Load Warriors

"Hey, George!" Keith calls from the front. "Check this out! I got the hottest shot ever. Two girls pissing. One stream went this way and one went that way."

"EVEN WHITE BOYS GOT TO SHOUT, BABY GOT BACK"

ON THE WAY BACK IN FROM THE LESS-PATROLLED waters of Copper Canyon, we take a victory lap through the Channel, a more dangerous place for girls gone wild. Unfortunately, Brandy forgets and flashes a woman -- just for a second -- in an effort to get her to flash back for the cameras. George barks at her to stop, but it's too late. We've been spotted. A bullhorn instructs us to pull the boat to shore. Two Lake Havasu policemen are waiting. Luckily, it's the Arizona side.

Brandy throws on a T-shirt and sandals and loses her Mardi Gras beads, then steps off the boat and into custody. They don't have handcuffs, no doubt due to the busy weekend, so they restrain her wrists with a shoelace. Keith is off the boat in a heartbeat, in the alpha cop's face -- arguing, threatening, wheedling, cajoling. Brandy tries to keep up a gruff exterior, but it cracks within minutes and big tears well up. This is her first run-in with the law, and she's convinced her fate is sealed, that the attendant photos will haunt her for life.

"I've never done anything like this in my life," she says between sobs. "Don't take my picture."

Now, even the cop is trying to calm her down. "Listen, this isn't a major thing," he tells her. "It's disorderly conduct is all. You'll be out in a couple of hours."

This is slight consolation, and she is led away, sniffling, in shoelaces.

IS IT REAL OR IS IT MAMMAREX?

BRANDY IS HELD FOR ROUGHLY SIX HOURS BEFORE being brought before the judge in a group of 30 other girls. George stays out of it. He's learned from experience that his presence tends to make these situations worse, not better. She is charged with disturbing the peace, fined $300 -- which Keith pays -- and released. She says that they took away her jewelry and body piercings, that the male officers searched her while a female officer watched, that no one was allowed to change clothes, and that some girls were denied feminine-hygiene products and were bleeding through their bathing suits.

George is no stranger to the courthouses and police facilities of Lake Havasu City. He's been arrested at least once, for firing a paintball gun in the general direction of a former employee, now a competitor, out on the lake, for which he pleaded no contest to simple assault and avoided jail time. Once, seven or eight years ago, his bodyguard, Dennis, who looks like a biker, shut down a group of rampaging skinheads trying to board the boat by leveling a loaded .45 at them. And because they operate with extremely lightweight UX1000 and 2000 cameras, and shoot virtually everything they see, George's crews often end up with footage that the news crews, with their Beta-Cams, can't get, and that the police invariably want. When a man was murdered at the cove, George made his footage available to authorities, who had a description of the suspect. "Believe me, we don't miss anything. We don't miss the Tampax being pulled out and thrown into the crowd, as crude as it may sound -- but that's real."

George was surprised, then, several years back, when the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department charged him with filming a lewd act in public after receiving a complaint that someone was having sex behind a blow-up green dinosaur. "We were all going through our tapes saying, 'Where the hell is a blow-up green dinosaur?' They had their dates all mixed up. They had the year mixed up. They had no clue." The court battle lasted four years, cost GM $80,000 -- and the state of California an estimated $1,200,000. Eventually, when the prosecution failed to produce a videotape depicting the alleged offense, the case was thrown out without a jury ever being brought in. This was after it was pointed out that if the rocks are the same and the people are naked, any identification of a particular date and time will remain largely a matter of conjecture. ("Was it real or was it ä Mammarex?" George asks.) Unable to find an attorney willing to take his proposed $40 million countersuit on contingency, George reluctantly let the matter drop -- turning down an opportunity to go on Nightline.

"SO LADIES (YEAH), I SAY LADIES (YEAH!)"

ENTERING COPPER CANYON AGAIN THE NEXT MORNing, our boat runs over a buoy. Police cruisers descend on us and momentarily take George off the boat, while Willie dives underneath and frees the prop. For once, George's notoriety comes to his aid: The cops all know him by name. The girls know the drill and flirt with the officers on the second boat. "What's your phone number?" Jessica calls out. "911," one of them shouts back. "You can strip-search me anytime," she yells as he's leaving.

Things on the boat gear up more effortlessly today. At one point, a naked woman shows up, open to suggestion. Before long, a crowd of guys has talked her inside the cabin of the houseboat and has her spread-eagled on the couch. Four or five of them have their fingers inside her. She can't stop laughing, but she seems coherent and willing. Soon, Mike is offered up from the crowd with a condom already in place, and it seems as if actual sex will occur -- something that has been noticeably absent from the proceedings -- but negotiations break down when she doesn't want to go any further.