Deep End Dance
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I awkwardly maneuvered myself over the chain link fence and he stood back up on the diving board, bouncing back and forth. “I’ll jump, man, don’t think I won’t.”
“I’ll be in the shallow end,” I said.
“Get off the diving board, Justin,” a female staff scolded. “Stop acting like a spoiled brat, you’ve already lost your privileges for three weeks.”
“I’ll jump,” Justin said. “Staff needs to back off here, or it’s over for me.”
“Don’t turn this into a you versus the world scenario,” a stout counselor said.
“Clear the hell out, staff,” Justin yelled, tendons in his neck standing out. “I’m only listening to the fat guy from here on out.”
I walked to the shallow end and removed my t-shirt. I was sweaty, and someone whistled from the crowd as I left it on the ledge.
“I don’t know what the hell you’re trying to pull off here,” Justin said. “But it won’t work on me, that I can guarantee.”
“Okay,” I said, sitting on the dry pool stairs removing my Nikes and socks. I was winded, and watched a horsefly harass me for thirty seconds before I nailed him with a swift splat on my forearm.
“No need to shame yourself, Mr. Flubber Blubber,” Justin said.
“Okay,” I said, as I took off my jeans and stood before him in my blue boxers. I moved slowly into the shallow end, shedding my underwear, letting them drop around my ankles. The concrete bottom of the pool was warm but rough on the soles of my feet. I shuffled towards him, stepping out of the blue cotton fabric and almost slipping on some soggy, rotten leaves as I moved into the deep end. Soon I felt the thick, brackish water oozing over my toes, and covering my ankles.
Hope there aren’t any copperheads, I thought.
“What’s the ugly gash on your chest?” he asked. “Did they stitch you together like some lowly Raggedy-Ann doll?” 
“I sliced my chest up with a razor blade last Wednesday night in a hotel.”
“Psycho Killer, qu’est-ce que c’est?”
“Don’t ever say that to a patient, Justin,” staff said. “Apologize profusely now.”
“Yes, so sorry for that,” he said. “My mistake, only a big Talking Heads fan. Sorry. I apologize. A huge error, it was a quirky, catchy song back in the day though, am I right, or what?”
“I got real thick skin,” I said.
“What the hell is the deal with you, man?” Justin asked. “You plan to do something old Hollywood-like and catch me in your arms?”
“Exactly,” I said. “I’ll catch you, or at the very least, break your fall.”
“You’re an ugly goon,” he said. “A bloated Shrek on the loose in his swamp.”
“How’d your mom die again, Justin?”
“Murdered,” he said, voice breaking. “Stabbed by Sophia with a huge Chef’s knife. Ladies and gents of the circus, this morbidly obese fellow is a weasel.”
Staff leaned against the chain-link fence, scolding Justin, and the murmuring, shifting and growing crowd crept closer. There was a crackling, kinetic energy, something was about to go down. Please don’t jump, I thought.
“So, this is your earth-shattering plan to rescue me from my inner turmoil and existential heartache?” Justin asked. “Kind of anticlimactic, no?”