Walking A Tightrope Over The Ohio River(pg. 9)

     My first Madison Regatta was something to behold for a kid at nineteen because everything was brand new. I met up with Linda on Main Street and what a surprise, we walked around for hours and she was a great tour guide and explained everything to me but cops were everywhere and did not like folks drinking in their town, but we had our drinks in red cups to disguise the whiskey. The boat race was amazing and Bill Muncey or Mr. Unlimited won his 7th Madison Title in comeback style too, trailed most of the race to Miss Budweiser.  
    We were walking on the Madison side of the waterway when I looked up and saw four cops who had Stingray cornered by some parked car. They found an ounce of weed on him and that was a death sentence in Indiana in the 1970s, they took him off the jail without incident. I panicked and immediately found my boss Terry, he made all arrangements to get him released, but couldn't until Monday morning, I warned Stingray numerous times to stay off the Madison side, there were cops on every corner and eyed everyone including me, but I had my gal who knew a few of them so they backed off us. 
     I took Linda back to the hotel room and I made love to her like a young beast, she moaned expletives like someone possessed and I loved it, and it was so quiet everyone was down on the Ohio River. We had a safe place with no one to bother us, and why I didn't think of this earlier is a mystery to me, she was a beautiful young gal, her body was tight as a Stradivari. She was a great kisser and knew how to please a man, we stayed in the hotel room for six hours and it was getting dark, I had Stingray's keys and drove her to town and dropped her off the place I found her, she kissed me goodbye for ten minutes, my God, she was a sweet honey. 
     Monday morning came in like a sigh, poor ole Stingray was still in jail, so Terry went and got the local attorney, and before the day was gone, Terry managed to get Stingray released, and Stingray was a beautiful sight for sore eyes, I loved my cousin and never wanted him in legal trouble, he was just a good ole country boy having fun like the majority of kids our age.
We joked around but Stingray was worried, but I told him, "hey, it's your first offense, they'll offer probation, so you'll be fine." 
     We headed back into the hot sun, the work was getting more dangerous by the day, the locals refuse to go under the bridge and many were let go because we needed reliable hands with our lives, there's no room for errors, but I liked a few of these local workers and kidded around with them on various occasions, winning wagers from crazy stuff, and Stingray entertained them once when he picked up an empty helium bottle and threw it over the bridge, it took almost eight seconds before it landed with a big boom, and we all laughed, and another time Stingray took the bucket of the backhoe with us in it, and dropped us over the edge for fun, but this wasn't funny at all, I thought he was going to ride us down the other end of the bridge, but this took a nasty turn, because Seegar, Spencer and myself found no humor in this at all because we were in the bucket, Stingray tipped the bucket over the bridge's edge about ten feet from bridge and slowly started to tilt the bucket, we were literally hanging on by our fingertips, I almost lost my grip several times as did the others, and when Stingray knew we were pissed, he quit and brought us back into safety, but we immediately jumped him, and he was lucky we didn't whip his ass right there. He knew we didn't find this funny whatsoever, Seegar went and told Terry, he was so hot, rightfully so too, that was by far the dumbest thing I've ever seen Stingray do. 

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