Jerkface

All hero's must have a villain. A foe to test their mettle against. For most of my life I thought it to be Rose. For most of my life I was right.
But in the summer of 1982 I found that my enemy lived across the lake from me.
To recap for anyone just tuning in for the first time, from 1979 to 1984 my parents managed a private park that was around 500 acres large. A vast part of it was woodland that only I and a few friends seemed interested in gong into to. The lake was 5 miles long with my park having access to about half. The other half was owned by a few various people that wanted us to have no part of it. For some unknown reason until 1982 I was never really interested on what was on the other side of my lake.
Then in early summer of 1982 when I was 17, I started noticing that a few campers and trailers were driving by our entrance down the dead end road that ran by my park. I asked my Mom about.
"Oh, they're probably going to the other park."
I blinked. That couldn't be right.
"What", I said smiling.
"The other park. The one behind the locked gate down the road."
I was stunned. There was another park. On the other side of MY lake? It's hard to explain but I took great offense at this. How could there be another park?
Could there be another me? Some twisted version of me that was under the mistaken idea that the lake was his? I walked outside and stood by the shore of my beach, staring at the water.
I was going to have to pay this pretender a visit.
A few days later Mark came out to camp with me in the back of the park. As we were setting up the tent I told him about the other park. He was also curious about it and wanted to check it out. ( For some reason he wasn't upset that there might be another me. " God wouldn't do that to the world", he said.
We vowed to check it out that night.
Later while we were swimming a couple of other friends stopped by. (Well maybe only one friend. While at the time Steve Swan was my friend, the other boy Kenny was more well a weirdo. If Steve was Jabba the Hutt, Kenny would be the little guy laughing on his tail. We tolerated Kenny because Steve was around.) We told Steve and Kenny about the other Park and our plan. They wanted to tag along.
After a little thought I told them ok. They went home and grabbed some camping stuff and soon we were waiting for dark to begin our adventure. When the sun set we left the swimming area and went back to our campsite. As we passed my house my Dad told me grumpily not to start any trouble back in the camping area. (Dad lived under the fear that I was going to impregnate every girl from the age of 15 to 18 that came out there.)
We got back to the campsite just in time to watch the last bit of daylight vanish over the lake. As always we had a good spot. It was high over a hill looking over the main body of the lake. From there we plotted our plan.
Around midnight we grabbed a couple of canoes from the boat area. The one I was in was called "The Battleship Canoe", by myself and friends. No one knew who owned it. We had found it a couple of years earlier in the back of the park where it looked like it hadn't been moved in years. We called it the Battleship Canoe because it was made of thick heavy green steel. It weighed at least three times as much as the canoe that Mark and Steve had...borrowed for themselves.
As we silently made our way across the lake we began to notice a bright light over across the other side of the lake. We couldn't tell exactly where it came from because it was hid from our view by hills and trees. It was clear it was coming from the side of the lake we didn't control.
We parked our canoes on the furthermost edge of our property. I wanted to stay on our side for as long as we could until we were able to scope out the situation better. We crept up a hill overlooking where the light came from. From the other side we could make out more of the lake. Mark and Steve were ahead of me and Kenny was behind me. Mark had moved a thorn branch out of his way as he moved by it. When he let it go it snapped right into my crotch.
"AHHHH!" I screamed in pain.
Immediately a blinding light shone on me. I raised my arm a bit to shield my eyes. From where we were I was the only one visible to whoever was shining this incredibly bright light. Mark and Steve were still hidden in the undergrowth and Kenny was behind me hidden from view.
"What are you doing here", the voice of a man said from behind the light. From the sounds of things he was sitting in a boat. He must have been fishing close to shore.
"I'm just out exploring", I said mildly.
" Get back to your own side of the lake!"
Though my half closed eyes I could plainly see the fence that separated the two side of this lake not 15 in front of me.
" I'm still on my side of the lake. The fence is in front of me."
I heard a click. " I 've got a shotgun here that says you're on my side of the lake."
If my life has taught me anything it taught never to argue with anyone that had a shotgun.
"Ok, ok I'm leaving." I backed down the hill and the light suddenly turned off. With the light gone I was now blind as bat. I tripped and fell down the rest of the hill. Kenny was already sitting in the canoe. Mark made his way back down to me. Steve stayed where he was watching the man with the blinding light move his boat away from where it was.
Still laying on the ground waiting for my eyes to adjust I said, "Kenny row away from here in the Battleship. Make as much noise as humanly possible. Let that jerk here you. Then very quietly row back."
"Shouldn't we just get out of here?" Kenny was always a little coward.
"Just do it Kenny", Mark said.
With a cold feeling in my heart I thought to myself, "No one does that to me on my land."
After a few minutes my eyes adjusted and I could see well in the dark was again. I sat up. Behind me I could hear Kenny leaving us. Steve finally made his way down from the hill.
"He's gone", Steve said. "What are we going to do?"
"We wait for him to go to bed. Then we do what we came here to do."
Once again we made our way up that little hill. This time we were more quiet. Once up there we just sat there watching the other man's boat in the water. Occasionally his light would shine out on the water. After a little more then an hour he moved towards land again. He docked his boat out of sight from where we were. We waited another half hour. Finally when it seemed long enough we crept towards the fence. We knew that behind it lay enemy territory.
We made our way past it. Mark and Steve moved away from me and Kenny. In the dark Kenny became more and more nervous.
"Shouldn't we just go back? What if we get caught?" His whining was really beginning to annoy me. Maybe I could kill him and make it look like the guy in the boat did it?
Soon I moved into a clearing. In front of me lay the other park. I almost laughed out loud. This was my enemy? This was the other park I was worried about?
It was made up of 7 or 8 Campers loosely parked around one another. There was no swimming area. There was nothing. Feeling much better I moved off to find the boat my foe had been in early that night. Mark and Steve had already found this place. They were busy doing little things to annoy these would be campers.
Mark and Steve would take a picnic table loaded with items from in front of one camper and move it to another camper. I'm fairly sure no one woke up with the picnic table or supplies they went to bed with. They did likewise with anything in front of the campers. For example if there was shoes or fishing poles outside a camper, they were moved to another camper.
By the shore of the lake I found the boat. Clamped on a little pole was his movable light. The light bulb was immense perhaps 12 inches across. I unscrewed it and held it in my hand. It was mine. All mine. My trophy.
My precious.
I put the light down for a second and with an angry push shoved his boat into the water. It drifted out towards the middle of the lake.
I walked over to Mark and Steve. (Kenny had just stood there the entire time doing nothing. I swear the boy was part French) "You guys done?"
"Unless we're going to set fire to this place we've done all we can do."
I held up my trophy. "I've got what I came for. Let's go"
We made our way away from this "park" and back across the fence. Soon we were in the canoes moving towards our own camping area. Once we safely away and in sight of my own park I stood up holding the light in my hand and with a loud cry shouted out, "LETS SEE YOU SHINE YOUR LIGHT ON ME NOW JERKFACE !!! "
As I sat down I put the heavy light behind me. Before I knew what the little greasy creep behind me was doing Kenny grabbed the light and threw it in the water. It hit the water and sank from view.
"What the hell are you doing?" I was livid.
He looked at me with a frightened face. "I was getting rid of the evidence."
"That was my trophy!"
Resisting my urge to kill him and dump his body in my lake (I was afraid he'd kill the fish) we rowed back to our campsite. By the time we made it back my spirits were high once again. We spent the night laughing at what we had done.
Steve and Kenny left early the next day. Mark and I stayed at the campsite for another day leaving only when I almost accidentally killed the nice elderly couple camping across the road from us. ( that's another blog)
A few days later while I was in my living room I heard a man come into the office and start talking to my Mom in an angry voice. It took me a second to realize where I'd heard that voice before.
It was Jerkface. He was telling Mom everything that happened. I knew my Mom would put two and two together and know it was me and my friends. As Jerkface rambled on It hit me. He was mistaken o the night it happened. He was telling Mom it happened the night before it really did.
I was off the hook. Mom never suspected me. In fact she asked me to look into it.
A few nights later while looking into it I took a canoe and rowed back over to Jerkface's park. I went over to his boat. He had bought a new lightbulb. I smiled to myself. This made what I had come to do all the better.
The next morning when Jerkface went fishing he found his light gone.
But sitting in his boat was his new lightbulb.
And thus began the war between Jerkface and myself. It would wage another two years, ending only when my parents moved away from the park.