6:45 p.m.-
Pitcher
number 6 is feigning indifference to the runner at second. The sun is a
starburst orange haze hovering above the far shore. Puffs of dust are floating
sideways above the outfield grass as runners at first and second take tip-toe
advances and taunt pitcher, whose "6" looks more like "8,"
from a dark dirty smudge. Mothers and neighbors are shouting baseball tips from
blankets along the hillside. Two toddlers are quarreling over a vacant stroller
that one wants to push down the slope and the other wants to too, but after
first giving it a cargo of wilted dahlia blossoms.
Beyond the ball diamond a speedboat tows an inner tube in silhouette
on a coppery terry-cloth lake. Number 6 throws a strike. The hillside likes
it. Outfielders and base runners lope in toward the dugouts. On the lake,
rope is coiled as a young boy towels himself dry. Then he runs to the bow
and dives back into the water. A hometown batter "plinks" a hit
through a gap between first and second and spectators cheer, a woman stands
and hollers, "Take second, Travis!" Travis rounds first, optimistically
pounding toward second, then skids up a cloud of powder and dives back with
one hand. He stands palming dust from his thighs then stares toward the hillside
and makes an ugly face at a Mom-ish type person.
At
the boat ramp an early-teens girl is standing back just off the dock, waiting
for a grownup to show signs of intelligence and finish stowing his boat. She
has arrived at an age of keen self-awareness and is not sure what to do with
her arms and the hands attached to their ends. Or how two anomalous feet ought
to pose--either crossed at the ankles or slightly apart with the toe of the
right nudging a puddle. But it makes no matter, she believes she's doltish, and
making up for a pretty appearance is a job she knows she'll not win.
A
small 30-year old speedboat just departed the dock with a man a young boy (who
knows how God intended baseball caps to be worn: brim toward the front). The
motor at this speed is creating the timeless illusion that it, and the whole rear
end of the boat are submerging because the lake appears poised to surge in. An
elderly lady dressed in shorts and a pastel pink blouse under a frizzy white
helmet of hair sits watching the scene at a picnic table by shore. Her right
leg is propped up on the seat, hands clasped around it, just below the knee.
Just a few minutes past eight, it is the cooling end of a very hot
early June day when the sun stays up late. A whole town full of people seems
to have come here tonight, to cool off and rest and relish no-cost sights.
There is no hurry to be seen, ease about life and skating on thin ice has
evaporated in the heat and no one looks mean.
The
woman at the table arises and smoothes voluminous old lady shorts down over her
knees, walks to the shore, hands on hips, and stands watching the water. No
more, no less. And that is everything tonight.
Criss-crossing
water trails curve up and away bright from the boat-launching ramp where
drip-draining trailers and boats have dribbled some of the dusty pink lake. Some
of the long rivery runlets at the boat landing are where boat owners stopped to
secure lines and make everything ship-shape. Too, it's where at least one of
the crew squatted out of sight and poured forth a cooped-up bladdery brew.
A
roar of fan involvement erupts at the ball diamond, a home run or bad call;
OOPS, a dog with no tail and a limp is running loose.
A
pretty young woman wearing short shorts and a crop of wild black hair is
fast-walking a leash on a dog--who is wildly intent on escaping to greet a
quacking pack of ducks and a tiny white Pomeranian, pooping on the dock. Young
woman is at a converse lean to the dog's 45-degree pull toward the west,
creating perfect offsetting tensions. Wouldn't it be funny if the rope broke?
The sun has lowered to within an inch or
two above the tree line; a silvery band of cloud bisecting it, heavy assault
clouds muscling up from beneath.
Now tiny white dog is getting its rear end dipped in the lake by a
pair of girls about eight. And I am not kidding, yipping in pig-Yiddish the
dog wants no part of what's happening to it, kick-clawing the air and yapping
its nostrils. One girl is coaxing the other to "get that shit off her
leg," then, "Eew-for-gross, it's diarrhea."
So,
the other one in charge shoves the whole dog down under and compromises a final
loud "yelp" into a glubby terrorized "ybbbb." The dog is
drawn out--four legs kicking like fifty--and set on the ramp sneezing. Younger
girl master, who has been mostly observing, becomes indignant about
mistreatment and shoves the other girl against the pier at her back. Perturbed
herself, by a show of impunity by a junior co-member of immaturity on the
loose, the first girl drops the dog rein--shouting "hell with you."
Dog shakes itself loose of three leash coils and runs in a flash (as all of us
know how capable tiny white dogs are of flight when their fur has been panicked
straight out) and streaks between two shin-kicking girl legs and across the
parking lot.
A speeding boat, of the sort most basically basic, without steering wheel
or windshield or likely fire extinguisher on board, and driven with lots of
testosterone by two high-wired crash-test dummies, blasts past the docks galloping
hard. Inside are a God-damned backward-capped boy bouncing high off the front
seat. At the back a boy at the tiller leaning into the wind, free of the hat
on his head.
Both
are rhapsodic. The front one's arms are flailing for balance, then suddenly rise
in alarm to discover a low-riding Suncruiser party barge, with a crew of
panicking men in their lee off the port bow. But the skipper knows his
navigation and at the very last moment veers left at the height of a buck and
plunges down hard, showering the pontoon foredeck with a lofty large spray.
Three men on board lose self-control and splash highballs onto the deck. Five
others arise shouting curses, two hurl empty bottles, one flings a cushion. It
lands in the swindolous bouncing boat.
A
jug-headed man is hop-skipping through the parking lot away from the ball game
carrying a stringer of three beer cans and one in his hand, wearing a "DRINK
OR BLEED®" T-shirt.
The
sun has set. A ten-year old boy shows up at shore carrying a blue plastic
tackle box and fishing pole. He casts his line still holding the box, then sets
it down and reels the line in, picks up the tackle box and moves twenty feet to
the right, casts again and sets the box down. A man with a pipe in his mouth
parks where NO PARKING is allowed. He opens the truck tailgate and pulls out
six bamboo dowels, fits them together twelve-feet long, fiddles with a bucket
of minnows then walks to the end of the dock and begins fishing directly beside
a NO FISHING FROM DOCK sign. The boys in the bucking boat plunge past very close;
the man gives them the finger and hollers "YOU'RE BREAKING THE RULES!"
In
the west a jet is laying an orchid fringe high onto the dusty sky.
Two
young men have been standing on the shoreline casting their bait. A brown dog
with no tail or ear flaps arrives with a limp and begins good-naturedly nosing
into a duffel bag the fishing men have been depositing small pan fish into. Dog
lifts its head clutching a fish in its teeth, and gulps it in two or three
bites. Then submerges for more. A woman across the boat landing strip
intermittently and malignantly yells at Dog, without intent that Dog actually
obey and play nice.
"Get
over here!" She swigs back her beer and releases a burp. Then lays back
down on a towel with her head on a rock.
The
fishermen are engaged watching a couple of girls. Tank tops and shorts and a
lot of spiffy skin showing. Dog eats fish number four and goes under for a
fifth. The ground by the duffel is littering with fish guts and dollops of fins
Dog chose not to fit in. Wading girls are center arena for the two leering men.
Girl clothing has begun to get wet, by one then the other, then both, who are
escalating a splash contest. Men don't mind, or deter their attention. Until
Dog begins hacking and choking importantly back behind. The man with the brains
knows trouble when he hears it and jerks toward the sound of a dog's tummy
churning with fish guts and fish bones deep. He flails his rod toward Dog,
plucking his bait out of the water, and mostly loses control. Bait and rod both
fly toward the pavement-missing Dog wholly and bounce through the parking lot,
skittering to a stop under a van.
The
second fisherman continues his surreptitious study of two wet women.
About
9:30, with sky light mostly faded, all hell breaks loose when watercraft from
every direction descend on the boat landing. Boats park against the dock, boats
idle off shore, boats see the crowd and zoom away to frolic out in open water
some more. Boat owners strut off the pier, leaving girlfriends holding the
ropes and waiting with bare feet in the water. Big pickup trucks, broadcasting
loud rock music throughout the park are backed toward the water, then forthed
forward and backed back, and forthed forward some more, when trailers refuse to
back where they're backed. Pinky-gray clouds reflect off of shiny hunter green
paint and amber parking lights lend ambient warmth to the dusk. Chrome F-150
emblems shimmy and sparkle in a way the shiniest paint never could, even
through bad light.
Girlfriends grow cold, restless and rankled; mosquitoes I guess, at
the ankles, are making ropes slack.
"Pick
up the rope!" hollers a man from a cab. He's on his fifth forth, and the
mood has turned drab.
The
baseball game score, still mocking bright even though disgruntled native fans
have departed for the night: HOME: 2, VISITORS 10.
Another boat-loader, dangling a cigarette from a lip and wearied by
the fight, backs back into the lake and shoves the throttle hard, and bounces
wildly up onto a trailer. His buddy doesn't like it. I guess he owns the truck,
which has a new dent in the tailgate to show-and-tell friends at the mill.
Lights on a peninsula across the lake are lit. Blue smoke from a campfire
drifts out over the water.
A
ten-year old boy walks past explaining to a girl younger than him how she's "sort
of like a cousin, so it's all right."