The River Queen

by Mary Morris

  13

  ON A Saturday in August two weeks before I was to depart, Kate sulked in her room. She had been gearing up to head for college, but the previous night she’d walked into our piano bench (which the child of a friend had moved into the middle of the living room) and smashed her foot. Her toes turned a shade of eggplant, tinged with green. As she sorted out her clothes, Kate hobbled around on a pair of crutches she’d found discarded near our house.

  Somehow this accident was my fault. I was responsible for the piano bench being in the middle of the floor. But I was also the reason why she was walking through the living room in the first place. It seemed we had an infestation of Japanese water beetles. I had never seen the beetles because they are nocturnal, but so is Kate. And I had not called the exterminator. Kate was going through the living room to avoid the kitchen where the water beetles roamed when in the darkness she walked into the bench.

  She was to leave in two days for a college orientation program that involved hiking along the Appalachian Trail, which now seemed dubious. I would be leaving myself for the river just ten days after her. How odd it felt to be going our separate ways after all these years. When she was born, I had this dream. I dreamed that on her first day of her life she was a baby and on the second day she crawled. On her third day she left for school and by the fourth she was gone. I thought of this dream as I helped her pack for college. I had no idea where the time had gone.

  Our belongings were spread across two rooms and working their way downstairs. I was distraught, trying to stay upbeat, at a loss for things to say. “Honey, would you like to take the drying rack?” I asked and she gave me one of those anatomically impossible looks only teenagers can muster, which roughly translates to “You aren’t serious, are you?”

  I had the news on, but I wasn’t really watching. I was studying Kate’s housing assignment from Smith College. The letter that had just arrived informed us that Kate Morris would be living in Morris House, named for deceased alum Kate Morris. I was trying to determine if this was a sick joke or the makings of a horror film when the phone rang. I wanted to ignore it, but Kate picked it up. I heard her chat for a moment and assumed it was for her as it usually was. Then she called out: “For you.”

  It was one of my childhood pals. I have a group I’ve known since kindergarten and we check up on one another from time to time. My friend Laurie wanted to know if I was still planning on taking the trip down the Mississippi River. I looked at my duffel, my sleeping bag, my all-weather gear. “Of course I’m still going. Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Well, you know, with that storm…”

  I hadn’t been paying much attention to the news. I’d been shopping for school supplies and soap and underwear and duffel bags. I’d been dealing with Kate’s foot, helping her sort out her things, taking pictures down that had hung on her bulletin board for the past ten years. I’d been trying to borrow a life vest from our neighbors across the street. “What storm?”

  “That hurricane. Katrina.”

  I knew that a storm had hit Florida, but I hadn’t heard much more. I didn’t know that it had crossed the Gulf and was heading toward New Orleans. Or that it was a Category 5. And, most startlingly to me, I hadn’t gotten the news yet that New Orleans was being evacuated. I stopped what I was doing and went into the den. For the first time I saw the long line of cars heading up Highway 10.

  My arrival time in New Orleans was over two months away. I had a river pilot, named Greg Sadowski, a friend of Jerry’s, who was planning to take me the rest of my journey from St. Louis or Memphis on a cruiser. I assumed New Orleans would be all right by then. But the Doomsday forecasters were chatting away. Worst-case scenarios abounded and if I were to listen to these, I’d never get past Memphis. Predictions were being tossed around of skyscrapers toppling, a thirty-foot storm surge that wouldn’t subside for three months destroying everyone’s homes and businesses. There was talk of toxic gumbo, a concoction of oil, gas, sewage, and coffins, which in the Big Easy rest aboveground.

  Kate came into the den, holding her parka. “Mom,” she said, “should I pack my winter clothes?”

  “I don’t know,” I told her, now glued to the television. “I’m listening to this.”

  In my heart I believed that this storm would veer or dissipate as they tended to do. I understand the entertainment value of a big storm, an unsolved murder, a crisis of proportions beyond imagining. I was hoping that much of this was news hype. Still, I was beginning to wonder if I would leave on this journey. If it hadn’t just been ill-fated from the start.

  But late that night, after we’d packed Kate’s winter clothes and closed her trunk, I switched on my computer and saw an e-mail pop up from my nephew, Matt. I opened it and there she was. The River Queen. Still on her trailer in dry dock, but looking whiter and brighter. I saw plastic chairs on her deck and on the fly deck. A shade up top. I was hoping for good weather. A peaceful passage under the stars.

  * * *

  In the morning it appeared New Orleans had been spared. The worst of the storm hit Gulfport and Biloxi. The tragedy of Mississippi was profound, but it seemed as if the Big Easy could relax. I breathed a sigh of relief as well. In a few days Kate would be at college, though not hiking, and I would be on my boat, heading downstream. I went back to packing and planning, to tying up loose ends.

  That evening I met a friend in a café, and she arrived distraught. Her parents had gone to New Orleans for the weekend on a lark (they had some frequent flyer miles they needed to use) and she was waiting to hear from them.

  “They fled a little while ago,” she told me.

  “They fled…?”

  “Yes, you didn’t hear? The levee broke.”

  “It broke?”

  “Yes, about an hour ago.…”

  When I left her, I headed home, where I watched the horror unfold. Water streamed in from the breached levee along the 17th Street Canal, causing the worst urban flood in United States history. People, who had lost everything, stuck in the Superdome and beneath a highway overpass, were now being called refugees. The pictures were wrenching. Mothers clasping babies, who were screaming for milk. An old woman in a wheelchair, a sheet over her head. Blacks, the poor, the disenfranchised. Those with nowhere to go.

  I began trying to reach Greg Sadowski. When we last spoke, he was moving a huge, brand-new boat to New Orleans. But the circuits were busy and I couldn’t get through.

  The following Saturday Larry and I piled Kate’s things into the car and drove her up to school. In the car she listened to her iPod, then slept with her dog. How do others do this? I wondered. Say good-bye to the people and places they love most in the world. But having watched those images from Katrina, clearly we were the lucky ones. When we arrived at Smith, we unloaded the car. We dumped everything into her room, then spent an hour or two helping her unpack. But after a while, it was clear she wanted to do this with her roommate, who had yet to arrive.

  We found a housemate to take a picture of us on the porch of Morris House under a banner that read: “Morris: The Best Place to Live.” Then Larry and I said good-bye and got in the car. Kate was ready for us to leave, so we did. We drove about a hundred yards to the end of her street, where her father and I sat on a park bench and wept. Then we got back in the car and drove home.

  14

  SILENTLY A towboat named Genesis tugs a barge past an old limestone quarry. This is the first sign of life we’ve seen in a while and, along with the name, this moment has an almost biblical feel. The pilot gives a long wave as he rides by and we wave back. The barge he pulls is “riding high,” which means he’s empty. “High profile,” Jerry explains. Until now I have only understood this as it relates to celebrities. “Look at the watermarks,” he says. “You can tell if they’re empty or full.” Then he shakes his head.

  The quarry itself is still. No work is being done. We pass other barges that are showing a low profile, clearly full, but neglected at the river’s edge. With the Port of
New Orleans closed, these barges have nowhere to go. Jerry stands by the railing, shaking his head. As we slip past them, he stares, then goes back inside to look at his maps.

  Jerry spends much of his time staring at things. He stares at the motor. He stares at maps. He gazes at birds, the sky, the movement of the waves. He looks deep into the hold and at the sink. If something isn’t working, he gapes at it. Or if it presents or is going to present a problem, he stares. Often he just stands on the deck and gawks at whatever is behind him or ahead.

  Sometimes he is just looking at the river. He’ll be gazing and then make a pronouncement, almost for no reason, as if to himself, “Take her to port. There’s a wing dam.” Or a snag. A log. A piece of debris. I don’t know how he sees any of these things. Jerry reads the ripples and the places where the water turns smooth. He’ll say, “See that line in the water? You want to avoid that.” But I’ll see nothing beyond the ripples the surface makes. If a boat is coming toward us, Jerry keeps his eye on its wake. He stares through his binoculars or camera lens. He is like a heron, eyes on the water, before making his move.

  Once the Genesis is behind us, it’s open river again. Jerry’s piloting, eyes straight ahead, and I’m standing beside him. Then he steps aside. “You wanta give it a try?” he says. I’m not sure if I do, but he lets me take the wheel. Somehow it doesn’t feel right. The current is stronger than it was the other day. It’s as if I’ve caught a giant fish and I’m trying to reel it in. Or it’s trying to pull me out.

  Jerry keeps reaching over and bringing me back to zero. “You gotta keep her steady,” he says, and I think I hear some impatience in his voice. Or perhaps fear for his boat. But she keeps getting away from me and I find myself jerking her back. Jerry shakes his head and I think I hear him going “tsk tsk.”

  “I don’t think I’m very good at this,” I say.

  “Naw, it’s just that this wheel has a lot of play. You have to move it for an inch or two before it connects to the boat.”

  “I can see that,” I say. But my steering feels like the nautical equivalent of a poorly dubbed film. One of those spaghetti westerns where the words coming out have no relation to the movement of lips. There’s a delay between when I turn the wheel and when the boat actually moves. And I’m having trouble anticipating it as we edge closer to the riverbank.

  “Point her straight,” Jerry says. “Look at your depth finder.” I look at the depth finder, which reads 5.5 feet. We have a draft of 3.5 feet and Jerry is happier with more river beneath us. “You’re getting into the shallows. Keep her nose toward that red buoy ahead.”

  It’s been years since I’ve taken driver’s ed, but I’m sure I couldn’t learn to drive a car now. In fact I’ve been trying to learn to drive our stick shift that we acquired from a friend at a price we couldn’t refuse. Last summer I managed to lock gears on the Long Island Expressway at sixty miles per hour as I shifted into fifth. I haven’t gotten behind the wheel since, and anyway, my daughter won’t let me. Nor will she ride with me. It was Larry who drove her all the way to college and me home.

  Steering this boat might also fall under the “old dog, new tricks” category, I’m thinking, as Jerry reaches for the wheel and gives it a yank. “Keep your focus,” he snaps. I’ve definitely gone too close to shore. A glance at the depth indicator shows we’re only in 5 feet of water. As I jerk her around, she pitches to an awkward angle, though hardly enough to capsize. Topside I hear Tom squeal, “Roller-coaster ride.”

  “I’ll take over,” Jerry says, his voice flat with what I can only interpret as disapproval.

  “I was just trying to stay near the green buoy.”

  “Yes, but we’ve got a wing dam there.” He points at a ripple that looks like all the rest of the river. Another one of those mirages I don’t see. I’m a flop. I know I am as Jerry shouts up to Tom on the flybridge, “Tommysan, take her topside.”

  “Aye aye, Sir.”

  I’m feeling like the hometown team that just lost. There’s a small public humiliation here. I also realize I’m hungry. Food will provide a change of subject. It’s close to noon and, outside of coffee, I haven’t eaten all day. “Lunch anyone?” I ask.

  “Affirmative,” Jerry says as he scribbles in his log. I can only imagine what he’s writing. “Girl can’t steer.” “Female unreliable.” Words to that effect.

  “Ah, well, shall I make something?”

  “That’d be great.” It’s clear he isn’t offering to help. I have a sense that certain tasks on board are going to fall along gender lines and galley work will be mine. But I like to cook and pride myself on it. “Stick to what you know,” that voice in my head says. It is the way to a man’s heart, after all.

  I assess our larder, something there wasn’t much reason to do before we had the gas and refrigerator hooked up, and make note of what we have. In the cubby above the sink I find two cans of Campbell’s Chunky Chili With Beans—the Sizzlin’ Steak version. Two cans of Chunky Chili No Beans—the Hold The Beans version. Two cans Chunky Chili With Beans—Tantalizin’ Turkey. Two cans of cut spinach. One can of sliced beets. I make a silent vow. My mantra becomes this: I will never eat out of a can. I will hold on to whatever decency I can muster on this journey by not eating from cans.

  I continue my inventory. Two boxes of Folgers “tea bags”—one caffeinated, one decaf, for me. Two jars of peanut butter. One jar of reduced fat Hellmann’s, mustard, ketchup, salt, pepper, paper plates, paper towels, plastic knives and forks. A giant bag of Cheerios, Kellogg’s Raisin Bran (for me). The fridge has eggs, cheese, some lunch meats, and dozens of cans of diet Dew, diet Coke, and vast quantities of beer. Above the fridge Tom has his stash of Wonder Bread, Chips Ahoy, which he eats by the fistful, and assorted Snickers, Milky Ways, and a two-pound box of malted milk balls, none of which I will get even a nibble of.

  I open all the cupboards, looking for pots and pans. “They’re inside the oven,” Jerry says without looking around. In the oven I find a small Teflon frying pan, a tiny pot for boiling water, and an omelette pan with a fifty-cent tag on it from Goodwill. These are my working utensils.

  I have brought with me a few cans of tuna fish, a green apple, a package of smoked chicken, some cheese sticks. I cut up the chicken and make a small salad for myself with the green apple that’s starting to go bad. I put it into a Tupperware bowl and give it a shake.

  For the boys I make smoked chicken sandwiches on Wonder Bread with mustard and mayo. I put chips on paper plates and slip Tom’s to him through the small window above the helm where he pilots on the flybridge. I cut a piece of Wisconsin cheddar and slip it to Samantha Jean, who rips it out of my hand.

  Afterward I go up to collect the trash. “How was your sandwich?” I ask Tom.

  “Too much mustard,” he says, shaking his head. “Don’t give me any mustard next time.”

  * * *

  After lunch, I plant myself at my battered wooden table on the bow. An old loneliness settles in. I call Larry, but he’s not home. I’m longing to talk to Kate. It’s only her second week at college and I had promised myself I wouldn’t phone her. I wanted to give her time. But now I want to hear her voice. I give a call and get her voice mail. Or rather I get the rap music of a group unknown to me. After a few choruses I hear my daughter’s voice. “It’s Kate. I’m not around…” Where is she? I wonder. At the library, studying. Or in her room. It is so odd that I do not know the books she is reading, the face of the girl she hangs out with down the hall. Does she see that it’s me calling? Is she screening her calls?

  I leave a brief message, then open my journal. I begin working on a painting of the riverbank, the islands ahead. I dab a little blue, wash in some green. Soon it starts to look like something. I create dark pines, the reflection in the water. I layer in more colors—some purple and red. I let them bleed and blend.

  When I am satisfied, I reach for my glue. As I grasp it, the small painting blows away. Both Jerry and I see it go. It flies into the air and is ab
out to sail into the river when it hits the gunwale and is pinned by the wind against the side.

  “Thank you, River Queen,” Jerry says, heaving a big sigh.

  I ask him why.

  “Because any other boat and that’d blow away.… She’s got good sides, this old boat.” Then he adds, “But next time put a book or something on top of it.”

  I’m starting to see that things don’t just fall on a boat. They fly, they skid. They soar and slide. They are carried by the wind. They disappear for good. If they are lightweight, like your letter home or your paintbrush, they will be gone in a heartbeat. Every object that isn’t heavy must be weighted down. Each piece of paper has to have a book, a set of keys, a coffee mug sitting on it. Every coffee mug must have a lid.

  To look at a map you have to remove whatever is holding it down. To read the poem you have just written you must take it out of the notebook where you’ve tucked it for safekeeping. Nearly empty drinking glasses will spill their remains, paper plates will hurl like Frisbees into space. The third rule of boating seems to be this: Anything that can fly away will. If something matters to you, hold on to it for dear life.

  15

  THE MILWAUKEE Heart Hospital sat in an industrial park parallel to the main highway that heads north to Green Bay. It was off a major road that felt more like a service road, surrounded by warehouses, towers for high-tension wires, some malls that sit far back from the road. We recognized it right away by the giant red heart that looms from its main wall.

  It had taken us ten hours to get here, due to storms all across the Midwest—whirling, black thunderclouds. In the summer there are often these storms in Wisconsin—ones that can lead to tornados farther inland, away from the lake. The big, beating down, scary kind.

  It was literally a dark and stormy night. The sky had a greenish glint, the kind no midwesterner wants to see because of what it might bring. The parking lot had five cars in it and the only sign of life was a flock of Canada geese that padded across the newly seeded lawn.