River Man (2016 revision)

Alright, I said to myself. That's it, time to move. Fred sat by her as I left, and I went forward and rousted Hank; we got both boats warmed up, cast off our lines, and we backed out into the channel again. We motored side by side at a sedate four knots until we cleared the tightly packed buoys marking the channel, then I yelled across for Hank to take the lead, that we'd retrace our route back to Beaufort and get Betty to the hospital there.

It was mid-afternoon now, but we'd all had at least a little rest so Hank and I decided to keep moving together through the night. I opened up the hatch in the aft cabin while down below -- to let some fresh air in -- and could just lean over the cockpit coaming and look down into the stateroom; Betty was still balled-up on my bed, staring into the abyss with Fred by her side.

"You need anything, Betty, just call out, OK?"

Nothing. Not a flicker. Fred leaned over and looked up at me, just nodded his head. He understood all there was to know about where she was, as he'd been there for a hundred years, and he had no use for death anymore.

+++++

We sailed downwind with a light norther at our back all through the night; Hank and I had separated a bit to avoid bumping into each other, but I kept him ahead of me all through the night so I wouldn't lose him again. At one point I set the autopilot and went below to help Betty go to the bathroom, and I brushed her teeth as best I could and helped her get under the covers. She closed her eyes and went right to sleep while I rubbed her head, and when her breathing grew slow and deep I returned topsides and resumed steering by hand for a while, looking at the stars as they arced through the night in their courses. So many circles...so much chaos...

And Fred popped up through the hatch, his coarse hair fluttering in the breeze, and he reminded me that All credibility, all good conscience, all evidence of truth comes only from the senses. I had to, Fred seemed to be reminding me now, trust my senses on this one. I could just see his scowling face behind me in the moonlight, and I could hear a voice -- was it his voice? -- telling me to trust my senses. I could fill in the blanks later, the voice told me, but there wasn't anything devious about Betty that he could see or feel, and I had to trust him on that score. She had somehow gotten herself into a mess, he said, and had been looking for a way out when I'd come along. The question then became a simple one. Was I a victim of circumstance -- Betty's circumstances, really -- or had Betty indeed reached out to me, out of a real sense of connection. If the former, then Betty was an opportunist and I was her mark; in the latter case she was the victim and I had come along when I had -- for a reason. She was reaching out to me, and something had guided her heart to mine. I could feel Nietzsche in the air all around me then -- coaching me, reassuring me -- and I could feel his strength of purpose in the way he looked at me, feel it in the dialectic collision our coming together represented. He was, really, an interesting old fart, and as I thought of him an image of Ruth rained down on me.

There are times when, and perhaps this is the most important moment of your life, resolution comes in a flash of briefest insight, and perhaps you're lucky enough to grasp the fleeting idea as it dances in the air in front of your face. Precisely the faintest whisper, the softest, lightest sigh, a lizard's rustling under dry leaves, warm breath on the back of your neck, this flash, this sudden unseen moment comes to you, and a little flash makes it's way through the night -- and insight overwhelms memory for just a moment.

So little light in that flash, perhaps because it takes so little to see love for what it really is. An asking and an offering, a sharing of hands in the night, two lost souls, reaching one for the other.

It takes so little effort to hold onto someone who reaches out for you. All it takes is that one little flash. Because hadn't it been easy to run away from her? Fred was watching me just then, as this insight rolled over me like a breaking wave, and he laughed out loud, so loud I wanted to hate the fucker. Still, I looked at him and just couldn't bring myself to feel that way -- ever again.

+++++

After sailing through the night, we turned down Adams Creek once again, and with sun slanting through the trees we made our way south towards the final canal, and Beaufort. It was all downhill now, I thought to myself with a smile. I poked my head down below, heard Betty bouncing around down there, then I saw her walking on her own to the head. A minute later she came out into the light of day.

"How're you feeling?" I asked as she popped out of the open companionway.

She jumped at the sound of my voice, looked up like she hadn't expected to see me -- but she smiled -- and with that smile I knew things would be okay.

"Thirsty," she said a moment later. "I've got cotton-mouth."

"Well, there's some Gatorade in the 'fridge, but I can't leave the wheel right now."

"You want anything?" she asked as she looked forward, nodding her head, understanding our position.

"Oh, yeah, some cold water sounds good. Maybe an orange." She nodded and padded off in her bare feet toward the galley, and a moment later popped up and passed a glass to me. Some more thumping down below and she came up with an orange and sat next to me in the cool morning air. She peeled the orange and handed me a slice, and I took it from her fingers with my mouth and lingered a bit, kissed the tips of her fingers.

She smiled, accepting this love of ours. She wasn't running now, not running away from me. 'Oh! Is there hope?' Fred said as he took a bite from an apple he'd found, but I thought he sounded a little too sarcastic as he turned and looked ahead.

"Is that Hank up there?" she asked, and Fred turned to the sound of her voice, his face storm-tossed scowl as he looked aft. I turned and looked too, looked at the colossal thunderstorm beating the air behind us. Towering clouds approached and in an instant the sun was gone, and I heard the first crack of thunder not far off.

The channel was wide here, still maybe a few hundred yards wide as it narrows towards the canal, but once in the canal proper the waterway narrowed to a hundred feet, then fifty, and the way ahead was lined with thick trees and rolling farmland. The storm's winds hit and bare limbs danced above the steep-walled banks, and after an hour of motoring down the straight confines of the waterway, I made out the overpass that marked the end of the canal. It was sixty five feet up in the air, and an occasional car rumbled over in heavy rain. The canal widened to a hundred and twenty feet as we went under the bridge, and a grim industrial gravel pit lined the way off to our left.

And I saw him. Standing at the crest of the bridge, looking down on us with gun in hand.

+++++

"Hank! Hank" I yelled, and I saw Hank react to the man on the bridge by shutting down the throttle and turning hard to port. I was too close behind as he turned in front of me, and I evaded by turning toward the riverbank on the right side of the channel, and in that nauseating instant I felt the boat slice into thick, soft mud, the bow of my boat crunching through thick grass as it came to a rest hard on the muddy banks of the canal. I started cussing as I saw Betty's husband take off at a dead run down the bridge toward our side of the canal, and there was, perhaps, a quarter mile between us -- five minutes at most in this rough terrain. Five minutes before he would reach us.

Betty looked at the man on the bridge with detached dread registering on her face, and I dropped below to get my Walther from it's hiding place. I came up just in time to hear Hank's towing bridle to slam down on the deck aft of the cockpit; he was backing down on us, indicating I should tie off and start to back out of the mud. I jumped to secure the lines, dropping the Walther in the cockpit as I did.

I was tying the bridle on the port side aft mooring cleat when I heard Betty moan, and I turned around to see him thrashing through the brush just above us. His eyes were full of black hate, and I saw him looking right at me. He jumped the last few feet and landed on the bow of my boat, the gun in his right hand pointed right at me, and then he smiled -- at me.

I watched that smile form on his face even as I watched his finger tighten on his gun's trigger. It would be a close thing, this whole living and dying thing.

I ducked just as he fired; I heard the round sizzling through the air above my head, then heard Hank screaming that he'd been shot, and I heard him hit the water beside his boat.

The I heard another shot, then another, and another, and I heard a body falling on the deck in front of me. I stood and saw Betty standing in the cockpit, my pistol in her hand, and I saw her husband lying on the foredeck of my boat, a vast open wound in his forehead, blood spilling all over my decks. Fred looked at me, stunned. The abyss had, what did he say? Blinked?

I turned and looked for Hank; I could only see a red slick on the water and dove in. I swam around under water for a moment, then felt him and pulled him to me and swam for the surface. We burst into the light and I dragged his inert form to the bank; I could see his eyes flinching in pain, and he gasped for breath in ragged bursts; I dragged his body out of the water then jumped for my boat, and ran to the radio.

I saw then that Betty was down below, too; she was bleeding from a gunshot wound in her belly, and was now very pale -- breathing in quick little gasps.

+++++

The Coast Guard and State Police had roped off the crime scene, and had taken both Hank and Betty by helicopter away from the canal. I remained on-board Liebestod -- still stuck in the mud; we weren't going anywhere, and the authorities hadn't let me leave the scene. They needed witness statements, and paperwork always takes precedence over human misery and suffering, doesn't it?

I recounted what I knew, even drew a little sketch for the police, and eventually a bright yellow tow-boat pulled me from the mud. A Coast Guardsman remained on Hank's boat and took her to Beaufort, and I took Liebestod on to the town docks and berthed her where she had been not so long ago. A State Policeman came by wanting even more information, and kindly drove me to the hospital where Hank and Betty had been taken, and we talked about the incident at length before finding that both were in surgery -- and would be for hours -- and he drove me back to Beaufort.

I'd heard rocks and stumps tearing into Liebestod's belly during her grounding, and called my trusty mechanic -- Sven -- to come down and assay possible engine damage before moving her to a shipyard for further examination. He arrived a few hours later.

"So all that stuff up on the canal? That was you, huh?"

"Yeah. None other," I said.

"Been all over the news. Did you know that woman was married?"

"No. No idea. She told me -- told me she never had been; didn't wear a ring, either."

"Whoa. Man, you sure got lucky."

Now that was an odd bit of irony, I thought as Sven watched my eyes. Just how, I wondered, had anything about this situation been -- lucky? That I'd lived? I'd flown jets all my life, walked away from a few landings that would have made most folks piss their pants, but I'd never once considered calling that luck. Skill, training, not losing your cool; maybe all those things put together -- but luck? What role had luck played here, in this amusing series of misadventures.

Is there really such a thing? And if Luck is a real thing, if life is indeed shaped by something as ephemeral as Luck, after all was said and done, had I really been -- Lucky?

And what was I going to do about Betty? Assuming she lived, that is.

+++++

Indeed, Betty was alive, if only just.

I called the hospital later that evening, wanted to get an update on both Hank and Betty's condition, and learned that both were out of surgery. Hank was stable and in 'guarded' condition, while Betty was in ICU and her condition listed as 'critical.' I gave the nurse my telephone number and ask that I be called if there was any change in condition, then I fell into bed.

+++++

And I dreamed that night.

I dreamed I was flying again, flying a 767 from Logan to Heathrow like I had so many times before, watching the sun set over the North Atlantic like I had a thousand times before, and I felt nauseatingly bored out of my mind as waypoint after waypoint slid by, as the miles reeled off behind us. Off the Irish coast warning lights flared, and unreal noises erupted from behind me. Fire warning lights, hydraulic systems failures, losing altitude, watching the cold sea reach up through the clouds for me and all the helpless people behind me...

And there was Ruth, sitting beside me in the cockpit, watching me as I hit switches and adjusted power, all to keep the airplane in the air where she belonged. Yet I was losing control. Losing control.

And Ruth sat there, watching me, that soft smile on her face.

"I'm losing control," I said to her.

She smiled.

"It's not funny, goddamn it! I'm losing her, losing her, I'm losing control!"

"You can't control everything, Marty," I heard my wife say. "All you can do is keep trying, keep doing what you know best, then trust in yourself, Martin, believe destiny and fate aren't just words. That only your belief in yourself will see you through all this."

"I don't believe in all that horse-shit!" I yelled over the screaming engines. I could see the water below now, could see the waves cresting clearly as they reached out for me. I turned to her as the jet slammed into those black waters, and the last thing I remembered seeing was her smile, but then I heard her as she said "Oh!" once again, and my world turned dark again, too, as we slid beneath black water.

+++++

I rented a car the next morning and drove to the hospital, managed to find my way to Hank's room. He was up, staring wide-eyed at the television, and his wife was there, too. Why was that not surprising, I thought. I said hello to her, asked how Hank was doing, but she seemed coarse and ugly, didn't want to talk to me. I looked at Hank and he just shrugged his shoulders and winced.

But he winked at me when I said I'd look in on him later.

+++++

Betty was up, and conscious, when I came to the ICU and asked the nurse if I could see her. She gowned me up and put a mask over my face and led me into the suite, and Betty was indeed awake. I smiled and she looked at me knowingly as I came over to her.

"Is he...did I...is he dead?" she asked.

I nodded my head and she began to cry, softly at first but then more painfully. Tears ran down her face, her nose was running...

"Oh, Martin," she said inside a long, breath-like sob.

"It's over, Betty. Over." I held her hand. I knew inside, however, that things like this never go away, they never just leave in peace.

"Oh why, God! Why? Why? Why?"

'She hasn't heard yet, has she?' Fred said to the room as he stood by my side. 'God is dead.'

"God is dead?" I asked the room, and Betty looked up at me, the question in her eyes plain to see.

"Why would you say that?" Betty said between gasps.

I didn't have an answer to that question, but somehow I knew it was true.

+++++

Hank's wife left again a few days later, though Hank said he thought someone had ticketed her broomstick in a handicapped parking space out front. Turned out she wanted him healthy enough to sign a divorce agreement that gave her everything; Betty looked it over while recouping in her room and told Hank to tell the bitch to go to hell, and told him she'd represent him if he wanted -- for free.

I got Liebestod straightened up, and worked on Hank's boat when I could. I was surprised at how messy I found things there, then realized he had spent the past week running after Betty -- and me -- in more ways than one while trying to save our collective asses from death and mayhem. I asked Sven to come down and give me a hand getting her cleaned up and get some long overdue maintenance done on his little ship's systems. I even dropped in a new chartplotter and weather fax; now Hank could keep himself out of harm's way, at least while at sea. He'd have to stay away from Betty's old flames to avoid getting shot again, I reckoned.

Sven and I picked him up at the hospital on a chilly November morning and we drove him down to the dock and helped him back on his boat. Of course he saw all the improvements we'd made right away, and Sven gave him a run down on all the new toys he had at his disposal. I could see that Hank was touched by the gift, by the way, I guess, his head popped up out of his shell.

It was December before Betty was cut loose from the hospital, and she asked if she could move aboard with me. She put her shop up for sale, and took care of Hank's legal troubles in short order. Once she made it to Beaufort she spent her days at the town library, her evenings with me, and as she got better we tried to do some sailing now and then. We put up a little Christmas tree down below, and I managed to cobble together a few presents to put under the tree. The four of us sat around the tree on Christmas Eve, the cabin all aglow in reds and greens and a strange kind of acceptance. We had a supper of crab bisque and cheese fondue; not really a Christmas thing but there was something kind and warm and fuzzy about that night. One I'll never forget, anyway.

Hank and Fred took off after Christmas, and I haven't seen them since, but heard through the grapevine that Hank had managed to get arrested down in the Bahamas. Something about making too much noise -- in the middle of the night. I like to think of him getting it on while hanging upside down from the top of his mast -- just as the mounties pulled up to his rail.

Somehow I know the turtle-man will keep at it -- slow and steady wins the race, after all -- while my life will fly by at an unreconcilable pace. Maybe God died, for me anyway, when Ruth died, but I don't know anymore. I really don't. Maybe I'd been given a second chance, a chance to make the dreams Ruth and I had come to pass.

Maybe this is the way she'd want things now. Maybe it's what God wants.

As winter's chill moved to the rivers and islands around Beaufort, Betty and I talked long into that night about where we might pick up the pieces and go. She'd never dreamed these dreams before, she reminded me, so all this was all kind of new to her. Turns out that was how she spent her days up in the library; she looked through old books, read about faraway places told by dreamers who had passed long ago to their night, yet she saw that world as my world. And now it was her's, too.

She was ready to let go. Ready to let go of the nightmares, the blank stare that held her still when she thought of him. If Ruth's dreams had been mine, Betty's were now a part of our new triptych. The three of us were united by a desire to wander away the remaining moments of our lives. It really was as simple as that.

Hard as I tried, I could never forget Ruth. Maybe I'm not supposed to, for like the memories of our son they would always be a part of me. The best part, I thought at the time, but after a few years with Betty by my side I'm not so sure anymore. Love is, after all, where you find it.

Besides, Fred wouldn't dare let me forget those first few minutes, when I first walked into Ruth's office. He'd brought us together after all, and he'd been having way too much fun, or so he told me a few weeks ago, to ever really let us go.

(C)2007-2016 Adrian Leverkühn | abw | thanks for coming along.