Tom, Dick and Harry were lounging in the bass boat. Lounging is what they called it. Everyone else would have called it a drunken stupor from the two cases of beer they’d drank. They didn’t like to fish, they liked to drink. Their wives weren’t fooled by any of it but it was better than them drinking in a bar.

Tom, Dick and Harry has long been a slang for the ordinary majority of men. Nothing special or noticeable about guys like this. This Tom, Dick and Harry weren’t ordinary and, at times, were very noticeable. They would be today.

They were on the Callee River. It was a new spot for them.

“Hey, let’s try the Callee. Never got drunk there”, Tom proclaimed.

“Oh, man. That’s a two hour drive. We can drink beer a lot closer than that”, Dick moaned.

“”Well, shoot, let’s do it. Heck, where your sense of adventure”, Harry joined in.

So, there they were , napping and drunk, when the boat floated close to the falls. Tom, Dick and Harry didn’t know the river very well. They didn’t know about the falls at all. They found out when they went over. The old song about, “if I’d been sober I’d probably got hurt”, was just that, an old song. Tom, Dick and Harry were going to get hurt drunk or sober.

Tom missed the big rock by less than a foot. He didn’t miss the little rock. He hit it with his foot and, for good measure, his arm. He screamed, naturally. No one heard him because of the noise of the falling water. It’s a question whether or not he made a noise since no one, including Tom, heard the scream.

Dick certainly didn’t hear it since he was busy trying to fight through the beer buzz and figure out where the day got too. It was dark out now and he never passed out for this long before. Then he realized he was under the boat. It was upside down. How much beer did he drink?

Harry wasn’t thinking anything. He was floating along without a care in the world. He didn’t wake up until the Ranger pulled him out of the water down by the Callee Dam. He had a hard time explaining things to the Ranger since he was still a little drunk and a whole lot confused.

Dick eventually floated to the dam and got out on his own. The boat was still in good shape but the Ranger said the state would just take it since they didn’t have a fishing license. The fact that they didn’t have any fish didn’t mean anything.

Tom woke up in the hospital. His leg was in a cast and so was his arm. He hurt everywhere. His wife was crying and bitching at the same time. His mother was yelling at Tom and Tom’s wife. The preacher was saying it had to have been the hand of God. If so, God has a heavy hand, Tom thought.

Dick and Harry both asked Tom the same question.

“Let’s do it again, okay?”