Free Drowning Tucson by Aaron Morales Page A

anymore, and since we’re friends we should do it together. So they had met at his friend Jason’s house three weekends later, while Jason’s parents were away. Jason’s older brother bought them a bottle of Kessler and they went to the den and drank until Jason finally got bored and went to bed and Manny and Hallie laid together on the couch and kissed and touched each other and she grabbed his hand and placed it beneath her skirt and between her legs where it was warm and soggy like mud after a flashflood. What came after had made him sick. It scared him the way she squirmed and moaned beneath him and got soggier. The sound of their bodies meeting was like a fat man chewing his food too loudly. And the smell was awful. He hadn’t expected anything like it. With Cory it had been clean, out in the open. The tingling sensation shooting through his body happened again, but it wasn’t right. So he thought it must be her, because the next day the burdensome pressure was still there, vaguely taunting him, begging him to appease it. He had no idea how to solve the problem, no idea until he had put himself on display in front of a crowd of drunken men outside a strip club.
    Something else was bothering Manny too: his uncertainty about whether Vinnie had seen him behind the Boat. He remembered seeing Vinnie leave the club but wasn’t sure if he’d had enough time to get to his car and drive away before Satin pulled him outside. Manny thought for a while, trying to envision the men and see if Vinnie’s face was among those watching him, worrying Vinnie might become disgusted with him, or think he was a terrible man, what if he thinks I’m some sleazeball who’llscrew anything that moves or that I’m a bad father and he never speaks to me again and that was my one chance, until he felt the pressure returning, somewhere beneath his heart but not quite in his stomach, as if he had an extra organ that was swelling, an organ that had developed while he was a teenager and kept growing and growing like a swollen piece of rice until it threatened to explode within his chest. He panicked, thinking something awful was about to happen to him right there in the tub. He threw his torso above the waterline, his chest heaving and burning.
    In the solitude of the bathtub, he had forgotten all about Stella and suddenly he was overcome with guilt. He stood up and began scrubbing frantically at his skin with a soapy washrag. He scrubbed and rinsed desperately, splashing water over the sides of the tub and peering down at the layer of soap and dirt floating in the bath, ignoring the burns he was getting from the washrag. He pulled the plug and watched as the water level sank, leaving his feet and ankles covered in scum. He turned on the shower and rinsed the soap away and toweled off and tiptoed down the hallway to the bedroom where his wife was waiting. He edged beneath the covers, and she rolled over and put her arm around him and snuggled her head between his neck and shoulder, making sounds of contented sleep. Manny watched how peacefully she slept and wished more than anything that he could simply be at peace. His wife burrowed deeper, turning her head and smacking her lips, and Manny clenched his teeth to suppress a scream of anguish. He held his wife tight against him and wept.

    Manny, get up. Stella was shaking him by the shoulder. She giggled at how difficult it was to wake her husband. Even though he could be a grump, she still enjoyed watching his eyes open every morning when she pulled the blinds and let in the Arizona sun. After a couple minutes, she put her hand on his rib cage and traced the gaps between his ribs with her fingers, tickling him.
    How was last night, honey? You had fun, right?
    Manny grimaced, thinking of something to say. Instead of speaking he turned to his wife and placed his hand behind her head. He drew her head toward his and kissed her. Then he lay back and closed his eyes.
    Stella smiled, thinking how