"Question number five."
Marvin's hand shot up. "Wait, I ain't finished."
"You can come back to it." Looking back at the class, I said. "What is your major?"
"Question number six. Why?"
Marvin dropped his pencil and looked at me with disgust. "Come on, Professuh."
"Question number seven. How many brothers and/or sisters do you have?" The room was really starting to heat up. The morning sun was turning into midday sun, and the fans were now blowing hot air. "Eight. How old are you?"
Marvin said, "You ain't allowed to ask that."
"Marvin," I said, smiling, "this is not a job interview. Just answer the question."
A few kids laughed. Marvin huffed.
"Nine and ten. Tell me your story. You have the rest of the period to do so."
Marvin raised his hand.
"Yes, Marvin?"
"What you mean, `Tell you my story'? That could take a long time."
"Write what you can. Tell me what you would like me to know about you."
He raised his hand again.
"Marvin, get to writing."
"But Professuh," Marvin objected.
I looked at him. Tall. Trim. Fit looking. Probably pretty fast. I had heard he was a cornerback on the football team. "Marvin, how fast are you?"
"Wha' you mean?"
"I mean how fast do you run the forty?"
He tilted his head and rolled his eyes around as if he were trying to figure out whether or not this was a trick question. Then he said, "Fo-fo."
"Good," I said. "Then how about getting your mind and hand to work as fast as your feet?"
Marvin relaxed, smiled, and began to write.
I WAS STANDING IN THE SHOWER, BREATHING THE steam, when Amos climbed the porch steps. I had just finished cleaning in the barn and stank something fierce. I heard the creak of the springs, the slam of the screen door, and then, "D.S., you ready?"
"Ready?" I asked, poking my head around the corner.
"Ivory. Man, put a filter on that thing." Amos saw me walk past the door wearing my towel and put his sunglasses back on. "The UV is killing me. You need to get out more. A little tan here and there wouldn't hurt you."
My ancestors were Scottish. They came in through South Carolina, then through Tennessee, and ended up in Texas. You'd think that hot Texas sun would have brought out some tan, but it didn't. Too many years in the highlands, I suppose. I've never had a tan, but I've been burnt a thousand times.
Amos covered his eyes, then made himself at home with my refrigerator, which was empty. "Don't you ever buy anything to eat? You're gonna wither away."
"There's PB &J and tuna in the pantry," I said from behind the door.
Amos poked around in the kitchen, rattled some plates and silverware, then yelled, "Boy, I'm tired of waiting on you. Would you get it in gear?"
I pulled a T-shirt over my head and said, "Amos, I don't know why you're here, but I've got a notion I'm not going to like it. And the last time you had that look, I ended up standing in front of a class of college kids, which I'm still trying to figure my way out of. Shouldn't you be working or something?"
"Ivory, Ivory, Ivory," Amos said, not looking up from the four pieces of bread on which he was spreading peanut butter. To Amos, a PB & J was not a snack, it was an experience. Too much peanut butter, and it was hard to swallow. Too much jelly, and it was too sweet. Too much of both, and it drowned out the bread. And Amos did not like wheat bread. White only. The kind you ordinarily feed to ducks or put on a hook.
Judging from his flair with the knife and the way he was putting the peanut butter on the bread, I could tell that he was in a good mood. I just wasn't sure why. Amos was a real prankster when we were younger, but when he got hired by the sheriffs department, he shelved a lot of that. Occupational hazard, I suppose. Show criminals you're a real human being with emotions and feelings, and they'll take you for a loop or leave you in a ditch somewhere, putting pressure on a real bad gunshot wound.
Nope, this was unusual. But it was the Amos I knew. It was also the Amos I needed to see. In the past, when he let his hair down this far, we usually got in trouble, but that was before the badge.
"Amos," I started, "when was the last time we got into trouble?"
"Tonight," he said, kind of dancing around the kitchen with a sandwich in one hand and another in his mouth. He was dressed in cut-off shorts, a worn and ragged John Deere cap, his beeper, a torn-up T-shirt that said "Protected by Kimber," and no shoes. This could only mean one thing.
The river.
WHEN AMOS AND I WERE TWELVE AND ELEVEN RESPECTIVELY, we built a raft. We had spent the previous month reading Robinson Crusoe and were in the middle of Huckleberry Finn, so we had a hankering. The raft took us most of a month, but we were a lot smarter about it than Crusoe. We cut cedars growing out of the water, so that when they fell, they fell into the water. We couldn't understand why old Rob didn't think about that before he cut that big tree so far from the ocean. We saw it coming the moment he cut it. I said, "He'll never get that thing in the water," and Amos said, "Yeah, how's he gonna drag it? It's not like he can move it." We were right. Rob never got it to the water.
We trimmed the top branches and bound together twelve cedar trees, about a foot in diameter each, and then floated the whole thing downstream to the main river, where we floated it into shallow water and tied it up. We did most of the work in the water, covering the base with about thirty smaller trees. We cut them in half and sanded the tops so that we actually had a flat floor that fit rather tightly into the subfloor beneath it. Made for a pretty good raft. At least Papa thought so.
On top of the flooring, which was twelve by twelve, we built a lean-to that could sleep both of us. We even put a woodburning stove in it. We had planned to float to the Gulf, but then found out that our river didn't dump into the Gulf. Whoops.
The whole thing weighed a ton, and once it got good and waterlogged, probably more. Cedar trees are pretty heavy. It needed about eight inches of water to float. We'd travel downriver, however far we could get in a night, and then hook the raft to a barge going north to pick up soy, corn, or whatever the farmers were trying to get to the railroad in Brunswick.
In the span of a summer, we got to know most of the usual captains. We'd float a day or two, fish, eat whatever we caught, smoke a pipe like Rob and Huck, get dizzy, sleep, and then about Sunday afternoon, we'd throw a rope, hook a barge, and it'd pull us north. We could reverse in five hours what had taken us nearly two or three days.
That's not entirely fair. On our float down, we'd tie up and fish for a few hours, sometimes a day. It depended on if and where the fish were biting. Then we'd float until we felt like fishing again. On several occasions we thought about ditching the raft, but after all that work, we just couldn't do it. Too much invested. Besides, the barge captains were lonely and liked having somebody to talk to, and we liked not having to row that thing back up that river.
We tried that just once. Floated downriver about twelve miles, spent the night, then thought we'd paddle back up it. Not a chance. You'd think, as critical as we'd been of Crusoe, we'd have thought of that. Funny how you can think of some things and not others.
Then about fifteen years ago, I found an old forty-horse Evinrude that belonged to Papa. All the times I worked and played in that barn, and I never knew it was there. We took it to Bobby's small engine-repair shop in town, and Bobby spent a week tinkering with it, replacing this hose and that seal. Pretty soon he had it puttering like a champ.
Bobby helped us rig up a platform out of steel. We sank the bolts all the way through the timber and hooked the Evinrude to the back of the raft. That was the day that heaven came to Digger. A couple of five-gallon gas cans, and we could putter all the way back from a three-day float. It really changed the way we traveled. Sometimes we puttered upriver ten or so miles and then just floated back. The motor was a nice addition, but the floating was why we built the raft.
Floating the river is a delicate dance. Tenuous at best. If you've ever floated, you know what I mean. It's slow and silent progress, but you're not in control. Nobody controls the river. To float the river you've got to trust something bigger than yourself, and you better not mind living halfway between Nowhere and No Place Else, because the river's not interested in the destination, only the process. Otherwise all rivers would be straight.
The river's got its own rhythm, and you either dance to it or you don't. Whether you're man or woman matters not because the river leads, and if you're stepping out of time, then it's your fault because the river changes its beat for no one. You want to go swimming? Go swimming. You want to sleep? Sleep. You want to fish? Fish. You want to go faster? Too bad. You want to slow down? Good luck. The river's got one speed, and it's not going to stop and wait on you. And unless it rains, it's not going to hurry you along either.
Amos and I made our pact with the river long ago. We built a raft, shoved off, and never complained. Rain, no rain, sun, no sun, wind, no wind, hot, cold, fast, slow, wet, dry. It really didn't matter to us. We were just boys, happy to go wherever the river carried us. And all the river cared about was that we were going in the same direction it was and that we could swim, because it didn't like us dying.
Rivers don't do death, that's why they flow. You may drown, sink to the bottom, and lie there a few days, swelling, getting all puffy. You might even get caught on a downed tree with bream and bass nibbling on your nose, but eventually the river's going to lift you up and beach you. Spit you out like Jonah. You're not going to make the trip. You can't go where the river goes. Rivers do life, and the dead don't dance.
On our maiden voyage, a three-day float, we read Huckleberry Finn, switching turns every chapter. Our favorite scene was Huck sitting on the raft, deciding whether or not to rescue Jim. "All right then, I'll go to hell" became our motto.
For us, the raft was a safe and easy place. While I read, Amos would lie flat, listen, and try to smoke a pipe. He coughed and sputtered a good bit, about like the Evinrude, but eventually he got it and seemed to enjoy it. I, on the other hand, tried Red Man. A mistake. Every time I put that stuff in my mouth, I'd end up chumming. Why in the world I continued to try still amazes me. Glutton for punishment, I suppose. I figured if Josey Wales and John Wayne could chew, then so could I. The only difference was that my life was not a movie. Mine was real life and showed all the unedited stuff, like me hanging my head overboard.
My dancing with the river was never poetic, but Amos got pretty close.
I JUMPED INTO SOME SHORTS AND GRABBED MY POCKETknife, Papa's yellow-handled, two-bladed Case Trapper.
Amos started in again. "Come on, boy. I'm always waiting on you."
Amos and I lit out the front door and headed for the barn, where Pinky met us at the gate and tried to flip me with a stiff shoulder. She's got about 130 pounds on me.
Amos laughed, and I shooed her away. "Get out of here, you of biddy."
"That is one mean pig," Amos said as Pinky grunted and ran in circles around her offspring.
"You ain't seen nothing. That pig is the Antichrist," I said.
The Evinrude hung on a little rack I'd made years back. Even though we hadn't used it in a few years, I started it up every now and again just to hear the sound. We loaded it into the wheelbarrow-actually it was more of a manure cart, but we called it a wheelbarrow-and grabbed a couple of gas cans. Two cans were plenty for a one-night float.
It was getting dark, but the trail alongside the cornfield was light enough. The moon shimmered off the sand, and shadows followed us through the long, tall grass and even taller corn. Blue bounced along beside us.
"What happened to your arm?" Amos asked while pushing the wheelbarrow and nodding at my forearm. "That's a pretty good one."
"Oh, that's just, uh ... I was moving some stuff in the barn, and Pinky tripped me up. Just came down on it wrong."
"You ought to send that thing to Smithfield. I'd tell you to make sausage out of her, but she's probably too dang tough."
"You got a point there," I agreed. A half mile later we rolled up to the riverbank and into the hollow where we hid the raft. The river was high, due to the moon, so floating it out would be easy. We pulled off all the branches that had either fallen on it or we had put on it, but there didn't seem to be as many as the last time we had done this.
"I think somebody's been on our boat," I said, pointing. "Less cover."
Amos nodded and looked at the raft. "Sometimes a man likes to be alone."
"When?" I asked.
"'Bout four weeks ago. I got tired of sitting there feeling useless and watching you hold Maggs's hand."
"Oh."
Amos mounted the motor and loaded the gas inside the lean-to. We had sealed it when we built it, so it was pretty good and dry. Matches even lit. Which would be nice once we got going. A fire helped keep the mosquitoes at bay, and this end of the Salkehatchie Swamp produced some big mosquitoes.
I grabbed the push pole, jumped on top of the poling platform, and backed out the raft.
We bumped into some old cedars, and Amos said, "D.S., you're getting rusty."
I gave a hard push and Amos, who was standing, lost his balance and almost went in the water.
"D.S., you get my Kimber wet and I'm gonna beat you like a drum right here on this raft in the middle of the river."
I laughed. "I ain't that rusty. And you might could whup me, but you're gonna have to catch me first, Mr. Donut."
Amos was actually pretty fit. He had gained a few pounds since high school-I'd say about ten-but it was mostly muscle. After high school his hair started thinning up top, so he just shaved it off. He said it was cooler and less hassle. Although I'd never tell him, Amos is a pretty handsome man, and he takes good care of himself. Spends about four days a week in the weight room. So between his head, his muscles, and the moon, he looked like a shorter, thicker, blacker version of Mr. Clean. I was glad we were on the same side.
"Listen here, half-pint, I'm within ten pounds of my playing weight. What are you? 'Bout a buck-seventy?" He eyed me up and down.
"One sixty-eight," I said.
"That's what I thought. You're almost thirty pounds under your playing weight."
"Yeah, but I can still outrun you," I said, laughing and looking downriver.
"But when I catch you," Amos said, flexing his right arm, "I'm gonna put you in the Carolina cruncher."
"Ebony," I said, smirking, "I think you're losing a bit. Your arms ain't what they used to be."
He took two steps, grabbed my legs, and tossed. The whole thing didn't take a second and a half. I went about fifteen feet in the air, then dived deep into the water. I swam back over to the raft and climbed up, something I'd done a hundred times. I wrung out my shirt and watched Amos stand atop the polling platform, smiling. It was good to be back on the raft.
We floated a few hours, not saying much. About three o'clock in the morning, Amos looked up from his pipe and broke the silence. "Have you been thinking what I think you're thinking?"
I knew what he was asking. This was why he had brought me to the river. Amos was checking my pulse, but it hurt too much just to come outright and say it. We needed the river and a few hours beneath the shadow of the moon to get him to the place where he could ask and me to the place where I could answer.
I looked up from my seat on the front of the raft. "If Maggs is already sitting in heaven, rocking our son, laughing with Nanny and Papa and our folks, and looking down on me, then she's never coming back, and I might live another sixty years." I shook my head. "I just don't know that I can make it through those years without her."
We floated along in the quiet, listening to the ripple and flap of water against the cedar timbers. An owl hooted, and on the air I smelled a charcoal fire thick with lighter fluid. Amos stood atop the poling platform on the back of the raft, his sweat glistening in the moonlight. Minutes passed, during which neither of us said a word.
My pulse must have been pretty weak, because Amos pressed me one more time. "What keeps you?"
I splashed water on my face and rubbed my eyes. "The thought of Maggie waking up. Her hand without mine. Her without me, staring at the same future that's bearing down on me."
Blue slept next to me, his ears pricking up every once in a while. We probably floated four or five miles while Amos wordlessly and methodically worked the pole. It was a warm night, so I dunked my head in the water and let it drip down and soak my neck and chest. Amos lit his pipe, and in the flash of the match I saw tears streaking his cheeks. At daybreak, we napped and fished. We caught a few bream, one or two bass, and ate lunch around noon. About dusk, we cranked the Evinrude and puttered back home, arriving around midnight.
I stepped onto the porch and pointed to the stringer. "Keep the fish. I'm not too hungry."
Amos nodded, looked as if he wanted to say something, and then stuck his right index finger in the air. He opened the trunk of his squad car, pulled out a cardboard box about two feet square, and set it on the porch. "Maggie found this at an antique shop in Walterboro. She was real excited. Stored it at my house so you wouldn't find it. I think she meant to give it to you on your first day of class. After the, uh ... well, I didn't know what to do with it. So here it is." Amos looked out over the field toward the river. "I don't think she ever got around to writing a card."
Amos turned while tears slid off his square chin. He nodded and spoke quietly, as if his voice would amplify across the cornfield. "When you boil it down," he said, holding out his hand and counting with his fingers, "all we got left, all anybody's got, is faith ... and hope ... and love." He looked at his three fingers. "And we all gonna make it. All three of us."
I watched him cross the dirt road and head into his own driveway. I turned on all the lights, showered, wrapped myself in a towel, and stood in the den, staring at that box. An hour later, I sat on the floor and slit the brown wrapping tape. Inside, wrapped in dirty burlap, were a leather-strung drum and two hand-cut drumsticks.