squeaked this time—and proceeded to shut it.  Just before he did I saw a fly dart in, it buzzed past me towards the kitchen.  

My dad walked in and took a seat at the head of the table.  “That sheriff and his deputies looked all night for Tony’s body.”  He said, shaking his head.  “Couldn’t find it, dragged it, the swimmers refused to go back down, they’re gonna call off the search if they cant find him today.  Funeral’s Monday.”  He looked into my eyes for a long second, then spoke again.  “How you feeling about it.” 

 “I’m fine,” I said,  “can’t stop thinking about it though.  Tried to work, tried to forget, your not going to forget something like that.”  

“You’re a tough kid,” he said back, “and like I said Tony was too.  Real good kid.”  He shook his head.  “Anyways the boys father went down there himself and was gonna jump in..that man’s always drunk out of his mind, but beyond that, beyond that we know because of our faith that Tony went to a better place.  I think in your heart you know that.”  It was then that I first thought of going back and finding out what really happened.  

I sat at the table with my dad for probably an hour.  We talked about a lot of things.  He was being promoted and we talked about that, I told him I had gone over some more stories the night before and he seemed interested in that.  We discussed what suits we would wear at the funeral, what time it would be, and so on.  It was a long talk. 

We eventually ran out of words and silence ensued.  I went upstairs. 

The desk was always a chore for my to sit in front of.   I lit another cigarette—hoping to dull the nerves.  Once again part of me didn’t feel like working.  I had done more than my quota yesterday and I could’ve just left the stories as they stood.  But it made me a little nervous, going over them and then judicially deciding which ones would be published and which ones wouldn’t.  I liked that.  Nerves were something  I could work with, I felt they made me work better.

The first story I read was daunting.  It stood at twenty pages, I almost skipped by it not wanting to deal with it.  As I read it I noticed some talent—but not enough for it to be published. David Jones, a member of the quire, wrote the story.   The story was ok.  I reminded me of something, perhaps Stephen King’s The Shining, or The Amityville Horror.  I put it into the rejection pile –  it was just too long for me – even though it had a good lead-up to the major action of the story. 

I used to gobble up horror stories as a kid.  Bruce Coville and R.L. Stine were mainstays for me, figureheads who I aspired to be.  But as I grew older I found my taste moved more and more away from horror.  He should’ve tried it as a poem, I thought to myself, then he might have had a better chance.

I went downstairs and poured some coffee into a mug.  I drank it black.  As I walked back up the stairs I thought of Tony again.  My first instinct was the just shake my head, push the thoughts on the back burner.  But this was one of the few times I didn’t follow my first instinct. I let the thoughts race through my mind, all the images of Tony I could remember, everything from his beaten face to his shy personality, from his body flying into the air and landing hard on the water.  And then sinking, sinking so far down he couldn’t get out.  He had once told me a saying that stays with me: “Follow your dreams, no matter how off-base they are, follow your dreams.  Otherwise you’re a fish out of water your whole life.”  

I worked diligently for several more hours.  Nothing clicked in the stories I read, nothing had resonance.  Some had too much dialogue, others had to little.  Some were situational, others reminded me of Virginia Woolf and seemed to have been written in a philosophical rant.  

I watched at time flew by.  The clock seemed to be moving faster than me.  I leafed through page after page of manuscript.  I made corrections to some, others I left alone and put in the rejection pile.  

Bored, I walked downstairs again. 

My father had just finished another dinner.  At first this surprised me, embroiled in my work I really had lost track of time, but then I remembered the long shift at editing I had just put in.  It was an odd feeling, having so much time fly by, but it happened to me sometimes while I was reading stories.   

We sat at the table and quietly eating, the sound of chewing was the only noise heard.  Dinner was sometimes like this for us, conversations over dinner were few and far between.   

After I finished eating I walked outside and lit a cigarette.  It flashed before my eyes one more time, the light I had seen before Tony drowned.  I just couldn’t seem to escape what had happened.  I wondered how Tim was doing—if he still had it fresh in his memory.  

I never questioned Tim as to what I saw that day, the fierce light that opened up just as Tony jumped in.  It was doubtful that he had seen it.  If he had he never mentioned it to me.  In my mind it only could be seen from above the water hole—not at its edge. 

I decided early the next day to go back to the water hole.  I just couldn’t stop myself.   As I drove there I thought again and again of turning back.  It would be easier to just quit on it, to forget about the whole thing.  

Yet I had to see it one more time.  

It began to rain.  Heavy sheets of rain hit my car, I turned on the windshield wipers and lit a cigarette.  This weather wasn’t going to stop me, but I wondered if the sheriff would.  

As I parked my car not a hundred yard from the water hole I searched for any place where the sheriff might be.  But there was no one there.  I was alone here, I sensed it as I parked the car, but not trusting that I spent the first ten minutes in the car hoping the rain would die down.  I wasn’t patient enough for this, so I grabbed a towel out of the back seat and sprinted towards the water hole.

I reached the hole.

Rain pelted my body as I stood over it.  There was police tape all over the area.  I leaned down and walked underneath it.  I was standing at the very place where we had jumped.  I had a flashback of when we both jumped into the water searching for Tony.  We were lucky the current hadn’t dragged us down too.  But I wasn’t here to think; I was here to find out what really happened.  

I could see water rushing out of a spring at the other side of the hole.  The rocks stared at me with watchful eyes.  It just swallowed him, I thought to myself,  leave it at that.  I shook my head and leaned down over the edge.  

I made my way to the other side of the hole, to where I had seen the bright flash of light.  

Suddenly a bright light showed itself.  It rose with great strength from underneath me, like locust it spread to the other rocks, then ebbed, rose again, and disappeared.  I looked up towards the sky, expecting to see something more.  There was only the sun and clouds, rain dripped into my eyes and I squinted.  I walked towards the rocks where I had seen the light spread.  There was nothing there.  I looked deep inside, into the crevices, and could have sworn that’s where the lights had originated.  I could see glowing rocks deep inside.  I reached in to feel the rocks, it burned my fingers and I jumped back.

I heard a noise.  It was far away, maybe fifty feet from me.  It was a gradually getting closer and closer.   I rushed up and hid behind some of the rocks.  But what about your car? I thought.  What about your car? They’ll know you’re here.  After a minute the sound died away, lost to the natural noises of crickets and birds, which had increased since I had first stood at the water hole.  I stood up and looked into the water.  There was something glowing deep in the water.  I walked to the other side of the hole—where I had originally stood—and thought if something here had just grabbed Tony.  Maybe he had hit some of these rocks as he dove into the water.   Maybe he hit a heat bubble and passed out, his heavy body sinking to the bottom, and then a current grabbed him, transported him into the stream underneath the ground.  There would be no way of finding him then.  I stood up, thinking I had seen enough, and prepared to walk back to my car.  I had gained no explanation, but I had seen the same things I had seen the last time was here.  I knew then it wasn’t just in my head.  

Then I heard footsteps again.  They were very close.  I rushed into the woods and waited.  As they slowly walked into a range where I could see them I saw they were both in gray and blue and were wearing hats.  I took the long way back to my car and didn’t see where they had parked.  I was lucky.  I was half-expecting to see a beat cop standing next to my car waiting for me.  But there was no one there and I took off at a high speed onto the dirt roads.

It wasn’t over.  I hadn’t seen where he had gone.   I wouldn’t give up on it just yet.  There was something to those rocks.  

I gunned into onto the main roads and drove towards the school.  Halfway there I remembered I had forgot all my papers.  I didn’t want my dad to know where I had been so I decided to sneak in.  He was gone when I got there so I just strode in as usual.  I grabbed all the stories and rushed back to my car, expecting all the way to see him standing at the door.  “What ya doing back already?”  He wasn’t there, standing with a bag full of booze—or maybe groceries—so I quietly paced my walk to the car.  I had nearly fell over on the stairs as I raced down them.

As I walked down the hallway to Mr. Ryan’s room I could hear the loud speakers of his TV playing.  When I walked in Mike Lee was there, as was Mr. Ryan (he was reading a newspaper).  Mike stood up—as did Mr. Ryan—and walked over to me.  He held out his hand and I took it.  “Sad news,” Mike said.  Mr. Ryan walked over to me and gave me a long hard look. “Just a second.”  Mike went to the TV and hit button on the VCR.  

“What you watching?” I said. 

 “Chasing Bobby Fischer,” Mike said, with a note of sorrow in his voice.  “I didn’t expect you to be here today.  After Tony’s passing and all.”  

“No I need to keep working.  Tony wouldn’t want me to stop.”  

“That’s true,” Mr. Ryan said, “that’s very true.”  He grabbed my hand and patted me on the back.  “Do you know how it happened.” 

“Ya but I don’t want to talk about it just yet if that’s ok.”

“Fine,” Mr. Ryan said, “that’s perfectly fine.”  He walked back to his desk and sat down. Mike continued to look me over.  

“You look like your taking it well,” he said.  

“Tony was one of my best friends.  You expect to lose your grandparents but really don’t expect this.” 

“You don’t want to talk about it huh?”  Mike asked.  

“No, not just yet.  We still have a magazine to write.  Go ahead and watch your movie; you aren’t going to do the Jarmusch one?”

“I had to give this one a look, Jarmusch is still on my list.  But everyone writes about him.  I want to explore a new film, not really new I mean but something different, something in a different direction.”

Mike went back to the TV and hit the play button on the VCR.  I sat down next to the pile of manuscripts, pulling the ones I had finished out of my bag.  I sat a stack of good stories on Mr. Ryan’s desk.

I sat back down.  The story on the top of the stack was called The Women In Red.  It was written by Madeline James and was ten pages long.  We had room for one hundred pages of short stories, ten pages was about the perfect size for a good short story.  

As I read it I thought of the glowing rocks.  What really happened, I thought, I have to know I just have to know. I didn’t make sense—none of it did—and in my searching for answers I had only proven that I hadn’t seen anything, there was something mysterious to those rocks, and hell or high water I was going to find out.  But what If you find nothing, if you find nothing will you quit?

 I shook my head of this thought and looked at “The Woman In Red.”  

I enjoyed reading the story but thought it needed some work on the ending.  I put it in the maybe pile.  I looked up and saw Chasing Bobby Fisher was playing—Mike had the sound turned low—and as I looked back towards Mr. Ryan I saw a fog was coming in from the west.  I thought of the rocks.   

The next story was named Preacher and was written by Allysa Perkowitz.  As I read the first page I could tell that this story wasn’t for me.  She introduced six different characters in six paragraphs of type.  I looked at the size again—fifteen pages—and back to the story.  A writer introducing six different character’s points of view was too much for me.  When Vonnegut tried it maybe I would accept it, but a short story should be shown from 1-3 characters points of view.  And anything over one is stretching it and a risk. (Dangerous.)

I skipped to the end of the story and read its ending: “Time seemed to stop, a small pause here, a slight breath there, and she caught herself staring into the sun.” 

I decided to go grab a coffee: “Any of you want some coffee.”  Mr. Ryan merely raised his hand and looked back to his paper.  “No thanks,” Mike said, his eyes were glued to the TV.  

At the Expresso Royale I purchased two coffees.  A pretty redhead took my order, and with a smile handed me two hot coffees.  I took the long way back to school, a song I enjoyed was playing, but it was only a block difference, so I arrived before the song ended.  Sitting in the car I thought about my mom.  I don’t know why she came into mind at that second, but there she was, and I thought of calling her.  As I walked into the school I decided to give her a ring when I got back home, after I returned to the rocks one last time.

I arrived with the coffees and both Mike and Mr. Ryan were all smiles when I got back.  “I think I’m going to go with the Jarmusch movie, chess was interesting to me as a kid but not anymore, just seems like another waste of time.”

I said, “Some people take it real serious you know.  They’ll spend whole days just playing the game.  And its not for the math geniuses – its for a completely different group than what you would expect.”

“You're right,” Mike said back to me. “You’d think math majors would be awesome at chess but that is always the case.  Jarmusch just has so many different movies, such a variety of talent in his stuff.  I thought this might have a chance—Chasing Bobby Fischer—but now it seems like it was just a shot in the dark.”

I said, “I think you should go with Dead Man, you could have a small tid-bit about Jarmusch’s interest in poetry, his studies in New York, stuff like that.”

Mike and I talked for a few minutes more about his film essay.  I knew it was going to be good and I told him this—hoping to encourage his effort.   He had always written essays brimming with his talent, non-fiction was his fortay, but not mine.  I enjoyed fiction, it dominated my life, reading it and even writing it provided joy in my life.  

I thought about reading another story, thought about going to the rocks again.  Then it hit me, I didn’t have to do either.  I could just quit on both and wait for a better day; there was nothing to be found at the rocks—in my heart I disagreed—and I was already ahead of schedule on the fiction pieces I was to edit.  Looking at another story seemed daunting, but many times this is the case when working.  My mind told me to continue working, to break through the block and keep running all the way.   

I decided to go back to the water hole.

Leaving wasn’t easy, I knew I would have few chances to get back into Mr. Ryan’s room after we completed the magazine.   My days as editor were numbered—yet I had hope I could continue my work elsewhere.  I had done a job shadow at the local paper, interviewing everyone I could.  I was encouraged to apply a stringer for the sports department.  I inquired about job openings and they said I could maybe work for them in the months to come.  But the job wasn’t there then, and I wondered if the story might change in the days to come.  

A sports job would be different for me; I would have to learn more about the games and more importantly how to write statistics.  I wondered if my name would fall into the countless names of unknown sports editors across the world.  I wanted a real job, writing columns or editing for the arts page—that was my dream.  I wanted to get paid for reading books.  I wasn’t good in non-fiction but I knew the chances of getting short non-fiction published was far greater than any chances I had publishing short fiction.  

When I told Mr. Ryan I was leaving he threw down his paper and gave me a brief lecture on work habits.  “Once you start,” he said, “you should continue.  You having trouble reading them now?”  I pointed to the stack of stories I had already read.   “I worked most of yesterday, I’m almost done with them to tell you the truth.”

“Okay okay but come back tomorrow, how is Mike going to write his film essay without an editor.”  

“I can do it, I’ll write it today,” Mike retorted, “and I’ll let Peter see it tomorrow.  That sound good Peter?”  

“Sounds good to me,” I said as I walked through the door.

I stared at the water hole. The fog was rushing over it.  Deep down in the water I could see lights darting around the waters expanse.  I looked to the rocks above it.  I could barely see through the fog.  I thought of just giving up, jumping in, and forgetting all my troubles.  It would be an easy thing to do.  Not hard at all.  Giving up on life was something that had raced through my head before, but very few times had I been offered such an easy way to get out of the burden of life.  

A light sprang out of the rocks and hit me directly in my eyes.  I covered my face with my hand and tried to focus on the center of the light.  It was perplexing.  Where was this light coming from?  It rotated in and out through the bits of fog, as if it were a lighthouse moving in a circular motion. 

I walked around the water hole to the point where the light was streaming out.  I nearly slipped on one of the rocks and regained my balance by putting a hand on the ground.  I thought for some reason if I hadn’t grabbed on my original thought of jumping in would come to fruition.  Maybe a guardian angel would have grabbed me at the last second, saving my life and in turn showing himself to me.  

I leaned down over a large rock and peered into the light.  I couldn’t see much, but I did feel a great heat bubbling up out of the water.  At first I thought it was just the spring that fed it, but then when the air bubbles nearly doubled, bringing a great amount of heat to my face, I jumped back and stared at it.  Now what’s happening, I thought, If you were looking for answers one just fell right in front of your face.  

As I studied the water bubbles I could feel the heat rising into the fog.  By now I couldn’t even see the other side of the water hole.  

Hot oxygen burst out of the water.  It was doubling in strength every second.  I reached down to put my hand in the water, I jumped back before I did because of the heat misting over the water.  Was this what did Tony in? I have to know.

I thought of the epics that were awaiting my editing back at Mr. Ryan’s class.  Just give up.  Just give up and keep working, don’t think about it.  Editors don’t think; they do.  Tony’s death was the most puzzling thing I had ever seen in my life.  And I wasn’t going to quit on it.

I made my way through the fog to the other side of the water hole.  I hadn’t noticed it at first, but as the water began to bubble the lights had dimmed, then ceased altogether.  I felt ashamed of it, of the rush I was getting just looking at this strange occurrence.  

I waited an hour.  Waiting.  Pondering.  Something was going to happen and be damned if I was to miss it.  This is a locked door and you just don’t have the key, I thought.  But nothing did happen.  There was no Pandora’s box handed to me, just the basic emptiness of a spring fed water hole.  I grew hungry.  I decided to go home.  As I walked back to my car I heard a splash of water behind me.  It was loud and sounded to me like a rock had fallen. 

I ran back to the hole.  There, waiting for me, was Tony’s body.  

His skin was a pale blue color, his shorts were clinging to his legs, his eyes were wide open and he had a grin on his face—the same grin he had had as he jumped into the water.  I searched for a stick to bring him out.  When I found one I used it to guide his body over to the shoreline.  I pulled his body out of the water and laid it on the ground.  A pool of water formed around his body.  I looked over at the rocks, saw one was missing, and proceeded to walk over to the gaping hole in the ground made by the stones absence.  There was a small spring where the rock had been.  It was two feet wide and was shooting water high into the air.  Current must have dragged him into this spring, I thought, and then when the rock fell he shot out.

I remembered the dream I had of the Japanese man who had been beheaded.  With his last breath he stared into the light.  I began to cry.  The fisherman. Out to sea.

FIN