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Show Day four still. Afternoon. 67° 44' north latitude. The GPS places them, roots them to a locatable spot on the spinning globe, but they are far from still. They start the raft down a narrow chute. Rainfall, permafrost, and the many small creeks that run into the Alatna have conspired to create a torrent. Water rushes them headlong down the river, sweepers leaning like animals of prey, ready to pull them from the raft and send them into the roils. When they turn the corner and see the giant shale outcrop, a wall of rock that cuts across the chute, they can do nothing but slam into it. The raft buckles and climbs the wall; my dad, in front, is thrown out of the raft and pulled under the outcrop. Somehow the raft, too, goes under or around or over. No one knows. When my dad comes up for air, Jerry and the raft are also on the other side. The bottom of the Avon has been shredded but miraculously neither my dad nor Jerry are seriously injured. They decide to camp for the night while they try to repair the raft with duct tape. Jerry repeatedly suggests that they just walk to the car and go home. Unable to stand at all, Jerry gathers wood on his hands and knees in hopes of building a fire to warm my father. That night Jerry insists that they find their location on the GPS. My dad argues, seeing no point in knowing their longitude when their only choice is to head south on the river, but Jerry will not surrender the point. Finally, my dad agrees and they find the coordinates of the camp. These will also be the coordinates of Jerry's death place. I wonder at Jerry's insistence. Is it, in a sense, the final act of care taking in a life dedicated to securing the safety of others, of making sure there is order in the world before leaving it? Or, is it because he feels at some deep level that a final resting place should be a known place, a place that holds itself, in its specificity, its repeatability, 248 |