Spider Lake

by Gregg Hangebrauck

  They had such a great afternoon at the park sipping wine from Dixie cups, and snacking on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. They sat and laid on their blanket, and when they weren’t being interrupted by the twins, they talked mostly about the good times. Their cares of foreclosure and poverty seemed somehow smaller to them both, and when they finally went to bed, they fell asleep in each other’s arms, something they had not done for a long time.

  Ben packed his saddle bags while Jill made the coffee. He brought only a few extra clothes, his sleeping bag, his rain gear, and his one-man tent just in case he couldn’t rent a cabin. He thought about packing his lap-top for e-mail, but decided against it, choosing only to bring his cell phone and one of the twin’s ipods. Back in the day when he was still employed, he had fortuitously purchased a helmet equipped with great speakers. He would listen to his music during the time he was riding. He was glad that his sport-bike was not nearly as loud as the Harley’s that so many yuppies were posing on.

  Jill walked into the attached garage carrying two cups of coffee.

  “Good morning Sparticus, coffee?”

  She smiled at him and held out a cup. He smiled back. He thought about the first time she had called him that, how they had both laughed. He smiled as he took a sip of the coffee. “Rocket fuel this morning.” He thought to himself. He loved Jill.

  “All packed?”

  “I think so. I just need to get my tooth brush.”

  “Have some cereal before you go. I’ll make it the way you like it. Then you can say goodbye to the boys. You already said goodbye to the girls.”

  She smiled again. He smiled back.

  Ben fired up the Honda CBR and put on his helmet. He loved the tight sound of the engine, the agile feel of the frame. He was fifty-five and riding a crotch-rocket, the next-best thing to flying an airplane, which he had once done when he was single and had plenty of money to spare. Jill never liked the idea of his flying light aircraft. She never even seen him fly. She didn’t like his riding a motorcycle either, but she had accepted it over time. He tipped his helmet to her and revved his engine twice as if to say goodbye. She blew him an imaginary kiss and the twins waved. He pressed the play button on the ipod. It was in shuffle mode and the first song to play was “Thrasher” by Neil Young. Perfect song to start his ride. He waved back at the twins and accelerated the bike quickly to thirty miles an hour. He was still in first gear as he rounded the corner.

  He decided that he would take back roads all the way north. He would navigate by the sun. He knew that it would take him much longer, but seeing the back road scenery would far outweigh his loss of time. He had done his share of highway riding, where every truck stop, every restaurant, and every store were cookie-cutter corporate franchises. Not for him. He would take his chances at the mom-and-pop places long forgotten by the interstate crowd. He would gladly ride through small towns at thirty miles an hour. He was in no hurry. He pointed his bike north with the eastern sun just beginning to warm his right shoulder.

  As he traveled, his thoughts were dominated by images and sounds of Spider Lake and his childhood. Would it look the same, or would it be totally different? He envisioned the resort, the gravel roads, Nerroth’s Spot Light, Mogg’s Store, the Rule estate. Would his memories be forever changed by seeing all his childhood haunts through the eyes of an adult? Would it all seem to be smaller than he remembered? He hoped not, but he thought it would.

  He rode along the secondary roads up and through the Kettle Moraine forest, then headed in a northwest direction only stopping once to take a ferry across Lake Wisconsin in Merrimac. As he rode, he passed through towns with names such as Portage, Montello, Wautoma, Waupaca, Ringle, Antigo and Pelican Lake. It was late evening when he stopped at a campground in a place called Lake George. He decided he would finish the short ride to Spider Lake in the morning.

  Ben pulled into the gravel driveway of the camp office which doubled as a convenience store. A baby blue Jeep Wrangler stripped to the bone with what looked like two young couples pulled in along side of him from the direction of the campground. He could hear their loud radio over the sound of his engine. He could feel the bass notes. “They will all be deaf by the time they are my age.” He thought to himself.

  He noticed that they were looking at his bike. The bike always got looks. He kicked the stand, climbed off the seat, stretched, and pulled off his helmet. There were double takes from the Jeep-people. Folks didn’t often see older men riding high-performance machines. Guys Ben’s age always rode the cruiser-types, the Harleys, the Gold Wings, the fully faired bikes with side-cars and stereos, the three-wheelers. White-haired guys never rode crotch rockets.

  Ben made his way stiffly to the office door. One of the Jeep-men, the smaller and skinnier one, walked quickly past him and opened the door for him.

  “Nice bike man.”

  “Thanks.”

  Ben walked directly to the counter. “Do you have any tent sites available?”

  “Sure we do. Would you like a site in the lake area or the pine area?”

  “Which area is quieter?”

  “That would be the pine area.”

  “Okay, one tent site in the pines.”

  “How many nights would you be staying?”

  “Probably just one.”

  After paying for his site, Ben asked, “Is there a restaurant nearby that you would recommend?”

  “Our bar on the lake serves some pretty decent burgers and fries.”

  After putting up his tent, Ben took a walk along the lake-side path which led to the Bar and the boat docks. He could hear from a distance the jukebox was playing “Simple Man” by Lynrd Skynyrd, and he could smell the food cooking on the grill. The smell was making his mouth water. “It can’t be all bad.” He thought to himself.

  The bar had a woodsy, knotty pine kind of charm that you would expect in Northern Wisconsin. There was a dining area with knotty pine dining tables and chairs and a knotty pine bar. Separating them was a red felt pool table. Behind the bar above the many liquor bottles stood a large window overlooking the lake. The obligatory jack-a-lopes were strategically placed here and there, as well as your garden-variety taxidermal fare including all sorts of woodland critters and various stringers of fish. One skunk was wearing sunglasses, and carrying a rose in its mouth and Ben thought surely it was meant to be Pepe LePew. He thought the glasses were probably added much later by a sloshed patron, only to be kept in place for the comic value.

  He sat at the bar and ordered a draft beer and a steak sandwich which turned out to be much better than he expected. He stayed a while, making small talk with the bartender and nursing his beer. Looking out at the lake, he thought it was about twice as big as he remembered Spider Lake to be, and there were a lot of speed boats roaring around in a counter-clockwise direction, many of them pulling skiers. Spider lake allowed only row boats when he was a kid. The bar was getting busier as the evening wore on, and Ben noticed it was a younger crowd. Was this the local hangout? He was beginning to feel a little out of place.

  He was in no hurry to lay down in his tent. It was small, meant for backpacking, and you could barely sit up in it. He bought it because it fit nicely in his saddle bags. He didn’t mind camping but he was not tired and the bar was preferable to the picnic table. A map of the Rhinelander was shellacked to a board on a wall near where the pool cues were kept. Ben went over to look at it. He was surprised to see that Spider Lake was no more than ten or twelve miles away, about the same distance as this lake was to the center of town, but on the opposite side of Rhinelander.

  He ordered another beer and wondered how he would feel going back to his childhood home. He had looked at the place using Google Earth, and the satellite view revealed that there was still a main house, cabins and clearing. He did searches for lodging, resorts, and cabins, but each time the results returned omitted his boyhood home. Would it still be a resort? He hoped so. It would make things a lot easier for him.

  He d
id notice that the girl scout camp was marked. It had a new name— Wilderness Camp, but the satellite view showed only trees. It showed no docks or rafts, so he guessed that the image probably had been captured during the off-season. When he was a boy Spider Lake Road had been all gravel. The street view showed that it was now paved as he had expected it would be. The grounds of the Rule estate could still be seen, which surprised him. He thought that the place might have been entirely overgrown by now. The boat house and water tower were still there.

  Ben ordered another beer. It was starting to get dark outside, and the window behind the bar began to reveal only the lamp-lit docks and the slow-moving boat lights off in the distance. All else was utter darkness. He watched as a bat fed continuously on the moths that were drawn to the lamp light. He guessed that there was probably several bats having their dinner there. A vintage tri-hull ski-boat putted up to the dock, and as the passengers were getting out, Ben noticed that they were the Jeep people he had seen earlier.

  The girls were dressed in hoodie sweatshirts, and Ben smiled as one of them ducked and squealed as a bat flew overhead. Both women quickly put their hoods up, no doubt thinking that the bats would get tangled in their hair. The two men appeared to be on the tipsy side as they tied up the boat, and Ben half expected one of them to fall in. They were all making their way up the steps to the bar and as they got closer, he noticed that three out of the four were quite tanked.

  Once they were in the bar, Ben noticed that they looked much older than he had originally thought. In the parking lot, he had only given them a fleeting glance. Now, in the close confines of the bar, they looked to be well into their thirties. He was bemused at how he could have mistaken them for young kids. One of the men looked as if he might be closer to forty than he was to thirty. They were all in decent shape, and Ben thought at a distance they might be mistaken for younger people. Maybe it was the stripped down Jeep and the loud music that fooled him. Young people drive jeeps. Young people listen to loud music. He took another sip of his Leinenkugels draft.

  Ben spun his bar stool around and faced the pool table. The Jeep-people had placed four quarters on the red felt, reserving it for the next game. Ben was starting to feel a little buzzed from the beer. There was something bothering him but he couldn’t figure out what it was. He watched as Jeep-man number one, the larger, louder one, argued that his four quarters meant his group would use the table next to play doubles. The skinny man with his own two-piece pool cue who had just won the previous game said no, one of them had to play him to win the table. And so the argument began.

  Ben watched as the bar took on the appearance of a north woods kangaroo court. The plaintiff, Jeep-man number one, argued that the defendant, skinny-man with his own two-piece cue, should have informed said-plaintiff ahead of time that he needed to be challenged to win the use of the red felt pool table. Skinny man, the defendant, argued that it is done that way everywhere, and that the plaintiff should know this. The gallery, which contained the three remaining Jeep-people and assorted bystanders began to add their two cents to both sides of the argument. Finally the judge, ( bartender ) had to quiet the gallery by ruling in the defendant’s favor and thus restoring the order.

  There was still something bothering Ben as he watched the players at the table. He ordered another beer to hold his seat at the now-full bar and informed the bartender that he would be right back. Ben thought about relieving himself outside, but decided there were too many patrons there. He used the men’s room instead. He stepped out on to the deck to get a breath of fresh air, but the smoke from all the cigarette people drove him quickly back inside. He decided to put a dollar on the pool table.

  What was it that was bugging him? He decided to slow way down on his alcohol consumption. He asked the bartender for a glass of ice-water to chase his beer. To Ben’s surprise, the skinny man with the two-piece custom pool cue had just lost to the well in the bag Jeep-man number one. Then, Jeep-man number one looked down at the four quarters, and then directly at Ben. He made a bee-line towards where Ben was sitting. As Jeep-man got closer, the uneasy feeling seemed to increase, and still, Ben could not tell what it was. Jeep-man got so close that Ben could smell the beer on his breath.

  “Hey, you’re that old dude on the Ninja, am I right?

  “Its a CBR.”

  “What’s a CBR?”

  “The bike. It’s a Honda CBR. And yes, I am the old dude who rides it.”

  “Hey man, the girls want to play doubles. Would you mind if we play one before you? It’s your call.”

  “Sure. Have at it. I will play the winner.”

  “Thanks man.”

  The phrase “Thanks man.” came with the optional spray of beer and spittle, courtesy of the now-wasted Jeep-man number one. Ben picked up a napkin from under his beer glass and wiped his face after the Jeep-man turned his back on him. He thought that he should probably skip the pool game. He downed the rest of his ice-water leaving the beer glass nearly full. On his way towards the exit, he stopped by the pool table, and spoke once again with the Jeep-man.

  “I think I am going to call it a night. You guys play the next one on me.”

  “Hey old dude. You are all right! Ride safe on that Ninja man!”

  Ben thought about a rebuttal which would contain the real maker of his machine, but decided to just throw them a smile and leave. He took a walk to the shower facility, and washed his face and hands. As he was walking back to his site, he could hear the jukebox playing “Come Monday” by Jimmy Buffett. “How appropriate.” He thought.

  Later, when he was lying in his tent, he tried to think about what might be nagging at him. Whatever it was it never came. He turned on the ipod and watched a movie that was stored on the hard drive. No doubt one of his boys had loaded it. He decided that Transformers Revenge of the Fallen was not quite his taste in movies, so he shut the device off. He finally shut his eyes about the same time the lake-side bar was quieting down. The troublesome sensation never left him. Perhaps tomorrow it would.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  A Boat Ride Part Two ( 1968 )

  en and Matt listened to the frequent rumbling of the distant storm. The sky was crystal-clear above them so they were in no hurry to get off the water. The girl scout camp had blown the air horn meaning stop their activities and take shelter. The breeze that had picked up a short while ago had leveled off and was now beginning to subside. Ben thought correctly that the storm would miss them.

  “Should we get off the lake?” Matt asked.

  “I don’t think so. The thunder isn’t getting any louder. I think it is going to pass south of us.”

  Matt glanced to the south where the only cloud could be seen. The anvil-shaped cloud was massive, but so distant that only the very top third could be seen from where they were. The mid-afternoon sun had painted the westward side of the cloud the color of a pale orange sherbet. The Hell-hound at the Rule estate was barking crazily with every new rumble of the distant thunder. They were looking anxiously southward now at the Rule estate, which was directly below the thunderhead in their field of view. Matt asked, “Do you hear that hell-hound? I bet he is foaming at the mouth!”

  “Of course I hear him. I can picture him snapping at the thin air.”

  “Do you remember the sound of that huge chain rattling that night? Man, when I think of that dog’s eyes and teeth I almost fill my shorts.”

  “How can I forget? The crazy thing almost sunk his teeth into my keester.”

  “Can you imagine hearing that awful racket up close? I wonder how anyone there can sleep at night.”

  “They probably don’t. They probably hang upside-down like bats from the rafters on the third floor.”

  “No. More than likely they are down in the cellar where it is mustier and cooler.”

  “Yeah, and when they wake up they feed the hell-hound body parts loaded with strychnine to keep him crazy.”

  “What do you think they give him to drink?”

 
“Toxic waste. That would be the only suitable thing to give it, after all, hydrophobia makes animals nuts at the sight of water.”

  The storm rumbled again sending the hell-hound into a renewed volley of barking, snarling and yelping. The boys were safe at a distance which emboldened them, but still the sound gave them goose-bumps. They were both silent for a minute and then Ben said, “I wonder why Digger hasn’t come out and booted him yet?”

  “Because he is hanging—”

  “No, Matt, I’m serious. Usually when the hell-hound barks, Digger comes out and yells at him and gives him a boot. He yells and the dog yelps. I can hear it some nights through my window.”

  “Maybe he is out shopping for a new shovel.”

  Ben looked at Matt and shook his head. He knew he couldn’t get his friend to be serious. Matt was a clown most if not all of the time. He decided it was no use so he played along. “Yeah, he has saved twelve million S and H green stamps to buy the new steam shovel he has been looking at.”

  “Can you imagine what it would be like to be a door-to-door shovel salesman and walk up to that place?”

  “Yeah, you would be instantly rich one minute, and chopped up and fed to the hell-hound the next.”

  The sound of the air horn giving the all-clear at the camp sent the deranged mongrel into a new tirade. The wind had subsided to a gentle breeze, and once again the surface of the lake was nearly undisturbed. The two of them got back to the task of rowing towards the raft. They watched as the monkey again climbed the water tower. “There’s that monkey again. What do you suppose he is up to?”