“Joe! Why are
you so wet?” asked Dez.
I had been waiting
for this question with excitement. The whole walk back I was
anticipating it, anticipating it even as I put my muddy feet into my dirty socks, my dirty socks into my sneakers. I was anticipating it on the whole walk back to the
rest of the group who had no idea what we’d been up to, anticipating
it even as I shivered, as heat escaped my wet hair and Robi rubbed his
arms up and down his body and we laughed, anticipating when I could
tell my story of adventure and daring. I just swam in a trash filled
river with a gypsy!
“I just went
swimming,” I said nonchalantly. There is something about being a
guy which makes us have to be cool about these kinds of things, to
make light of them as if swimming with a gypsy you’ve only known for
an hour and a half in a nuclear waste river was an everyday kind of
thing.
“What?!” Dez
said surprised.
“Yeah. Robi and
I went swimming.”
“Huh?! I don’t
know if I believe you. I think you just fell.”
“Why would I have
fallen? Look my hair’s wet too! I went swimming in the river at the
edge of town with Robi.” This wasn’t the reception I had planned.
“I can’t believe
you! Are you being serious?” I wasn’t going to let her ruin my
moment. I didn’t need to fight to tell this story. This
story was good enough on its own. I ignored her and walked away,
hoping someone else would notice.
Finally, Stacy came
over.
“Joe, why are you
so wet?” she said.
“I went swimming
in the river at the edge of the village.”
“Really?!” she
said. She was less incredulous so I decided to seize on the
opportunity and launch into it.
“Yeah, Robi and I
went.” I told her about how Robi started leading me over, how I
grabbed Matt for safety, about our efforts at communication-“He’s
like, ‘Nadyon. Nadyon.’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah, river, river. That’s
cool!'”-about how I made the disconcerting realization he wanted
to take us swimming, my fear of the slimy water, and finally, about
how I finally jumped in.
“After I did my
stupid pencil dive, we got out,” I continued, “He dove in again
and then I dove again and this time I did a cannon ball! It was
awesome! But I still wasn’t ready to dive headfirst and… Oh and
that’s when a little water went down my throat, so we can pray about
that later. But yeah it was great. And then, we got out again. He
dove in and… guess how I dove this time?!”
“How?! A
bellyflop?!” she laughed.
“NOOO!!! I dove
HEADFIRST! It was awesome!
“And then there
was this bank behind the trees. It was about this high,” I said,
putting my hand under my chin, “about five feet high and we had to
climb up using tree roots.”
“We walked back a
ways away from the ledge… and then we WENT FOR IT! I landed so
hard my arms were red. It was so cool! Then we climbed up and DID
IT AGAIN!”
“Wow Joe! That’s
amazing!”
“I know! It was
awesome! I swam with a gypsy in trash infested water in Romania!”
THE
END
