Dog Park Afternoons

Dog Park Afternoons

    My eyes widen and my hand grows slack on the baggie that I have been clutching, dropping the last few uneaten crumbs into the water.  The sharp difference between the color of the trees from five minutes ago and the color that I now see is remarkable.  It’s as if the contrast button that controls my vision has been cranked to its highest setting.
    “Do you see all those colors?”  Turning to Katie, I realize that I don’t have the words to reply to her question.  I just nod my head and begin to giggle.  She does the same.  She’s laughing at the dumbfounded look on my face; I’m laughing at her quirky Michigan accent.
    We’re down at the very furthest point of the Missoula Dog Park.  It’s not much to look at, just two protruding gravel bars, but it’s the perfect place to spend a sweltering summer day.  Me, Matt, Katie, Shane, Mike, Lance, Christian, Cristine and Wachner.  Everyone of us, save for Lance’s brother Christian, has an apartment rented out in the same complex.  Not one of us intended to meet each other, we all just happened to stumble out of our places with a beer in hand at the same time.
    This is the third trip that we’ve made to the dog park, but it’s the first time that Wachner and Katie have decided to bring out the mushrooms that they had been storing in their room.
    “I was starting to get withdrawals from the mushrooms, it’s been so long,” Katie explained to me as she sat on the inner tube that we had tied to a rock so it wouldn’t drift away, “we couldn’t keep ‘em a secret any longer.” 
    I just sat listening to her and chuckling.  I came to a realization the last time that I was on these hallucinogens:  I couldn’t bring myself to speak while on them.  It just strikes me as something that is far too odd.  I can’t listen to the thoughts that I have as they’re projected out and reverberating through my head again.  It’s like a sickening form of recycling and it’s too much for me to bare. 
    So I just sit  next to the chattiest person of the day. We form a strangely cohesive group.
    Shane, the muscle-bound, hairy, Italian kid is sprawled out on the beach whilst Cristine slathers tanning oil, man-tan, all over him. Mike is playing Polish horseshoes with Christian.  A bummed cigarette parts Christian’s lips, causing him to squint one eye as he attempts to catch the Frisbee.
    Each one of our heads bobs in unison as Lance belts out some bluesy riff on the guitar and Wachner sits next to him clapping his hands on the make-shift drums that he’s made from the two spare discs that we brought.  Always prepared for the one that will inevitably get swept up in the current of the Clark Fork.
    Matt stands up stream from us with his fly-fish rod casting it out in long, graceful sweeps.  He’s come up with the theory that if you fish where the osprey are hunting, then you’re bound to catch a fish.  Seems like a sound thought to me.
    As the sun slowly dips behind Mt. Sentinel, each one of us let’s out a cry at the same time.  Half of the group has seen  Kathleen coming with a couple of her friends; and the other half can see Matt sprinting back with a rainbow trout.
    Life really doesn’t get better.