Chapter 17: Summer

June to August 2002

The following week we had finals, and that was it. Seniors had to go through graduation, but the rest of us were out for a couple of months for the summer. For me that meant I had about a week of goof-off time before I had to go back to the mill full time. That would take me through all of June and into July, at which time it was back to practice for the football season, running twice-a-days and sweating off about ten pounds under the July sun. Somewhere during that period we’d end up at Myrtle Beach for a long weekend.

Kelly got grounded for a week when her mother saw the MasterCard bill with a hotel room on it. No dating and no fooling around. I was allowed to come over and watch television with her in the evening, but that was it. It was a completely PG week. “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time!” she was told. At least she didn’t tell Mister O’Connor! After the week was up, things got back to normal.

The most important thing to do that summer was to spend as much time as possible up at the O’Connor lakefront property with Kelly before I had to go to work. I’d throw some clothes on, with some swim trunks and a towel in a gym bag, and Kelly would zip over in her little red Miata. We’d grab some supplies in the form of a cooler of Cokes and something for lunch, and then we’d be out of there. That Monday it was hot and dry, and we spent our time up at the lake swimming and sunning ourselves. Okay, we did some other stuff, too. We had to take those swimsuits off and let them dry out, didn’t we? And you’re not supposed to go swimming for two hours after eating, and we had to do something to pass the time!

The middle of the week it rained, and we spent the time over at the O’Connor household, in the pool or down in the family room. After our last fiasco over there, Kelly had gotten her mother to promise to not surprise her with a surprise visit from her father! I was like a cat with nine lives, but I was starting to run out of them. Another visit by Mister O’Connor and I was going to be running in the negative! I had managed to avoid him, mostly, since the time he found me and Kelly getting out of the shower together. The last time he had been home I had seen him at their house when I picked up Kelly for a date just before she got her car. He had been the one to open the door, in fact, and found me staring at him wide-eyed. He had let me in the house none too graciously, although Kelly and her mother had smiled and said it was safe. I stayed out of arm’s reach, though.

When he let me in, I thanked him, and complimented Kelly on how pretty she looked. He had grumbled at that. Then he asked, “Reaper, what kind of name is Reaper?”

I looked at him curiously. “What do you mean?”

“Well, is it French or Italian or something? Where’s your family hail from?”

“Oh. We’re English. Both sides of the family came to this country from England about a hundred years ago, before the First World War,” I answered.

“Sassenach!”

I glanced at Kelly, and she scooted forward. “We need to be going, Grim!” She grabbed my hand and pulled me outside quickly.

I looked at her and said, “I’m guessing sassanog isn’t good?”

“It’s pronounced sass-a-nack, and it’s better than some of the things he’s called you in the past. That’s a good sign, I think,” she said, smiling.

I glanced back at the front door and shuddered. I might make it into his good graces at my funeral, an event which would see Kelly’s father dancing on my grave! That was back in the spring, though. If he found out about the hotel room, he’d probably put me in that grave!

Thankfully Kelly isn’t high maintenance. While formal dances and proms could be expensive, most of the time we kept our dating low budget. She wasn’t expecting me to drive her over to Atlanta and buy her dinner. McDonalds and a movie were more than sufficient. Best of all, she really enjoyed private time up at the lake, with us alone on a bunch of spread-out blankets, where nobody could see what we were up to.

After a week at the mill, I was able to borrow the bass boat for a day, and Kelly and I took Jack and Janice out and met up with some friends. We even went up to the O’Connor property and had lunch up there. Like before, we had to anchor the boat away from the land and swim in. Janice was cute in her swimsuit, but she wasn’t up to Kelly’s standard.

“You guys should fix this place up,” commented Jack.

“Like how?” asked Kelly.

“I don’t know. Get a grill. Put in a fire pit. Maybe rig up a dock to tie a boat up to,” he replied.

I nodded to him. “I asked Dad about a dock or something last year, but he’s not going to pay to build a dock on somebody else’s property.”

Jack shrugged his shoulders and nodded in understanding. When you thought about it, it didn’t make any sense.

Kelly said, “I think we have a grill.”

“Oh?” I hadn’t noticed one.

“It might be in the back of the shed, unless we took it back to the house.” She scrambled to her feet, and the rest of us followed her over.

The O’Connors had a good-sized shed, and we dug around in there. Most of the time Kelly and I simply grabbed the blankets and used them as ground cloths. Kelly would occasionally take them home and run them through the washing machine. There were also some lawn chairs that had seen better days. There was a small riding lawn mower, a broken push mower, an ancient weed whacker, a few yard tools, that sort of stuff. All the way in the back, covered in a layer of dust and cobwebs, was a charcoal grill. We dragged it out and kept looking. There was also a very rusty set of tongs for charcoal, and half a bag of charcoal briquettes. They came out, too. I took the grill out into the lake and cleaned it up, and then we looked it over.

“It’s actually in pretty good shape,” my brother commented. “It’s not rusty or anything. No holes in it.” He kicked an old tire rim with his foot. “I found this, too. I think this was being used for campfires.”

“It’s been a few years, but I think you’re right,” agreed Kelly.

Jack rolled it over to a flat spot away from anything and laid it down. “Put the lawn chairs out, start the grill up, get a campfire going. You could pretend you’re a Boy Scout.”

I snorted and looked at Kelly. “Next time we come up here we’ll need to make a list. Get some charcoal, that sort of stuff.”

She agreed. “Maybe we have some at the house we can bring up. What would we have to do to make a dock?”

I glanced over at Jack, and he gave me a perplexed look at that. It was Janice who answered. “My Uncle Bill has a floating dock! It’s just a bunch of boards nailed together on top of some empty barrels.”

I knew what she was talking about. I had seen a few around the lake. They looked simple enough to make. “How’s that work?” I asked her.

“He’s got a place up on Lake Olympia in Buchanan. It just floats there, one end on the edge of the shore, with a couple of concrete blocks as anchors at the other end. Every fall he pulls it in and chains it to a tree on shore. It’s kind of a pain to put it in the water and take it out, so he has a barbecue at the beginning of the season to put it in and another after Labor Day to pull it out. That’s where I was last weekend. We put it in the lake.”

“Huh. That’d be pretty cool,” I agreed.

“I’ll ask Mom about that sometime,” said Kelly.

Monday when I got to the mill, I asked Uncle Dave if he knew how to do that sort of thing. I got to thinking about it when I helped unload a truckload of feed supplements in big plastic barrels. “Sure, I know what you’re talking about. What’s on your mind, Grim?”

I told him about Kelly’s property and how they didn’t have a dock, so we had to anchor out in the lake. He surprised me when he yelled, “Jerry!” and waved a guy over. I recognized him as Jerry Wertheimer, one of the foremen. Uncle Dave turned back to me and said, “Tell Jerry what you just told me.”

So, I repeated everything to Jerry. He nodded. “Sure, I’ve done a couple of those. You can knock one out in a day if you have the materials. Piece of cake. You need some pressure-treated lumber and a bunch of empty barrels. A half dozen will do nicely.”

“Do you have plans?” I asked. “Maybe I can do this up at Kelly’s place.”

“Somewhere. Probably at the house. I’ll bring them by. Seriously, though, you don’t want to do this up in the woods. You’ll want to set up some tools and sawbucks and stuff and build it in civilization, and then it’s heavier than hell.”

My face must have dropped at that, but Uncle Dave saved the day. “Listen, I’ll donate the barrels. If you can get the lumber, we can build it here some weekend. I’ll give you a hand. Then we can load it on a trailer and take it down to the lake.”

“How do I get it to her place?”

“Grim, it’ll float. Tow it behind the boat!”

“Oh. Yeah!”

“I’ll find that list of parts and bring it to you,” said Jerry.

After that, Uncle Dave sent me off to my job with the idiot stick. After lunch I’d be stacking pallets.

Tuesday morning Jerry Wertheimer brought me a Xeroxed schematic of a floating pontoon dock that had been copied out of some magazine. I didn’t know which, though, since that had been cut off at the bottom. In any case, it showed a plan to make a six-by-eight-foot platform out of pressure-treated lumber, and then how to secure four empty barrels underneath it. There was also a list of the parts you needed. “Listen the real expense in this is the lumber. You need pressure-treated so that it doesn’t rot,” he told me. “Then there’s some other things, like galvanized screws and hardware, so nothing rusts.”

That made sense. “How much will it cost?”

He shrugged. “You’ll have to price it out down at the lumber yard. You can probably pick it up at the Home Depot, but Chase’s Lumber over towards Carrolton might be a better choice. They do their own pressure treating and you might be able to get a bargain shopping direct. Probably going to be a few hundred, but it’d still be cheaper than buying one and shipping it in.”

That took the wind out of my sails. No way did I have a couple of hundred dollars or more. I was barely keeping afloat as it was. I thanked him and said I would let him know how it went.

I told Kelly about it that evening after I got out of work. She didn’t have that kind of money either. It was her parents who had the cash in her family, not Kelly. I was invited for dinner, though, and Kelly mentioned it to her mother over dinner.

“How much would it cost, Grim?” she asked.

I shrugged. “I don’t know, ma’am. I haven’t priced anything out. I was told it would be a few hundred dollars, but I don’t have that kind of money.”

“Well, why would you pay for it? You’re planning on putting this up on the lake property?” At that she looked over at Kelly. “I know you kids have been going up there. I haven’t said anything to your father about it. If you call him and ask, he’ll probably allow you to set up a camping or picnic spot up there.”

Kelly’s eyes lit up and she started to get up. “Really?”

Mrs. O’Connor rolled her eyes. “You two aren’t all that sneaky, you know. Now sit down. He’s five hours ahead of us. It’s the middle of the night over there now. You can call him in the morning.” She looked at me. “Figure out what it will cost. Let me know and maybe we’ll pay for it.” Then she looked at Kelly. “And maybe I’ll take it out of your allowance to cover your hotel room bill!”

I thanked her and made plans. I drove Mom to work on Wednesday so I would have her minivan, and then drove over to Chase’s after I punched out. They had the lumber, but not the hardware. I got some prices from them, and then drove over to the Home Depot. They had plenty of hardware, but their prices on the lumber weren’t as good. I took the list over to Kelly’s and showed her mother. She agreed to pay for it. Kelly squealed in delight, and she and I went up to the lake to figure it out. We also went up there to celebrate, privately. Kelly was very appreciative of my efforts and showed me that appreciation several times that evening. I was exhausted by the time I got to work in the morning.

I told Grandpa about Mrs. O’Connor’s offer to pay for the dock. “That’s fair. Your father’s right. Don’t go paying for stuff on somebody else’s property. When do you plan to do this?”

“When can I do it? Saturday? I can probably drag Jack and Bobbie Joe over to help.”

“This Saturday? Well, you’re nothing if not ambitious. We can do it over by the machine shop. You’ll need to have everything here bright and early Saturday morning, along with your slave labor. I’ll help you. If you can’t do it this Saturday, we’ll have to delay a couple of weeks. Your grandmother and I are going out of town next weekend.”

“Yes, sir! I’ll get it done!”

He snorted at that. “If you say so. You won’t be able to say that John Reaper ever stood in the way of young love! Or lust, in this case!”

“Grandpa!” I protested.

He just shook his head in amusement and went to his office.

I called Kelly at lunch and told her we needed to get this done this weekend. She promised to grab her mom’s credit card and be ready to go out when I got there after work. We’d go over to Home Depot and pick up the hardware tonight. Chase’s wasn’t open that late, and I’d need Dad’s pickup truck for that. I took it up with him when I got home. I got the anticipated argument, but he loaned me the truck on Friday if I drove him to work first. I would need to take off work a couple of hours early, grab Kelly and the credit card, go get the lumber, and then go pick up Dad and go home. We got it done, though I miscalculated the time and was fifteen minutes late picking up Dad on Friday.

I had already told Jack and Bobbie Joe the plan, and they agreed to help. Saturday, we loaded all the hardware into the back of the pickup truck with the lumber and went over to Kelly’s house to pick her up. Janice was waiting there with her, which surprised me. I wasn’t sure how helpful she’d be, but she was the price for getting Jack to help. Bobbie Joe and the girls went into the back of the cab and Jack and I sat up front. We were at the mill before nine. The gate was closed, so we waited.

Grandpa showed up a few minutes later. He unlocked the gate and let us in, and then led the way over to the machine shop. First things first - he checked the parts list and made sure we had the right stuff! Satisfied, he led us inside. After that he had us unload the truck and then supervised as we set up an assembly line. First, we had to cut and make a frame, then we had to cut the deck planks to go on top. Over and over, we heard, “Measure twice, cut once!”

Thankfully we had power tools available. The girls mostly carried around the pressure-treated lumber. Jack and I laid it out and did the nailing and bolting together. Bobbie Joe and Grandpa ran the table saw we used to cut everything up. We had the deck and frame finished by lunchtime. The trick was in attaching the empty barrels as pontoons underneath. That frame was heavy! Grandpa used an overhead crane in the machine shop to lift it up, so that we could attach the barrels with some strapping material, one side at a time. Then he lowered it back down to the floor of the shop.

“Okay, you kids did real good. That’s it for the day,” he announced.

“We’re not done yet. We have to get it into the water,” I argued.

“Not today, you’re not.” I opened my mouth, but he said, “Don’t argue, Grim. You’ve done a good job here, but that will be as much work as this was. We won’t finish. We can do that tomorrow after church if the weather holds. If it rains, we delay another week or two. We’ll need to use the lift trailer, and that means I have to do it, not you kids.”

I was disappointed, but I didn’t want to argue with my boss. Kelly and Janice looked beat, and Bobbie Joe was complaining about splinters. That was the end of it for the day. We thanked him and took off. I drove Jack and Janice over to her house, and then Bobbie Joe, Kelly, and I went to our house.

“How’d it go?” asked Dad.

I tossed him the truck keys. “Thanks. Okay, I guess. We got it together, anyway. Grandpa said it was too late to get it in the water. He said we could do it tomorrow if it doesn’t rain.”

“So, is this thing going to actually float? Or is it the Titanic Two?” he asked.

“Probably the Titanic,” commented Bobbie Joe. “At least there’s no icebergs in Lake Matucket!”

My biggest worry was the weather. There was a cold front moving in, and the forecast was for rain, probably by tomorrow afternoon or evening. If it was raining, Dad wouldn’t take the boat out. If that happened, we’d be stuck for another two weeks, until Grandpa was back and could do it on a Saturday.

I took Kelly home after dinner. She was beat and fell asleep on my shoulder in the family room.

I spoke to Grandpa the next day, at the end of the ten o’clock service. It was overcast, but not raining. “Can we do it today?” I asked.

“It’s not supposed to rain until tonight. I’ll chance it if your folks will.” He looked over at Dad and Mom.

“Okay by me. How do you want to do this? You’ll need the boat to tow it, right?” asked Dad.

“Yep. Grim can come to the shop with me. We’ll load the thing on the lift trailer. You get your boat in the water. We’ll meet you at the ramp at noon.”

“Make it one,” said Dad. “We need to change and get Kelly.”