Bad Games

45



July 1986



Marsh Creek State Park

Downingtown, PA



Sam Fannelli cut the engine on the small fishing boat and used the oars to guide him and his two sons into the spot he was aiming for.

“What do you think, boys? This good?” Sam’s thinning brow was already beaded with sweat as he put a hand up to shield the sun.

Arty and Jim looked out across the giant body of water that was Marsh Creek— smooth green water held together by a strong perimeter of trees and more trees.

“Will we be able to catch fish here?” Jim asked.

“I hope so,” Sam replied. He stood, causing the boat to sway and both boys to grip the sides of the boat. “Should have brought a baseball cap,” he said, bringing his hand over his eyes again before looking off in all directions. “Still, it looks like we’ve got a nice stretch to ourselves. I had a feeling it would be more peaceful on a weekday. You boys are lucky you’ve got such an awesome dad who takes a day off work to go fishing with his boys.”

Arty rolled his eyes. Sam caught it and laughed at his son. “Oh, I see—fifth-graders are too cool to hang out with their old man? How ’bout you Jimmy? Are third-graders too cool to go fishing with their dad?”

Jim shook his head no.

“Well one out of two ain’t bad,” Sam said. “Trust me, Arty. You’re gonna enjoy this more than you do blowing things up on that Nintendo of yours.”

“I’m having fun, Dad,” Arty said without a smile.

“Good,” Sam said. He was smiling enough for both of them. “I’ll tell you what, why don’t you boys crack yourselves a soda from the cooler, and I’ll bait our hooks for us.”



* * *



The boys were now shirtless save for the orange life jackets strapped to their torsos. The parts of their shoulders that were exposed had reddened considerably from the relentless sun.

Empty soda cans and potato chip packets were scattered about the wet wooden floor of the boat, and all three fishing rods were cast and left floating nibble-less for the past two hours.

“Should we go somewhere else, Dad?” Jim asked.

Sam propped his rod up along the edge of the boat and slid over to where his youngest son was sitting.

“We can if you like,” he said. “But catching fish isn’t really the point is it?”

Jim looked blankly at his father.

“Well the point is to spend time together. Father and sons. Male bonding stuff in the great outdoors and all that. Living in the city, we don’t get to do this kind of stuff too often. I thought it would be a nice change of pace.” He put his arm around Jim and squeezed, then turned and smiled at Arty.

Arty smiled back because it felt like the thing to do.

“I love you boys you know.”

“We love you too, Dad.”

Sam Fannelli then slapped both hands down onto his thighs and said, “Well! Having said that, I think we’ve been doing the ‘great outdoors thing’ long enough, don’t you? What do you say we pack it in and head back to the city for a late lunch full of grease?”

Jim’s eyes lit up. “Yeah.”

“Sound good, Arty?” Sam asked.

“Yeah,” Arty said.

Sam clapped his hands together. “Let’s do it.”

Jim bent to pull his fishing pole free from the wooden plank he’d nestled it under, but gave up after a few tugs and grunts.

“Stuck?” Sam asked.

Jim gave it one more useless tug then glanced at his father. “Yeah.”

Sam removed his life jacket and got down on both knees to get a good look beneath the plank. “You got it jammed in here pretty good, pal,” he said.

After a few jerks and grunts of his own, Sam managed to wrench the pole free from beneath the plank, nearly tumbling backwards from the effort. “Eureka,” he breathed.

Sam got back to his feet and stretched his back before noticing his rod twitching at the opposite end of the boat. “Hey!” he yelled. “Hey, I think I’ve got one!”

Sam’s enthusiasm launched him towards the rod before consideration for the boat’s stability under his sudden shift in weight had a chance to register. Before he could even make an attempt to right himself, he’d plunged face first into the lake.

When Sam Fannelli gasped to the surface, the look of panic on his face was exceptional. He was a man who had been raised in the city his whole life. A man who had never had a single swimming lesson in all his forty-seven years.

And a man who had just recently removed his life jacket.

“Boys!” he coughed, spitting out green water. “Boys, help me!”

When Sam had fallen overboard his momentum had pushed the boat back several feet. In Sam’s condition, it may as well have been a mile.

Both Jim and Arty were on their feet, balancing themselves on different sides of the boat. Their expressions were equal to that of their father—fear and panic.

Sam went under for a second then fought to surface again. Between sputtered gasps he cried, “ARTHUR! THE OAR! THE OAR!!!”

Arty spun, grabbed the long wooden oar along the edge of the boat’s floor, whipped back around, looked at Jim…and then froze. His younger brother’s expression was different now. It had gone from fear and panic to something else entirely.

And it only took Arty a few seconds to recognize that his younger brother was trying his absolute hardest not to laugh.

Arty, oar still firm in both hands, looked away from Jim and towards his drowning father. Sam Fannelli was bobbing up and down, choking wildly when he surfaced, eyes impossibly wide with fright.

Arty looked back at his brother again. Jim had succumbed to full-on laughter now, his father’s dread a feather tickling his bare feet.

Arty didn’t join his brother in laughter just yet. Instead he extended the oar out to his father, touched the top of his head with it, and pushed him under.

What the two brothers witnessed next caused them both to fall backwards into the boat where they laughed until their stomachs cramped and their cheeks ached.

It was the look of absolute horror on the face of a father who had suddenly realized that his two sons meant to drown him for their own amusement.