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I’m writing between three-foot swells.
I’m bobbing up and down behind the stern of my pontoon boat. The tow rope is wrapped around the prop. I can’t get a grip on it. It’s raining, hard. Lightning. Thunder. Like the Lake Dardanelle version of "The Perfect Storm." My Australian Shepherd Layla is yipping from the back deck, dog-terror rimming her ice-blue eyes.
How’d I get here?
It all started with my neighbor’s island float. You know, one of those ten-foot-long inflatable platforms with a yellow neoprene shade? Strong winds blew that beast off the beach and out into the middle of the lake. My wife was cooking chicken-fried rice and egg rolls when I saw it. Five minutes later, I had the boat out of the dock, the dog by my side, off to save the day.
It wasn’t raining yet. Just windy like it only ever is over open water. Strong gusts and a 50 horsepower Tohatsu propelled me to the runaway float in record time. No problem. I got the float wedged between the swivel chairs. No worries.
Not until I turned around and saw the storm, coming straight for me.
I went on anyway, straight into it, the first bad decision of the three I'd make that evening. I got maybe a hundred feet, probably less, before the wind blew the float back into the boat’s blue Bimini top, and durn near knocked me from the helm.
The top was wrecked, the posts bent, the fabric torn. It was really raining now, a cold, hard rain at the end of a hot day. I was okay, though. A little peeved about the busted top, but still, okay.
I was thinking about what my wife would say, the couple hundred bucks my first mistake would cost us, when I tied the tow rope to the float and tossed it overboard.
Bad decision number two.
I’d no more than turned the key and spun the wheel before I felt it. I didn’t hear the engine die. The sound of water on water, wave after wave, prevented that. I felt it beneath my bare feet, a death rattle.
I knew what had happened, the same thing I’m always worried about happening anytime we take the kids tubing. I was really fuming now. So much so, I almost just jumped in. That might’ve been the last bad choice I ever made.
Luckily, right before I made bad decision number three, I stopped long enough to put on my lifejacket, and then I jumped in the lake.
The tow rope was wound tighter than I’d expected, coiled around the propeller like a yellow rat snake. Turns out, 5,000 revolutions per minute can do a lot of damage in just a few seconds.
The adrenaline wore off a couple minutes into unwinding that rope and I realized the sort of mess I’d made. It was full-on storming now. I couldn’t even see the bank, much less the house. I wondered what my wife was thinking. My kids . . .
I kept loosening the rope between each wave, thinking about how I should’ve never turned back into that headwind. Heck, I should’ve never gotten in the boat, not until after the wind died down. That float would’ve washed up somewhere.
I didn’t do any of that, though. I never do. I just kept unwinding that rope from the prop, loop after loop, and eventually, it came free.
Layla was shivering by the time I crawled back in the boat, looking up at me like, “What the heck, Dad!” I shrugged and turned the ignition. I could hear the engine this time, coming back to life.
A few minutes later, the house was in sight. Three stick figures materialized on the back deck. The tallest one wore a pair of binoculars around her neck and a scowl on her face. The two little ones were cheering.
At supper, the Cranors play a game we call “Favorite Things,” which is just like what it sounds. We each tell our favorite thing from that day. My son, all three years and three feet of him, always goes first. The evening of my failed float rescue was no exception.
With an egg roll in one hand and a fork in the other, my little man declared that watching Daddy be “brave” was his favorite thing.
My wife rolled her eyes. My daughter snorted. I was just happy to be there.
Don't Know Tough
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In Denton, Arkansas, the fate of the high school football team rests on the shoulders of Billy Lowe, a volatile but talented running back. Billy comes from an extremely troubled home: a trailer park where he is terrorized by his mother’s abusive boyfriend. Billy takes out his anger on the field, but when his savagery crosses a line, he faces suspension.
Without Billy Lowe, the Denton Pirates can kiss their playoff bid goodbye. But the head coach, Trent Powers, who just moved from California with his wife and two children for this job, has more than just his paycheck riding on Billy’s bad behavior. As a born-again Christian, Trent feels a divine calling to save Billy—save him from his circumstances, and save his soul.
Then Billy’s abuser is found murdered in the Lowe family trailer, and all evidence points toward Billy. Now nothing can stop an explosive chain of violence that could tear the whole town apart on the eve of the playoffs. |
Ozark Dogs
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In this Southern thriller, two families grapple with the aftermath of a murder in their small Arkansas town.
After his son is convicted of capital murder, Vietnam War veteran Jeremiah Fitzjurls takes over the care of his granddaughter, Joanna, raising her with as much warmth as can be found in an Ozark junkyard outfitted to be an armory. He teaches her how to shoot and fight, but there is not enough training in the world to protect her when the dreaded Ledfords, notorious meth dealers and fanatical white supremacists, come to collect on Joanna as payment for a long-overdue blood debt.
Headed by rancorous patriarch Bunn and smooth-talking, erudite Evail, the Ledfords have never forgotten what the Fitzjurls family did to them, and they will not be satisfied until they have taken an eye for an eye. As they seek revenge, and as Jeremiah desperately searches for his granddaughter, their narratives collide in this immersive story about family and how far some will go to honor, defend—or in some cases, destroy it. |
| Previous columns: |
• Writing from the Stars
• Writing from the Pool
• Writing from the Kitchen
• Writing from Summer
• Writing from Kindergarten
• Writing from Mom
• Writing from a Plane
• Writing from Home
• My second novel’s publication
• A New Marriage Milestone
• An Invitation to the Party
• Writing from a Thunderstorm
• Writing from a Soundbooth
• Writing from “Jazz Beach"
• Writing from the Sabbath
• Writing from somewhere between Little Rock and Russellville
• Writing from my back deck
• Writing from the morning of my thirty-fifth year
• Writing on the day of the college football National Championship
• Writing from the space between breaths
• Writing from 2022
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• Writing from the glow of a plastic Christmas tree
• Writing on a rollercoaster of triumph and disaster
• Writing from the drop-off line at my daughter’s elementary school
• Writing with Thanksgiving on my mind
• Writing from the crowd before the start of a Shovels & Rope show
• Writing from the depths of a post-book-festival hangover
• Writing from the Ron Robinson Theatre
• Writing to you on Halloween Eve
• Writing from my bed on a Saturday morning
• Writing from my office with two darts clenched in my left hand
• Writing from the shade of my favorite tree
• Writing from my desk on a Tuesday morning
• Writing from a pirate ship
• Writing from the airport
• Writing from the hospital
• I'm writing from the water
• Writing from my wife's Honda Pilot
• Writing from my office |
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