Baby ducks got pulled below the water on sunny days. Momma ducks took them onto the lake when they were still too small. Blink and you would miss it. For each time you’d blink, all that would be left per peeper, per ducky, might be a ripple.
Before I knew abalone wasn’t said the way it was spelt, me and an older boy almost got drowned by a lake monster. Little dark hairs barely began to curl on the boy’s chest, and he was already constantly scratching at the zits that formed on his face. I was all bare, abalone smooth everywhere. We took turns counting how long we could hold our breaths underwater, counting baby ducky the way we counted Mississippi in grade school.
Not that I could put a number to it, but I could hold my breath and swim a little more than halfway across the lake, and then a little more past that again without coming up for air. Me and this boy dove down to the bottom of the lake and scooped up cold black mud. I usually knew where he was the way birds know where north is, with their magnet brains.
I had a magnet for bodies in dark places and good mud. The mud on top felt grainy, and fell apart in your hands. To get good mud, you dug deeper, past the fish poop and digested baby ducks. This mud was like cold clay, and I sculpted the mud into a perfect ball underwater.
I came out of the water behind the older boy. It’s the wad of mud you don’t see coming that paints you.
After I’d hit him, just as quickly I’d be back underwater. By the time we finished, not even hot showers with lots of mom’s good shampoo would get the baby ducky smell out of your hair. By the time we finished, his face would be painted the way republicans paint their faces on Halloween.
This other game we played, we called it Ashtray Divers, on account of neither of us knowing what my mother’s abalone shells were called. All I knew is that she used them as ashtrays and that they looked like what would happen if you turned a rainbow into a fossil. To play, one person threw an ashtray into the lake, while the other dove for it. The launcher kept count. One baby duck, two baby duck, three…
Sometimes when I swam alone, something would brush by me. Something smooth and cool and slick, like a big worm would slap my calf or my foot. Back then, with the baby ducks disappearing, if you looked out on the lake you’d see a shadow lurking beneath the surface. This was before I knew abalone shells didn’t come from extinct dinosaur snails. Must’ve been a lake monster. Some prehistoric thing dating back to when abalone snails were still alive had been living beneath all the mud, and it would reach up with slimy arms and eat the baby ducks. Must've spent most of its time sleeping, and when it snored or stirred churned the mud—made it good.
The other boy, the one with his dark curly hairs, him starting to grow muscles, he curled himself around the ashtray. He twisted and coiled like his arms were snakes. With a snap of his wrist, the ashtray would spin out like a frisbee with ash and cigarette butts flying everywhere. Mom’s cigarette butts bobbed, turning the green algae water black, like a growing bruise.
I could hold my breath for so long I usually found the shell on the first dive. My secret was to ignore the pounding in my ears, or the stars flying around my eyes. I stayed underwater, massaging the mud with my fingers, my heart drumming in my ears. My hands dug in the good mud, feeling for the abalone shell. With all the cigarettes and ash gone, the shell sparkled, like holding a rainbow, or a diamond made of every other color of diamond.
Holding the shell high I asked “When’s my time?”
The other boy sat with his legs listing in the water, one hand under his shorts, between his legs. He said, “Don’t know. Lost track of baby ducks.”
I climbed back onto the dock and said, “Your turn.”
The older boy threw good, but my awkward throw wobbled the ashtray and it flew off to the side. Picture me, pale, hairless, pudgy, barely able to throw. Picture the older boy, bronze, diving, limbs, and hair. He bobbed around the splash site. Each time he went down it took him less baby ducks to come back up.
I asked, “Did you find it?”
“It’s sunk or something,” he said.
Late at night, my mom lounged on the back porch in a leather chair, taking Hollywood long drags. Drags long enough you counted baby ducks on. She tapped her cigarettes into abalone shells in such a way, no matter the wind, not a single flake of ash clung to her. She looked like an oil painting, the sharp flat edge of her nails—Italian lady nails—tapping the cigarette. Another oil painting would be her scooping out my eyes with those fingers if I didn’t find her tray. Then she’d ash in my head.
I dove and swam out to where I had thrown the shell. The other boy and I dove against each other. We bumped our heads and slapped each other’s palms, just getting in the way of each other. The big fear was with each dive, we buried the shell a little deeper.
The other boy burst from the water, coughing and clung to me. “I’m tired,” he said. “I can’t keep looking for the shell.” His arms and chest pressed down on my shoulders. His skin felt hard, and cool to the touch. He was like a ken doll, but with body hair. The way he treaded water, his legs and his kicks kept connecting with my Pokeball shorts, dragging them down past my hips. I had one arm trying to pull my shorts back up, while my other was somewhere between getting the older boy off me and trying to keep me from drowning. His skinny hips bucked against me while he splashed, getting cigarette lake water in my eyes and mouth. I tasted ash and mud.
Somewhere above us, an osprey circled. It scanned the waters for prey. It must have been watching us, splashing and shouting, scaring away fish.
The boy eventually let me go. He treaded water and gasped. He said, “Sorry. Let’s try for it one last time.”
The sun was just setting. It cast deep shadows from the trees. The tree shadows made teeth on the water, and closed around us like a jaw. As far as the sinking ducklings were concerned, this lake was a giant mouth. Count all the baby ducks and close your eyes and this still won’t be over soon enough. Like even after a fish swallows a cigarette and a bird eats the carp and regurgitates it to its babies.
It always goes on after the fact. Even after my mother quit smoking, she still coughed all the time.
I went under. My arms dug in the mud. I knocked against a leg, then it against me. There was knee, then thigh. Something grabbed my shoulders, then my head. Must’ve been we woke up the ancient lake monster diving for the shell. I knocked against knees and shins, but this thing must have slipped past the older boy and gotten a hold of me. It had me by the head, and another arm, this hard smooth thing, ken doll cool, pushed against my cheek and poked me in the eye. It prodded against my mouth.
Maybe the lake monster found the abalone shell. Maybe it was angry that my mother’s ashtray woke it up, or worse, it was the parent of the dinosaur snail. Maybe it was angry about all the cigarettes and ashes we threw into its home, and now it wanted to eat me.
Instead of biting, I counted baby ducks. This must have been the way each baby duck felt when they were pulled under water, so far under that they don’t make any ripples. Pulled under like I was, like the baby ducks, the worst thing you can do is panic. Start gulping for air and you’re finished. Start gulping for air and all you get is lake water and ash. You’re gone the way baby ducks are gone, gone like cigarette butts in the water. And the lake monster is trying to worm its way down my throat, pumping ken doll cool.
I didn’t know lake monsters had hair. I count twenty, twenty one baby ducks.
So you hope the lake monster will realize that your fat featherless body belongs to a little boy and not a duck. You stay down there and close your eyes and count baby ducks until abalone stars burst in your eyes. Your heart drums in your ears. The older boy’s voice groans, like maybe he got got too.
By the time I counted to forty, or fifty baby ducks, the lake monster squirted. Its mucus was thick and hot and not like anything. Maybe it was the lake water, maybe it was the cigarettes masking the taste. It tasted the way you think escargot will taste when you’re a little kid. The monster had let go, and I started coughed underwater. I coughed the way my mother coughed when she looked like an oil painting. Never mind that I still didn’t have the abalone shell, or how at the end of the day my mother would be turning my skull into an ashtray, or how my eyes burned and my mouth tasted algae, ash, and salty lake monster mucus. I burst from the dark waters the way every baby duck wished it could. All that mattered to me anymore was that I finally breathe.
By the time I finished coughing out thick white snot snails into the water, the older boy had already swam to shore. But my bird magnet brain already knew that. I think I called out, said something, but he had climbed out of the water so fast his shorts fell down around his skinny ass.
That older boy turned and held up something shiny and smooth. Something like all the diamonds, something like a rainbow turned into a fossil. He held up the abalone shell, my mothers ashtray, and threw it back in.
The end.
A previous version of this story was originally published in the 2021 issue of the Clackamas Literary Review.
Soon, I’ll be doing a breakdown and showing some of my influences at the time of writing this.
Finally, if you enjoyed this story, consider helping me in my campaign to win Chuck Palahniuk’s writing contest. All you need to do is click the heart.
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See you next time,
Colton Merris
"All I knew is that she used them as ashtrays and that they looked like what would happen if you turned a rainbow into a fossil." LOVE this line!