Bob's here.

[tedwords]

Wednesday
Section 3.0
Tulley Lake




“Bob’s here! Bob’s here!”

I heard a rattling on my tent door, and blearily tried to rouse myself awake, trying to throw off the weight of reading the night before until two in the morning. (For the record, Sick Puppy by Carl Hiassen makes damn fine camping reading. I spent the entire late night snug in my sleeping bag, with a lantern over my head, listening to the moths butt up against the outside of my tent, and man, let me tell you, I was in heaven.)

There wasn’t much time for me to pick up the pieces of my broken senses, however. Even Corb, usually the soundest of sleepers, was starting to twist and squirm and open up his eyes. And then there was the telltale sound of a zipper being yanked down, and Ashley poked her head through the tent’s entrance. I quickly yanked my arm off of Corb’s stomach.

“Daddy! Bob’s here!” she screamed. “And he brought donuts!”



Bob? Oh, that’s him, sitting in a chair, at the top of this entry. Some of you may recognize the picture from the “Friends and Family” section of my woefully out-of-date web site.

What’s that? Oh yes, I know, I modified the picture just a bit. Well, see, there’s a reason that you can only see his legs and bulging crotch. You see, Bob, for all his endearing qualities (which I’ll make certain to map out in excruciating detail), for as bright and articulate as he truly is, has the tendency to think with his crotch when it comes to the women in his life. Oh, I hear you…don’t most men? But see, Bob REALLY thinks with his crotch. He’s really strained those gonads, practically to their breaking point. And unfortunately, for well over a decade, my camp mate Pauline has figured prominently in Bob’s thighs…um, thoughts.

I pulled myself out of my sleeping bag, quickly got dressed, and left das Corbster in order to grab a chair and make the hike to Pauline’s campsite. I was kind of looking forward to seeing the old guy.

And, by the way, “old guy” is somewhat accurate. Or perhaps, more appropriately, older. Bob is about 20 years older than either Pauline or myself, which, of course, gives me hope for my relationship with you-know-who, because Pauline still finds Bob just as desirable as the day she first became involved with him.

“Hey there, Bob,” I said as I entered the campsite. He glanced up his newspaper, situated as he was with a gorgeous view of the river.

“Hey there, pilgrim,” he drawled.

Even though Bob is just about to hit the 60 mark, he hasn’t changed a bit in my eyes, from the day that I met him. My first contact with Bob was when I was directing a mystery night that I had written called The Phantom Strikes . He came to rehearsal shy and somewhat uncomfortable, but I cast him as the Duke of Hamburg because I thought his John Wayne impersonation was funny.

But then, everyone finds Bob funny. And truthfully, he makes for a terrific friend. He’s knowledgeable on practically every subject, has a natural, easy style of storytelling that’s never in any way off-putting. He’s a lifetime liberal, but, depending upon the way that the wind’s blowing in the room, he can make his points and still leave everyone smiling.

But as great a friend as he is, he’s an absolutely terrible boyfriend. Of course, women never figure that out at first. Instead, they’re instantly drawn to him, with his bright blue eyes and Irish smile, and healthy outdoorsy build and complexion. He’s been married twice and is currently headed toward his third trip down the aisle, and in the interim, has had more women in his life than Clinton, swear to God.

Oddly enough, Pauline wasn’t initially attracted to him, not a bit, even though she eventually became the most important romantic interest in his life. Their relationship didn’t begin until a year after they had been friends. She was directing him in a production of Mousetrap , and held a cast party the night of the final performance, and she stuck around after the party. And one thing led to another.

Their relationship grew in intensity, to the point where Pauline moved into her house with her then five-year-old daughter and her mother. But about four years ago, around a year before Josie and I started to part ways, they started to split apart. He began to feel restless, he said, and wanted to date other women. And then, Pauline’s mother died quite suddenly, while babysitting Amber, and shortly after that, Pauline moved into a condo of her own. And eventually, after about at least fifty women (courtesy of match.com!), he settled with one, a brassy lady named Monica.

While still seeing Pauline on the side, all this time. Whenever he goes to see Pauline, he tells Monica that he’s going out to the movies with me. Heaven help him if she ever decides to quiz me about the movies we’ve seen together…

“Seen any good movies with me lately,” I ask him, and he laughs.

“Hello, Teddles!” Pauline chirps, as I throw down my chair next to hers.

“Teddles?” I grin. “You haven’t called me that in ages.”

Ashley, who had scrambled back to Pauline’s camp after waking me up, points to the top of the picnic table. “Bob brought donuts,” she repeats.

“Any Boston cream?”

“Ted, what do you think is a greater threat to small children: handguns or swimming pools?” asked Bob, pushing his newspaper down.

“Hmmm,” I replied. “I bet it’s a leading question. I bet that the answer’s swimming pools. Unless they found a handgun in a swimming pool. Then the kids’re doomed.”

Pauline rose from her chair and moved toward the campfire, which was situated about a foot away from Bob. “Isn’t it great that Bob was able to get away?”

I nodded. “When you said you might come for a day, I really didn’t think you were serious.”

“I wanted to get over here yesterday. But a problem came up.”

“What’s that?”

“Monica wanted to go to the beach. I never see her on Tuesday, but out of the blue, she decided she wanted to go swimming…” Bob turned his head and gazed out onto the pond. It was a beautiful summer day, with just a few wisps of clouds in the sky. “Speaking of swimming, how is it here?”

We all laughed. “Leechy!” Pauline said. “The only who’s gone swimming so far is Ashley, and she was attacked by a leech the first day we got here. So none of us have really have been gung ho about swimming since then.”

Bob frowned. “That shouldn’t be a reason not to go swimming. This is a beautiful lake.”

“Oh, we were planning on going today,” I said.

Pauline nodded. “We were talking to another camper last night, and he told us that all you need to do is to throw salt on the leech, and they just fall off.”

“Do you want this donut?” Ashley asked, handing me a jelly filled. I thanked her and bit into it.

“And besides that, leeches are pretty harmless,” Bob said. “The ones around here are nothing like the ones I used to see in Vietnam. Those were huge. And the worst kinds were the land leeches, which would drop out of trees and crawl down your back. I remember once, we were in the middle of an offensive, and my back was all covered in blood. It was just streaming down. Some of other guys in the troops thought it was shrapnel, but actually, there were just three land leeches on back at the same time.”

I stared at the red jelly, oozing out of the donut in my hand. “Maybe I’ll just have a glazed, instead…” Ashley nods and moves to look for one.

“Bob!” We hear a voice from behind the bushes to our right, and suddenly, Amber bursts through, holding a plastic bag in her hand. “Look how much I’ve got!” She runs over to him, barely even looking at anyone else.

Bob takes the bag from her and examines it. She hovers above him, waiting for his approval. He nods, appreciatively. “That’s quite a haul you’ve taken in,” he says.

Amber turns to me. “Bob figured out that this place is covered in blueberries! We’ll have enough to have blue pancakes for weeks!” Then, she grabs her bag back from Bob and scampers back into the bushes.

I stare over at Bob, and wink at him. “I’d say she’s happy that you’re here.” He grunts and brings the paper back up over his head.

***

During a kayak trip, Tiger and Corb and I discover a small island with beach sand and shade. We decide to name it “the Island of the T’s,” after our three first names—Ted, TJ and Timothy.

Bob discovers a shortcut to the island, which makes for a great swimming cove, and names the back end of the island “Bob Beach.”

Pauline takes out a number of floats from her canoe, and we all start to blow them up.

Later, I lay in the water, gazing up at the sky, which is beginning to fill up with clouds. I wonder how long it will be before the humid weather finally breaks, and the rain starts to fall. I can hear Pauline and Bob talking aimlessly as the body drift away from they island. They don’t return for about a half an hour.

***

It starts to rain about 4:30. We all run for cover, under a tarp that Corb had cleverly strung together near the main tent.

We all sat there in our chairs, totally drained from the day. Pauline and Annie and Corb and I form a small cluster, then the kids, and then, Bob brings up the rear, still reading his newspaper. From my vantage point, I can hardly see him.

He’s been strangely quiet for the past half an hour, and I know what that means.

Finally, the rains began to subside.

“Well, I think it’s about time that I go,” he says, and rises from his chair.

Pauline glances at her watch. “At this time? Don’t you want to stick around and have supper?”

“We’re having Chinese food tonight,” I offer.

Bob grins. “That’s really roughing it,” he says sarcastically.

“We’re cooking it on the grill,” says Annie. “That is, we're puting it on the grill, after we order takeout.”

Bob laughs and shakes his head. “No, I really should go now. If I don’t, it’ll get too late, and then I’ll have to spend the night.”

“Well, that’s okay…” says Pauline.

“Don’t go!” says Amber, and moves over to sit on his lap. Ashley follows Amber’s lead, and sits on his lap, too. Annie, laughing, gets up from her seat to join them.

“How can you resist that?” I ask Bob, shaking my head.

But he can. And ten minutes later, he’s gone from the campsite, as quickly as the summer rainstorm.

We start to play a board game, to pass the time away. One of this silly ones where you're asked a question, and everyone has to guess who answered what. One of the questions is, "If you can change one thing about yourself, what would it be?" Amber writes down, "my gender," and none of us are surprised.