The River Queen (28 page)

We had gone to Miss Morton's Tea Room, for fried chicken, and over dinner I said, “I just want to let you know that my mother, my nephew, and my baby daughter are arriving on Saturday.”

I waited for him to flinch, ask for the bill. To find the way to slip out of the room. Instead he looked me square in the eye. “What time do we need to meet their flight?”

On Saturday he drove me to the airport and, as my mother got off the plane, Kate dashed down the jetway through the terminal. She was heading to the revolving doors. “Larry,” I shouted, “get her.” He chased her all over that airport.

Two years later Larry adopted Kate in surrogate court. The judge handed her a lollipop and explained to her what it meant to be adopted and did Kate agree. When Kate said yes, the judge asked her to raise her right hand. I can still see that little fist rising into the air.

*   *   *

I'm up at the crack of dawn. Stuffing laundry into a pillowcase, I schlep it up to the marina, but the laundry room is locked. I'm amazingly disappointed until I go into the women's bathroom. To my delight there are three sinks, which are just what I need. I use one for whites, one for colors, and one to rinse. I am stunned at the pleasure I take after more than two weeks on board in scrubbing and soaping my personal things, in putting them into the rinse-cycle sink, then hanging them all around the bathroom stalls to drip dry as I take my shower. Despite an odd dream that someone has stolen our axe and plans to use it, I feel vigorous and strong. I let the hot water course over my body, down my back, my thighs. As my clothes drip dry, I soap my body, the top of my skull, scrub my toes.

At about six I run into “Bob,” as his shirt reads, who works at the marina. He sees me carting my wet laundry, my sheets and towels, and tells me he'll open the laundry room. “You can wash your linens,” he says, opening the door. He says he can't leave it unlocked. “Just look for me when you're done and I'll open it up again.” I know Jerry wants to be off on an early start, but surely I can wash my sheets first. I put some of my things in the dryer and the bedding and towels into the machine.

I'm enjoying the simple things again—the sirloin tips and beer from last night's supper, Tom escorting me back to the boat, a moonlit night, two old men fishing in the shade under a bridge, an egret and a blue heron in a territorial struggle. But, as I make my way back to the boat, Jerry, who is sipping his coffee, looks at me askance. He wants to be leaving soon.

Half an hour later I start searching for Bob, who needs to unlock the laundry room, but he is nowhere to be found. There is a man driving a lawn mower, but he can't hear a thing. A fat white cat follows me everywhere I go. “Shoo, shoo,” I say to the cat. I keep going back and forth to the marina, but I can't find Bob and Jerry is getting more and more annoyed.

At eight a.m. the marina opens and I find someone to unlock the laundry room. I never do see Bob again. I gather my things, which are only half dry, and head back to the boat, which is once again waiting for me to sail.

*   *   *

I had always believed clothespins were for holding clothes, but I've learned that, on board ship, laundry is in fact the least of their concerns. Clothespins are used as clamps to keep things dry: Honey Nut Cheerios, Wonder Bread, Chips Ahoy, saltines, and opened bags of Dorito chips and potato chips. Whatever moisture will destroy. They are used as markers for maps and books and to keep miscellaneous receipts from blowing away.

In the world of ideal inventions, where function perfectly fits the form (the bicycle, the crowbar, the flyswatter), the clothespin is that most underappreciated of gadgets. As I hold one in my hand on this sunny morning, I examine the way the two pieces of wood and a spring can do so much. But I am actually using them for my damp clothes. As I move through the cabin, collecting them, the boys pretend I'm not there. Not only has my laundry delayed our departure, but I've stolen the clothespins from the chips and saltines to use them for the arcane purpose of drying my clothes.

Now my wet things dangle from the railing. This is clearly a violation, but neither Tom nor Jerry will say it in so many words. Of course, they aren't exactly speaking to me either.

“We're late.” Jerry grunts, glaring at my red and blue spandex T-shirts, my shorts, flapping in the wind. My underwear I've hung discreetly in the shower stall, which has never been hooked up anyway. “Late start means late finish,” he quips.

Tom glances at the laundry and shakes his head. He doesn't say anything, but I can tell this is not proper ship etiquette. It is as offensive to him as cleaning green beans on the flybridge. This laundry thing is for rural backyards of Nebraska or Italian side streets, but not for a
River Queen
houseboat. Not for our dignified ship. Whatever. I am happy, with clean clothes. As we push off, the man mowing his lawn waves. We pass a cruiser and the couple on board waves. We drift by the two fishermen and they wave. We travel under a railroad bridge and the engineer not only waves but gives us a friendly toot.

Though I still do not exactly understand this odd ritual, I am thrilled by these waves. It is as if the pope or a rock star is waving at me. Though Tom and Jerry are chagrined, I am filled with glee the way babies are, waving hello and “bye-bye” as my sheets and pants and T-shirts, like so many sails, flap in the wind.

34

H
URRICANE WEATHER
is upon us. Just hours out of Two Rivers we find ourselves in a hot, sunny day with no place to go. That muggy, still kind. The doldrums. If we were a sailboat, we'd be becalmed. The sun beats down on the boat and it's too hot for any of us to be outside. Tom and Jerry pilot from the inside helm. They have grown more relaxed with me, I can tell. They have their shirts off. They leave the toilet seat up.

It's that kind of sultry, sticky weather where you can't do a thing and there is no respite outside from the sun. I'm sitting in the cabin with all the windows open. In the heat of the day I am at the kitchen table (the only table except for the one Jerry lets me use on the bow to write), with a plastic box in my lap.

I have decided to familiarize myself with the
Chrysler Marine Engine Service Manual.
It occurs to me that, if my pilots should die simultaneously, say a lightning bolt to the flybridge while I am below, I would have no idea what to do. I couldn't call for help. I wouldn't know how to get out of the main channel or throw an anchor line. And I certainly couldn't get an engine started if I had to.

I need to inform myself. I peruse the table of contents. Lubrication, oil drainage. Controls group: propeller, kick-up interlock, tiller bar control. I check out the outdrive group: removal from pivot housing. Separation of upper and lower units. Anodes. There are looping diagrams. Pictures that explain the flow of fuel, where water meets gas.

As I leaf through a breezy section on the installation and adjustment of motor parts, I realize I may as well be reading a neurosurgical handbook with the thought of removing a brain tumor from myself. Just the pivotal housing diagram is enough to send shudders through me. Even the 911-M28 marine traveler toilet manual, with its twenty-four different parts, some of which I saw my first day on the boat, and its four pages of installation instructions, is beyond me.

Besides, Tom has a special relationship to his motors which I realize now, defeated in these doldrums, I will never have. He talks to them the way he talks to his dog. The way a man might whisper about his lover to a friend over a couple of beers. She's lookin' good. She likes my touch. If you give her a little more, you'll get a little more. Come on, Girl. Do it for me.

*   *   *

It is 11:18 a.m. as we approach Clarksville, Missouri, Lock and Dam 24. Jerry, of course, sees it before I do and he and Tom begin to discuss. Then I see it as well. A huge double barge is going through. It's a short lock, which means they have to take the barge apart and do it in two trips. Jerry is definitely annoyed at me now, but I'm trying to avoid him. I've got “Johnny B. Goode” playing on my computer and I'm trying to look on the bright side. This is a golden opportunity to take down my laundry, which has been baking in the sun.

But about forty-five minutes later it's becoming tedious. It is a very hot day and we are just cooking on the river. “I want to go for a swim,” I tell them. They breathe that heavy sigh.

“You can't really swim here. You need to hold on to something,” Jerry says. Then he stops and does that stare. A moment later he points to Tom's air mattress, which is secured with bungee cords in the dinghy. “Why don't you float on this and hold on to the anchor line?”

Tom gives me a look. “Hey, that's my air mattress.”

Jerry shrugs. “Aw, let's let her float.”

I'm pretty much well-done from the heat and decide I'll give it a try. I change into my suit, then go to the bow step, where Jerry holds on to the air mattress and helps me slide on top. It's not the most delicate maneuver I've ever executed, but it does the trick. I take hold of the anchor line and drift out as far as I can.

Cool water laps over me. I dangle on the anchor line, my head lying back. Birds soar overhead, landing in a bank of prairie grass nearby. Dragonflies dart in and out of the reeds. I watch puffy white clouds, shaped like dinosaurs and bears, drift. Splashing water over my legs, here I am, floating free on the Mississippi River. I'm on a raft, just like Huck Finn. At daymarker 273.8, I am happy. I tell this to myself. Put this in your captain's log, Jerry Nelson. I am officially content.

At last we get the signal from the lockmaster that we should prepare for lockage. Jerry gives me a wave and I head to the ship. Coming back up the swim platform, I'm afraid of slipping under the boat. Tom heaves me in a most undignified fashion back on board. “So did you enjoy yourself?”

“Oh, my God,” I tell him. “I think that was the most fun I ever had.”

“Really? Didn't you have a childhood, Mary?”

I pause, thinking about this. There is a long answer and a short one to this. I opt for the short one. “I had a childhood,” I say as I go inside to dry off. “But it was a long time ago.”

At last we are given the go-ahead.

Jerry fires up the engine, but Tom makes a face. “Talk sweet to her, Jerry. Don't give her all that throttle at once.”

Jerry replies, “Yeah, man,” but perhaps nervous about losing our place in line, he fires them up again.

“Easy, easy.”

Jerry gives Tom a look. “Actually, I've been in neutral for some time.”

We are looking at the tow that should be leaving the lock and dam. “Oh, boy,” Tom says, “he's standing tall.”

“Is he coming out yet?” I ask, ready to be moving and away from the stagnant heat of the day.

“Shortly,” Jerry says.

“Hey, look,” Tom quips, “things weren't all bad. I got to work on my valve covers and Mary got her swim and you got to growl at us a little.”

“Oh, boy,” Jerry says. “Let's bring her in.”

I'm looking at the Army Corps of Engineer maps, trying to figure out how we skipped Lock and Dam 23 and jumped to 24. Did I miss something? Was 23 somehow only an upstream dam? “Hey, Jer, this is 24, isn't it? What happened to 23?”

“Good question,” Jerry says as he moves into position, ready to enter the lock. “They never built it. They planned for it but decided they didn't need it or something, so, anyway, it doesn't exist. It's a little like that building back in Hannibal—you know, the one Jesse James never robbed cuz they hadn't built it yet.”

We laugh over that as the barge five long and three wide, a total of fifteen barges, comes toward us. After a two-hour wait, we float free. It's a boiling hot, dozy day and we've got fifty river miles to cover. The river opens up again and civilization slips away. A water snake slithers by.

After the lock and dam, the day is hot, very hot. Tom, sweat covering his back, is sorting through his things. “Sir,” he says to Jerry, “did you secure my air mattress after Mary's swim?”

Jerry looks at Tom, twitches his nose. Tom looks at Jerry. “It's not in the dinghy?”

“No, Sir,” Tom says. “It is not.”

I expect Jerry to say “Violation,” but he doesn't. Probably because it's his fault. We all look upriver. I was so happy on that air mattress and now it's gone. I'm hoping some kids, like those boys back in Muscatine, find it and have a good time. But Tom, I see, is crestfallen. It was, after all, his bed. “Well,” Jerry says, “guess we'll have to get another one.”

35

S
HADE ON
the river is a precious thing. You can get it in the morning or late in the day, but in the afternoon, when the sun beats overhead, when the air comes at you like a blast furnace, there is simply nowhere to go. It was what the Indians told Marquette and Joliet to expect. The sun bears down relentlessly. I have come to rely on the breeze off the river to cool us down. But the starboard engine has died. “Gone into a coma,” Jerry says. We pause to fix it near a bank where a bunch of kids are fishing.

I'm baking and can tell from the usual assortment of wrenches and oil cans and what-have-you that this is going to take some time. I never thought I'd be on the river longing for a cloudy day; I thought that in mid-September one would move along with a crisp fall breeze. Just another of my misconceptions.

There is news that the new hurricane has been given a name. We are heading into Rita, which is due to strike Galveston in a few days. We've been listening to the National Weather Service on our marine radio and the signs aren't good. Tom fiddles and bangs and after about an hour we're puttering along in this stinking hot day. Tom's listening to his engines out of his good ear. He cocks his head, a robin with his ear to the ground. “She's clanging a little, Sir,” he says to Jerry. “Still not sure she's taking all her fuel.” He goes back and bangs with a large wrench. Apparently this helps move the fuel along.