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Show RIVER II. THE RIVERS OF AMERICA The next morning Fred was out on the river before I was out of my sleeping bag. I got up and ate some canned peaches, packed up my gear, coaxed Thor into the boat, and rowed out into the current. A storm threatened but never materialized, and it was warming as the sky cleared. I began drifting downriver to Cairo, Illinois, where the Ohio joins the Mississippi. At the confluence of the two rivers I was going to rendezvous with a lot of memories. I'd been in Cairo (pronounced Kay-row, like the syrup) once before, in the fall of 1969, while traveling with my girlfriend Rose Anne-AKA Rosie-and three friends on a raft we'd built out of oil drums. The night before we reached Cairo, the raft ran onto a sandbar, crumpling the lead fifty-five gallon steel drum like a beer can. Her bow awash, the raft swam like a crippled duck. We tied up a few miles above Cairo, and Rosie and I followed the railroad into town to look for a replacement barrel. The tracks ran through Pleistocene swamp country into the brick streets of Cairo's ghetto, whose ancient tenements were soot-black with time. We made it to the business district and found a hardware store run by an old couple. They didn't like me, all dirt and hair, but Rosie told them about the raft and charmed them with her wide, bright smile (her father was a dentist). I asked them where we could find an oil drum. "Abe Solomon's," said the old man. "But you don't want to go over there." "How come?" The old man's face twisted up like he was sucking lemons. "There's been a lot of trouble out there." - 1 1 - |
