Not Lake People (outdoor adventure)

I didn’t have a toolbox in my garage or a camper to pull behind my big truck. I don’t have a truck. And I’m deep in upper Vermont in the lake country. Ridin shotgun with my future brother-in-law out to the “camp.” Everyone had a lake camp. In Vermont, I think it’s part of the outdoor lifestyle.

These people also played a lot of ice hockey, even when they were long out of college. They did have tools and pizza ovens in their garages. Maybe a guitar amp or two. A drum kit would be extraordinary. But, this was, in fact, the land of Phish. So, nearly everyone had a musical talent of some kind. Even if it mainly involved large quantities of alcohol and a Costco karaoke machine.

We, the brother and I, were going to level the trailer and get it ready for a weekend at the lake. The first weekend of the season. Today, it was just us men, getting the camp ready. In a few days, I’d be smoking a doobie with my future wife and the wife of the brother. We stared into the campfire. In our sturdy Adirondack chairs. Not speaking. My mouth tasted awful. I hate smoking stuff.

I could imagine, sitting in that chair, high as f*ck, wondering if I would be back at camp the next summer. And the summers after that. It was pretty nice. My girlfriend and I got the camper with her kid. The brother and family stayed in the cabin.

We retired from the fire to the camper and went our separate ways onto the single-sized beds. Her boy was asleep in the front one. So she joined him. I was left to contemplate the misty clouds over the lake and the crackling fire nearby, no longer providing light.

The brother and I drove back to the house after we got the camper all squared up and opened to the air. It was about an hour trip. We picked up some tallboy locally brewed IPAs called A Sip a Sunshine. The brother opened his when we got back in the truck. I was warned about this. I offered to drive.

“No, I got this,” he said.

“It’s okay, I really want to drive your truck, now that there’s no camper. I couldn’t have backed it in there like you did. Not in a million years.”

He threw me the keys.

“I get the music,” I said.

“Drive!”

8-15-23

Read more Short-Short Stories from John.