Michael Smith - Rivers

“If you were to look at a map, we are. But it doesn’t matter where we are or what’s between here and there, I got to go back.”

She moved closer to him on the seat and said, “You don’t. Really, you don’t.”

“Really,” he said. “I do.”

She moved closer. “I don’t understand.”

He fidgeted in the seat. “I just have to go back. It’s my Jeep.” He wrapped his hands tightly around the steering wheel and stared out at the weather. She touched his arm, pulled at him some. He let go of his grip on the steering wheel and she pulled his arm to her.

“You don’t have to, Cohen,” she said. “I know you want to but you don’t have to.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek delicately, almost undetected.

Cohen didn’t move. Didn’t look at her. He cranked the truck and started out and said, “Let me think.”

Despite the rain and wind, they had luck the first ten or so miles, moving up Highway 49 with nothing more to navigate than the occasional fallen tree or light pole. Kudzu had overlapped the highway here and there like a green rug meant to beautify the rough asphalt. They passed through the tiny communities of Saucier, McHenry, Perkinston. The road signs were bent and twisted and they saw random cars but little else.

The first trouble came somewhere between Maxie and Dixie. A bridge had been washed out by what was once a creek but was now more like a flowing marsh. They had to backtrack six miles to try and detour around it but found another washed-out bridge along the cut-through and they had to backtrack again. No one was familiar with the roads in this part of the country but they knew north from south and they kept trying to get themselves north on nameless back roads or strips of forgotten highway. It was all but dark and the storm was gaining strength and even with headlights it was almost impossible to see. Cohen was in front and when it was too much, he stopped and ran back to Evan and the others and said, “Let’s find shelter for now and try again in the morning. I know it’s hard but if you see something flash or honk or something.”

In another slow mile, the other truck honked and Cohen stopped. He looked around but didn’t see what there was to honk about. Evan ran up and hit on the door and Cohen cracked it open.

“Back across there, did you see it?” Evan yelled against the rain.

“Where?”

“Right back over. That gravel lot. Looked like an old store or something back some. Looked like it had a roof.”

“All right,” Cohen yelled back. “Get in and back up and we’ll see.”

He shut the door and Evan ran to the truck. Both vehicles moved in reverse for twenty or so yards, then stopped. Like Evan described, to the right was a gravel parking lot and back from the road was a small brick building. Cohen turned and shined the headlights on the building. Crossbars covered the empty windows and there was no door. A rusted ice machine stood guard and a sign had been ripped from the front awning, but it looked like the roof was intact and it showed no sign of living things.

Mariposa leaned forward with her hands on the dash. Cohen flashed his lights on bright but it didn’t change anything. “Might as well go see,” he said.

He took a flashlight and made sure the pistol was in his coat pocket and he got out. The four headlights shined on Cohen and the old store and the rain fell sideways through the yellow beams. He stepped into the door and momentarily disappeared from sight, but then he waved for them to come on. Mariposa killed the ignition and Evan killed the other truck. Brisco hopped from the seat into Evan’s arms. Kris held the baby and Nadine held Kris by the arm and they stepped carefully to the doorway.

“Careful, it’s slick,” Cohen told them as they came in one by one. He shined the flashlight out across the linoleum floor that was wet and black with dirt and scattered with overturned stock shelves. Along the back wall of the room glass coolers once held beer and Cokes for the workingmen who had spent the day in the field or on the job site. The doors were open and the racks still there as if waiting optimistically for the day when the bottles and cans would once again sit inside and be greeted by thirsty eyes. It was a small store and the weather came through the windows but it seemed like it would do.

They congregated in the middle of the room, the fallen shelves around them. Evan kicked at one and it slid and banged into another. Nadine jumped and said, “What the hell.”

Brisco hugged Kris around her leg.

“It’s gonna be a long night,” Nadine said.

Cohen continued to move the light around and they watched, standing closely together, a tension binding them, as if only waiting for the moment they would be shocked by what the light revealed. In the back corner of the store was another door and it was closed and locked with a padlock. The cream-colored walls were spotted with mold and the ceiling sagged from water leaks and there were drips here and there but no holes.

Evan looked around and found a couple of folding chairs and a short bench behind the counter. The women and Brisco went and sat down. Evan and Cohen moved over toward the locked door. Cohen held the light on the padlock.

“That door don’t look like much,” Evan said. “Not if you really wanted to get in.” He shined the light up and down the metal door and there were footprints about waist-high and indentions up and down it.

“Maybe it’s tougher than it looks,” Cohen said.

“Probably ain’t nothing,” Evan said.

“Probably not.”

“You gonna get it open?”

Cohen shrugged. He turned and walked to the counter and Evan followed. They both hopped up and sat on it. Cohen shined the flashlight around again and then turned it off. Nadine said let me take a turn and Kris handed her the baby. Then each of them sat still and quiet. It rained and the wind came in gusts.

As they sat there in the dark, the weight of it all began to collapse around them in the confined space. The storm muted all and left them suspended in the absence of sound. A steady, heavy drone. Mariposa slumped in her chair and Brisco lay across her lap. Nadine held the baby, her head bowed and resting on top of the tiny bundled body. Kris stretched out her legs and rested her hands across her stomach. Evan stared at Brisco. Cohen stared at his hands. Quiet, fatigued silhouettes.

They were small things against this big thing. Against this enormous thing. Against this relentless thing. Small, exhausted things whose lives had become something so strange and extraordinary that it didn’t seem possible that they could be anywhere but sitting in this abandoned building in this abandoned land in this storm-filled night in this storm-filled world. They sat still and exuded exhaustion. Maybe even hopelessness. Maybe even helplessness. The day had begun with the idea of a finish line, but that idea was being washed away in this torrent of despair.

Cohen stood up from the counter and folded his arms. He walked away from them and stood in the center of the floor between fallen shelves. He listened. Looked around in the dark. Water dripped all around him. He thought about the baby and what would become of his life. Or would he have a life? Would he live to see another place? A normal place where lights shined and refrigerators kept food cold and beds were soft and sometimes the sun came out and people rode in cars and had jobs and if you needed something you went to a store to get it and the sound of thunder didn’t sound an alarm but only meant nourishment for rosebushes and the front yard. Would he live to another place? And if they managed to get him somewhere, who would change his diapers and teach him his colors and ABCs and would he have friends and would he go to school and would he ever call anyone Momma and would he ever call anyone Daddy? Would he ever play T-ball or learn to ride a bike or not have to worry about being hungry? Would he ever know the story of how he was born and where he was born and who his father was and what a miracle it was that he was alive at all and would he ever know the story of the group of misfits who somehow managed to get him across the Line? He was a long shot. They were all long shots. In every direction, a long shot.