Young Lather

Summer Ways

Okay, so that wasn't going to happen again — what happened after the party I mean. Track wouldn't say anything, and the only other thing I ever heard about me was from Bets when I saw her in the Nu-Mart, and she said something like. "Great party! I was so trashed. And Lonnie, so trashed. You were pretty trashed too." That's it. Nothing else. So I must not have done anything too stupid before I took off to go swim. So, good.

As for what Track said when I asked if he was gay, he just laughed — quick and hard, like the idea really surprised him. He wasn't mad or anything, but he didn't really answer the question. He said, "I think I'd know if I was gay, dog."

"Yeah," I said quick, because I felt like I was over the line as soon as I'd asked it. "No doubt. Yeah. Anyway, you working a lot this week?"

"Goin' with my dad to pick up his new truck a little later, but I'll be gone overnight. He found it online, so we gotta go get it. We're staying at my Uncle Mike's, and I"m driving the Jeep back tomorrow. My dad'll drive the new truck."

"Cool."

"Then I don't know. Probably I'll be working full time, every day. He's got a job lined up. He'll at least want me for demo. Maybe for some framing."

"But, weekends?" I asked.

"Not weekends," Track said. "But don't you have shifts this weekend?"

"Yeah," I confirmed. "Both days, but they're only early morning — 6 to 10. Stocking," I said. "So I'm good."

"Your Friday night'll suck."

"I'll make it."

* * *

Friday was cold. Four of us went to Big Bend anyway, but no one wanted to swim. Instead, we talked, including about Archie and Dara, because they were the ones who weren't with us.

"A date," Celeste told us.

"Ooo, a date." Track.

"Uh huh," Celeste said, "a real date. They're going to Chipotle, and then a movie."

"What movie?"

"I don't know."

"Wow," I said. "A real date. Archie."

"And Dara."

"And Dara," I agreed.

"It's so... normal," Celeste observed. "Somehow I didn't think any of us would be normal," she added.

"We are all completely normal," Kara stated. "What? Because we hang out in the woods? Because we swim naked? That's not enough to be not normal," she said.

We were thinking about that, then Track said, "Do you know there are eight billion people in the world? So, four billion guys and four billion girls, and if you divide that by how long you live—"

"How long you live?" Celeste interrupted.

"Yeah, so say about average eighty years old for how long you live — because it makes the math easy — then there's about fifty million 16 year-old boys in the world, and fifty million 16 year-old girls."

"...So?"

"So nothing!" Track snapped. "Just that, about being 'normal' is... I mean, normal means like the way most people do stuff, so if forty million guys like Lather and me do something, it's normal, but if only, say, five million guys do it, it's not normal."

"You're the only guy I know who talks in math," Kara said. "So you are not normal." That got a laugh from me and Celeste, but not Track.

"So I think Dara and Archie are pretty normal," I said. "I mean, even if we aren't all exactly normal all the time."