One weekend in the middle of a blazing Texas summer, my friend Tom invited my girlfriend and I to come visit him on the Llano River. This is always a treat for me. Tom knows that river like the back of his hand and he cares for it like it's his second wife. He organizes river cleanups and tests the water for bacteria and what not. Needless to say, he knows the best spots on the river.
He also knows the best places to eat. There is a place in Llano called Cooper's. They have the best BBQ in the state, and they have the awards to prove it. Entering Cooper's, you see the long picnic tables filling the dining room, covered in white butcher paper with loaves of white bread sitting in the middle of them. There is a short cafeteria-style line for getting potato salad, beans, pickles, and onions. Outside the front door are the massive rectangular grills with glistening slabs of brisket, sausage, chicken, and Cooper's famous "Big Chop" -- a moist and salty slab of meat big enough to feed a family of four.
As we filed past the pit barbecue, I chose a Big Chop, a full rope of spicy sausage, and a few slices of brisket, for variety's sake. I then piled on some mustard potato salad and a bunch of onions. A few pickles were also needed, again, for the sake of variety. And then the orange/brown barbecue sauce was poured on. That stuff is the nectar of the gods. I would drink it, if I didn't have all that fine meat to slather in it. I ate every bit of that. My girlfriend was warning me that it was too much, but I didn't care. Hell, I saw a lot of guys in there eating as much as I had on my plate. (They each had Texas-sized bellies to contain it all, but that didn't strike me as a necessity at the time.)
I washed it all down with the indispensable sweet tea, and we made our way to the car. I was hoping to take a midday nap and shoot the breeze over a few beers with Tom and his wife. Tom had other plans. We stopped off to buy a case of beer and headed for the river.
The spot that Tom picked out was incredible. There were gentle rapids and some nice deep pools of water to swim around in. The march down to the rocky shore was a bit tricky: a thin trail that lead through some dense, six-foot-high foliage. This was not the kind of foliage you wanted to just go tearing through. It was prickly and pert near impenetrable. Across the river, on a rise, was a nice two-story house with some activity in the yard. I assumed the owners were used to people cavorting in the river behind them. We settled in on the shore and broke out the beer.
Now, I am what you might call a "beer drinker." I drink a lot of beer. Before I slid into the water, I had three bottles of Newcastle in me. My stomach was starting to rumble, but I figured I could aerate the river and ease the coming discomfort. I found a nice chink of rock jutting off the shore and into the water. I could lie on it and have most of my body underwater while my head, my beer, and my cigarette carried on in the open air.
We talked about the river cleanup and how much Tom hates the tourists who come down and throw trash in its sparkling waters. It was right about then that someone started the Tilt-A -Whirl in my gut.
This was bad. This was the kind of discomfort that takes your breath away. I knew I would not make it up that path and through the thicket, much less to any private spot beyond. It was time to improvise. I was too wet for any one to notice that I had broken out in a cold sweat. I breathlessly announced that I was going to go for a little swim.
Pushing off into the water, I peered downstream. There was no one in sight. I was clenching my cigar cutter as I backstroked over to the first tier of rapids. The water was funneling in between two big rocks and then cascading forcefully over a foot-long drop. I positioned myself at the base of the drop. The water was deep there. I held on to the stone on one side of the cascading water and managed to get a foothold on the rocks at the river's bottom.
My ass felt like the dryer must feel when the light starts flashing "uneven load" just before some huge wet parcel slams against the door and forces it open. As my * was becoming an o, I glanced up at the shore. The girls and Tom were within shouting distance, but I knew they could not see more than my head and the top of my shoulders. The water was just below my nipples and the ledge was blocking the rest of their view. The people in the house across the river could see me but not my ass, which was a good two feet underwater. As I wiggled out of my shorts, I thought to myself that it was time. It was time for the perfect crime.
I let loose a blast of fecal fondue so strong it propelled me forward, almost making me lose my balance on the riverbed rocks. Confident that shit flows downstream, I just let it blast out while I pretended to enjoy the scenery. I could just picture my excrement leaving its cozy cave and joining the rest of the flotsam and jetsam moving toward the raging rapids beyond, there to be dashed against the rocks and obliterated in to so much fish food.
My reverie was interrupted by Tom. "Dude, what are you doing? Jerking off?" He must have been able to see the serene look on my face.
I could not tell him the truth. I could just hear him saying, "You shit in MY river?" I had to answer, as my future fish food continued to force its way out of me.
"Ha. The fish are nibbling my nuts," I parried. It was then that I looked down for effect and saw that I had made a horrible miscalculation. My shame was not being washed downriver. Now that the water had some floaters, I could see how the water was moving: I was in a whirlpool of my own filth. It looked like I was in a pot of beef stew being stirred. Oh, the horror!
I immediately looked up to see who was witness to my shame. I was still hidden. The people in the house could not see the nuggets of poobeef swirling around me. I had to get over my horror. The stew was not cycling out, so I had to make a move.
I pushed off from the rocks and propelled myself downstream, shorts in hand. I then cut to the right and found another semi-rapid whirlpool in which to secretly bathe myself. After a thorough scrubbing and inspection of the shorts, I put on said shorts and headed back for shore.
This is where the story could get even better. I could have laid down next to the girlfriend only to have her find a poo nugget in my hair or in the pocket of my shorts. Or one of my party could have ventured toward my whirlpool and I would have had to find a way to warn them off. Luckily for me, nothing happened. I spent the rest of the day sunning, swimming, and drinking beer with friends. I had not pulled off the perfect crime, but I was comforted that I had not been discovered; and I would have a story to tell -- after enough time had passed.
-- SamDamnit!