The summer before my junior year in high school, I worked as a
cook at the local Pizza Hut. When I wasn't working, I would spend my evenings
doing the things most sixteen year old kids did. I played catcher and center
field on the local baseball team, basketball with my buddies at the park, and
chased girls around town. At the end of the previous school year I had secured
a loan to purchase my first car. It was a 1987 Honda Accord hatch-back with two
12” sub-woofers in the back. My friends and I spent hours cruising a loop
between the local Pizza Hut and Sonic. Life was good, but as I once read
in a favorite Stephen King novel: "Life can turn on a dime".
I'm not sure when fishing became an addiction. Judging by my
Grandfather's habits it could very well be hereditary, but by the time I had
reached high school, fishing was a full blown passion. It's never been the act
of fishing that drives the adoration; I believe it's the anticipation. The
feeling that every time you cast into the water something big might grab your bait
and give you a fight. Even if you cast ninety nine times with no success, it's
the anticipation that the one hundredth cast might just be "the one".
It was a hot, muggy, night in mid-July. The kind of Kansas weather
that made you sweat the second you broke out of the air conditioning, and you
never really stopped sweating until you found air conditioning again.
My buddy Mark and I, like many times before, by the light of our
flashlights, worked our way down the dam of the Cedar Valley Reservoir, to the
spillway below. Mark and I normally fished alone, but this particular evening,
my Dad decided to bring my ten year old sister along.
About midnight we saw some headlights sweep across the otherwise
pitch black night, then we heard a loud "TWANG!" ring down through
the spillway pipe that lead from where we were sitting, through the dam, and
opened again about fifty yards out in the middle of the lake. Assuming it
was the local police cruiser on patrol, we thought nothing of the lights, and
the loud sound was a quickly passing mystery, until we heard someone yelling
from the parking lot.
"Brandon!" yelled a voice at the top of the dam.
Expecting one of my friends to be playing a joke, Mark and I
continued stringing up our first channel cat of the night.
"BRANDON!" came the cry from the parking lot, only this
time sounding a little more frantic.
Although the humidity remained high, as the night grew older a
cool breeze began filtering down from the lake, and my sister was starting to
catch a chill.
"I'm gonna go up and grab your sister a blanket from the
truck" said my Dad, "While I'm up there I will see what all the
yelling's about"
As my father approached the top of the dam, we could hear him
talking to someone, but were unable to make out what he was saying, until he
too began to scream.
"BRANDON, GET UP HERE NOW!"
Having just hooked into my second catfish of the night, I was
hesitant about leaving, but when my dad screamed my name a second time, Mark
and I grabbed our flashlights and ran to the top of the steep hill!
At the top of the dam I was met by my dad and the two guys that
were doing all the yelling. I knew their faces well. They were a couple of guys
that were a grade older than me. They were both white as a ghost, and their
eyes were as big as hub caps. It was as if they had seen something horrible,
and I could see the fear on their faces even on moonless, pitch dark night.
"Brandon! A car went into the lake and there's somebody in
it!" was my greeting as I peeked the dam.
The lake rested about 75 yards below the crest of the dam. The dam
itself ran down at about a 30 degree angle and was completely covered in
bowling ball sized boulders to keep high waters from eroding its walls.
Adjacent to the dam stood limestone cliffs that rose from the water to about
forty feet into the air. Small to medium sized cedar trees dotted the top of
the cliff like candles on a giant birthday cake.
It was 1999, and cell phones existed, but at this time they had
spotty service and were generally reserved for business people. They certainly
weren't available in the quantities that now fill the pockets of teenage kids.
"I'm gonna go call for help, get your ass in the water!"
yelled my father as he was already running for the truck.
"It's Jenny!" The two guys screamed! "She was in
the truck! She was trying to get out before it went off the cliff I don't know
if she made it out!"
I was a strong swimmer, and without a second thought I sprinted
down the dam to the water and dove in. There was debris everywhere. You don't
realize how many loose items there are in vehicle until they are all bobbing
around the surface of lake. I swam around to every piece of trash while the
three other guys shined flashlights across the water.
"JENNY!" They screamed, "JEEEENNNNYYYY!"
I kept swimming, checking every piece of debris that floated
around hoping to find the girl and bring her back to shore. I kept swimming,
and they kept screaming.
Fearing the worst, I started diving down to the bottom of the lake
in search of the truck. To the best of my ability, I held my breath and dove as
deep as possible. I dove until my ears built up so much pressure I couldn't
stand the pain any longer. On the cliffs above me the other guys kept sweeping
their flashlights across the brown water screaming "Jenny! Jenny!
Jenny!", but between the calls for her, there was nothing but the sound of
waves lightly splashing against the base of the limestone cliffs.
After what seemed like years instead of minutes, we heard the
sounds, and saw the lights of a rescue vehicle. It was Joe, the dad of yet
another classmate, who had recently received his certification in water rescue.
Without even putting on his wet suit, Joe strapped on his air tank and diving
weights, and stormed down the dam and into the water. We all hoped for the
best, but by this time nearly twenty minutes had passed, and even the best
divers in the world couldn't hold their breath that long.
Life seemed to stand still as we waited for Joe to surface again,
praying that somehow miracles did happen and that somehow he would come up with
a scared, but safe teenage girl. This didn't happen. About the time the
ambulance arrived, Joe surfaced with the limp body of the younger sister of one
of our classmates. Unable to lift her out of the water with his scuba gear on,
he handed her up to me waiting on the small lip at the bottom of the cliff. I
held her under the arm and swam her over to where Mark was waiting to help.
With his assistance we pulled her from the water and the two of us carried her
up the dam, over the bowling ball sized boulders.
Her eyes were wide open, and she had vomit running from her mouth
and nose. She had a large gash on her forehead that still trickled a little
blood, but not much. Other than her clothes being soaking wet, she looked like
she could be walking down the halls of school. She was wearing a white tank
top, blue denim shorts, and leather sandals. She had bracelets on both wrists
and big green earrings that matched her big green eyes.
Two days later after having written statements for the local
police, I got a call from Jenny's sister. She invited me over to her house
where I took on the daunting task of retelling the nightmare to her Mom and
Dad, Brother, and a variety of other relatives. There was food everywhere in
their house. They had folding tables set up in their living room to hold all of
it. I told the story. They all cried and thanked me for telling them. They said
that "They just had to know what happened". I guess I don't blame
them. I would want to know too. I omitted some of the details that I am writing
now. They told me that the doctors were able to harvest her eyes and kidneys to
transplant into patients that could use them. This made them feel a slight
degree less sad somehow.
Mark and I attended Jenny's funeral. Quite honestly we did
not know Jenny too well. We knew her sister much better as she was closer to
our age. They had all of the people that attended sign her closed casket.
Mark's dad didn't think we had any good reason to attend because we didn't have
an "emotion attachment" to her. I felt like that night somehow linked
us to her forever in some small way. After the funeral we went to Pizza Hut
with her family. After that day we never really talked about it again.
I don't know how the truck ended up rolling off the cliff with her
inside. I used to ponder this daily. I don't think I care anymore. Some things
can never be explained.
-Do not complain about getting older. Too many are not afforded
the opportunity.
-unknown
