The Bakers Unlimited Chronicles(Working title, it will make sense soon)

[shadowknows69]

Bizarre River:Chapter one, part one rough draft

Kara was one of those friends you have in early childhood, the neighborhood kids, the girl next door, or in this case the girl across the street. Her father was a prominent lawyer in the local district attorney’s office and he’d eventually go on to become a powerful city judge. To this day one of the legends of the history of pranks in our little village was the endless taxis and pizzas sent to “Judge” O’Neary’s house with the bandits being the unsuspecting nice boy across the street.

Judge O’Neary probably wouldn’t have thought young Skylar James from across the street was anything but poison if he knew the childhood games he and the judge’s precious Kara played while in their rooms together or in the woods while on their adventures. Nothing too sordid or lasting, simply the usual games of first kisses and show me show you and spin the bottle and even an occasional strip poker. Nothing more than simple show and tell and Judge O’Neary’s daughter’s virtue was never violated by young Skylar. It is doubtful however that had they been caught in a round of “doctor” or “extreme house” that their denials would have been believed. Scandal spreads like wildfire on Main Street.

Skylar and Kara’s main attraction to each other wasn’t the clumsy adolescent fumbling they had which actually occurred much later than the events that will be related in this narrative. They hung out because they were adventurers. Kara was always a bit of a tomboy and Skylar fought to keep up being a slightly large boy but they covered ground. Trees, hills and swamps were nothing to the intrepid explorers of Bizarre River.

The most dangerous hills to slide during the winter were sought out, the longest “shortcuts” to school that would make them hours late, the oldest and most brittle tree branches held them precariously and the fence to climb to reach “the island” was so much taller than them.

Black River was the town’s name proper and it was settled on the small but powerful waterway of the same name which flowed from the Adirondacks of Northern New York into the Great Lake Ontario just west of the City of Watertown. Kara, Skylar and some of the other kids in town called it “Bizarre River.” It had history; it had stories; the kind the older kids tell the younger kids what they were told by their parents and their parents and so on. The ample forests surrounding the village all had creepiness worthy of a Grimm fairy tale despite fairly good lighting from above the many trails that had been formed for decades. People, mostly the kids, always traveled through the woods around Black River. Felts Mills, Great Bend, Watertown, even Carthage were all within a few well trodden miles through the right series of trails. The trails on “the island” didn’t go anywhere useful except a few fishing and swimming holes. They went some other places as well, but not everyone could follow those paths.

Black River was tiny, the population always hovering around 1,000. This grew significantly years later with the expansion of the nearby military base but for the years involved in our tale it was very much an old family town which meant hundreds of kids and they ruled the roads. Skylar and his friends were kinder, gentler delinquents in a more innocent time. Their worst offenses, on record at least, were a few well executed eggings on Halloween from the roof of the old Wonderbread building which gave the best artillery vantage point in town. Many a local vehicle’s brakes were slammed on under a barrage of gooey, crunchy bombs from nowhere. The small wooded trail behind the staging area of the attack always provided quick and untraceable escape for the perpetrators. It’s hard to remain an anonymous criminal in a small town and eventually Skylar and few of his regular friends were unofficially labeled the official culprits and were watched a little closer, futilely, by old Sheriff Donerton.

[shadowknows69]

1. small edition.

n/t

[shadowknows69]

2. Bizarre River:Chapter one, part one rough draft (continued)

John Donerton had won the office of Sheriff of Black River in 1973 soon after his return from Vietnam in '72. Already in his mid-thirties in the later 70's when this tale takes place, the Sheriff had joined the service in 1968 and did three voluntary tours in 'Nam with the marines since late 69.

Despite having a indisputable "war hero" platform to run on for his election John Donerton didn't need to exert that much political clout as he ran unopposed after the previous sheriff succumbed to the ravages of old age and alcohol and Deputy Farcas just didn't seem to be "up to the job". John Donerton was an easy choice and he didn't so much run as was begged to take the post. It was of course a boon to Black River to have such a qualified peacemaker in a town where there was nearly zero disturbing of that peace going on.

<more in a few maybe>