Dead River - By Cyn Balog Page 0,1
at my house on the bank. “I live in that white house over there. Where do you live?”
He didn’t seem interested, didn’t even bother looking toward where my finger pointed. “Other side of the river.”
“In Pennsylvania?”
He nodded at the tree-lined bank as if it had just been introduced to him. “That where that is?” Then he smiled. In all my days on this earth I would never forget that smile. The hot summer sun paled in comparison. “Yeah. Pennsylvania.”
“Wait. How’d you get here, without a boat?”
He laughed. “Swam.”
“No way. The current?”
“I’m a powerful good swimmer, kid. Current’s no match for a powerful good swimmer like me.”
I raised my eyebrows. My parents would never let me out in the middle of the river like that. The island was as far as I was allowed to venture, because even when it was rough, the water was barely up to my waist. “Oh. Well. You ever catch any fish you want to give me, I’m right over there,” I said slowly, pointing the way to my house again. But he didn’t bother to turn. He just stared at the ripples in the water. His line began to bob again. I couldn’t stand it.
“Sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “Can’t.”
I fought back the urge to shove him as he pulled another big beauty in. “Why not? Are you some kind of fish-loving wacko or something?”
“ ’Cause I don’t go over there.” He looked at me, the corners of his mouth hanging low. That was another thing I’d always remember. That look. Not frightening. Sad. More than sad. Regretful. “Not unless I have to.”
Turned out I didn’t have to worry about him taking up permanent residence on my fishing spot. I suppose he found who he was waiting for and moved on, just like the river, never settling in one place for too long.
Chapter One
Row row row your boat
and please please please take me
gently down the stream
to where I can’t be hurt. We’ll go
merrily merrily merrily merrily
and I won’t fight
for life is but a dream
and death I think is the awakening.
Have you ever heard of suicide by river? You just wade out deeper and deeper, and before long the current carries you away. And by then there is nothing you can do about it.
A lot of people wonder what goes through a person’s mind during the moments they’re pulled away. Do they regret those steps into the churning waves? Do their lungs burn as they gulp for air and get nothing but earthy, thick liquid instead?
I don’t wonder, though. Because wondering means I’d have to start thinking of her. And I won’t spend a second thinking of someone who didn’t think of me.
“You’re zoning,” a voice calls me back. Justin. One of his arms is draped over the steering wheel, and for the first time I realize his other arm is around me. He drums his thick fingers on my shoulder.
I give him a smile. “No, I’m not.”
“Then what was the last thing I said?”
“The river is going to be outrageous,” I answer.
That’s only a guess, but a safe one, since all winter he’s been talking about this trip and how the river is going to be outrageous. He keeps fidgeting the foot that’s not on the gas pedal. Justin likes outdoorsy things, like climbing mountains and sleeping under the stars in subzero temperatures. He’s been going to dam releases on the Dead since he was eleven. He’s wearing a red-and-black-check lumberjack shirt, for God’s sake. How did we ever get together? I much prefer sleeping in a warm bed. Hot cocoa. Icy water not dripping off the end of my nose. I’m, like Jack says in Titanic, more of an “indoor girl.” Nothing wrong with that.
Though I should probably not be thinking about freezing waves and peril in the water right now.
“You write a good poem?” he asks me as I close the cover of the little leather-bound book I carry everywhere.
I wrinkle my nose. I’m never sure anything I write is good. I’m the editor of the yearbook and literary magazine only because nobody else wanted those jobs. Wayview High is big into hockey, and that’s about it. My school puts out only one issue of its literary magazine, The Comet, a year, mostly because we get no submissions, and so half of the poems in this year’s issue were from me. I’d even written a few haiku about hockey, hoping it would get someone’s, anyone’s, interest. Little good it did. I’m not