“Drown” has something of a dual narrative. On it’s surface, it describes the end of a friendship over matters of sexual experimentation; underneath it’s surface, it documents the narrators uncertainty and anxiety over his own future, only further exacerbated by his friend Beto’s advances and the confusion it causes him.

In the first two parts of the story, the narrator explains his reluctance to talk to Beto by simply stating that he’s become a “pato”, and therefore is no longer worthy of his association. Unlike simple-minded bigotry (which tends to incite more anger), the narrator simply states it as a matter-of-fact, foreshadowing that he knows this because of first-hand experience. Despite his nonchalant attitude, we immediately go on to see how close he and Beto were: “we were raging then, crazy the way we stole, broke windows, the way we pissed on people’s steps and then challenged them to come out and stop us”. This close friendship is only further brought to prominence by the narrator’s home life, with his quiet, paranoid, and long-suffering mother. The description of their relationship evokes feelings of isolation; along with his absentee father, the implication is that Beto and his mother are the two closest people to the narrator. But in losing Beto to his own discomfort and his mother’s emotional availability to his father’s infidelity, the narrator doesn’t quite have anyone left.

This is only made more miserable when we take into account the narrator’s prospects for the future (or lack-there-of). He is accosted by a military recruiter, who tries to entice him into joining by reminded him of all the things he lacks, and will likely never have (in his words, “a house, a car, a gun and a wife”). And later in the story, towards the end, the narrator mentions a teacher at his highschool very frankly saying that he doesn’t believe most of his students will make anything of themselves; the narrator wholly applies this to himself, believing that he has no prospects in life.

His lack of emotional support, coupled with his bleak future, casts an extremely bleak overcast over the entire story. The narrator is speaking to us, and yet, he could be anyone with a similar set of circumstances. Knowing that the narrators situation is not especially unique is what brings both of these components home.