Blogger's note: This is a (very) short story that I posted here last year. It was written specifically for publication in Watershed, a journal containing poetry and prose about the Susquehanna River. It is, in fact, a "true" story, excepting (1) jeans, and (2) Buckley. I was actually wearing cammies, and I didn't really think of Buckley at the time. Anyway. Last year, with the deadline on my heels, I didn't have much time for inspiration or revision. But I've revised it somewhat for its impending inclusion on the official Watershed website, which should be up shortly. I was somewhat flattered to hear that the editor, Jerry Wemple, read the piece at a Rotary meeting as an example of the kind of thing he was doing with Watershed. At any rate, maybe this version doesn't suck quite as badly as the one that was published.
***
The Island
I’m riding in the passenger seat of a silver Mercury Topaz. It’s 1997, and Ben is driving over the Susquehanna River on the Bloomsburg bridge. On the left as we drive out of town, maybe a half-mile upriver, maybe four or five car lengths from the eastern bank, is an island, trees brooding low in the afternoon sun.
Ben shoots me a sly look. He’s pondering the island’s accessibility. We cross the bridge, and Ben pulls the Topaz down a rocky path that leads along the railroad tracks. He shuts the car off and we walk towards the riverbank, our school shoes crunching in the coarse gravel. We climb down to the water’s edge and sit on the bank for what seems like hours, neither one of us quite sold on the idea of plunging in fully dressed. It’s some pathetic variety of dare-gone-soft, us cowering in the face of something laughably tame.
We sit and sit, staring at the passing ripples as they crest and dip. Cars hum by on the bridge, and we wonder if their occupants can see us. Ben turns to empty his pockets and hears a splash, the sound of broken silence, the measured split of conquered banality. He turns to see me, yards out, swimming feverishly to fight the left-bent current. “C’mon, c’mon!” I yell, flailing like a moth on a candle, swimming for what seems like my life. My head cocked back, I see him dive, streamlining himself into the murky flow of the Susquehanna.
We swim like fiends. We fear the consequences of doing otherwise. As it turns out, what seemed from the bridge like a distance of four or five car lengths is actually more like fifteen or twenty. I can feel my arms starting to burn with fatigue. My legs droop under the weight of sopping jeans and soaked Pumas. This was a dumb idea. I’m not even halfway. Jesus. How am I ever getting back? My mind races. I think of Jeff Buckley, the rock star who drowned just a few short months ago, his head bobbing on the surface of Wolf River Harbor before it disappeared completely, his friend on the bank, slack-jawed and helpless, watching a legend gasp at his last few breaths.
The island. I need the island.
At last, sand. Or, more properly, mud. I skitter ashore, my chest heaving, my legs and arms an indistinguishable ache. I feel like I just climbed out of a hurricane. I gasp and wheeze as Ben sidles ashore. We sit in silence. A minute. Five. The burning wanes, the breathing slows. We fancy we’ve been swimming for our lives, staving off imminent death amid the rushing waters of Pennsylvania’s mightiest river. We are exhausted. We want to rest indefinitely. If only we had a tent, some flint, a can of beans…
But we can’t escape the aftermath of our stupidity, the niggling desire to make this idiocy end as soon as possible. To return home, to hang our dripping school clothes on the line, to wash the mine runoff and raw sewage from our teenage coifs, to skip to the part where we tell unsuspecting friends about our journey as we accompany them across the bridge in the ensuing years. “See that island out there?” we will say. “We swam to it once, wearing all our clothes.” Our friends will laugh, ask why, and we will cast them a triumphant, steely stare. “Because,” we will say, “it’s there.” We will be champions of whimsy.
I decide to start walking back toward the mainland to see how far I can make it across before I have to start swimming again. I begin my descent into the water, my sneakers digging in silt, kicking up slow-motion clouds.
I walk all the way across.
© 2007 rpw. All rights reserved.
