anger, laughter was waiting right behind his clenched teeth. He clenched them harder, afraid that if it escaped, it wouldn't stop until they dressed him up in a tailor-made straight jacket.
"What, you too good for us all of a sudden? Are you so high and mighty you can't associate with your friends?"
Jimmy was working himself up, but stalled as Lukas started to laugh. It began as a titter, worked its way quickly into giggling and ended in a beer-spewing guffaw.
"What the hell are you laughin ' at?" Jimmy asked, staring incredulously at his friend who had surely gone off the deep end.
"It's just...It's just," Lukas took a swig of beer to calm himself. "I'm just laughin at Darwin, man."
Jimmy and Frank stared blankly at each other.
"Survival of the fittest?" asked Frank.
"No. No. Them awards," Lukas said. "Three Tennessee rednecks, up shit's creek, a case of beer and..."
"...no fucking paddles," said all three of them in broken harmony.
They chuckled dryly, their animosity forgotten.
"You know, I peed my pants back there," Jimmy said.
"Me too," Lukas said. "I haven't been that scared since old man Coleman threatened to feed me to Vivi ."
"Both of you are sick. I can't believe you peed in your pants. And you wrestled in it too? Disgusting," Frank said, keeping his secret to himself. "Fucking disgusting."
It was a long moment before anyone spoke. Finally, it was three simple words from Jimmy that sent Frank's urine once again flowing down his leg.
"Shit. Widow's Corner."
Frank shuddered, memories racing through his suddenly clear mind. It was the Boy Scout canoe trip and everything had been fantastic until Widow's Corner. Three of the nine canoes had flipped among the dangerous moss-covered rocks and shooting rapids. All the boys had been recovered except Robbie and Teddy. The Scoutmaster had made camp near the still water below the rapids, and had dived under and around the creek with the Eagle Scouts in assistance, desperately searching for the two missing boys. It was midnight, when they had all collapsed around the fire, deaths upon their consciences. The younger scouts, Frank included, had all been terrified that night, most going to bed and crying themselves to sleep.
It was the next morning that they found Robbie. Even now Frank's vision of the basketball-sized bite that had been taken out of the boy's sternum was Technicolor clear. But Teddy had never been found.
The sound of the rapids was growing louder by the second. Even louder than the Devil's Shoals. Frank searched the bottom of the boat frantically, taking inventory. Floating in the water were about seventy full beers, a half roll of silver tape, a length of rope, pieces of cardboard from the twelve-pack holders, a miraculously unbroken Styrofoam cooler, and the ridiculous looking Bitch-Be-Quick Stick.
It was the latter that began the idea that just might save them. "What the hell are we gonna do?" Jimmy asked, already shouting over the sound of the rapids that were still a hundred yards ahead.
The Hiawasee was generally a fifty-yards-wide creek, winding languidly through the Tennessee hills. At Widow's Corner, however, it shrank to a maniacal fifteen-yard-wide, rock-riddled gushing mass of frothing water. And that was when the creek was normal. All the extra rain had succeeded in adding too much extra water to camouflage the rocks, making it insanely quick and land mine treacherous.
Yet, as the idea took full form in Frank's mind, he frantically began to draft an internal map of each and every turn within the dangerous maelstrom. The childhood memories that he had tried so hard to forget were the only thing standing between death and a happy ending.
That, and life lessons from too many McGyver reruns.
Frank reached forward and grabbed the Bitch-Be-Quick Stick and the Styrofoam cooler. He shouted his instructions, and after repeating himself several times, the others finally understood. It was a scant ten yards before they hit the rapids that