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By Root 10642 0

liked himself a lot. Sometimes he was ashamed of his body, like when the old man came in to use the bathroom when he was taking a bath and didn’t have anything on, or like on the night he graduated, when he was in bed and had a time trying to sleep. Now he liked his body, and wasn’t at all ashamed of it. It moved through the water like a slow ship that just went along and didn’t have any place in particular to go and just sailed. About ten yards away he heard Kenny wahooing and singing about Captain Decker who sailed on the bounding main, and lost his... and Kenny seemed almost as far away as if he was on the other side of the lake. He splashed with his hands. Then he held his toes up and tried to wiggle them, but he got a mouthful. He turned and swam a little way, taking in a mouthful of water and holding it. He turned over and floated, spouting the water, pretending he was the most powerful whale in the seas and oceans, floating along, minding its business, because all the sharks were leery of attacking it. He had a sudden fear that he might get cramps and drown, and he was afraid of drowning and dying, so he turned over and swam. But he wasn’t afraid for long. Then he and Kenny tried to see who could stay under water the longest, and they waved in to attract attention, so people on the diving board might think they were drowning and get all excited. He dove down, imagining he was a submarine, and the water kept getting cooler, and he kept his eyes open but could only see the water, clear, all around him. He felt far away from all the world now, and he didn’t care. He came up, choking for air, and it was like coming to out of a goofy dream where you are falling or dying or something. Kenny was up before him, and Studs, after he had gotten a good breath, told Kenny he wasn’t so good.

“Drowning ain’t my specialty. That’s not my trick!” Kenny yelled back.

They swam slowly in.

When they got on the beach, they gazed about and ran all around, looking for Iris and eyeing all the women to get some good squints. Kenny said it would be swell, like heaven, if all women wore the same kinds of swimming suits that Annette Kellerman did. Studs said it would be better if they didn’t wear anything. Kenny said women sometimes did go swimming without anything on. Studs said he’d give his ear to see them.

Finally, they sprawled face downward in the sand, the sun fine and warm on their backs, evaporating all the wet. They didn’t talk. They just sprawled there. It was too good to talk. Studs forgot everything, and felt almost as good as when he had been by himself way out in the deep water. He just lay there and pretended that he wasn’t Studs or anybody at all and he let his thoughts take care of themselves. He was far away from himself, and the slap of the waves on the shore, the splash of people in the water, all the noise and shouts of the beach were not in the same world with him. They were like echoes in the night coming from a long wav off. He was snapped out of it by Kenny cursing the goddamn flies and the kids who ran scuffing sand all over everybody. Studs looked up. Then he looked out over the lake where the water and sky seemed to meet and become just nothing. He thought of swimming far, far out, farther than he and Kenny had, swimming out into the nothingness, and just floating, floating with nothing there, and no noises, no fights, no old men, no girls, no thinking of Lucy, no nothing but floating, floating. Kenny broke off his thoughts. He talked about swimming across the lake, arguing that a good life guard could swim all the way to Michigan City or Benton Harbor. Studs said that Kenny was nuts, but then he couldn’t talk as fast as Kilarney, so he lost the argument. Kenny just talked anyway, and it didn’t matter what he talked about or make him less funny.

At six they went home, and moving along Hyde Park Boulevard, trying to bum rides and cursing everybody who passed them by, Kenny said:

“It was swell today.”

“Yeh! It was swell,” Studs said.

“Only I wish Iris had been there,” said Kenny.

“Yeh,” said Studs.

“I’m so