the boat
When I was a kid the whole family would go down to the beach. We would pack ourselves into dad's car, my sister, our stepmother, and Dad.We would endure hours upon hours of riding and trying not to murder one another, and finally, we would be there. We would ride across the bridge that spanned the bay, and we'd stop at the marina.
Dad would get out to go haggle with the owners of the marina as they launched our boat into the water in the twilight. I was so elated to be about to drive the boat, to be there in the summer breeze. Finally it would be time to go.
Dad would hand me the keys to the boat.
"Will you be okay, son?" he would ask.
"Yeah dad. I'm cool"
He would push me off of the dock after I started the motor, and then I would be off, and he would get back into the car to drive around and meet me at the house.
You have to idle out of the marina, so as not to make a bunch of waves that will rock the other boats anchored there, and if you are a kid, this is torture. At last I would reach the end of the protected waters of the marina, and I would psh the throttle down.
The boat would nose up in the air and roar, and I would hang on to the steering wheel as it slowly overcame the water ahead of it and leveled off, and then I would be carving a path through the molten lava colored water, reflecting the day's last red and orange rays.
I will never again be a kid driving a ski boat all by himself at top speed over the incredible surface of a bay in Florida, and this makes me a little bit sad.
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