Skinny Dippin'

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Skinny Dippin’

He kills the engine and guides the car off the road so there is only the merest crunch of gravel under the tires. It still sounds awfully loud in his ears, and it reminds him that he’d best turn off the CB, too, in case it starts squawking.

He’s not supposed to do that, but he’s really not supposed to be doing what he’s about to do, either, so does it matter much in the end?

The summer day is bright and hot, the sun a friendly blaze of yellow in the cloudless sky.

He can’t help but think about where he’s seen the particular shade of blue that the sky is today. He can tell himself over and over that he doesn’t want to think about it, but he knows that the truth is he does want to, and that he is an evil, lecherous man.

But no boy should have eyes that blue, and that’s a fact.

It’s getting very warm in the car, now that there is no passing breeze blowing in the open windows. He rolls up the sleeves of his uniform shirt, then carefully scooches across the seat of the squad car, trying to make sure his gun doesn’t jab him in the leg. After a moment, he’s leaning out the passenger window, and there’s just a hint of moving air hitting his face.

There’s a nice little pond a short distance from the road, down a gentle slope that might have once been fit to grow hay, but has all grown up to brush instead. It’s one of many swimming holes that the kids—and sometimes adults—seek out in the long hot days of July.

Three figures are frolicking in the water, and he doesn’t have to get any closer to know who they are.

That one, that just dove under the water with hardly a splash, that’ll be the Strait boy. He was honest as the day was long. If that boy didn’t end up as a deputy one day, he’d eat his boots.

The other two are half involved in their water-war, half watching the other boy’s swimming ability. The one with his back to the road, with the dark hair and stocky build, that’d be the older Duke boy, Luke.

The third boy, with blond hair so bleached by the sun that it was nearly white even wet, and the rest of him tanned brown as an Indian . . . he’s the one with those eyes bluer than the sky. And that’s Bo, the youngest of the current crop of Dukes.

It wasn’t just his eyes, either—there wasn’t a boy alive that should be that pretty.

There’s a word for men like him, that find boys prettier than women. He remembers learning it when he went to law school—well, not law school in the strictest sense of the words, but where he went to school to learn about being a lawman. He hadn’t thought of it for years, until the beginning of the summer, when he noticed for the first time how the boy looked.

Pedophile.

It isn’t a dirty word in itself, but it leaves a sour taste in his mouth whenever he thinks of it. It means he gets off on doing bad things to boys, and that’s the kind of thing no man likes to think about.

He shakes his head. Not gonna think about it, nosirreebob.

He shoves his hat back and leans a bit further out the window, still studying the boys in the still water, then he frowns. He’s starting to get worried—the Strait boy’s been underwater for an awful long time. He searches, looking for the telltale signs of a swimmer in distress and his hands go to his gun belt to unbuckle it. Just in case.

Just then, the boy pops up out of the water, swamping the Duke boys with a rush of water, and wearing a grin big enough to split his face. Immediately Luke cuts his hand through water just so and a spray of water catches the other boys in the face. Laughing, Enos tries to shield his face and splash Luke back at the same time. Bo just splutters, but he too is laughing.

He sighs in relief, and leans his arms on the car door again.

Just then, Bo looks up at the road, and he knows he’s been caught. He imagines, just for a moment, that he can see the piercing blue eyes, that they’re twinkling at him, though he knows well that the boy is too far away.

Bo grins hugely and waves, shouting, “Howdy, Sheriff!” The other two boys hurriedly leave off trying to dunk each other and look up. He knows Enos is blushing, though he can’t see the boy’s face, and Luke is miming his cousin’s hearty greeting with a wave of his own.

He sighs, then hollers back, “You boys be careful, y’hear? No more horsing around!”

There’s a too-innocent chorus of “Yes, Sheriff Coltrane!” He knows that as soon as he pulls away, they’ll go back to whatever game they were playing before, but he has to be satisfied with what they say.

He nods, then—because he can remember many a summer in this same swimming hole—he grins down at them, and calls, “Have fun, boys!” They laugh happily, and wave as he ducks back into the squad car and pulls away.

Once he’s heading back to town, though, the doubts come back, that word haunting his mind.

They were skinny-dipping, the three of them, but . . . he didn’t even care, wouldn’t have even noticed that if Bo hadn’t been there.

Is he really a boy-lover? Or just one particular boy?

Roscoe shakes his head again, to make those thoughts go away, and instead tries to think about how to secure his pension.

***

September 5, 2005