Lost Boys Six Old

James Cameron isn't likely to submerge himself for us, eight hundred feet down in plastic barrels. Fifteen years can get you a lot of crud and algae. Mr. Titanic, I'd love to see on this, the flip-side of my short life. My name is James too and Bad Ass is my middle name. Leading the Lost Boys was my only pleasure. On March 17, 1995, we stole a fast boat from the local marina. We and took our weekend joy ride as usual. This boat, on that night, was begging to be stolen. Keys in the ignition, gas metre reading full, on we jump. Except for Marty and Jeremy, the youngest of us. Four on the speedboat and those two idiots on a paddle wheeler that they had found beached next to the speed boat. We leave the bay area and head into the lake. The paddle boat finally arrived in the lake but it was getting rough and they begged us to pick them up. We let them tough it out and get wet first, for being so stupid in the first place. Jason cranks the speed even though I am steering. With two hundred and fifty horses under us, the other four fly backwards into a pile, against the red gas cans. No one steering now, the speedboat does a couple of donuts and stalls out.

This speedboat with keys and two full gas cans does not look like a 'set up', at the time. Innocence is a foolish reason to die. How long could we actually expect the owners of millions of dollars of yachts to put up with the antics of six little assholes like us? Gas metre read still full but

the boat will not start. The wet ones of us are shivering and we decide to head back when the engine starts. But it does not start. Lights from the harbour are still in sight and a smaller light is moving steadily toward us. It is a camouflage blow-up type boat, like the ones from Japan that chase whalers, in the ocean; chasing ships that kill giant mammals.

Eight hundred feet is fairly deep for a lake but it is only fifty miles across. Roy figures the authorities wouldn't start searching until dawn. It was four thirty a.m. Re-starting the Zeppelin he quietly pulls the stolen speed boat into Blankley Bay and up twelve mile creek toward the circuit judge's historic home. He had played, swam, fished, and guided on the creek all his life. Finding the sheltered cove near the road where he had left his truck several hours later, he debark the Zeppelin, deflated it and stuffed it on the truck. He would leave the other boat and deal with it later.

Roy Robison is a sixth generation New York State resident whose great, great grandfather was an old time circuit judge. Their family estate is now a museum twelve miles from the mouth of Lake Mento. Roy, born and raised on the lake has enough money, but it is doled out, as a trust so often is. Though he does not have to work, unhappiness with his life keeps him an unmarried hermit wearing his father's old clothes and neglecting upkeep on the century house his parents have left him. He seldom bathes or washes his hair but he reckons the creek keeps him clean enough. Having a mechanic license and being able to fix any broken down motor at the marina at the mouth of Eleven Mile Creek. On the weekends Roy meets with a militia group who 'murder' each other with paint balls and play Para-military games. He is a member of a New York State Militia and owns many gun.

Every year, he and three others circumnavigate Mento and its fellow lakes, in a yacht race. The cup is to boat racing what the World Series is to baseball and what the Daytona Five Hundred is to racing. With the Gold Cup in his grasp, for the ninth time, Roy hoped for better competition every year. The Lake Mento Two Hundred yacht race course is a circumnavigation of the lake that starts at Port Debt Yacht Club, heads east and rounds Goose Island, then heads south to Oslego New York, where it turns east along the south shore to the Giagara River mark before heading to the finish line at Port Debt Yacht Club. The race is a test of preparation, teamwork, navigation and perseverance. 'Captain Roy Boy' leads the three man team to victory every year. The family marina makes good from these wins through the publicity of Roys wins, in boat sales, docking, slip rentals, engine repairs, and supply sales, launching and hoisting fees. Roys cousins and co-owners of the old family marina, try bossing him, but Roy's engine repair expertise keeps them at bay and when he takes any boat he wishes on a 'test drive' upon Lake Mento, which he does quite regularly, they can say nothing. So heading due south, in a new Boston Whaler, he arrives in Canada after a twenty minute speed ride, at his familys twin marina in Basseting Ontario. Eight hundred feet is fairly deep for a lake but it is only fifty miles across from New York State to Canada. Everyone at his marinas Canadian counter-part is in a tizzy that no co-owner wants to witness during a spot check: the chaos of missing boats, wrecked boats, irate customers, suicidal managers surrounds Roy. And then it occurs to him. This was something he could do alone could completely fix with no one the wiser.

Once you are sixteen nobody chases you down if you are absent from high school. Jeremy, Jason, Mattie, Marty and Dave pull up to the smoking stop just off school property, in Dave's mother's old shit-box Chevy. After dropping her off at work, he is yelling at me to pile in and we all head for this night's party spot, Emily's house. A little booze is being passed and laughs are directed toward Mattie who swears he will bring us Emma Lou Finlay's panties from her clothes line by next week at this time.

~ A speedboat with keys and a full tank does not look like a 'set up', at the time. Naivety is a stupid reason to die. How long can we expect owners of millions of dollars of yachts to put up with the antics of six little ass holes, like us? The guy in the camouflage blow-up was the second part of the set up. Putt putting along, he waits for the speedboat motor to cut out, as he knew it would, and then makes his move. He had only to glue the fuel gage needle to the full, and leave us an almost, empty tank.

"Ahoy, 'sup?" His face is streaked black and his jumpsuit matches his boat colour. "Dude we're dead in the water here: we don't think its gas though." We were dead in the water alright. Roy says that he is part of coast guard practice manoeuvres that haven't started yet. He would be happy to tow us back to Canada but the blow-up motorboat's outboard cannot handle that much weight and drag. Can we all pile on the paddle boat that we are pulling behind us? Since a couple of us are wet, he will get the speedboat after dropping us back at the marina. We cannot believe our luck. He tosses six life jackets and we hop on the paddle boat. We all boarded the paddle wheeler that Marty and Jeremy had ridden out in. Roy looped the

towing rope around the little paddle wheeler and we shift in the direction of the blow-up. After settling into a reasonable speed, the six of us felt polar but subdued, sober and lucky. In a hard, hurry, Roy suddenly accelerates the Zeppelin's motor. We six skip like stones in six directions into Lake Mento, Matty, Jeremy, Marty, Dave, Jason and me. Jason and me fall in closer to shore and can touch bottom. A millenniums worth of crud and algae is slippery under our running shoes. We fail time after time to catch grip and we re-tumble into thawing lake water. Roy chuckles under his breath as he retrieves Marty and Jeremy. Jeremy perishes first because he is frost bitten for hours from being wet in the March night. After the paddle boat ride, and the shock of the March arctic temperatures, Marty is finished quickly also. I think he just gave up. Jason and I clung onto one another and watched Roy quietly tending to the barrels he had anchored a few metres away from the death scene. Dave thrashed and flailed ignoring the buoyancy of his life jacket. Maybe it was reflex because he couldn't swim. Matty and Dave cling to each other too, dying in each others arms. Jason and I beg Roy to see things another way before it was too late for us. But Roy just circles the six barrels in the 'C' shape he would soon need as he sweeps us up the dead ones, one by one with his grappling hook, whistling under his breath. We were all six, too soon dead. One after another Roy removes the life jacket from each of us and packs us in, one barrel each. After sealing every barrel, leaving enough air in each to allow for easy towing, he is underway in less than twenty minutes. Using a depth finder Roy finds the eight hundred foot bottom of Lake Mento. This site is happily, for Roy anyway, close to the mouth of Eleven Mile Creek and located, on his way home. Before going too far, Roy stops to use the other one of the two gas cans on the speedboat, to re-fuel the Zeppelin. Before he re-starts its motor, he checks the depth metre again. Deep enough.

Entering the water he begins to sink us one by one by punching in the perforated circles he had made earlier in each barrel. Early spring lake water pours into each barrel.

Hopping on every barrel, Roy uses his considerable body weight to sink us, sending bubbles gurgling from the all of the containers. As we sink, each one of us, down and down he hooks the tow rope from the paddle wheeler to the speedboat and waits for our barrels to gurgle and settle the eight hundred feet, to the bottom.

~ At home, sixteen years later, the rumour and innuendo about our disappearance has stopped. Parents have turned against each other. Peers have started jobs and families. Here we languish, between heaven and hell, not of this earth, and yet not of the next work world either. We remain, the Lost Boys Six.