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Guy pops out of river looking like commando to make boaters wet pants

Friday, May 18, 2007

MASON — Some things are almost impossible to comprehend, and this is one of them.

Benjamin Zesch, 19, likes to pop up out of the water dressed in camouflage fatigues and camo face paint while carrying a paintball gun to scare the snot out of the boaters coming down the James River.

It's kinda like you're fishing, and all of a sudden here comes Rambo from underwater. It's like the Welcome Wagon gone wacko.

"I look up and see a boat, and that's when I come up, and they get scared a little bit," said Benjamin, who wants to be a Navy SEAL and is taking the test to get into the program next week. "They just look like, 'What the hell's going on here?' "

So far, no coolers have gone overboard.

The stretch of river Benjamin works runs past private property owned by his grandfather, Gene Zesch, a bronze sculptor, who has a house on the river about 10 miles south of Mason. Mason is more than 100 miles northwest of Austin. So Benjamin, who started doing this in seventh grade, pulls this paramilitary-looking trick both for fun and to thin out uninvited johnboats and kayaks.

"My grandfather would say, 'You can go scare them if you want,' " Benjamin recalled. "So I'd say, 'Sure, I'll go scare 'em.' "

Here's how it works. Benjamin sees a boat coming downstream. So, with his face covered in woodland-colored camo paint, he sneaks into the river carrying what looks like an automatic weapon. Then, when the boat arrives, Benjamin pops up out of the water, peers over the edge of the boat and gives everybody a thrill.

How is this received? "All of them have left," Benjamin said. "They've all gotten scared enough to leave." The paintball gun, he says, really gets a reaction. "That gets the wide eyes; that gets the attention," he said.

Benjamin says his grandfather "tells me to be careful because you never know what guy is going to have a gun and open fire on you."

One of Benjamin's tricks occurred about a year and a half ago when he shot a dummy with a deer rifle to run off some fishermen. Benjamin's granddad had made some dummies out of stuffed clothing for a historical re-enactment of a 19th-century hanging in Mason.

"After the event was over, I just brought them home and put them in the trash pile," Gene Zesch recalled. Unbeknownst to Granddad, Benjamin grabbed one of the dummies out of the trash and rigged it with fake blood. Then he set it up on the river bank and hid in the bushes in a sniper outfit with a deer rifle.

Meanwhile, two couples were fishing from the bank. But they didn't see Benjamin.

After being shot, the dummy fell in the water, leaving the two couples to think somebody was floating dead downstream.

"They were screaming," Benjamin said. "The women went ballistic, and the guys were also screaming pretty loud: 'My God, somebody was killed. Someone was killed. Someone was killed.' "

"I kept waiting for a call from the sheriff's department," Benjamin added.

It probably helps that Benjamin is Texas-friendly when he comes out of the water to surprise the boaters. "I let them know this is a private river and that they were more than welcome to stay, but keep in mind it is private," he explained.

Benjamin says this is no way to pick up chicks, however. He says two gals he popped up to startle were not impressed. "There were two girls in a canoe and they were hot, so I figured I'd introduce myself," he said. "They raised up their paddle and they were about to hit me over the head. I had to get back in the water before they hit me."

John Kelso's column appears on

Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays.

Contact him at 445-3606 or jkelso@statesman.com.

Paladin wrote:Benjamin sure has a great sense of humor, I think that's hilarious! ... but the boy is asking for trouble.

When/if he signs up, maybe the military will keep him out of trouble.