Going Commando

by Jeff Baker

“Cannonball!” Scott yelled, jumping into the pool.

“Not so loud!” Chad said. “The neighbors are asleep.”

“Oh yeah. Sorry!” Scott said.

“Oh, wow! Will you look at the stars! There’s the Summer Triangle, right overhead!” Zach pointed upward, tracing the Triangle in the August sky with a finger.

Zach Abruzzi was taking care of his folks house while they were on vacation and he was home from college. He’d invited his cousin Chad and their friend Scott over for a couple of weeks. They all went to the same school together and they were serious students (Chad was pre-law) but that wasn’t apparent from the way they were goofing around in the pool. The big above-ground pool that took up half of Zach’s family’s backyard in Pending, Kansas.

“Y’know, I could float out here for hours,” Zach sighed.

“Yeah, me too,” Chad said. “I mean, we don’t have anywhere to go for a few weeks.”

Scott held up a finger. “Store,” he said. “We’re almost out of soda and chips.”

“Part of your nutritious breakfast,” Zach said in a mock-serious announcer voice. The three of them laughed.

They floated and bobbed in the pool, silently for a few minutes, listening to the water lap the sides of the pool and watching for a hint of breeze stirring the leaves of the overhanging tree lit by the pool lights and the lone porch light.

“Hey, Zach,” Chad said. “You remember when we went out to the lake with our folks that one summer?”
“Yeah, we did that a lot of times.” Zach said.

“Remember skinny dipping?” Chad asked with a broad grin.

“Oh, God!” Zach said.

“Skinny dipping?” Scott asked, grinning himself.

“We were, what? About eleven?” Chad said. “We went swimming up at the lake, spending the day out there. We didn’t go in too deep or out to far and then Greg Louganis here…”

“Oh God!” Zach said, sinking down in the water almost up to his ears.

“…says ‘Hey! Let’s try skinny dipping!’ So we pulled our trunks off and floated around naked for a few minutes…”

“Oooooooooo…” Zach said blowing bubbles in the water.

“…when all of a sudden this seaweed or something brushes the inside of Zach’s leg and he screams ‘SNAKE!’ and runs out of the water stark naked, carrying his trunks in one hand!”

They were all three laughing.

“I didn’t know if it was a snake or if it was going to bite me so I tried to pull my trunks on before I got out of the water but they caught on a branch or something that was underwater and they ripped.” Chad shrugged. “Cheap trunks!”

The three of them laughed loudly for another minute. Then Scott cleared his throat.

“You know, it’s gotta be around midnight. Most of the people in this town are asleep right now. How ‘bout we…you know?”

“What?” Zach asked.

“This!” Scott said, ducking underwater for a moment then popping back up with his shorts in his hand. “These aren’t even trunks, they’re my basketball shorts from High School. I’ve been going commando all day!” Yeah, the blue shorts had the South High School from Wichita logo on them.

Zach and Chad looked at each other and then quickly shucked off their trunks.

“Toss ‘em over by the ladder,” Zach said. Three pairs of sopping wet shorts went sailing over the edge to plop on the ground. Chad laughed and ducked underwater, launching himself from the wall of the pool to swim underwater to the other end, feeling the rush of water and hearing the clicking of sound.

“Marco!” Scott yelled, splashing water.

“Oh, no!” Zach said, laughing.

There was laughter and splashing for a few more minutes.

“Hey! I’m gettin’ cold!” Scott said.

“Yeah, that breeze came up all of a sudden. Wait ‘till it dies down.” Chad said.

“Hard to believe it’s been in the hundreds all week,” Zach said. “I gotta go to the bathroom anyway. Okay, here goes.”

Zach hoisted himself up the ladder and plopped down on the ground and slipped grabbing a rung of the ladder to steady himself.

“You okay?” Chad yelled, swimming towards the ladder.

“Yeah,” Zach said. “But we’ll need to wash these trunks. They all landed on a doggie present and I stepped on them and got them all messy.

Soon the three young men were standing by the ladder, not wanting to touch the trunks.

“So, do we leave ‘em there?” Chad asked.

“Naaaa.” Zach said. “Scrape ‘em off and throw ‘em in the washer. “We can walk into the house in the raw.”

“Yeah, we’re guys!” laughed Scott.

“MIS-ter Abruzzi!! It is almost twelve-thirty and some of us need to sleep!” The female voice belonged to Mrs. Hamilton who was sticking her head over the fence between the two properties.

Scott, Zach and Chad stood there frozen in surprise. She went on.

“I’ve told your family to keep it quiet on weeknights. Now if you don’t…”

The elderly lady (who must have been in her fifties, Zach thought) stopped talking. Here eyes were adjusting and focusing without her glasses. There was enough light for her to see all of Chad, Zach and Scott.

“Good…Lord!” Mrs. Hamilton gasped.

Chad, Zach and Scott raced for the back door.

—end—