UPSTREAM

45

IN 1967 a black man was found hanging in a jail cell in Cairo, Illinois, and for Cairo, this was the beginning of the end. Protests erupted. The whites fled and many never returned. Since then the town has struggled. I have read reports about Cairo. The mayor was quoted as saying that what his town needs is a McDonald’s and a mall. But nothing prepared me for the ghost town I saw.

As we pass the Civil War site of Fort Defiance, just up the Ohio, I decide I must stop at Cairo. But there is no courtesy dock so we have to bring the dinghy down. It is the only time we use it, and Jerry is very proud of the way it descends smoothly from the aft transom into the water. Tom and I hop on the dinghy and he drives me up to the levee and leaves me there. I tell him I’ll give a shout when I’m ready for him to come and get me. He gives me a wary look. “You gonna be all right here?”

“I’m going to be fine.”

I walk through the gate in the flood wall onto HISTORIC 8TH STREET. A wrought iron sign arches across the street, and I come to an avenue of boarded-up shops, plate glass shattered on the ground. A corner building on the main street is completely in ruins and in the distance I see another sign that reads HISTORIC DOWNTOWN CAIRO. In the middle of the road is a pedestal for a statue that was never installed. The beauty shop is closed. The flower shop too.

A black man sits on a folding chair in front of a boarded-up building. I say “Good morning” and he doesn’t respond. He doesn’t look away. He doesn’t do anything. Behind him is a storefront where the windows have been soaped to read “Leadership? Cairo? Why?” I pause at the Gem Theater Restoration Project. Which has been halted.

Cairo, Illinois, which sits at the confluence of the Ohio and the Mississippi, used to be one of the most significant towns in the Midwest. During the Civil War it was of great strategic importance. On either side of the rivers were states sympathetic to the Confederate cause. They provided supplies to the Southern troops. Cairo was home to many regiments of the Illinois infantry and served as the staging area for Union army expeditions into Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi.

Now it is a town in ruins. The Mighty River Church is shuttered. In front of it prisoners in orange uniforms are picking up trash. All of them are black. Cairo was a place where many blacks settled after the Civil War. One of the prisoners looks up at me with red, rheumy eyes, and says, “Good morning, Miss,” and I say “good morning” back. Then he returns to picking up trash. In front of an insurance agency I eavesdrop on two men. The one says to the other, “Doing that in a place like this is suicide.”

“What is wrong with Cairo?” I ask a woman at a local newsstand. “Bad government,” she says. I suppose that’s true, but the fact is Cairo hasn’t found its Mark Twain; it hasn’t embraced its Superman. There are no casinos, no waterfront development. The town feels as if it is falling down.

I hear, however, that the Custom House and Old Courthouse have been turned into a museum and I make my way there. The Custom House is indeed filled with tons of artifacts—arrowheads, old wagons, pictures of Cairo’s founding fathers, its Civil War heroes, cradles where children once slept. I’m not there long, browsing, when Fred Shelton, who runs the place, starts telling me his story. I don’t even have to ask for it. Fred, a tall gray-haired man, just starts to talk.

“I moved to Cairo in 1943 with my mom and stepdad. His name was Vernon ‘Turkey’ Curtis and he was a famous baseball player from Chattanooga. He was about 90 percent Illinois Indian and he had a hot temper. He married a woman named Ruth Elizabeth. They had two children. Then he went off to war and when he returned, they divorced. Then he married my mother. Her name was also Ruth Elizabeth. Odd coincidence, no?”

“Oh, that’s a coincidence, all right.” I’m trying not to gaze at my watch, but I know Jerry’s going to want to push off and that Tom will be waiting for me soon with the dinghy, but Fred gives no hint of pausing.

“My mother worked at a fancy restaurant in town and the ballplayers stayed in the hotel. My stepfather played for the Senators and other teams. Anyway, one thing led to another and they got married. We moved up to Cairo when I was nine.…”

“Nine, wow…”

“Yep.” Fred doesn’t skip a beat. “That was a while ago. When I was a kid, Cairo was the most important town in southern Illinois. People came here from Paducah, from Carbondale, on Friday nights. The stores stayed open until nine p.m. and you couldn’t even get a parking spot. People came from Paducah just to people watch. They used to have all kinds of stores—J. C. Penney, Sears, Woolworths. You name it.” I glance around the museum and through the open windows. It is hard to imagine Cairo as the cutting edge of fine fashion. But apparently it was.

“We used to have professional baseball here in Cairo. The Cardinals trained here. The lady who drew the Cardinal logo, she was from Cairo. I was the mail carrier. From 1964 I used to make two trips a day through the business section. I had to load up two or three times. When I retired in 1999 I could carry the mail in one hand. There used to be 30,000 people, then 15,000. Now it’s 3,000. It just went down. When the black people started protesting, the whites left town. I carried the mail all through that time as well. I sat with my wife and kids in the car and watched them firebomb the police station in 1968. I was a boy in Chattanooga and there was a white counter and a black counter. Here you’d get on the bus and the blacks could sit wherever. But after that man was found hung … I guess there’s just hatred everywhere.”

Now it is getting late, but I am reluctant to go. I have a feeling I’m the only person who’s stopped by here in days.

But Fred is cheerful and resilient. “Nice talking to you. You see anybody else out there, you just send ’em around.”

As I’m leaving Cairo I pick up a local events brochure. The next evening there’s a Yard Decorating Contest. “Judging Starts at 6 p.m. Remember the theme, have your decorating completed, and your lights on.” I want to know the theme. I’m dying to know the theme, but nowhere is it written. And then on Saturday it’s the Little Miss Pageant. “Contestants between the ages of 4 and 6 compete for this honor. Come and see cuteness at its finest.” The judging starts at 7. Past my bedtime.

I give Tom a call on his cell and he asks me if I can find some ice on my way back to the dinghy. I do find some in a grocery store and lug two giant sacks on my shoulders, more than I can carry, really, back down Historic 8th Street, through the flood wall opening. I come back to the dinghy and find Tom, waiting for me. “Hey,” he says. “You giving me the cold shoulder?”

He helps me on board. “Hey, we’re not in such a rush,” he says. Then he takes me for an unauthorized ride in the dinghy around the Ohio River for a few minutes, while Jerry, shirtless and perplexed, stares as we whiz by.

46

SOMEHOW WE missed the wicket dam, which is down for high water. A warning in Quimby’s tells us, “Recreational Boats Advised That Navigation Is Hazardous During These Times and Should Be Avoided.” “Well, great,” Jerry says. “We just went over it.”

Jerry has been avoiding sharing something with me, but now he does. “We don’t have any more maps. Just the Quimby’s,” he says.

By maps he means navigational maps. We don’t have any detailed drawings of the Ohio or the Tennessee. What we have from the Army Corps of Engineers stops at Cairo. We were never planning on going this far. “Will we be okay?”

Jerry shrugs. “If nothing bad happens, we’ll be fine.”

“Right…”

Approaching Lock and Dam 53 we have to lock through no matter what. A tow who doesn’t speak Cajun passes and tells us he’ll take us on starboard on two whistles. He’s loaded with manure and we aren’t exactly upwind. We pass Harrah’s casino as we’re looking for a dock, but don’t see a place to tie up. Heading farther downstream, I’m tired and the day feels long. Suddenly I see that we are slowing down. I look up and there is, well, a fort. A real fort, or so it seems. It looks so much like a real fort that I anticipate the U.S. cavalry coming to our aid. And to my great joy I see that we are mooring here.

“Can I stretch my legs?” I ask.

“Well, considering that we have six double barges ahead of us, I don’t see why not.”

I look and see them all lined up. Half a dozen of them and they’re riding low and heavy. Technically, if we’re willing to wait a while, they’ll put us through, but who knows how long that wait might be? “Does that mean we’re here for the night?”

Jerry nods. “Unless traffic suddenly eases up, guess so.”

I head up to visit the fort on shaky legs. It has been a long day from our beachhead on the Mississippi to here. I make my way up a road through a grove of hills to the visitor’s center, which is closed, but I pick up a brochure, slightly sodden and mildewed, that sits in a little Lucite box. I read the following: “The replica of the 1802 American fort was finished in October of 2003. The new replica replaces the 1794 American fort built 30 years ago. The 1794 fort had been a reproduction of the first American fort built at Fort Massac. The 1802 fort was selected to replace the 1794 fort.”

Okay, when is the exam? I’m sure there’s a niche industry for writers willing to compose local tourist pamphlets, but I’m not applying for the job. Crossing a wooden bridge and a dry moat, I enter the fenced-in compound. It is almost dusk on a fall evening and yet the fort is wide open. It is what one would expect—rustic, made of logs—but actually quite lovely.

It is growing darker and amber lights go on. I am alone with this replica of the past until suddenly a bus arrives. I’m hoping for reenactors. I see from the brochure that there are all kinds of “Living History” programs here. “French and Indian War reenactors are welcome.” You can actually take a basic training class for “French soldiers and militia during the 1760s” that includes military drills, mock battles, and camp life.

But for now it’s just kids. They race into the fort and surround me. They’re whooping it up and I am overrun. I assume it is a history lesson as I slip away. Sometimes in the half light of dusk, I still see Kate as a child. It’s hard to grasp that that little girl who raced through fields is no more.

It’s late when I get back to the boat and I can see a houseboat coming up alongside ours. Jerry is talking to their captain. Apparently this houseboat, named It’s Magic, sees the same problem with the lock ahead we saw. I hear their captain ask Jerry, “Can we tie up to you for the night?”

This is proper houseboat etiquette, unlike that of the unfortunate Bronx Cheer encounter. “Sure,” Jerry says. “Do you have a bottle of wine?” He’s joking, but they say they do. “Good, because my second officer here could use some.”

I am delighted by this exchange, thrilled to be referred to as second officer, though actually this makes me the last officer, and almost equally delighted even as they hand me a nice warm bottle of pink zinfandel. My fave. They introduce themselves. Ron and Lizzie are from Indiana and they are doing the Great Loop. Their boat is an elegantly appointed houseboat but with a cruiser engine. It has a fancy white vinyl couch and they invite us to come on board for a drink. Tom doesn’t want to go. He’s shy of rich people with big boats. But Jerry agrees.

We climb onto their boat and rest ourselves in wicker lounge chairs as Ron pours the pink zinfandel. “So,” he says, “I see you folks are on a houseboat too. Well we’ve been coming down from Lake Michigan. We started in Muskegon.”

“We started up in La Crosse,” Jerry says.

“We’re going to take a whole year. I took a leave from my law firm. Well, it really is my law firm. That is, I started it, so I guess I can walk away from it for a while, can’t I, Honey?”

Lizzie looks at him adoringly and smiles. “Of course you can.”

“I can do whatever I want. Worked hard enough to get to this point, so I’m going to enjoy it, right?” He gazes at us through his somewhat beady eyes.

We sip some of the sweet, syrupy zinfandel, but after a few minutes Jerry leaves, saying he’s got work to do on the boat. I look at my watch. It’s almost nine o’clock and I’m sure he doesn’t have any work to do. I’m also sure he doesn’t like this guy very much but I’m intrigued and glad to be sitting in a wicker chair on an elaborate white vinyl deck with Burt Bacharach on the stereo.

After Jerry’s gone, Ron turns to me. “Do you believe in meant to be’s?”

“Sure,” I tell him. And I do.

“Well, I just have a feeling about you, Mary. I think we were supposed to meet.” As he says this, it begins to rain. Ron looks up at the heavens. “Do you ever feel that way?”

“Well, I think we can know things. I think some things are supposed to happen.…”

“I know exactly what you mean.”

“You know,” I tell him, “once my daughter was getting on a ride at Coney Island. She stood in line for forty-five minutes for that ride and all of a sudden I went berserk. I started shouting at her that she can’t go on that ride. I make my husband go and get her and everyone is angry at me. Then a few weeks later I open the newspaper and see that two children were killed on that very ride.”

Ron nods thoughtfully. “Are you a Christian, Mary?” he asks me.

I decide to answer honestly. “No, I am not.”

I expect he might ask me what I am, or display a shred of interest in my response, but he does not. “Neither am I,” he says, staring deep into my eyes. We are coconspirators now. “I’m a heathen. I’ve lived many times before. I’m a sorcerer. I traffic in white magic.” Why me? I want to ask. Why do I wind up with guys like this? But he goes on. “In a previous life I was a Viking. I have raped and pillaged. I have done horrible things I am not proud of and I have gone through several life cycles of repentance.”

His sweet wife, Lizzie, gazes at him with adoring eyes. Clearly she has heard this before and is unfazed.

I suppose this beats alien abduction, but I am at a loss for words. I only know I’m on their boat in the dark and Tom and Jerry are nowhere to be seen. They’ve probably gone off into the woods to pee. And I’ll never see them again. “How do you know you are a sorcerer?” I ask, trying to be polite.

He gazes at his wife. “Shall I tell her?”

Lizzie smiles demurely. “I think you can.”

“Well, you see, one day, a few years ago, I was driving and there was this guy, riding my tail. He annoyed me and I threw my hand back, just in an impatient gesture, you understand.…” I assume this is the sorcerer’s equivalent of flicking someone the bird. “And all of a sudden I heard this big boom and I looked back and saw that his engine had caught fire and exploded.”

“Wow,” I say, my eyes popping out of my head.

“I’ve done this one or two other times. You know, when someone really deserved it, but since then I’ve had to be very careful. I have to learn how to manage my anger. I can’t just go do that anymore, can I, Lizzie?”

Lizzie shakes her head. “You certainly cannot.”

“I’ve known about my powers for a while. I try to use them sparingly. I try to help people. Tell them if they are in danger, if they are safe.”

The zinfandel is starting to make me swoon. Outside I can hear a driving rain. I am wondering how I can make my exit gracefully. “So am I in danger? Am I safe?” I am trying not to make these questions seem rhetorical.

Ron reaches across and puts my hands in his chubby fists. His hands are exceptionally warm and at any moment I expect to be vaporized. He closes his eyes and begins to hyperventilate. Then he stares at me with piercing eyes. “You are safe for now,” he tells me in a deep preacher’s voice. “But you are very very lucky. This time you were lucky. I cannot say what will happen next.”

And all I can think is that I am very lucky that I didn’t wind up on his boat. I am very lucky that Tom and Jerry aren’t nut jobs or psychos and I am willing them to come rescue me. I’m starting to think about what to do next when I see Jerry poking his head over the side. “Hi there, Mary. Just wondering what you’re up to.”

“Oh, I was thinking of coming back.”

“Well, we’ve got some dinner ready.”

I look at him puzzled. I know this is a lie. Jerry would never have dinner ready. I want to leap up and hug him, but I remain calm. “Oh,” I say to the sorcerer and his wife, “my captain calls. Guess I’d better go.”

He clasps my hand in his and I anticipate self-immolation. Instead he helps me off the ladder of his boat onto mine. When I land on our deck, I gaze at Jerry. “I thought you might need rescuing,” he says.

“He’s a sorcerer,” I tell Tom and Jerry when we finally sit down for a bite. “In his previous life he was a Viking.”

Tom and Jerry look at me askance. “Sure, Mary, of course he is.”

“Give me a little potato vodka,” Tom says, “and I’m a sorcerer too.”

47

FASTER THAN a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Look up in the sky. It’s a bird; it’s a plane; it’s Superman. How is it that I distinctly recall such adages of my youth? The Jiminy Cricket song. “You are a human animal.…” Or Roy Rogers on Trigger, crooning “Happy Trails.” These things stick like glue in my head. Like childhood itself. So when I saw that Metropolis, Illinois, is on our way up the Ohio, I told Jerry we had to stop.

Metropolis, Illinois, is the only town in America named Metropolis. In the early 1970s when other river towns, such as Cairo just downstream, were dying, Metropolis was looking for a public relations plug. For years since Superman’s inception as a comic book character in 1938, the Metropolis post office had been receiving mail addressed to Superman, Metropolis, USA. So, with huge fanfare, the town leaders decided that the way to secure their future was to adopt Superman and declare their town his.

In the middle of Metropolis a twelve-foot statue of Superman looms and there is a Superman museum and I want to see it, though neither of the boys do. I push on alone. It’s a chilly morning, perhaps not much more than fifty. Last night’s storm brought a cold front down from the north. A promise of fall, or even winter in the air. As I walk, I anticipate phone booths where you could make a quick change into your red cape and jersey, but Metropolis is a fairly ordinary hamlet. There is a good-size grocery store within walking distance of the boat, right outside the fort, and I intend to avail myself of supplies later on.

I stroll the four or five blocks into town, pausing for a visit at the Metropolis Planet. Because it is a weekly, the town newspaper cannot call itself the Daily Planet, but along with the adoption of Superman, the local newspaper changed its name. I pick up a few copies of the Metropolis Planet, along with a souvenir copy, for which I paid five dollars, telling about how it came to be that Metropolis, Illinois, became home to a superhero.

Outside of the Superman museum there’s actually a phone booth and a sign for the Daily Planet. Let’s face it; the guys who have played Superman haven’t had much luck. Some have postulated that there is a curse on those who take on the Superman role, and two of them have been named, coincidentally, Reeves and Reeve. Christopher Reeve suffered a tragic horseback riding accident that left him paralyzed, but George Reeves is another story.

In the 1950s his star was rising. He took the part of Superman and was typecast from then on. When the television series ended in 1959, Reeves fell on hard times. He was found with a single bullet wound to the head on June 16, 1959, three days before he was to be married. The coroner’s office declared it a suicide. But there were no fingerprints on the gun. No powder burns to the head. The shell gun casing was found under the body and the gun was at his feet. Downstairs his fiancée and guests were waiting for him to come to dinner. Los Angeles murder buffs have never come to a consensus on what really happened to George Reeves. But both Noel Neill, who played Lois Lane, and Jack Larsen, who played Jimmy Olsen, believed it was foul play.

The Superman museum, however, doesn’t dwell on such things. There are no suggestions of mob hits, jealous lovers, or cover-ups, all of which the buffs have posited. This is a place of memorabilia. Everything that has ever happened to Superman or had his face on it, they’ve got. Buttons, comic books, dolls, paintings, statuettes, costumes, stills from Superman movies, including both George and Christopher flying through space, and other would-be Supermen performing various amazing feats. In the end, given that I’m not much of a superhero girl myself, I grow bored of looking at the buttons and seeing the sad faces of the young couple who work there. I buy a few postcards for the children in my life who still believe they can fly, and leave.

As I head back past the giant statue of Superman that looms over the town, I stop at the grocery store and buy, among other things, olive oil. A pointless purchase, really, as we only have a day or so left. As I walk by Fort Massac, prisoners in black-and-white prison stripes and matching hats chop trees and pile the wood. After a few minutes their guard gives them a command and the men line up and march, single file, into a waiting van.

48

THREE MILES north of Paducah, Kentucky, we lock through. This time because we are going upstream, we rise ten feet. I hold the line and Jerry shows me once again how to loop it through. On the radio the lockmaster calls us, “Northbound Friend Ship, come in on your port side. You’ll need all your bumpers and fenders out and two twenty-five-foot lines.”

“Roger,” Jerry says. We’ve never had to use our own lines before, or put all our fenders and bumpers down, but Jerry explains that each lock and each lockmaster has its own rules and regulations. “Tom, get us two lines.”

Tom starts to secure the bowline and Jerry snaps at him. “Not the bowline. We’ve got loose lines. I don’t want to risk our bowline.”

Tom shrugs and looks up at me. “Same difference,” he mumbles, but Jerry hears him.

“Not the same,” he says. “Safety first. We need the bowlines.”

Tom and I go about gathering two twenty-five-foot lines, which we loop around two bollards as we lock through. We’re running low on fuel and Jerry is getting nervous about this. We assume there’s a fuel dock in Paducah, but as we come to Paducah, and pass it, we don’t see a fuel dock.

About half a mile past Paducah, we see what looks like a fueling platform. “What about there?” I ask Jerry.

“Worth a shot.”

As we approach the platform, we see it is covered in cables and old tires and made of wooden slats. A guy in greasy overalls works there alone. “Hello!” Jerry calls, but the guy ignores us. “Excuse me!” Jerry says, and the worker turns away.

We pull up alongside despite the very obvious cold shoulder. “I’m sorry to bother you. I see how much you’re working here,” Jerry says, “but we’re low on fuel. Can you help us out?”

“Nope,” is our one-word reply. This is starting to feel like an outtake from Deliverance and Tom and Jerry are uncomfortable as well.

“Know where we can?”

“Twenty-two miles south at Kentucky Dam.”

We look at one another. “We aren’t going to make that,” Jerry says.

“Can’t we just get gas from a gas station?” I ask them, and they nod. It seems that we can. “So … why don’t we?”

Tom and Jerry agree that we’ll go back to Paducah, where there’s a courtesy dock. We’ll tie up there and see if we can’t figure out how to take our gas drums to the nearest gas station. None of us is very optimistic, but it’s worth a shot.

Paducah, Kentucky, is a pretty hip town. Known for its harness racing at the Players Bluegrass Downs, it also has lots of cute shops, restaurants, old cobblestone streets, and a river history museum. This is the place where John Banvard began his artistic career modestly enough on the banks of the Ohio.

Tom plans to try and rustle up some gasoline. He never wants to explore or see where we are. He wants to be near the boat, his dog, and his engines, and he seems content with this. It is a chilly morning as we leave him and Jerry and I head off to visit the river museum. Afterward we stop in the Bayou Cajun Restaurant for some takeout. While we’re waiting, we decide to have a beer. Though it’s only a little after noon, the bar is open and there’s a couple of regulars (you just know they are regulars) in jean jackets. One has no teeth. We take a pint of what’s on draft and I must admit, though it is the middle of the day, the cold beer tastes good.

There are various stuffed animals—a monkey crawling up a rope, a stuffed frog—and I compliment the bartender on her taste in stuffed animals. “Oh, these ain’t just stuffed animals,” the man with no teeth says, “show her Big Mouth Bill Bass.”

She takes down this fish, mounted on a piece of wood, winds something, and the bass starts to sing, “Take me to the river, drop me in the water,” its thick red lips flapping. When she sees I am laughing hysterically, she pulls a frog down and he sits in front of me, singing “It’s a Wonderful World” in an excellent Louis Armstrong rendition.

As we get back to the boat, Tom is happily pouring gasoline into the engines. “I got gas,” he says, clearly pleased with himself. “I got gas.” He tells us he was walking to find a gas station and a woman stopped him. She asked if he had a boat and was he looking for gasoline. He replied he was.

“It’s a disgrace we don’t have a gas dock in Paducah,” this woman said.

“She made two trips with me,” Tom tells us. “She even waited while I filled up, then took me back for more.” He pauses, shaking his head as he’s gassing up. “That’s the kind of people you want to meet on the river,” Tom says.

49

A FEW more miles up the Ohio and the river forks. We make our turn onto the Tennessee and I feel this trip is coming to an end for me. Perhaps it already ended when we left our little campsite on the Mississippi and turned onto the Ohio. I felt a spirit leave me then. This Tennessee River is wide and beautiful, but I have left something behind. For a time I had found home. Now I am once again on my way.

Tom agrees with me. As we sit on the flybridge, he says he wasn’t “a fan” of the Ohio. He wants his river back. I’m nodding as Samantha Jean gets out of her bomber jacket and stands, whining, at my feet. I decide to give it a try. “Okay, Sammy girl, big jump,” and she propels herself from the floor into my arms.

The dog nestles in my lap as Tom pilots straight ahead. I think he’s a bit stunned and perhaps a little jealous that his ornery dog has found her way onto my lap. As the sun starts to go down, a chill is in the air. It’s been our coldest day yet, anyway, but now with the sun dropping it’s just cold. Jerry won’t let me navigate here because we are traveling without maps in uncharted terrain, and I find myself growing colder and bored, even with Samantha Jean on my lap.

Even the landscape is altered. Here it is all flat. The reddish brown beaches of the delta. It is dusk as we near the Kentucky Dam. I am topside, catching the fading light, and I see right away that we’ve got two barges ahead of us, going downriver. That’s at least a two-hour wait. Quimby’s warned us of this. They said that this is the busiest lock on the river and long delays are possible.

This doesn’t seem to bother the boys, but I am anxious to be on our way. Jerry and Tom are gabbing back and forth and I can hear their guffaws, which I’ve grown weary of now. I am tired of the confines of this space. It’s cold and there’s nowhere to go. I sit on my yoga mat, wrapped in my moon and stars flannel blanket on the flybridge. Silver fish are jumping as the sun is setting on the Tennessee. On the shore a blue heron stalks them. After the sun goes down, it’s too cold to stay on top and I go below. I find Tom, sitting silently on the bow, staring at the lock. “It’s our last lock,” he says.

I nod. It’s true, it is. “I guess I don’t want this trip to end,” he says. He’s got Samantha Jean wrapped up in his jacket like a baby in a Snugli. Even in the dark I can see his eyes well up. “Do you want to talk about it?” I ask him.

“Naw,” he says. “Not now.” He gets up and leaves. A few minutes later I hear him topside, making his bed, and before I know it, he’s laughing with Jerry over something someone I’ve never met before said.

At 7:30 it’s pitch-black and there’s a tow named the Tennessee Hunter with a six-hundred-foot barge, filled with sand and gravel. We are moving into position ahead of it, but still waiting for another barge to clear. Tom wants to drop anchor, but Jerry says we’ll idle here. “Really?” Tom says.

“Yeah, I think so.”

The big black barge moves into place behind us. “We’ll get through after this tow. Tom, check the aft light over the transom. Make sure she’s on. Looks like the Tennessee Hunter’s just gonna hang back.”

The lockmaster comes on to our radio. “Friend Ship, hold back to port in case he has to reverse.” I’m watching Jerry hang back as we start to swing into the levee.

“Let’s try an anchor,” he says to Tom. “Which way’s the wind coming from?”

“Across the port bow,” Tom says.

“Okay, let’s throw an anchor over her port bow,” and Tom throws it. In the darkness we hear it splash.

“I’m gonna leave her running because we’re awfully close to shore.”

Tom seems nervous and I can tell he doesn’t like the look of this. “We’re getting some current here, Sir. It’s from the lock. She’s really kicking up bubbles and pushing us back. Shove your ass that way,” Tom says, pointing in the opposite direction we are drifting.

“I’m going to try and move us from the shore.” Jerry looks concerned as we are drifting closer and closer to the shore.

“Want me to pull the anchor?”

“If you can. Yeah, they must be draining the lock and the valves are pushing us into the shore.”

Jerry revs the engines and Tom tugs on the anchor line. “Okay, now we’re off the shore.”

“Just kick back.” Then more sharply to Tom, “Just kick back! Let me do this.” After he’s made his maneuver he looks sheepishly at Tom. “Sorry. I just wanted concentration.…”

“Rock ’n’ roll,” Tom says. “Hey, that Tennessee Hunter, he’s hanging way back.…”

It appears that Tennessee Hunter is going to perform the river courtesy of letting us go ahead of him. He could easily come in with us or exert his right-of-way as a commercial vessel, but he chooses to hang back and after a two-and-a-half-hour wait we proceed into Kentucky Lake. We enter a huge, dark pool of water, illumined with amber lights, where we will rise fifty-seven feet. The gates of the lock are an eerie golden color as suddenly the water begins to pour into the lock.

We find ourselves on a roiling sea. The water, the color of pea soup, literally swirls beneath us, boiling up. It is the kind of water where you know if you fell in, you’d be sucked down, and we all quickly put on our life jackets and Tom hurls Samantha Jean into the cabin. We churn in this cauldron from hell, a pit from which it seems we will be pulled down. We rise higher and higher in this bubbling broth until suddenly the churning stops. Everything is calm as if nothing was ever wrong. The yellow gates open and the siren blares. We sail into the blackened night.

We are looking for the Kentucky Dam Marina. But we have come onto a huge lake in the darkest of nights. Across the lake we see lights, but they are far away. Closer to where we are there is an inlet and more lights. “Well,” Jerry says, “which way should we go?”

Across the lake looks very far in this darkness so we opt for the closer inlet. It is close to midnight as our River Queen floats into a marina, filled with hundreds of sailboats. Tom and Jerry shake their heads. It’s the wrong place, but we’re all too tired and cold to go anywhere else now. We find a slip at the dock and tie up. Tom hands me the bowline. “You do it,” he says. “I’ll take the stern.”

I’m exhausted and shivering, holding the line in my hand. I wrap it a few times around the cleat, then try to remember “the rabbit.” Down, out, around, in. I do it once and it doesn’t seem right. Angling myself for better light, I try again. Tom comes by as I finish and yanks the line. “That’ll hold,” he says, adjusting the fenders. It is a cold clear night with just a crescent moon. The sails around us clang into their masts like hundreds of wind chimes.

50

AT SIX in the morning there’s frost on the glass. The cabin is freezing cold, except right in front of the space heater Jerry’s dug up from the hold, which smells of gas. I huddle down inside my sleeping bag. But Jerry’s stirring about, putting on water for our tea bag coffee, so I get up. Outside I hear the clanging as wind blows through sails. I gaze out and see the dozens and dozens of boats, their sails flapping in the wind. It is clear we are at the wrong marina. We need fuel and a pump out. I haven’t had a shower, a real shower, in six days. I don’t mean hot water either. I just mean relatively clean water that comes from above and falls over my head.

No matter what, we need to find the Kentucky Dam Marina, which is probably across the lake. I’m so cold I put on all my heavy clothes, which isn’t a lot. There’s a lighthouse on a spit of land and I walk there. I take my binoculars to see if I can see the marina. The sunshine feels warm, but I can almost see my breath.

On the dock, lines are coiled in an orderly fashion like garden snakes. The sailboats have such earnest names, like Relentless, Persistence, Tranquillity. There’s nothing fun or playful here. No Ms. Chief, Mint-to-Be, or Naughty Buoys at this marina. I go out through the gate and head along the short trail to the lighthouse. With my binoculars I spot what looks like a marina far across the blue stretch of lake. The wind is blowing and I’m shivering as I head back and find that someone has shut the gate and I’m locked out.

I start to shout for Jerry, but it’s not even seven in the morning and I’m sure people are asleep on their boats. I call him on his phone, but he doesn’t answer. I wait a few moments for someone to come. At last Jerry answers and comes and gets me. When I return to the boat, Tom is sitting on the bow, eating a pepperoni pizza. He has another one cooking in the oven. He’s on his third can of diet Dew. “Breakfast,” he says. “Missed dinner last night.”

There’s something about the smell of pepperoni pizza at seven a.m. that doesn’t sit well with me. Still, I help myself to a slice.

“I have an idea,” I say. “While you guys gas up and pump out at Kentucky Dam, I’ll take a shower.”

“I have an idea,” Tom says. “Why don’t we all wait and take showers at Paris Landing?”

“Because I want a shower now.”

“Well, I say we all take showers at the same time.”

We huff and I walk away. Tom does too and for the next half hour we don’t speak. We are preparing to leave, untying our lines. As we are about to push off, Tom turns to me. “I guess I was kinda testy.”

“No, I was being selfish,” I tell him.

“I just don’t want this trip to end,” he tells me.

“I don’t either.” Then we finish up with our chores.

*   *   *

An hour later we are riding across Kentucky Lake to the marina where we will pump out and gas up. We will also all take showers. The sun starts to warm up the day and we aren’t in a rush. I meet a man who tells me he’s sailing around the world.

“Sailing?” I ask him.

“Yes, in a sailboat.” He’s a short, stocky, gray-haired man with a mustache, and he doesn’t exactly look like a sailor.

“How long are you going to spend?”

“Four years.”

I am stunned. “Four years.” He starts to tell me his route. Down the Mississippi to Florida, Florida across the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, the Mediterranean to Africa. Around the tip of Africa. I am completely amazed and now my little journey feels paltry in comparison. “Can I see your boat?”

“Sure,” he says.

As we’re walking over, I ask if he’s going alone. “Oh, no, my wife and our daughter are coming with.”

I find it incredible that a daughter would want to spend four years sailing with her parents. “It’s nice that your daughter wants to come with.”

“Oh, she doesn’t have much choice.”

“She doesn’t?”

“No, she’s fifteen.”

Now I am really stunned. I can’t imagine taking my daughter out of high school. And when I see their boat—a rather small, black sailboat with no real deck topside—I truly can’t believe it. The wife and daughter come out of the hull to greet me. The wife is a large, blond woman and their daughter has a weak handshake and dark eyes.

“We’re homeschooling her. She’s doing the ACE program,” her father explains when they’ve gone back below.

“ACE?”

“Accelerated Christian Education.”

“Really…” I’m trying to imagine what this would be like—to be homeschooled with your Christian education, or any education for that matter, by your parents in the hull of a boat as you sail across the Atlantic. I would never get my daughter on board. As I head back to our boat, I feel sorry for that girl. I still feel her limp hand in mine and sometimes at night I think of her, drifting at sea.

I think of our empty house. Our daughter gone. I recall a night when she was a little girl. I was tucking her in. Like my father I always read to Kate and sang her a song. As I was turning off the light, she said, “I love you more than anything, Mommy.”

“And why is that?” I asked her.

Without hesitating, she replied, “Because you let me be what I want to be.”

I closed her door behind me and breathed a deep sigh. This is what I wanted for her. When I get home from this journey, the house will not be filled with her blaring music and mess, her night owl hours and raucous laughter. But I know she’ll be back—in whatever form that might be.

*   *   *

In the late afternoon we set out across Kentucky Lake. It is a beautiful, warm, sunny day now and the lake is big and wide. Though we still have no maps, Jerry doesn’t mind letting me pilot. At the Blood River I take the helm. With my binoculars I navigate the red and green buoys. As we are going upstream on the Tennessee, it’s red buoys right. Tom and I are stunned by the beauty. “We had to come through the gates of hell to get to this paradise,” he says.

We’re at Mile 61.4 and our journey ends just a few miles ahead. I want to slow it down, but Tom, who stands beside me, gazing out across the river, says, “We’ve got issues.”

“We do…?”

He lists them for me. “We’ve got an oil leak, a crack in the manifold. The carburetor’s gotta come out. I’m not sure how long the fuel pump’s gonna hold.” Tom leans back, puts his feet up. “You know what I’m going to do when I get home? I’m going to sit back and put my feet up and rewind.”

I smile at Tom. “That’s a great idea. I think I need to rewind too.”

“Yeah,” Tom says, smiling as he gazes upriver. “We all do.” As I steer between buoys, he starts to muse. “I guess you’ve seen it all on this trip, haven’t you, Mary? You’ve seen hooters and shakers. You’ve been in tornadoes and hurricanes and lightning storms and bugs. You’ve bivouacked on beaches and swam in the river’s mud. You’ve met sorcerers and sea captains, river rats and gypsies. You’ve seen its tired towns and you’ve been in God’s Country. What more could you ask for?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know, Tom. I really don’t know.” We ride in silence for a few moments. Then he says, “You okay if I go below?”

He has never asked to go below before when I’m at the helm. I look at the wide Kentucky Lake. There’s nothing ahead; nothing behind. Just open river. I tell him I’m fine. “Sure, go ahead.” And with that Tom leaves me. When he gets below, Jerry must realize I’m at the wheel, but he doesn’t take her below. I’m alone at the helm for the first time. No one’s with me, no one telling me what to do. Only Samantha Jean is topside, asleep in her black bomber jacket, dreaming in the sun. What was it Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean says about a boat? That it’s not just a rudder and keel and a hull. “What a ship is, what a ship really is, is freedom.”

“The moon belongs to everyone,” my father used to croon, his head tilted back, “the best things in life are free.” His hands glide up and down the keys. “And love can come to anyone.” I hear his voice, slightly cracking, a little off-key. He plays a stride with his left hand, keeping the melody with his right. His foot on the pedal as he holds the beat.

I need to find a way to put his bones to rest. My brother still talks of scattering them at the Sportsman’s Country Club golf course in suburban Illinois. I’m torn between downtown Chicago and Prospect Park in Brooklyn where I live. But my father doesn’t know anyone in Brooklyn besides me, I tell myself. He always wanted to be free. I understand this. On some level he wanted none of the encumbrances. I want my own kind of freedom as well.

Then it comes to me. Perhaps he’d like his ashes to mingle with the river. The one we left a few days back. Perhaps somewhere between Hannibal or Quincy. The place where Huck could’ve taken Jim, were it not for the sake of a story. I’ll find that island. Or one that looks like a place where cattle grazed. In the spring when the water is high and rushing, I’ll bring him home.

Kentucky Lake casts its spell. It is so wide and open and blue. I ease the throttle back and slow her down a little, not enough so even Tom can tell. I’m not in a rush to get anywhere and nobody even bothers to ask me what I’m doing. With binoculars around my neck, I navigate the buoys. A heron rises, skimming the water off my port side.

As I steer alone down the middle of Kentucky Lake, I’m reminded of a conversation I had with Tom a few days before. It was another sunny day like this, close to dusk. A sun-drenched evening and I was piloting through a series of bends. I was asking him about his life and what it was like, living as he did in his houseboat in all seasons. Wasn’t he cold in winter? Didn’t the bugs bother him in summer? He just shook his head the way he always did. “I’ve made my home on this river,” Tom told me. “I’ve given it my life.”

“It must be hard,” I replied.

He shook his head again, with that twinkle in his eye. “It’s a hard life,” he said. “And it’s a happy life. It’s an easy life. It’s a sad life. Hey!” He bumped me on the arm in that evening light in what now seems like a long time ago. “Maybe that’s your ending, Mary? Maybe your story should stop right here.”

Maybe it should. Maybe it does. I hear the clang of footsteps on the ladder as Tom and Jerry come topside. We are coming to a bridge and on the other side is Paris Landing, where our journey will end. I’m assuming Jerry wants to take the wheel, but instead they both stand, side by side, staring into the blue of Kentucky Lake. As I’m making a diagonal to the bridge, Jerry says, “Take her straight for the middle.”

I shake my head. “I’ve got a red buoy at ten o’clock, Sir.” I point across the lake, almost to the other shore.

Tom and Jerry are silent for a moment. Hesitantly Tom agrees. “She’s right, Sir.”

Jerry nods, never looking my way. “Then proceed as you are.”