Spider Lake (16 page)

The sound of the air horn giving the all-clear at the camp sent the deranged mongrel into a new tirade. The wind had subsided to a gentle breeze, and once again the surface of the lake was nearly undisturbed. The two of them got back to the task of rowing towards the raft. They watched as the monkey again climbed the water tower. “There’s that monkey again. What do you suppose he is up to?”

“I guess he is drawn to the tower because it looks like a giant set of monkey bars.”

“Maybe he gets tired of terrorizing all the kids at your resort, and he needs something else to do.”

“It doesn’t look like he is playing. Both times he went up the tower, he went exactly the same way. It looks like he is doing something.”

“I wish he would try to ride the hell-hound like he rides your dog. The hell-hound would make mince-meat out of him.”

“Don’t even suggest the two of them together Matt. That would be just what we need, a psycho monkey riding a rabid dog.”

The volume coming from the direction of the camp was getting louder behind them, and Matt stole a glance over his shoulder to see how close they were. Ben lifted his oar and did the same. As he was doing so, out of the corner of his eye, Ben saw a single bright flash coming from the direction of the monkey. It reminded him of a mirror-signal that Tonto might send to the Lone Ranger to warn him of trouble. Ben looked back at the now distant monkey as he descended the water tower. “Maybe he had a piece of glass in his hand.” Ben thought. “I hope he cuts himself with it.” he thought again. Matt interrupted his thought by asking: “Do you think we should anchor here?

“What?”

“Should we drop the anchor?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Matt dropped the cement-filled coffee can into the water with all the finesse of a one-armed, half blind village idiot. Ben didn’t have time to pull his foot from the middle of the coiled rope, and as the anchor sped it’s way towards the lake bottom twenty feet below, his right leg made every effort to go with it. The hemp was giving him a rope burn where his ankle was snagged, and his foot slammed into the side of the boat where Matt was, pinning Matt to the bench seat. Ben looked like an oversized marionette as his body tried to repurchase its balance and liberate itself from the constraints of the rope.

The collective attention of the raft full of young ladies was now fixed entirely on the vaudeville act taking place in the yellow boat not thirty feet away. The pain in Ben’s leg and foot took a back seat to the embarrassment he was now experiencing. Matt almost tripped over Ben twice, trying to free himself from behind Ben’s fettered limb which was doubling as a kind of human seat belt. Once he had both legs free, Matt quickly stood up on his side of the seat, lost his balance, and did a pratfall over the side. The splash focused ninety percent of it’s wet energy on Ben, causing the roar of laughter from the raft to double in intensity.

The girls were now enthralled with the show, rolling in laughter at the two stooges in the nearby boat. The rocking of the boat caused by one of it’s occupants spectacular exit, helped to free the other’s bound leg. Then occupant two re-entered the boat and an argument ensued, which proved to be the final act of the afternoon matinee. The show was over and the raft-audience was cheering and giving it a standing ovation. The cat calls and laughter from the audience were too much for the actors to bear, so they made a speedy exit, only after they struggled pulling the now-stuck anchor free from the rocky bottom of the lake.

“Nice going dweeb! Real normal! How many times have I told you to let the anchor over the side slowly? You have pretty much ruined any chance of us ever showing up anywhere near the raft ever again. The girl scouts will be passing along this story to the brownies for generations. You and I will be hunkered down in some foxhole in Vietnam, and they will still be laughing about us sitting around the campfire. I can picture them already, spraying hot chocolate out their noses and choking on their S’mores.”

“Aw come on Ben, aren’t you exaggerating just a little bit? So they had a laugh at your expense. What’s the big deal? You know how girls are. They can’t hold their attention on any one thing for too long. They will forget all about you getting caught in the anchor rope. Two slumber-parties from now and you will no longer even be on their radar. They will be talking about more important things like— who is cuter, Bobby Sherman or Davy Jones. Let’s just drop our lines and forget about the whole thing.”

“Easy for you to say. I noticed you didn’t include yourself as being part of the joke, and you were the one who caused it.”

“They were laughing at me too Ben. I could hear their laughter even when I was underwater. They were laughing at me when I fell in. Come on Ben, I said I was sorry.”

Ben didn’t hold a grudge. Staying mad at someone was never a thing he struggled with. He harassed Matt every now and then, calling him an anchor technician or something similar just to goad him. His leg came out pretty much unscathed with the exception of a minor rope burn on his ankle. After a while the two of them could see the humor of the incident. It was hard to believe that an anchor rope could incapacitate two boys at one time. Later that afternoon they heard the blast of the air horn again, signaling the girl scouts to prepare for dinner.

en opened his eyes. He was roused from sleep by the tap-tapping sound of a soft rain on the tent surface. Somewhere in the vicinity a skunk had released his foul smelling spray on a would-be attacker. “Maybe it was hit by a car.” he laid there thinking. Looking up at the translucent tent fabric, he realized it was still pitch black outside. He groped around the tent for the shoe which contained the ipod and his wallet. He opened the power on the device. The date and time app read two-forty-five. According to the app, the sun would not be up until five twenty-three.

He liked the sound of the rain on the tent and the trees. The light gusts that accompanied the rain made the forest trees rustle, a sound that he had always loved as a boy. His body was also trying to get his attention. It was a bit displeased with the sleeping arrangement. Each of his hips and shoulders were complaining about the thickness of his Ensolite foam pad. He pictured riding his sport bike with a Serta Perfect Sleeper mattress strapped to his back. The thought made him smile.

It occurred to him that this was the second night in a row of which he hadn’t had the dream. Off from the direction of the bar, he heard a loud metallic bang. He knew the sound. It was the sound of a garbage can lid falling and hitting a paved surface. He guessed it was a raccoon and had he looked, he would have found out that he was correct. Even farther off in the distance, he could hear the tell-tale yelping of a pack of coyotes. A large dog barked it’s lone reply.

He rolled over on his side. The hip and shoulder on the active side complained once again. He guessed he would be black and blue from the less than perfect sleeping arrangement, and hoped that he could be in a cabin the next night. He wondered if Spider Lake Resort was still operative. Maybe the owners were technically challenged and hadn’t marked themselves on the Google Map. The tap-tapping of the rain crescendoed to a constant hiss as it increased.

The sound of the rain that had originally roused him, now aided in his falling back asleep. As he slept, he dreamed about the Jeep-man. He was back in the bar. The Jeep-man challenged him to play a game of cut-throat. He was so close that Ben could smell his breath. It had the sickly sweet smell of hard liquor mixed with a bad case of halitosis. He asked the Jeep-man who the third man was going to be, and the Jeep-man moved aside to show Ben the third player. It was Sam Regola. He was smiling at Ben with a mouth full of gold teeth. Above him was Morris the monkey swinging wildly like a Spielberg gremlin from the swag lamp above the table, creating a carnival-like craziness with the dancing light.

Ben turned and looked again out the darkened bar window. A thunderstorm had started and lightening was striking the light pole above the dock, throwing down a rain of sparks and shattering the windows of the nearby moored boats. Debris was flying in every direction. Jeep-man was still insisting that Ben throw a dollar down on the table. There was another flash of lightning with a simultaneous deafening crack of thunder. A white plastic deck chair flew into the bar window, sending shards of glass flying inward. Crack! Another flash of lightning entered the bar window, hitting Jeep-man in the head and setting his hair on fire. He pulled a Bass Pro Shops cap from his back pocket, and put it on to extinguish the flames. He was laughing. Crack, Boom!

Ben woke with a start. The tent was shaking violently. The wind was blowing and with every gust, the rain-noise increased. Crack! There was lightning striking from every direction of the compass. With every strike, Ben’s horizontal body jumped vertically from the adrenaline. One bolt that fell nearby could be measured in width through the translucency of the tent.

Ben thought about making a run for the shower house, but could not bring himself to do it, choosing to take his chances in the tent.

“After all,” he thought. “I am low to the ground.”

He tried to picture in his mind’s eye if there was any metal nearby. He did a mental inventory. The tent poles were fiberglass.

“Was fiberglass a conductor? No. The manufacturer would surely have thought of that.”

The motorcycle was metal but it had rubber tires— Crack! The picnic table had a metal framework— Crack Boom! He thought for sure he was going to be lit up like a Christmas tree by a bolt of lightning. He pictured himself as a skeleton riding a bike. Even in a thunderstorm and totally unprotected, those old ridiculous jokes of his childhood re-entered his mind.

The storm passed. He had survived. He climbed out of the tent door and stretched. There were leaves and small limbs scattered all over the campground. The storm continued to rumble off in the east. Ben grabbed his pouch of toiletries from his bike bag and made a bee-line for the shower house. His bladder was very unhappy. He had to pee like a Russian racehorse or an Arabian pony. “Where did these cliches come from?” he asked himself.
 
He guessed probably at the race track.

After washing and brushing his teeth, Ben left the shower house. When he was far enough from the cement-block building, he could smell the sweet, earthy fragrance of the wet forest all around him. The air had been washed clean by the storm and it was crystal-clear outside with unlimited visibility. The birds were singing and he watched as they denuded the paved camp road of the many red-worms that had decided to take refuge on the asphalt. A red squirrel barked at him as he passed under it, and he wondered what the little guy was trying to say.

Back at the site, he raised the tent stakes and shook the still-assembled tent to hasten it drying. He replaced a couple stakes so it wouldn’t blow away. He wanted a cup of coffee so he walked up the hill to the convenience store.

“Hell of a storm last night. Did you stay dry?”

“Yeah, my tent has been only used once, and it is very low to the ground, so I rode the storm out high and dry. Have you heard the weather?”

“Yep, a carbon copy of yesterday. A possibility of an afternoon thunderstorm.”

“When do I have to clear out? I was wondering if I could leave the tent up to dry. I may even stay another night.”

“No worries Mister Fisher. We don’t often fill up on Tuesdays. If you decide to stay another night, just come by later and let us know. If you are late, and we see that you are still there, we will bill your debit card.”

“How much for the coffee?”

“One free cup for campers. Ninety-nine cents for the second cup.”

“One other thing. Can you recommend a decent place for breakfast?”

“We have two McDonalds restaurants three blocks apart from each other in town.”

“I am looking for something more local, a mom and pop greasy spoon.”

“There is a place in town called The Silver Dollar Cafe on Stevens Street. They make a mean omelette. You can’t miss it going through town.”

“Thanks.”

Ben loaded all but his tent back into his bags and headed up Lincoln Street in the direction of town. He thought he might remember some of the sights, but only vaguely remembered Hodag Park on the shores of Boom Lake. He had almost forgotten the ridiculous legend of the Hodag, a mythical creature dreamed up by the locals to boost tourism after the timber was all cut. He rolled north on Crystal Lake Road to where it met Spider Lake Road. He stopped the bike, and walked up the street.

This was his old neighborhood, the one he remembered. There was Mogg’s Store, where his mother would send him for missing ingredients. He remembered the two registers where the store clerks pounded away at the keys, adding up the value of the sale, putting the slip in an envelope which held his Mother’s tab. Now the place was closed. The signage which was still in place revealed that it had last been a combination liquor store
 
and adult video emporium.

Ben walked along the empty street. On his left, was the music store where he
 
had bought his first album, Magical Mystery Tour by the Beatles. He remembered that he had brought the album to Matt’s and listened to it over and over on the Close-n-Play in Matt’s half-basement which was the family rec-room.