When they hear the cries, Mark and Juan come to the rail. Mark then goes to the phone, while Juan turns toward the old man. “Weren’t you going to do anything?”
The old man walks over to his table and picks up his iced coffee. “Things happen, nothing can be done about that.”
When the old man returns to the rail, he sees that the drifting boy has managed to latch onto a warning buoy. The boy hugs it while the water rushes over his shoulders and head. He pulls himself high enough for air, but the old man knows the patient current can endure whatever strength the boy possesses. “The current’s too strong.” The old man sips his drink. By the old man’s feet, Juan spits on the floor. “You’re a cold man. That boy’s likely to die.” The old man looks out over the river. “People die for no reason.” He sets his glass on top of the rail and adjusts his cap. “Why don’t you jump off and save him?” Oppositionally, disdainfully, Juan turns silent.
The boy is maintaining his hold, but he has slid lower on the buoy. Mark returns. “There’s people coming.” Juan covers his eyes. “I can’t watch this.” The old man gazes on.
The boy’s grip gives way, and he again begins downstream. When he doesn’t fight, the current is strong enough to hold him up, but when he tries to break free, he is hurled under water and spat farther out toward the middle.
“He’s not going to make it.” Juan twitches. Mark places a hand on his friend’s back.
Bow-high in the air, a motor boat is now soaring down river. The old man sees the boat power down and circle the boy. From the boat, a man tosses a white float into the water several yards ahead of the boy, but the boy cannot reach it. The man pulls it in and tosses it out again, this time nearly hitting the boy’s head. The boy grabs the float. The driver of the boat, to keep it from turning and spinning, maneuvers the small craft. Toward the side of the boat, the other man pulls the boy and, after considerable effort, hoists him aboard.
The short teen sits in the open bow with a blue towel wrapped around him as the driver negotiates against the current to where the boy’s two friends are standing ankle-deep in the river. As the boat approaches, the old man sees the teen shivering under the towel. “He got lucky.”
On a white sleeve, Juan wipes tears. “You’re a pig.” The old man hands Juan his empty glass and places both hands on the rail. “Life and death are matters of pure chance.” The waiter throws the glass over the rail, then points his finger at the old man’s face. He trembles and sputters noises which resemble grunts more than language. The old man looks out over the river. “One man is not enough to save anyone.” Before walking away, Juan scrutinizes the old man as if he were examining evil itself. A few other customers who have drifted into the cafe during the incident are also in need of service. Mark leaves the rail and waits on them.
The old man stands alone. He can hear the driver of the boat yelling at the boy’s friends, cautioning them about swimming in the river, telling what could have been. The old man watches the two boys climb onto the shore. Into the shallow water, the driver steers the boat. The other man tilts the motor, then throws an orange nylon rope. The old man watches the two boys pull in the boat. It runs aground a few feet from shore, and the short teen climbs out. He gathers the rope, hands it to the driver, and pushes the boat back off the bottom and out into deeper water. When the boat drifts far enough, the motor is manually tilted back into place. Before firing it, the driver yells back. “Go on, get on out of here before someone gets killed next time.” The old man sees one of the boys yell but cannot make out what is said. The driver starts the engine, shakes his head, and navigates the boat out into the current. The boat grows smaller and smaller until it is no longer distinguishable.
Juan returns with a glass of iced coffee. The old man takes it from him. “I guess this’ll make the paper. I won’t read the story though; I hate reading stories about heroes.” Juan walks away. The old man carries the drink back to his seat.
In the breeze, his newspaper has blown onto the floor. He sets the glass on the table and then gathers together the paper. The old man sits and looks again at the Cubs box score. The dirge of the flowing water, the compassion of the waiter, the omnipotency of the teens, the afternoon sun, and the box score jumble in his mind, and now, more than forty years too late, the old man remembers the sublimity of that warm August afternoon, before all the fights, before all the hurt, before all the loneliness, before the decades of human error, when his son sat beside him, the two of them eating hotdogs covered in stadium mustard, at Wrigley Field.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Watching The River Flow: Part I
Drinking iced coffee from a pilsner glass, the old man sits. Unsteady are his mottled hands. Deeply fallen eyes, kindled by the dim afterglow of too many years of drunkenness, focus on newsprint. A moist breeze blows in and up off the river; the old man’s newspaper bends against it. The sun is bright, but the day is tolerable. The old man is not at this cafe to be fashionable. He sits here because he likes the sounds of a river.
From Juan, the old man does not expect much. Afternoon customers, the old man knows, are in the way. He has heard the waiters talking about the nuisance of the slothful patrons––sitting all afternoon in the sun, preventing the waiters from setting up for the dinner crowd. The old man has never tipped. If he is a sloth, he does not care. It is the cafe, absent costumers, that the river can permeate; empty, sounds of riffles pour onto the patio.
“Another,” the old man says to Juan. Juan takes the empty glass and soon returns with a full one. On the table, Juan places it. “Will that be all?” The old man takes a sip. “This is good.”
“Will that be all?”
At the folded newspaper in his left hand, the old man points. “I used to read every word of the paper, even the obituaries, but now I only read the box scores.” Juan pulls a pencil from behind his ear and writes out the check. As a weight, Juan places the salt shaker on top of the bill. The old man looks at Juan. “How old are you? I’ll bet you’re twenty-three.” Juan turns and walks away. Removing his cap, the old man wipes his forehead with a white handkerchief and resets the cap down lower on his brow.
Unfolding the newspaper, the old man deciphers the box score of the previous afternoon’s Cubs game. A left-hander for the Cubs had thrown a no-hitter through seven and a third before allowing a utility outfielder to reach base on a single. So as to tell him about the game, the old man lowers the paper and looks for Juan, but the waiter is not at his station. Juan is standing with Mark, by the patio rail, smoking cigarettes and looking down at the river. Mark is wearing an cheap black tuxedo jacket and pointing: Juan is grinning. The old man turns his chair, but he can not see anything unusual until he walks to the rail.
The cafe patio is a deck protruding twenty feet over the river and standing thirty feet high. The rocky shore climbs steeply from the water up to the main section of the cafe which is set as close to the edge as possible. From the patio rail, the old man sees that Juan and Mark are looking at three teenagers who have climbed down the rocks and are wading into the muddy water a few hundred yards upriver. The old man watches as the shortest of the three takes off his jeans and walks out into the river until he stands thigh-deep. The boy turns and looks at his friends. The other two follow his lead. When all three stand thigh-deep in the river, the shortest boy walks farther out until his waist is submerged. Again he turns and motions his friends to join him. As one of the boys stumbles and falls, the two waiters laugh. The boy’s white T-shirt turns muddy gray from the water and clings to his frail frame. Then all three boys stand chest-deep in the river. As they venture farther from shore and their voices carry across the water, the old man hears them gibing one another. The boys begin to wrestle and horseplay and shout profanities.
Finished with their cigarettes, Mark and Juan return to their duties. Alone at the rail, the old man stands. He yells down, “How’s the water?” The boys look, and the shortest one raises his right fist, extends his middle finger, and yells something that the old man cannot make out. The other boys laugh. The shortest kid then climbs onto the back of one of his friends and twists around him until he forces his friend’s head under. The other boy pulls the shortest one off and catches him in a full nelson. He dunks the shortest boy several times before releasing him. Their play carries them out farther into the current. When he reaches for one of his friends, the shortest teen is well over his head. The friend pushes the short one farther out into the current that catches him and drags him along with it. The old man watches. The two taller boys call for their friend to stop kidding around and then realizing, begin yelling for help. As they yell, they look at the old man who stares back motionlessly.
From Juan, the old man does not expect much. Afternoon customers, the old man knows, are in the way. He has heard the waiters talking about the nuisance of the slothful patrons––sitting all afternoon in the sun, preventing the waiters from setting up for the dinner crowd. The old man has never tipped. If he is a sloth, he does not care. It is the cafe, absent costumers, that the river can permeate; empty, sounds of riffles pour onto the patio.
“Another,” the old man says to Juan. Juan takes the empty glass and soon returns with a full one. On the table, Juan places it. “Will that be all?” The old man takes a sip. “This is good.”
“Will that be all?”
At the folded newspaper in his left hand, the old man points. “I used to read every word of the paper, even the obituaries, but now I only read the box scores.” Juan pulls a pencil from behind his ear and writes out the check. As a weight, Juan places the salt shaker on top of the bill. The old man looks at Juan. “How old are you? I’ll bet you’re twenty-three.” Juan turns and walks away. Removing his cap, the old man wipes his forehead with a white handkerchief and resets the cap down lower on his brow.
Unfolding the newspaper, the old man deciphers the box score of the previous afternoon’s Cubs game. A left-hander for the Cubs had thrown a no-hitter through seven and a third before allowing a utility outfielder to reach base on a single. So as to tell him about the game, the old man lowers the paper and looks for Juan, but the waiter is not at his station. Juan is standing with Mark, by the patio rail, smoking cigarettes and looking down at the river. Mark is wearing an cheap black tuxedo jacket and pointing: Juan is grinning. The old man turns his chair, but he can not see anything unusual until he walks to the rail.
The cafe patio is a deck protruding twenty feet over the river and standing thirty feet high. The rocky shore climbs steeply from the water up to the main section of the cafe which is set as close to the edge as possible. From the patio rail, the old man sees that Juan and Mark are looking at three teenagers who have climbed down the rocks and are wading into the muddy water a few hundred yards upriver. The old man watches as the shortest of the three takes off his jeans and walks out into the river until he stands thigh-deep. The boy turns and looks at his friends. The other two follow his lead. When all three stand thigh-deep in the river, the shortest boy walks farther out until his waist is submerged. Again he turns and motions his friends to join him. As one of the boys stumbles and falls, the two waiters laugh. The boy’s white T-shirt turns muddy gray from the water and clings to his frail frame. Then all three boys stand chest-deep in the river. As they venture farther from shore and their voices carry across the water, the old man hears them gibing one another. The boys begin to wrestle and horseplay and shout profanities.
Finished with their cigarettes, Mark and Juan return to their duties. Alone at the rail, the old man stands. He yells down, “How’s the water?” The boys look, and the shortest one raises his right fist, extends his middle finger, and yells something that the old man cannot make out. The other boys laugh. The shortest kid then climbs onto the back of one of his friends and twists around him until he forces his friend’s head under. The other boy pulls the shortest one off and catches him in a full nelson. He dunks the shortest boy several times before releasing him. Their play carries them out farther into the current. When he reaches for one of his friends, the shortest teen is well over his head. The friend pushes the short one farther out into the current that catches him and drags him along with it. The old man watches. The two taller boys call for their friend to stop kidding around and then realizing, begin yelling for help. As they yell, they look at the old man who stares back motionlessly.
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