The Gospel of the Knife | Page 3

the water to you. Something is wrong with the world. You rode across the pond, and Black Glasses disappeared in it. You feel like you're puzzling out a riddle: if you consider the clues long enough, the answer will come.
Or it won't. Instead of an answer, there's a horrible rush in your guts. Someone is drowning in front of you, even if you can't see him. Someone is thrashing in the darkness, knowing he's about to die. Someone is so desperate for air that he'll fill his lungs in a minute or three, and go unconscious, and die.
Brylcreem and John Deere look at you as if you have the answer or are it.
"Get a stick!" you yell. "Get him out!"
John Deere catches on first. He rips a long branch from a willow tree and pokes it in the stinking pond. The water still ripples where Black Glasses disappeared. It feels like you've been standing there all day. Maybe twenty seconds have passed.
John Deere stirs the pond, bumps something, and starts drawing the branch up. It jerks in his grasp. He yells, "Help me!"
Brylcreem grabs onto the branch to pull. You want to do something, but you don't know what. If you try to cross the pond again, will you fall in like Black Glasses? If you make it across and Black Glasses drowns, what will his friends do?
Gripping the branch and streaming black water, two pale hands rise from the pond. A pale crew cut follows. The glasses are gone. The boy's head whips around. He gulps air as his friends pull him near. They tug at his arms and T-shirt to help him, but they probably don't make a difference. He scuttles like a lobster up the branch and onto the bank. Weeds are thick around his sneakers. One leg of his jeans is torn. There might be blood in his white socks, or it might just be mud.
He stands and looks across the pond at you. His eyes are light brown. The right is slightly bloodshot. His face is flecked with pond scum. You half expect him to start cursing you, half expect him to apologize for chasing you.
His eyes widen. He grimaces. Gasping, "Ohgod-ohgod-ohgod," he bolts for the highway.
Brylcreem and John Deere try to grab him. His clothes are too slick with muck for them to get a hold.
"Wait up!" Brylcreem shouts. He and John Deere run after the boy. John Deere never looks back. Brylcreem glances over his shoulder, then runs on. You can't describe his expression. If he had a gun, you wouldn't be reading this.
And you're alone by the pond as if no one else has been here.
You breathe heavily. Your balls drone with pain. Your ribs are cold with sweat. Your throat feels thick. You smell pine from the woods, sweet decay from the pond, the bitter tang from your armpits. You hear cars on the highway, a dog barking at the bottom of the hill, the redneck's truck roaring away. You don't know if you want to puke or cry.
You stand your bicycle up. Overhead, a crow laughs again. "Fuck off!" you yell. It shuts up.
The pond is smooth and still. A dragonfly speeds across it. Shouldn't there be frogs jumping in it, minnows darting beneath its surface, waterbugs dashing over it?
You have to get away, and you have to know what happened. You put your bike on its kickstand and spot a long branch, dry and white like old bone, as thin as a finger. It would break if you snagged it on anything heavy. You like that. You need to know something's in the pond, but you don't want to drag anything out. You take a deep breath and poke the branch in.
It goes deep, touching nothing. You lean over the pond, pushing the branch deeper, then rock back, afraid to get too close. You drag the branch sideways. It hits something and you jerk back, making the sound boys call "squealing like a girl" and girls never call "squealing like a boy." You expect the Creature from the Black Lagoon to appear.
The Creature stays put. You poke the branch back in.
Something solid is there, maybe a foot underwater on the far side of the pond and nine inches under by the bank where you stand. You trace it with the branch. It's about a foot wide. Its top curves. It's long and straight, running the width of the pond-
It's a log or a post or a broken phone pole. You don't need to reach into the pond to learn exactly what it is. It's a pole. Your wheels landed on a pole, and you rode it across. No mystery there. An ordinary pole, hidden by scum and dark water. You're lucky. That's all. Very lucky. Very, very lucky-
You laugh.