He hails from a little river town and knows that in order for the one person he wants to notice him he has to do the unthinkable.
Is he ready? Can he pull it off?
All he knows is that he has to try to earn the love of the object of his affection.
He opened his eyes this morning and knew it was going to be a hot day. He would open the windows and hope it didn't rain. He was tired of the heat but what could he do?
It felt like it was 90 in the house this morning.
"Summer," he thought, "if only you had already gone your own way. "
Little did he know how much things were going to change this summer. He just wanted to be someone that people paid attention to. It seemed as though he was totally invisible to the people around him.
He was a little angry and upset with the way things were going. There was this really sweet girl who went out jogging every day. She would always wave to him. Sometimes in the heart of summer, she would stop and he'd give her a bottle of water to drink.
"Thanks so much. One of these days this run is going to kill me I think."
"Nah, you're good and strong. I hate the heat and so it's me who is going to shrivel up and die I think. It's the lack of something I suppose. One of these days I will figure it out."
"Charles, you are just fine."
It was strange to think that someone other than his family would say something like that to him. But then again, Amy was not normal people. She was special. Charlie let her call him Charles. It had been strange at first, but he'd gotten used to it.
There was a different world out there. Charlie knew it was not going to be easy but he'd try to make do. People like Charlie and Amy didn't get together. They were from two different worlds.
He had been to the shady side of the tracks and he didn't want to go back there. He had struggled to find meaning in the world but then again he just wanted to be in Amy's world for a just a few seconds. Just. To. Be. Real. That's how he felt.
After she had left for the day he cursed out loud. He was hoping nobody heard him, but the reality was someone had.
"What's wrong wit you, Charlie?"
"Nothing, just go back to work. I am just having a really bad day."
"I'm so...so...sorry."
Trevor was a good kid so Charlie would apologize later. For now, he needed to get the boat going. He couldn't figure out what was wrong.
"Trevor, do you see anything wrong back there?"
"No!"
Charlie walked around to the other side and there it was. The motor on the port side was damaged. Probably the work of some bored kids. He was always chasing kids off in the morning when he first got there. He was good at his job but got the feeling it wasn't going to last much longer.
There was something about the community that screamed layoffs were coming.
Charlie was not the kind of man that wanted to believe that there was anything wrong in the world, but he knew better. He had seen how the recession was going. He knew plenty of his friends who had been victims of the system. Some of them had managed to get enough money on unemployment, but Charlie knew that with the menial job he had, it wasn't likely to happen. He was just trying to eek out a living from what he did.
On the Mississippi, there were very few jobs like the one he had. He ferried people across the river. It was hard work some days because there were a hundred cars that wanted to experience crossing the river by method of ferry. All the people who had never seen the river.
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He had been here far too many times, but this morning there was no one at the dock. No one waiting to cross the Mighty Mississipp... He had remembered the night before. The river was beautiful. It was perfect. He had taken several pictures of the river just after sunset. He loved that time of day. He guessed that he liked anything that reminded him of that one hot summer day.
He was devoid of the things that had happened before. He had seen dead people before, but the dead, bloated corpse floating there beside the ferry, that excited him. He would never have admitted that to the police, but then again, there were a lot of people he wouldn't tell that story to. He didn't want people thinking that he was some kind of freak or something like that. Freaks were locked up, and, usually, suspected of being the killer of such people.
"What are you thinking?"
It was a welcome distraction. Timothy, the man that he worked with, the owner of the ferry, he was a nice guy, and he was really a great person to talk to, but Charlie knew not to let something like this just fall out. It wasn't meant to be. He really wanted to believe that there was something he could do about it.
Charlie had tried writing therapy, and sharing his stories with people online, but he was afraid that they would suspect him, so he didn't put his real name on the posts that he put up. He just wanted to share the story. Anything was better than nothing. It was a little like there was always going to be something wrong with him. Was there something wrong with him? He didn't know.
Timothy walked around the front of the ferry and he could see the damage that had been done.
"Guess we got struck again last night."
"Yeah, I wish there was something we could do. They always wear masks."
"How do you know that?"
"I've sat down here and watched. They come in groups of large numbers. I was afraid to try and scare them off. I know that is not what you would have done, but It is the truth."
