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It was late summer, the weekend before back-to-school and the beginning of tenth grade for my best friend Sue and I. As an only child, my dad and mom had allowed me to bring Sue with me on our last fishing trip of the year to Grove, Oklahoma, so I wouldn't be bored and bugging them all the time. Grove was a place where I spent many weekends and a few weeks a year since my dad and mom had good friends there who owned a trailer park on the lake with a nice house and guest cabin, where we stayed.
If you've never been to Grove, Oklahoma, it is just above a one-horse little town that sits next to the huge Grand Lake of the Cherokee. It had one grocery, two restaurants, a car dealer, a bait store, and that's about all I remember!
Now to understand this next part, you have to know that my Daddy was a plumber, and occasionally he did side jobs for folks for extra cash. One of these clients happened to be in the Mafia, and I remember well the anxious two hours I spent watching TV at his home while Daddy fixed his bathroom. Dad loved telling stories about this guy and his bizarre lifestyle.
Now oddly enough, Grove just happened to be a favorite hangout, at least at that time, of a lot of Kansas City and other Mafia!! Dad spooked us with stories of what would happen if a big gathering of them came to town while we were there sometime, and we just hoped we would never see that day! But fate was not to be so cooperative.
That day, as we were arriving in town, we saw nothing but black Cadillacs and Lincolns surrounding the town's nicest restaurant, the steak place. Sue and I had never seen anything like it, and dad informed us the Mafia were here. Oh, joy.
Dad did a bit of nosing about and learned that one of their number had died, and the funeral was to be held there at the local mortuary. He said we could drive into town and see them the next day if we wanted to... and we most certainly did NOT! So Sue and I spent the day doing what most teenaged girls do with an afternoon and evening at the lake - we fished, and we talked for hours. When it was nearly dark, we went up to the cabin for supper. Not wanting to spend a boring evening with the parents, watching Lawrence Welk, we decided we were going back down on the "dock."
More explanation is needed again here. The "dock" was actually a floating one-room house with a tin roof, furnished with a wood stove and a fishing well cut out of the center of the floor on the inside. Chairs and railings surrounded the well. Then from either of the two doors, front and back, you could reach the outdoor walkway. This fishing house was separated from dry land by a 30-yard wooden walkway (made of some very creaky and tippy boards!) over the water. It was here that Sue and I ventured, in the darkness. The fishing house had electricity so we weren't nervous at all. Of course we carried no flashlights, that would be unnecessary!
As we soon tired of fishing, we took turns trying to scare one another! Just as I had said, "Wouldn't it be cool if some of those Mafia guys came down from town and fished with us?" we heard steps on the wooden walkway. We looked at one another as if to say "NO WAY" and we about jumped over one another trying to get to the doorway to see who was on board our little paradise. There was no moon, only blackness and water, and we could see no one. Now we WERE really scared! We wanted to leave, but there was only one way back to dry land, and we weren't going there with somebody walking around out there in the dark! So, we sat... and pretended to fish... and giggled nervously, trying to act brave.
This false bravado abruptly ended when we heard the footsteps again - much closer this time, and they weren't stopping! Then, to our horror, the lights went off in the fishing house! It was no accident - they were TURNED off! We froze in fear, holding on to one another and terrified of who... or what... would walk in! It didn't take long to get our answer. A tall, lanky dark-haired young man was our new companion. He strolled in, with no fishing tackle, dressed in a suit! He appeared so incongruous to the location that we just KNEW he had to be one of the dreaded Mafioso! And we knew with equal certainty that we were going to die, somehow!
The man sized up the fishing house - HE had a flashlight! He took a seat on the opposite side of the fishing well, took off his hat, lit a cigarette, and said nothing. Another cigarette, another twenty minutes, and none of the fishing house's occupants had said one word. It was downright terrifying. We dared not make a break for it, he could outrun us if he wanted to! And just when we thought the fear could get no thicker, the man SPOKE! "So what are you scared little rabbits up to?" he grumbled at us. It was the closest I ever came to jumping INTO the fishing well, I was so startled! "We're f-fi-fishing," came Sue's whispered reply. "Yeah sure," he laughed without smiling. Boy, were we dead for sure.
After another few minutes of dead silence, the man suddenly seemed to be in a hurry himself! He tossed his cigarette butt into the fishing well and walked out the door without a word. Now we were really terrified and frozen to our seats - would he sneak back in and kidnap us now? Suddenly the guest house seemed an impassable distance from our perch on the cold wooden seats. We would never make it back in one piece. We were both near tears!
The trouble was, you see, we did not hear any footsteps departing! He walked out the door and then there was no sound but the gentle lapping of the lake putting itself to bed.
We waited, genuinely cold now on top of the sickening fear in the pits of our tummies, for at least half an hour, afraid to move! Finally, we could stand it no more and we got up together to turn the light back on. We knew we would be in trouble for leaving it on, but at that point it was the least of our worries!!
We sneaked quietly out the doorway to peek around and see the intruder. We knew he had to be out there - we had not heard him leave!
I whispered to Sue, "we gotta RUN for it, girl!" and so we did - we ran like the demons were chasing us, expecting to hear his heavy footsteps running behind us after we took off. We raced up the shaky wooden walkway over the water, holding hands, terrified to look behind us! And then it got a little scarier yet - there was still the dark tree-lined gravel road between us and the guest house with its warm yellow light beckoning from behind the curtains. We took a deep breath and ran for it! I am sure neither of us ever ran so fast again! We made it safely to the house, slammed the door and locked it behind us, making my parents wonder if we had just been chased by wolves.
My dad was sure we had imagined the whole thing, and griped at us for leaving the light on. He didn't gripe anymore the next morning when he saw the man's expensive hat lying on the chair!
We girls never went down to that fishing house again after dark! In fact, the rest of that trip those once-boring parents never looked so good to us!
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