Salvage the Bones - Jesmyn Ward [23]
“Watch out. You know they got water moccasins under that brush,” says Randall. Skeetah’s scrubbing like he could rub his skin off.
“I’m all right. They ain’t studying me.”
“I ain’t sucking the poison out you,” Randall laughs.
“I ain’t getting bit. They can smell it, you know.”
“Smell what?”
“Death.”
Randall stops his forward glide and treads. I can’t see his face in the dark.
“Shut up, Skeet.” He splashes water that catches firelight and turns red. Drops, like fireworks from the sky, hit Skeet. Under the cicadas, I imagine that I should be able to hear it sizzle. “Now you really talking crazy.”
Big Henry is grabbing at Marquise’s feet, trying to pull him off the rope. Marquise kicks, and Big Henry tugs so hard on the rope, the limb it’s tied to cracks so loud that it sounds like a big bone popping.
“Oh, shit!” Marquise yells, and then he’s letting go of the rope, but it is too late, because it’s all falling on Big Henry’s head. I am laughing so hard my ribs hurt, but when Manny surfaces like a jumping fish next to me, popping up out of the water like the best kind of prize, I stop. The laugh turns to a scratch in my throat.
“What’s up, Esch?” Manny’s looking at Big Henry and Marquise struggling with the branch in the water, Randall swimming over to help. He talks to me out the side of his face. Skeet is still scrubbing his skin off, not watching us. Manny dives under the water and comes up on my right, still staying far enough away from me that I can’t reach out and touch him.
“Nothing.” I swallow the words.
“You was scared to take off your clothes in front of us?” Manny is grinning, but he’s not looking at me, and he’s swimming in slow circles so he’s orbiting me like the moon. Or the sun.
It’s a little noise that comes out of my throat then.
“Scared to let everybody see what you look like?”
I shake my head.
“It ain’t that bad,” he says.
“Not bad?” I breathe, and I am ashamed because I am repeating what he says.
“Something like that.” He jams a finger into his ear and then shakes his head so fast water comes flying off him like a dog. His bottom lip is pink and full, while his top is a shy line. I have dreamed about kissing him. Around three years ago, I saw him having sex with a girl. He and Randall had talked her into coming back to the Pit with them when Daddy was out, and I heard them all laughing when they passed underneath the window. I followed them into the woods. When they got to the pit, Manny grabbed her butt and rubbed her stomach the way a man pets a dog’s side, and then the girl laid down for him. He was on top of her, moving his hand up and down in between her legs, and then he kissed that girl. Twice, three times. He opened his mouth so wide for her, licked her like he was tasting her, like she was cane sugar sweet. He was eating her. I wonder when he stopped kissing girls like that, or if he just doesn’t want to kiss me. Now he circles, half looking at me, half looking at Big Henry and Marquise. He grabs my hand and pulls it toward him, wraps my fingers around his dick.
“Not too bad,” he says. I want to know what it feels like, so I reach out under the water to touch his chest, his nipples the size of red grapes. They are much softer than that. The skin in the seams of his muscles is the color of Sugar Daddy caramel candy. Manny pulls away. “What are you doing?” His dick slides out of my hand, hot in the cool water: then gone.
“I just wanted