Mellow Side of FHH (Part 2)

That was some nap. I slept until it was time to go to bed but, of course, now I'm awake.

I headed out for the lake. The moon was full and sky bright with stars. The lake was dead calm: just like I like it at night. I saw only one boat on the lake, a fishing boat off in t he distance, its green light to me. It looked like it was headed home for the night, in a hurry.

I shut my old pontoon boat down in the middle of the lake, just shy of Sugarbread Mountain, and let it drift. I could see the rock cliffs on the lea side near the top of the island. I had climbed Sugarbread on the Corp of Engineer path dozens of times since my teens. I had even seen the tops of C-130 cargo planes from nearby Little Rock AFB as they flew in threes on low-level manuvuers just above the lake while I watched from above on those same cliffs.

My dad used to scare my kids half-to-death with scary stories about the Eye in the Lake, which was supposedly seen by skinny dipping teenagers one night, like this one, many years before. Authorities had found their boat adrift near this very spot early the next morning but, the bodies of the four Laverne High School students were never found. However, one of the boy's Letter-jackets was picked up weeks later washed up on Sugarbread. It had two slashes in the back and not a small amount of dried blood on it.

I was laying on my back on the deck looking straight up at the stars and suddenly thought, why did you need to analyze DNA to monitor wastewater. The answer was: you don't.

It sure seemed everyone was sleepy in town, including me. I know FHH is a sleepy town but, hell. I've been to really sleepy towns. FHH was Gotham City city compared with some. I was in Yazoo City, Mississippi on a really muggy summer day when I had to brake had to avoid hitting a dog chasing a cat across the street. They were both walking.

Then there is the anxiousness of some the utility and city workers that is pretty unusual for FHH. It seemed like they were trying to keep a secret and paranoid about it. You can't keep a secret in FHH. Everyone knows everyone else's business. I could fart under my blankets in bed late at night and get remarks about it from various customers during breakfast the next morning at Badman and Sons.

I don't believe in coincident. Something was happening in FHH. I guess I had put my cop-hat back on without realizing it.

With those thoughts in my head and the water lapping against the gently rocking pontoons, I drifted off.

I woke with the sun in my eyes, the boat up bumping up on tree stumps off of Sugarbread and stiff wind which was making whitecaps on the lake. Maybe it was time to head home before my wife had the Van Hallen Sheriff's Office out dragging the lake for my body while she rummaged through the file cabinet looking for my will.

When I got back to my slip at the FHH Marina my sister laying out on my deck box smoking a cigarette, "I thought you quit smoking."

"You fall asleep out in the middle of the lake again?"

"Yeah. I'm on vacation."

"Where'd you end up this time?" as she blew a column of smoke straight up, emptying her lungs.

"Sugarbread"

"Well, at least the lake patrol didn't have to get you to move out of the middle of the Narrows because you were a hazard to navigation this time."

"ReeRee call you?"

"Yeah, I told her you were alright. She was in no shape to drive. I told her I'd come down and look for you."

"You didn't look very hard."

"I found you, didn't I?"

"Is she okay?"

"I think so. Is March 2007 your most recent will?"

I figured I owed her breakfast anyway. We went to Badman and Sons, ordered some eggs and sat down in our usual booth.

Trixie, the owner came by and cleaned the table, "You fall asleep on the boat again?"

I didn't feel like responding but she wasn't going to let it drop, "Why don't you just go on down to Share and Wear, get you a bed, mattress, linen and a pillow and just put them on the damn boat for sweet-potatoe's sake."

"And why don't you drop that rag, let down your hair and give me that table-dance you've been promising me for 5 years now. I got a wallet full on singles on me."

"You wish," she kept on cleaning.

"Yeah, I wish you'd put up or shut up."

"I'm going to tell your mother."

"Her number is 448-3597. Here, use my phone. I'll speed dial it for you."

"I thought you quit smoking, baby," looking at Beth and evidently finished with our conversation.

"I have. Tapp's brother is still a pack or two a day. It's tough holding your resolve. Lately I just feel like sitting around, watching anything on TV and puffing on a Winston.

"I thought it was just age, but its tough getting up in morning to open up the place lately."

"I know. Same here. But, you know, nothings going on at all around here."

"Well, thats sure to change now that your weisenheimer brother is in town. A house or something will burn down."

I silently decided it was time to mossy over to the county seat, Hillary, and check out a few public records. Maybe tomorrow. Right now I guess I need to have it explained to me why I should have taken my cellphone with me when I went off on the boat. Even if I am on vacation.