Fish Lake Oddyssey; Un Novellette

Whenever Randall thought of Fish Lake, he thought of the trees, lots of them, crowding against the shore as if they were about to jump in, like pilgrims at the banks of the Ganges, or Ganghes, or however it's spelled. But they didn't jump in - they were trees, and were hardly about to start moving around, why did he have such thoughts?

The trees also reminded him of the time that he'd been out on the lake with his father and had to go do his natural thing, and when he told his father his father couldn't believe it, and sighed and looked up at the sky for some kind of sign, maybe for an angel to descend out of the sky and hover over their boat and tell him that it was all right if he wanted to hold his son over the edge of the boat and let him do his natural thing into the lake, nobody was watching... But no angel came down and his father grumped and told his older brother Rick to pull in his line, and his older brother Rick cried "What? Why?" and when he heard why he lunged across the boat to slug Randall in the arm and their father squawked and tried to karate chop Rick's arm and missed and stumbled and hurt his shin on one of the planks they had to sit on and he made a sound like a tire hissing and then he took off his hat to smite Rick and missed and caught his thumb in one of the little hooks in his fisherman's hat just like the TV show dads.

"Ga-Ah-Ah!...Rick!" he hissed between his teeth. "Just pull in the line!"

They pulled in their lines and then their father picked some things up and put them down in other places, and moved his tackle box, and manuevered their fishing poles around and shook his head and grumbled and picked up one of the fishing poles and put it down somewhere else and he told Rick to sit back down and he told Randall to move a little left and Randall looked at him and he told him to move again and Randall moved right and their father told him to move back and he leaned backward and their father made a sound like a tire hissing and told him to just stay where the hell he was and then he told Rick to sit back down and he made Rick move the cooler down below his seat and then he told Randall to hold on and he crouched by the motor and unhooked something and pulled something down lower out a little and then he pulled on the cord and the motor didn't start so he did it a few more times, and his hat fell off and his hair stood up in a manner undignified for a man with receding hair and Randall tried very hard to stifle a laugh and Rick hit him and the motor started for just a second and then it stopped and Rick stood up again and told their father that he had to choke it and their father suggested something else he could choke and told him to sit back down. But he did apparently choke it because then the motor started and he revved it up and checked something and told Rick to sit down and told Randall to hold on and the boat started off with the motor revving and roaring like they were going 100 miles and hour but they were doing about 15 but Randall found it thrilling and enjoyed the spray of water but only too soon their father let the motor die down and they drifted.

Randall could see the trees of the East shore only twenty yards away, slowly drifting closer and closer. Their father had a paddle out and was sweating and huffing and splashing and the boat moved very slowly toward the trees.

As they approached the trees and the shore, Rick let fly a remark suggesting the possibility that there might be bears in the trees, and suggested Randall carry a couple rocks in with him.
"There's no bears," their father said, gasping and panting. The approaching trees took on a looming, darkening aspect as Randall considered the possibility of the bears. They were a few yards from the shore when Randall suggested that he'd rather go use the bathrooms in the lodge. Their father responded by swatting Rick with his own baseball hat, an impressive maneuver that caught both boys by surprise by its misdirection.

"Rick! Go with him!"

Their father clambered up to the front of the boat and hopped into the shallow water and held the boat by a rope and told Rick to climb onto a nearby rock and Rick clambered onto the rock and Randall asked if he could move the boat around the rock so that he could hop onto the shore and his father assured him that they couldn't and told him to climb out and Rick shouted for Randall to hurry and Randall asked if they could move around to the other side and his voice took on a higher pitch that signified panic and his father spoke soothingly and held out his free hand to give him a boost and Randall ended up clambering onto his father's back and putting a shoe into his kidney and scrabbled onto the rock and up the slope to where Rick had already turned and started into the bushes and told Randall to go over to the other bushes and no he couldn't use the same bush and Randall found a bush and began to do his natural thing and looked up and could see another fishing boat clearly through a gap in the trees about twenty yards away.

Now adult, Randall smiled and sighed at the memory and shook his head when Captain Lance asked him what was so funny and tugged on his pole a little and looked out over the lake and dug on the natural beauty all around him and reflected on the bittersweetness of memory and the past and time and smiled at the First Mate and the other Passenger tossed back another big gulp of his Cold One and realized that now all of the sudden he had to do his natural thing.