We came to the rivers edge and just looked into it.
It seemed as if candy canes and sugar plum fairies were dancing around the bottom of the river bed, just waiting for us to come play with them. Neither of us noticed small remnants of some animal gently floating down stream........
Joel and I just jumped into the water and swam to the bottom. Joel had told me to fan the sand with my hands and pick up ANY stone I might come across, then swim up and cast it to a spot on the shore we had picked before we started.
It was maybe 2 hours later that we called a break to see what we gathered. We were too JAZZED to feel any fatigue. so we got our pocket knives out and started to chip away at the rocks and see if we got anything of value. We had thrown up a shitload of rocks on the shore! As we started to chip away, the grins on our faces kept getting bigger and bigger! 3 out of 5 stones showed GOLD under the silt covering! We kept this up, diving and pitching up rocks until well after noon when we finally called it a day!
We dragged our "catch" back to camp and decided to eat and talk about what the fuck we were going to do next.....?
Before us lay a whole future of possibilities we had never dreamed of! I have no idea what Joel might have been thinking............all I knew was my own mind/hearts desire...........for me ,I kept thinking ,that now I could come home from school, go directly to my room and do my homework without feeding my baby brother(Blair), or changing my baby sister's(Alana's) diapers, or clean my Phyco moms figurine display. The freedom to study at leisure!
That night Joel and I were in Disneyland of our dreams...........That night we just ate, drank and smoked a little,(!). We had DREAMS OF ...........OF ............THE WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I told Joel some of mine, how I wanted to live "some" of the life of "JAMES BOND", how I wanted to meet the kind of women "HE" did! /grin/blush. How I wanted to live the life of adventure! How I wanted to have Fillet Mignon instead of Salisbury Steak!( AND afford it with plenty to spear), (sp?). How I wanted to climb cliffs, hunt big game, sail the seas, sit in a council of elders......................and be asked of my opinion. (what a maroon I was! hahahaha) JOEL told me of some of His, how He wanted to be a GREAT artist! like DEGAL, MONEAY, and that crazy fuck who cut off his ear off in Tahiti! hahaha, and be the BIGGEST whore monger He knew! We fell asleep with dreams of WONDER in our spirits..............and GOLD in the river ........WAITING for US!
The next morning We ate, drank our coffee, cleaned and WENT SWIMMING FOR GOLD!!!!!!!!!! hahaha!As we dove into the river, it never occurred to me,(the science nut!), that there were NO fish coming from upstream...........?
With the invincibility of "dumb" teenagers, we continued to dive....(I had not said before,BUT, Joel and I had, when we first came to "XANADU", made camp on the EAST side of the river, ( another reason to believe that God protects "MAD DOGS, ENGLISHMEN and DUMB TEENAGERS!). As we proceeded to gather our .....booty? .......gift from Mother Earth?...........our find? ...........what ever!!!!!!!!! We started to realise that...........We had a SHITLOAD of GOLD here!!!!!!!!! , and we couldn't carry all that much! hahahaha! HONEST!!!!!!!! there is that much STILL there!!!!!!!!!! BUT! As we dove, Joel , somehow cut his leg! We / He didn't think too much of it and continued to dive...............and as His blood drifted down stream,.... then..., there came the Meat Eaters!!!!!!!..........
I was sitting on the bank resting and dreaming of JAMES BOND Tuxedos, DROP DEAD GORGEOUS Countesses , Casinos, A Dunhill Lighter, (like His), and kinda noticed shadows swimming around Joel. 5 or 7? I blinked and then there were 10 or15? and then a school! ...........when Joel SCREAMED OUT IN PAIN AND TERROR !!!!!!!!
As I stood up, He broke the surface , gasping for enough air to SCREAM for help!!
I stood on the banks and reached out as far as I could to grab His hand! Those little fuckers were eating Him ALIVE!!!!! As I was pulling Him out, my left foot was being gnawed on like YOU do to Baby Back Ribs! (GET ALL THAT MEAT OFF THE BONE, SUCKA!)
I pulled Him out of the water with 5 OR 7 of those nasty little fuckers still clinging to his body!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I beat those little beasties off His body and ran to my pack and grabbed my Army Navy Surplus First Aid Kit! (and hoped to Gawd that it worked!)
I ripped out the powered Sulfa, sprinkled it out on all His wounds , wrapped them as best I could and did some thing I do not do to this day....................I prayed for Him..........
E S D
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