The River Queen (37 page)

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

A
T 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.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First I must thank Tom Hafner and Jerry Nelson, the best river pilots and most decent guys a girl could stumble upon on a July afternoon in the North Country. I cannot think of a luckier set of circumstances. They made my journey, and this story, happen as it did. I want to thank my brother, John Morris, and his wife, Gloria, for their generous help. And my nephew, Matthew Morris, his wife, Gail, and her family, who showed me around La Crosse and gave me the keys to their house. I am not sure I would have found Tom and Jerry without their efforts or their hospitality.

I want to thank my wonderful agent, Ellen Levine, as always, for her incredible dedication and support. And everyone at Trident Media Group, including Lara Allen and Alanna Ramirez for the enthusiasm and professional expertise they brought to this book. My editor, George Hodgman, has been with me all the way in this project and it is safe to say that this book would not be what it is without George's determination and unflinching eye. I am also indebted to Sarah Lawrence College for a Bogert fund release time grant and the very important assistance it provided.

I want to thank my friends Marc Kaufman for his careful reading of this manuscript, Krin Gabbard who has taught me much of what I know about jazz and shared with me his extensive collection, Anne Adams Lang, who was always on the other end of the phone, Julian Shapiro for the lyrics to songs and favorite paintings, Mary and Philip Elmer-DeWitt for lending me books and magazines I have yet to return, my neighbors Joel and Diana Robinson for the last-minute loan of a duffel and life vest, Jane Supino for being there, even when I tested her, and the Comfortzone on Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn that provided a place where I could sit and work all day. I want to thank Carol Wise whose generosity and almost thirty years of friendship gave me a week's peace and time to think in Mexico.