Crimes down that the lake

Bowling for Columbine compared the hugely differing crime rates of Canada and the United States, generally Canada is a nice and safe place to live. I wanted to find out for myself, was it just distorted media? Or do people leave their doors open and let people borrow milk from their fridge?

This was the closest I had come to the witnessing of brutal murder. The laughing, senseless figures stood on the dockside, obviously oblivious to the witnesses sitting just up alongside them. Murder around this parts was rare. A small community would be affected by this, it could even surpass the first murder in Twin Peaks. Things like this just didn’t happen. After all, a community built around trust and respect little policing, but maybe this was about to change. Maybe my timing was unfortunate, but with a new person in town and bodies floating in the water, it would be long before two and two together and got eight divided by two.

They stood laughing, hanging the lifeless body in the air from a metal hook. A crime, that would pass without detection elsewhere, would be front page news at this lake. Worse still, and more dangerous, the community would find out, passing throughout the cabins like wild fly. A family had killed two fish. Worse still, they were putting the dead fish back into the lake. It was the equivalent of a gangland shooting without dumping the body in the trunk. But unlike some gangland revenge attack, this was purely a motiveless killing.

“Are you going to eat that?” Laura questioned, anger filling up like an unattended bathtub, it’s just nobody was about to pull he plug this time. “Oh, can we eat it?” came the reply, with a look as if someone had put salt in his coffee instead of sugar. Even with my well known phobia of fish, I knew the rules, if you catch a fish, eat it or let it go. After all, if you take a hostage Die Hard style, you may as well try and get the money, don’t just shoot them.

My search for crime continued. Apparently I had heard on the grapevine that someone had never wake boarded before. I guess, when you live on a lake, have access to spread boats, then it would be fairly criminal. It’s a fine line in the criminal underworld. Either admit defeat, accept you are going to be really bad and embarrassing at something and refuse to try, or, give something a go and be criminal in your actions.

I may have well been arrested there and then. As I tried to squeeze my large feet into the supposedly large ski, the people on the boat started to think criminal thoughts. If he was having trouble getting his feet in, actually rising from the water would be like turning water in wine. It wasn’t a case of the duck to water, it was a case of ducking out. But I couldn’t. Despite all the good words of advice, when push came to shove, a got shoved. My ski, unlike lifting me out of the water, acted like a snow plough, pushing me deep into the water. They said “Whatever you do don’t let go” only that’s not meant to apply when you are heading underwater. At this rate I would be meeting the fish that were murdered before, only this time they would be scooping up the remains with a crane and not a fishnet.

It was at this time I started to worry. Not about my ability to qualify for the next wake boarding championships, but a nagging feeling in my head. One of those ‘Did I remember to turn the iron’ off feelings. Only this was a little more concerning. As with most forms of lake communication, it’s a bit on the limited side. People just turn up. Especially parents. The best way of telling when your parents are coming down to your cabin is to hear the gravel moving on your driveway. Its often best to become expert in the sound of engine noises, since that us the best way to have notice of impending elders. So, when smoking a cigarette when its not common knowledge, causes a fair bit of quick thinking when the gravel starts to grind.

Using my quick thinking ability, I quickly grabbed the ashtray, squeezing the cigarettes to the side and rushed inside. Putting the ashtray in my bag, I emptied the ends into the rubbish bin, all within twenty seconds. Panic over. Well panic over for thirty minutes. It was only whilst waiting to go into the water, that my mind frantically started to wander, which in turn started another thought process. Were the ends completely out before going into the bin with paper and other flammable materials. As I sat in the boat and wondered how the hell I was going to glide out of the water like a swan, I suddenly got pictures of a cabin, passed down though the generations, smoking in the background. Now that would be criminal.


My frustrations continued. There simply no more crimes to be seen, sure, my six attempts to stand up on the water, were, without question, criminal. My ability to turn sunburnt red at the earliest moment of sun, were worthy of a suspended jail sentence, but I was to be disappointed this time. Word had it that someone’s the eagles would swoop down and kidnap the adopted chipmunk pets. Well, I guess you can’t make crime happen, but it was time to leave the lake and move on to Calgary.