Plenty of Time — Jose Valdes
The sound Darryl made wasn’t a scream. It was a wet, final crack, like a bag of gravel bursting on the river rocks below. The silence that followed was louder than the entire summer had been. One moment he was a silhouette pasted against the blinding blue sky, a triumphant yell caught in the back of his throat from the rope swing. The next, he was a crumpled, still thing lying on the jagged stones, the river lapping indifferently at his legs – my feet rooted to the paddle board, unable to move a muscle. We had baked in that peace, stupid and safe, until the world remembered how to break things.
That peace had started just a few hours earlier; June 14th, the end-of-school drama had just ended when I heard the sound of frantic honking rumbling outside my house. My cats were startled, running up and down the house for a hole to crawl under. Meanwhile, I was stuffing my backpack with my essentials: towel, plastic bags, frisbee, and most importantly food.
The honking kept going, but all of sudden it went dead silent. Moments later three loud knocks smacked the door – on the main entrance of my home. Jeez, this guy has no patience, was my first thought.
Unwillingly I walked down the hall from the kitchen ready to tell Talan I need more time for my lunch. Slightly cracking open the door my eyes peeped through, seeing Talan with his grey tank-top and swimtrunks holding his towel in hand looking back at me he said, “Come on dude open the door, I’ve been waiting for fifteen minutes now.”
“Not my fault you were ‘fifteen minutes’ early,” I responded tauntingly.
“Well then open up, asshole! It's 115 degrees out here,” you could see visible anger in his gaze.
I then unlocked the door, swinging it open, waving at him to come in.
“You can wait here, ma’am,” I said.
After allowing Talan in, I jogged back to my kitchen to finish prepping my sandwich.
Five minutes later — and a few too many complaints by Talan — we were out the door walking over to his car. A couple steps into the heat, a wave of hellish heat punched every nerve of my body, the weather was definitely unfriendly. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a dead squirrel lying on the carbon black cement facing towards the sky; it had its guts ripped out, its stomach making loud pops boiling bubbly blood. Talan caught it too, and looked over at the squirrel.
“Jesus man that’s nasty,” he said as he quickly turned away and gagged a little bit.
“There’s many coyotes here at night – one of em’ probably got it,” I replied while also trying not to gag, continuing to walk towards his car. We finally reached his silver-black ‘04 Volkswagen Passat.
“Is there something on your mind?” I asked Talan, as both of us got in his car.
“Yea dude. We took forever and now we’re gonna be late to Darryl’s house,” He started his car and pressed the gas pedal down as if we were getting chased.
“Calm down Talan it’s summer – why are you so worried about time,” I said with a sigh and some nerves as we breezed by the stop sign.
“You know I hate being late,” he said quietly in his usual complaint tone.
Midway through our drive to Darryl’s, I noticed Talan hadn’t spoken a single word since we left my house. He was also driving like a maniac: music blaring, frantically weaving through suffocating traffic, flying through stop signs and ignoring everyone’s safety.
“Dude are you going to chill out,” I asked him, trying not to sound too mean.
Talan’s finger scrambled to lower down the volume, and also tapped the brakes slightly – he shot a quick glance at me.
“We can still make it there on time,” he said with a nervous smile.
“You’re kidding right, you’re still worried about being on time?”
“I told him I’d be there at 12:30, it’s 12:20 you know.”
“You and your obsession with punctuality,” I mumbled.
After surprisingly not getting pulled over we did in fact reach Darryl’s: six bedrooms, two vast stories, one huge window, two separated garages, snuggled by the forest, two-and-a-half acres of beautiful land and four horses on the property – a humble house.
“Hey dudes! You made it. Check out what a hawk just dropped in the yard,” said Darryl, basking in the sun, sitting on his porch steps, eating an apple.
Talan rolled down the windows and yelled back,
“Do you have the paddle boards ready?”
“Yea they’re over there by the garage,” he pointed out with his index finger.
“Why aren’t they loaded up in your truck already,” I asked from the other side of the car’s window.
“Well, the truck might be in the shop right now – we’ll have to use Talan’s car.”
“You must be joking right,” Talan said, with a half cracked smile.
“Darryl, come on man, you know how difficult it is to fit those in this car,” I said, finally agreeing with one of Talan's many complaints.
Darryl just sat there with his goofy everything-is-always-fine smile, all he could say was, “Ha! you guys, don’t worry everything is gonna work out – besides it's summer, we have plenty of time.”
The paddleboards, after a comical and frustrating struggle that left Talan’s Passat looking like it had swallowed two giant hippos, were finally secured. Darryl just grinned, dusting his hands off. “See? I told you guys. No worries,” Talan's response was to completely ignore him, slamming his door shut.
The drive to the river was a nervous symphony of Talan’s sighs and the creak of over-stressed seats as the car jumped up and down with the paddleboards. Darryl, crammed in the back with the remainder of the gear, spent the time pointing out every bird and interesting cloud formation, his voice steady, a calming contrast to Talan’s visible irritation. I sat in the middle, as always, a neutral buffer between two opposing forces. When we finally pulled into the dirt lot overlooking the river, it was completely deserted, painted over white by the brutal sun. The water was a flat, lazy green, moving as if asleep.
“Told you,” Talan said, finally breaking his silence, “We’re too late. Everyone with a brain is already gone.”
“Or,” Darryl said, flinging his door open, “we’re the only ones smart enough not to listen to the advisory and have it all to ourselves!” He was already pulling the boards free, his energy infecting me. For the next hour, the peace was absolute. We paddled into hidden coves, the only sounds were the dip of our paddles and Darryl’s laughter echoing through the sky. We floated on our backs, staring at the vast, indifferent sky. Darryl spread his arms wide on his board, his fingers tracing the shape of a dove circling high above, “Look at that,” he murmured, “flying right into the sun.” Talan even seemed to relax, the lines on his forehead smoothing out as he also drifted with us. For a perfect, fleeting moment, it was everything summer was supposed to be.
Then Talan’s phone buzzed. He fished it out of his plastic bag, and his whole body tensed.
“It’s my mom. The dinner. It’s at five.” He looked at his watch, and the old, frantic Talan was back, fully formed. “It’s 4:15. I have to go. Now.”
Darryl groaned, sitting up on his board, “Man, just call her! Tell her you’re with me.”
“I can’t. You know how she gets.” Talan was already paddling frantically for the shore, “Come on, let’s go!”
But Darryl didn’t move. He was looking past me, up at the cliff face that loomed over this stretch of the river. Tied to a weather-beaten oak was a thin, sun-bleached rope swing. “You guys go,” he said, his voice quiet but firm. “I’ll just hitch a ride back. I’m not done yet.”
A cold dread, completely separate from the heat, washed over me, “Darryl no. That thing looks ancient.”
“He’s right,” Talan yelled, now reaching the shore, ready to load up his board. “It’s suicide. Don’t be an idiot.”
And that was the worst thing he could have said. Darryl’s eyes hardened. Talan’s impatience, his constant need to control, had just become challenge-accepted by Darryl. “It’s summer, Talan!” Darryl shouted back, his carefree tone now blended with defiance. “We have plenty of time! Or are you going to schedule when I can have fun, too?”
The argument that followed was short and brutal. Talan, trapped by his own schedule, finally reached the shore, threw his hands up and looked back. “Fine! Kill yourself! See if I care!” He spun around and marched to his car, leaving me stranded in the impossible choice: to abandon a friend or to be abandoned by one.
I begged Darryl not to do it, telling him it was a horrible idea. But he was already climbing, his bare feet finding cracks on the hot rock. “Don’t worry, man,” He called down, but his voice was different now, charged with a rash need to prove his point. “I need to do this. For me.”
The climb felt eternal. When he finally reached the top, he grabbed the rope, and let out a scream that was half joy, half battle cry. He looked at me one last time, a silhouette against the burning blue sky. Then he jumped.
It wasn’t a graceful dive. It was a wild, flailing arc of freedom. For a heartbeat, he was flying. The world snapped shut. The sound was wrong – not a clean splash, but a thick, sickening crack that echoed off the water and the rocks and the inside of my skull.
The silence that followed was the loudest sound I had ever heard.
I paddled over as quickly as I could, scrambling over the boulders, my heart hammering against my ribs. He was on his back, one leg bent underneath him at an impossible angle. He was gasping and wheezing. His eyes were wide, not with pain, but with confused betrayal.
“T-Talan…” he gurgled, a bubble of blood forming on his lips.
“He’s gone, Darryl. He left.” My voice was a stranger’s.
His gaze focused on me, and it wasn’t my friend looking out. It was pure, animal accusation.
“He… Rushed me…” he whispered, each word a struggle. “He always.. His.. his damn.. time..” He coughed, a spray of crimson staining the grey rock. “You.. you let him…”
And then he was gone. The life left his eyes, leaving them as dull and empty as the sky. The river continued to splash at the stones, indifferent. I looked down at my friend, broken on the rocks. The coppery odor of blood invaded my senses, and I was no longer by the river, my surroundings having changed without warning. There it was, the squirrel from this morning, its guts spilled on the hot pavement, another small, vibrant thing mutilated on an otherwise ordinary day.
The peace was not just broken; it had been a lie all along.
Jose Valdes is a Sherwood High School Senior with many hopes to achieve a heavy STEM double-major for his college studies, while highly disciplined in academics (via many hard AP's like: AP Calc bc, APUSH, AP stats, AP physics). He is also heavily attracted to sports, music (plays the guitar), fun adventures and has played soccer all his life.