On a day of white heat, I woke to find a note under my door. It was from Sonya. She and Paul were driving early into the village for a part of the day: “If you wake in time and read this note, please join us.” Signed “with love,” the note was written in a graceful, flowing script, uniquely hers.
I was glad not to accompany them, not together. Because of the intimacy with Sonya on the rowboat, I felt that I would have to reestablish our close friendship, our unique love, beyond the overtones that occurred on the lake. That would have to be done when we were alone. I had begun to see manifestations of what Sonya had perceived in Paul, a distancing from her. He would be overtly rude to her in often sharp jabs.
(“Beauty, have you ever in your life succeeded in anything other than being beautiful?” She remained silent, and I interjected:
(“If so, man, she’s succeeded superbly.”)
What continued was the sudden urgency with which he would reach for her.
I was on my way to the sundeck in my trunks when I encountered Stanty—or rather he came running to intercept me—ready for the lake in his trunks.
“Go rowing with me, John Rechy,” he said; “come on! Please!” He grasped my hand, to coax me along with him. “Sonya said you would if I asked you. Aw, come on, please.”
“Okay,” I said easily.
“Good! Let’s go.” He was running toward the deck, where the boat waited. I helped him undock, pushing the boat easily into the water, which was serene, deep blue. He was happy, and I felt good.
We jumped into the boat. I grabbed the oars—he had seemed about to claim them. Without protest, he sat down, facing me.
I achieved a slow rhythm rowing. Fanning white foam followed us under the diminishing sun.
“You’re rowing good—well,” he said. “Sonya said so.”
It seemed odd to thank him; so I just nodded, smiling.
Not a breeze, no whisper of a breeze, but being on the water made the day seem cooler as the sun began to set.
“Can you row a little bit faster?” he asked.
“Sure I can.” I accelerated my rowing, feeling entirely competent.
“We’re going slow,” Stanty said, “aren’t we?”
“Yeah, I guess,” I said. I had been rowing away from the vacated island, the mourning house with its rotting branches. When I had automatically glanced toward it, the dismal convergence of shadows of barren trees was smothering the whole island, pushing it out of sight, unreal as a phantom.
“I bet you could row faster if you wanted—right?”
“I bet I could,” I said. I accelerated the rowing. I intended to row not far from Paul’s island.
“Let’s row faster!” Stanty said.
I grasped the oars firmly as he stood up.
“You’re going too slow,” he said.
I continued rowing at the same pace, only slightly annoyed at his insistence.
“You’re not afraid, are you?” His voice had changed, his voice of command.
“No, I’m not afraid.”
He remained standing. “Let me row,” he said.
“Not yet,” I said. “When we go back.”
“Come on,” he said. “Let me row.”
I didn’t feel like upsetting the mood of camaraderie. I let him take the oars, which he grasped quickly, and just as quickly, he turned the boat away from where I had steadily directed it. He was rowing fast, much faster. He plunged the oars deep into the water; frothy water agitated under us.
“Stanty—”
He was rowing forcefully in the direction of the desolate island, leaving Paul’s island behind.
I said evenly, not trying to indicate my anger, “You’re rowing too fast, and—”
“And I told you I wanted to go faster, didn’t you hear me?” he demanded, his voice harsh.
“I did hear you, but you didn’t hear me say we were rowing fast enough, and we’re going back now.”
He clutched the oars, rowing furiously. Faster, faster, faster toward the dead island.
“What the hell are you doing?” I stood unsteadily in front of him.
To add force to his rowing, he arched his body; the boat was slapping at the water. Despite the confidence I had developed with Sonya and later by myself, it was clear that he was an expert. I realized, startled, that we were battling for the boat. “Give me the oars back.” I had to stay in control.
Water from the frenzied rowing spattered on my legs. Over the sound of spraying water, he shouted at me: “You don’t like me, do you? You never liked me.”
Withheld anger swept over my words. “You’re right, I don’t like you, I don’t like you at all.”
“But you like my father, don’t you?” he thrust at me.
I couldn’t think what to answer. My mind was trying to adjust to—and rejecting—what was happening. About us, water sprayed onto the boat.
“You’re always trying to be with him alone, on the deck, I’ve seen you trying to get close to him.”
“You’re a fucken liar, you stupid punk!”
“You stay away from him, you hear me?”
Any rebuttal would escalate his accusations, and I didn’t want to hear what he might be preparing to say. “We’re going back. Give me the fucken oars now!”
“Sure,” he said, “take them!” He released the oars. Adjusting to the interrupted speed, the boat drifted.
Before I could reach for the oars, he stood.
He removed his trunks.
He stood naked before me. “Now do you like me?”
I turned away, but too late. I had seen his naked body in a flash, only seconds, and in those seconds I realized what a beautiful man he would become, like Paul. The next moment, his bare flesh repelled me. “Put your fucken trunks back on!”
“I thought you were a queer,” he said.
It was as if he had struck me in my stomach, which wrenched into a wave of nausea. “I am, you goddamn bastard, but not for filthy little punks like you, Constantine!”
He closed his eyes, as if to gather his rage. “Don’t call me that name, and I’m not a little punk!”
“You are a stupid little punk, Constantine, a dirty, fucken liar. Now put your fucken trunks back on and move away so I can row back.”
“Queer! Whore! My father told me everything about you, dirty things, ugly things—everything! Dozens of dirty men you had sex with and you knew it was all filthy. And cruel!”
Cruel! A borrowed word, not his. Borrowed from whom? This sinister creature, standing there obscenely—his filthy words roiled within me. Cruel—the uncanny accusation that he knew would wound me.
Dizzy with rage, sweat stinging my eyes, I realized only now—feeling it—that a heated breeze had swept along the darkening lake and the boat was drifting, as if it were on its own leading us somewhere unwanted, somewhere as shadowed and decayed and monstrous as this creature before me, the boat floating toward that stagnant island.
“Your father told you all those things about me?” I asked as he stood with his legs spread, balancing himself expertly on the boat and shifting it slightly from left to right, right to left.
“Yeah!—and more!”
“You’re lying, Constantine!”
Nothing I had experienced with Paul allowed me to believe this accusatory monster before me.
“I’m not lying!” And he shifted his legs, swaying the boat, right, left, left, right.
“You lie all the time.” Cruel—that incongruous word he had pitched so knowingly into an accusation. Where other than from Paul—or Sonya! No. He had heard it from me! I had said that to Paul—and this demonic creature had listened, lurking, to a word I had spoken in regret, in sadness.
Sheer hatred—that was all I felt now, hatred and rage.
He was rocking the boat faster, left, right, left, right, tilting it right and left farther toward the water each time.
“Stop that, you bastard!”
He rocked it harder, fiercely, faster, harder, faster, jumping from side to side, laughing, the water swirling about the boat, the boat slanting.
“You can’t swim, can you?” he taunted. “Can you, Juan? That’s why you’re scared. I’m going to make the boat turn over!” he said, and he was jumping up, down, left, right, the boat swaying, tilting. “And you can’t swim, can you? You’ll drown!”
Struggling to keep my balance, I lunged at him, to grab him, to stop him.
In one flashing movement he thrust his body against mine—bare flesh, naked flesh, bodies clasped briefer than a moment, longer than the dying day.
With all the force of my rage, I thrust him away. He struggled to regain his stance. I pushed him into the water. I threw his trunks after him. I thought I saw his hands grasping. I grabbed the oars, rowing away, faster than I thought I could. I was aware only of the sound of the disturbed water—and the heat, the impossible heat, the goddamned heat.
“I’m hurt, I hit something!” he shouted urgently from somewhere in the watery darkness.
I heard flailing in the water.
“I’m bleeding! Lift me up with an oar, hurry!”
I wouldn’t believe him. He was an expert swimmer. And a cunning liar.
“I cut myself on something sharp! My leg—I can’t swim.”
In our struggle or afterward, had he hit himself, become injured?
I rowed toward where he would be. He was faking! If I extended the oar to him, he would drag me down into the angered water.
“Island! Isl—!” The last word he attempted to shout was drowned in silence. More silence, only a fading sound of gurgling water.
Was he tangled in something dangerous, was he really hurt, finally unable to swim? I waited.
I saw a hand—his hand—rise out of the water—I saw it, I see it, I know I saw it, I see it grasping for help—no, reaching for the oar to pull me into the deadly depth. As quickly as it had emerged—I saw it, I know I saw it, I see it—the hand sank back into the water.
Suddenly I was afraid for him. The water was black and ominous as the day expired, leaving only a smirch of blemished light, fading. He had disappeared into the dead darkness. I started to row faster to look around for any trace of him. I stopped.
I rowed back to the island. I would tell the others that Stanty was—
Laughing!
He emerged onto the dock wearing the trunks I had thrown at him.
I made my way out of the boat.
“That was fun, wasn’t it, John Rechy? I enjoyed that. Did you?”