Four Boys
by C. Mitchell O'Neal
The southern wind rolled hot from the ocean, tidal waves that drove the tourists to the air conditioned cafes of Positano, leaving the searing beaches to the skittering crabs, and the boys.
They lay there, baking on the black stones, heads shaded by newspapers scavenged from the streets. Francesco, blond hair sun-bleached almost to whiteness; Aloisio, the fat one, sweaty and gleaming. Nicola, the eldest, if only by a few proud months. Gennaro, dark and unknown, though they had spent every minute of their childhoods together.
He was the first.
"I cannot take this Goddamned heat one moment longer!" he exclaimed, and began to pull on his shoes.
The others sat up warily, sluggishly, mistrustful of this sudden energy.
"What are you doing?" Nicola asked, peering from beneath his newspaper.
"I'm going to il grotto esmeraldo. It's as cool as an icehouse in there; my cousin took me once when I was little."
Silence. Raised eyebrows. Around the point of Praiano, out of sight of Positano, the grotto lurked. Its entrance, low and hungry, pounced on any boat that mistimed the fickle waves.
"Isn't it dangerous?" Aloisio finally asked, voice piping with the fear they all felt.
Gennaro snorted, and in the bright sun, with his sweat-drenched face and wild hair, he looked like a Greek hero, Jason, or Achilles. Undeniable.
"How?" asked Nicola.
"I'll take my father's boat."
"He'll beat you to death when he finds out," whispered Nicola.
Gennaro looked up the hill to the town. "It's just too hot."
Simple as that.
"Okay," said Nicola, and he began to gather his things, proud that he had agreed so easily, before the others.
Francesco had followed. Aloisio, born meek, held out longest, offering numerous arguments as to why they shouldn't go. In the end he smelled the inevitability of it and joined the others on their walk to the water, a sick look on his fat face.
They swam discreetly to Gennaro's father's boat. Tied up to a buoy in the harbor, salt-washed and creaking, it groaned as the four dark boys slid over the gunnels like seals. Aloisio sat in the front, hunching low, angry at the compulsion that had brought him to this unhappy spot. But the rest of them had warmed up to it, dragging their feet in the cool water, smiling as Gennaro strained against the oars.
Nicola watched the town disappear behind the point of Praiano. He winked at Gennaro, and nodded his head to the open ocean.
"We could row forever," he said. "We could row to Africa and have dinner with a Moor."
"And ride a camel," said Francesco.
"And climb the pyramids!" shouted Nicola again, slapping the water with his palm. Pop! Gennaro just smiled.
"Jesus and shit," hissed Aloisio. "I think that's it."
It was the grotto. A crush of white and thunder. The waves, which seemed so gentle here, crashed violently against the rocky shore, alternately revealing and hiding a small opening, shorter than it was wide. Dark as night.
"Gennaro..." Nicola began, but stopped when he saw Gennaro's eyes and the resolution within them, and something else, something rippling and mutable. Later he would know it was the man in Gennaro trying to calm the boy's body that still clung to him, clawing in panic and fear.
Gennaro's head craned as he aimed the boat. Each unpredictable wave would catch them suddenly, and push them forward in quick, terrifying spasms. All about them were rocks and hard jutting, cutting things.
Twenty meters. Then ten. Gritted teeth. Closer still. The cave opening seemed to grow smaller instead of larger. At five meters Aloisio cried out, a strangled high-pitched wail. At the same moment Gennaro roared and twisted on the oars. The boat sped forward, moments ahead of a cackling wave. And then darkness, cool and quiet.
There was an initial panic, blind and frightening. Had they died? Was this death? But then an emerald glow resolved below them, and the walls and ceiling glowed a soothing green that went past their eyes, and calmed their racing hearts and strangled breath. A cool stillness magnified all sounds, and tiny splashes of water chimed throughout the cavern, like the little bells in an orchestra. Gennaro let the oars loose and stared at his hands. Nicola reached out and ran his finger along the oar handle, staring at the red that came away from it. Gennaro held his hand out and squeezed crimson drops into the green water below. They fell through the green, staining and spreading like red jellyfish.
"That wasn't so bad," gasped Aloisio, and the tension and fear flowed out of all of them in hoarse barks of laughter, until Nicola seized Gennaro by the shoulders and tossed him into the cool water before all three of them had jumped in after him, playing and wrestling in the red and green.
Later, exhausted, they lay in the boat and sucked up the cool and calm before returning to the heat. There was joy in the four, at their recklessness, but also an unease that Gennaro had cheated the others somehow. He had rushed forward into manhood without their agreement or approval, and though they loved him for it, they also hated him, simply for being the first. Even then, only wise Nicola knew that their friendship, rooted as it was in childhood, had not followed them into the cave, but had been torn loose from the beach of Positano, dragged by Gennaro's strokes, and died, smashed and cut at the grotto's entrance when they had passed through. He cut the ugly thought with a private smile, and ignored the feeling that grew from his heart, through the wet planks of the boat, feeding on the green water below.
C. Mitchell O'Neal has been published in Paradox magazine, Revelation, Dead Letters, and Insidious Reflections e-zine. He received an honorable mention in the Best Fantasy and Horror of 2004 for his short story "The Moon Shone on my Slumbers," and won first place in the Zircon Awards of 2005. His short fiction work also appears in SUM3: The 2006 Zircon Anthology of Speculative Romance, available now at Amazon.com.