“Come on, lighten up Paul.” Becky scolded. “Just because you got a college scholarship and was chosen all county doesn’t mean instant career. It takes a lot of work and a lot of luck and besides you would have to spend quite a bit of time in a farm camp and then play for a while in the minor leagues. That still doesn’t guarantee you a spot on a big league team. That’s a shot in the dark and you know it.”
“Just you wait Rebecca. I’ll prove myself. You just wait and see.”
Marvin Schumaker was a self-proclaimed ladies man. He thought he was God’s gift to womanhood. In reality, most women thought he was a real dud with a capital D. He not only was egotistical, he was downright boring. Marvin, at five foot five, wore lifts in his shoes. His drastically receded hairline was supplemented with an ill fitting toupee and his facial features, pock marked since adolescents from a severe bout of acne, added to a slumped shouldered pot bellied structure that was almost comical to look at. Five minutes in animated conversation with Marvin was all it took for most women to realize this person was a real loser. He told any women he met, so many different stories about who he was and what he did, of course, better than anyone else, that he sometimes forgot who he was supposed to be at any given moment. One night he was a jet fighter test pilot. Another night he was a world-renowned cardiac specialist. He even went so far as to tell a very enticing redhead he was a CIA agent on special assignment for the President. This immediately backfired when; she asked him who his superior was because she told him she had been an agent stationed in Argentina for the last three years. This was a complete fabrication by the redhead because she recognized a bullshit artist right away. Marvin stammered a muttered reply and immediately headed for the rest room, from which he peeked out sporadically until her back was turned and quickly snuck out the back door.
In reality, Marvin Schumaker was a technician trained to monitor the dials and gauges controlling the input and output of the equalization system of the manmade lake. He spent eight hours a day watching the same instruments for any deviation from the norm. He was busy in the restroom staring, at what he thought, his handsome image in the tiny mirror, when the first glitch appeared. It wasn’t much but a trained eye, such as the one Marvin possessed, would have picked up the irregularity immediately. Unfortunately, his narcissus complex kept him from noticing what, could have been an early warning of a potential disaster. The input sensors detected a tremendous drop in the level of the lake over a one-half hour period of time. By the time Marvin returned to his workstation, the pumps produced enough pressure to restore the lake to its normal level and no one was the wiser. The sudden loss of water would have indicated a potentially dangerous situation but, Marvin was too busy monitoring himself instead of the lake and the loss went undetected. The grand opening scheduled for Saturday relaxed the schedules of the technicians because, everything was going so smooth since the inception of the monitoring system, and the corporation didn’t feel the need to pay overtime over the weekend. If something was going to go wrong they reasoned, it should have happened way before now. If Marvin had done his job correctly, someone would have kept at least a skeleton crew working throughout the weekend but because of his lack of warning, everything seemed to go smoothly.
Marvin liked the idea of having the weekend off. He could scope out the babes and have his way with any he chose. His awkward thinking deteriorated his mind so much, he thought he could really score with any woman he met. Well, the big party was tomorrow and Marvin was destined to get his just rewards.
Otis Sherman arranged the lure display for about the fifth time in three hours and frowned. Something’s wrong here, I can feel it in my bones. He looked down at Bart and smiled.
“What’s up boy? You look all jittery today. Usually you come back from your afternoon walk in the woods with a smirk on your face, like you had conquered every wild animal in the forest. Today, you come back like a bear tried to eat you. What gives boy?”
Otis reached over and scratched the brown and white dog behind the ears and continued his worrisome thoughts.
“You know Bart, animals have a special instinct that God didn’t think man needed. Well, I could sure use some of that instinct now. Everything seems wrong. The birds haven’t been singing like they usually do. The fish, sure the hell, haven’t been biting and now you act funny. I’m worried some kind of big time pal.”
Otis, his seventy year old back arched with osteoporosis, shuffled slowly over to the picture window that overlooked the azure blue water of the man-made lake and sat down gingerly in his cane back rocker, a birthday gift from the resort’s office staff, and stared with his icy blue eyes at puffy cumulus clouds drifting over the lake. He sadly shook his unruly shock of white hair and sighed. Otis shrugged his shoulders and reached over to the window sill and turned up the volume on the little portable radio he had brought into the office when it had first opened. He was somewhat soothed by the soft rock music coming out of the single speaker and his thoughts went back to the old days. The days when Bart was still a puppy. He had been living in an old ramshackle shack on the edge of the lazy river that bordered Walker’s Prairie, what they now call Forest Glen. Otis made his living with, trotlines strung up and down the river always catching the big river catfish that he sold in the village. He also cut the hearts out of the palms and sold the swamp cabbage to all the locals. Once in a while he would be hired out as a hunting or fishing guide. His big break came when that Jap fellow visited him one rainy, really hot sticky night. That Jap was cool and collected in his three-piece suit and Brooks Brothers’ raincoat and he offered Otis more money than he had ever seen if, he would come and run his marina for him. The foreigner told that he had a reputation of knowing everything there was to know about fishing in Florida waters and he wanted someone who could tell his guest how to catch fish in his brand new lake.
The well-dressed business man told Otis he was going to stock the lake with all types of native Florida sports fish and that it was going to be completely, computer controlled. Otis did not hesitate very long before he accepted the offer. A place, where there were plenty of fish and a new apartment with, God forbid, air-conditioning, and all Otis had to do was tell a bunch of Yankees how to bait a hook. YessirreBob, a dream come true. Otis knew he was getting on in years and a nice comfortable place to spend his twilight years sounded ideal.
His luck had really improved but now Otis had the feeling that everything was going to change. He didn’t know what was going to happen but he thought it would really be kind of nice to be back in his safe little shack on the bank of the lazy river.
The beach bar was still full of bikinis from the onslaught of sun worshippers who preferred the rum concocted drinks to the harsh rays of Florida sunshine in the middle of June. The bar had been packed since before eleven a.m. and now that the night shift of vacationers and local patrons began filling in, the bronzed day goddesses began to filter out to head for a cold shower and to get prepared for another Friday night of checking the meat factories for a suitable companion to impress their friends, for at least a couple of days.