A Marine fresh from the fight and completely without scruples, jumps at easy money and ends up playing body guard for a wealthy woman's adult daughter on a weeklong inner-tubing trip. It ends up being a week of firsts for all parties involved. Although he takes something from her, she end up taking something from him that leaves him forever changed.
*
The summer I got out of the Marine Corps was a difficult summer for me. I was wound like an eight day clock and was in love with war which precluded me from employment in any kind of legitimate profession. Cops shunned me because I had a habit of presenting myself as an executioner. The FBI didn't want me for much the same reason plus I didn't have a college degree. CIA, DEA, and Black water, were all what I considered a lateral move.
Making matters worse, I didn't have any job references or marketable skills to speak of and putting, I'm awesome at killing people at any range with any weapon, doesn't exactly get employers beating down the doors. I joined the Corps early with parental consent when I turned 17 without ever holding a real job. So four years later I had to start fresh. Don't get me wrong I loved the Corps, still do. I just had no interest in any job that wasn't on the front lines. That stamped a giant expiration date on my forehead. If I stayed in until my body fell apart, I would be hitting the job market with no better qualifications and I would be twenty eight.
Needless to say, when the Lisa, one of my parent's friends offered me a whopping two hundred dollars to chaperone her daughter's senior trip I jumped at the money. As it turned out they were planning a week long rafting trip which sounded like a ton of fun. Since my senior trip had been a plane ride to MCRD San Diego, I saw this as a fresh start.
Two weeks before we were scheduled to leave, Lisa called me and told me there had been a mix up with the outfitter and the rafts they had rented were already rented to someone else. Given my excitement to go on the trip is was a harsh letdown but I was accustomed to disappointment. I waited patiently for her to tell me, my services were no longer required and tuned her out. 'Got fired before my first day' I thought, 'Must be some kind of record.'
An interesting aside: I checked. They, don't keep records of such things so there's no way to document if it was—In fact—a record, which means; it goes into the category of "God Dammit! I can't win for losing." But, I digress.
My mind continued to drift as I waited for Lisa to get to the point until, totally by chance I heard her say, "I'm sorry for the short notice I will pay you an extra hundred dollars and buy your food." My first thought was, 'Wait, you weren't going to buy my food before? Man I suck at negotiating.' Of course now I had no idea what she was talking about so I decide to tune in and pay closer attention.
The nice thing about civilian conversations is that you can tune in fifteen minutes into the conversation and still pick out the pertinent information. Try that in the Corps and you will have been standing by yourself for fourteen minutes listening to sound of the world leaving you behind.
When she finally did get to the point she wanted to pay me three hundred instead of two and buy me an inner tube instead of a raft. She also wanted to give me beer money for the trip if I was willing to keep things at a dull roar. All to apologize for moving the date up a few days. I almost felt guilty for taking her money considering that nine months ago I crawled out of bed thinking it was a normal day and thirty six hours later when I finally got to sleep again I wasn't on the same continent. 'That, was short notice lady but sure, I'll take your money.'
The morning of, I packed light leaving room for beer and pretzels but old habits die hard, I was still prepared for anything. If radioactive brain eating zombie monkeys from Mars invaded, I was ready.
In hindsight, anyone that asks a Marine to babysit their adult daughter either hates their daughter, has never met a Marine, or loves the thought of grandchildren. As it turns out Lisa was a delightfully naive combination of the last two.
Par for the course, the taxi pulled up in front of my house two and a half minutes late. 'Civilians will be the death of me'. I jumped in and barked the address at the cabby. I will probably struggle with patience until the day I die but this was a particularly low point in my life for it. So when the cabby asked me to repeat myself I wasn't friendly about it. I finally got it through his thick skull on the THIRD try.
I grit my teeth when the cabby nodded in understanding and then didn't start driving. Instead, he just fidgeted with his belongings up front. In retrospect, when I saw him tying his things down I should have buckled up. My initial hatred for him faded the moment his foot hit the accelerator pedal and the old police cruiser laid two thick black strips of rubber down. Here was a man that drove with purpose. Stop signs meant very little to him and stop lights even less. Honking car horns serenaded us with vigor as we careened through town. When we got to Lisa's house earlier than expected, I tipped him accordingly; I also got his direct line for future getaways and rally races.
I had never actually met Lisa so when I pulled my pack from the cab and turned around, I literally stopped in my tracks. She was positively radiant. Her beaming smile was infectious and her body was sinful. I stuck a hand out for her to shake and was rewarded with a quizzical look. She swept right by it and wrapped me up in a big hug. I don't normally like being touched but for this goddess I would always make an exception. Formalities complete, she released me and then lead me up a walkway to the palace she called a shack. When I walked in I inadvertently stepped into the middle of a herd of teenage girls. They made as much noise as a stadium full of people which killed any hope of conversation in their presence.
Lisa tried to yell at them and get them to introduce themselves but it had little effect. As they migrated out of the room the noise level dropped by an order of magnitude and a sense of normalcy returned to the world. Lisa began to apologize but I stopped her saying, "There will be plenty of time for introductions later."
She walked me around her enormous house and began lecturing me on how to keep her daughter safe. The speech grated on my ears at first, given my background and hers. Fortunately for everyone involved, I eventually realized that she was simply having second thoughts about turning me lose on her daughter and forgave her. I slid into my old standby, the tune out, and did a lot of smiling and nodding as she talked. All the while the girls stormed through her house like a plundering horde of savages. Well, I may be embellishing a little... but they were god awfully loud.
At long last we made it to the fifteen passenger van and were off. I rode shotgun with seven girls and a week's worth of tubing gear packed in like sardines. I couldn't help think that the Mars monkeys would have been easier to deal with, but three hundred dollars was two hundred and fifty more than I had to my name so I grit my teeth and dealt with the noise level. I found it funny how at ease the driver Lisa had hired looked, but I recall him looking so old he was probably stone deaf anyway. Thinking back, he was probably all of fifty.
Two brain hemorrhaging hours later, we arrived at our launch site and set about airing up tubes and getting ready. It was midmorning by the time we had all the tubes inflated and the cooler packed. The girls all began shucking their shorts and shirts in favor of their brightly colored bikinis underneath. Right then I knew there would be trouble. Some of them were still a little knock kneed but most of them were just shedding their spots. The youthful beauty that filled that beach was truly a sight to behold. It made everything else worthwhile.
I helped each girl launch, launched the tube holding the cooler, and then launched myself. I had to hand it to Lisa, she didn't skimp. I would have bought a three dollar truck inner-tube for myself, but she got me the king daddy. It was meant to be pulled behind a boat and was not lacking in the quality department. The rest of my floating companions did have truck inner-tubes but given that none of them weighed more than 120 and I tipped the scales at 230, it was an appropriate size difference.
Not fifteen minutes into the trip we had to beach because one of the girls had noticed a small leak as was slowly sinking. Panic threatened to set in amongst the girls at the thought of their trip coming to an end already.
That was when my over preparedness came in handy. I pulled out a raft repair kit and set about fixing it. While I sat on the beach working, the girls all grabbed a beer from the cooler and congregated around me. Most of what they said was unintelligible girl gibberish; but occasionally one of them had a valid point.
Lisa's daughter Sarah was the first to introduce herself and we chatted casually until I was done. Even before she introduced herself I recognized her family resemblance. She had inherited all her mother's best features and wore them well. While I worked she told me about her pie in the sky dreams of one day changing the world. I listened politely but skeptically and when she finished I told her she was ambitious, which was a nice way of saying, "I don't think you are going to change a thing." That's when she called me cynical. Looking back, it was my first hint at how sharp she was and how carefully I had to place my words with her.
Once I finished my repairs, I used my bike pump to inflate the tube and checked it for leaks. Satisfied that it held air I handed it back to the girl and we all got under way again. The river was chilly but not overly cold and the sun was hot but not unbearably so. All in all it made for a pleasant afternoon. I helped myself to my long awaited beer and pretzels as I listened to the constant chatter from the girls. It was about as pleasant as having a red hot poker rammed into your brain so I let myself drift off to sleep.
I dreamed of little prancing butts and playful beauties until I awoke with a start. A very small feminine voice had spoken very close to my ear and scared me nearly to death. When I jumped it made her jump and we both said "Ah!" at about the same time. The rest of the girls laughing put me at ease and I returned my sunglass-covered gaze to the girl that was leaning on the side of my tube.
Swimmers are always the quietest threat, I thought.
"Mister T?" she repeated.
