The Incredible Melting Boy

by Michael Schroeder

Andy’s eyes glistened, simpatico with the dew on the grass of an unusually cold, overcast June morning. 

“Go on,” his mother said. “Get on with it.”

She waved a cigarette in the general direction up Seventh Street, ashes blowing back in her face. Rice Park was four blocks that way, then four blocks to the right. Four and four. Easy. She turned her head, blew a raspberry, and shook the ashes off her powder blue velvet robe. 

Andy looked up the street and gripped the touring handlebars of his new cardinal red Schwinn Collegiate Sport five-speed with a seventeen inch frame. The bicycle was an early birthday present in anticipation of the freedom and security of a small Minnesota town for an almost 10-year-old. The automobile license plates said 10,000 lakes but no matter their definition of a lake all Minnesotans agreed that there were more than that, and bragged that there was more shoreline than California, Andy and his mother’s home until a week ago, and, according to his mother, it was time for swimming lessons. 

Andy didn't budge. He dragged his forearm across his face, sniffled, and looked up at his mother. A tear meandered down his cheek. 

“You'll miss the God-,” she caught herself but Andy knew all the swear words. He wondered if Minnesota kids were as tough and mean as California kids. His face had fought a few of their fists and he wasn't looking forward to more nosebleeds. 

“You'll miss the bus.” She punctuated the air with her cigarette. “Ten minutes. Hurry up. You have a towel and a swimsuit in your backpack. And a banana and a chocolate milk. I'll have cream of mushroom soup and a grilled cheese ready when you get home. Don't forget to lock your bike, either.”

She twirled and padded back to the house in her pink slippers, leaving Andy alone at the end of the driveway of their rented white rambler. As she opened the screen door the belt on her robe came undone and she vanished into the kitchen before the rest of her spilled out into the neighborhood. 

Andy stared at the door but there was no movement, no sign of life. He thought about going back inside. Which was worse? His Mother's Wrath or The Unknown four blocks straight ahead, four blocks to the right? There was a school bus and a ten minute bus ride to a lake named after a color. He couldn’t remember the color. 

Last night during a margarine commercial in the middle of Fantasy Island his mom casually mentioned she had signed him up. She had called the number on the bulletin board flier at Red Owl, and wouldn’t you know it, there were still spots available. 

“Mom!” Andy cried. “Why?”

“I thought it might be a nice way to meet some kids, make some friends,” she said, sipping her beer. 

“Just like the first Russian dog they sent into space.” His mind was racing and he forgot about the tenuous plots of Mr. Roarke and Tattoo. The excitement of the new bike hid the clues betraying an ulterior motive. “You can go anywhere you want. Explore!” she said. His bike was for her freedom. He was on his own now. Ejected into orbit with no plan for bringing him back. 

He was shivering. This was not how he wanted to spend the first Saturday of summer vacation in Minnesota. 

He leaned in the direction of his Mother's Wrath, but then it occurred to him: if I die she'll learn her lesson. Some new kid will beat me up, or the bus driver will run me over because I'm late, or the teenage swimming instructor won't see me waving my arms two hundred feet off shore because she's flirting with the lifeguard and I'll drown and sink and rot and my remains will be eaten by huge fish at the bottom of the lake, never to be seen again. 

He slowly swung his leg over the Schwinn’s top tube - it was a little high so he had to be careful not to squish his nuts - when the most logical thought nibbled on his brain. He tipped awkwardly and rested his leg on the bike. How big are sharks in Minnesota lakes? 

The movie Jaws lurked in the minds of American swimmers; his friend Tommy in California had seen it but Andy's mom wouldn't let Andy watch it, even on TV. 

“You can see her tits, I swear!” Tommy said. “I mean it's dark in the water, but she's naked and you can see the outline of her nipples. Shit you not!” He made finger guns against his chest. 

“No way,” Andy said. 

“Yes way!” replied Tommy, “but you don't see the shark until later, which kinda sucks. No blood either. Until later. No more naked girls either, which kinda sucks.” Tommy was rather nonplussed about the blood and gore; he had seen The Exorcist, The Omen, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, after all. 

What Andy's mom didn't know is that Andy's dad had taken him to The Incredible Melting Man when he needed to escape the house after one of their fights back in California. Andy had nightmares for a week but was afraid to tell his mom. He didn’t want to get his dad into trouble.

“Fine, I'll get eaten by a shark,” he said. He hopped up on his bike and pedaled off.

With movement the feeling of dread abated, but only for a moment. He approached the stop sign half a block from his house and thought, Does that count as one block? Or do I start counting at the first full block? 

He looked to the left, right, and behind him considering such questions as an excuse to return home. He decided that his mother still needed to learn her lesson and forged ahead through the empty intersection. At the next cross street, across from the high school football field, he said “One”, and shifted into higher gear. 

The five speed was magnificent. Even though it was smaller than a regular ten speed, which is what he truly wanted but knew he was still too small, he felt like he was flying. The pedaling was harder but he was going faster. His eyes were really watering now and he wished he had worn long pants. At least his mom made him wear a sweatshirt. 

He slowed down and looked at the water tower beyond the bleachers on the other side of the football field. On its silver skinned barrel was scripted the town name Willmar and a crudely painted faded red cardinal below it. Andy looked at the empty parking lot and couldn't imagine ever being in high school, or driving a car. Fourteen years old was almost half a lifetime away. That is, if he lived. 

He nearly missed counting the next block, “Two”, across from the front door of the high school, and when he came to the third street he braked. Rice Avenue. 

“Three,” he said. 

He looked behind him and counted the street signs. Nope, all there. 

“Three,” he said. 

Rice Avenue consisted of small cobbled together houses in varying degrees of maintenance. Scrappy cottonwood, elm, and ash trees lined the sidewalks. He saw the sign for the street running parallel to Seventh Street. Sixth Street. The gears in his brain started to creak. If the next one after that is Fifth Street and then Fourth Street and I don't find the park, I can always come back to Seventh Street and take the next street over. His mom said he had ten minutes. Plenty of time. 

As he cruised down Rice Avenue and crossed Sixth Street, his heart jumped. A yellow school bus idled on the other side of the street facing him a few blocks away. He pedaled faster when he saw the stop sign on the side of the bus retract. He didn't notice crossing Fifth Street, Fourth Street, Third Street, or the Rice Park sign as he flew up to the side of the bus on the sidewalk and skidded to a stop.

The door was closed and black smoke drifted from the exhaust pipe into his nostrils. The engine rumbled. After an eternity the door folded inward with a loud creak and a bang. 

“Green Lake swimming lessons?” The driver looked younger than his dad, but not that much, and had long shaggy hair and a bushy mustache. He wore a trucker baseball cap with the simple outline of a fish on it. His KISS t-shirt had the sleeves torn off. 

“Blue, or yellow. I don't know,” was all Andy could think to say. 

The driver laughed so loud Andy jumped. The hubbub inside the bus died down temporarily. Chuckling, the driver picked up a pencil and a clipboard off the dashboard and said, “That makes Green. Andy?”

He didn't want to get on the wrong bus, but the man knew his name, so he wasn't a stranger. Plus, there were other kids on the bus. 

“Put your bike on the bike rack and get on. You're the last one.” He drew a line on the list of names on the clipboard and pointed the pencil over Andy’s shoulder. 

Andy turned and saw a bike rack with at least half a dozen bikes. He hopped off his bike and fast walked it to the end of the rack. No more empty slots. He took off his backpack, unzipped it, and pulled out the new bike lock.

“Man on the moon, man on the moon,” he muttered. The number dials were stiff and his fingers were shaking. He imagined everyone on the bus was watching him. It took several tries but he finally unlocked it. In one motion he wrapped the plastic encased chain around the steel bar of the bike rack and over the handlebars of his bike, clicked the lock shut, and ran back to the bus, backpack dangling off one shoulder. 

Mounting the stairs he expected jeers and laughter and braced for humiliation. What he found instead was that he was completely and utterly invisible. He paused at the first row of seats and looked down the bus and saw kids talking, laughing, looking out the window, picking their noses, sleeping, reading, chewing gum; doing everything he could imagine kids doing except looking at him and making fun of him. 

Relief flooded over him, but he started to blush anyway. For sure they would notice that. Not wanting to sit in the first row - that was uncool - he darted to the first empty seat ahead of a boy with red hair and plopped down. The driver shut the door and the bus lurched forward with a groan, black fumes belching out the rear. 

They circled the block around the park and headed out on Highway 71, north to Green Lake. Playground equipment in shapes of fossilized mythical creatures and empty roads made Andy wish he was still in bed with the rest of the world. This was the only school bus traveling at seven-thirty Saturday morning on a cold day in June in a place he’d never been before, surrounded by complete strangers. Not counting the bus driver. 

They arrived at the Green Lake public beach in ten minutes. Andy saw several lakes on the way, but they were much smaller and didn’t have any beaches. Some of them were lined with houses and docks and boats. Some had cows grazing along the shore and were covered in patches of bright green slime. Andy hoped they weren’t swimming in one of those lakes. 

He was relieved to see a wide area of sand next to a park and volleyball nets and a white wooden lifeguard tower. The lake was much larger than any he had seen so far. The far shore was a thin line of dark green on the horizon, menaced by a bank of dark clouds. 

Two teenage girls with long straight blond hair greeted them as they piled off the bus. They wore matching navy blue sweatpants and mustard yellow windbreakers embroidered with the same fish logo as the driver’s hat, clipboards at the ready. Exhaust fumes swirled around them as two dozen kids formed a herd just outside the door of the bus. 

“Level Three swimmers stand over there.” The taller girl pointed to a vague spot on the parking lot and half the kids, most of them older, sauntered into the vicinity. “As a reminder, my name is Jody. Level Two and Level One swimmers stand next to Lisa.” 

She looked at Lisa and Lisa raised her clipboard in a half-hearted gesture. Lisa furrowed her brow and looked at Jody. 

“I have Ones and Twos?” Lisa asked. Jody ignored her. 

One after another each kid went to a Level until Andy was the only one left. 

“You’re new,” said Jody, looking down at her clipboard. “Andy?” 

He nodded. 

“Go with the Level Ones and Lisa will do an evaluation.” 

He shuffled over to the Level Ones and stood next to the boy with red hair gazing at the lake. His towel was dragging on the ground and appeared to be the only possession he had. He wore Zips tennis shoes and a huge t-shirt that covered his swim trunks. He turned around and the front of his t-shirt was the Jaws movie poster showing a huge shark emerging from the depths about to devour a discretely fuzzy nude swimmer. 

“Completely inappropriate,” Lisa said to Jody in a conspiratorial low voice. Jody rolled her eyes and walked over to the door of the bus. 

“Really?” said Lisa. 

Andy couldn’t hear the conversation between Jody and the bus driver, but it was punctuated by short bursts of laughter from Jody. The wind had picked up and the exhaust fumes now blew away from them. Lisa stared lasers at them, shifting her feet, waiting for direction. Andy sensed hostility. He recognized it from his mom. 

“Whitecaps,” said the boy with a shark on his t-shirt. 

After a few seconds, Andy realized he was being spoken to. “What are whitecaps?” he said. 

Shark Boy pointed at the lake and Andy understood. The surface of the lake was roiling with small white-tipped waves marching towards the beach. The water looked more dark gray than green. 

“Not too bad,” said Shark Boy. “I’ve seen worse.”

“Cool shirt,” said Andy. 

“I know,” said Shark Boy. 

“Isn’t it night out?” said Andy. “At the beginning of the movie? I mean, it’s night out when she goes swimming.”

“I know,” said Shark Boy. “Seen it three times. My dad has the LaserDisc at his house.”

“Oh,” said Andy. He decided not to pursue the ins and outs of a movie he hadn’t seen, even though he felt like he had. “My name is Andy. Hi.”

“Okay,” said Shark Boy. 

Andy felt like he had done something wrong, but then Shark Boy said, “It’s night out in the movie but you can still see the outline of her nipples in the water. For like a second.”

Encouraged, Andy said, “I heard, uh, saw the sides of her boobs when she takes her shirt off.”

“That was cool. Danny.”

“No, Andy,” said Andy. 

Danny turned to Andy and stuck out his hand. 

“Just kidding,” said Andy, realizing there was no comma. “Hey, Danny.” 

He took Danny’s hand in a firm shake. That’s what his dad told him to do. Danny’s hand was limp and he retracted it quickly. 

“Sharks love whitecaps,” said Danny. 

“What?” said Andy. 

Jody’s voice boomed. “If you’re not wearing a swimsuit, go to the bathrooms and get changed! Then meet us on the beach at the end of the dock! Three minutes!” Half the kids plodded toward a low brown cinder block building at the edge of the parking lot and the other half slouched toward the beach. Andy followed the changers and Danny headed off to the beach. 

The driver turned off the engine and the last of the black fumes evaporated into the sky. He came out, leaned against the words Green Lake Camp for Christ on the side of the bus, and lit up a cigarette. 

Andy forgot about sharks. Now he worried about changing in public. Luckily, the majority of changers were female and he entered the men’s side with only two other boys. There were enough stalls for each of them. No one spoke as each boy tried to change as quickly as possible. 

Andy tried and succeeded in not falling over by keeping his sandy Keds from touching his swimsuit as he put a leg through each opening. The satisfaction of two clean well-balanced entries dissipated; his underwear lay in a puddle on the floor. He left it there, unwilling to touch it. He would wear his swimsuit home. 

When he got to the dock the Level Threes were gingerly entering the water on the opposite side. The boys unconsciously had a hand on their crotches and the girls were consciously hugging their chests. Jody stood on the end of the dock. “Warm up with a lap to the rope and back! You’ll get used to it.” She clapped twice. 

“Level Ones and Twos partner up and practice your crawl motions in the Pen!” said Lisa. 

Most of the Ones and Twos entered the water with a joy befitting a novocaine shot in the gums, but one girl ran in laughing and splashed a group of boys huddled together. “Fuck! Amy, you sow,” said one of the boys.

“Language!” Jody yelled. 

Andy watched the misery and shivered uncontrollably on the beach, still wearing a t-shirt and a sweatshirt. 

Danny stood with his hands cupped between his legs, a red topped alabaster statuette frozen on the shore. 

“Come to the end of the dock with me,” said Lisa. 

She pulled on the towel in the death grip of Andy’s fists. He had no choice but to follow. The dock was long and L shaped, extending to the left. He realized that inside the L was the Pen, where the Ones and Twos were congregating up to their waists. No one was crawling. The whitecaps buffeted them and they hopped in unison trying to outrise the crests. 

Lisa and Andy walked past Jody at the turn at the end of the dock. 

“Reach for the sky!” Jody yelled. Andy flinched. “Kick! Kick!” 

They continued to the end of the L where a ladder descended into the dark chop. 

“We’re going to see how long you can tread water,” said Lisa. She looked at Jody. She looked across the lake. She looked at Andy. “Your lips are blue.” 

He looked down, touching and pulling on his lips. Lisa laughed. 

“That’s ok, it happens sometimes,” she said. “We just need to get you moving. Can I?” 

She gently pried the towel from Andy’s fists and took off his sweatshirt and t-shirt. 

“Hold this,” she said, returning his towel. She walked his clothes back to the beach and threw them onto a picnic table overflowing with half open backpacks, dirty shoes, and sad empty garments. 

Andy shivered and waited. He studied the ladder and its wooden rungs. Easy enough. He was surprised to see what looked like a small oil rig beyond the swimming ropes. How did I miss that? There was a diving board at the top and he wondered what it was like to look down into the water from so high up. He wasn’t sure if he would jump. A seagull commanded the tip of the board and shat into the water. 

Lisa tromped back, the dock shaking with every step. She approached him and stopped, looking him over. Andy thought she looked scared. 

His skin had the texture of a plucked turkey. She gently took the towel again and wrapped it around his shoulders. Her finger touched his arm. An electric frisson ran through his body. She knelt down and leaned in close. Her hair smelled like fresh peaches as it brushed his face in the wind. Her breath smelled like mint. Her eyes were ice blue and the skin below them sunburned. In that moment Andy could have spent the rest of the day counting her freckles. 

“I should ask, I suppose,” she said softly. “You know how to tread water don’t you?”

Andy nodded. 

With a magician's flourish she jerked the towel off his shoulders and pushed him into the water. 

The average water temperature at Stinson Beach in California in June is 54 degrees Fahrenheit. The beach is approximately two and half miles long and subject to rip currents and rough surf. It’s inside the so-called Red Triangle, an area of the California coast with the highest level of shark attacks in the world. Andy’s parents loved the bohemian charm of Stinson Beach and the town of Bolinas adjacent to the north. 

They rented a small beach house there for two weeks three years in a row until his father took up with a local burl wood artist two days into the third year. Andy’s mother and Andy stayed with a sympathetic lifeguard for the remaining ten days. 

Andy spent a lot of time at the beach without his mother. The lifeguard corps watched over him and taught him how to identify rip currents, swim sideways to the shore if caught in one, never go in the water deeper than his ankles without a companion, and always face the ocean at the waterline. 

They lent him a wetsuit, gave him a boogie board, and taught him how to understand different types of waves. Avoid the dumpers and ride the spillers. In the shallows stand sideways on to the waves with feet wide apart. In water above the waist, swim over waves, or if they’re breaking, dive under them with arms out in front to protect the neck. When wiping out, take a breath if there’s time, relax and go with the turbulence, adopt the fetal position. As the turbulence recedes, push to the surface and be ready for the next wave; if another one is coming, take a quick breath and dive under again. Larger waves come in groups of three to five, stay calm, and ride the smaller ones back to shore. 

Falling into the choppy dark water, Andy reflexively drew and held his breath. Without thinking his body curled into the fetal position and he slowly sank towards the bottom. The only thing going through his mind was shock and the image of Lisa’s face, which had turned away from him toward Jody as he went in. The water was cold, but not as cold as Stinson Beach. It was very calm six feet under the water on the bottom of Green Lake and not anything like the waves of the Pacific Ocean. 

Pinching his nose and opening his eyes, he looked up at the shimmering, moving shapes on the dock against the sky. The water didn’t sting like the ocean! And it was green! 

He knew he could hold his breath for almost ninety seconds - one of the Stinson Beach lifeguards had timed him. The urge to get away from these strange and crazy people as quickly as possible consumed him. 

He swam underwater towards the beach. Recognizing the ladder at the end of the dock he passed it and came up for a breath. Water entered his nose as the small waves rolled over his head, now bumping the boards on the underside of the dock. There was yelling and screaming above him. 

“Where is he?!”

“Do you see him?”

“No!”

“Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!”

Andy’s mind caught up to his situation and his body was getting used to the water temperature. They think I’m still underwater. He treaded water, bobbing underneath the dock, and caught glimpses of the Ones and Twos stunned like concussed sea lions, staring at Jody and Lisa above him.

He lowered his head and swam under the surface with grace and purpose, following the dock stanchions to the corner, then turning right toward the shore. When the water was less than two feet deep he poked his head up, careful not to bang his head, and rolled on to his back. The bottom was covered with fist sized rocks and the waves buffeted his face. He was uncomfortable and confused but was starting to enjoy the little game Lisa started. 

Footsteps pounded above him. “Lisa, what the fudge did you do?” The bus driver’s voice. Never heard that one before. 

“Everyone join hands and start walking in a line out towards the rope!” the bus driver yelled. There was a splash, then another as Jody and the driver jumped in. Lisa sobbed. 

The game was over as suddenly as it had started. 

“He’s over there!” 

Danny. 

Andy emerged from underneath the dock. Everyone rushed over. Several towels were thrown around him. Recriminations, threats, and apologies churned the air, like seagulls fighting over a dropped ice cream cone. Andy ignored the fracas, gathered his backpack, clothes, and shoes from the pile on the picnic table and scuffled to the parking lot. 

The bus turned off Highway 71 onto Rice Avenue and came to a shuddering stop at Rice Park. Andy saw kids and babies and mothers everywhere. Teenagers played pick up basketball and two girls were feebly batting and chasing tennis balls on the tennis courts. In the kiddie pool moms stood in the water up to their shins talking, laughing, and blowing smoke away from the clutch. The toddlers contented in their little groups splashing the water with their hands. When one tipped over the closest mom would pull them back up by an arm with nary a glance nor breaking stride in the conversation. The sky was blue and the morning chill had given way to a glorious summer day. 

Andy wanted to get home as quickly as he could pedal his new bike. Danny wouldn’t stop talking the entire ride back to Willmar. Mostly it was a scene by scene description of Jaws, followed by speculation about the new Star Wars movie coming out, but he couldn’t remember the name. 

“The Empire Strikes Out,” Andy reminded him, looking out the window.

In order to change the subject Andy mumbled that he had seen The Incredible Melting Man. He immediately regretted it. Danny peppered him with questions. 

“Why was he melting?”

“Radiation.”

“Could you see his insides? Were they melting, too?”

“Yes.”

“What about his, you know, weiner?”

“I guess so.” 

Andy grunted and kept his answers as precise as possible but Danny wasn’t satisfied until he knew the plot. 

“A melting astronaut has to kill a bunch of people to survive when he returns to Earth,” Andy said, exasperated. 

Danny retreated into his imagination, but Andy gagged at the sudden thought of lasagna, one of his favorite meals. He gave his banana and chocolate milk to Danny. 

Because of what happened at Green Lake they let Andy sit at the back of the bus, where the heater was and the cool kids sat. He was the last to get off and as he turned to go down the steps the driver touched his shoulder and said, “Do you want a ride home?”

“No, that’s ok,” Andy replied. “I only live a few blocks from here.” 

He darted down the stairs and jogged to the bike rack. He stopped and stared in confusion. The bike rack was empty. Not a single bike. He looked around for another bike rack, but it was the only one on this side of the park. His brain froze, nothing but pure disbelief and shock. Again. “No, no, no, no…”

He turned and ran back to the bus driver, the only thing he could think of to do, but the bus was gone. Andy stood on the curb and watched as the bus made a left turn at the end of the block in a haze of black smoke. 

A lump rose up in Andy’s throat and his eyes filled with water. He hung his head and stood still, unsure of anything more than he had ever been unsure of anything in his life, even more than what happened at Green Lake.

His mom would never let him outside the house again, have a bike, or see another, any, movie. Stuck in his room, the walls still bare, she wouldn’t let him put up any posters, watch Monday Night Football, or have his favorite stuffed animal, Snoopy. He would never go to school again. He liked school. He would never make any friends here. Loneliness descended upon him like a fog and his legs became weak. 

“Hey,” said a voice behind him. Danny. 

Andy wiped his face with his arm but didn’t turn around. 

“Did you hear me? Wanna go on the spinner?” It was the last thing in the world Andy wanted to do. Merry-go-rounds made him puke. Especially the small fast ones. 

“No, I need to go home for lunch,” he said. 

“Then why are you still here?”

“Why are you still here?” Andy wiped the snot off his face with the heel of his palm and stood up straight. 

Danny shot around to the front of Andy and stood in the street. “I live on the other side of the park and my mom won’t be home from the turkey plant until Noon. So I just wait here until she yells.” He nodded in a direction somewhere beyond Andy. 

Andy didn’t think the world could get any worse but then Danny asked the most embarrassing question on the planet. 

“Are you crying?”

A surge of energy went through Andy’s body and he tensed up, ready for the fight. 

“No! I’m not crying!” His fists clenched. First came his denial in the face of reality, then the teasing, then the taunting, then the fists. 

“Okay.” Danny was oblivious to the gravity of his question. “Where’s your bike?” he said, nodding at the empty bike rack. “Is that your lock?”

“Huh?” Andy turned around and saw his brand new bike lock hanging, still locked, on the end of the bike rack, unnoticed in the throes of his despair. 

“How did they take it?” Andy asked no one and everyone at once. 

Danny ran over to the bike rack and inspected the lock. He turned it over, ran it through his hands, and touched the steel surface of the bike rack. A serious investigation. “I dunno, maybe they cut your bike.” Andy’s heart sank lower. 

 Danny surveyed the park. He looked up and down the street. After thirty seconds he said, “Look! Over there!” He pointed at a large group of teenagers on bikes doing wheelies and skids on Kandiyohi Avenue, on the other side of the park. 

Andy saw a bike that looked like his underneath a teenager with long greasy brown hair, sporting a wife beater, jean shorts, and a pair of dingy Nike Cortez. A cigarette dangled from his mouth. He egged on a couple of younger kids on dirt bikes to jump off a makeshift ramp in the middle of the street. One of them wiped out and he threw his head back roaring with laughter. 

Andy started walking across the park toward the teenagers on bikes. 

Danny cried out, “That’s Erph! Andy, stop!”

Andy didn’t stop. He charged by the wading pool, through the basketball game, and around the merry-go-round with his backpack bouncing behind him. It occurred to him that he had no plan. He stopped at the monkey bars. 

While he pondered his next move, a car approached the group in the street and stopped thirty feet away. Erph casually glanced in the car’s direction and motioned with his arm at the bikers and hangers-on. The crowd parted and the car drove through, weaving around the small ramps still in the street. The waves of teenage energy crashed back into the middle of the street and the bicycle rodeo resumed. 

Andy knew what to do. 

After several minutes, a yellow Ford Maverick with a black hard-top turned onto Kandiyohi Avenue and drove slowly towards the mass of kids in the middle of the street. Andy walked onto the pavement and stopped a few feet short of Erph and his bike - definitely his bike - and pointed at the handlebars. 

“That’s my bike,” he said. His mom might finally learn her lesson about sending him into The Unknown; about deceiving him with a new bike to get rid of him, about not protecting him from rogue lifeguards, whitecaps, lake sharks, and obnoxious movie buffs. 

Or he might live. 

The scraping of tires had stopped and the hoots and hollers of the teenage gallery died down. Andy felt all eyes on him and Erph, waiting to see what Erph was going to do. Excited to see what Erph would do. 

Erph was twice his size, thin and lanky with taut muscles and sunburned skin and dark brown eyes. Peach fuzz strained to be a mustache on his upper lip. The pores on his nose were mostly black, and assorted red angry volcanoes of acne erupted on his cheeks and forehead. His tank top was dirty and frayed jean shorts streaked with black. 

Erph took a draw on his cigarette and removed it from his mouth, looking at Andy, sizing him up. He exhaled the smoke away from Andy. Andy noticed dirt underneath his long fingernails and scabs on the knuckles of his right hand. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Andy saw Danny run across the street and disappear into the porch of a blue house. 

Andy looked Erph directly in his eyes and said again, “That’s my bike.” He felt his fear dissipate, which was strange. Knowing he was in the right and Erph was in the wrong gave him a sense of satisfaction, even though pain was coming. Somehow he knew not to make the next move, but to let Erph respond. 

“Kick his ass, Erph,” someone in the gallery said in a low voice. 

“Yeah, fuck him up,” said another, louder this time. 

Erph took another drag and flicked the cigarette at his crowd. No one moved except the kid whose ear it bounced off of. He flinched. Barely. 

Erph exhaled, this time making sure all the smoke went into Andy’s face. 

If possible, the sky became bluer with popcorn clouds scattered about. The wind had given way to a gentle breeze taking the edge off what was becoming a real, honest summer day. The leaves on the cottonwoods towering over the park sparkled and were shedding their fluff, covering the ground in a summer dusting of snow. The car’s radio was playing Heart of Glass by Blondie, “...once had a love…” The beat of the basketball, clang of the backboard, thwock of the tennis balls, squeak of the swings, and laughter of the children blended together with the rhythm of the song in its own symphony. 

A memory popped into Andy’s mind. On the way to Minnesota from California they stopped at an eastern Nevada truck stop and ate cheeseburgers, french fries, and a side of mushrooms accompanied by root beer floats. Andy missed his dad terribly but his mom assured him that his dad would come and visit soon. His mother tousled his hair from across the table in the orange and brown booth and said, “Drink your float, everything will be ok.” And it was as he savored the creamy sweetness of ice cream and root beer in one magical pull on the straw. 

Thirty miles later the air conditioning stopped working and the one hundred degree temperature of the Bonneville salt flats infiltrated the interior of the car. Andy didn’t notice the nausea until it was coming up and out and all over the back seat. 

At the rest stop while his mother was gathering all the paper towels she could find, Andy lay drenched in sweat on the baking corinthian leather in his own vomit and heard the half chewed mushrooms bathing in the warm, white gelatinous liquid on the floor mat talking to him. That was definitely the scariest thing that had ever happened in his life. 

He managed to stumble out of the car crying and mumbling; an incredible melting boy staggering across the parking lot. A kind but suspicious old man helped him find his mother, who assured a small crowd of assorted travelers that, no, the regurgitated mushrooms aren’t talking to humans. “Only amongst themselves,” she offered as a lame joke, hoping to disarm their uncomfortable stares. 

Andy never went near a root beer float again for the rest of his life. Whatever the mushrooms said to malign root beer floats must have worked.

“Earth to spaceman.”

“Huh?” Andy replied.

“I said…” Erph paused and looked at his crew. “You cockin’ me off?”

“What? No…uh, what? No. I don’t think so. I just want to go home, and I need my bike.”

Erph glanced at the waiting car. The reflection of the sky, clouds, and trees obscured the driver. He turned towards the gallery. A small jerk of his head and the bodies and bikes parted. One of the younger kids gathered up the ramps this time and dumped them on the grass. 

Erph stepped off Andy’s bike and extended it towards Andy. 

Andy stepped forward to reclaim his bike. He grabbed the handlebars but Erph didn’t let go. 

“Heeere we goooo!” came an enthusiastic voice in the background. 

Erph motioned with a dirty, curled finger for Andy to come closer. Andy leaned in. Odors of sweat and smoke and bad breath. He braced for a fist to his face. 

Erph cupped a hand over Andy’s ear and whispered, “Nice bike. You put the lock around the handlebars, dummy. I was just taking it for a ride. I was gonna bring it back.” 

Erph let go and backed up, waving the car through. 

Andy hopped on his bike and pedaled as hard as he could. He ignored the jeers and taunts, not all of which were directed at him, but glanced up at the blue house. He thought he saw the shape of Danny’s head in the shadows of the porch, but he wasn’t sure. 

He picked up speed and flew across Third Avenue, didn’t notice Fourth or Fifth, but slammed on the brakes as an orange Chevy Vega ran the stop sign and flew across the intersection at Sixth. He turned left on Seventh and was home in no time at all. Later, he realized he didn’t remember any of the ride home, and when he was twenty six years old he told his girlfriend of a dream where he almost got run over by a car on the new bike his mom bought him when they moved to Minnesota. 

The screen door slammed shut and Andy threw his backpack onto the pile of shoes in the entryway. His mother was at the stove in denim overalls over a red t-shirt, stirring the contents of a small pot. She wore her hair pulled back underneath a blue kerchief. He was glad she wasn’t smoking. The smell of grilled cheese sandwiches filled the kitchen. The best thing in the entire world. 

“You survived,” she said. 

“I am never going back. You can’t make me.” Andy sat down at the small linoleum table and rested his chin in his hands. 

She turned to him. “What happened, honey? And why are you still in your swimsuit?”

“My underwear got wet on the bathroom floor so I left it. The swim instructor pushed me in the water but I didn’t get bit by any sharks and Erph stole my bike. Oh, and,” he paused and shook his head, “Danny’s a chickenshit.” His eyes got big and he added, “I have to go back and get the bike lock, too.”

Andy’s mom turned and stood in the middle of the kitchen staring at her son with her hands on her hips. The wooden spoon stuck out of one hand like a droopy denuded branch, dripping gray creamy liquid onto the floor. She fought hard to suppress a smile.

“The soup is ready,” she said. 

The End