“Gooooo, Patrick!” I couldn’t scream loud enough! But just as I did, Patrick caught the tip of his ski in a particularly gnarly wave, tried bravely to hold his course, but quickly succumbed to the forces of nature, and wiped out in spectacular fashion! The only saving grace was that Gilbert also splashed down, face first, just as he was looking back and taunting Patrick (which nobody, but nobody, gets away with!).
Now both boats had to maneuver back to quickly gather their carnage and change skiers, and I was up next! I quickly dived in and swam past Patrick giving him a wet high-five en route to the tow rope’s yellow, bobbing handle. Tugging on my ski-boot and adjusting it, I could already hear Tommy revving the engine and the calls to hurry! Believe me, I was. Just before giving a thumbs up, I heard the other boat cheering to hit it, glimpsed the shooting spray of water, and knew I was already behind.
“Just goooooooooooo!” (To hell with “hit it!”)
I’m not gonna fib. It was absolutely exhilarating, but ridiculously scary. I had never skied so far out, let alone with so many white caps tossing me about pretty good (that meant bad) as I tried to maintain my equilibrium. Looking around, we had gathered several followers, at least five or six boats checking out curious action. It felt like the world was watching, and I felt the enormous weight of it squarely on my shoulders. I started having flashbacks. Just lean back and relax, Jimmyrocket. I kept telling myself, “Just lean back and relax…” and slowly my confidence gained as I swished back and forth attacking the wake and flying over waves, and before long, we had taken the lead!
I’d like to say we won it right there. That I made it all the way to Wings Neck and back in first place and was hailed a hero by hordes of exuberant fans but, once again you see, there was an incident…
I crashed into it. Well, Tommy swerved to miss it, and then I crashed. I would like to go on record saying I wouldn’t have crashed if I had seen it, but I didn’t, so I did. A friggin lobster pot. Beast of a thing. A wooden sculpture for cripes’ sake. An intricate spider-web of a contraption designed for the very destruction of mankind, I was certain! Bla, bla, flippin’ bla. I plowed right into its trap door, immediately jettisoning three or four lobsters in the air, while entangling my entire ski in black, coarse, unforgiving nylon. The result was rather predictable;
“Jimmyfrickinrocket, what the hell are you doiiiiing out there, trying to beat these guys, or get yourself killed? Get in here fast; you’re driving.” And with that Tommy tossed the keys onto his seat and dived in. By then we were losing by a lot, and I was feeling pretty down in the dumps, when he looked back and added, the way only Tommy could: “Put the pedal to the metal, boys; we’ve got a race to win!!”
With those few words, once again he no longer was our tough-guy friend barking out orders to his cohorts, oh no, in that moment he was much more, he was;
Knute Rockne spurring on his Fighting Irish, Vince Lombardi firing up The Packers in a halftime speech, Red Auerbach pleading on the Celt’s to another championship, or perhaps more apropos, General George S. Patton commanding his Seventh United States Army!
Point being, he said, “Jump,” and we said, “How high!”
Ok then, right, we had a race to win.
“Hittt Ittttttttttttt!” (But this time don’t actually hit anything!)
We never got to complete the race. On the way back from Wings Neck, just as we were about to overtake The Jackson’s Boat (“Don’t Tread on Me”), we caught a sight of blue flashing lights quickly heading our way, unfortunately attached to The Harbor Master’s vessel, a boat we knew all too well.
Turn out the lights, the party’s ovah!
We really didn’t get in too much trouble. I don’t think we were actually breaking any maritime codes, but Tommy and the older Jackson Brother received written warnings and we were all on the hearing end of a lengthy boating-safety lecture. The good news was they didn’t tell our parents, and I didn’t throw up.
Strange thing about that day. We had fun. I mean a lot of fun. Like, all together, and they did too. Now, don’t tell the Memorial Beach kids this, but they were like, you know, regular kids. Dare I say, just like us? Kinda cool.
Well, you certainly didn’t hear that from me!
As if we hadn’t had enough excitement for the day, that night Crazy Eddie decided to “accidently” blow up the glass-enclosed, payphone booth that sat outside the clubhouse. You know, just for kicks. Because Eddie Haskell thought it was funny.
In his latest moment of ill-conceived inspiration (one of many), this time it occurred to Eddie that should he simply insert a powerful, M-80 firecracker into the coin slot of said phone, he could liberate a veritable windfall of loose change... money straight from heaven, jackpot, winner winner chicken dinner. He tried in vain to gather others to participate in the lame-brain stunt, I for one refrained on account of actually liking my fingers, but we stuck around just close enough to get a birds-eye view of the upcoming fireworks. The problem came about as a result of Ed having clumsily fumbled with a cigarette lighter while trying to light an overly short fuse with inflexible stubby fingers.
The results were resoundingly spectacular, I’ll give him that.
Crazy Eddie blew the booth, phone, coins, a plastic seat, and everything else with it sky high, nearly killing himself in the process. The explosion sent flying chunks of charred glass (real glass, the old kind) everywhere. The booth practically blasted off into a fiery orbit. It was spewing charred plastic. Eddie rolled away from harm, a mere scrape on his forearm, somehow all his body parts intact, laughing his dumb, dumb, stupid, silly ass off. It was astonishing! Having quickly verified that Crazy Eddie had miraculously survived, the rest of our crew scattered in every direction that didn’t involve being anywhere near here!
We more-than-promptly got the hell out of Dodge, in what looked like a jailbreak or house-on-fire, complete with lots of hoots and hollers from the fleeing inmates!
And yes, once again the Bourne Police would pay a visit to the island, which had, frankly, become their second home, in pursuit of teenagers they would never catch. Man, what a day!
Chapter 61
Swim
The summer was winding down, and everything felt different, as you would expect after two murders! Mashnee folks were on high alert and suspicious of everyone and everything (especially unknown renters!), for a while. Parents were all over us, going from laissez-faire to strict-as-nails in a hurry. Curfews and parental check-ins were back in vogue, and for a while there were many more questions (of us teens) than answers. But us kids still thought it was the coolest summer ever and weren’t about to let our final two weeks fade away without having some more entertainment, but maybe the kind, you know, without any murders.
The tough guys that we were!
It was Wednesday, as signified by the “Weenie Roast Tonight” cardboard sign haphazardly hung outside the clubhouse, so we would be having some fine dining that night! Kids were out playing everywhere (albeit with their parents close at hand), their squeals of joy penetrating ears island-wide, mostly pleasant but sometimes spiking beyond annoying, as kids do, while their parents sipped on the last of their creamy iced coffees, or frosty Coke-a-Colas swimming in a cold mug, or in some cases, chilled adult libations complete with little blue and green umbrellas afloat at the brim, each and every vacationer seemingly without a pause or care in the world.
The sounds of the day were typical as well. Calm. The rhythmic clanging of buoys anchored and affixed in Phinney’s Harbor. The orchestrated “mew” of (too many) seagulls flying overhead hoping for human scraps to snack on, then dive bombing into the sea, their beady eyes focused on the tasty array of clams and seafood tantalizingly submerged just below.
The startling interruption of revved engines and overused air horns robustly blown from speeding skiffs as they buzzed around the harbor and beyond, many with teenagers at the helm showing off to draw attention to their boating skills, or in several cases, lack thereof, for all on the beach to see.
And of course, the effervescent chatter of vacationers, most of whom were sitting or straddling a lounge chair, with feet dug securely into the hot sand, perhaps flashes of a big toe popping through now and again to say “hi.” And did I mention not a cloud in the sky? This is what summers are meant for, and I’m sure if you had interviewed everyone on the beach before what happened, they would have conveyed their utter joy and happiness that comes with vacationing on good ole Cape Cod, and of course, this stretch of paradise in particular.
Peaceful. Picturesque. Perfect.
So, like I said, this day seemed no different than any other lazy summer day on Mashnee (although, admittedly this summer wasn’t like any other), coming before or after this day, until suddenly, it wasn’t.
I happened to be hanging out on the beach with Alison and my folks, my dad taking a rare full week off from work, my body still banged up from the now infamous cottage chase, when all of a sudden the normal swell of summer sound seemed to take on a disconcerting tone, quickly growing into a wailing, hysterical cry, and then, spine-chilling screams of abject terror!!
“Somebody. Please! Help! SOMEBODY!! HELP!!! HELP!!! My little girl is missing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“Where’s my babyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“HEEELLLP…!!!”
Everybody stopped and started looking around. What the hell was going on? Who was screeching? Where was the lady? And where was what little girl?
The air was now physically textured with layer upon layer of panic. You could not only hear it; you could feel it as well, the hairs on my arms and the nape of my neck now standing at full freaked-out attention, with my stomach totally prepared to roll over and upchuck.
Then everyone started running toward the water’s edge. So we did too.
