Where the River Ends

by Charles Martin

She raised both eyebrows and shook her head. “That won’t do. Won’t do at all.”

  The roads in Charleston are wide—designed that way in 1680 to avoid the congestion typical of London’s narrow streets. So we walked up East Bay, along Rainbow Row, took a left on Elliott to Church and down Cabbage Row. She pointed up and down the street. “You ever seen Porgy and Bess?” I shook my head. “Well, when you do, this is Catfish Row.”

  We crossed over to the Dock Street Theater. “This is where I learned to stand in front of a bunch of strangers.” She smiled. “And like it.” She led me a few doors down to the Pirates house built out of blue granite quarried in Bermuda. “Rumor has it,” she said, pointing at her feet, “there are secret tunnels leading from beneath the house all the way to the wharf.”

  “You believe the rumors?”

  She nodded.

  “How come?”

  She looked left, then right and leaned in closer. “’Cause I’ve been in the tunnels.”

  We U-turned and then righted on Chalmers—Charleston’s longest remaining cobblestone street. British ships in the East India Trade Company used England’s cobblestones as ballast in their transatlantic voyage. Landing here and filling her stores with cotton, rice or lumber meant she left us her rocks. Frugal colonists used them to pave the streets, filling in the cracks with crushed oyster shell that, due to its high lime content, naturally filtered the runoff. Turning left on Meeting, we passed under the Four Corners of Law—so named after the four buildings that line each corner: the federal courthouse and post office, the county courthouse, City Hall and St. Michael’s Episcopal Church. After another right on Broad, she steered left on King—culminating our walk through and around the visual library of architecture that is Charleston. Abbie explained, “Charleston has the largest number of original eighteenth-and nineteenth-century homes in the country. In the renaissance that resulted after Hurricane Hugo, a fever spread. Everybody wanted a piece, sending home prices skyrocketing to nearly a thousand dollars a square foot. Rarely does someone post a for-sale sign in the front yard. They aren’t needed. The owner merely mentions to a friend or realtor that they are thinking about selling and before day’s end they’d have answered eight or ten calls. Bidding wars are not uncommon. Most homes around here are what they call the Charleston single house. One room wide, with its narrow end bordering the street. The porches—or piazzas—often run the length of the house, and face south or southwest to catch the prevailing sea breeze. Colonists learned long ago it’s better to plan for the long, oppressively hot summers than the brief winters.” Abbie knew more about Charleston in five minutes than I knew at all. She ducked in one alley to show me a bricked herringbone driveway. At another, an original Philip Simmons ironwork, or a garden growing something unique: “That Wisteria is thought to be a hundred and fifty years old.” I’d studied art most of my life, but Abbie’s eye was as developed, if not more so, than mine. She saw beauty in the smallest of details. At another gate, she leaned over and pointed up. “That’s called Kiss Me at the Gate or Breath of Spring.” It slid through her fingers. “It’ll grow six to eight feet, and its blossoms dangle, but mostly its known for its fragrance.”

  I was amazed. “How do you know all this?”

  “I’m a Charleston girl.” She smiled. “We’re raised to know this stuff.”

  It was after midnight and we had come full circle, just a few blocks from her house. She looked at me. “You tired?”

  I shook my head. “No, I think the walk did me good. I don’t know what you people put in that lemonade but it ought to come with a warning.”

  She laughed, grabbed my hand and we walk-jogged a few blocks back toward the water. Pulling me along she said, “They close at one, so we might get there in time.”

  “Who closes at one?”

  The streets were quiet, lit by the occasional passing car or gas streetlamp. A couple of cats fought over a Dumpster and somewhere in the distance a high-pitched dog bark was followed by a low-pitched response. We ran back out onto Rainbow Row and crossed over to a corner liquor store. She pushed open the door, where we found an elderly black gentleman wearing a crimson sweater-vest. He sat behind a counter, one long leg extending beyond the counter, a penguin wingtip tapping in rhythm to the jazz coming out of the solid-state radio above him. One eye was cloudy but his beard and mustache were trimmed and his pink shirt had been pressed and starched. Abbie crossed the floor and he stood, beaming. “Must be some party if they sent you shopping at this time of night.”

  She pulled my hand. “Mr. Jake, this is my friend Doss Michaels.”

  He looked at me through his one good eye, sizing me up. Abbie turned to me. “Mr. Jake used to work at the theater. He taught me how to dance.”

  He laughed an easy laugh but never took his eyes off me. He was quiet a minute then extended his hand. “You that boy I heer’d about the other night that helped Miss Abbie?”

  I nodded. “I am.”

  He waved his hand across the store. “Then anything you want is yours.”

  She stepped closer and wrapped an arm around his waist. “Mr. Jake, I wanted to show Doss the cellar.”

  He walked around the corner, pulled on a recessed handle at the floor level and lifted a large door. She flicked a light switch and the three of us descended some old wooden steps into the basement.

  It was cool, and some water dripped somewhere. From what I could tell, the basement had been made entirely of large, hand-cut bricks. Mr. Jake explained, “This here is one of the tunnels out of the original old city of Charleston.” He waved his hand across the room like a buzzing bee. “They runned the len’th of the city. During Hugo, they filled up with ocean water…that flushed out all the rats.” He laughed again, something he did a lot of. “Some have collapsed. Some remain. Few know about them.”

  I ran my hand along the wall and listened. He continued, “When I was a kid, I used to come in through a city drainage pipe out near the wharf, walk a couple of blocks through these tunnels with a candle in my hand and pop up inside the theater. They wouldn’t let me in the front door, so I come up underneath. I’ve seen more shows there than…anyone living I s’pose.”

  Abbie turned toward me. “Mr. Jake is being modest. He started his acting career at Dock Street, then took it to New York where he starred in more than one on and off Broadway show.”

  He nodded, remembering. She grabbed his hand. “Mr. Jake, you still remember our first dance?” She kicked off her shoes and turned to me. “I was six. Dock Street needed a fillin and doing so involved a very complicated number with Mr. Jake.” I leaned back against the wall while Abbie led and Mr. Jake remembered. His heels scuffed the brick floor taking two steps while the man in his memory took one. His face told me everything I needed to know.

  They finished, his breathing was heavy but his smile had grown. She stood on her toes, kissed him on the cheek and said, “Mr. Jake, you’re still the best.”

  “Miss Abbie”—he pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket, shook it loose and wiped his brow and neck—“you do an old man good.”

  We climbed out of the basement and stepped out of the liquor store underneath a single streetlight. Returning home, she talked more about the homes we passed, their history and those who owned them. I listened, walked off the buzz and felt something strange. I had spent my life swimming between the islands inside myself but had never seen one from another. That night, I stared across the ocean in me and saw, for the first time, a distant shore.

  12

  JUNE 2, MORNING

  We passed the night on the beach beneath a crape myrtle.

  Abbie laid her head on my lap and slept in fits while I listened, thought back through the last four years and grew angrier. Watching three idiots rifle through our life was, in football terms, piling on. I was downright pissed. She mumbled, talked in garbled sentences and her arms and legs twitched in short violent strokes. Given the pain, she’d not known deep sleep in months. Maybe a year. She floated in and o
ut of consciousness—resting just beneath the surface. It was like watching someone who slept with one eye open.

  I ran my fingers down her temple, ear, neck and along her shoulder. The shadows around her eyes were dark and sockets sunk deep. Her fingers trembled. I cupped them inside mine and tucked them beneath her chin.

  She’d hoped for so much, so many times and for so long but each scan, each new devastating report had chipped away at her. Doctors told me that the restlessness was a function of the illness—the deterioration of her central nervous system, the medicines that poisoned her. I think there was more to it. Deep down, Abbie knew that if she let her guard down she’d never wake up.

  I’m a sucker for the Rocky movies. I’ve watched each some twenty times. I can’t explain that other than there’s just something about a man who refuses to go down. Who stands toe to toe, time and time again and says, I am. Don’t take that the wrong way. I’m no Rock. Hardly. But my Abbie is. Look at her. Here lies the most beautiful, most precious, most magnificent woman on the planet who, despite the baggy skin and that little voice sitting on her shoulder telling her she’s not even a shadow of her former self, is still swinging. Still throwing blows. Still reaching deep.

  In the weeks and months to come, people will look at what I’ve done and ask me why. Why’d I do it? I’m not sure I can put that into words. If they have to ask, then they really won’t understand the answer. At least, an answer they can accept or will understand.

  Nobody fights forever, so I prepared myself for two battles. The first was fighting alongside her. We’ve done that. As well as two can. But as the years have ticked by, I’ve seen a second front coming—and it’s the tougher of the two. Abbie might still be swinging but she was beat. To be honest, I think she was still in the ring fighting, simply for me. Lately, the thing that had been keeping me up nights was wondering what would happen if I told her that she could let her guard down—that she could stop fighting. What if she was just waiting on me?

  WHEN SUNRISE FINALLY BROKE through the treetops, I was ready to shoot somebody. She woke, lifted her head off my lap, rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and said, “How you doing?” I turned downriver, thumbed away the tears, my right index finger tapping the trigger guard of the shotgun. She raised an eyebrow. “That well, huh?”

  She sat up. “Don’t let them rob us of this. Got it?” See what I mean?

  “Wait here while I go see what’s left.” I slipped down into the river and headed back to the campsite.

  My reconnaissance didn’t take long. They’d thrown everything into the fire. The fire must have been hot because only ashes littered the riverbank. The second canoe was empty but it would float. In short, we had no food, no shelter, and no GPS. Abbie had her sleeping bag and the T-shirt she was wearing but nothing else. I had the long-sleeved shirt I was wearing, the shorts I had on, a pair of Tevas, a shotgun, a revolver and the Pelican case. None of which we could eat or drink.

  We had to get going.

  I pulled the mango-colored canoe back down to Abbie, laid her in the middle and said, “In a few miles, we’ll start coming upon some cabins and that…resort. Maybe we can find a few things there.”

  She smirked. “Resort, huh? I should fit right in.”

  The Bare Bottom Resort was a nudist colony populated by all manner of society—from the older and more comfortable to the younger and more experimental. They usually stayed back from the river and didn’t draw attention, but if you didn’t know what to expect, you might find yourself surprised.

  She tapped me in the chest pocket and raised her eyebrows. “What’re we checking off today?”

  “Honey, we’re going to try and find some water and, if we’re lucky, some clothes for you.”

  She slipped her leg outside the zipper of her sleeping bag. Several small bruises polka-dotted her thigh. “Cheer up…It’s not every day you get to paddle your favorite river with a naked woman.”

  “Good point.”

  I reached behind my seat for the map case, but it, too, was gone. I patted my chest hoping to hear the rustle of the plastic bag. No rustle.

  She read it on my face. “That too, huh?” I nodded. The sides of her lips turned up. “I think I can remember.”

  It was a familiar place. I scratched my head. When everything is gone, what remains?

  I hadn’t been paddling twenty minutes when I pushed the bow of the canoe through some overhanging limbs and pulled through into a deep pool on the other side. The bank rose twenty feet on either side, nearly straight up. Downed trees formed a spaghetti junction so I stepped out, threw my arms through the straps and leaned into their weight. It was like walking on a beaver dam for a hundred yards. With every step, I’d break through one layer of twigs and sticks, only to be temporarily stopped by another layer submerged between the surface. I pulled on the limbs, ducked below others and stepped over still others. The problem was not me but the canoe—and not breaking every one of Abbie’s ribs. I was pulling the canoe over a log, sweat pouring off my face, my hands cut and bleeding, and Abbie’s hand came up over the edge. She was starting to laugh. “Honey?”

  I set my feet and pulled. Then set them again and pulled harder. Finally, the canoe slid over the log and glided across the water about four feet until it hit another log. Standing hurt. “Yes?”

  “When we get home, let’s get this thing serviced. I think the shocks on this baby are shot.”

  “I’ll take that under advisement.”

  “Good.” She lay back down. “Wake me when we get out of this mess.”

  I walked around to the bow, grabbed the ropes again and stared at the river in front of us. There were another fifty such trees—horizontal hurdles—just within eyesight. When Abbie had said all the way from Moniac, this is what she meant. The impossible part where there is no rhythm other than some offbeat thing that only the river hears. Here, the river owns you. It breaks you down, holds you at its mercy and you don’t stand a chance. It is here that she stops you. Makes you look around. Forces you to measure…and be measured.

  Forearm-thick muscadine vines, starting on opposite banks, had climbed up the live oak trunks and then crossed over the river using the limbs as a trellis. Having met in the middle, they interlocked, wove together and created a patchwork through which little sunlight passed but, come September, would hang thick with grapes. Currently, they were thick with leaves and little green flowers and crawling with lizards.

  The vines often exceed a hundred feet in length and flourish in warm and humid conditions where the soil is sandy. Hence, the river. The tough-skinned, five-seeded grapes grow to two inches in diameter and range in color from greenish bronze to bronze, to pinkish red, purple and almost black.

  When they ripen, folks will lay a tarp across the ground and shake the vine. Sugar content of the grapes can reach twenty-five percent, so they’ll make good jellies and jams, but down here the preferred use is wine.

  I slid over a log, heaved on the canoe and it slid over and down, resting in the water. I was spent. I leaned on the bow, gorging on air. Somewhere behind me, I heard a hammer cock. A broken, raspy voice—thick with mucous—broke the stillness. “You ain’t got a lick o’sense.”

  I turned and stood nose to barrel with the business end of an old rusty shotgun that looked about five feet long. Behind it stood the most hideous woman I’d ever laid eyes on. Toothless gums, mouth half full of snuff, the brim of her hat was pushed up flat over her forehead where it touched the crown, and her hands were gnarled and her fingers crooked in all the wrong places. She wasn’t white or black but some faded shade between. Her face was covered in freckles and the top half of her right ear was missing. She wore denim overalls, a tattered denim shirt and knee-high rubber boots. She slid the barrel off center and sized me up. Now if she pulled the trigger, she’d just blow off the right side of my head rather than the whole thing. Her left eye was clouded over and a large cataract had dimmed her pupil. She closed her mouth, pushed all the spit to one side, th
en pursed her lips and shot it in a practiced stream out the side of her mouth. Over to the right, some fifteen feet away, a scratchy noise caught her attention. With swiftness, she swung, aimed and pressed the trigger. Four feet of flame rose out of the barrel and somewhere across the river, a rodent with a long tail caught the entire load and was launched airborne in a hundred disconnected pieces. She ejected the shell, slid another in and slammed the receiver shut. Eyes narrowed, she studied me and the canoe. The blast had brought Abbie upright and bright-eyed. The woman pointed the barrel down and raised one eyebrow. She shook her head. “Rats! They gnawin’ at my vines. I don’t like that.”

  Abbie nodded. “I see that.”

  The woman waved the barrel at me. “You with him?”

  Abbie pointed at me. “He promised me an Alaskan cruise, you know one of those whale-watching deals, and…this is what I get.”

  The woman broke the receiver open, hung the shotgun across her arm like a boomerang and laughed. She spat a dark stream out into the river. “I like you.”

  Abbie shrugged. “Gee, that is sure better than the alternative.”

  The woman laughed again. The mucous hung on her vocal chords and made me gag just listening to it. “What you doing with him?”

  “He’s my husband.”

  She waved the bent barrel toward me. “He’s an idiot.”

  “You know, my dad has been telling me that for fourteen years.”

  The woman laughed a hyena-howl that rose up through the trees. The force of the laugh dislodged the tickler in her throat. She cornered it with her tongue, cocked her cheeks and rocketed the oyster-sized loogie out over the river. “I like you.”

  Abbie followed the arc of the spittle. “I’m glad we’ve established that.” When the spit landed, the fish nibbled at it, popping the water with suction.

  The woman walked down into the water and waded up next to the canoe. She stood waist-deep, eye to eye with Abbie. Swaying to one side, she said, “You sick?”