Dark water that Beckoned

      I was recently watching a documentary about the elaborate antics that the frantic male animals go through in order to attract the attention of the usually- indifferent female. How the rhino has to run approx forty-five miles chasing the female in order to prove he is fit. How the male shark has to latch on to the females fin as she tests his tenacity.

    How some birds must build nests decorated with blue items as the female inspects each one before accepting the winner as her mate. How male mountain goats must ram their heads together risking injury and death just to get the privilege of mating while the females indifferently graze nearby.

     It suddenly dawned on me that we human males aren't that different and that the human female fits right in with the aloof attitude that other female, non-human animals display.

     After all, it is quite obvious that we heterosexual males have this intense, almost instinctive need to impress the female by whatever means possible. It makes us act foolish sometimes. We might attempt to make silly jokes to get the female to smile or better yet, to laugh. Or try to prove we are the best via some athletic feat that the other fellows can’t repeat. How we do it doesn’t really make too much of a difference as long as the attractive female is impressed.

     Unfortunately, such frantic antics can lead to physical danger. A bully might be challenged and there go the teeth. A climb might be attempted and broken bones, or worse yet, life might be lost. The possibilities for a disaster are limitless.

     Which brings me the camping trip at North Lake NY. We had gone fishing on North Lake and noticed a beach nearby. As we rowed the boat nearer to get a better look, we noticed that there were young females in bikinis soaking up the sun and delicately frolicking in the water. So back at the campsite, my cousin George and I hurriedly donned our swimming trunks, and like birds following a homing beacon, headed in that direction.

     Only one girl was still there when we arrived, a girl in a bikini and she immediately caught our eye. She wore sunglasses and her smooth white, skin gleamed with suntan lotion. We both stared as if we had encountered a goddess.

     Unfortunately, she seemed completely oblivious to our presence. As if we totally didn’t exist or if we did, we seemed of very little importance in her personal universe. Actually, such indifference should have mattered more to my cousin George since he was three years older than me, and she was within his age-range. But for some reason, it irked me, a thirteen-year old the most. I mean, I just had to impress her in some way. The question was how? Obviously my musculature, or at least the musculature I imagined I had at that age, didn’t impress her. With George it was understandable, I assumed since he was a veritable skeleton. But for me? The future Lou Ferrigno? For me, I expected at least a glance. But how was the question. The solution soon revealed itself as if in answer to a fervent prayer.

     As we walked humbly past her, I noticed an embankment leading to some ink-black water nearby. The perfect opportunity to impress this beauty.

     “Say George, why don’t we take a swim there?” I pointed to the extremely dark foreboding surface.

    “Nahh!” he said, “I rather swim over there with everyone else.”

     “I’m going to do it. I’m going to swim across it and come back. You wait here!” I said loud enough for her to hear me just to make sure she would be looking.

     “Are you sure? That water looks pretty deep!”

     “No problem!” I said even louder. Then I deftly I removed my sandals, flipped them confidently aside, and began strutting toward this curious two-foot-high chain-linked fenced which I believed was there for decorative purposes only. After all, why would it be so ridiculously low if it wasn’t decorative? So I hopped over it confidently, then rooster-strutted toward the rock-slabbed embankment’s edge.

     After getting a closer look and noticing just how dark the water looked in comparison with the rest of the lake, I started having serious doubts. Did I really want to swim directly above all that mysterious darkness? I began to wonder why the water was so black there while the rest of the lake appeared a placid blue. The question seemed to assume more importance the nearer I got. I felt like turning back, but if I did, then what would the girl think? So despite my growing concern, I forced myself on. Then it happened. As I took one step on the embankment my footing gave way and I momentarily became airborne. Then after landing flat on my back with a bone-rattling thud against the broad-stoned slats, I began rapidly sliding toward the edge of the black water below.

     To me, it seemed as if the water had been maliciously aware of my approach, was ravenously hungry, wanted to swallow me, couldn’t wait, so it had tripped me. Brief images of the film “Creature From the Black” Lagoon flitted though my adolescent brain and I panicked. Then to my horror, my legs were suddenly submerged, and I couldn’t see my feet.

     Why couldn’t I see my feet if they were just a few feet away? Where were my feet? What kind of freakish water was this anyhow? I began frantically thrashing my legs and back pedaling with my arms to get some traction and get myself up to higher ground. But the slime-covered stone slats made traction almost impossible and I kept sliding in deeper.

     So I flipped myself over on my belly to use my my hands to get a grip. I had great confidence in my weight-lifting arms. But my hands slipped on the slippery organic material. Organic? Slimy? Images I’d seen in the film The Blob, where this organic thing that resembled some kind of giant slimy amoeba who engulfed its victims whole and slowly digested them, came to my mind.

     Once that particularly poignant image hit me, all bets and all attempts at elegant dignity under duress were off. The girl was watching? To hell with the girl! She’d think me incompetent? Well, that was better than falling into the waiting maw of whatever was lurking just a few feet away in that water. I really felt like shouting for help, but the need to maintain some shred of dignity in the female’s presence prevented it. Instead I began furiously thrashing about like a fish out of water, hoping that God would be merciful enough to grant me a grip on one of those accursed rocks.

     True, for a few merciful; seconds, I’d go up a few feet via sheer desperate willpower, but then I’d slide back down into the water again as if pulled by some supernatural magnet. In all honesty, had I thought that using my front teeth would have helped at that moment, then I would have employed them by latching on to some twig or other vegetation in order to gain more leverage. But the rocks were bare and using my teeth would have only served to grind them down. The furious struggle continued for what to me seemed an agonizing eternity when finally, one of my hands caught hold of an un-slimed rock to my far right and I was able to pull myself up.

     At that point, of course, cousin George appeared above me on some dry boulder and offered his hand with a slight grin on his Jerry Lewis look-alike face. The impression I got was that he’d been enjoying the whole thing. That suspicion was confirmed when after a dramatic silence, he burst out laughing. Then to add insult to injury, he began imitating my struggle while the female in the bikini, who had been watching the whole disaster, struggled not to laugh as well.

     He rolled on the sand pounding it with his fists while guffawing. Then, as I turned to look back at the location of my embarrassing ordeal, I noticed a sign which read: "Slippery Rocks! No Swimming Allowed!” and wondered how the hell I could have been so blind as not to have seen it. But, yep. I had caught the female’s attention alright. But not quite in the way I had planned.