The sweaty summer afternoon provoked it,
a day at the pond.
I didn't know who's pond it was.
A friend of mine, more like an acquaintance,
had a special tie with the woman who lived there.
She kindly allowed us to swim.
She had two rowdy dogs. One, a small golden retriever-
the other, a beefy black lab whose shoulders reached my hips.
We rolled up to the house as the dogs darted toward the car.
We tried not to squish them beneath the tires.
Soon, we reached a cove
at the far end of the pond.
The bank of the pond was a steep rolling slope covered in mud and rock.
There was a small wooden platform at the top of the bank.
In front of the platform hung a rope with a make-shift handle.
It was nearly thirty feet from the water.
We took turns swinging out over the pond.
We made Tarzan calls to one another.
The two dogs would chase us up and down the embankment.
The golden retriever would swim out to us.
He thought he could rescue us from drowning.
I admired his concern.
The big black lab was more like a cow than a dog.
He had a large gaping mouth,
and his teeth were tarnished yellow.
His breath was overpowering,
but his dopey smile made him tolerable.
My brother was up next.
We cheered for him to swing out to us
who were wading in the muddy water.
He grasped the handle.
He leaped in the air.
The golden retriever, as usual, chased him down the slope.
The beastly lab wasn't chasing him this time.
He jumped upward
with his mouth wide open
like a black, bottomless pit.
The number of his yellow teeth showed
that he was not merely playing.
His tremendous jaws clamped shut
with a thunderous clap
that echoed within the cove and throughout the rest of the pond.
My brother screamed.
He hurtled down toward the surface of the water
in a chaotic display of frenzily flailing limbs.
Awkward splashes shot through the air.
I tore through the water to get to him.
The golden retriever tried to rescue him as well,
but he only made the situation more hectic.
Splashing, thrashing, kicking, scratching.
I quickly pulled my brother from the water.
He leaked crimson colors from his ass.
We covered the deep gash with a t-shirt.
He sat uncomfortably in the backseat,
and complained at the bumps in the road.
We took him to the hospital.
The doctor stitched his wound,
and giggled a bit.
We never swam at that pond ever again.