Spider Lake (14 page)

“Why don’t you make yourself useful and go catch some grass hoppers instead of sitting there flapping your jaw? Better yet, go bail out the boat, or get some crawlers out of the compost bin.”

“I would much rather watch you paint my man. It’s inspiring. Kinda like watching Leonardo paint the Sixteen Chapel.”

“It’s Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel you dweeb.”

“Sixteen Sistine whatever, which boat you want me to bail?”

“Number six, it’s the one I was in when I caught the huge musky.”

“You didn’t catch that fish. You just had it up to the boat. That doesn’t count.”

“Bee Ess Matt. I could have easily landed her if I had a net big enough. She was tired out, and if she hadn’t seen me passing the pole to Mister Regola I might have even landed her by hand.”

“No way Ben, you said you wouldn’t even put your hand in the water. Heck, you’re afraid to even go swimming ever since you seen that little guppy. Hey turn up the radio, I like this song.”

Ben turned up the radio. The Beatles were singing Hello,Goodbye. “You say “Yes”, I say “No”. You say “Stop” and I say “Go, go, go”

Matt sprung to his feet. “All right, I’ll go bail out number six.”

“Keep your eyes peeled for the evil little fur ball. The last time I saw the little turd he was riding my dog in the clearing.”

“I bet all the adults were fawning over how cute the little fuzzy wuzzy Roy Rogers was.”

“Yeah, they always do. And what’s worse is, I can’t get anywhere near my own dog any more unless he’s inside the house. Every time I go to pet him the little jungle rat goes bonkers. It’s even worse if there are no grown-ups around. Then he jumps on your head and bites your ears. There was a girl here last week named Cathy that went to pet Bo, and the little fur-ball jumped on her head and took a dump in her hair.”

“Is that right? And she didn’t even tell her folks?”

“No, she was too embarrassed. She didn’t want to catch it from her older sister, and the turd was so dry that it just rolled off her head. No evidence, no crime. That Morris is one two-faced psycho little monkey. You see how he acts when big people are around? I swear he knows what he is doing.”

Matt picked up the plastic bat which was leaning against the picnic table and began to make his way down the embankment towards the dock. He turned around and walked backwards holding the bat by its handle and swinging it into his open hand. “That’s why I carry the whiffle bat whenever I come over. I would rather have a croquet mallet, but I would probably kill the little lint-ball, and your old man would be pissed. A whiffle bat a day keeps the furry menace away.” He laughed as he turned around again and walked the path downward towards the lake. His laughter stopped abruptly and turned into what started as a
 
kind of half wail, and ended as a shriek. Ben dropped the brush he was holding and ran towards the boat dock. When he rounded cabin six to where Matt was, he could see why his friend had shouted.

There on the dock was Morris, the mangled carcasses of dead frogs were scattered all around him, his face and torso stained red with amphibian blood. The crazed monkey was pulling leopard frogs out of the live well one by one, rolling them on the dock, then biting into the out-stretched creatures. The frogs being rolled on the dock under the monkey’s bloody hands reminded Ben of a twisted psycho baker rolling his unholy dough. The monkey would then hold the frogs with head in one hand and webbed feet in the other, and eat the poor amphibians like some kind of bloody corn on the cob.
 

Ben yelled at the monkey and then picked up a rock and threw it, missing the animal by several feet. The monkey just sneered at the boys with his bloody teeth, throwing another mutilated frog over his shoulder like some kind of pint-sized hairy Roman centurion at a feast.

Both boys were now throwing any available objects they could find, hoping to tag the bloody creature and possibly save the remaining green inmates still imprisoned on death row in the live well. The projectiles began getting closer to their mark as the boys improved their aim, finally causing the monkey to take flight, snarling at them as he loped up the bank towards the clearing.

The two of them were speechless. Shaking his head, Ben grabbed a broom and swept the carcasses off the dock and into the water.

“I guess we can’t keep the frogs we catch in the live well any more. Did you see the little fur ball rolling them out on the dock Ben? What do you suppose he was rolling them for?”

“Maybe to keep them from jumping. I don’t know. What do I look like, a monkey expert? I’m going to go put away the painting stuff Matt. Do me a favor. When you bail the boat out, use the water from the bucket to rinse the guts off the dock would you?”

“Sure man.”

“And make sure there aren’t any frogs left in that live well. I’ll get some bait and be right back.”

“That creepy monkey keeps getting creepier. Just when you think you have seen it all, the nasty little thing ups the ante.”

“Let’s just get out of here and go fishing Matt. I’m tired of talking about Morris.”

The boys were soon out on the lake, far away from the bloody menace at the resort. They took turns rowing towards the west end of the lake where Ben had fought his now legendary fish. They were not in a hurry. The day was beginning to grow very hot and humid. Prime fishing time had already passed, so they cooled off by jumping into the cool water. They could hear far-away laughter coming from the girl scout camp. The girls were throwing each other off the raft.

“Hey Ben, you want to go over there?”

“What for? You know we’re not allowed.”

“If we were on that raft, we would own it.”

“No doubt.”

“Let’s go clear the raft just one time.”

“We are just going to get kicked out.”

“Come on man. We’ll leave as soon as we throw them all in.”

“Okay Matt, we row over there to get a closer look, but if there aren’t any cute girls, we bail. The mission is aborted. I’m not risking getting in trouble for pushing any skinny pimply faced red-heads, or tinsel-toothed Bertha Butts off the raft. If we get there and you go anyway like last time, I will start rowing and you can swim back or take your chances crossing Rule property. I mean it.”

The boys each took an oar and pulled in unison, slowly propelling the wooden rental boat further west and slightly north towards the Girl Scout camp. They were in no hurry, both rowing at a leisurely pace, often veering off course because one or the other was not pulling his oar the same as the other. They would have splash-fights with the oars when they needed to cool off and sometimes the boat would make a full three hundred and sixty degree turn because one of the boys would row backwards to annoy the other, ending in yet another splash melee.

As the old saying goes, the boys handling of the rental boat would have broken the back of any snake. They had been horsing around and not seriously rowing for about an hour, and were no nearer to their intended destination than when they started. A sudden and almost imperceptible north breeze began to riffle the lake’s surface and push the boat slowly southward, causing even more difficulty in steering, and on one occasion when the bow of the boat should have been facing northwest but was actually facing due north, the boys spotted the monkey climbing the old Rule water tower.

“There’s that blood-sucking hairy fur-ball climbing the tower. Man, I wish I had my father’s twenty-two. I would love to pluck off a shot at him from here. I bet I could nail him in one shot.”

“Dream on Matt. You couldn’t hit him from here in one shot even if you were the only surviving long lost blood-relative of Annie Oakley herself. You would be lucky to hit him in ten shots with this breeze.”

“It would be a blast to see his reaction to the bullets ricocheting all around him though. I bet that bloody sneer would be wiped off his little face.”

“Well, I guess if we are going to daydream about blowing the monkey away, I would rather have an anti-tank bazooka. One pull of the trigger and Morris’ little bits and pieces would be feeding that musky I almost caught for at least two weeks, and that eye-sore of a tower would be fish structure.”

In the time it took the boys to fantasize about the many ways of killing Morris the monkey, he climbed from the lower iron framework to the top of the wooden tank and then over it and he disappeared from their view.

The breeze stiffened to a gust which upset the surface of the lake enough to turn the riffles into waves, and the first faint rumblings of thunder of a distant storm could be heard from off to the south and west.

en was right about his hunch that the dream would stop. He slept the whole night through in utter blackness devoid of any thought. When the alarm woke him at five in the morning, he felt as if he had just gone to sleep. He thought about the previous day, how so much had changed. He and Jill had felt some kind of deep connection and even though they did not speak of it again, they both felt that their love for each other had increased because of it.

They had such a great afternoon at the park sipping wine from Dixie cups, and snacking on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. They sat and laid on their blanket, and when they weren’t being interrupted by the twins, they talked mostly about the good times. Their cares of foreclosure and poverty seemed somehow smaller to them both, and when they finally went to bed, they fell asleep in each other’s arms, something they had not done for a long time.

Ben packed his saddle bags while Jill made the coffee. He brought only a few extra clothes, his sleeping bag, his rain gear, and his one-man tent just in case he couldn’t rent a cabin. He thought about packing his lap-top for e-mail, but decided against it, choosing only to bring his cell phone and one of the twin’s ipods. Back in the day when he was still employed, he had fortuitously purchased a helmet equipped with great speakers. He would listen to his music during the time he was riding. He was glad that his sport-bike was not nearly as loud as the Harley’s that so many yuppies were posing on.

Jill walked into the attached garage carrying two cups of coffee.

“Good morning Sparticus, coffee?”

She smiled at him and held out a cup. He smiled back. He thought about the first time she had called him that, how they had both laughed. He smiled as he took a sip of the coffee. “Rocket fuel this morning.” He thought to himself. He loved Jill.

“All packed?”

“I think so. I just need to get my tooth brush.”

“Have some cereal before you go. I’ll make it the way you like it. Then you can say goodbye to the boys. You already said goodbye to the girls.”

She smiled again. He smiled back.

Ben fired up the Honda CBR and put on his helmet. He loved the tight sound of the engine, the agile feel of the frame. He was fifty-five and riding a crotch-rocket, the next-best thing to flying an airplane, which he had once done when he was single and had plenty of money to spare. Jill never liked the idea of his flying light aircraft. She never even seen him fly. She didn’t like his riding a motorcycle either, but she had accepted it over time. He tipped his helmet to her and revved his engine twice as if to say goodbye. She blew him an imaginary kiss and the twins waved. He pressed the play button on the ipod. It was in shuffle mode and the first song to play was “Thrasher” by Neil Young. Perfect song to start his ride. He waved back at the twins and accelerated the bike quickly to thirty miles an hour. He was still in first gear as he rounded the corner.

He decided that he would take back roads all the way north. He would navigate by the sun. He knew that it would take him much longer, but seeing the back road scenery would far outweigh his loss of time. He had done his share of highway riding, where every truck stop, every restaurant, and every store were cookie-cutter corporate franchises. Not for him. He would take his chances at the mom-and-pop places long forgotten by the interstate crowd. He would gladly ride through small towns at thirty miles an hour. He was in no hurry. He pointed his bike north with the eastern sun just beginning to warm his right shoulder.

As he traveled, his thoughts were dominated by images and sounds of Spider Lake and his childhood. Would it look the same, or would it be totally different? He envisioned the resort, the gravel roads, Nerroth’s Spot Light, Mogg’s Store, the Rule estate. Would his memories be forever changed by seeing all his childhood haunts through the eyes of an adult? Would it all seem to be smaller than he remembered? He hoped not, but he thought it would.

He rode along the secondary roads up and through the Kettle Moraine forest, then headed in a northwest direction only stopping once to take a ferry across Lake Wisconsin in Merrimac. As he rode, he passed through towns with names such as Portage, Montello, Wautoma, Waupaca, Ringle, Antigo and Pelican Lake. It was late evening when he stopped at a campground in a place called Lake George. He decided he would finish the short ride to Spider Lake in the morning.

Ben pulled into the gravel driveway of the camp office which doubled as a convenience store. A baby blue Jeep Wrangler stripped to the bone with what looked like two young couples pulled in along side of him from the direction of the campground. He could hear their loud radio over the sound of his engine. He could feel the bass notes. “They will all be deaf by the time they are my age.” He thought to himself.