Godless by Pete Hautman Page A

beam down into the hatch.
    â€œWhat do you see?”
    â€œA platform.”
    Magda and I look past Henry and Dan’s heads at a steel grating about seven feet below the hatch. Henry sticks his head and arm deep inside, casting about with the beam of light.
    â€œAnybody home?” His voice echoes weirdly.
    Magda asks, “Can you see the water?”
    â€œYeah … it’s about ten feet below the platform. Here, hold this.” He hands the flashlight up to Dan.
    Next thing I know, Henry’s in the tank.
    â€œGimme the light,” he says. Dan lowers the flashlight in to Henry, who is standing on the steel platform.
    â€œWhat do you see?”
    â€œIt’s nice and cool in here.”
    â€œYou better come out of there, Henry,” I say.
    â€œNo way! Hey, there’s, like, a chain thing here. Lemme …” A scraping clanking noise echoes up from the hatch. “You can’t believe how rusty this thing is.”
    â€œWhat’s he doing?” I ask Dan.
    â€œI don’t know.”
    There is a sudden rattling and a splash.
    â€œWhat happened? Is he okay?”
    â€œHe just dropped something into the water,” Dan says.
    â€œIt’s a chain ladder, you guys,” Henry shouts. “Hey Danny, grab these, would ya?”
    Dan reaches in and comes out with Henry’s cowboy boots. “Take these, too.” Henry hands up his socks. Dan wrinkles his nose and stuffs the socks into the boots.
    â€œWhat’s he doing now?” Magda asks.
    â€œHe’s—oh my god—”
    The sound of a loud splash up through the hatch, followed by a shouted “Yee-ha!”
    â€œHe jumped in,” Dan says.
    â€œWhooo-eee!” screams Henry. “Check it out!”
    â€œOmigod, let me see!” says Magda, shoving Dan aside and dipping her head into the hatch. “Henry? You okay?”
    â€œThis is
awesome
. Come on in!”
    She lifts her head up and says, “He wants us to go swimming.”
    I shout into the hatch, “Henry! We came up here for Midnight Mass, not swimming!”
    â€œScrew the mass! It’s baptism time!”
    â€œI know one thing for sure,” I say. “I’m not drinking any tap water for the next few days.”
    People will surprise you. You just don’t know for sure what anybody’s going to do. For example, I never would have guessed that both Dan and Magda would climb into that tank and jump into the water. And I never would’ve guessed that Magda would be the first, stripping down to her dark panties and pink bra right there in front of us and jumping into the cold water with a blood-curdling shriek. Dan followed her in almost immediately, only he kept his shorts on.
    Me? I’m alone on the Godhead, standing in the center of a great steel ball with nothing but a broken light, a pile of clothing, and Henry Stagg’s cowboy boots for company. Muffled shouts and screams and laughter echo up through the open hatch. A warm breeze ruffles my hair.
    I think it is totally crazy what they are doing. What if that rusty chain ladder isn’t strong enough to hold them? They’d swim around in circles until they drowned. And what if we got caught polluting the city water with our sweaty, unwashed bodies? We might get thrown in jail.
    No, it’s completely crazy, irresponsible, dangerous, and immature. I look around at St. Andrew Valley, at allthe houses filled with sleeping, unsuspecting citizens. What would they think if they knew what was going on up here? I imagine John Q. Citizen waking up in the middle of the night and pouring himself a glass of tap water.
Hmm. Tastes like unwashed teenage bodies. Must be having a bad dream
.
    I lower myself through the hatch. Cool, moist air surrounds me. The flashlight is on the platform, its beam lighting up the great curved wall of the tank. I point it down and scan the surface until I find Magda’s dark head bobbing in the