Black River Bay

The peal pitch of the Chaplain’s glass rings higher as he downs his bourbon. Clink, clink.

It’s an ice-filled chime.

Clink, clink, clink. Takes a sip. Clink, clink. Higher. Takes another.

The Captain prefers his poison in cans. Copenhagen. Tap, tap. Coors. Tink, tink.

The waves of Lake Ontario crash the cottage wall, spraying my feet as I wait for rock bass to take an unbaited hook. The Chaplain’s chime peals higher and the pace of his story quickens.

- So that’s how he was with us.

He laughs, a soft Georgian landscape of a laugh overgrown in Jimson weed. Flowery. Prickly.

- All us boys grew as tall as him by the time we was 12. That’s when he would take us to the barn. To beat into us the memory that he would always be stronger. So that once we got bigger our Pavlov brain would kick some doubt into us whuther or not we could take ‘im.

Clink, clink. Sip.

I look at the Captain. He’s laughing at the joke. He catches me looking so I laugh, too.

- Get the Chaplain another drink.

- No, no. I got it.

He pours it himself. Clink.

- Anyhow, when it come my turn, my daddy tells me to come with him to the barn.

Clink.

- But since I was the youngest,

Clink, clink.

- I know what’s comin.

Clink, clink. Sip.

- So I follow behind him like a death row inmate, shakin like a cat thrown in a crick.

Clink, clink, clink. Sip. Clink.

- He gets to the barn a good 10 yards ahead of me and disappears inside.

Clink. Sip.

The Chaplain laughs. Needs to refill the chime. The Captain’s working on another beer. Takes a pinch of tobacco and spits a plug into the lake, the splash of which makes me realize that the float has bobbed all the way back to the shore, where it clicks hollow and plastic against the concrete foundation of the cottage.

- I done stop at the door and was damn near in tears.

The Captain laughs. Awkward, loudly, telling. His favorite part of the story, which the drunken Chaplain has told so many times before. The Captain likes the crying. For him, this is the proper ending of the story. The Chaplain looks at his chime. Clink, clink, clink.

- Yep. Damn near in tears.

The Chaplain hears the profanity in his words and looks at me.

- Oh, pardon me.

- Don’t worry about him. Brandon, mind your own business. Go fish.

The Chaplain holds my eyes for a minute, but I really have to turn back towards the lake. Like clockwork, the Chaplain always leaves when the bourbon’s up.

I hear the clink of the chime.

- So I finally get the nerve to open the barn door and step inside. And it’s dark, and I can’t see my daddy anywheres.

Clink, clink, clink, clink. Sip

- And I call out quietly, ‘Daddy! Daddy, where you at?’.

Sip. Clink.

- But he was gone, and looking around for him I see my shoelaces are untied. So I bend down to tie ‘em.

Sip. Sip. Clink. Clink. Clink.

- And that’s when I feel his hands around my neck, pulling me towards him!

Clink, clink, clink, clink, clink. Sip.

- He had been hiding behind the door, see? He really wanted to put the scare into me, maybe cause I was the biggest boy of them all. And he put the scare into me, all right! I hollered and jumped straight up in my shoes!

Clink, clink.

- And when I jumped up like that, my thick 12-year old skull collided with his 50-year old glass jaw and knocked him flat out cold!

The Chaplain laughs loudly and shakes his chime like a tambourine. The Captain laughs, too, but it’s the polite laugh. The laugh of a good host.

- And that was the scariest moment, you know. I didn’t know I had knocked him out, cause I was too scared to turn around!

Clink, clink. Sip.

- So I just stood there waiting for the worst thing imaginable, which as you can imagine, is pretty damned frightening when you’re just a 12-year old child!

My ears perk at this, but I don’t dare turn around.

- Just imagine! Me bawling on the barnyard floor (Captain’s laugh, sincere) and my daddy laid out flat behind me! (Captain’s laugh, polite) Finally, I do turn around, and I thought I had killed him. And let me retract my earlier statement, cause THAT was the scariest moment of all!

Clink, clink. Sip.

- But eventually he started moaning, and moving around, and, well, okay, now this is most assuredly the scariest moment, cause I’m sure that now he’s gonna do something awful to me when he comes to!

Clink, clink. Sip. Laugh.

- So I run home and throw my pocketknife and two cans of corn into my satchel, and I head up the road. I got no choice. I got to get out of Georgia!

I stop listening now. I know the rest of the story, anyway, and I don’t like it. His dad eventually drives after him in his pickup, tells him to get inside. Apologizes for hitting him. Tells him he won’t do it again. Kisses him on his tear-dried cheeks and condemns another 12-year old boy 1100 miles and 30 years away to another useless, happy ending.

The Chaplain finishes his drink and tells me ‘good-bye,’ but I don’t turn around. I watch the plastic float bob against the house. The red and the white now become two shades of gray in the lost light.

Click, click. Click, click.