Chris Offutt - The Same River Twice - A Memoir

At the river Al asked me to pray with him. We bowed our heads to the dashboard. Frayed stuffing leaked through a crack in the plastic.

“It’s me, God. Your servant, Al. I want to ask my favor of the week. Give this young man a ride. Let him wait no longer than five minutes. And one more thing, God. Please bring Armageddon as fast as you can. I beseech you to bring it before I die. Now is fine, Lord. Amen.”

I left the car, surprised by his humdinger of a prayer. Al reached into a cardboard box and passed me a small jar containing a purebred spider. Breathing holes were punched through the metal lid.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Don’t trust men who smoke a pipe.”

He ground the gears of the old three-on-the-tree and lurched along the highway. The white car scudded into the quivering heat lines and disappeared around a bend. I opened the jar in the dusty grass. The spider walked to the edge and poked a leg out. It faced the world for a few seconds before crawling back into the safety of its glass chapel.

Quite suddenly I was alone with the land, out of the valley and against the river. Shadows darkened the trees as the air cooled. My hackles went higher than a cat’s back. Early crickets sounded ominous, like warning sirens. A muddy feeling in my skin sent me reeling, jerking my head in all directions. Insects were everywhere.

Exactly five minutes later a rental truck spewed gravel on the shoulder and veered to a stop. The orange door bounced open, disgorging a bearded giant dressed in black. He wore a leather vest over a T-shirt emblazoned with a faded American flag; a towering silhouette with the voice of a rusty rake.

“Where you headed for, boy?”

“North.”

“Drive a truck?”

At my nod he spun like a soldier and clambered into the cab. I followed. He cursed, gauged my reaction, and cursed again as introduction.

“My name’s Chris.”

“Wi’er.”

“Like winter and summer?”

“Like loser.”

A fence flowed by the window, tracking my attention. I should have kept the spider. A few miles later Winner cursed and spoke.

“Awake two days straight since getting laid.”

“Mmmm.”

“In the backyard on a picnic table. Preacher’s daughter.” Winner laughed, a chain saw hitting an embedded spike. “Had to strap a two-by-four across my back to keep from falling in. She worked my kickstand all night long.”

Winner had left at dawn with a half-gram of crystal Methedrine that was beginning to wear off after thirty-eight hours.

“What’re we hauling?” I said.

“My scooter. Going home to take care of Mama. Scooter took a fall same day she broke her hip. Have to leave this truck outside of town and ride in. Won’t look right me coming home in a truck. Got to be on my scooter.”

“Sure, Winner. Just like I got to be on my thumb.”

His grin exposed battered teeth. “Ya fucking A!” he screamed, and backhanded me across the chest.

As I struggled to breathe, Winner withdrew a revolver from under the seat and fired out the window. The sound roared against my ears. He winked at me, kissed the shiny wooden grip, and tucked the gun away. The truck cab stank of cordite. Sweat trickled down my sides and I took long, careful breaths. The pistol shot had ignited the final flecks of speed twitching through his body. An extended monologue ensued, difficult to follow at times, littered with laughter and an occasional backhand to my chest. When I saw one coming, I exhaled ahead of impact.

For the past six years Winner had been “in the field” packing grease-soaked weapons in aluminum boxes. Some caches were in caves, others down a well, or simply buried. All over the nation, guns and ammunition lay snuggled in the earth awaiting World War III. Winner was one of many soldiers laying siege to an awful future. He reported the sites to his superiors twice a year, once in Ohio and again in a bayou town of Louisiana.

“We got gasoline and water, food and weapons,” he said. “They don’t fuck with a machine gun!”

“Who, Winner?”

“The commie pricks and mutants, that’s who! If you got food and water, everybody will want it. The mutants first because the commie pricks will be a while getting here. They got to wait for things to settle down. It’ll be messy the first couple of years.”

“But not you.”

“Ya fucking A! I’m a patriot. I’ll have my gas mask and M-16. On the lookout.”

“For commies?”

“For women!” he roared, belting my chest.

Winner launched into an anticommunist diatribe that encircled the globe. Every country was in cahoots against us. They wanted our money, our women, and our motorcycles. Any day we’d be maced by a few hundred rockets, a flock of lethal birds flying west for a long winter. Only scooter shops and girls’ schools would be spared.

“They’re smarter than us, the fucks. The enemy always is. You got to think that way, see. They’ll nail us first, and only one place will be safe.”

“Kentucky?”

“Shit no! They’ll crack Fort Knox like busting a rubber. The only state that won’t be full of fallout is Idaho. Experts figured it out. And Idaho,” he dropped his voice to a ragged whisper. “Idaho is the mother-hole. We got guys there all the time. A city underground.”

“Just getting ready?”

“Ya fucking A! You wanna be a mutant with half a face and green hair. Your kids born blind with no pecker. Living like pigs. It won’t be me!” Winner caressed the knife at his hip. “See this blade, brother. It’s a hollow handle. Inside I got me a couple of Liberation Pills for radiation. If I’m shit creek, all I gotta do is pop them. No shame if your skin’s falling off. Nothing wrong with dying, it’s all in how you go. Battle’s best because when you die strong, you’re stronger in your next life. If you go pansy, you come back worse. It’s a proven fact. Scientists did it. You got to be ready all the time because they might hit today. We won’t know till it’s too late, but they better fucking wait until I see Mama!”

“Uh, Winner. Who all’s in on this?”

“There’s me and my brothers for starts. Back east it’s all farmers. What the fuck are you so nosy for?”

“Maybe you got room for an extra man.”

His right arm snaked across the seat and grabbed my chin. His thumb pressed my jaw while his fingers sank into my cheek. He jerked my head, squinting at me.

“What’s your last name?” he said.

I told him.

“And your mother’s?”

“McCabe.”

“You willing to swear on the flag and Bible you’re solid white? Not a drop of nigger, kike, Mex, A-rab, wop, or Indian in you?”

I nodded until my head hurt and my jaw felt like it was cracking. He released me.

“Sorry, boy,” he said, “but that’s what it’s all about.”

“What?”

“Us.”

That remains the most frightening word I’ve heard uttered in a lifetime of conversation with strangers. Epithets could be dodged, scatology shrugged off. But “us” was chilling. Us meant lynch mobs and gang rape, book burning and genocide. Us was a synonym for control, the grim satisfaction of veracity reflected in a corroded mirror. “Us” implied a “them,” and all thems were ripe for destruction. Aristotle set the precedent: “There are Greeks and there are slaves.”

As suddenly as he had begun, Winner was silent. The amphetamines darted away, stilling his tongue, making him slouch. We were high in the mountains. Clouds piled each other for miles, bellies tinted scarlet by the setting sun. The air turned purple to the east.

“Mutants, spies, and commies.” Winner muttered. “Shoot on sight. Burn the carcass. Stay upwind.”

“Yup.”

“Ya fucking A! They got satellites to take a picture a thousand miles up. See every hair on your ass.”