# Memoir - Link and Building a Raft

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Posted by Pete on January 04, 2021 at 05:30:54

This occurred a few weeks after Cole's snake bite incident. Since that time, Cole appeared to be totally unphased by the whole thing. The doctor said that he was good to go back to doing whatever he wanted as soon as he felt OK. I think my mom managed to keep him inside resting for the day or two after he got back from the hospital, but after that, he was back to running around outside barefoot like nothing had happened. If anything, he might have come out ahead - he now had a gnarly looking scar on the top of his left foot, which was proving to be a great conversation starter, especially now that we were getting to the age where getting the interest of an attractive female was becoming a priority.

I, on the other hand, was still feeling anxious about the experience. I did enjoy my 15 minutes of fame, and got to enjoy telling the story of what had happened in a way that made me look like the hero. But in reality I was struggling with nightmares and a newly developed snake phobia.

Cole's only complaint about the experience seems to have been about his clothing. On one of our trips to a 2nd hand clothing store, Cole found a pair of jeans and a t-shirt that he loved. The jeans were practically new, and he wore them as often as he could, even in warm weather. I'm not sure what he loved about the t-shirt - it was a pretty generic gray shirt with the logo of some high school (not our town's high school, some other high school we'd never heard of). Anyway, Cole absolutely loved this outfit for whatever reason. Well, the jeans ended up getting cut off of him at Dr. Latham's office, probably because his foot has swollen up so bad they couldn't get his jeans off without cutting them. His t-shirt survived the experience, and was returned to him a few days later when he checked in with Dr. Latham to make sure he was healing properly. Cole resumed wearing that shirt as often as he could get away with. And suddenly I hated it. That shirt, and that goofy logo for some unknown high school, is what filled my entire field of vision that awful moment in Mr. Jim's truck, when Cole's seizure stopped, along with his breathing. So... this sounds silly now, but I swear its what I did... I snuck into Cole's room one night while he was taking a shower, dug through his laundry, and stole that t-shirt and hid it under my mattress, then snuck it to the big dumpster behind the school as soon as I could, without getting caught. I'm not sure if Cole ever figured out what happened to his favorite t-shirt - if he did, he never called me out on it. And I probably shouldn't have done that, but I did.

Our project for the couple weeks after the snake bite incident was to determine with certainty who was the fastest swimmer in our town. Link's cheap wristwatch was our timekeeping device, and the route was a round trip across the lake - the same lake Cole and I were hiking towards when the snake got him. And, the winner was clearly Jilly. Link and Wiley were athletic and competitive and at least gave Jilly a run for his money. Cole and Sandy could hold their own without putting in too much effort (Cole actually probably could have been a good athlete had he tried, his body is the right build for it.) I had no delusions of being a fast swimmer, so I was content to just enjoy myself in the cool water without trying to win a race that we all knew I was going to loose. But Jilly was an absolute fanatic, effortless beating even Link's best time, every time. As I've said before, none of us even owned a swimsuit, so we'd swim in whatever shorts, jeans or t-shirts we happened to be wearing that day. Jilly was almost always in long pants, usually military-issue black or olive drab colored. Jilly also favored long sleeve shirts, which he wore maybe half the time or so. I remember Link being frustrated that Jilly was able to swim so quickly, even wearing long pants and a long sleeve shirt, while Link was wearing gym shorts and still lost to Jilly.

After we had all gotten tired of repeatedly losing to Jilly, Link announced that we were going to embark on a new project - we were going to build a raft, anchor it in the middle of the lake, and use it to dive off of. I usually went along with whatever Link wanted to do, and this idea sounded as good as any. Link and Jilly were our chief engineers, which was a steady source of humor for the rest of us. Link and Jilly were what today you'd call "frenemies" - they were both very smart and had a knack for engineering, and could build off each other's ideas. But whereas Link tended to be very patient, thoughtful and kind, Jilly tended to have a short fuse and would often throw a temper tantrum when he didn't get his way. But, so far on this project, Link and Jilly were getting along just fine. The first order of business was for us to obtain the supplies we'd need. Link and Jilly figured we'd need a few planks of scrap lumber, plastic or metal containers or old fuel drums, rope, metal wire, and some other old junk.

Now, had you walked through our town at that time, you might think that "junk" would be easy to come by, as it tended to be piled up everywhere. In the yards of people's homes, in the numerous vacant buildings, along the side of the road, in dilapidated old garages and sheds... But, everything came with a price. The people we grew up with exemplified the idea that "one man's junk is another man's treasure." And, since none of us had any money, that meant we had to get creative to acquire some of our supplies. Link forbade us from stealing anything, unless he was personally 100% sure that the stuff was abandoned. So, we spent about a week collecting the supplies we needed. Me and Cole washed all the windows at the gas station at the Y and were rewarded with a pile of old plastic fuel containers. Jilly and Wiley spent a few hours chopping firewood in exchange for a spool of metal wire they spotted in a man's yard. Sandy spent an afternoon cleaning up after a state work crew that was boarding up some vacant houses, and walked away with a pile of scrap plywood. Link was the best diplomat of the group, and negotiated with Reverend Mathias for access to the church's donated clothing, where he picked out anything that was too torn or stained to be used as clothing, and then tasked Sandy to beg his mother for a needle and thread, which Sandy was then to use to stitch the scraps of fabric together into a mat which would be placed over the surface of the raft for us to walk on comfortably - and no, I'm not making this up, Sandy obediently put his masculinity aside and sewed a bunch of old t-shirts and towels into a huge blanket-like thing which we fit over the top of the mat. The most complicated part of the operation was when Link marched us all out to the tiny railroad office a couple miles outside of town, enlisted us to spend a day scrubbing graffiti off the train cars, for which we received the remaining scrap lumber we needed, in addition to Link's most important prize - a couple blocks of concrete with eye-bolts attached, which would serve as the raft's anchors, so it wouldn't float away from the middle of the lake. Finally, Cole and I were tasked with obtaining a box of nails from my dad, and Link tasked himself with borrowing the necessary tools from his dad, between Wylie, Jilly and Sandy they were to come up with a bunch of wheelbarrows to haul all our loot out to the lake. My parents were happy to offer us a box of nails, in exchange for sweeping out the garage and weeding my mother's flower beds.

Once we had finished doing odd jobs for most of the town, we loaded up our supplies and took turns pushing the wheelbarrows out to the lake, which was quite the exercise, considering the rough dirt paths and the fact that we had to climb halfway up a mountain to get there. But, we made it, and to Link and Jilly's credit, their plan for raft construction went off without a hitch. The rest of us mainly just did exactly as we were told, partly because we trusted Link's leadership, and partly because we didn't want to trigger Jilly's notorious temper. It seemed like in no time at all, we had a raft assembled - a wooden platform secured on top of bunch of empty plastic jugs, with Sandy's handmade fabric mat on top the rough wood. The final step was to float the raft out into the middle of the lake, and anchor it using the concrete blocks that Link got from the railroad. Cole, Wiley and Sandy pushed the raft into the lake, and I offered to help lift the anchors onto the raft, before we pushed it off into the center of the lake. I picked up the heavy block of concrete and wrestled it towards the raft - and I tripped and my right foot ended up in the water, while I dropped the block onto the raft. The other guys were all barefoot at this point, but I was still in snake-phobia mode and had on an old pair of sneakers and socks pulled up to my calves. Wearing shoes into the water was a new experience for me, and I stopped and took a sharp breath when I felt the cool water seep through my ratty old shoe and sock. Everyone else was too exhausted and focused to notice, and I went back to grab the second concrete block and carry it to the raft, this time not making any effort to avoid the water, and wading in with both feet, just up past my ankles. It was a new feeling, and I still needed some time to consider how much I enjoyed it.

Link then directed us to push the raft out into the middle of the lake, which ended up taking quite a bit of effort. The raft floated just fine, but was big and heavy, and we were quite exhausted by the time we got it to the spot the Link wanted. His next job was to tie ropes to the two concrete anchors, and then push them into the lake. Link climbed up on to the top of the raft and laid there for a minute to catch his breath, then started to try to push the concrete blocks off the side of the raft.

"Oof," he groaned, tired from the long swim. Then he tried to kick them with his bare foot. "Petey? You're still wearing your shoes?" "Uh, yeah" I said, starting to get embarrassed that Link had apparently noticed I wore my shoes into the lake. "Well come up here and help me, if I try to do this I'll break my toes." I did as I was told and was able to kick the blocks over the side of the raft, then Link secured the ropes to the underside of the raft. With that done, the raft was officially operational! And everyone else climbed up to sit and rest and enjoy our handiwork.

"D-mn, we still gotta swim back" Wiley groaned. "Can we just spend the night here?" Sandy moaned.

"Hey Cole. When that snake bit you, did you get any super powers? Like super strength? Ability to breathe under water? Anything cool?" Link asked. "Nope" Cole replied sullenly. "I think its spider bites that give you super powers, not snake bites" I offered, remembering the comic books my parents would sometimes buy us. "We'll have to go find us some spiders then" Link said, starting to sound kind of delirious from the heat and the week of hard work.

I scooted over to the edge of the raft and dunked my feet in the water, enjoying the feeling of the water soaking through my shoes. I was wearing an old, old pair of shoes that were too small for me. My feet were actually bigger than the rubber soles of the shoes, but had stretched out the cheap leather and ended up being pretty comfortable, though some holes did start to appear, and I wasn't sure how much longer they would last, and I realized that taking them for a swim probably wouldn't extend their lifespan. I had been taking my shoes off before swimming, once Link swore to God that there were no water snakes in West Virginia that could bite me, but today I realized that it was kind of a nice feeling. I looked back at my friends and realized I shouldn't think it was weird - yes I was in shoes and socks, with my shorts and t-shirt. But Wiley, Jilly and Link were all in long jeans, Jilly was also in a long sleeve shirt. Sandy was wearing heavy cargo shorts and a t-shirt, and Cole was dressed pretty much like me but without his shoes on. Finally, with much moaning and groaning, everyone sat up and agreed that we had done good work, but it was time to head home. I scooted off the raft and didn't realize how tired my arms and legs had gotten, and I flailed a bit in the water before I got ahold of my self and started the swim back to shore. Then we headed off for home in opposite directions - Wiley, Jilly and Link headed towards town pushing the wheelbarrows, while me, Cole and Sandy headed in the opposite direction back towards our homes.

On the walk back, Sandy pointed out my wet shoes and asked me if there was a reason I didn't take them off. I tried to laugh it off, as I usually was able to do, blaming my typical clumsiness while I was carrying the heavy anchor blocks to the raft. Sandy said well, you should still take them off, because you'll get blisters walking in wet shoes and socks. I just said I'd be fine. Normally I liked having the attention of my friends, but in this case I was experiencing a strange desire to just drop the subject and let me be. We parted ways with Sandy about halfway home, and Cole and I were alone for the last few minutes til the path reached the edge of our backyard.

"Petey? Are you still worried about getting bit by a snake?" "No" I lied, again resenting how Cole was so easily able to read my thoughts. Cole obviously knew I was lying and said quietly "you know its near impossible that would happen again. It was a freak accident. Everyone said that. Link, Dr. Latham, Dad. And even if you did get bit, you wouldn't have the reaction I did. The doctor said its something in my blood that made that happen to me, it doesn't happen that way to everyone." "Well it could happen to me too" I argued. "Why would you have that thing wrong with your blood?" Cole asked reasonably "The doctor said its very rare." "Well because we're brothers, you don't think we might have the same kind of blood?" I had no idea about whatever blood thing Cole was talking about, but I also knew that he had no idea either, beyond what little information Dr. Latham had told him. Cole was quiet for a minute, then said patiently "Just saying Petey, you can't keep worrying about it, I was the one who got bit, and I'm not so scared about it I'm wearing my shoes to go swimming" "Well Cole you probably don't remember, but I was right there next to you the whole d-mn time!" I snapped, feeling my stomach turn back into a knot like it did when I thought about that terrible day, and also feeling bad for being mean to Cole when I believed he was really trying to be kind. Cole and I didn't talk for the rest of the walk home, and I was now feeling even worse for being a jerk about it.

When we got home my parents were cheerful. My dad was an engineer, and was fascinated by our raft building project, and asked us to describe what we did and how well it worked. We did this while hosing off using the freezing cold garden hose by the back door, and I removed my soaked shoes and Cole stripped out of his wet pants, before being handed old towels by my mother for the walk through the house to the shower. My mom glared at me, picking up on how Cole and I had gotten into an argument - it was easy to tell, since Cole had done most of the talking to my dad, and I was uncharacteristically quiet. Of course, neither Cole nor I would ever confess to having an argument or a fight, and I doubt my parents ever really knew what we fought about.

Anyway, that raft lasted for several years. Link would occasionally commission us to repair the fabric mat, or pieces of the lumber or plastic flotation containers. But it was a staple of our summer swimming fun. In fact, I have another story to share about it for next time, so stay tuned.

Follow Ups:

- Re: Memoir - Link and Building a Raft Ry 03:30:17 1/05/2021 (0)
- Re: Memoir - Link and Building a Raft Wetnboy 18:11:56 1/04/2021 (0)
- Re: Memoir - Link and Building a Raft LeviLovR 15:47:38 1/04/2021 (3)
  - Re: Memoir - Link and Building a Raft Ry 03:41:38 1/05/2021 (2)
    - Re: Memoir - Link and Building a Raft LeviLovR 04:16:50 1/05/2021 (1)
      - Re: Memoir - Link and Building a Raft Wetnboy 04:48:06 1/05/2021 (0)
- Re: Memoir - Link and Building a Raft Zonie 13:48:21 1/04/2021 (0)

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