A DAY AT THE BEACH(or how I killed my first man)

Larry was to us,what the "Fonz" was to the Happy days crowd.He was the essence of cool,he had it all,the looks,the duck billed greased down hair,( a left over,this was in 72 after all)the black leather jacket.He had the swagger in his walk,the confidence in his bearing.His eyes where as black as coal,and could bore right through you,and you knew,without anyone telling you,that this man was dangerous and not to be fooled with.

In other words,he was everything I want to be be!I was two years younger,but we had just started to be what one would call "secret friends.In other words,he was a friend to me as long as no one was around!
In public I was once again relegated to role of annoying pest,he was much to cool to talk to some kid.
This was a role that I understood,and accepted with out question.I knew my place,and was happy to be given a role to play at all.Most of the kids he was to cool even to tell them to fuck off,they were unworthy of his contempt.I at least could count on a look of annoyance from him,and to my immediate peers,this raised my status.I had been noticed!

Our unlikely friendship started in of all places,the worst (in the eyes of parents) of all the places for kids to hang out at,the Pool Hall.
At the time our Pool Hall was run by an elderly man(in our youthful eyes,now I would place him at around 60) who we all called OldManJake.
OldManJake perpetuated his image by regaling us with tales of his "fourty years on the railroad"and "thirty years in the army" and twenty years in the mines"in other words,he HAD to be old!,alas,once again,I regress.
I had tagged along (completely unwanted!) with my older brother on a trip into town,and since it was a week night,I was breaking more then one rule.
The pool hall had a nine pm curfew for those of us under the age of sixteen,and as the clock(which was always seven minutes fast,so we could get back to school in time at noon hour) was now reading quarter past the nineth hour,I was being told,in a very gruff manner,that it was time for me to go.I had long since spent my last nickel in the only pin ball machine in town(yes,I said NICKEL! as in .05 cents)
My wayward brother had agreed to get me home by nine,but there was no sign of him,in fact it would be hours before he was seen again.I do not fault him,he was "getting some!"
So I was breaking another rule as well.With no sign of my brother,I was facing a lonely vigil on the doorstep,and as it was early spring,it was already past sunset,and to make matters worse,the cool night air was being baptized with a steady drizzle.None of this of course mattered to OldManJake,it was time to go.
The only other patron left in the hall at that hour was,you guessed correctly,Larry,and as a lad near seventeen years old,he was exept from the curfew.
I was being dragged by the ear towards the door by OldManJake,when in that guite but always heard voice,Larry spoke up and said"leave the Kid alone,he's with me"Shoot me,stab me,run over me with a truck,I was so happy I could have died.
One thing led to another,and we spent to next hour sitting side by side in the two barber chairs at the front of the Hall( I forgot to mention,it was a Pool hall/barbershop/and bowling alley with one lane,were a kid could pick up some pretty good money setting the pins by hand,nickel a game)
I think he was surprised to find my level of maturity and intelligence,since both was something I hid from others,and I was surprised to find how insecure and lacking in confidence he truly was,and an unusual bond was formed between us.He taught me to be a pool hustler ,and I taught him how to play chess,hidden away in OldManJake private living quarters.
Over the next three months,Tuesday and Thursday were to become very special days to me,as those where the days I got to set pins,and after the bowling crowd cleared out,it would be Larry and me,each with something the other needed.What it was he got from me,I was never clear on,I think perhaps a feeling of family,as his was a trouble home life.His father was dead,his Mother re-married,his step father and him just did not get along,and I believe it was in physical confrontations with his step father that gave him his rep as a tough fucker.He was the most popular kid in school,but I really believe,I was his only friend.
I never saw him talking with other kids at school,except of course for the girls,and it waas never him who made the first move,none the less,there was a steady stream of girls wearing his jacket.
This was my fourteenth year as a seeker of wisdom,and in many ways it was the best times I ever had, that year of my life,but as in The Tale of Two Cities,it was also the worst of times.
Of Larry's athletic abilities,there was,as with the Fonz,no doubt,he was the best at what ever you named.Only thing was,if asked,no one would ever be able to say that they had actually seen him participate in any sport.It was just assumed.
The days fall to weeks,the weeks to months,school is out,now it's just back.Larry and I only had a few times together once summer began,due mostly to my absence.
I had been given an independence from rules and parental instructions that summer,that I had never enjoyed before.I had spent the summer in exploration, both of the wilderness and in my developing manhood.I grew three inches that summer,and packed on twenty five pounds of muscles.I had spent three weeks in swimming lessons,where I had gone from never had a lesson to ceritfied life-guard,or at least I would have been if I was the required age,at fourteen I was not yet old enough.
One of the people who thought I was old enough,was the twenty seven year old instructor,who had been a member of Canada's Olympic FEMALE Swim Team,and that is another story for another time(or not!)
I had always been,since the age of eight,involved with either the Cub scouts of Boy Scouts(Always Perpared!)( actuall question on a LSAT"what was Lord Baden powells name"(if I have to explain LSAT...look it up!)(I passed by the way,thats another story!)and it was with that fine organisation that I found myself employed by that summer,first as an assistant for the first two one week trips,and then as a full fledged guide the next three one week trips,followed by an intense and gruelling ten day survial trip with guides only.I am talking about wilderness canoeing of course.Saskathchewan,the Province I live in,is known the world over as the worlds bread basket,as we grow more food for the hungry world then any other place on earth,so it is a surprise to many that only one third of our land is in praire,and that we have some of the most beautiful untouched wilderness of any where.The Churchill River System is world renowned as a place for wildereness exploration.The early fur trade saw the first white man to the area oveer 400 years ago,farming did not settle the land till one hundred years ago.So,it was hundreds of paddled miles,and hours of swimming,that helped pack those pounds on me.
It is with this aquatic background I returned to school with,and with a new cocky attitude.After all,I was no longer a virgin to neither the ways or LAYS of the land!
A tradition calls for a school dance the first week end when classes resume in Sept,followed by a trip to the lake(thrity miles,but that is nothing to a prairie farm boy with Daddy'd pick up(truck)
While I of course had no pick up truck,or any vehicle for that matter,I was of course there,but it was my first time at this event,and I was detrimined to make the best of it.I was not immune to the stares I was getting,some where out right hostile,others less aggresive and some,very approving.I don't know if it was my new physical appereance(I was in bathing suit of course,despite the cooling air,we were around a bonfire,and many a boy had his shirt off) that was drawing the attention my way,or if it was blusterous manner.I was being anything but subtle,not like Larry,who sat at the darkest part of the circle,with a girl on each side of him of course.
I wanted the girls to pay attention to me!I had gotten kind of used to having admiring females around me.How could I compete,how could I get everybody to look at me?Larry wasn't the only guy there I wanted to out do,but I knew that if I could just somehow get people to compare me to Larry,my newly found libido could get a work out.In other words,I thought if I could show up Larry(all in good fun of course) I would get laid!
It took a lot of doing,and a lot of politicing,to get others to agree that a swimming race was just what the party needed.It then took a direct "what,are you scared?" to get Larry into the water with the rest of us,but finally I had my race,to the out of bounds barrells and back to the beach,a trip of roughly 500 yards,nothing to me,who had just two days earlier swam the width of the lake at it's narrow point,an estimated six miles.
And that my dear folks,is how I killed my first man.

What,you thought this could end any other way?These are true stories my friends,and the truth SUCKS sometimes,I have forgiven myself for this death,but I will always know that I killed the Fonz.Forgive me Larry.
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