Hey, Thomas, you're back! My best friend Neal's dad up the street had a huge wooden sailboat in his driveway. He wanted to go sailing. People asked him, when he was going to take the boat out. For years. Finally Neal and I asked him too.
Uh-oh.
It had been delivered by a truck, and he had to borrow one to pull it and drag us up to the reservoir. "You used to sail, right?" "You musta had a boat in college. Maybe the dentists had a team. Right?" "Most people learn from their dad's or grandfathers. Is that where you learned?"
I think the incredible, eventual reply, the only fact we could overturn, was that he was in the Navy in WWII.
I made damn sure my life jacket was securely stowed. Never cared much about them before. We got it in the water, which was enough work as far as I was concerned, and headed..... slo-slo-slowly out into the glinty green deep. I looked over the side into the water, following the sun rays down to the lockers. Spirits, seeping up from there.
Names to call things, and people who know what those things are. You need those. Three of us; not one of them. Just having a word like "spar", or even one person who knows it, is not enough. You can shout "Spar!" to yourself. But obviously you don't need to. You know what it is; although it could be boom or some other thing.
Pointing works good. Oh yah. Pointing and yelling works even better.
Mormon dentists don't curse, ya know. Sailors are different.
Some air pushed us out into the middle; he thought that was the beginning; I knew it was misfortune.
He tried to turn left; he should have sailed across and got out. We could have had someone build a road down and come get us. He used the handle on the back and what speed we had to turn us to the shore, he did that pretty good; but then everything was different. Squeaky concertos turned to soccer. We had five minutes or so to turn again. Left, or even right. There was a lot to do. I assumed we'd be doing the right things. You know how they say, about things like Chernobyl, that "This ~ and this; this, this this and this, would have to happen, for that to happen"?
The sagebrush got bigger and bigger, until I could see slimy rocks on the bottom. At least I wasn't going to drown. I could jump out pretty soon if he didn't run me over. "Wait til he hits, then jump" I told myself.
I crouched down to support myself against the rail, and we hit hard against my ribs. We came to a sudden stop. Parts were swinging around to the front. I was used to getting off boats when they came to a stop, and I was ready to jump. But Neal's dad is yelling at me not to get out. This is one of those horrible situations where you have to decide how to inform someone's dad their credibility isn't worth shit anymore. It looked to me like he just didn't want to lose his crew, add abandoned ship, and had no idea if we had any holes or not. Why shouldn't I swim for shore? This was the point at which that could be accomplished.
I didn't. I didn't think I could take leaving him there; the personal cost and the cost in pathos. And leaving Neal there, with him, would be very bad. And I mean what if Neal decided to jump too? Jeez. Just think about it.
Too much drama with dad's around. They should just leave you alone after you're twelve or so.
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