After the fourth of July, which was the most insane display of humanity I have ever seen in my life down at the boathouse, things started to change. Vin quit for a better paying moving job, and Anthony also quit because he was taking summer classes.

Soon after the replacements were filled in. One kid named Zach who was a big stoner, and another kid named Jerry who was hired to be the “Supervisor.” After the new kids came, a crazy cycle of events unraveled.

Almost every single day our register would be either short or over. This led our bosses to believe that someone was stealing, even though nobody was. Everyday a boss would come down and do an audit on the register and it was always short. Since the kid Jerry was hired to be supervisor he took a lot of the heat for things that went wrong, and every time a boss would drive down for a routine scolding, Jerry would become more and more agitated.

The weekend, which would end up to be my final weekend at FDR, started off like this. It was a beautiful Saturday, and my shift started at 9:30 in the morning. The morning was generally uneventful as usual, but we all knew that we would be mobbed soon by the smell of charcoal in the air. At around 11 o’clock, a big group of some black guys and huge black ladies came down ready to rent out some rowboats. We did not have enough boats at the dock so I had to go out to the middle of the lake with the motorboat where there were about 40 boats attached to a buoy.

After towing about five boats in to the dock, I tried to step back onto the dock. All of the fat black ladies were weighing down the dock, so it was tilted toward me as I tried to climb out of the motorboat. As soon as I put one foot down I knew I was in trouble because the dock leaned down toward the water even more. In my last desperate attempt to save myself I grabbed on the arm of a jacked black guy and nearly pulled him in with me. As I plummeted toward the water, the last thing I heard were the screams of the fat black ladies as I let go of the jacked guy’s arm.

SPLASH!

Before I knew it I was submerged in the nasty sea weedy lake. As I emerged from the water, everybody was pointing to my hat, which was sinking quickly a couple of feet away from me. I ignored everybody and swam to shore. Everybody was cracking up on the dock. The guy who’s arm I grabbed onto said, “ALL I WAS THINKING WAS THANK GOD I’M WEARING THIS LIFE VEST CUZ THIS NIGGAS ‘BOUT TO PULL MY ASS IN, AND LORD KNOWS I CAN’T SWIM.”

I took my lunch break after that to change and shower and then came back to the park. A little bit after I had returned the bosses again came down for an audit. Again the drawer was short and they started questioning us about stealing. The supervisor Jerry lashed out and said, “I’M NOT GONNA DO THIS JOB ANYMORE IF YOU KEEP ON ACCUSING US OF STEALING!!!” One of the bosses said “Ok Jerry,” and then Jerry said, “OK!!! THEN I FUCKING QUIT!!!” and stormed out to his car and peeled out, never to be seen again.

After this happened, Zach, who was doing the register at the time, was arguing with the two bosses and pleading his case that nobody had stolen a dime. After all of the arguing he was taken away by the park police for questioning. During this time me and the other kid Justin checked all the receipts and found out that the drawer was even the whole time. After we double-checked a few times, we walkie talkied the park office and told them we were even.

When the bosses Matt and Liz and arrived they had thought we tampered with the receipts and it took along while to prove to them that they were wrong, and that they were fucking morons as well.

I had somehow managed to survive that weekend, but my expiration date was soon to arrive. On my second to last day of work, which was Tuesday, July 13, not one customer had come all day. It was a shitty overcast day. When I went to go on break I decided I was going to take an extra long break. I first went to have a slice of Maria’s pizza with my friend Miles who worked at the filter room to the pool at the park. That took about a half hour, which was how long they allotted us for break, but I was not done yet. After that I went home and chilled out and watched T.V. for an hour then decided to go back. After being gone from 12:30 to 2:00, I arrived back at the boathouse. To my surprise the kid I was working with, Justin, was not inside or anywhere to be found. Immediately I thought something was wrong.

After about five minutes of looking to see where Justin was, I finally saw the motorboat cruising around. I thought this was odd because Justin was too young to be driving the boat, and he was way too much of a pussy to break any rule.

It turned out to be Justin and a park ranger named Jesus (Hey-Zeus, he was Hispanic) going around the lake picking up trash. So it turned out I wasn’t busted after all. I had gotten away with taking an hour and a half long break. When they got back to shore Jesus mentioned something to me about the shifter being broken on the motor. I brushed it aside, but little did I know that it would have a lot to do with my soon to be termination.

The weather pretty nice on my last day at the boathouse. I was working alone because Justin had called out sick. When I went to use the motorboat in the morning, it was not working at all. So I could not go and get the rowboats attached to the buoy in the middle of the lake. I just figured if anybody came, I would make them use the paddleboats attached to the dock, but not one customer came the day before so I wasn’t worried.

The day went on and still no customers. I had read both the Post and the Daily News from front to back out of boredom. Finally I saw some people come down the hill, I set them up with a paddle boat…. Then more people came down. Eventually I was going to have to get the rowboats out in the middle of the lake. Since the motor wasn’t working I decided to row to the middle of the lake. It took a really long time to get out to the middle of the lake, and after I attached five boats to the back of mine it was going to be really hard to get back to shore quickly, the customers waiting at the dock looked like ants.

As I rowed back slowly I saw my boss Matt’s truck slowly creep by on the road up the hill from the boathouse. He turned and rolled down the hill. I knew this was trouble.

I was still midway between the dock and buoyed boats as I saw Matt step onto the dock and look at me crossing his arms in displeasure. When I got back Matt didn’t say anything to me right away, he helped out the customers on the dock at first. It didn’t help that the boats I brought back were partially filled up with water.

After all the waiting customers were sent out Matt brought me into the boathouse. He yelled at me for not calling in and telling him that the motor was broken, then pointed to a newspaper clipping that I had put up on the wall inside which the headline read “My Pothead Pets” and said he has told me many times not to have anything on the walls. He finally said “Alright we’ve put up with enough shit, I’m gonna have to ask you to go up to the park house and hand in your shirt.”

I couldn’t believe the fact that I was being fired, and I argued with Matt for a long time to keep my job but it didn’t work.

I got back to the park house, signed out for the last time, and did my final bullshitting around with the maintenance crew who were taking their lunch break at the time and left.

As I drove away I threw my shirt out the window into the parking lot, and never looked back.

Questions or comments? E-mail Bryan at ItsByrne@hotmail.com