Ricardo Figari

          My second year of college was great.  I didn’t pass many classes, but I had fun.  After all, isn’t that what college is for?  Several of us young men lived in a “house” dormitory, named Riley Hall.  Larry Smith worked at the old American National Bank processing checks on the evening shift.  One of the perks of his job was a key to the bank lake-front property.  The site was about 10 miles from school on Lake Chickamauga.  The bank property was rustic with only a bathhouse and a floating dock.  It had electricity for outdoor lights for evening parties, but not much more.  There were about 10 of us boys and we looked forward to a great weekend.  Friday night swimming, camping overnight, and more water fun all day Saturday.  We stayed up late Friday, crashing onto our sleeping bags outdoors in the wee hours of Saturday morning.  After everyone settled down, Larry turned the outdoor lights off and we finally drifted off in sleep.

          I was awakened about 3 AM by the outdoor lights turned on.  Looking around, I saw a couple of boys walking around.  “What’s going on?” I said.

          Someone replied, “Ricardo is missing.”

          I tried to wrap my mind around the thought.  Ricardo was the foreign student from Uruguay.  How was he missing?  Where could he go?

          Someone began calling out, “Ricardo, Ricardo!”  By that time everyone was awake and searching for the missing friend.  The bathhouse was searched, but no Ricardo.  Someone looked in the cars in the gravel parking lot.  Nothing.

          The property was on the lake and isolated.  Dark expanses of woods on one side and dark water stretching out the other.  Ricardo was nowhere to be found.  Someone spoke the unthinkable: could Ricardo have stumbled into the lake and drowned?  Two boys hurried to the cars and drove them near the beach shining the headlights across the still, dark waters.  Then, in the distance, about fifty yards offshore, we saw something white in the water.  But it was too distant to make out what it was.  Whatever it was, it was floating, and it was white, and it wasn’t moving.  Could it be a body floating in the dark water?  I had been a lifeguard last summer, so I shed my shoes and waded into the water.  No one spoke a word.  My heart was pounding.  What was I doing?!  Terror gripped my mind, but terror also drove me to go on.  When I got chest high in the water, I began to swim.  The breaststroke produced the fewest ripples, so I began to approach the floating object.  Thirty yards out, I twisted onto my back to rest a bit.  I saw all of the boys on the shore - all except Ricardo.  Everyone stood close together not saying a word, car headlights behind silhouetting their shapes.  I turned over and continued to swim out into the dark lake.

          My mind raced.  What would I do if the object was Ricardo?  He would have been in the water too long for me to revive.  How could I rescue a body, let alone touch it out there in the darkness?!  The distance closed and I was ten yards away.  I strained to make out what the object was.  As I got within five feet, I saw that it was a bloated, dead carp.  My relief was tempered with a stench that came to my nostrils.  “It’s only a dead fish!” I cried out.  And with powerful strokes of relief, I made for the shore.

          Larry drove out to the nearest gas station and called the sheriff.  Soon several squad cars arrived.  It seemed that the questioning took forever.

          I blurted out, “Shouldn’t we be looking for Ricardo instead of talking?”

          The sergeant looked at me understandingly and said, “Sure, let’s fan out.  But stay close together.  We don’t want to lose anyone.”

          But I thought, “we already have.”

          We searched the surrounding woods as far as we dared, never getting out of sight of the lights.

          When morning came, the search widened, but no Ricardo.  Around noon, an officer told us that someone needed to notify the college authorities.  So, I rode back to school in the back of the squad car.  I told the whole story to the dean of men and then went back to the dorm, collapsing on my bunk.  I had been up for over thirty hours.

          About 5PM a commotion woke me up.  Don popped his head into my room and announced, “Ricardo is back!”

          How was that possible? I thought.  Where had he been?  I walked across the hall and into Ricardo’s room, which was crowded with boys by then.  He was sunburned head to toe.  He related the strangest story that I have ever heard.

          He had gotten up in the night to go into the woods to the bathroom.  But in the dark, he had gotten lost and had wandered around in the woods until morning.  He was covered with mosquito bites from his night in the woods.  That morning, he had found a road and had followed it to a gas station.  But he couldn’t get anyone to help him.  Ricardo had lost his tee shirt and shoes in the woods and wore nothing but shorts. With his thick accent, the gas station attendant thought that he was a homeless drunk.  He tried hitchhiking, but no one would pick him up.  He had walked - barefooted- ten miles back to school!  His feet were blistered; his chest and arms had insect welts all over them; and he was severely sun-burned.  But overall, Ricardo was happy to be alive!

          I called the dean of men retelling Ricardo’s unbelievable story.  I asked, “Have you called his parents yet?”  Mr. White replied, “No, I haven’t been able to get them, and I’m glad,” he said. “They never knew that he was missing … or that he had been found.”