One Fat Summer by Robert Lipsyte Read Free Book Online Page A

my body, I made excuses not to go swimming. When I did go, I tried to stay underwater as long as possible so people couldn’t see me. Last summer there was an underwater swimmingcontest at Marino’s Beach, and I’m sure I would have won, but you had to start from the low board. I wasn’t afraid of jumping off the low board, but I didn’t want to walk out on it while people were looking me over.
    I pumped hard on the swing and made my own breeze. That cooled me off. I used to spend a lot of time on this swing. When you really get going on a swing, the rest of the world fades away and you can imagine yourself anybody anywhere. I once had a daydream in which I was the invisible boy. Whenever I wanted to be invisible I just drank a special potion I had concocted in a chemistry lab. At first, I mostly used my invisibility to solve crimes by eavesdropping on criminals while they were making their plans. There are problems in being invisible. You have to be very careful crossing streets since drivers can’t see you. You can eat only when nobody’s around. If a sandwich suddenly jumps off a plate and disappears, you could give yourself away. Especially if you’re on a criminal case. Crooks aren’t all that dumb, you know. Once they suspect there’s an invisible person spying on them, they’ll lock the doors, shut offthe lights so you can’t see them either, and keep feeling around the room until they catch you.
    About a year ago, in that daydream, I started using my invisibility to sneak into the girls’ locker room at school. In the beginning I just sort of skulked around the locker room, watching them undress, but then I got bolder and stood very close, and every so often I might touch someone. In my daydreams, they never screamed or ran away. I would get good warm feelings that started in my belly and flowed down. Sometimes, if I was alone in the house, or in a locked bathroom, I would stroke myself until the warm feelings became a throbbing drumbeat that exploded.
    I told Joanie about the invisible boy, which was a mistake. She has a very logical mind, and she asked me one question which spoiled everything: Does drinking the chemical make your clothes invisible, too, or do you have to walk around naked to be invisible? I told her the chemical affected everything you touch, so your clothes would be invisible, too. But later, thinking it over, I realized it made no sense. What if you touched another person? Would she start to disappear, too?
    So you’d have to be naked. And what wouldhappen if you misjudged the amount of chemical you drank, if you didn’t drink enough to last until you got back to the lab? Or if you were delayed getting back to the lab by heavy traffic? You might suddenly become visible again, maybe in the middle of the street, maybe even in the girls’ locker room. And you’d be stark naked. And everybody would see you.
    I never had that daydream again.
    Joanie. I wondered what she was doing in the city. It wasn’t like her to be so mysterious, or so nervous. I wondered if somebody was sick and had to go to the doctor, something so terrible she couldn’t even talk about it. It might have been just a family secret. Her parents are funny sometimes. But we always told each other family secrets.
    Yet, I was also kind of glad she wasn’t around. I can imagine how she would have reacted to the way Dr. Kahn treated me. She would have gotten very angry for me. He’s taking advantage of you, Bob, he has no right to do that, you can’t let him do that, you have to stand up for your rights or people will just walk all over you. Are you a man or a rug?
    I would flop down on the floor and open my mouth. I’m a bearskin rug, I’d say.
    It’s no joke, she’d snap. It was bad enough you let him cheat you out of twenty-five cents an hour, the sign on the bulletin board said one dollar. But once you both agreed on seventy-five