Imitation of "Griswald" by William Lychack entitled "Jake"

All you know is what a hot summer day it is. The sun scorches down on you and Jake as you two walk to the creek. There is an empty house in your subdivision with a pool in the backyard. The liner on the pool is black, and algae floats through the water. The carcasses of chipmunks and squirrels fill the murky bottom, but you and Jake don’t mind. It is the summer you turn five and he twelve. Jake tries to teach you how to swim that summer. He grips his hands around your waist and makes sure you don’t sink. I gotcha don’t worry, he would always say. The two of you spent nearly every waking minute together that summer. Some days you would sit on a park bench drinking a bottle of pink lemonade. Your mama always gets home from work late and your dad is never to be found. All that matters is that your mama trusted Jake’s grandpa to keep some sort of watch on you while she was off at work. Nothing worse could happen at his grandpas than it would at your house. What is wrong with hanging out with Jake anyway? It gave you something to do. Jake would always give you something to drink. Juice Boxes. Gatorade. Bottles of water. You name it. He would show you some of his grandpa’s things that he found in the basement: an old baseball glove, an old army uniform, a dusty picture frame of Jake’s grandma and grandpa. Jake is always getting into something. He is an odd fellow with hardly any friends, which is why you were so close to him. He was your first friend. Any kid would have kept hanging out with Jake. One afternoon you swing in the tire swing in the backyard, feeling like you are flying, and so free. He would tell you stories of his parents and what happened to them. He even showed you the big scar from the car accident. So it’s bike riding one day, jump roping the next, Jake teaching you how ride a bike on one wheel. There’s a split second from when your front tire leaves the ground that makes you feel on top of the world. You and Jake go everywhere together. Some days you spend hours at the community center, learning about the history of the town. You two sit on the floor, and your head always manages to fall on his shoulder. The workers know Jake really well. Jake flips through books about town, old newspaper articles, and even old pictures. You both imagine yourselves living in a time long ago. You wonder what it would be like to harvest farms and raise cattle. He says that would be hard work, but completely worth it, and he gets up off the floor to start walking you home. Wouldn’t want your mom to worry about you, he says. You ask him where the farms and cattle went and why they weren’t here anymore. Jake laughs and says, what a precious little girl you are. The cattle are dead and the farms are now houses. He puts his arm around you as he walks you home. Maybe he is just lonely because he doesn’t have any friends. Maybe it’s that friendship that you give him. Whatever the reason, even after the summer is over, you continue to show up at his grandpa’s house and he gives you a coke and asks you what you want to do today. And now it’s a story on the five o’clock news, a rainbow in the sky during a storm, a schoolyard with the bell ringing, something that always makes you wander back to Jake. All you can really remember is that it was hot, Jake explaining how to be a farmer, what kind of foods cattle eat, lying on your stomach in the pool, leaves floating about, dead mice and squirrels cluttering the bottom, and him standing behind you, holding you by the waist, telling you not to worry about drowning, he won’t let you. And years later, you’re still not sure about your friendship with Jake. Even now, you have an uneasy feeling as water engulfs around you. Even now you tell yourself that it’s absolutely nothing. Just a socially awkward boy in need of a friend. A friendless boy, a friendless girl, the air so hot you can barely breathe, the stickiness you feel after getting out of the creek for the trek home, this small child crossing the street as naked as a jay bird, dragging her clothes behind her, feeling something is wrong, something about the smirk on Jake’s face, this innocent little girl sprinting across the yard on the balls of her feet. And you, Jake never told anyone what happened, and neither did you, but maybe that’s because nothing happened. All you can remember is your mom calling him a retarded freak, your drunken dad passed out in the living room, your mom asking you where Jake hurt you, what he made you do. And the rest of your days, it feels like, you never notice that now old man sitting on the front porch. Jake yelling at you to come over, you pretend to not hear him, acting as if no one lives in that house anymore, acting as if you don’t know the feeling of his hands on your waist, , the tingling feeling you get when he rubs his finger along your side. No one has to see that poor girl lying in bed like this, no one else has to know the sleepless nights, the nightmares, your mom asking your what happened, and maybe you don’t even know, because maybe there wasn’t anything that happened, but you’re not sure.