Bud Smith - F 250

“Which one’s do you know?” she asked.

“Oh, Jesus. None. The Big Dipper … the Little Dipper. I dunno. Orion, I guess. I know that.” I pointed, “That’s his belt.”

She began to name all the constellations. She knew each and every one of them.

“You know the story of Orion?”

“No.”

“There’s many. Myths. My favorite is that Orion, the hunter, fell in love with seven sisters. They were called the Pleiades: the beautiful daughters of Atlas and Pleione. Orion could have had any one of them, but he wanted all of them. So Atlas took his daughters and put them up into the sky.”

“Sounds rational.”

“To protect them from the irrational Orion, the seven sisters were hidden in a cluster of stars inside the belly of a bull, Taurus. You see it there?”

K pointed up. I could see it clearly. I nodded.

“It’s the death of Orion. Those girls. That bull. Orion went up into the heavens after them, and now he fights in the sky with his bronze club every night — mauled by Taurus, who tries to put out Orion’s eyes with his horns.”

“That’s where we’re at, yes.”

We drifted in a slow circle.

“Did June talk to you? About us.”

K laughed coldly. “She mentioned something. I didn’t believe it.”

“What?”

“She said she loves you,” K said, unbuttoning her shirt and pulling it over her head.

“Loves me… No shit?”

I felt good hearing that. K kicked off her cutoff jean shorts. She was in her bra and panties again. It never felt far away for her to be in that state of undress. She undressed as quick as a superhero can put on their costume.

“I don’t care. Go ahead, love each other,” K said. “I’m fine with that.”

She ran her hand up my thigh and pulled at the button on my pants.

“I’m all brain and pussy, there’s no blood for my heart.”

She sat down in the base of the boat and started undoing my belt. I told her, “Come on, knock it off.”

She looked up at me, grinning darkly. The moon reflected off of her glasses.

“Ten thousand dollars says you won’t make me stop as soon as I put you in my mouth.”

“Do you have ten thousand dollars?”

“Of course I have it,” she said, “Do you have it, poor boy?”

“Poor boy. Hilarious.” I pushed her away from my belt. “Be cool, K. I’m not gonna fuck around anymore on June. That’s over.”

There was a horrible sound from across the lake: the engine of the speed boat as it came to life. It was the worst sound I’d ever heard in my entire life. K Neon looked like she was in a slasher film wilderness and just heard a chainsaw.

The speedboat started to move away from the dock. We could see it in the moonlight, like a predator that was coming straight for us. We were sitting ducks. My heart slipped from its meaty cage and smacked its way down into the pit of my stomach.

“GO! GO! GO!” K frantically beat against my chest with the hammers of her fists.

I started to row, and she continued to pummel me. I snapped at her, “Calm the fuck down!”

The canary yellow cigarette boat started to rip around in the moonlight, but we were obscured in the fog — unseen in the mist. The boat began to pick up speed around the outside edge of the lake, as if it was using the entire body of water as a small track. I thought about the cars drag racing at Raceway Park as I watched in terror the speedboat pass by us some hundred and fifty feet away at high speed. The engine dug in, rumbled. I heard a voice from the boat scream out in glee. It was a man’s voice, hollering at the moon above, having fun, oblivious to our presence.

The first waves from the wake of the boat smacked into the side of our rowboat. We rocked diabolically.

K Neon said, “We’re gonna die out here.”

I tried to row, but the waves were coming from every direction. The throttle of the boat dropped to max at that point. I could hear the exhaust screaming out. Water sprayed into the moonlight. It was certain death. The speedboat opened up. The waves rose. One more lap around, and the boat started to move away from the outside edge of the lake. It cut across the open water of the center.

Well, not quite “open,” because we were there — occupying the bull’s-eye like a solid red dot.

The boat headed straight towards us. It was going to crush us completely. At the last second, it veered slightly away. Our rowboat flipped. I went into the water and swam one way. K swam the other way. She was like a bullet tearing through the water, but she was going the wrong way across the lake — away from our house. I called her name and got a mouthful of water.

As the sound of the speedboat got louder again, I had to worry about myself. I had to think about how to keep my body from getting cut up in the blades of the propeller. I had to think about keeping my skull from getting smashed in by the bow. Horror. Absolute horror.

K Neon could take care of herself, couldn’t she? She was a natural swimmer. I’d seen her in action, like a little goddamned Scandinavian mermaid. I gulped down more of that murky water, kicked my feet, and doggie paddled like an idiot through the moonlit water, while the waves whacked into me.

All the while the engine of the speedboat got closer. I felt hot death breathing onto the back of my neck. I took a deep breath of air and swam down as far as I could into the water. To this day, whether it really happened or not, I swear I felt the rush of the boat and the spinning of the propeller pass over my head.

I stayed down there and swam as hard as I could beneath the surface. It felt like Jaws was on my heels. When I came back up, I treaded water in the middle of the lake. The speedboat died. Its throttle lessened. I continued to bob in the dark water, as the yellow monster slid through the waves, back towards its own dock, unaware of the melee it’d caused.

I thanked the stars above for my life. I thought about K Neon, who was most likely dead, and swam towards the dock. There, a man hopped off the speedboat and whistled as he went into a nearby house.

I pulled myself up on his dock and walked to his door. I was about to knock when the door opened up. A fat man with a buzz cut came out in a huge hurry.

“Yo! Hey! What are you doing?!”

I froze. He had a head like a Rottweiler. Thick arms. He was wearing cargo shorts and sandals. I could hear the Grateful Dead playing from inside the house. It was “Sugar Magnolia.”

“I’m your neighbor,” I said.

“Why you all wet?”

I pointed at the lake.

“Okay,” he shrugged, glaring at me. I took note that his gray t-shirt said “Hakuna Mattata — It Means No Worries.”

“I’m from across the lake,” I said, pointing at our little stone cabin across the water. It looked so peaceful and innocent over there.

“Oh! My neighbor,” he said. “Right on! Right on! The way you said it, it was like you were a creature of the lake. Why’d you swim over here? Next time, yell. I’ll pick you up in my truck.”

Any sense of present danger evaporated.

“You gotta excuse me, bro. I am so super stoned.”

He invited me into his house. I didn’t hesitate to go inside. I was looking for a way to politely mention the homicide that’d happened on the water.

“Ron,” he said, introducing himself. I gave a fake name for some reason. I wasn’t thinking clearly.

“Doug,” I said.

“Doug, you wanna smoke a bong with me?”

He didn’t wait for an answer. He left the room and came back with a three foot-tall bong.

He said, “I get some real good shit, so be careful.”

I nodded dumbly while he packed the bowl.

I said, “That your speedboat out there?”

“God is it ever! My pride and joy,” he said. “Being a medical sales rep has its plusses, lemme tell you. Speedboat ownership is just one perk.”