Day 8 - This is a Story

It starts out when our hero was very young, not even six years old. That morning it was sunny and by noon the temps were topping 95 according to the man announcing the minor league baseball game on the AM radio broadcast. Our hero's father had a shiny silver transistor radio sitting on the glass-topped patio table. The game crackled as his hand tapped the half-empty can of sweating beer resting on his bermuda-short clad thigh.

The girls and their brother, our hero, were splashing in the lake one hundred yards out from the green expanse of lawn unfolding before the lax legs of the man slouched in a folding chair holding a can of cold, watery beer against an area not nearly far enough from his groin to be considered acceptable amongst polite company.

The bug-zapper zapped and sweat rolled down the man's tanned, approaching leathery neck. His shirt stank of aftershave and accumulated wetness from nothing more than the day's swelter. Work; he laughed at the word these days, ruefully. He watched the paddle boat bobble, his family just out of audible range, their laughs and squeals mixed with ambient noises of boats and lawnmowers and birds and bug zappers. And the wind. He felt the wind on his back, making his damp shirt momentarily cool.

The boat, faded red until parts looked distinctly pink, was slick with invisible scum and lake water. It bobbed in the current and from the discharge of another leaping twelve year-old diving from the bow into the water. The radio announced the end of the game, the local team winning the game five runs to three. Not much of a game this time, the man thought.

His relaxed legs required more exertion than he expected to rise up and begin running towards the water's edge upon hearing the screams from the paddle boat. Where was it, he thought as he ran, nearly stumbling down the sloping lawn in his rubber jelly shoes. He still had the beer in his hand. He discarded it, picking up pace.

By the time the man arrived at the boat, having waded out the distance in the four-feet of water, the boy, our hero, was already dead. Drowned in less than a minute. How did happen? The diving and playing; the current and waves; his swimming was getting better, they had remarked that morning over pancakes and the funny papers. She had him on the front deck of the boat, the girls crying on either side. They would never forget this day, that time one summer when their little brother died while playing Marco Polo with his two sisters.

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Self-portrait of the Artist on Leap Day.