Where the River Ends (12 page)

Abbie shook her head, “No…I got it.” She waved me off. “He’s a pansy beneath all that sweat and muscle.”

The woman waded over next to me and tilted my hat back, exposing my eyes. “Look right tough to me.” She touched my right temple with a calloused thumb, corkscrewing it slightly. “If the bomb goes off, I might come calling.”

Abbie choked down a laugh. “Oh please do. I will sleep so much better knowing he’s not shacked up with one of my best friends.”

The woman nodded and walked back through the water to the bank. There was a hole in the rear of her overalls exposing the fact that she wasn’t wearing underwear and that her butt hung like her cheeks. Abbie covered her mouth and stifled another laugh. When the woman reached the bank, she waved her barrel across the trees and then turned to Abbie. The smile had faded, bulldogging her wrinkles. She sucked through her teeth. “In some places, this here river is wide. Other places, it’s deep. In others, the trees all fall across it, making one ‘mell of a hess.’ Still others, it snakes around its elbow to get to its thumb. But it pours out long distances. And nothing never stops it. You can’t dam it. You can try but it’ll run around. It’ll make a way. That’s what she do. She always makes a way.” She spat and pointed the broken barrel in my general direction. “I reckon it’s a lot like him.” She walked to a wooden box on the beach and pulled out a bottle. It was old and its surface was dim with scratches. She bit the cork, pulled it out, then swigged from the bottle. She swirled it around her mouth, sort of gargling with its contents, and nodded. She rammed the cork back in and handed me the bottle. “Last year’s. Jis’ ’bout right.”

I pointed at the vines above me. “You make it?”

She nodded. “I did. My recipe. Round here, we call it scuppernong, southern fox wine, joy juice and”—she shook her hips in a dance move I hope to never see again—“dance lubricant.”

Abbie looked at me and raised both eyebrows. “Oh my.”

The old woman folded the shotgun back across her arms. “You two go easy.” A rustle and scurry in the leaves on her left brought the shotgun up and cocked the hammer all in one motion. She aimed and held it, her eyes growing wide. Satisfied, she uncocked the hammer and returned the shotgun to the cradle in her arms. When I turned, a water snake was swallowing a still-shaking rat. The only thing sticking out of its mouth was the tail.

I pulled my hat down, stepped into the harness and began walking.

That’s the river. Beneath all this, beneath the worst she can dish out, she will rise up, ugly and disgusting, hideous enough to gag a maggot, and yet if you dive in, crack the surface, and swim where others won’t, she will surprise you, amaze you and remind you.

13

I
t’d been two days since the Christmas party. A single bulb lit the canvas before me and it was now near midnight. I sat on a bar stool in the loft, a paint-tipped brush bit between my teeth. Eyes narrowed, head tilted like a dog, I was trying to make sense out of a shadow. On the canvas in front of me was her face, seen from close behind her right ear, down along her cheek line, over the angle of her lips and the lines of her nose, which pointed to Fort Sumter and separated the Ashley from the Cooper. Her face covered nearly half the canvas. Wisps of hair in the top left corner, her ear just below and right of that, which led down her face to the fort, which floated in the water in the bottom right-hand corner. The piece led your eye from the top left corner, downward to the bottom right-hand corner and the fort, the lights of which led upward to the moon that hung brilliant in the top right-hand corner, only to lead you left again—a complete circle of perspective.

A rap at the door broke my concentration. Brush in mouth, I walked down to the door expecting to shoo some drunk cadet and tell him that my door was not his dorm. Cigarette smoke and rowdy, bellied-up, bar noise met me as I cracked the door. I pulled it wider and she stepped from the shadows—a mink coat and pearls. I heard myself step back and suck in air. She smiled, shook her head and stepped past me. “You working?”

I looked at my watch and spoke around the edges of the brush. “Not anymore.”

She rolled her eyes. “Good.”

I shut the door and she let her eyes adjust to the dim light. The single bulb in the loft caught her attention. She craned her neck, spotted the canvas and began climbing the stairs. I followed, keeping my distance. She studied it several minutes, stepping closer, turning her head and then moving away.

“You mad?” I asked.

“No,” she said without looking at me. “I’m used to people stealing my picture.”

I handed her the canvas. “Sorry.”

She shook her head. “Why me?”

“’Cause you’re…you’re you.”

She shrugged. “Maybe.” She was quiet a minute and looked like she had something else she wanted to say. Finally, she said, “It usually takes somebody with Photoshop to make me look like that.”

I asked a second time. “You mad?”

“No, but I’m an easy target. Anybody can paint me. Don’t be like everybody else.” Her intensity surprised me. “People are always telling me I’m beautiful. Okay, so what. I’ve spent most of my life in front of cameras. People use my image to sell a product. That’s all. At the end of the day, they’ve used me—my face or figure, which by the way I had nothing to do with—to tell everyone else how they are
not
like me. Hence,
you’re not beautiful.
Or,
you’re not pretty.
Or,
you don’t measure up.
” Her eyes were glassy. She waved her hand across my studio. “If you want to make great art, something that can reach beyond time and space, find someone who isn’t and show them that they are. Paint the broken, the unlovely…and make them believe.”

A
TIGHTLY WOUND
spiral staircase led to the roof. At night, depending on the moon, streetlights and breeze, I’d often work up there. It was quiet, usually blanketed in a breeze and gave me a bird’s-eye view of the world. “Rooftop?” she asked. I nodded. “Can we?”

I climbed the stairs, pushed open the door and helped her up. The brick facade of my studio rose up above the flat roof and stood waist-high, separating us from the exhaust and noise of King Street. Fat pigeons, comfortable in their perch, sat cooing on the brick. I shut the door and they flushed, rising like Red Barons spiraling above us. She pointed at the closest, most daring purple pigeon. “Look, you little squirt. My daddy collects shotguns. You poop on this mink and I will personally hunt you down myself.” He arced hard right and flew off into the night.

She was a complexity unlike any I’d ever met, much less known. Serious one moment, laughing the next. But it was an ability whose transition that came at a price. She leaned against the brick and closed her eyes. “You better get me downstairs.”

“You okay?”

She nodded like a seasick sailor. “Migraines. Not much warning.”

We shuffled back down the stairs and by the time we reached the first floor, I was carrying her. I laid her in my bed, filled a ziplock bag with ice and placed it beneath her neck. My only set of sheets was dirty so I’d been sleeping on my sleeping bag laid out across the mattress. She palmed the mattress. “Nice sheets.”

“Sorry. After the other night and my WWF debut, they were a little bloody.” I pointed to the crumpled pile in the corner.

I took her shoes off, slid a pillow under her the backs of her knees and laid a blanket across her legs. Then I spread her mink across her arms and shoulders. She whispered, “You’ve done this before?”

“Yeah, my mom.”

She slept hard until sunup when the recycle truck brought King Street to life. I sat on a stool, my fingertips covered in ten shades of dried paint, a brush stuck between my teeth like a pirate’s knife, another in my hand. Throughout the night, I’d finished the picture.

She sat up on the bed, rubbed her eyes and stared past me to my work. “You’ve been busy.” I nodded, unsure of her reaction. She patted the bed. “If you were going to take advantage of me, you missed your chance.”

I smiled over my brush. “Don’t think I didn’t think about it, but then I remembered that your daddy collects shotguns.”

She stood and walked to me, putting her hand on my shoulder. “Yes, he does.” With my brush still in my mouth, she kissed me. “Thank you.”

I spit the brush out. “You’re welcome.”

She laughed. “Will you do me a favor?”

“Is it legal?”

“Yes, but”—she eyed the canvas—“it’ll take some time. And”—the seriousness, returned. Another seamless transition—“…it might test you.”

“Name it.”

She pointed to my paints, brushes and easel. “Is this portable?”

“It can be.”

“You busy this afternoon?”

“Just work, but I can call in sick.” She slipped on her shoes, grabbed her mink and kissed me a second time. “That was better without the brush.” She walked to the door and slid on her glasses. I pointed to the street. “People might start to talk if they see you leaving here at this time. Around here it’s called the walk of shame.”

“They’ll talk anyway.” She pointed at my canvas and the picture of her. “You priced it yet?”

“It’s…it’s not for sale.”

“About five then?”

“Five.”

14

JUNE 2, MIDMORNING

R
eynolds Bridge is a single-lane bridge of poured slabs of concrete and iron. It has no railing, no lights and, given that the river has cut deep into the sandy bluff beneath, it sits some twenty-five feet above the river. This doesn’t sound like much, but the bridge is flat. Mature trees have grown up underneath it—their roots protected and their branches arching out around the edges of the bridge and reaching toward the sun.

Confederate flags decorate river shacks built on stilts and tucked back in the trees. A discarded Pepsi machine rested faceup and upside down on the Florida side. The plastic was cracked and somebody had shot it a dozen times with what looked like a large-caliber bullet.

Down here—between the bluffs—you hear little sound. It’s like walking on snow. Muffled echoes mostly, but even then, you’re not sure. The only smell is the decomposition and an occasional bloom. Paddling through, you feel like you’re living beneath the earth’s surface.

The Bare Bottom Resort owned several acres on the downriver side of the bridge. One naked person might be little attraction, but fifty is not. Every third tree held a bright orange or yellow
POSTED—NO TRESPASSING
sign. The owners hoped it would ward off the unwanted, and create a buffer to keep Peeping Toms at a distance. But telling South Georgia rednecks they weren’t welcome in their own backyard only made matters worse. The woods were usually swarming with local kids hoping to see their first naked woman. I know, I used to be one of them. Problem is that many of the people who join nudist colonies aren’t, and never were, members of the Swedish bikini team. So while we crept through the woods hoping to get a glimpse of the cover girl for
Sports Illustrated,
that first peek probably did more damage than good. When I was a kid, the
POSTED
signs should have read, “This ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. Look at your own risk, ’cause when you have, you’ll wish you hadn’t.”

’Course, I’d been away a long time and it’d be my luck that the only constancy is change.

Trees overhung the river forming a thick canopy and the river actually pooled in several places, making good swimming holes. I beached the canoe beneath an old rope swing and said, “Hang tight. Be back in a bit.”

She laughed. “Normally, I’m a size four, but I might could squeeze into a two. And get something that matches my eyes.”

“Don’t get your hopes up.”

“Remember,” she said, starting to laugh, “think like them. Blend in.”

“Very funny.”

I slipped through the woods a couple hundred yards and came upon a row of cabins. I could smell breakfast cooking and hear televisions playing various versions of the news but nobody was outside and no clotheslines were draped in clean clothing. Certainly, these people had to wear clothing sometimes. They did go to the store.

Across a large lawn, maybe four football fields in size, sat the public pool. It looked like a dozen or so people were milling around it. On the far side, I read the words
Spa
and
Laundry.

Bingo.

I stepped out of the woods but remembered what Abbie had said. The point was to
not
draw attention to myself. I turned around, hopped behind a tree, stripped to my birthday suit, pulled my sunglasses down over my eyes and began strolling across the lawn like a regular. Then I thought through the process of carrying something back, so I backpedaled, grabbed my shirt and threw it around my neck like a towel.

I’d never been so self-conscious in all my life. I tried to whistle but couldn’t get my lips to cooperate.

I made it halfway across the lawn when an older woman stepped out of her cabin maybe fifty yards off. She wasn’t wearing anything either, and hers was a wrinkled and sagging image I could have done without. She waved, turned her back—another image that will haunt me to my grave—then began watering flower boxes across her deck, paying me no more mind.

These people are weird.

’Course, then I thought about me, walking across their backyard, naked as a jaybird, and figured I was probably weird too.

I made it to the pool and tried not to make eye contact with the eleven other people either stretched out around the pool or swimming in it. There were three kids, a couple of teenagers and four adults. Looked like two families. Feeling more self-conscious than I’d ever felt in my life, I strode across the pool deck and stepped into the spa where I was met by a women’s yoga class.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

Looking at no one and yet everyone, I walked down a hallway and into what sounded like the laundry room. I didn’t draw any attention, which was good in an odd sort of way. The women were all focused somewhere between a downward dog and rising moon. In the laundry, twelve sets of washers and dryers were all running. Evidently, the women brought their laundry to yoga.
Jackpot!

I looked over my shoulder, then started quietly rifling through each dryer. I found a bathing suit bottom and top, a towel, and some cutoff shorts that all looked like they would fit Abbie. Then I thought, Feet. I grabbed a pair of socks and a bar of soap off the sink. I rolled everything inside the towel, slung it back around my neck and walked back out through the yoga class trying to think about taxes, the square root of pi or tinkering with a Rubik’s Cube.

I skirted the pool deck, waved at one man reading a book on the far side. The woman next to him raised her nose out of a book and said, “You new here?”

“Yeah.” I turned sideways, pointing to the far row of what looked like rental cabins. “Just in. We try and get down once a year.”

She sat up and pointed to a row of cabins opposite the pool house. “You ought to come up tonight. Number fourteen. George here is grilling burgers and we’re inviting the neighbors. Just a get-together.”

“Sure. Uh…’bout what time?”

“Sixish. You bring your wife?” It was a question.

“Yes. Thanks. We’ll see you then.” George waved and the lady returned to her book, smiling.

I walked back across the lawn where two men and one other woman waved at me from their porches.
This is just shameless exhibitionism. Men are not made to walk around naked. It’s not comfortable.
I stepped into the woods and found T-shirt-only Abbie doubled over. Tears were running off her face. She was laughing as hard as I’d ever seen her laugh.

I handed her the clothes. “That’s not funny.” She couldn’t even talk. I grabbed my shorts, looped my arm into hers and we strolled butt-naked through the woods.

She looked behind me and slapped me on the right cheek. “You got a cute butt.”

“Well, it’s not my best feature.”

We reached the river where a rope swing hung above us. Swingers could perch themselves on the bank, fly out across the beach and land in a pool that, given the water’s dark color, looked to be several feet deep. Abbie unrolled her clothes and found the soap. She stared at me, that sneaky look in her eye. “When in Rome…” She slipped off her shirt, untied the scarf and hovered across the white sandy beach. After everything, she still gets to me. She is still the most beautiful woman on the planet. The water was knee-deep and coppery bronze. The sun dipped behind dark clouds, which pushed out the rain that then fell in large drops that smacked the water and trees. The rain was cold but the river was warm, so we slipped down to our shoulders, our chins skimming the water’s surface. It was one of those moments. Blink and you’ll miss it. Water dripped off the lobes of her ears and tip of her nose, steam rose off the water in miniature twisters that spiraled up through the trees in quiet dissipation while the clouds emptied themselves. If there’s glory in the heavens, it was being poured out on my wife.

I grabbed the bottle of scuppernong, pulled the cork and let her lay in the cradle of me. I leaned into the river and we sipped silently, watching the moisture spin upward. The rain slowed and she said, “Bathe me.” So I did. When the sun cracked back through the clouds, I spread the tarp on the beach, zipped us into her sleeping bag and we slept off the wine. It was an hour’s worth of sleep that felt like a week.

After we woke, I was folding up the bag and she slapped me on the butt. “Three down. Seven to go.”

She was right. We’d just checked off numbers 3, 4 and 10. Abbie had a way of making me forget the hell we were living in. This moment was no exception. I loaded the canoe, laid her down in the center and cut the paddle into the water. Only then did I realize that the shotgun was gone.