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Show RIVER We were real city kids. None of us had ever killed anything heavier than a fly. Figuring out how to terminate Erica took a lot of thinking. We got some twine and tied up the chicken's feet and slipped a noose around her neck. Vince held the legs and I stretched the neck over a log. Rick hefted the axe, measured off the blow, got ready to swing, and then laid down the axe. "I can't do it," he said, and walked away shaking his head. Vince later told me he had visions of the raft sailing into New Orleans completely encrusted with chicken shit. He seized the axe and directly lopped off Erica's head. I ran down the beach, yelling., followed by the headless chicken To top it off, we fried Erica: fried laying hen is like nothing else in this world, except for maybe stewed baseballs. Below St. Louis the river narrowed and moved much faster, As it surged southward it became less populated and much poorer. The towns were fewer, funkier, and farther apart: we saw river walls and dying main streets and heard soft rural Missouri accents. At night we sought protection behind towheads or in chutes, a foot above the rushing water, dreaming about rivers only to wake up and drift all day down the immense and mysterious river. We came closer to the weather and nature and ourselves every day. We saw an America we hadn't known existed, the small towns off lost highways and vast stretches of farm land that spread to the distant horizon. We also began to fight. Cramped together on the raft all day, we got on each other's nerves. We argued about the purpose of the trip. I thought it was to go from one end of the river to the other-from Rock Island to New Orleans. For me it really was New Orleans or Bust, just like the motto I'd spray painted on the side of the raft. Rick and Vince had a different idea. They thought the trip ought - 8 1 - |