Free Short People by Joshua Furst Page B

not.”
    “I mean, you’re such a fag. You’re such a dick-whacker. You wouldn’t know what to do with a girl if you had one.”
    “Yes I would.”
    “I bet. What would you do?”
    I didn’t know what to say for a second and then it started to be too long, so I said, “What would
you
do?”
    “I asked you first.”
    “I’d, I don’t know, talk to her and stuff.”
    “Fag.”
    “And . . . and I’d like look at her boobs and play with them.”
    Jake was smiling like he was making fun of me and I was almost crying cause it seemed like he didn’t even like me anymore.
    “And I’d play with her thing.”
    “You’re such a fag, Evan! Girls don’t have things!” He laughed and laughed and laughed like he was almost gonna fall out of the canoe and I couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I said, “What’s her name?” and Jake laughed at me some more. “What’s her name? If you don’t tell me her name, she must not be real,” I said and Jake scrunched up his face and said, “What’s her name what’s her name what’s her name?” in this extra whiny, squeaky voice. And then he like pouted and put his fingers together to do the world’s tiniest violin thing I hate.
    I held my stomach really tight and my eyes were all like they were burning and I yelled, “Tell me her name, you fucker! Why won’t you tell me her name?” and I rocked the canoe back and forth as hard as I could so the sides almost touched the water and Jake started crawling over the seats and stuff so he could get up by me and he said, “You wanna fight, fag? Is that what you want? I’ll beat you up if that’s what you want so bad.” So I rocked even harder than I thought I could until he fell in the water and the canoe tipped over and I fell in too.
    I hid in the upside-down part where it’s like an air space cause then if Jake wanted to say sorry or whatever he couldn’t just do it like he didn’t mean it, like everything was all cool and stuff. The water was echo-y and extra loud under the canoe so I couldn’t hear anything outside and there were like white glowing lines from the water reflecting all over the metal. It wasn’t really dark or anything so I held the wood things and waited for him to come say sorry. He didn’t even have a choice, cause he couldn’t swim that far back to camp and I wasn’t gonna let the canoe get turned upside up until he did.
    He didn’t for a long time, but that was okay cause there was lots of air in my air space. I started to get scared, though, like maybe he drowned or got twisted up in the lily pads and hit his head on a dead log or something, so I put my head underwater and opened my eyes just to see if you could see down there. I wished Jake would come and say sorry soon and then I’d never talk about his stupid girlfriend again even if she was fake cause then at least he wouldn’t be dead. Floaty things kept swimming between my legs and I was getting really really scared. Well, not really, but sort of, cause I didn’t know what happened to Jake.
    Then the canoe started shaking really fast and bouncing around and I spazzed out and screamed really loud and then Jake came up inside the canoe and spit a big wad of water at me. He was grinning, though, and I laughed, I was so happy it was just him.
    He said, “It’s cool in here.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    And then it was like I wasn’t mad at him anymore even though I still wanted to be. He shouldn’t have been so mean to me, though, even if I was acting spazzy and stuff, cause I was just trying to figure stuff out about him and there was no reason for him to be mean. It seems like if he was my best friend like he always used to be he wouldn’t make fun of me and try to make me mad and everything. I’m not a baby or a fag or a pud or any of the things he said I was, I just wanted him to keep being my best friend.
    After that was the stupidest thing I did, but I thought he was being my friend again and I had to cause I didn’t