A Boy's Dream

Two Life-long friends embark on an adventure

 

 

 

                There were two men who had a fantasy, a dream as they sat and watched the shooting stars; the thought of their ultimate desire filled their heads. They were friends, whom were chums since they were in the 3^rd grade.  They remained close and thick as thieves as they grew and became men. Harry Newman became a pharmacist; married had one son and divorced after ten years of marriage. Jack Scott was an electrician most of his life working for the local service provider, One Touch Electric. Jack never married and was for the most part a happy bachelor. He had a small house on 121 st in Queens that he shared with his widowed sister Mildred. Both men found themselves at a point that they wanted to pack it in and retire. ‘’Retire, while you still could sow some oats!’’ Jack would often say. Both men had good pensions and were pretty sound financially, so why not retire now? One night the boys, got together to play their weekly game of poker over at Jack’s house. Billy Firestone, Ned Stankowsky and Joe Risenti, all were part along with Jack and Harry at the Thursday night game. The group was retired except for Harry and Jack. ‘’Come on you guys, pack it in enjoy life!’’ said Billy. ‘’Yeah take a trip, go to Europe”, piped Ned. The two men looked at each other, we all knew what they wanted to do it was known since they were kids. Harry said to Jack ‘’what do you think pallie? Should we do it? ‘’you don’t have to ask me twice’ ’said Jack. Well it has been a long time coming since you guys said you wanted to do this, the assembled men agreed. What was the dream that they wanted to fulfill? Since Jack and Harry were boys they shared the dream of building a long cabin and living in the heart of the wilderness. ‘’ Yeah, it sure would be nice, but it takes a lot of work, I don’t know that I can do it anymore” said Harry.” Foolish thought”, said Jack. ‘’There’s nothing keeping us here anymore, my son lives in Oregon for god’s sake” replied Harry. The boys decided to retire and fulfill their boyhood dream, no matter what they had to do.

            The wilderness was a broad term, where would they actually build this cabin? Jack loved the cold however Harry liked the heat, here was their first decision to make. Jack yelled “Let’s go to Alaska, like that guy Poneke”. “Are you crazy? ‘’Said Harry, who ran to the window to check if the mail had come to cause a diversion in the conversation.  Harry spoke about all the pitfalls of living in Alaska and how it would be too secluded for men of their age. Jack agreed that it was a wild idea and they settled to build the cabin in the Adirondack Mountains. In the Adirondacks they could be with nature and not have the extreme conditions as Alaska.

            So both men, Harry and Jack retired from their jobs and packed up Harry’s suburban. They found a small town called Lake Luzerne in the Adirondack area. There was a mountain hovering over Lake Luzerne’s spacious ripple of gleaming waves. Atop that Mountain overlooking the Lake, Harry and Jack decided to build their cabin. A cabin that would be close to the heavens yet have a beautiful view of the lake below. So the two men drove up the winding roads along the side of the mountain. Harry turned to Jack and said “Thanks Jack for pushing me to do this, Breathe in that clean air!” Finally they arrived to the top of the mountain; they both got out of the car and just took in the scenery. The cliff that they stood on overlooked the entire area of the Adirondacks and had a picturesque view of both Lake Luzerne and Lake George. Behind them was complete wilderness, trees, brush, and the critters to go along with it. Both men were boy’s again, now it was up to them to make this work.

            Harry and Jack set up a series of tents they would live in while the chore of building the cabin was done. Jack built quite an elaborate fire pit that they could use to cook and keep warm at night. Harry put his old limbs to work and chopped five trees to build the outhouse. After pushing around pills most of his life, he never got the chance to get his hands dirty. He enjoyed the challenge of working with his hands. With help from Jack the outhouse was built, in two days their temporary living quarters were set up. A stream behind a large oak tree would provide them with their water supply. The first day, old Harry’s gut was not used to the stream water and poor Harry got dysentery.  ‘’You’ll get over it, calm down”, Jack yelled out. Jack said in a stern manner “It’s time we built this cabin, let’s get to work!!” Together in one week the boy’s cut down fifty trees. For their age this was an incredible achievement. Now the task on hand was to actually build the cabin. Jack who was an electrician all his life, said ‘’I am accustomed to seeing blueprints I will plan the whole cabin!”  Harry whom was always uneasy about any idea Jack had quickly chirped, ‘’you know I was a Pharmacist and took an awful lot of math courses in school, I am no dummy!” As Jack always did he appeased Harry and they began to draw the plans for the cabin. Now coming up to the mountains they brought plenty a supply of food that they could eat, however their supply was now very low. Jack rummaging through the coolers, griped “We are out of everything!!’’ Harry looked at his bewildered chum and handed him a fishing rod, ‘’you’ll have to go down to the lake and do something about dinner!” ‘’I am not going down alone you will have to come with me”, so they both headed down the mountain. ‘’This is quite a hike, Harry murmured as they grabbed tree limbs and stones began to tumble. ‘’Hey watch that tree Harry’’ Jack screamed as he watched Harry tumble over a large branch and clock his head on the jagged edge of a cliff. ‘’Oh my head, I am bleeding give me a handkerchief, you dummy” the bloody Harry exclaimed to his stunned friend. ‘’ We are living in the woods, do you think I packed handkerchiefs?? You jerk!!’’. Now the two men were in a bit of a crises, Jack had to make his way towards Harry without falling himself. Finally after much exertion he finally maneuvered his way to his wounded friend.  ‘’ I’ll cut off part of my shirt and we can use it to compress the area and stop the bleeding” Jack assured. As he applied the cloth to Harry’s head, he screamed as if he was in serious pain. ‘’ You know what your problem is Harry, you filled prescriptions all your life, you turned into a coward.” Jack snared at his chum as he threw insults at him. ‘’What’s the sense in fighting, we only have each other let’s get out of this mess.’’ Ok grumbled Jack. Now the two men still had to make their way down to the lake. Rocks tumbling, tree branches snapping, and dirt becoming as slippery as ice, as our two friends made their way toward the lake. Finally after braving the terrain, they reached the bottom of the mountain. Now they had to catch their dinner. All that dangerous climbing down only to get into a row boat that had only one oar. ‘’ Now what there’s only one oar, how in god’s sake are going to move around the lake?’’  ‘’Calm down Harry, I will do the rowing, just worry about the rods and bait’’ Jack bellowed.  The two men sat in the boat and Jack began to row the rickety old boat. They decided to stay at a certain point in the lake and just drift back.’’ Harry, drop the lines in now’’ ordered Jack. Harry cast out his line and then cast out Jack’s. Suddenly out of nowhere, one of the line started to move. Harry grabbed the line and began to pull hardily. For some reason every time he tugged on the line the boat leaned to one side. ‘’This one must be a whopper, hold that line we will have fish for days!’’ yelled Jack. As Harry struggled with the line Jack began to help Harry pull in the monster. As they pulled the rickety old boat it leaned it’s self over to the side. The harder they pulled the boat the more it swayed, then all of a sudden it was like a title wave hit them and the boat capsized. You could hear Harry yelping once more in the background. As     Jack swan from under the boat, he saw that the line they were pulling was attached to the bottom of the boat!!  They had caught themselves and by doing so the boat capsized. ‘’ You Idiot, you moronic fool, you did this!!’’ Jack yelled in a frantic pose. Harry began to hold onto the boat for dear life. He yelled ‘’ you got me into this damn boat and this damn trip, my head is bleeding, I’ve almost died  climbing boulders on that freegan  mountain and now you want to blame me for this position we are in now!!!!!!” Jack looked at Harry and just shook his head. ‘’Why don’t you calm your shorts, and stop getting excited” Jack mumbled in a sarcastic tone. ‘’My damn shorts are wet too’’ quipped Harry. Now the boys were at each other’s throughts, the tension was thick but they had to catch dinner. They got back in the boat, and as they did Harry tripped on a fishing pole and hit his already bloodied head on the side of the boat. ‘’Damn it man, If I knew you were such an idiot I would never had started this with you!’’ spouted Jack.  ‘’ I am an idiot? You were supposed to be the one with all the ingenuity!! , Just get me the hell out of here”  ‘’Fine’’ quipped Jack.  They sat in the rickety boat with new lines cast out. Jack yelled ‘’I got one!’’ He did, he pulled in a nice size trout. ‘’ We need to get at least 6 more, so we have enough to salt for tomorrow as well.” Harry was getting a nibble and a pulled in three decent sized trout, as he sat there wet and bleeding. ‘’Ok, I have had enough of this for now, let’s make it up the mountain” Harry announced. So the two warriors began the climb up, with fish in hand. As they climbed they found out that was much more difficult to go up then go down. Harry began to get shortness of breath and had to stop every ten minutes. ‘’We will never get up that mountain if you continue like this” Jack scolded Harry. ‘’Well what do you want me to do, drop dead climbing this damn mountain?’’ Harry said in disgust. As he turned back to grab a nearby branch, he watched as Jack fell off one of the cliffs. “Oh no Jack, are you ok??’’. Jack had fell backwards and hit his head on the stones. Harry carefully went down to check out his wounded friend. When he got to Jack, it didn’t look good. Jack hit the back of his head on the stoned cliff, he was in a pool of blood. ‘’Jack, can you hear me pal?’’  Jack’s breathing was becoming shallowed and laboring. Harry thought to himself he had to get Jack down to the lake to get help. Little by little he made his way down the hill dragging his wounded friend. Finally he made it to the bottom of the lake, Jack was not doing so well. Harry left Jack by the lake as he ran for help. Harry was able to get hold of an emergency service in town, and they rushed over to Jack’s limp boy. At this point he had lost a lot of blood and was not coherent. Jack was put in the ambulance and Harry went along. ‘’I should have been stronger, maybe this wouldn’t have happen” Harry thought to himself,” maybe I could have prevented it’’. ‘’Live Jack, don’t leave me, oh how I wish it was me that fell, instead of you.” As the ambulance reached the hospital, Harry was pushed away to get Jack into the hospital. Harry waited in the waiting area, for any kind of news about Jack. Finally a doctor came out and asked him if he was with Jack Scott. He jumped to his feet and said yes, the doctor told him that Jack had lost too much blood and the head injury was too bad, Jack Scott had died. Harry fell to his chair, his best friend was dead. Harry asked the doctor if he could see Jack for just a minute, he said ‘’of course, but are you sure you want to?”  ‘’Yes, please Doc” said Harry trying not to show his emotions. Harry walked into the emergency room where Jack laid on a gurney. Harry pushed the sheet from Jack’s face. ‘’ I am sorry old pal, this should not have happen to you, I could have prevented it I was so damn clumsy. We almost did it pal, we almost fulfilled a boy’s dream.”  Harry left the hospital, and made his way home back to Queens. ‘’We almost did it, silly I guess it was just a Boy’s dream.”

Reviews

[Dynafox]

Hello. I think this was a nice analysis on how things aren't as we picture them in our head. It's very light hearted in the beginning so I'm not a huge fan of Jack dying. It's like the original ending to Clerk's which I've seen where Dante dies, and it's a real horrible change of mood and think it was good for Kevin Smith to take the advice of his friend and not kill Dante at the end. I feel the same goes for this story. I believe you could have both friends live without having one die. No offense though. It's your story.