A true story about six teens who stole a speedboat from a Marina and disappeared forever
Monday, December 6, 2010
Lost Boys Six
James Cameron isn't likely to submerged himself for us. eight hundred feet down in plastic barrels for fifteen years can get you too much crud and algae. Mr. Titanic, I'd love to see on this, the flip-side of my my short life. My name is James too. But I'm not the most sympathetic member of the barrel crew down here.
Bad ass"? My middle name. Leading the "Lost Boys Six"? My pleasure. On about March 17, 1996, we stole a boat from the local marina, as per usual and took our weekly joy ride. This boat,that night, was begging to be stolen. Keys in the ignition, gas metre reading full, on we jump. Except for Matty and Jeremy, the youngest of us. Four on the Whaler and those two on a stupid paddle wheeler that they had found beached next to the speed boat.
We left the bay area and headed into the lake. The paddle boat finally arrived in the lake but it was rough and they begged us to pick them up. We let them tough it out and get wet first, for being so stupid in the first place.
Jason cranked the speed even though I was steering. With two hundred and fifty horses under us, the rest of them flew backwards into a pile. No one steering now, the Boston Whaler did a couple of donuts before stalling out.
Gas metre read still full but the boat would not start. The wet ones of us were shivering and we decided to head back when the engine started. But it doesn't start. The lights from the harbour were still in sight and so was a smaller light moving steadily toward us. It was a camouflage blow-up type boat, like the ones that chase other whalers, the ones from japan, in the ocean, killing giant mammals from the sea. We six mammals, were about to join them but we don't know it yet.
~
Jason just got back from four days on observation at the local psych hospital. Something about suicide. He said it wasn't bad there.
They even had a school. It was short term because Jay isn't nuts or anything like that. Some girl ditched him is all. It was all to much for him I guess.
Next time he thinks about killing himself he'll keep it to himself.
Bobbie and I shoplifted lunch five days a week at the local grocery store.
You'd be surprised how easy it is. Sometimes a customer sees, but we just open boxes and gobble.
Back at school we smoke cigs we stole from our parents at the spot there off property while waiting for the bell and the other four of us.
Once you are sixteen nobody chases you down if you are absent. The other four are sixteen but still hang around for the shop classes with friends from public school.
Jeremy, Jason, Matty and Dave pulled up to the smoking stop just off school property, in Dave's mother's shit-box Chevy. He had dropped her off at work. Piling in, we head for this night's party spot, Emily's house.
A little splif is being passed and the joint and laughter are directed toward Matty who swears he will bring us Emma Lou Finlay's panties from her clothes line by next week at this time. By this time next week we are all human Popsicles near the bottom of Lake Mento.
~
Eight hundred feet is fairly deep for a lake, even one dug out by a glacier like Mento was. It's cold all year around and it's very narrow, only fifty miles across. A very angry glacier, and in a big hurry, had gouged out our water play world. About the only thing I learned in geography class is that glaciers do what they want, where they want, when they want, kind of like the Boys Six. We are no match for this situation but we don't know it just yet.
Pulling up at the marina after Emily's party, it seems to me, we were not any more high and drunk than any other Saturday night.
A speedboat with keys and a full tank does not look like a 'set up', at the time. Naivety is a stupid reason to die. How long can we expect owners of millions of dollars of yachts to put up with the antics of six little assholes, like us?
~
It might seem irrational for a seventeen year old to be caught up in the mess like this turns out to be. Fifteen years down here has gives a person some maturity, perspective and insight. The guy in the camouflage blow-up was the second part of the 'set up'. Putt putting along, we waits for the Whaler motor to cut out and then makes his move.
"Ahoy, 'sup?" His face is streaked black and his jumpsuit match his boat colour. "Dude we're dead in the water here, we don't think it's gas though."
'Dead in the water indeed'.
Dude says that he is part of coast guard practice maneuvers that haven't started yet. He would be happy to tow us back but the blow-up motorboat's outboard cannot handle that much weight drag. Can we all pile on the paddle boat that we are pulling behind us? Since a couple of us are wet, he will get the Boston Whaler after dropping us back at the marina. We cannot believe our luck. He tosses six life jackets and we hop on the paddle boat.
~
Roy Bonisteel is a six generation New York State resident whose great great grandfather was an old time circuit judge. Their family estate is now a museum along twelve mile creek, twelve miles from the mouth of Lake Mento. Google map shows it on the other side of Bonisteel Road, near a bushy inlet, with no other houses around.
Roy was born and raised on the lake. The third of five boys, he always played 'catch up' in a birth order that had him as pinned as as an insect in a collection of old world has-beens. He has enough money but it is doled out as a trust so often is and so, even though he does not have to work, his deep unhappiness with his life keeps him an unmarried hermit wearing his father's old clothes and neglecting upkeep of another historic house his parents had left him. He seldom bathed or washed his hair but he figured the creek kept him clean enough. Over the years Roy becomes a more than proficient fishing and gaming guide.
He has a diving license and can fix any broken down motor the marina at the mouth of twelve mile creek calls him about. He even welds underwater.
On the weekends Roy meets with a militia group who 'murder' each other with paint balls and all the other para-military games 'Lost Boys' on this side of the lake like to play.
Every year, he and three others circumnavigate Mento and it's fellow lakes in a yacht race. The cup is to boat racing what the World Series is to baseball and what the Daytona 500 is to NASCAR. With the Gold Cup in his grasp, for the ninth time Roy hoped for better competition every year.
The Lake Mento 300 yacht race course is a circumnavigation of the lake that starts at Port Debt Yacht Club, heads east and rounds goose Island, then heads south to Oslego NY where it turns east along the south shore to the Giagara River mark before heading to the finish line at Port Debit Yacht Club. The race is a test of preparation, teamwork, navigation and perseverance.
'Captain Roy Boy' leads the three man team to victory every year. The family marina made good from these wins in boat sales, docking, slip rentals, engine repairs,supply sales,launching and hoisting fees.
Bonisteel Bay Marina, located on beautiful downtown Bonisteel Bay.
~
We don't feel much of anything down here. The lake,being deep has, a tide, not an ocean tide but a pull just the same. Makes me remember rocking with grandma while mom worked. Rocking in the wicker chair, completed by a song, "Raindrops Keep Falling On my Head," or "You Are The Sunshine Of My Life." She doesn't know all the words and hums the blank spots.
To the creaking wicker and the humming grandma led me to sleep until mom came in her own beat up Chevy to get me me just around midnight, after every shift.
Dave misses Canada more than the rest of us. One evening, at dusk, he could just make out the CN Tower and a few of the Bay Street skyscrapers. The lake was black as usually but the sky was blood orange. The towers popped on the our horizon. Davey popped up too. The lid of his barrel started to peel away, from decomposition gas. Pressed down as it was, over a decade, it cracked and surrendered to the frigid lake. Dave was in a pickle there. Parts of Davey started on their freedom ride to Canada. Roy boy would not be pleased. He had spent a lot of time making sure that sort if thing never happen.
~
Once we boarded the paddle boat Roy looped the towing rope around us and shifted the direction of the blow-up. After settling into a reasonable speed, the six of us felt polar but subdued and sober. Hard, Roy accelerated the Zeppelin's motor. We six skipped like stones in the many directions. Into Lake Mento, Jason, Jeremy, Matty, Dave, Jamie and me.
Jeremy perished first. He had been frost bitten for hours by then after the paddle boat ride and the shock of the March cold finished him quickly. Matty was next. He just gave up. Jason and I clung onto one another and watched Roy quietly tending to the barrels he had anchored a few metres away from the death scene. Dave thrashed and flailed ignoring the buoyancy of his life jacket. Maybe it was reflex because he couldn't swim. Jason and I begged Roy to see things another way before it was too late for us too. But Roy just circled the six barrels in the 'C' shape he would soon need as he whistled under his breath. We were too soon dead.
One after another Roy removed the life jacket from each of us just before packing us in, one barrel each. After sealing every barrel, leaving enough air in each to allow for easy towing, he was underway in less than fifteen minutes. Using a depth finder Roy was finding the eight hundred foot bottom of Lake Mento. This site was happily, for Roy anyway, on his way home.
Before going too far, Roy used the full Boston Whaler gas can, stored on the Zeppelin to re-fuel, but he panicked and dropped the can. Suddenly, a light had appeared on his home horizon. The first and only glitch in his over planned mission to destroy us. Two teenagers parked to make out. While he waited, cut the boat motor and checked the depth metre again. Deep enough. Roy re-entered the water to make a grab for the gas can but it was floating away too rapidly for him to catch it. He cut his losses quickly and preceded to sink us one by one by punching in the perforated circles he had made earlier in each barrel. Using the paddle boat to hop off of, Roy's body weight sent bubbles gurgling from the barrels as we sank, each one, down and down. Next he hooked the tow rope to the speed boat and waited for the couple to leave.
After an hour, the kids started their car and pulled away.
~
Parts of Davey floated as a rumor on their freedom ride to Canada. At home the rumor and innuendo about our disappearance had stopped. Parents had turned against each other. Peers had started jobs and families. And Davey's bits and bites wafted their way home. And they might have made it too except for the fish. A Muskie here, a Pike there, wolfing down his bits and bites.
~
Roy figured the authorities wouldn't started searching until dawn. It was four thirty a.m. Re-starting the Zeppelin he quietly pulled the Boston Whaler into Bonisteel Bay and up twelve mile creek toward the circuit judge's historic home. He had played, swam, fished, guided on the creek all his life.
Finding the sheltered cove near the road were he had left his truck several hours later, he debark the Zeppelin, deflated it and stuffed it on the truck. He would leave the other boat and deal with it later.
Bad ass"? My middle name. Leading the "Lost Boys Six"? My pleasure. On about March 17, 1996, we stole a boat from the local marina, as per usual and took our weekly joy ride. This boat,that night, was begging to be stolen. Keys in the ignition, gas metre reading full, on we jump. Except for Matty and Jeremy, the youngest of us. Four on the Whaler and those two on a stupid paddle wheeler that they had found beached next to the speed boat.
We left the bay area and headed into the lake. The paddle boat finally arrived in the lake but it was rough and they begged us to pick them up. We let them tough it out and get wet first, for being so stupid in the first place.
Jason cranked the speed even though I was steering. With two hundred and fifty horses under us, the rest of them flew backwards into a pile. No one steering now, the Boston Whaler did a couple of donuts before stalling out.
Gas metre read still full but the boat would not start. The wet ones of us were shivering and we decided to head back when the engine started. But it doesn't start. The lights from the harbour were still in sight and so was a smaller light moving steadily toward us. It was a camouflage blow-up type boat, like the ones that chase other whalers, the ones from japan, in the ocean, killing giant mammals from the sea. We six mammals, were about to join them but we don't know it yet.
~
Jason just got back from four days on observation at the local psych hospital. Something about suicide. He said it wasn't bad there.
They even had a school. It was short term because Jay isn't nuts or anything like that. Some girl ditched him is all. It was all to much for him I guess.
Next time he thinks about killing himself he'll keep it to himself.
Bobbie and I shoplifted lunch five days a week at the local grocery store.
You'd be surprised how easy it is. Sometimes a customer sees, but we just open boxes and gobble.
Back at school we smoke cigs we stole from our parents at the spot there off property while waiting for the bell and the other four of us.
Once you are sixteen nobody chases you down if you are absent. The other four are sixteen but still hang around for the shop classes with friends from public school.
Jeremy, Jason, Matty and Dave pulled up to the smoking stop just off school property, in Dave's mother's shit-box Chevy. He had dropped her off at work. Piling in, we head for this night's party spot, Emily's house.
A little splif is being passed and the joint and laughter are directed toward Matty who swears he will bring us Emma Lou Finlay's panties from her clothes line by next week at this time. By this time next week we are all human Popsicles near the bottom of Lake Mento.
~
Eight hundred feet is fairly deep for a lake, even one dug out by a glacier like Mento was. It's cold all year around and it's very narrow, only fifty miles across. A very angry glacier, and in a big hurry, had gouged out our water play world. About the only thing I learned in geography class is that glaciers do what they want, where they want, when they want, kind of like the Boys Six. We are no match for this situation but we don't know it just yet.
Pulling up at the marina after Emily's party, it seems to me, we were not any more high and drunk than any other Saturday night.
A speedboat with keys and a full tank does not look like a 'set up', at the time. Naivety is a stupid reason to die. How long can we expect owners of millions of dollars of yachts to put up with the antics of six little assholes, like us?
~
It might seem irrational for a seventeen year old to be caught up in the mess like this turns out to be. Fifteen years down here has gives a person some maturity, perspective and insight. The guy in the camouflage blow-up was the second part of the 'set up'. Putt putting along, we waits for the Whaler motor to cut out and then makes his move.
"Ahoy, 'sup?" His face is streaked black and his jumpsuit match his boat colour. "Dude we're dead in the water here, we don't think it's gas though."
'Dead in the water indeed'.
Dude says that he is part of coast guard practice maneuvers that haven't started yet. He would be happy to tow us back but the blow-up motorboat's outboard cannot handle that much weight drag. Can we all pile on the paddle boat that we are pulling behind us? Since a couple of us are wet, he will get the Boston Whaler after dropping us back at the marina. We cannot believe our luck. He tosses six life jackets and we hop on the paddle boat.
~
Roy Bonisteel is a six generation New York State resident whose great great grandfather was an old time circuit judge. Their family estate is now a museum along twelve mile creek, twelve miles from the mouth of Lake Mento. Google map shows it on the other side of Bonisteel Road, near a bushy inlet, with no other houses around.
Roy was born and raised on the lake. The third of five boys, he always played 'catch up' in a birth order that had him as pinned as as an insect in a collection of old world has-beens. He has enough money but it is doled out as a trust so often is and so, even though he does not have to work, his deep unhappiness with his life keeps him an unmarried hermit wearing his father's old clothes and neglecting upkeep of another historic house his parents had left him. He seldom bathed or washed his hair but he figured the creek kept him clean enough. Over the years Roy becomes a more than proficient fishing and gaming guide.
He has a diving license and can fix any broken down motor the marina at the mouth of twelve mile creek calls him about. He even welds underwater.
On the weekends Roy meets with a militia group who 'murder' each other with paint balls and all the other para-military games 'Lost Boys' on this side of the lake like to play.
Every year, he and three others circumnavigate Mento and it's fellow lakes in a yacht race. The cup is to boat racing what the World Series is to baseball and what the Daytona 500 is to NASCAR. With the Gold Cup in his grasp, for the ninth time Roy hoped for better competition every year.
The Lake Mento 300 yacht race course is a circumnavigation of the lake that starts at Port Debt Yacht Club, heads east and rounds goose Island, then heads south to Oslego NY where it turns east along the south shore to the Giagara River mark before heading to the finish line at Port Debit Yacht Club. The race is a test of preparation, teamwork, navigation and perseverance.
'Captain Roy Boy' leads the three man team to victory every year. The family marina made good from these wins in boat sales, docking, slip rentals, engine repairs,supply sales,launching and hoisting fees.
Bonisteel Bay Marina, located on beautiful downtown Bonisteel Bay.
~
We don't feel much of anything down here. The lake,being deep has, a tide, not an ocean tide but a pull just the same. Makes me remember rocking with grandma while mom worked. Rocking in the wicker chair, completed by a song, "Raindrops Keep Falling On my Head," or "You Are The Sunshine Of My Life." She doesn't know all the words and hums the blank spots.
To the creaking wicker and the humming grandma led me to sleep until mom came in her own beat up Chevy to get me me just around midnight, after every shift.
Dave misses Canada more than the rest of us. One evening, at dusk, he could just make out the CN Tower and a few of the Bay Street skyscrapers. The lake was black as usually but the sky was blood orange. The towers popped on the our horizon. Davey popped up too. The lid of his barrel started to peel away, from decomposition gas. Pressed down as it was, over a decade, it cracked and surrendered to the frigid lake. Dave was in a pickle there. Parts of Davey started on their freedom ride to Canada. Roy boy would not be pleased. He had spent a lot of time making sure that sort if thing never happen.
~
Once we boarded the paddle boat Roy looped the towing rope around us and shifted the direction of the blow-up. After settling into a reasonable speed, the six of us felt polar but subdued and sober. Hard, Roy accelerated the Zeppelin's motor. We six skipped like stones in the many directions. Into Lake Mento, Jason, Jeremy, Matty, Dave, Jamie and me.
Jeremy perished first. He had been frost bitten for hours by then after the paddle boat ride and the shock of the March cold finished him quickly. Matty was next. He just gave up. Jason and I clung onto one another and watched Roy quietly tending to the barrels he had anchored a few metres away from the death scene. Dave thrashed and flailed ignoring the buoyancy of his life jacket. Maybe it was reflex because he couldn't swim. Jason and I begged Roy to see things another way before it was too late for us too. But Roy just circled the six barrels in the 'C' shape he would soon need as he whistled under his breath. We were too soon dead.
One after another Roy removed the life jacket from each of us just before packing us in, one barrel each. After sealing every barrel, leaving enough air in each to allow for easy towing, he was underway in less than fifteen minutes. Using a depth finder Roy was finding the eight hundred foot bottom of Lake Mento. This site was happily, for Roy anyway, on his way home.
Before going too far, Roy used the full Boston Whaler gas can, stored on the Zeppelin to re-fuel, but he panicked and dropped the can. Suddenly, a light had appeared on his home horizon. The first and only glitch in his over planned mission to destroy us. Two teenagers parked to make out. While he waited, cut the boat motor and checked the depth metre again. Deep enough. Roy re-entered the water to make a grab for the gas can but it was floating away too rapidly for him to catch it. He cut his losses quickly and preceded to sink us one by one by punching in the perforated circles he had made earlier in each barrel. Using the paddle boat to hop off of, Roy's body weight sent bubbles gurgling from the barrels as we sank, each one, down and down. Next he hooked the tow rope to the speed boat and waited for the couple to leave.
After an hour, the kids started their car and pulled away.
~
Parts of Davey floated as a rumor on their freedom ride to Canada. At home the rumor and innuendo about our disappearance had stopped. Parents had turned against each other. Peers had started jobs and families. And Davey's bits and bites wafted their way home. And they might have made it too except for the fish. A Muskie here, a Pike there, wolfing down his bits and bites.
~
Roy figured the authorities wouldn't started searching until dawn. It was four thirty a.m. Re-starting the Zeppelin he quietly pulled the Boston Whaler into Bonisteel Bay and up twelve mile creek toward the circuit judge's historic home. He had played, swam, fished, guided on the creek all his life.
Finding the sheltered cove near the road were he had left his truck several hours later, he debark the Zeppelin, deflated it and stuffed it on the truck. He would leave the other boat and deal with it later.
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