Heavy
2025 CWI President's Writing Awards First Place- Fiction
By Kenton PIper-Ruth
The kid, Brent, was a massive kid, wide, thick and chubby, with a mop of brown hair. Don had been a big kid too, back in his youth, and still had the same unruly hair. So, Brent looked a lot like Don had during his high school years, well minus the extra chromosome.
The problem was the kid was too heavy. So heavy Don couldn’t keep the kid’s head above water, no matter how hard he tried. Everyone else was oblivious, had been oblivious to the situation. There was nothing else to do. Don took a deep breath and went under, letting the kid’s desperate attempts to escape the water push Don down too. The only choice was to wait the kid out, or else they would likely both drown.
Don had been tasked with helping the kid swim. He didn't have a lot of work, and an old girlfriend by the name of Elise had offered to pay him. He’d floated a rate that was a cut above what he charged for athletic training, but she hadn’t tried to talk him down. He thought the gig was a steal right up until the moment he saw the kid. Elise had neglected to tell him that the kid had Down Syndrome, or that the kid was about a hundred pounds overweight, or that the kid thought it was funny to go to the only section of the pool that he wasn't allowed to go to.
“Thank you so much. He doesn't have many male role models, so this is really good for him,” Elise had said. She’d been in Europe for a long time, over a decade. Don had been surprised she still had his number, and he had been a little confused as to why she was willing to pay him so much to teach her kid to swim, when a course at the YMCA was much cheaper. That was before he’d seen the kid, however.
They’d arrived at the public pool and Elise had greeted him with a big hug that lasted longer than it should have. He asked her a question, and she spoke at length, detailing her and Brent’s experiences in Europe, living for a time in London with distant family, experiencing the culture, before eventually heading back to the states. As they talked, she drew closer to him, touching his arm frequently.
“But enough about me. I could talk all day. What about you?” She’d asked, running her hand up his arm to squeeze his shoulder. The kid had tugged at his mom’s other hand, pointing at the water. She ignored him, even though it looked like he might pop her arm out of the socket. He was a big kid.
Don told her about how he’d finally graduated college with a business degree, just like he’d told her he would. He told her how he had a go at it before realizing he was much more passionate about exercise, and weight training. And that now he was an athletic trainer. He had tried his best to ignore the kid during the conversation, but it was difficult.
He hadn’t been sure how to respond to her obvious enthusiasm for him. On one hand she was still pretty hot, even after more than a decade, but on the other hand she had a kid, and a big one at that.
Instead of responding to Elise’s advances Don had decided to turn his attention on the kid, because the kid was the variable. Because, if he could put up with the kid, then who knows, maybe him and Elise could Netflix and chill or something.
“Hey buddy.” Don had reached out and received an enthusiastic high-five.
Elise hadn’t seemed perturbed by this at all and gestured that they should hop in the water.
“Have fun boys!”
Soon the kid had one of those red, paddle-board, flotation devices, and Don used it to help the kid work on his flutter kick, backstroke, and floating in general. This went smoothly for around fifteen minutes before the kid lost interest. He started using his flutter kick to swim towards the deep end of the pool, then he'd turn toward Don with a big smile on his face, and Don would try to smile while motioning for the kid to come back to the shallow end.
It quickly became a game for the kid. Over and over the kid did it. Over and over Don had to tell him to come back to the shallow end, with decreasing levels of patience. Each time the kid got farther and farther into the deep end before finally obeying Don. The kid couldn’t seem to tell that Don was mad, mirroring Don’s increasing anger with his own increasing enjoyment of the game he thought they were playing.
Elise was on the far side of the pool, chatting with a group of middle-aged women. The group lounged on reclining chairs composed of stretchy rubber-bands around metal-frames.
Don had glanced frequently at her, hoping she might help him get the kid to comply, but she had been quite preoccupied with her conversation. All he’d gotten for his trouble were some distressing looks from the other women, that had made him wonder what they were talking about. Of course, he assumed they were talking about him.
Finally, on one of the kid’s explorations into the deep end, the red-paddle-floaty slipped from his hands, shooting off like it was as desperate to get away from the kid as Don was.
“Hey!” Don had yelled, but they were at a community pool, and the lifeguard was a fifteen-year-old, walking along the side of the pool, chatting up some other fifteen-year-old, talking about things fifteen-year-olds talk about.
In the moment he’d thought about yelling at Elise, screaming, making a scene, but that would have shown that he was incapable of dealing with the situation, which wasn’t true. And he couldn't look like that in front of an old girlfriend. He was capable. He was an athletic trainer. Two-hundred pounds of muscle, twelve percent body fat. There was a reason people came to him to get into shape.
So, he couldn't make a scene. He had to handle the situation on his own. What was the fifteen-year-old lifeguard going to do anyway? What was Elise going to do? Like always, it was up to him, the man of the situation.
So, Don swam after the kid, propelling himself gracefully through the water with his larger than average arms.
Only upon reaching the kid did he realize he might have made a mistake. In his mind, saving the kid was simple: grab him by the arm and pull him to safety, using his muscular legs to propel them both through the water with ease. But it didn’t turn out to be that simple.
Once the frantically flailing kid had noticed he was there, he’d latched onto Don with frightening strength, pushing Don under in his attempt to stay above the surface of the water. And, despite Don’s tik-tok-influencer physique he'd been unable to keep the kid and himself afloat.
Which is how he arrived at his current situation, several feet below the kid looking upwards at the bright, undulating outline of the child’s body, the sour-salt of chlorine stinging at his nose, mouth, and eyes.
Sunlight came through the water in a rather beautiful fashion, in flickering rays of blinding white, though Don couldn't really appreciate the display.
The kid had one hand on Don's head, one on his shoulder, and his feet on Don's ribcage, like he was trying to shimmy a tree, trying his best to stand on Don and escape the water’s jaws.
Don had to do it, or else they would both drown.
So, he went limp. The kid kicked at him, trying to get a better purchase, but succeeded only in pushing Don deeper underwater. Don went with it, using his powerful arms and legs to push himself and the kid down. So deep in fact that Don’s feet hit the pool floor, and he felt the increase of pressure in his ears.
And the kid continued to hold onto Don. This hadn’t gone to plan either. Don had thought the kid would let go much earlier and try to strike out for the surface on his own, but he just held tight to Don. Bubbles poured out of the kid’s mouth, but it didn't take long for the number of bubbles to diminish, and then only a few pitiful droplets of air escaped the wide, gasping mouth.
The kid's grip loosened, and then Don was free. He pushed hard off the pool floor, straining his disappointing calves, the only part of his physique he wasn’t proud of.
His head broke the surface, and as soon as the water left his ears, he could hear yells and screams, but they all combined into a singular, irrational noise.
The lifeguard's flotation device landed next to him, and upon seeing it Don dove under, grabbed the kid by his hair, and pulled him to the surface, which was a lot easier to do now that the kid was unconscious.
Don grabbed the lifeguard noodle and let them drag him and the kid to safety.
Don's numerous muscles were a lot more useful on solid ground, and he used them in coordination to pull the kid out of the water. Elise and the other ladies stood above him in shock, their arms and bodies blowing about in a wind of anxiety.
Elise was frantic. She touched her motionless son, but in a way that made it seem like she was afraid to touch him.
“Brent! Brent!” She screamed. “What did you do?” Eyes of pain and accusation lanced into Don.
Don frowned. What did he do?
“I saved him,” Don said, defensively.
“Saved him? He's dead. You were supposed to watch him! All you had to do was watch him!”
“He's not dead.” Don bent down and flipped the kid over, then slapped him hard on the back. Nothing happened, and tendrils of panic crept up Don's arms from where his fingertips had touched the kid. He slapped him a few more times, but all this accomplished was a display of jiggling fat.
Elise tried to say something, but all she could get out was a shuddering sob.
Don straightened up and shrugged, taking a few steps back. He felt small, despite his multitude of muscles. The panic infiltrated his chest, merging with a powerlessness at the core of his being.
The fifteen-year-old lifeguard pushed Brent back on his back and started administering CPR.
While Don watched the one kid bounce up and down on the fat kid’s chest, the panic solidified in Don’s own chest, becoming a part of him, perhaps a permanent part. How would he ever live this down? It was going to be in the news probably. How would he get clients after this?
Elise sobbed, taking long ragged breaths. “I thought, maybe—” she gasped, “maybe you were ready.”
One of the other women approached Don and shoved him in the arm. When Don didn’t respond, she shoved him again.
“Hey! Wake the fuck up,” she said. “You know he’s your kid, right?”
“What?” Don asked, but even as he turned his bewildered gaze on the woman the gears in his head spun into motion. Him and Elise had last been together around sixteen years ago, which was about how old the kid was. The kid looked like him, same color hair, same build, same eyes. He’d been a mess when they were together, drugs, alcohol, complex carbohydrates, and her parents had hated him. It wasn’t a stretch to think the whole reason she went to Europe was to get away from him, keep the kid away from him.
The child lying on the wet tile changed, right before Don, like a window had opened in the sky and illuminated him. Brent was still overweight, still annoying, still devious, but he was also funny, energetic, and kind, quick to trust Don and eager for Don’s attention and approval. He was a cute kid, with the chubby cheeks, joyful eyes and contagious laugh.
It wasn't a conscious decision, before Don knew it, he’d shoved the wannabe lifeguard out of the way and began compressing Brent's chest himself. He felt and heard a few cracks and pops as Brent’s ribs snapped, but Don kept pounding his chest. He used everything he had pounding up and down on Brent’s chest. His countless muscle fibers ached.
Brent spluttered, gasped for breath, and vomited, and Don turned him on his side, which caused Elise to dive down to hold Brent, stroking his face, no longer afraid to touch him. “It’s ok honey. It’s ok. It’s ok honey.”
Don leaned back and listened to the sound of his son crying, the sound of Elise crying, the sound of the other women crying, holding each other tightly as they watched Elise and Brent. In that moment it felt like the world was sobbing for joy, exalting in what it meant to be alive. He'd never heard anything quite so beautiful.
The problem was the kid was too heavy. So heavy Don couldn’t keep the kid’s head above water, no matter how hard he tried. Everyone else was oblivious, had been oblivious to the situation. There was nothing else to do. Don took a deep breath and went under, letting the kid’s desperate attempts to escape the water push Don down too. The only choice was to wait the kid out, or else they would likely both drown.
Don had been tasked with helping the kid swim. He didn't have a lot of work, and an old girlfriend by the name of Elise had offered to pay him. He’d floated a rate that was a cut above what he charged for athletic training, but she hadn’t tried to talk him down. He thought the gig was a steal right up until the moment he saw the kid. Elise had neglected to tell him that the kid had Down Syndrome, or that the kid was about a hundred pounds overweight, or that the kid thought it was funny to go to the only section of the pool that he wasn't allowed to go to.
“Thank you so much. He doesn't have many male role models, so this is really good for him,” Elise had said. She’d been in Europe for a long time, over a decade. Don had been surprised she still had his number, and he had been a little confused as to why she was willing to pay him so much to teach her kid to swim, when a course at the YMCA was much cheaper. That was before he’d seen the kid, however.
They’d arrived at the public pool and Elise had greeted him with a big hug that lasted longer than it should have. He asked her a question, and she spoke at length, detailing her and Brent’s experiences in Europe, living for a time in London with distant family, experiencing the culture, before eventually heading back to the states. As they talked, she drew closer to him, touching his arm frequently.
“But enough about me. I could talk all day. What about you?” She’d asked, running her hand up his arm to squeeze his shoulder. The kid had tugged at his mom’s other hand, pointing at the water. She ignored him, even though it looked like he might pop her arm out of the socket. He was a big kid.
Don told her about how he’d finally graduated college with a business degree, just like he’d told her he would. He told her how he had a go at it before realizing he was much more passionate about exercise, and weight training. And that now he was an athletic trainer. He had tried his best to ignore the kid during the conversation, but it was difficult.
He hadn’t been sure how to respond to her obvious enthusiasm for him. On one hand she was still pretty hot, even after more than a decade, but on the other hand she had a kid, and a big one at that.
Instead of responding to Elise’s advances Don had decided to turn his attention on the kid, because the kid was the variable. Because, if he could put up with the kid, then who knows, maybe him and Elise could Netflix and chill or something.
“Hey buddy.” Don had reached out and received an enthusiastic high-five.
Elise hadn’t seemed perturbed by this at all and gestured that they should hop in the water.
“Have fun boys!”
Soon the kid had one of those red, paddle-board, flotation devices, and Don used it to help the kid work on his flutter kick, backstroke, and floating in general. This went smoothly for around fifteen minutes before the kid lost interest. He started using his flutter kick to swim towards the deep end of the pool, then he'd turn toward Don with a big smile on his face, and Don would try to smile while motioning for the kid to come back to the shallow end.
It quickly became a game for the kid. Over and over the kid did it. Over and over Don had to tell him to come back to the shallow end, with decreasing levels of patience. Each time the kid got farther and farther into the deep end before finally obeying Don. The kid couldn’t seem to tell that Don was mad, mirroring Don’s increasing anger with his own increasing enjoyment of the game he thought they were playing.
Elise was on the far side of the pool, chatting with a group of middle-aged women. The group lounged on reclining chairs composed of stretchy rubber-bands around metal-frames.
Don had glanced frequently at her, hoping she might help him get the kid to comply, but she had been quite preoccupied with her conversation. All he’d gotten for his trouble were some distressing looks from the other women, that had made him wonder what they were talking about. Of course, he assumed they were talking about him.
Finally, on one of the kid’s explorations into the deep end, the red-paddle-floaty slipped from his hands, shooting off like it was as desperate to get away from the kid as Don was.
“Hey!” Don had yelled, but they were at a community pool, and the lifeguard was a fifteen-year-old, walking along the side of the pool, chatting up some other fifteen-year-old, talking about things fifteen-year-olds talk about.
In the moment he’d thought about yelling at Elise, screaming, making a scene, but that would have shown that he was incapable of dealing with the situation, which wasn’t true. And he couldn't look like that in front of an old girlfriend. He was capable. He was an athletic trainer. Two-hundred pounds of muscle, twelve percent body fat. There was a reason people came to him to get into shape.
So, he couldn't make a scene. He had to handle the situation on his own. What was the fifteen-year-old lifeguard going to do anyway? What was Elise going to do? Like always, it was up to him, the man of the situation.
So, Don swam after the kid, propelling himself gracefully through the water with his larger than average arms.
Only upon reaching the kid did he realize he might have made a mistake. In his mind, saving the kid was simple: grab him by the arm and pull him to safety, using his muscular legs to propel them both through the water with ease. But it didn’t turn out to be that simple.
Once the frantically flailing kid had noticed he was there, he’d latched onto Don with frightening strength, pushing Don under in his attempt to stay above the surface of the water. And, despite Don’s tik-tok-influencer physique he'd been unable to keep the kid and himself afloat.
Which is how he arrived at his current situation, several feet below the kid looking upwards at the bright, undulating outline of the child’s body, the sour-salt of chlorine stinging at his nose, mouth, and eyes.
Sunlight came through the water in a rather beautiful fashion, in flickering rays of blinding white, though Don couldn't really appreciate the display.
The kid had one hand on Don's head, one on his shoulder, and his feet on Don's ribcage, like he was trying to shimmy a tree, trying his best to stand on Don and escape the water’s jaws.
Don had to do it, or else they would both drown.
So, he went limp. The kid kicked at him, trying to get a better purchase, but succeeded only in pushing Don deeper underwater. Don went with it, using his powerful arms and legs to push himself and the kid down. So deep in fact that Don’s feet hit the pool floor, and he felt the increase of pressure in his ears.
And the kid continued to hold onto Don. This hadn’t gone to plan either. Don had thought the kid would let go much earlier and try to strike out for the surface on his own, but he just held tight to Don. Bubbles poured out of the kid’s mouth, but it didn't take long for the number of bubbles to diminish, and then only a few pitiful droplets of air escaped the wide, gasping mouth.
The kid's grip loosened, and then Don was free. He pushed hard off the pool floor, straining his disappointing calves, the only part of his physique he wasn’t proud of.
His head broke the surface, and as soon as the water left his ears, he could hear yells and screams, but they all combined into a singular, irrational noise.
The lifeguard's flotation device landed next to him, and upon seeing it Don dove under, grabbed the kid by his hair, and pulled him to the surface, which was a lot easier to do now that the kid was unconscious.
Don grabbed the lifeguard noodle and let them drag him and the kid to safety.
Don's numerous muscles were a lot more useful on solid ground, and he used them in coordination to pull the kid out of the water. Elise and the other ladies stood above him in shock, their arms and bodies blowing about in a wind of anxiety.
Elise was frantic. She touched her motionless son, but in a way that made it seem like she was afraid to touch him.
“Brent! Brent!” She screamed. “What did you do?” Eyes of pain and accusation lanced into Don.
Don frowned. What did he do?
“I saved him,” Don said, defensively.
“Saved him? He's dead. You were supposed to watch him! All you had to do was watch him!”
“He's not dead.” Don bent down and flipped the kid over, then slapped him hard on the back. Nothing happened, and tendrils of panic crept up Don's arms from where his fingertips had touched the kid. He slapped him a few more times, but all this accomplished was a display of jiggling fat.
Elise tried to say something, but all she could get out was a shuddering sob.
Don straightened up and shrugged, taking a few steps back. He felt small, despite his multitude of muscles. The panic infiltrated his chest, merging with a powerlessness at the core of his being.
The fifteen-year-old lifeguard pushed Brent back on his back and started administering CPR.
While Don watched the one kid bounce up and down on the fat kid’s chest, the panic solidified in Don’s own chest, becoming a part of him, perhaps a permanent part. How would he ever live this down? It was going to be in the news probably. How would he get clients after this?
Elise sobbed, taking long ragged breaths. “I thought, maybe—” she gasped, “maybe you were ready.”
One of the other women approached Don and shoved him in the arm. When Don didn’t respond, she shoved him again.
“Hey! Wake the fuck up,” she said. “You know he’s your kid, right?”
“What?” Don asked, but even as he turned his bewildered gaze on the woman the gears in his head spun into motion. Him and Elise had last been together around sixteen years ago, which was about how old the kid was. The kid looked like him, same color hair, same build, same eyes. He’d been a mess when they were together, drugs, alcohol, complex carbohydrates, and her parents had hated him. It wasn’t a stretch to think the whole reason she went to Europe was to get away from him, keep the kid away from him.
The child lying on the wet tile changed, right before Don, like a window had opened in the sky and illuminated him. Brent was still overweight, still annoying, still devious, but he was also funny, energetic, and kind, quick to trust Don and eager for Don’s attention and approval. He was a cute kid, with the chubby cheeks, joyful eyes and contagious laugh.
It wasn't a conscious decision, before Don knew it, he’d shoved the wannabe lifeguard out of the way and began compressing Brent's chest himself. He felt and heard a few cracks and pops as Brent’s ribs snapped, but Don kept pounding his chest. He used everything he had pounding up and down on Brent’s chest. His countless muscle fibers ached.
Brent spluttered, gasped for breath, and vomited, and Don turned him on his side, which caused Elise to dive down to hold Brent, stroking his face, no longer afraid to touch him. “It’s ok honey. It’s ok. It’s ok honey.”
Don leaned back and listened to the sound of his son crying, the sound of Elise crying, the sound of the other women crying, holding each other tightly as they watched Elise and Brent. In that moment it felt like the world was sobbing for joy, exalting in what it meant to be alive. He'd never heard anything quite so beautiful.
