Lake Mohave
How many times have I made that nighttime boat trip, at least thirty, maybe fifty? It's hard to say for sure with the brain cells sloughing off by the millions and all. Lake Mohave (Yes, an "h" not a "j".) some forty miles long and, save for a single spot called "The Basin," it is as narrow as a body of water can be and still be deemed a lake. It sits at the south end of mighty Boulder Dam. Lake Mohave is the Colorado River dammed-up just above Laughlin, Nevada.
In the summertime it is a-buzz with sun-beaten vacationers and alcohol-crazed party fanatics. Houseboats, hundred-mile-an-hour plus speedboats, ski boats, wakeboard boats, pontoon boats, fishing boats, jet skis, and canoes and kayaks - all manner of watercraft cram the lake. It is mayhem, madness, and magnificent. It is beautiful, exciting, dangerous, and too often deadly. Police boats patrol and take great pains to limit the carnage, but they are few and the lake is large and the revelers are an endless army outfitted in board shorts and string bikinis. Those damn police boats are a bane to my lake-borne, barnstorming existence since I am of that ill-advised ilk that drives his boat while intoxicated.
On the lake we drunken drivers are legion. Most of us who drive while alcoholically brain-bent are careful, well as careful as any drunk can be, and take great pains to not call attention to ourselves. Condemn me if you must, but I am, in rare moments of self-congratulatory sotto voce whispers, a proud and accomplished drunk driver being as much as I have never had a 502 on water or land! My holier than thou bitch-sister commented,when I told her of my success at this endeavor, "Oh that?s great, it's like bragging you can eat dog-shit without gagging."
I reiterate and expand: she's the worst kind of bitch - judgmental, religious, and terminally sober!
So anyhow, since the police are everywhere on the lake nowadays, our little crew has been forced to make alterations to our boating methodologies. (I know, I know, the language is way overblown. But I already sense that you think I am an idiot so I'm trying to impress you with Thomas Wolfian words and Ludwig Wittgenstein-like compositional convolutions and over-long sentences.) What the evil water cops do these days is gather at the entrance to the marina in the late afternoon and wait for all the sunburnt drunks to come back to the docks and then they pounce on them like voracious sheriff-sharks on stupid-drunk sunning seals.
So, to abrogate the end-of-the-day interdiction by the water authorities, what we do, is stay out on the lake long into the night. Often we remain out there on the moon-cooled sand, drinking, laughing overloud to the dumbest stuff, and playing horseshoes by wan starlight and the white refractions of la Luna. When we finally come cruising slowly back to the marina it is midnight. The harbor is deserted and bathed in soft lambent light that coruscates on the gentle ripples of the dark turbid waters. It?s quite beautiful and superbly peaceful. Six hours or so prior to our midnight arrival this tranquility was not even glimpsed by the water-riot of throngs trying to run the gauntlet of harbor police and endless lines of trucks waiting to retrieve boats that sat serried like sardines in the churned-up, carp-crawling, fuel-smelling marina waters. But long after the throng is gone we load up our depleted ice chests, our beach chairs, weigh anchor and roll up ropes and shatter the cemetery silence of the lake night with the sudden throaty roar of the boat?s powerful engine. Pleasantly exhausted, and drunk as Shanghaied sailors, with our penultimate beers in hand, we leave our deep-water beach and without going on plane, we cruise slowly back towards the deserted marina.
One particular moonless night, with the great arch of winking stars spanning the benighted desert sky above us, we made our way back through darkness unexpected. I had never navigated back without the moon. All about us was a still Stygian blackness! Cautiously, I held the boat's great horsepower back to a restrained, rhythmic, "frump-frump-frump." In the midnight quietude the expelled water from the exhausts gurgled out the transom. The six powerful speakers, almost mute, whispered the Doors? L.A. Woman. In the back seat, the two women, drunk, spent, and sun-wrecked, have been lulled into slumber by the gentle rocking and rumbling. In the passenger seat my brother sat half asleep, beer in hand. With one hand on the steering wheel and one hand on the throttle, I stared dead ahead and glared into the ink well of the moonless lake night and looked for flotsam or the telltale green light on the bow of an oncoming boat. Every few minutes I looked off to the east waiting to see the light on the promontory that indicated the entrance to Katherine Landing Marina. I took great care to stay mid-channel.
"I've never seen it anywhere this dark before," I said quietly.
"Me either," he said, and took another swig of his beer. I looked over at him. In the dim blue glow of the dash lights I could just barely make him out. He was slouched in the seat, his hands cradling a beer between his legs and his face up-turned to the meekly glowing stars.
Like I mentioned, I have made this trip so many times I've lost count, but never without the aid of the moon. But neither I nor my brother were concerned for we were going very slow and off-plane. L.A. Woman ended and The End started up. I took my right hand off the throttle and took a long swig from my beer then inserted the silver can back in the holder.
"I hate that song," my brother muttered, "reminds me of all the shit back in Saigon and the jungle."
"Fuck you, I like it. Reminds me of the good years when you weren?t around."
He leaned forward and punched the stereo to the next song. Hyacinth House started up.
"Fuck you, you peacenik bitch-faggot," he said, and threw his head back and drained his beer.
I half-listened to the music, "What are they doing in the Hyacinth House..?"Behind me, just barely above the voice of the doomed Jim Morrison's tragic voice, I could hear one of the girls softly snoring. My eyes were adjusted to the India ink of the water and the moonless night. These few peaceful minutes by themselves made all the many troubles and expenses of these trips worthwhile.
The engine did not like to lope along at barely above an idle but it was a strong and reliable metallic soldier and on we went with a rhythmic, trance-inducing "frump-frump-frump" while Morrison's voice quietly issued from the speakers.
"...to please the lions this day/I need a brand new friend who doesn?t bother me..."
Just then, directly in front of the bow of the boat, a blinding and intense light exploded in my face! My night vision was destroyed! I was suddenly as sightless as an eyeless denizen of lost Shangri-La.
"Turn off that light you fucking idiot!" I yelled, "You're fucking blinding us!" The light stayed on.
Then I heard this, "Turn that fucking boat around you fucking idiot before you run into my tent!"
Son-of-a-bitch! Somehow I had allowed the boat to get out of mid-channel and head straight into one of the many wide, deep bays on the Arizona side. Another twenty feet and I would have driven the boat right onto the beach where this guy and his family were camped for the night.
In a panic I threw it into reverse, gave it some throttle then came around and began slowly heading back towards what I seriously hoped was mid-channel. The girls were awake and confused. My brother was now standing, looking out over the low windshield laughing.
"Some fucking captain you are!" he said looking out into the darkness trying to get his night vision.
As we chugged slowly away from the beach and the campers I heard a voice say, "Fucking drunks!"
Written by Dan Delehant
