Chris Offutt - The Same River Twice - A Memoir

I lifted my hands into the air as wind came from every direction, twisting the poncho around my face. A tremendous gust lifted my feet. My body tipped over the bay, held by wind to the railing, while my legs lifted behind me. For several seconds I hung in the air, waiting for the blast that would crush me like the pelican. I screamed at the hurricane, daring it to come, cursing it for its refusal.

The wind shifted and my legs dropped, knees striking the concrete. Another gust pinned me to the rail. I shrieked, unable to hear myself. The wind slowed as Jacob’s tentacle followed its spiral path. In the sudden rain I realized I was crying, utterly frustrated by my failure to be defeated. I went to my room and took a shower for the first time in three days. My eyes hurt from airborne grit. I turned off the radio and lay shivering in bed, disappointed to be stuck with life.

Jacob was gone by morning.

Sunlight sparkled the water beneath a pristine sky. The hurricane had sucked the clouds into its bowels and the air was clear as that of a desert. The water had receded a few feet, leaving sodden mud where grass had been, flecked with debris. The Heron’s awning was stripped away. The boat held three feet of water in which a long snake swam from port to starboard, seeking exit. Dead fish lay on land. As I climbed the steps of the breezeway, an alligator walked across the parking lot, tail scraping the tar, an egret in its mouth.

The bay lay motionless, filled with trees, planks, and a dead manatee. I shinnied up the framework for my notebook. It was damp but safe. In the dining room Bucky and Dirt were sweeping the floor. Bucky grinned at me.

“Knew we were fine,” he said.

“Shut up,” Dirt said. “My head hurts.”

Rafe squealed from the kitchen amid the sound of stainless steel pots crashing to the floor. Another voice began yelling in Spanish.

“Grab a broom,” Bucky said to me.

“I’m quitting.”

“Now’s the best time to be here,” he said. “No bugs. No tourists. No humidity.”

“You owe me for six days.”

“The hurricane doesn’t count.”

I stepped close enough that he couldn’t wield the broom.

“It counts,” I said.

Bucky tried to grin, then looked at Dirt, who stared at me. Both smelled bad and needed shaves. Their clothes were as dirty as mine.

“Six days’ pay,” Bucky said. “What’s that after room and board? About sixty dollars.”

I nodded.

“I’ll give you time and a half to help clean up. We got us a triple damn mess here.”

I shook my head. Rose stepped through the batwing kitchen doors. Her eye patch was damp.

“You got no way to leave,” she said. “If you don’t work here, you’re nothing but a tourist. You’ll have to rent a room.”

“How much is a room?”

“About sixty dollars.”

Dirt watched me carefully. I looked at the wreckage in the room, knew the park would stink from rotting animals by nightfall. None of it had anything to do with me.

“Okay,” I said.

“Okay, what?” said Rose.

“Yeah,” Dirt said. “Okay, what?”

His expression was one of genuine curiosity mixed with anger. I looked at him while I spoke, keeping my voice flat. Any trouble would come from him. I didn’t really care, but I didn’t need a sucker punch either.

“All I want is my pay.”

“Suit yourself,” the woman said. “Pay him, Bucky. He better be gone by noon.”

“He will,” Dirt said. “With me. I’ll draw my check too. I hate this fucking place.”

“Leave and I’ll make a phone call,” she said. “The state boys’ll be waiting on you.”

“I’ll come straight back here,” Dirt said. “I can outrun any car they got and I’ll ride my bike across your other leg. If you set me up, it’ll be worth it.”

She stepped backwards and bumped into the kitchen doors. They swayed in, swung back, and bounced against her. She stumbled on her false leg.

“Bucky,” she said. “Fire them.”

“Well, I’m afraid they already quit.”

He chuckled and Dirt began to laugh. I joined them and we left the dining room together. Bucky paid us cash and shook our hands.

“She won’t stay buffaloed long,” he said to Dirt. “You better skedaddle.”

“If I get caught,” Dirt said, “I’ll leave you out of it. But tell her she was aiding and abetting.”

Dirt roped my backpack to a chrome spiderweb on the motorcycle’s sissy bar. He straddled the bike, kicked the starter, and I climbed on the back. He popped a wheelie and we entered the mangroves.

Twice we stopped for snakes and three times for high water. Birds were dead in the boughs of trees. With the moisture gone from the air, the sun illuminated everything with a clarity both frightening and lovely. We passed three rainbows that plunged into the swamp. Coming around a sharp curve, we surprised an alligator herding her young across the road. Dirt braked and swung to the left. As we shot by, one of the babies turned its head. For the merest fraction of a second we looked directly at each other. The little alligator seemed as surprised as I was.

A few miles farther, we stopped for a giant sea turtle slowly dragging its way along the road. Dirt broke a stick and jabbed the turtle toward the water. It left a sinuous path across the tar.

“Fucker’s lost,” Dirt said

“Why’d you give me a lift?”

“I don’t know. Sick of her lording it over me.”

“That wasn’t a CB in my room.”

“I know. I broke in the next day. You’re a sick fuck, in there talking to it.”

“Nobody else would.”

“You were a narc, you’d have left with the ranger. Let’s ride. I got to split fast. I’ll drop you in town.”

We roared into Florida City and stopped for gas. The town looked the same. Dirt unhooked my pack and tossed it to the blacktop.

“Give me your driver’s license,” he said. “We’ll swap.”

I frowned, wondering if this was a biker ritual of farewell. Since I didn’t own a car, I wouldn’t need it anyway.

“If she rolls over on me,” he said, “your ID’ll get me by for a while. You aren’t on the run, are you?”

“Not from the law.”

I handed him my license. It was from Kentucky, the last physical evidence of where I’d started. Everything else in my wallet proclaimed me merely American. Dirt straddled his bike and winked at me.

“Don’t let your meat loaf,” he said.

I watched the proof of who I was drive into the street, turn a corner, and disappear. I checked his license to learn my name. Jesus Christ, I thought, no wonder he goes by Dirt. I suddenly realized that I didn’t know where to go. Chris Offutt was driving away on a motorcycle. Someone else stood in a Florida ghost town beneath the terrible burden of freedom.

The old man at the bus station ignored me, as if he’d become accustomed to escapees from the swamp. He spat near a trash can.

“Do you know who I am?” I asked him.

He shook his head. I smiled and called Shadrack collect. When the operator asked who it was from, I checked the driver’s license again.

“Clarence,” I said.

He refused but I broke in, saying, “It’s me, it’s me,” and Shad accepted the charge.

“You got room for me?” I asked.

“When?”

“Three days probably. I’m coming by bus.”

“You can stay at my dump for twelve hours.”

“That’s all I could take of seeing that trash you paint.”

“I don’t paint anymore, Chris. I quit to write my memoir. You’ll be a key character. I don’t have time for this.”

“Okay, bye.”

“Wait, Chris. There’s one more thing.”

“What?”

He hung up, the oldest joke between us.

The bus north was a rumbling gray coffin, evidence of my failure, like a tamed and crippled raptor. We passed a hitchhiker and I ducked, unwilling to see the disdain on his face. Returning to Boston was the first time I’d ever gone back anywhere. For a decade my motto had been “Always Forward,” but that had taken me to a swamp and reduced me to a bus. Forward had become backwards.