Stillriver

by Andrew Rosenheim

  ‘Why? It’s the low clay part that’s going to give.’

  He thought how best to convey a distant yet discernible danger without being alarmist, and without (although this had more to do with his own ego) looking foolish should the danger not materialize. ‘You ever see a bathtub overflow?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Donny, adopting the expression of superficial passivity with which, as a teenager, he had endured Michael’s lengthier explanations of geometry solutions.

  ‘No, I don’t mean what happens after a bathtub overflows, I mean as it overflows.’

  Donny looked at him bleary-eyed. ‘Listen, I know I’m not Einstein, and it is six thirty in the morning, and I haven’t had my second cup of coffee. But if I go up to Cassavantes and start talking about bathtubs, I don’t think I’m going to get very far.’

  Michael took a deep breath. ‘Understood. But my point is dead simple: when a bathtub overflows it tends to do so at one particular point, say the corner down below your left foot when you’re lying in it. But pretty soon the water starts coming over the top everywhere. And that’s what’s going to happen here.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning, those guys on the concrete are going to be standing there staring at the point of overflow and suddenly the water’s going to start rising all around them too. Maybe not very fast, maybe just enough to get their feet wet. But conceivably, fast enough to drown one or two of them. I don’t know.’

  ‘I got you.’

  ‘And another thing,’ said Michael, taking a deep breath. He pointed down towards the far end of Fennville Lake. ‘Up that way there are boats and docks and all sorts of crap that’s suddenly going to be sucked this way faster than hell. But it’s not going to go in a straight line right for the little hole. It’s just going to come in this general direction. And I wouldn’t want to be standing down there when a speedboat or a junked car or somebody’s dumped icebox comes zipping in sideways in my general direction. Not if I’m already standing in three feet of water that keeps me from getting my ass out of the way.’ He paused momentarily. ‘Understand, I am talking worst case here.’

  Donny looked at him and gave reluctant assent. ‘I suppose an optimist isn’t much use right now.’ He turned and walked slowly towards Cassavantes while Michael retreated to the bluff.

  Ten minutes later no one remained on the top of the dam, and even the men on the grassy point had climbed higher up, away from the lake. Donny was among the last to come up to the bluff, and he came and stood next to Michael, breathing heavily. ‘I don’t know,’ he said between heavy breaths, ‘whether you got me fired or you got me a promotion. But it seemed to work. Nobody’s down there anyway.’

  They watched as the water crept slowly higher, so tortuously that Michael found himself willing the rising water to hurry up and get it over with. After twenty minutes some of the men grew impatient, and one of them started to go back down the hill towards the dam until Cassavantes curtly called him back. Then Cassavantes himself turned and looked up contemptuously at Donny and Michael. Michael ignored this, trying not to feel self-conscious as he stood waiting for something to happen.

  At first the change was almost imperceptible. Near the dam the water, viewed from high above, suddenly seemed to darken, though this might be a trick played by the early light, or stirred-up sediment close to the shore. Ripples appeared on the surface, miniature waves that soon began to revolve, then join together to form a larger whirlpool. As this whirlpool grew, it rotated at increasing speed, and seemed to dip below the level of the neighbouring water, as if it were pulling additional water into itself the way it would suck in a struggling swimmer.

  ‘See,’ he said in a loud voice to Donny, and several of the men near him on the bluff looked over. He pointed down. ‘It’s going all right, but the hole’s under the surface. Give it time and it’ll come up.’

  And suddenly from the upper rim of the clay side of the dam, where the water had been lapping gently a good six inches below its top, a large chunk gave way. The water shot through this gap, falling over the edge as if poured in a generous stream from a jug. The flow was thin at first – less than a yard wide – but it thickened as the gap in the dam’s lip expanded sideways. The milk chocolate bulk of the dam began to crumble like delicate cake, small crumbs giving way to bite-sized chunks, then whole wedges, until soon the water cascaded with silky violence over what had been a smooth, sixty-foot blockage of clay.

  Within a minute of the first breach of the dam, water was running like spilled ink below it, easily swamping the banks of the river, moving with subtle capillary force among the thin oaks and aspens of the sparse forest. There was a popping noise, then a volley of them, like muffled automatic weapon fire. At first, Michael wondered why anyone would be firing a gun, but then he saw a small stand of tag alders knocked flying like bowling pins, and he realized he was hearing the splintering noise of the tree trunks splitting at their base.

  ‘Come on,’ said Donny, without his usual mildness. ‘I got to get back before that reaches Stillriver.’

  And they ran towards the truck, leaving the other men to watch as the devastation mounted below them. Michael felt as if he were leaving a ringside seat just before the final round.

  Donny drove out of Fennville at high speed, slapping a yellow light onto the top of the cab even as he accelerated out of the parking lot, heading east, away from the river, towards the old highway. ‘If I follow the water,’ he said in explanation, ‘we may get cut off.’ He managed to go ninety miles an hour on the old 31, then slowed down as he turned west on a loose, sandy road that ran through Weekly’s peach farm. Trees stood in leafy lines along both sides of the road, mature stands as well as the dwarves of the new plantations. In one field of older trees, the fruit had not been touched. Unpicked peaches clogged the outstretched arms of the trees, and windfalls lay soft and rotting on the ground, filling the air with a sticky sweetness.

  They were on a track unfamiliar to Michael until he saw the high Victorian roof of Fennville Acres, home to Ethel and Daisy. The road surface grew firmer here, with graded packed sand, and Donny’s truck picked up speed as they passed the home, then careened downhill through young apple trees to the intersection with the back road between Fennville and Stillriver. They were at the bottom of Happy Valley, and not more than a hundred feet to their left sat the old low wooden bridge. Donny stopped the truck to look, and they could see at once that some of the flooding waters had arrived, for the river had surged into extraordinary life, coming down the Fennville side of the valley in rushing curls of white, like semicircle strips of birch bark. The floor of the wooden bridge had disappeared from sight and the water was beginning to cover the upright struts of the railings on both of the bridge’s sides.

  ‘We better get back,’ said Donny. ‘Cassavantes will be at the Junction. He said if the dam went we’d all recce there and figure out what to do next.’

  Do? Thought Michael. In his experience, there wasn’t usually anything you could actually do in a situation like this, other than stay the hell out of the way. As they drove on he took a last look back at Happy Valley, which now looked like a vast bowl half-full of water. There was no clear course to the river any more. They drove without comment by Ricky Fell’s bend, where the large oak stump formed a memorial of sorts. Donny accelerated down a straightaway and thumped a fist impatiently on the steering wheel. ‘I can’t believe something is actually happening here. I mean, something big.’ When Michael said nothing, he added pointedly, ‘You’re probably used to this kind of thing.’

  Michael said, ‘There’s some excitement you can do without.’ He thought of the two drowned men in the Philippines. How small they’d seemed; they looked as if they had fallen asleep.

  As they came down the slight, sloping hill towards the Junction, they could see cars and pickup trucks parked on both sides of the bridge. On the bridge itself, a patrol car sat in the town-bound lane with its top light flashing. Michael noted that the water level was
very high, but not dangerously so – the dam water was still to come. Donny started to slow down and pull over, when Michael tapped his shoulder. ‘Go across,’ he said. ‘Better to be on the town side, I think.’

  On the bridge they stopped as Jimmy Olds walked over, smart in his blue uniform and wearing a brown Mounty-type hat. ‘It’s coming, Jimmy,’ said Donny.

  ‘I know. Cassavantes told me.’ He pointed fifty yards along the road, where the now-familiar orange figure stood talking to a small group of men.

  ‘I best get on then,’ said Donny.

  ‘Hang on a sec,’ said Michael, and leaned his head towards the driver’s side window. ‘Hey Jimmy?’

  ‘Hi Michael, you come to give us some of your expertise?’

  The last syllable was drawn out comically, but the remark was in good humour, and Michael laughed. ‘Of course,’ he replied. ‘And I tell you, if you’re looking to get a new model patrol car, just keep this one where it’s at. We just saw the Happy Valley bridge under water, and I wouldn’t give two bits for this one surviving.’

  Jimmy’s eyes widened, and he tipped his hat.

  Donny put the truck in gear and drove it slowly across the bridge, then pulled over and parked on the road side, only a couple of feet above the shoreline of Stillriver Lake. The rain was coming down hard again, in lashing, stinging bursts pushed by the wind.

  Cassavantes appeared on the driver’s side, and tapped sharply on Donny’s window. He looked angry. ‘Thought I told you to get back here right away.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but it was slow coming through Happy Valley,’ said Donny.

  Cassavantes looked unappeased so Michael asked him about the Junction bridge. Cassavantes said, ‘There ain’t nothing going to knock down those supports. We’ve propped it every which way and half the steel wire’s been laid for the new concrete pours.’

  ‘But you haven’t propped the downstream pier and the abutments.’

  ‘So what?’ demanded Cassavantes with what Michael took to be either the bluster of the unconfident or the stupidity of the certain. ‘They’re downstream.’

  Where do I begin? thought Michael, since almost half the time the downstream side went first. It seemed paradoxical, if you assumed the water flowed as usual, but became understandable once you knew the role scouring and erosion of the banks played in almost every flood.

  Before he could say anything, Cassavantes’ mobile phone trilled, and he walked away from the truck to answer it. To Michael’s surprise Donny fished in his shirt pocket and took out a pack of Winstons, then lit one with the car lighter. In the wet air of the cab, the smoke seemed especially acrid.

  ‘Since when do you do that?’ he asked.

  ‘We’re not inside, so I didn’t think I had to ask permission,’ he said peevishly.

  ‘Shit, I don’t care. I just didn’t think you smoked.’

  ‘That’s big of you,’ said Donny, and took a long drag on his cigarette. It took Michael a moment to realize his friend was enraged – but was it with Cassavantes for dressing him down, or with Michael? ‘You always know, don’t you?’ said Donny, exhaling a big softball of smoke. ‘You think we’re all little piss ants compared to your big, sophisticated self. You don’t like this place at all, but you might try to hide it a little.’

  Michael was bewildered. When he looked at Donny, he found him staring out at Stillriver Lake, his eyes narrowed and his nose wrinkled up high – with him, the sure signs of fury. Michael said, ‘Who says I don’t like this place? I grew up here.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Donny, ‘and got out at the first opportunity.’

  ‘What is this about?’

  ‘Say what?’

  ‘You heard me. Aren’t we a little old for hidden resentments to come surfacing now?’

  Donny took another long drag at his cigarette. ‘I’m not hiding anything,’ he barked.

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Goddamnit,’ Donny declared, ‘I can’t talk to you any more. You won’t listen to anything.’ He took a final drag, gripped the filter like a paper airplane between his thumb and forefinger and sailed it out the window. ‘I am sorry about what happened to your father, I am sorry for all the mess of it. Believe me. But honestly, Michael, things are happening to other people too. Not bad things necessarily, not anything like a murder, but lives do go on, and things happen in those lives.’

  ‘What are you trying to tell me?’ he asked, thinking, Things? What things?

  But Donny was already shaking his head. ‘There’s no point.’

  ‘Go on, try me,’ said Michael.

  ‘She made a mistake, I know she thinks she did, and like an idiot I made a mistake right after that.’

  ‘Who are you talking about?’

  ‘Nancy of course. Who else? Can’t you see anything around you?’

  ‘I guess not.’ Coming on the heels of Cassie’s accusation of tunnel vision, this seemed to be the truth.

  ‘You know, you fucked up too,’ said Donny, with the urgency of someone trying to comfort himself. ‘But you’ve had a second chance, and you’re taking it, aren’t you?’

  ‘It’s not that simple,’ said Michael, wishing it were.

  ‘Bullshit. Duverson’s in prison, you’re divorced, what’s the problem? You’ve got Cassie now.’ Do I really? thought Michael, but he didn’t interrupt his friend, who was continuing, ‘I wish my life was that simple. But Lou’s not in jail and my wife’s not about to divorce me. Face it,’ he said, with an emphasis he seemed to feel he deserved. ‘I’m fucked!’

  Michael tried to speak calmly, aware that diffidence might only inflame his friend further. ‘You’re only fucked if you think that having a dream means you’ve got to act on it.’

  ‘Look who’s talking. You’ve never got over Cassie.’

  ‘I don’t have kids. Before you say “lucky you”, think about what it would be like not to have your children. Forget the rest for a second – whether you love Brenda or Nancy, whether you’re living the life you think you need to live. Would you really be happier without those kids?’

  He answered his own question. ‘I don’t think so. And think, too – instead of picturing how sad you are without what you’re so sure you want, try to picture what it would be like if you got it. Don’t think about yourself, think about other people. Think of the misery for Brenda – I don’t believe you really wish her harm – and even think about Lou (of course he’s a douche bag, but he’s not a mean guy), and think about their kids as well as yours. And then finally think how happy you’d actually be, sitting in some one-bedroom bungalow in a place like Walker-ville, with Nancy, all right, but not with your kids, that’s for sure. You’d sit there, telling each other how true your love is while everybody else is stinking miserable. And actually, you are too.’

  He didn’t look at Donny. ‘In my opinion – not that it seems to count for much – you happen to have a great wife. But even if you had a mediocre wife, whatever that means, it still wouldn’t be worth it.’

  ‘Is that how you feel?’

  He thought of his Rubicon moment on the thirty-ninth floor and told a lie he could excuse on the grounds it was well-intended. ‘If I’ve learned one thing it’s that life doesn’t always let you follow your heart. If I had followed it from the beginning, then maybe everything would have been okay. But then again, maybe not. I might be sitting here complaining to you about having spent my whole life in Stillriver with boring old Cassie and why hadn’t I slept with Sophie Jansen at U of M when I had the chance.’

  ‘Was that that blonde girl’s name?’

  ‘You ought to know. You told Nancy about her way back when, and she told Cassie.’

  ‘Ah, so it cuts both ways,’ said Donny.

  ‘How’s that?’ asked Michael.

  ‘You’ve got resentments too.’

  ‘I’d have called mine a justified grievance.’

  ‘I’m sure you would. But aren’t we a little old for a justified grievance too?’

  ‘And you
told Duverson I was working in Texas. That one could have cost me my life.’

  ‘And that one I’m sorry about. With Sophie Jansen I was probably just jealous, and it serves you right for cheating on Cassie. With Ronald, it was an accident. He came back for his mother’s funeral and I saw him in the tavern. He’d been drinking and I’d had a few myself, and shit, it just slipped out. When Nancy heard what I’d done, she wouldn’t speak to me for six months.’

  They sat quietly for a while. ‘So,’ said Donny neutrally.

  Michael said, ‘Think of it this way: maybe I’ve made enough mistakes that I don’t want other people making more.’

  Donny chewed on this for a moment, then said, ‘And maybe I wasn’t trying to do you harm by saying something to Ronald. Maybe it was just a dumb-fuck mistake I made. Think of that that way.’

  ‘Deal,’ said Michael, and they shook hands, not – it seemed to Michael – with any pretence that all was forgiven, but rather as if by a common accord that said, It’s there and always will be, but nothing can be done about it, so let’s move on.

  They could hear Cassavantes shouting through the rain as they got out of the truck. ‘Right! Everybody come over here and listen up. We got a change of plan.’ His voice softened only marginally as people gathered around him. ‘You can stop worrying about the bridge.’ He looked over at Michael on the edge of the group. ‘There’s been a landslide upstream, and the whole course has got diverted. It’s running into the south branch now and starting to flood the Meadows. It’s not coming this way any more, it’s headed for town.’

  Half an hour later all of them were positioned on the town edge of the Meadows on the high land just east of town, above the trough of the old septic swamp that ran in a half-mile trench towards the wireworks. Here, up in the Meadows’ grassland, there was the advantage, in terms of containing the flood, that the relatively level surface of the fields meant the water was moving in a wide, slow arc; the drawback was that it was a lot of ground for them to cover in the rain.

  They did their best, and soon all the workmen from Fennville, as well as Stillriver’s volunteer firemen, had formed a human chain in front of the slope that moved down to the septic swamp. At one end of the chain stood a vast pile of empty sandbags, long stored for just such an emergency (stored where? Michael wondered) and here a dozen men were busy filling bags from a load of sand poured onto a tarpaulin from the back of Kyler’s dump truck. Two other trucks had been sent to the State Park beach to be filled by a mush eater that was already scooping sand from the shoreline. Soon there would be sand enough.