by Steve Amick
Ms. Guidi had gone as far as to say that this lack of connection and seeming lack of passion about anything could seriously adversely affect Mark’s chances with schools. “When a kid doesn’t give a hang about anything? If it just appears that he or she doesn’t? That shows up on the application. I’m telling you, they look for that, between the lines. They don’t even have to interview the kid; they can tell. They know when a kid’s dragging himself through life, shrugging his shoulders a lot and saying ‘Whatever . . .’ to everything.”
She was right. Mark muttered “Whatever . . .” so much that Scott sometimes wondered if it was the way his son drew in oxygen. And he was so annoyingly lifeless about it, so devoid of any conviction, Scott almost wanted to slap off the backward baseball cap or the knit longshoreman cap or whatever he was only halfheartedly wearing, barely pulled onto his skull as if he wasn’t even sure about that.
All this was also in Scott’s thoughts in dealing with the tree nonsense with Lasco. Not that he would have otherwise let that slide—of course not: he was in the right and his neighbor was absolutely wrong—but he told himself that it was probably instructive for his son to see him show some passion, act with conviction, and follow through. Yes, it would probably be a very good life lesson for Mark to watch his father pursue this matter to the full length of the law—and that would be more than enough reason not to just let it go. Like hell if he was going to raise a son who would shrug his shoulders when his property was destroyed and say “Whatever,” and fail to get involved and interact with society. That simply was not an option.
7
UNTIL JUST A FEW YEARS AGO, there was an official white-on-green sign, right before you crossed the drawbridge, that announced the river’s presence, declaring:
OH-JOHN-NINNY RIVER
But then, around the time the very lucrative Indian casino came to the region, along with the powerful lobbying groups that it now financed, the sign was changed to:
OH-JOHN-NINNY RIVER
(OJAANIMIZIIBII)
Originally, way back in the pre-drawbridge days, whites made a stab at recording it fairly accurately, as the Ohjonimmizeebee or the Ohjohnimmyzeeby, and, less accurately, as the Ojohnimississibee and the Ohjoninnymizzy and the Ojohnimmy, but soon began simplifying it on maps and in public records as the Oh-John-Ninny River.
Despite all this fiddling, the band of Ojibwe named after the river somehow managed to hang on to their name. But that is about all that hasn’t changed. That and the tradition of the river pilots.
In 1901, the area’s chief commodities were pig iron and pine, followed probably by lake perch. In contrast, in 2001, it was sweet cherries and fudge, followed probably by picturesque boat photos and sweatshirts that said Weneshkeen, MI and were sewn in Korea, embroidered in California and featured, over the breast, an algae-dripping moose the likes of which have not been seen in the Lower Peninsula probably since before the Mackinac Bridge was built, back when they would have had to swim the straits. (And even then, even probably when Teddy Roosevelt or Hemingway stomped around in area swamps, you still would have said, if you’d seen one roaming free, “God-damn! Is that a moose?!”) What Weneshkeen does—what it is—is always changing; moving along like the river.
But throughout it all, always there have been the river pilots: the “pilot-boys” and the “under-boys” officially commissioned by the village to guide boats along the Oh-John. The service has become a tradition; part of the local color, though many have questioned the practical need for it. Navigational computers have changed everything, and there haven’t been that many accidents in recent years, within the actual confines of the river, that couldn’t be attributed in some way to alcohol consumption. It has its tricky spots, sure, but it really isn’t all that treacherous or swift or anything. In fact, some say the most distinctive thing about the river is its name. Walt DeWalt, the senior river pilot, once bragged, “I’d match it mouthful to mouthful with any river in North America.” And you can see that in the way the tourists gather for photos around the sign, as if they’ve just discovered something terribly amusing that had escaped all other visitors who came before them.
During its industrial heyday, in the latter part of the nineteenth century, one of Weneshkeen’s most prominent citizens was a lumber baron named John Scudder, whose enterprises dominated these waters. Most of the town made money for him in one way or another, whether through direct labor or by rent or by custom at any of his many company stores. He was opinionated and powerful and, some say, had his battles with mental illness. The half that resented him took to calling the river the Ninny John. The half that feared him opted for the less inflammatory Oh-John. Reportedly, John Scudder himself referred to it, as close as he could manage, in the original Ojibwe, and by the time of his death, he’d taken to signing all correspondence “J. Samuel Scudder.”
In the end, the “Oh-John” became the most common shorthand, though there are still a few old-timers alive today—sticklers and gripers—who insist on calling it the “Ninny John.”
The other, more recent wisecrack commonly made about the river’s name is that the new sign was put there to help separate the locals from the outsiders. If you can’t pronounce the full Ojibwe version without spraining your tongue or otherwise herniating yourself, you are an outsider. But of course there are plenty of other ways to tell.
8
WHEN MARK STARKEY LEARNED from his dad that he’d been selected to be an “under-boy” that summer—an apprentice to the older river pilots, the “pilot-boys”—his reaction was less awe and more “oh.” He understood it was supposed to be some sort of big-ass honor or something, a sweet deal as far as small-town summer jobs went, and the local kids hustled to lock in one of the few positions every year, getting their dads to pull some strings to get them a spot. Personally, Mark didn’t really get it. Somewhere along the line, long before they’d started coming up to this town in the summer—long before he was born, even—a local status symbol had been made out of this job that was, essentially, working out in the sun all day pointing out the underwater stumps. He suspected it was like those doormen in front of hotels and fancy apartment buildings in New York, with their uniforms and rows of buttons and the epaulets, like they were in command of a goddamn battleship or something. No actual power, but prestige—in some circles, maybe, among their friends.
This was not at all how he’d hoped to spend his summer. What he wanted to do was swim and read. And go in his room and pretend to read but really be beating off. That’s what summers were for, was how he saw it. And in terms of money, he didn’t really need a summer job. At least not something that brought in such a small return. He had the birthday money his Gram had been giving him back before he had teeth even, that he’d put into the stock market and even with the current economy as it was, even if it was only earning him say, three percent, it was still far better than anything he could collect helping old geezers get their pleasure boats up and down the river. Granted, it wasn’t an either/or situation—he’d be making money on the stocks even with the job—but the point was, how much walking-around money did he actually need? It wasn’t like he went on a lot of dates—not in the summer, at least, stuck up in Weneshkeen with his friends downstate in Birmingham, so who would he even go to the movies with? During the school year, he’d get his weekly allowance, and as for college, which was another two years away, his parents would be paying for that, too. So why the fuck, he wanted to say to them, did he have to be a stupid pilot-boy? (Not even—an assistant pilot-boy. An “under-boy”—like he was going to scrape barnacles.)
When he finally asked, minus the “fuck,” the answers they came up with were lame. His dad talked about “building character.” His mom said she wouldn’t have him “moping around the house all summer.” Both of them kept coming back to the same “connecting with the community” crap, “giving back,” but it was pretty clear it was just an appearances thing. Some kind of status deal for his parents, like they were blending i
n with the locals. Like they were legitimate, not outsiders like all the other boat people and Fudgies.
As far as Mark could tell, there were three types of outsiders you could be if you didn’t happen to get born and die in Weneshkeen, like the rest of these bumfucks his dad seemed to want to fit in with. There were the “boat people,” who liked to just sit on their boats in the marina, watching the village as if waiting to get the word to invade. (Except, why would they, he wondered, since these people already had everything. Money and looks like you’d see in a movie.) The boat people with kids hardly ever saw them because the kids had expensive bikes and rode them over every inch of the village, totally unsupervised. The grown-ups only left their boats for groceries, boat parts, booze, or maybe to purchase so-called “artwork” from the little shops—what Mark thought of as “cheesy quack-quacks”: crap like his dad had in his law office back home. Stuff that told other people you were simple folks. A lot of paintings of shabby little boats they would never actually set foot on.
Then there were the “Fudgies,” which were the full-on tourists—geeks who came for a weekend at a B&B or one week at a skeezy rental they saved up for for five years. They paraded around like they were at Disneyworld and planned to make every minute count, damn it. They bought a lot of sweatshirts and antiques and polished Petoskey stones and homemade fudge. Hence the name.
But there were also your basic “summer people,” folks who interacted with the village a little more. These people owned a cottage or summer home and stayed for most of the warmer months. They could be either self-employed people with flexible hours or maybe distant relations or in-laws or descendants of those who built in earlier days, when everything wasn’t so expensive. Or the deed was still in the name of some local, as their legal residence, so they could deduct all of their otherwise crazy-ass property taxes or some deal like that. (The state’s “homestead law,” his dad called it, usually in a grumbling way.) Or they could be independently wealthy or the wives and children of nine-to-five millionaires who were meanwhile stuck downstate, still slaving away all summer. Or maybe retirees with a winter home in Florida. Summer people did their own upkeep and maintenance and had a lot of projects around the house. “Puttering,” his dad called it. They got their own wells running in the spring and put out their own rafts and docks. They made a big show of going in to check their rarely used mailboxes at the post office, calling people by name, signing up for library cards. Some even used the laundromat. Basically, they tried real hard to blend in and usually got their feelings hurt when they found it wasn’t that easy.
Mark knew that last one was his category. Or at least his family’s category. Personally, he didn’t relate to any of these people—outsiders or yokels—so probably, you’d have to put him in his own little box. He didn’t think there was any particular name for his box, but he preferred to think of it as a one-man box.
His dad, in particular, really seemed to care about this blending-in thing though it seemed like it hadn’t always been that way, not when they first bought the place on Lake Michigan. It started a few summers later, around the time they winterized and started remodeling and putting on the additions. As if coming up a few more weekends after Labor Day and that one Christmas the year his dad was into snowshoeing, as if that was going to make them all of a sudden locals. So they were sometimes up here after the leaves dropped or early enough to have to buy a sack of Morton’s for the driveway—big deal. They were still summer people, as far as he could tell. It wasn’t like his dad had quit the firm, back home in Birmingham, where he was still a full partner, specializing in class-action law. There was a watercolor of their lake house hanging in his dad’s inner office. Smack on the wall right when you walked in, ready to be gawked at with a little gallery light on top to help you be impressed. And in case you didn’t get the rustic thing, the frame was made of old barn wood or something, with knots and wormholes, like evidence in an insurance investigation. The point was supposed to be Look, I just work here. But this is not at all who I am. Deep down. In reality, I’m this authentic Up North Michigan guy and if you can’t reach me for some reason, this is where I am, up at the lake, hanging out with my salt-of-the-earth fishing buddies and probably skinning a bear.
It seemed ridiculous to Mark that with all these Opie Taylor types running around desperate for this stupid “under-boy” gig, they’d go and give it to him, an outsider who didn’t even want the thing. How could anyone not smell a rat? Probably it was someone returning a favor to his dad, for some legal advice or for drawing up a will or helping the town council draft something. Maybe the favor came from that Mrs. Hersha lady, who owned the fudge and chocolate store and was pretty connected in town, her and her husband. They were on boards and committees and stuff. And Mark’s dad had helped her a couple years back when she had to change the name of her store, back when the Hershey’s company got nasty with her and sent her those cease-and-desist or whatever letters and she had to change the store from Hersha’s Chocolates to T.G.I.Fudge, which was possibly the stupidest name he’d ever heard for a store, like Thank God it’s fudge and not a big turd—what a relief! Or there were other people he’d done some law work for, too, who might have done it as a favor. It could have been anybody. Or a few different people, conniving. His dad was really busting his ass to get along with these hicks, so he probably had them all snowed into thinking he was this great guy and everything.
And though this stupid job was probably mostly meant to cement his dad’s position as one of the hicks, the way his dad presented it to him, the things he said, made Mark wonder if his dad was actually buying his own B.S. Like it did honestly have something to do with the stuff Ms. Guidi, his school counselor, said about him last winter. Like his dad legitimately thought it would be good for him, as crazy as that seemed.
Finally, he just told his parents, “Fine. Whatever . . .” and left it at that.
RIGHT OFF, THE VERY FIRST DAY on the stupid job, there was way too much to keep track of. There were the three pilothouses—the outer, where the river opened into Lake Michigan, just before the long rocky point and the dilapidated lighthouse; the main pilothouse, right in the middle of the river, next to the inlet to the marina; and the inner pilothouse, where the river opened up into the inland lake, Meenigeesis (which Walt, the older of the two pilot-boys, the codger in his fifties or so, insisted on calling Lake August for some reason, just in case the whole thing wasn’t confusing enough).
And none of that even began to cover the river map. The river map was the memorized route, each snag and obstruction along the way. It didn’t exist on paper because the shallows and the crap under the water constantly shifted and moved around, so it had to be memorized and he would have to be able to put it down on paper, if asked. Drawing every square inch of the Oh-John-Ninny was part of the test he’d have to pass if he ever wanted to be an actual pilot, like Keith or Walt, the two sort-of bosses. Mark knew that first day on the job—even the first ten minutes on the job—that this wasn’t a dream he aspired to. The goal was to get through the summer, not rise to the throne of high-exalted local hick like these assholes hopping on and off of other people’s boats. He continued to hear, from Keith and Walt and from the boat owners they piloted, what a lucky kid he was to be chosen as an under-boy, and he’d nod and mumble agreement, but frankly, it sucked just exactly as much as he thought it would.
As if there weren’t enough stuff they thought he should know, in between boats, while they waited in the pilothouses, Keith showed him knots. He was supposed to memorize them and be able to tie them himself, but all he heard that first day was a lot of business about the bunny going around the tree and down into the hole. They gave him a thrilling page-turner of a pamphlet called Maritime Knots and told him to take it home with him. There was more studying for this than there was for school. There was so much to remember, so much the guys kept repeating to him, barking at him about how important each thing was, not prioritizing at all. He wanted to yell back at t
hem, Hey, why don’t we just agree it’s all fucking important? But he didn’t.
There were a lot of summer people getting their boats out of the dry dock and either taking them down the river to their reserved slips in the marina or wanting to take them out for a spin—either out into the whitecaps of Michigan where they could roar and open the engines wide, or for a cruise around the other lake where they’d wave to friends opening their cottages and putting out their docks. It all seemed so brainless and “Hey-look-at-me!” and “Howdy-neighbor!”—the kind of stuff that might be fun if you had the water totally to yourself and didn’t have to cast lines to people and say “Hello!” a zillion times a day. And though he knew his way around a boat, thanks to his mom’s brother, who owned a sailboat and a cabin cruiser down on Lake Saint Clair, back home, he was now pretty glad, watching the summer people go through their paces, that his own dad wasn’t really a boat person. Not the dorky kind like these people. They had a small boat over at the cottage, but they didn’t promenade in it. They didn’t take it out like it was a baby buggy you stroll with or a fancy Easter bonnet you want to show off. They just used it to actually get from one place to another, when there was a reason. It was a vehicle, not an event. His dad didn’t use the boat like he was going to the prom. That was one good thing about his dad, at least.
The larger boats had to go through single-file—a situation where it seemed river pilots actually served a function. In certain spots, some of these big tubs barely scraped through and it was tricky. An extra pair of eyes from someone who knew the narrows made sense. But the rest of the time, it was clearly just a local custom: a way to tax the invading rich. The really small boats and the local good ol’ boy types in good standing with Walt got a free pass, just a wave from the pilothouse. No fee, no one climbing on board for an escort.
