Transcript for the Mud version of Mud

Face Down in the Mud

The bottom of the lake was a treasure chest and Jake often felt
like a pirate. So far that summer Jake and his sister Camille
had found seventeen wallets, dozens of sunglasses, piles of
tangled tackle, even the prop to an outboard. The wallets were
pilfered then buried. Cash was kept -- $798 this summer, over
$1000 last -- and driver's licenses sold to look alike high
schoolers to use for fake IDs. At $100 each, these were a gold
mine. Last fall, they had sold seven to kids in the surrounding
rural towns. They never touched credit cards -- nor had they thought of
returning the wallets to the addresses they found inside. It
was a good haul, but Jake fell asleep every night thinking about
making a BIG haul, pulling out a wedding ring or a gold
necklace.

Once he told Camille about it, but she only laughed and chided him for
his greediness. Camille gave her little brother's dream the title "The
Biggest Treasure the Mud Ever Held." It became an inside joke, another
reason Jake was so fond of Camille. It was nice to have an inside joke.

Camille was already naked but Jake still lay beneath the only
shade tree for two hundred yards in any direction. Their
homemade bike path cut through the snake infested grasslands and
aimed straight for the closest corner of the lake. This corner
also happened to be the furthest from the fishing store and boat
ramp, two miles directly, but more than five around the fingered
shore line. The only way to this part of the lake was on foot,
by bike, or by boat when there was enough water.

Jake only stripped for necessity, The only thing that didn't pick
up the lake stink or stick to the lake bottom was human skin; boots
or sandals were sucked off the foot and stuck to the bottom so
permanently they gave up ever getting them out, all cloth picked up
the stench of the mud. They went naked, Jake grudingly, Camille
willingly; actually she loved it. On their way to the lake, she
would stop just over the crest of the hill outside of their small
town and remove her summer dress. She loved the freedom, she told
Jake, the excitement. There was still a chance of being caught,
there always was, and it was exciting. Jake thought it was
exciting, too, but not in a way that he liked. He worried about
Camille, and was always trying to find ways to keep her dressed as
long as possible. But once at the lake, there was no stopping her.

music

The last time she ever visited the lake Camille left the house
without clothes at all. It was supposed to be one of the hottest
days of the year, nearly 100 said the late news, so they had gotten
up early, before even the guys who went to work on the farms, so
they could spend time at the lake and return home before the middle
of the day.

This day Camille came out of her room naked and handed Jake her
flowery summer dress to carry in his backpack. She ran outside,
hopped on her bike and rode off over the hill next to their house.
Jake stayed behind to fill the water jugs they always took with them
and pick some apples for their breakfast. He straddled his bike and
followed Camille, fully ten minutes in her dust.

When Jake arrived at the lake, he was just in time. Camille's bike
was below the shade tree where it always was, hidden from view in the
tall grass, covered by grass so the frame wouldn't be too hot to
handle on their way home.

Jake looked out at the lake, and he could see Camille out there, she
was running across the mud near the water line. She looked excited,
happy. Some steps she caught her leg in the mud, but others she
easily pulled free, doing a pirouette, tossing her long blonde hair,
nearly white from days in the sun. It was right after a pirouette
that she tripped. Camille fell face first into the mud at the
water's edge, splashing lightly in the knee deep water. Jake saw her
go down and laughed. That mud was not a pleasant place for your
face.

Because he turned around to stow his bike and remove his clothing,
Jake didn't notice that Camille didn't come up. He was too far away
to notice her struggling, already panicking because she couldn't pull
her arms or legs out. It wasn't until Camille managed to pull her
face out for a moment and screamed -- a blood curdling scream that
would have echoed a slow haunting decay off had there been any canyon
walls -- that Jake looked back. Camille managed a breath before her
back gave way and she plunged back into the water. She had spent all
of her energy, all of the muscle in her back to pull up for that
scream and that breath. It would not duplicated.

music

On a normal day, when there was really no hurry, it would take Jake
five minutes to get from the tree to the water's edge. He'd never
timed it, but he did think about it quite a lot. He had this worry
that some day he and Camille would be discovered by some boys from
the high school and they'd take their clothes and bikes and they'd
have to hoof it home across the snake-infested grasslands. Jake had
calculated he could get to shore in about a minute if he worked hard.
He tried it a few times, counting one-Mississippi, two-Mississippi.
One minute was about right.

music

Jake didn't know how much time he had, he'd never seen someone drown
before and didn't know how long it took. The more Camille fought and
pulled, the more she sunk into the mud, face down, now up to her
ears; her blonde hair floating behind her like a lilly pad. Jake was
halfway to her when she managed to pull out one arm, but couldn't get
her head up and then went deeper into the mud. By the time Jake was
close enough to see her naked backside clearly, Camille stopped
moving. He still had fifty feet to go. He fell down, yelling to
Camille. He pulled himself up, fought, jumped, pushed and tugged.

crescendo, music up

When Jake made it to Camille, he was too exhausted to help her. If
it would have been at any other moment in his life, he would have sat
back and taken a breather. He felt as if no other man on earth had
ever been as tired as he was right then. He reached a hand around
each side of Camille and pulled. She was stuck; slippery with mud.
He gathered himself and pulled again, realization dawned that Camille
was limp. She was not helping him. She was a soggy, muddy anchor.
Dead weight.

He pulled again. With a sickening slurp, she popped out and they fell
together onto their backs. Jake pulled himself to his feet, grabbed
Camille by her armpits and dragged her to the water's edge and
dropped her on the mud.

music

At two-a-day football practice in the fall of Jake's freshman year a
teammate passed out right on the field. He was waiting in line for a
passing drill and toppled over, collapsing as though a marionette
whose master dropped the strings. He crumpled to his side, rolled
onto his back and began vomiting, choking. Everyone on the team,
Jake included, just stood and watched but an assistant coach pushed
his way through and rolled the senior back onto his side. The vomit
came out, the choking replaced by coughing. The senior had only
severe heat stroke and but for the assistant coach could have drown
on his vomit while all his teammates watched.

This is what Jake was thinking when he dropped his sister at the edge
of the water. He rolled her onto her side and whacked her between
the shoulder blades twice. Jake felt for a pulse and found one.
Then he rolled her onto her back and blew into her mouth, not knowing
what he was doing, but knowing this is what you do. Immediately
Camille began coughing, an inate reflex and Jake's new favorite
sound. Camille opened her eyes and rolled over, vomiting foul lake
water and last night's dinner into the mud pocked with hundreds of
her own footsteps. Jake sat next to her, shaking. He looked at her,
so wonderful she was, in a suit of mud and just this side of
vomiting. He dreamed of it every night, and had found it; the
biggest treasure the mud ever held.