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Slipping on a Mossy Log

 Forbidden fruit is highest in calories and shame.

I knew the Ten Commandments and The Golden Rule before I could spell my name on Big Chief tablet paper. Not just memorized, but absorbed, like extra ribs in my chest. I was reminded of these credos whenever I saw others committing forbidden acts. I recalled friends who sneaked into the cloakroom at school to pop their bubble gum. I remember the gas station man who always told my Aunt Flossie she needed a quart of oil when she didn't. Flossie would just smile and say: "Thanks, I'm about to get it changed anyway." I figured her answer was the automotive equivalent to turning the other cheek.
     I think I did just fine with my list of Eternal Rules, honoring them to the fullest as the years went by. Yes, all was close to textbook until that one day at Caddo Lake.
     It was 1954, and I was twelve. It was one of those summers I returned to East Texas, a short vacation away from my soldier-of-fortune father's duty station in the wilds of Indonesia. Caddo Lake was a getaway. It was so different from the tropical forests in Java and the harried and sometimes dangerous life overseas. The lake restored me with its calmness - an elixir of moss-draped cypress and softly flowing waters. The glades were so open and inviting, like alleys into a happy realm I had long since lost. I bathed in the coolness of its brakes, I tasted its purity. It was the rekindling of my slumbering spirit.
     This day, my Uncle Archie had driven me to the State Park at the lake. He left me with seventy-five cents to buy my lunch at Big Pines Lodge, a river-rat sort of fish camp and eatery that stood on the banks of the Cypress River. Soaking up the soft sounds of the whispering pines, I meandered my way down to Big Pines' pier, a gangplank used for boarding the Caddo Queen. The Queen was a relic of a paddlewheel boat that once carried paying tourists down the river into the main lake. It was a hot August day and my thoughts drifted back to the advent of another school year, less than a month away. I was reminded that summer was fleeting, like sleep being interrupted by shards of daylight through Venetian blinds. The reality was undeniable. I would soon be returning to Java to rejoin the dozen or so American and Dutch kids who attended the Baptist Missionary School there.
     With my lunch money, I bought an overstuffed Big Pines hamburger and found a restful spot back on the pier. The river swept by, curling itself around the cypress knees then dancing away with its trail of leaves and Spanish moss. At my foot, I noticed a cord tied to a post on the dock. I pulled at it and felt something heavy on the end. A stringer of nice white perch? My curiosity bested me, so I hoisted it up. It was a net-like potato sack … and it contained six cans of Falstaff beer. Had someone left them there to cool beneath the pier? Was this a gift from some swamp force that tempted young men with the stains of adulthood?
     Playground rules came to mind. Finders keepers! Ah, and no one was there, no one to see, no one to tell. I stared at the cool dripping cans with some stranger's lust. Surely this cannot be me, slipping into the woods with such forbidden fruit. I found a resting-place in the forest away from prying eyes. The sweetgum leaves obscured me from anyone approaching the dock and there were no sounds except the distant staccato of a woodpecker.
     I used my pocketknife to punch some holes and drank four cans before being dashed away on a kind of magic carpet ride. My body was vacated as I rose aloft. I could see everything below, as if perched among the tallest trees. The view beneath me had the look of a miniature diorama, a western scene, cowboys and Indians battling each other around a string of covered wagons that had formed a protective circle. The John Wayne movie I saw yesterday had come to life.
     In a flash, the action vanished like a vacant stage after the second bow. The magic carpet was abruptly gone. I felt something poking my ribs. It was my Uncle Archie, nudging me with his boot. I remember thinking his silhouette would not hold still, and his face had four ears and two mouths. His nose was busy wandering about his face. And how did he find me amongst these leaves?
     The ride home went swiftly and there was no conversation. Lights in houses flashed by like the passing of a midnight train. Abruptly, I recognized my front porch with its painted wooden floor and the glider nestled in its grapevine canopy. Archie lifted me inside the house. I lay on the sofa, swooning like smoke from a winter chimney. My grandmother came to my side. She towered above me, her face obscured in the dim light. She seemed twelve feet tall.
         No bathtub could contain the amount of shame I bathed in that night. My grandmother made things worse. There was no lecture, no scolding. There was only the look of hurt on her face. I thought: what had become of my commitment to the Eternal Rules? There I had been, drinking forbidden nectar and, worse, stealing from some thirsty fisherman who returned to find but an empty potato sack. The fisherman would have harsh words to say and no one there to hear.
     Despite my misgivings the night before, there indeed came a dawn. The sun was unusually bright as I sat at the breakfast table with French toast and fresh strawberries. The admonishment I anticipated with dread never came. My grandmother rushed about in her usual way before Sunday services and my Uncle Archie arrived on time to drive us to First Presbyterian. The incident was not mentioned and my place on the pew was unusually comforting. Maybe I would survive my double-sin.
     Brother Benchoff began his sermon like all Sundays before, and his words whisked me back to the familiar. His voice began to trail away as I lost myself in thought. As usual, the massive light fixtures in the sanctuary were gently swaying, although there was no breeze. To my right sat the Abney family and two pews in front were the Langtons. The organist had moved from her place on the organ bench to one of the choir seats so she could see. Across the aisle, Sonny Cox was being pinched on the ear, a reminder to pay attention.
     All things comfortable had returned. Events from yesterday seemed but a dream. Did it happen at all? By that Sunday evening, I knew that my world had re-adopted me and welcomed me home.
     At six-thirty, Lassie came on the television. Just like always.

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