A Boathouse – If these Walls Could Talk

7

Boathouse

I spent my life on the shore of a lake.

I had no floor, it would have been silly to put a floor in a boathouse.

I can best describe myself by having you imagine a shed, a car port, stuck out over the water and someone would park, dock or tie up a boat here.

I am certain boathouses are featured in one or two horror movies.there must r be movies that use boat houses, terror movies.

I am grey, damp and spooky on stormy days, at high tides and low. A sheltered dock, a covered bridge without an exit…

I housed an assortment of tools that stuck to pegs on my walls. I had nets and fishing poles, lengths of rope.

It was dark inside, cool, cold, extreme in comfort. My main purpose was to protect a boat from serious weather, provide a boundary for the boat and a storage place for the tools.

It was all business, with water, no one sat around inside me. People come to the boathouse to begin or end a day of activity, not to hang around and break out sack lunches.

Mostly. There are always exceptions and young people with raging hormones can be counted on to cause a ripple.

There was the girl who came out here with a guy. They climbed onto the boat and well, they did what kids do as they reach the age or hormonal chaos. They came down here regularly one summer.

The world was hardly ever quiet out here. Water always lapped at my insides and out, wind rushed under my eaves.

One day the water receded. The lake became smaller, and pulled away from me. I kept expecting someone to come out and move me toward the water again.

The boat I used to protect stayed anchored to the shore, the sun beat down on it. The wind tossed it.

The man who owned the boat still came. He removed the tools he had always used, leaving the extra ones till they were quite out of reach without the water to use as a floor.

One day the boat came up out of the shallow water and up onto a cart like thing with two wheels and out and away it went.

I was no longer useful.

People did come at intervals, again, young people smoking cigarettes and getting stoned. A beer party, someone built a camp fire under me and they had a keg of beer. Cops ran them off.

People still come. They don’t come all the way inside. Some of my supports have given in and I totter.

I have become a scene, a site, almost a memorial. People come and take pictures of me from many angles. Some photographers bring tripods and waitfor the sun to shine just right.

Most of the time, I just sit here. Unlike the outhouse, I have no spray paint. But, a while back someone did make off with two of my boards. I suppose that means I will live on.

For now, I’m not a useful thing. I’m a shell, a has been, forgotten by a lake that dried away.

The Boathouse