Give Us a Kiss: A Novel by Woodrell Daniel

Author:Woodrell, Daniel [Woodrell, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction / Literary
ISBN: 9780316206198
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2012-06-18T20:00:00+00:00

16

ROCKY DROP

THE CLIFF HAD been formed by volcanic rock, a stream trickling down its gray face, and Niagra was first to leap from it. She stood poised on the edge of rock, in cutoffs and a T-shirt, staring at the clear and alluring pool of water below.

“Make a wish!” she shouted, then pushed away from the cliff and into the air.

In the air Niagra had center stage. A couple of families with a crowd of children were clustered at the far edge of the pool. They all turned to watch her from there, as we did from the cliff known as Rocky Drop. The drop was eighteen or twenty feet, and Niagra attempted a full forward tumble in the air, but as she righted herself her T-shirt billowed up to her face and she made an innocent, bare-breasted entry into the water.

We cheered, especially me, as it was my first actual viewing of her breasts. The families clapped, the husbands more heartily than the children, the wives rather sullenly. From our perch we could see Niagra in the clear water, slicing to the stony floor of the pool below the drop, or falls. Her hair fanned out and the sunlight caught it, giving a dreamy luminescence to her submerged form.

When her head rose above the surface she went, “Oops!” Then she backstroked, looking at me. “Make a wish, Doyle, and come on down!”

My wish was too obvious to require mention. I stood at the edge, a pair of Smoke’s shorts held wadded around my hips by a cinched length of rope. For my dive I selected the classic swan, but I overarched my torso, lost control straightaway, and hit the surface in a spastic, butt-first flop.

I swam to Niagra, who said, “What was that?”

“Death of a swan,” I said. “It’s my best dive.”

The pool at Rocky Drop is near a mountain crest and miles off any paved road, hard to get to. Trees grow near the waterline and tower protectively around three sides of the pool. Rocky Drop looms at the other end, a series of gray boulders and ancient lava slabs where the ripples the cooling lava made are yet visible. The climb to the cliff requires several minutes of delicate stepping and occasional bounds up the volcanic slabs and from boulder to boulder. A few resolute shrubs grow among the rocks and offer roots for handholds.

Niagra put her arms around my neck from behind and clung buoyantly to my back. We watched Smoke and Big Annie smooch hot and funny on the cliff, then down they came. Theirs was a sort of Butch- and-Sundance plummet. Big Annie held her T-shirt in place, and Smoke crouched into a massive cannonball. The whopping splash they made caused the little kids to laugh, though no one else clapped.

Damned Spot was over in the shallows, getting her ankles wet, lapping cool drinks. I’d insisted the dog come along, as her scent had gone high in the heat and a long swim might rinse her down to a ho-hum level of dog-stink.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.