OCR Text |
Show RTVER IX. PAPOOSE "Be careful." Jesus. It was starting to give me the willies, everybody telling me to be careful instead of saying a plain old "Goodbye." I was obviously not a careful person and it was swell advice, but it was starting to get to me: after all, if you spend your time drifting down one of the world's great rivers in an open boat you could worry yourself to death trying to be careful. I was already worried enough and every day became more aware of exactly how powerful and dangerous the river could be. I'd long resolved to be as careful as I could, for all the good it would do. Sunday morning was coming down sunny and warm as I rowed my hangover out into the current and slipped away from Caruthersville, but the brightness of the day did nothing to ease my physical torment. The sun mercifully clouded over in the late morning, dampening the head-splitting glare on the water. I drank water and pineapple juice till I swelled up like a pumpkin, sure I'd suffered permanent brain damage in the Climax Bar and Grill. I lay in the bottom of the boat, suffering. Thor's silent canine stare still seemed laced with contempt. I'd scared myself with my drunken craziness. I could have ended up in jail, not to mention some low-rent formaldehyde-scented mortuary with pictures of Jesus and lambs on the walls. I felt lucky to escape Caruthersville even half alive. It was time to clean up my act. As the afternoon wore on a gray bank of fog settled onto the river. I drifted past a construction site where a four-lane interstate highway bridge was being built out in the middle of nowhere. About half the huge concrete pilings had -171- |