Erich - Three

Erich

 

            I hadn’t expected to find Gabe back in the room, but it saved me the trouble of tracking him down to tell him about the change of plans. He rushed after me with a hand pressed to his injured head.

I had cut out of class a few minutes early only to find that, thanks to the shower schedule, I wasn’t even breaking any rules. The thought of avoiding a whole class period made me happier than I had managed to be all week, and it outweighed the realization that none of us had taken a shower in more than a week. I had intended to grab a clean set of clothes from the dorm, but I had forgotten what I had gone back for by the time I ran into Gabe.

We were both quiet as we walked down the path. Gabe followed a few steps behind, a sure sign that he was still plenty afraid of me. Being feared was usually reassuring to me, but with him I felt almost guilty. I had a long way to go if I wanted to fix things with him, and at that point I didn’t care enough to try.

“Hey!” The voice came from behind us and I cringed at the sound of the American twang. Jim and Hersch jogged up from behind us. Of the four of us, they seemed to get along the best. “You got the word, too, huh?” Jim asked. “S**t, am I ever ready for a shower.”

“You got that right,” mumbled Hersch. “Does anyone know where this building actually is?”

We looked around at each other for some kind of indication that we knew where we were going. “I do,” said Gabe softly. The fight had made him shy, and this was the first time he opened his mouth in front of all three of us. “It’s the building behind the far dorm, on the west side.”

No one bothered to ask how he knew that, mainly because he seemed so embarrassed to have known it at all. But we followed him to a tiny, square brick building on the far end of the grounds.

The room was less repulsive the some of the ones back home, but it came close. There were six shower heads bolted to the brick walls and what appeared to be a control valve in the middle. The ceiling was dripping with what we could only hope was water and the floor was so grimy that it became an immediate and unanimous decision that we would all shower with our socks on.

We glanced around awkwardly before peeling off our uniforms. Jim, who was clearly the least inhibited, was out of his clothes first and went over to twist the valve, at which point all six showers began to sprinkle.

“Damn it!” he cursed. “That’s f*****g cold!”

I stepped in and found that he was right. The water was freezing and I had to grit my teeth to keep them from chattering.

I tried to put the cold and the all-around awkwardness of the situation from my mind and reached for the soap. “Hey, where did Gabe go?” I looked up at Hersch’s question to see that Gabe had disappeared.

“Beats me,” Jim said casually. “The guy’s so damn shy. I’m out of here too. This water isn’t worth it.” He reached for a towel and headed for the bench where he had left his clothes. Hersch, who �" like me �" was probably used to worse conditions, lingered a little longer and was out the door a few minutes later.

The privacy was worth the cold. I stood there and let the freezing water rain down on me for a few long minutes. It was numbingly icy, and I liked it. I was calm for the first time in ages, almost unnaturally peaceful. The tension in my muscles gave way just a little, and for the first time in ages I felt the hunch in my shoulders loosen.

That was when I realized that my feet were turning blue and it would be a good idea to get out.

Outside, it was almost as cold as it had been in the showers. There were still slushy patches of snow lining the path, though there probably hadn’t been a storm since February. I shivered as I walked along, blowing on my numbed hands.

As I made my way along the side of the west dormitory building, I spotted Hersch and Jim talking to another group of guys. This seemed weird to me since I hadn’t realized they knew anyone else. The second group walked away laughing before I could reach them and by the time I got to the guys they were just staring at each other with an expression I easily recognized. They were scared stiff.

“Hey,” I said, looking at them curiously. “What was that about?”

Jim turned to me. “Friend,” the word surprised me so much that I barely processed what he said next. “You’re never going to guess what we’ve gotten into.”

Reviews

[Dakota]

I found a deeper meaning in this chapter: which characters were more pampered back home in the others and no surprise to me that Jim found the cold not worth the end result of being clean. Where did Gabe go? What kind of trouble are they into now?

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[Coyote Poetry]

A old fashion shower. I like the reason for this chapter. Allow the character to see how they looked at life and the inner fear. A cold shower is hard. But when you need one. Must be done. A excellent chapter.
Coyote