I took the can to our room and asked my brother what should I do with it. He was on the floor resting from his routine, and it would have been easy to simply turn the coffee can over and watch the roaches fall on his face, dart in all directions over his squirming body.
My brother peered into the can. “Jesus,” he said, and put his hand over his mouth. “Get that thing away from me.”
“What do I do with them?”
“I don’t know,” he said, backing farther and farther away. “Take them outside or something…” My brother’s words trailed off and his face suddenly changed. He had an idea. I could tell by the way his eyes shifted upward, moved far away, and his eyebrows curled into thinking mode. When it came to my brother’s faces, I thought of myself as something of an expert.
“Quick,” he said. “Grab your trunks.”
“I’m wearing them.”
“Let’s go, then.”
“What about the neighbor?”
“It’s fine,” my brother said. He pointed at the coffee can. “Now we have a reason.”
* * *
My brother made me cover up the can with my pool towel. When we left the apartment this time, the smoking lady wasn’t waiting, though the hallway still smelled like smoke. I told my brother I didn’t think we should be gone long, in case she came back. He agreed. He just wanted to check something.
First, we released the roaches into the woods and watched them stumble around, confused by their new surroundings.
“I’m starting to hate this place,” my brother said. “Gross roaches.”
On our way back in we saw someone by the pool’s front gate. It was Chris. He was lounging in a desk chair, wearing a T-shirt with the sleeves torn off, so we could see his armpit hair dangle like a sweaty vine. The chair he sat in had wheels, and to stop from rolling away Chris had tied a neon rope from an arm of the chair to a chink in the fence.
“Uh-oh,” Chris said. “Here comes trouble.”
I turned around expecting to see someone bad behind us, but saw no one. When I faced front, my brother and Chris were shaking hands, sharing a smile. The two talked about the weather, how clear the sky was, how it was the perfect day for the pool. Chris said he wished every day was like this, that they would last forever. Wouldn’t that be great? he said. Just the two of us, catching some rays and hanging by the water? My brother agreed. That would be the best. Both of them seemed to forget that I was there.
A woman walked by with a dog and a kid. She was wearing cut-off shorts and a loose tank top. I didn’t remember seeing her around the complex before, but the kid was too young to be a friend, so maybe I just never noticed. He ran around in circles, holding a fat piece of pink chalk. I wanted it.
“Hey, I’ve got a question for you two,” Chris said.
The woman stopped. “I’m sorry?” she said.
Chris sat up straighter. “Oh, not you, ma’am. I was talking to these two gentlemen. But don’t worry, I’ll let you know if I want your ear.”
He pushed his sunglasses back up, and the woman smiled with her eyes down. She returned to pretending her kid was very interesting. The two walked a few steps until the kid crouched down to draw on the sidewalk, a large shape that didn’t make any sense to me. The woman waited. Chris folded his arms behind his head and stared at the woman, watching her kid make art. He leaned over to my brother and spoke quietly.
“What do you think?” he said.
“About what?”
“The kid. Should we recruit him? Think he’s old enough to learn you know what?”
My brother shook his head, returned Chris’s hushed voice. Too young. Practically a baby. Babies can’t swim.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Chris said. “He looks like a bit of a mama’s boy. Probably a blabbermouth, too.”
The kid finished shading in his odd shape and stood up proud. Chris’s eyes followed them until they disappeared around a building. My brother and I stood there waiting for Chris to come up from his thoughts.
“Chris,” my brother said.
“Yes.”
“Can we go in the pool now?”
“Hmm,” Chris said. “Oh, sorry, of course we can. Just had to wait until that lady left. Never know who she might know.” He stood up and pulled off his shirt. His body looked tanner than last time, and there were mosquito bites where there weren’t bites before, nestled into the blond hair below his belly button. The hair that ran into his shorts.
“Hey,” Chris said. He had caught me looking at his hair. He put his hand under my chin and lifted my head until my eyes met his. I thought he was going to be mad, but all he did was smile. “Remember,” he said, “we don’t want any word getting out about this, do we? About the Gainer?”
I shook my head, but Chris didn’t let me go.
“No,” my brother said. “That’s how you ruin a secret.”
* * *
The water looked warm in the June sun. But before I could swim, my brother and Chris said I had to run inside and grab them popsicle strips. My brother didn’t care what color, but Chris wanted a blue. When he finished his strip, Chris leaned over and without warning licked my brother on the face, leaving a long streak of blue across his cheek. My brother looked at Chris with shock.
“Gross,” he said, and wiped off Chris’s spit with the back of his hand. He stood up and backed away. “What was that for?”
“That was for your own good,” Chris said, and laughed a little. “For your protection.” He drank the rest of his strip and gargled the blue like mouthwash, swishing it around with fat cheeks before swallowing. “Did you know,” he said, “that a giraffe’s tongue is completely blue? Top to bottom.” My brother asked a quiet why, his hand still touching his sticky face. “Well, they’re out in the sun every day, aren’t they? Licking leaves off trees and stuff, their tongues just hanging out. The blue prevents them from getting burned. It’s like their sunscreen.”
Chris stuck out his tongue, which was coated a deep blue, darker than the pool, and extended farther than any tongue I’d seen before. I bet he could lick his own nose if he wanted, but instead he pretended he was stripping an invisible tree of its leaves, taking each leaf into his mouth and saying yum after.
My brother dipped his hand in the water and wiped off the rest of his face. “Giraffes don’t do that,” he said. “That’s not true.”
“Oh, it’s not?” Chris said. “You don’t think so?” He stood up and started toward my brother. “You know, your face is starting to look a bit pink, big man. I think you could use another coat!” He grabbed my brother and my brother squirmed, but only half trying to get away, his face open with laughter as Chris tickled his ribs and wagged his long blue tongue next to my brother’s ear. Don’t fight it, Chris kept saying. It’s for your own good!
“All right, all right,” Chris finally said. “Enough of that. No more messing around. We’re here for serious business, right?” My brother dunked his head to get rid of the Chris spit. “Well, are we?”
“Yes,” my brother said.
“That’s right, the Gainer isn’t some silly game. It’s the real deal, so let’s get ready.”
They moved to the deep end, leaving me to throw away the popsicle wrappers.
“OK, show me what you got,” he said. My brother stepped to the edge of the diving board, tested its spring with his toes. I felt nervous for him, like the few times I remembered watching my dad’s favorite football team on TV. He wanted his team to win so badly, and I did too, because the day’s mood depended on how the game went. It decided if Dad might finish our swing set, or just sit in the grass, in a circle of empty cans and unused parts, clueless or careless about what went with what.