by H. M. Mann
“So you won’t be late and will know what day it is?”
“No. So you’ll stop checking it.”
She sighs. “Everybody got to be some place sometime, right?”
Dinner is especially grueling because the passengers had worked off lots of fat walking through Huntington, and everyone wants seconds on just about everything. I spend most of the time peeling and mashing half a ton of potatoes, and after serving Mrs. Walker and pocketing a twenty-dollar tip, I get mean looks from the other servers. They’re just jealous that I have an older, white, rich girlfriend.
When the last pan hits the bleach water, I am finally free for the day. At Rose’s suggestion, I stop by the Emporium for some stationery, even though I haven’t written a letter since I wrote to Santa when I was a kid. I’m going to write two letters and mail them from Cincinnati since I’m really not ready to talk on the phone to either Auntie June or Mary, so maybe I can talk to them better in a letter.
My cabin smells like a quarter ton of Alabama country boy, but I don’t mind because I don’t smell so good myself. I do mind not knowing how to begin either letter. I have so much to say to Auntie June and Mary, but the words just won’t come. I eventually crank out the shorter letter first:
Auntie June: I’ve been clean for 7 days now. It’s Thursday. I’ll be sending you some $ as soon as I get paid to
How do you spell that word? I erase “to” and write:
Friday. Don’t worry about me. I have a job on a steamboat called the American Queen. I’ll be back as soon as I’m ready.
Emmanuel.
PS Thanks for praying for me.
That wasn’t so bad. Short and sweet, just like Auntie June. But wait. If I get paid tomorrow, I can put a check in with the letter. I tear up the letter and write another:
Auntie June: I’ve been clean for 7 days now. I have a job on a steamboat called the American Queen. Here’s some money for the rent. I’ll send more as I get it. I’ll be back as soon as I’m ready. Thanks for praying for me. Emmanuel
The letter to Mary, though, is so hard to write. I start and stop until the floor’s full of little paper balls. I should have bought more stationery. I’m down to my last two sheets, I’m frustrated, and the boat rocks so gently that I’m getting sleepy …
Yeah. That’s how I’ll start.
Mary: I wish I could rock you gently to sleep like I used to do when we were first starting out. I miss that. I’m sorry for what I said to you about not wanting the baby. By the time you get this letter, I will be clean for 10 days. It hasn’t been easy, but I’m making it. I’m working on a steamboat called the American Queen. I’m in the galley mostly. That’s what they call the kitchen.
Should I tell her about Slade or Rose or Rufus? Mary might get jealous if I talk about Rose. No. I have to tell her about these wonderful people face-to-face. Otherwise, she might not believe how wonderful they are.
I’ll be sending you checks like the one in here as often as I can. Sorry it isn’t that much now. I just started, right? They’re for you and our baby. I want the baby now. I really do. I’m sorry I didn’t want the baby before. I hope the baby has your good looks. I really miss you. Emmanuel
Is that enough? I have so much more to say, and this stank room is no place to write anything romantic. I wish I had other clothes to change into so I wouldn’t be so noticeable to the passengers if I went out. Something from Rufus? A T-shirt for my entire body maybe? Wait. I still have the captain’s pants and shirt. I have to start remembering stuff, paying attention more. I find the pants and shirt crammed into the bottom drawer under a pile of Rufus’s socks and put them on. And they fit better, even without the belt. I take Mary’s letter down to the Mark Twain Gallery and find a plush chair to sit in. I slide a paperback book under the stationery and continue:
PS The river is like glass today. It gets so narrow sometimes I don’t think we’re going to fit. But we do. I bet if you whisper on one side you can hear it on the other. I wish I was whispering across to you. I love you.
I stop and wonder whether it’s the distance between us talking or my heart talking. I mean, I’ve said “I love you” to Mary a thousand times, but it was usually in the hopes that I’d get some. I don’t think I’ve ever meant it. Until now. I underline “I love you” three times, once for Mary, once for me, and once for our son.
“Good book there.”
I look up and see an old white guy sucking on an unlit pipe. “It’s just a letter.”
“No, the one you’re writing on.”
I lift the stationery and see A Collection of Quotable Quotes by Mark Twain staring up at me. “Oh. You want it?”
“I read it on my last voyage. You’ll enjoy it. Have a good evening.” Then he moves on to a shelf full of books.
I don’t read that often. Maybe the newspaper or a magazine if I’m in the bathroom. What was the last book I read? Probably something from way back in the day, something like A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ But a Sandwich. I flip to a random page, just to see, and read:
Why is it we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? Is it because we are not the person concerned?
I have to think a bit on that one. Yeah, births are happy times, for the most part I guess. If you have five kids already, though, it might be a different story. I wonder if Mary wants that many kids. And sometimes folks don’t grieve at funerals. They’re actually glad to see a person out of pain or just simply gone. But that last part. We’re happy that we’re not being born, and we’re sad that we’re not dead? That’s messed up. I’d do anything to start over. I’d be overjoyed to be born again.
Now I’m sounding like a holy roller like Auntie June. I flip a few more pages and read:
Be good and you will be lonesome.
Ain’t that the truth. Only the bad kids ever did anything fun on the Hill. The good kids were locked up inside doing their homework or their chores— Hmm. Now the bad kids are locked up, and the good kids are out having fun. These quotes are deeper than they look. I read another:
Truth is the most valuable thing we have.
That’s probably why it’s so hard to tell the truth sometimes. It always costs me something when I tell the truth. What was Auntie June always saying? “The truth shall set you free.” Try telling the truth to a judge, and watch the judge lock you up. And since truth is so expensive, no wonder more people aren’t free. I keep reading:
Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.
That makes me immediately think of Mrs. Walker. She must have smiled an awful lot during her lifetime. Of course, she was rich, so she has had a lot to smile about. But not Rose. Her face is still so smooth. I can’t wait to tell Rose that she needs more wrinkles to be happy. I look at a little mantel clock and see that it’s nearly ten. Just a few more:
I have found out that there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.
A white guy, a famous writer used “ain’t no”? I need to show this to Auntie June. She was always correcting my English. I’d say, “I ain’t never,” and she’d fuss and say, “It’s ‘I have never,’ Emmanuel.” I don’t know how true this saying is, though. I mean, I haven’t really traveled that often. So far, I guess, I’ve been lucky, with the possible exception of Penny. I’ll have to see how true this is the longer I go on this little journey.
No ship can out-sail death.
I read the note underneath it, and it tells me this was one of Twain’s last statements before he died at sea on a boat. I close the book. Maybe your boat was too slow, Mr. Twain, but this one’s doing just fine, just fine.
In fact, as I settle to sleep in my stateroom, I realize that two boats have out-sailed death for me.
7: On the American Queen, Huntington to Cincinnati
I get to the galley on time the next morning, and we crank up breakfast again. This time I get pastry duty, and I have a blast icing them, making little designs.
“You don’t have to
be so precise,” Rose tells me. “Just swirl ‘em and get ‘em done.”
“Is Mrs. Walker here yet, ma’am?”
“Not yet.”
I figure I ought to clear a hundred and fifty on this check, and with sixty more from Mrs. Walker today, I’ll have over two hundred to send back to Pittsburgh. I look at my arms and remember I have to get a tattoo. I’ve never paid for one before. I wonder what they cost. I look around, and the only person I know in the galley who has a tattoo is Penny.
“Penny.”
She has the duty I had yesterday stirring the pot of eggs, and she doesn’t look happy about it. “What?” She is definitely hating it.
“How much does a tattoo cost?”
“What?”
I move closer to her, even though every ear in the place is listening. “I’m getting a tattoo in Cincinnati tonight. I just wanted to know how much it’ll cost.” I see a few cooks with raised eyebrows and rolling eyes, but I don’t care.
“Might cost you … fifty, sixty dollars, depending on what you get.”
Ouch. It’d be cheaper for Rufus to brand me. “That much?”
“It’s what it cost me. And it also depends on how many colors you get.”
“So a simple black tattoo will be cheaper?”
“It ought to be, but you got to be real careful who you get ‘em from, you know? You never know where the needles have been.” She smiles a little, and I catch her meaning. “I got mine at Mysterious Tattoo last time through. It’s real close to where we land. You, um, you goin’ out alone?”
“Rufus and Rose are going with me.”
“Oh.” She cracks her gum. “It sounds like a real good time.”
What is it about this girl? “I guess I could use an expert to go with me, you know, to make sure everything’s done right.” We are fueling a day’s worth of rumors now, but I don’t care. Penny’s just a lonely girl who doesn’t quite fit in.
She smiles. “I’ll, uh, I’ll think about it.”
“Okay.”
I pull sandwich duty with Rose again while the others get a break, but I don’t mind. It’s nice not to have to rush, and Rose knows so much about a little of everything.
“Another day trip?”
“Yeah,” she says. “They’re off to Maysville, which is supposed to be the oldest landing place on the Ohio or something. They go on a walking tour to look at some old buildings, so you know they’ll be hungry at dinner. I think even your girlfriend Mrs. Walker went this time, so you know they’ll be late getting back waitin’ on her.”
No twenty at lunch. The checks back to Pittsburgh are getting smaller and smaller.
“Yeah, white folks never get enough of seeing their history up close and personal,” Rose says. “There’s plenty of our history floating by, but do they do walking tours to see it?”
“Our history?” In this part of Ohio?
“You ever hear of Ripley?”
“No.”
“Ripley, Ohio. Nice little town two bends of the river away. Ripley was where an Underground Railroad station was back before the Civil War. They say thousands of slaves crossed over the Ohio there, followin’ the North Star and walkin’ right up Liberty Hill to a little house all lit up like a beacon, walkin’ right to freedom. I’ve heard Ripley is where Harriet Beecher Stowe got some of her ideas for Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”
We take our sandwiches and Cokes outside to a rail, and I wish I had something to add, you know, some comment to make. I had heard about the Underground Railroad and read pieces of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in school, but to see where it really operated … It gives me chills that I can’t explain.
“There are lots of little towns just like Ripley, but we don’t stop,” she says as we watch the water flowing by and around a bridge to the Ohio side. “Hot today, ain’t it?”
“Yeah.” I watch sunlight chasing shade around the boat, or is the shade chasing the sunshine?
“The river’s high, too. It wouldn’t have been a good time to run away on a day like today.” She sips her Coke. “Just think. This little sliver of water was the difference between being called a man and being called a nigger, the difference between being called a woman and being called a wench, the difference between being human and being an animal.” She points at some weeds four feet tall on the shore. “That’s there’s horseweed. It’s not too tall now, but by the end of the summer, it’ll be near twenty feet high. Good place to hide in that horseweed. If you don’t have allergies, that is. Imagine having to hold back a sneeze with folks and dogs chasing you, and all you gotta do is wait for dark and cross the river to freedom.”
I close my eyes and try to imagine it, but I can’t. I only see the horseweed.
“You ain’t fallin’ asleep, are you?”
I open my eyes. “No ma’am. Just trying to use my imagination.”
“Hmm. See anything interesting?”
“No.”
She nods. “It’ll come. It took me a good little while, too. You write your letters?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“You could mail ‘em here in Maysville.”
“I have to put checks in them first.” I smile. “And I’d rather mail them from some place like Ripley.”
“I hear you.” She finishes her sandwich. “You stay and try to use your imagination for a while. I’ll be in the galley.”
“Need some help?”
“No. You need you some sun. I’ll call you in when I need you.”
“Okay.”
I roll up my sleeves and let the sun beat a tattoo on my arms as I walk the rail on the Ohio side of the boat. I see rich green hills like checkerboards, sunken boulders fifty feet from the boat, the slimy clay bank being flushed by muddy faucets of little streams, wild flowers of every color so plentiful that I feel I can reach out my hands and grab a bouquet, the purple mist of distant hills getting some more rain, rain that seems to be dripping right out of the sun. Moored as we are, it seems like the boat’s going backwards with the water still rushing by. I know it’s just an optical illusion, but it’s still strange. The entire world seems to be moving under my feet, but I’m not moving. Trees on both sides seem to be washing their leafy hair in the foamy water at the edge of the shore, and masses of debris carom from side to side out in the main channel like giant pinballs without the flippers. In my mind, I’m the first person to see all this, the first person to take it all in. “Take the world as it is,” I whisper as if I’m the captain of the boat. “Without hardship, there is no voyage.” Where’d I ever hear something like that?
This river’s getting to me, and I’ve only just got on it.
Ripley drifts by while I’m getting dinner ready, but I know it’s there, I feel it there, and whenever I’m making haste slowly busing tables or serving Mrs. Walker, who got her gray cheeks a little sunburned today, I look out the window at the land of freedom. I know it’s a cornball thing to do, but it fills me and makes me feel a little mighty.
Once we get through a lock and dam, we’re on the homestretch to Cincinnati where many passengers will get off for good. Rose gives me a short break from making cookies to write my checks, get my letters ready, and get forty dollars to go with Mrs. Walker’s fresh twenty. I hope the tattoo doesn’t cost more than sixty.
“We won’t have much time once we get to Cincy,” Rose tells me, “so you’ll have to shower and get dressed quick.”
I sigh. The captain’s clothes have to stink. “My clothes—”
“They’ve been cleaned.”
“What?”
“They needed ironing, too.”
“You cleaned them up for me?”
“Otherwise I wouldn’t be seen with you on our date.”
I want to hug her. “Thank you.”
“And please shave or something. You’re lookin’ all ragged.”
Landing at Riverboat Row across from Cincinnati on the Kentucky side is wild. Both sides of the river are lit up with more neon than Pittsburgh, and the river seems busier, a
sliver of moonlight floating on the waves. One thing I like about the American Queen is that every other boat on the river stays out of its way. It isn’t the most powerful or the biggest, but other boats part like, well, like waves whenever it shows up, many of them chugging or racing alongside so folks can take pictures.
During my shower, I notice that my postage stamp has shrunk, but it’s still nasty looking. I hope it heals on its own because Doc Agee might change his mind about that drug test. Then I shave using Rufus’s electric razor and wait while he showers and douses himself with some cheap cologne.
“Heard Rose was goin’ with us,” he says.
“Yeah.”
“She’s good people.”
“Yeah.”
He puts on a FUBU shirt, matching shorts and a hat, and some Timberlands that have to be size nineteen. A country boy can dress well? He makes me look bad. “Also heard Penny’s goin’, too.”
“Not sure,” I say.
“Saw her gettin’ her hair done at the salon, so she goin’.” He flattens his shirt over his chest. “How I look?”
“You look all right. I need me some clothes like that.”
He covers his mouth and coughs. “Yeah, you do.” He rummages through the top drawer of the dresser, pulls out another FUBU shirt, and tosses it to me.
Though I’m angry that a country boy is trying to teach me how to dress, it’s a nice gesture. “It won’t fit.”
He shrugs. “Still better than what you’re wearing, right?”