The River
by Richard Ide
Chris Wintermute stumbled out of a plowed drift at the edge of Teoga Street—Forest City’s main drag—and just missed getting clipped by an eighteen-wheeler stacked to the gray skies with pulp logs. He could see his breath in the noon air. Granules of ice crunched between his socks and the inside of his blue and yellow jogging shoes, and it felt like an icicle was being screwed through his head. Chris drew the zipper of his tattered insulated jacket tighter.
He couldn’t very well march two miles more out Teoga Street through the busy part of town; someone at Johnny’s Hotel might see him skipping school. Anyway, the long walkway across the decrepit Forest City bridge was narrow and rotted in spots. With a brave smile, and drawing himself erect, he felt better heading down past the old mansions of Juniata Street for the river.
The headaches had grown worse since last week, when his wood-shop teacher had let him have it for leaving his bench a mess at the lunch bell. He hadn’t cared about the mess, or the unfinished tool cabinet either: what was the point of his Dad’s Christmas gift now—who would be home to admire it?
The pain got so bad today in the cafeteria, he’d pushed away lunch—it would be his last one there, anyway—and grabbed his jacket from the 6th Grade home room. Three weeks into January, and he still couldn’t believe his Dad had let Christmas pass without a package—or a single word.
Now before him, long and broad, stretched the river—piled shore-to-shore with ice from the intense cold of an early winter. Thick ice, that seemed a safe enough short cut to the bridge a mile downstream; there the interstate zigged close to town before disappearing behind Dorn Blazer Mountain.
His Dad had stopped hauling paper loads last March; quarried stone paid better than the mill. With luck, he might find his Dad at the yard out by the interstate—running bluestone to Boston, Texas, or maybe the Carolinas. The Joes at the yard were pretty good guys; somebody might know where his Dad was running. He’d hitch a ride with another driver; woodworking award safe in his back pocket, he’d get a job in a furniture factory. The police—or some big dude like Mr. T—would help him find his Dad.
Like a frosted loaf, Dorn Blazer loomed from the far shore, hemlocks stiff as sentinels—even the red shale face of White’s Leap encrusted with rime. He was suddenly crying. He wiped the tears from his cheeks. The wind kicked up little boils of snow all around him.
Near the ice that jammed the river bank, Chris headed for the shelter of a giant black oak. The pressure of his jacket against the bark warmed him, and his thoughts flew back to the hot summer two years ago—to Scottsville, a magic place on the river his Dad called 'old country.' Late in the afternoon they’d hiked to the secret cove in old country. With stone-caddies whisked that morning from Kasson Brook, they’d hunkered down to fish out the day. Dad hooked a feisty one right off and played the thrashing young pike in through the shoreline weeds, then tossed him back. Strangely, the little pike hung for a moment in an eddy below their perch: fanning his gills and grinning—before exploding away in a sudden green flash.
". . . Dad, where do they go in snow time?"
"They don’t go nowheres, sonny. They drop deep to the quiet and feed off the bottom—"
"But, I mean, how do they stay warm?"
"It’s warm down there, ground warms the water."
"Dad. . .I mean what happens under the ice. How do they breathe?"
“Air’s mixed into the water. You got too many questions, boy—don’t worry over them fish. They stay safe and snug down there."
. . .Chris still smelled that green field of corn cooking behind them in the August sun, heard the zizz of locusts through the button-ball trees.
The branches above were thrashing and creaking in the wind, and he moved down the bank toward the ice. The snow was deeper than he’d guessed, his legs and feet real cold by the time he reached the jumble at bottom—thick cards of ice flung one atop the other, like some giant of the North had lost his cool playing Flipsies. Chris jammed his hands, red and wet from his tears, into his jacket pockets and leaned against a block of ice.
Mom and Dad didn’t see much of anything eye-to-eye, specially when it came to money. But at least the paper loads had brought Dad home: they would still be a family if his Dad had stayed with the paper loads. Way before the blow-up, mom was waiting tables in Forest City. Johnny’s Hotel was okay for tips. . . sometimes; that’s why she stayed nights as part-time barmaid.
"Your father’s away from me now, Chrissy. . . weeks at a time. If I don’t earn the living in this house, how’re you gonna have nice things like all your friends at school?"
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"But, mom…you’re never home now either. . ."
His mother wouldn’t think so much of his friends if she heard thembrag over their Christmas gifts in the school cafeteria: Carl Barr got a new dirt-bike, and Ronnie Stroka had a radio-controlled model airplane. His father was helping him build it.
From the Baptist Church down by the McCune County Courthouse, Three-Thirty chimed faintly. It seemed only minutes earlier that he’d left the cafeteria. The wind turned the chimes all sour and tinny: like notes off a warped tape. Chris brushed a hank of blonde hair from his eyes, heart pounding in the sweat of clambering through the floe. He unzipped his jacket and ducked behind a chunk of ice to catch his breath. Getting to the bridge was hard work…harder than he’d imagined.
Chris slowly worked his way across the river’s ponderous silence. The afternoon sky was clearing, sun settling behind Dorn Blazer Mountain. Toward the far shore, from around the big island, he caught the shimmer of moving water: a thin greenish-white riffle winding its way only to be lost again somewhere beneath the ice.
As he worked toward the far shore, the pulsing in his head started in again: the Friday before Labor Day, his Dad had driven in after a month on the road—slept a whole day before mom lost her cool:
"Dammit, there’s things need doing! The dryer’s broke again, and I need shelves put up in the bathroom."
"…New dispatcher don’t give me any sleep."
"More likely, you’re wore out chasing the little tarts you seem to find everywhere!.."
Supper had been burnt spaghetti. Words flew. Chris left his cake on the table and went up behind the house to check on the rabbits; one of mom’s men friends from the Hotel had dropped them off last Easter.
When he came back, mom was at the table, long-faced:
"…What am I supposed to do, then—just whither up and die?"
Dad was on his feet, face beet-red. "It’s me, or them!"
"I can’t give up the bar work…there’s not money enough in this house to feed the rabbits—"
"I’ll fix the freakin’ rabbits!" His dad yanked the 12-gauge shotgun from the broom closet, jammed two shells into it, strode up the hill and blasted his two white rabbits into hamburger.
Still clutching the shotgun, his father headed for the truck:
"…Well I guess you’re man of the house now…"
How could he be man of the house when his mother kept bringing new ones home?
He had just begun work on his Dad’s gift in the school shop:
"…You’ll still come by Christmas Day—won’t you, Dad?"
"Christmas..? Yeah…sure. Still usin’ that leather thing you give me last year! I’ll bring you something nice."
"See you then, Dad…"
On the ice, he found himself at the lower end of the open spot—raw current hissing against one blue edge of the floe before cutting beneath it.
The headaches hit worse anytime that whole scene floated back—in the kitchen, after the blow-up: if only she’d kept her damn mouth shut…
A rosy dusk had settled in, the dying rays of the sun piercing one last bank of clouds and drilling into his eyes…the scene reappearing before him… in one stray gust of wind, framed against a billow of pinkish snow flakes: Mom there at the table—no hint of pity—an arm extending the hand-tooled leather pouch he’d made last Christmas for his Dad—for his truck papers—miniature lock still on the clasp, flap unopened, case grimy…
"You took it outta his truck!—"
Her long face never flinched. "No, Chrissy… It lay under the back seat of the car—all this time. Never saw the inside of his truck. He’d shoved it way under, where he thought nobody’d notice."
Her words dripped in shame, hatred, and despair down a sorry billboard of betrayal…
Chris felt faint; he slipped out of the sodden Pumas, stripped off the wet socks, and pressed his bare feet to the ice.
The torment was ebbing, when he spotted the pike daintily balanced in a jade eddy to one side of the main flow: rows of glistening little teeth in a precise smile, gills pumping, fins back-pedaling in a ballet of friendship, the bright-ringed pike eyes buoying his resolve.
Chris stooped and tucked the wet socks into his running shoes. He placed them neatly together, just at the edge of the ice, then stood upright again. For one painless moment, he lingered where the water dove quietly beneath the floe.
Hands at side, straight and tall—a slight push of the toes…
A dark shadow flashed beneath the floe.
There was just enough residual heat to stick the blue and yellow jogging shoes to the ice. If the river cut no deeper through the jam that night, they would still be there in the morning.
