I headed straight for the kitchen, franticly opening and closing drawers, “There must be one here somewhere.”
Mike held up his now half empty bottle from across the room. “Only been here for three minutes and already I'm a half a beer up on you, you're gonna have to do better then that.”
In what seemed an eternity later, “Pay-dirt an opener,” at last I was united with my beloved, completing the circle of life. The festivities could now begin.
The glorious day was filled of the unspoken code, beer was drunk, tobacco was burned, fish were caught, lunch was made, yet as the day came to an end only one task remained. The building of the sacred ancestral signal fire.
Aye but this could be no ordinary fire, it had to be worthy of the gods. Mike and I have fire bugs inside us just as every man does, but despite our extensive time spent in the outdoors we rarely got to partake. Although we were in scouts there was rarely much need for fires that could guide an airplane down, and when the young scouts would inevitably sneak off to build one it was always Mike and I who had to stop them, and give them the Smokey Bear speech. As a result our vast combined knowledge of pyrotechnics went mostly overlooked in favor of smaller cooking fires.
“Hey I could use another beer ya want one?” I asked stacking the final piece of wood atop the log cabin design to complete stage one of the fire.
Chop...Chop...Chop, the sound of Mike's dull axe echoed around the area as he mauled another tree branch into pieces.
Mike turned his head, and tilted it ever so slightly, “Do you really have to ask?” He said.
I thought for a moment “Actually I'll bring down a cooler for us.” I said.
“Don't forget your four beers behind me.” He yelled as I walked up the hill from the fire pit near the waterside to the house atop the hill.
“Not true only three I had one right before we took the boat out and snorkeled to that island,” I yelled back.
Chop...Chop...Chop
I returned a short time later beer cooler in one hand MGD in the other.
“Think this is enough?” He asked. I stared at the faggot (bundle of sticks) Mike had accumulated for us to burn.
“I don't know man we have a reputation to live up to.” I was speaking of course of the infamous campfire of 2007 Mike and I had built at this very same spot. We were told in fact that the blaze was so large, it was clearly visible by the inhabitants on the other side of the lake. Now in our defense I don't remember it being that enormous, but apparently the elderly neighbors thought the sun had come up.
“Dude it's fine the only thing we don't have in there is dynamite.” Mike affirmed.
“Ok, whatever you say ya pansy.” I said, taking a long swig of suds.
“Hey just remember I'm bigger then you, and I'm holding an axe!” He buried the tools head in the nearby stump. I handed him a beer.
And so it was, as light turned to dark our patented log cabin/tepee campfire design came to life. It started just as any fire does one match and a few embers, but it wasn't long before it's radiating heat became so intense we were forced to move our plastic camp chairs back twice in fear they would melt. The conflagration made the traditional roasting of marshmellon impossible until the wee hours of the morning when the beer was nearly gone and the loons had long stopped their song and the night silence fell upon the lake.
Finishing the tasks brought forth in the great unspoken convention a deep befuddled slumber infused its keepers.
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