Bennett The Brave

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

As Neal and I settled into the bed, we both breathed sighs of exhaustion and contentment. Mom kissed me and my new best friend on the forehead.

"It's been a pleasure having you with us Neal," she said warmly, cupping his face in her hand, "we'll see you both in the morning!" She shut off the light, stepped out of the room and shut the door quietly. As soon as it closed, we threw off the covers and lay there in the stillness of the evening, radiating the day's heat.

"Today was cool," he said, and I nodded my head in silent agreement. Having Neal sleep over was the perfect end to what had been a perfect day. Neal's parents rented a summer cabin at the lake very recently; we met at the beach and become immediate friends. The same height as me, Neal's mop of coal-dust hair was so black that it shone blue in the sunlight. Our laughter tinkled across the water as the underwater weeds brushed our skinny legs while we splashed our way out to the old dock. Once there, we propelled each other off and into the water, only to climb back up the wooden ladder to dive, helter-skelter, off the slippery planks again and again.

Later, with the blessings of our parents, we struck out on our bikes to ride around the lake and dry off. During the summer, the lake bustled with activity; the ride around it an adventure at every turn. Going past the marsh, we stopped on the causeway to see if we could get a look at snakes slithering through the weeds. While Neal peered over the side of the rail, I faded back and suddenly grabbed his calf with a clawed-hand, making all sorts of horrible hissing noises. He about jumped out of his skin, pummeling me with his fists on the way down.

"No fair!" he cried out, "You scared the shit out of me!" There was a shocked silence as we both realized the gravity of his language. After we were sure no adults were in the vicinity to overhear, we burst into a fit of giggles, and proceeded to swear like little sailors as we mounted our bikes and continued on. We stopped cussing after we passed an elderly fisherman teetering at the edge of the shoreline, who shook his head disapprovingly. Still, it had been keen to speak so freely with nobody around to knock me on the head and I could feel the blood pounding in my veins at our sheer audacity. Neal looked over at me, smiled a devilish grin and sped off ahead of me, spraying gravel and sand from his tires.

As we pedaled through the tents and trailers of the state campground, a small cadre of boys started running after us, yelling for us to stop and play ball, which we did for about an hour. When some of the other kids took off for lunch, I dug into my pocket and came up with two wrinkled dollars, which was enough for a couple of sodas and popsicles from the camp store. Some of the other kids scrounged up some change and joined us beneath a big elm at the water's edge. Our tongues turned all sorts of crazy colors and we delighted in sticking them out at one another while sticky-sweet liquid ran down our arms, staining our skin. I was thankful for the cold iciness of the treat as it mediated the noon heat. The other kids wanted to go back to tossing the ball around, but Neal and me needed to get back to riding.

"I've gotta take a piss," he said with a John Wayne like swagger. The boys in the group all took up the call, nobody wanting to appear less than manly. I wrinkled my nose as we all crowded into the outhouse, it stank of cedar, old pee and cobwebs. Each of us stood in front of the metal trough, pulling the waistbands of our shorts down and stuck our peckers over the lip to whiz. Some of the younger ones dropped trow completely, their little white butts clenching as they strained to shoot their streams over and into the trough. One of the older boys just lifted the leg of his shorts and pulled out a schlong that looked almost as big as my dad's. He seemed only a couple of years older than us, but both Neal and I exchanged looks as we took notice of the kid's gigundo dork. We all shook off, stuck our dinks back into our shorts and bade each other farewell.