The River Swimmer

by Jim Harrison

  Downstream a half dozen miles toward town the riverside property was taken up by the fancy small estates of men of good fortune in the area. One, an auto dealer, had hired Thad cheap to put in a vineyard for him. Rich men in the Midwest easily become obsessed with creating thoroughly mediocre if not awful wine. It’s a bit like owning your own golf course. However our small town mogul quickly noted that his precious daughter Laurie was sweet on his vineyard boy and fired Thad. The auto dealer was known as Friendly Frank as he would occasionally sell a car or pickup at wholesale on impulse. Despite this he was improbably vigilant about his daughter. Friendly Frank was a closet case and knew the young man was beautiful and had coupling primarily in mind and Laurie didn’t dress modestly. It was either very short summer skirts or bikinis down on the big dock in front of his barbecue shack which was a giant wine barrel standing upright with a door to a round room holding his smoker and a cot with a sleeping bag where he would spend the night drinking when he smoked meats that took a long time, maybe twelve hours. Now Frank peeked through an air vent and there was Laurie, a fifth-year ballet student in a bikini with the toes of her right foot kneading Thad’s shoulder. Frank bellowed, “Laurie, stop that!” Laurie turned without taking her toes off Thad’s shoulder.

  “Dad, stop spying on me. It’s creepy.”

  “Young man, I told you not to come back here. You’re trespassing.”

  “Dad, he was swimming past. I waved him in. We’re in geometry together.”

  “I told you this place is off limits for this swim farmer, and I discover you showing him your bare ass.”

  “You’re disgusting,” Thad said and Friendly Frank forced his way in the small door and grabbed a barrel stave from the kindling box of the smoker and swung it hard against Thad’s cheekbone which shattered and blood poured from his mouth. Thad dropped to his knees groaning. “Dad, you killed him,” she screamed. Frank kicked his daughter out of the away and dragged Thad out the door to throw him off the dock. Frank had played defensive end for Notre Dame, the home of many car dealers. Laurie grabbed her father around the knees and he stumbled. Thad nearly unconscious grabbed an ankle with both hands. Frank fell on his face hard on the dock planking but was able to kick Thad off the dock’s edge where he began to float away with strobe lights flashing on his head. Laurie thought he was imperiled and jumped in the river after him with her father shouting, “No!” Laurie didn’t swim well but Thad was conscious enough to tow her to shore and push her onto a sandbar. Frank made his way to the sandbar and lifted her up where she struggled against him wildly. Frank looked down at Thad as if puzzled. He lifted a huge foot as if to stomp down on Thad’s neck but first pitched Laurie up in some bushes on the bank where she was safe. Thad waved and shouted “stay” and the foot came down. He grabbed the foot and twisted violently and Frank fell back into the current and drifted off facedown. Thad swam quickly past him with the bright lights continuing to burst on his head. He thought of drowning Frank and dove under him pulling him deep by his belt. Frank struggled and Thad had the sudden idea that this act would make him as bad as Frank. He let go of the belt and Frank floated to the surface and began drifting. He would let him drown by himself though with his bulk he would float well. Thad knew he was within a quarter of a mile from a big eddy and channel where he regularly camped and had some gear. Laurie had met him there two days before in her little motorboat. They had necked dangerously in their bathing suits then nude. She had laughed at his efforts to put on a condom then did it with her mouth. She said it was how whores did it or so she had read in one of her dad’s dirty magazines. He had done it with a few other girls but none so explosive as Laurie. Now he kept his imperfect eyes open for the eddy leading to the channel to the lagoon and camping spot. For some reason he could see better than ever before under water, small solace for his blasted cheekbone which crunched when he spit out a volume of water and ached like hell herself.

  A devout student of natural history, he received the shock of his life when he reached the lagoon. The lagoon had always offered a great concentration of frogs and polliwogs and now they were traveling in thick shimmering circles. Here and there a water baby would swim in, sip, and swallow a polliwog with a smile. They were about eight inches long with normal baby features and dark hair and pinkish skin. Thad shouted under the surface and choked on water. He was so frightened he threw himself up on the bank sobbing for breath. He had never been more confused and was shaking from head to toe. He was further shocked hearing a voice.

  “Thad, I am dying.”

  He looked up and there was Frank standing chest high in the water in the channel to the lagoon. He was shivering violently and barely conscious. The last bit of twilight shimmered off his reddish hair and badly bruised face from falling on the dock. His obviously fractured nose was swollen almost comically it was so large.

  “You look awful, Thad. I hit you hard. The cheekbone is like a muskmelon.”

  “Come over here and I’ll start a fire in my campsite.”

  “I can’t move but I’ve seen her shampoo at your campsite. You’re a bastard. She’s my little girl. I’ll kill you if she’s pregnant.”

  “Enough of killing. I could let you die where you are.”

  Thad quickly waded over, took his arm, and led him on a path through a thicket to a small campsite. He untied a rope and lowered his cache in a big black plastic bag. He quickly started his fire pit going with a chunk of white pine stump and fir kindling. He put down a dry cloth called a space blanket and the fire was soon roaring. He told Frank to get out of his wet clothes. He did so and looked at Thad with fury.

  “I can smell her scent on the blanket.”

  The sleeping bag was as close as it was safe to the fire and Frank was half dozing and mumbling, “The sheriff’s water rescue boat will come. We shouldn’t say anything that would complicate matters.”

  “Maybe I should tell them that you peek at her all the time.”

  “She’s adopted,” Frank yelled.

  “That changes nothing.”

  Upriver they could see spotlights flashing against the trees and bushes that bordered the river. Someone cut the jet boat engine and hollered, “I smell campfire.”

  “I’m going to run for it.”

  “Good idea. Do you have any money?” Frank offered him a wad of wet cash. “Stay away and there’ll be more. Just call.”

  Thad put the money in a plastic waterproof bag he carried when swimming to town. He was hungry and wanted pork chops at the diner but knew he couldn’t chew. He entered his impenetrable thicket. The jet boat had a shallow draft and entered the lagoon to see if Frank was alive. Thad thought it must horrify the water babies. His English grandmother read him the story which he didn’t care for. The Indian Tooth told stories of infant water spirits who when they died on earth some entered birds but most lived in water to keep away from people who were dangerous.

  Thad heard the sheriff’s high-pitched voice, “Frank, who did this to you?”

  “No one. I fell on the dock face-first then rolled off and started drifting downstream.”

  “Where’s Thad? Your daughter said he had a camp down here.”

  “I knew it. This is our land. I was lucky to find it in the dark and get a fire started.”

  The rescue people rolled Frank onto a floating stretcher which they lifted into the jet boat. Thad sat close by in the middle of the thicket glad they hadn’t brought a search dog. Their lights moved away; the big jet boat cranked up and moved away. Thad thought it would scare the water babies. He realized knowing the culture that their secret must be kept forever. He recalled the many stories Tooth had told him as a child and still did. She had lived her whole life as an Anishinabe (Chippewa-Ojibway) on the river. And one thing she claimed was that no infants actually die. They live in the water as fish, or in the woods as birds, sometimes hidden in the water in human form around the
summer solstice. His skin prickled when he remembered the clear eyes of the babies. He recalled that he asked Tooth if big fish eat babies. She said, “No, they’re relatives but water babies eat minnows, polliwogs, mayflies, caddis, and other insects.” Tooth insisted that if they ever returned to full human form it was their choice. He wished he could talk to Tooth but now was the time to run for it. Too much could go wrong. Frank could change his story or Laurie could say something wrong. The whole event was confusingly violent.

  He swam to shore and walked the road barefoot without a problem. The soles of his feet were hard and callused because as a swimmer he avoided shoes whenever possible. He could even run on the school’s cinder track barefoot. There were too many lights and too much traffic when he came close to town so he slipped down the bank to the river only getting out when he came close to the dam. His broken cheekbone still hurt like crazy so he stopped at a Dairy Queen and drank two chocolate milk shakes. The cold hurt but was tolerable. On the other side of town he swam the remaining four miles to Lake Michigan. Because of the increased pitch of land the current increased. Luckily he had certain boulders memorized and he shortly reached the mouth of the river where there were several campfires of night fishermen. In exchange for telling them about his secret cache of firewood he was invited to share their fire. They were middle-aged men and as soon as they got a good look at him in the firelight they began talking fast. “Jesus Christ, where did you come from?” “Who clubbed you?” “Has there been a crime,” and so on. “The police should be called.”

  “They were. But I wouldn’t sign an assault complaint. I started it.”

  That calmed them down. A gray-haired man moved near Thad. “Unfortunately I’m an oncologist not an orthopedist. You should be sent to the E.R. I just recognized you. You’re the kid last August that broke a record by swimming from Ludington to Milwaukee to raise money for charity. So why aren’t you smart enough to go to the E.R.?”

  “I’m on the run. I’m going to swim down to Chicago.”

  The men were boggled. The oncologist touched Thad’s wound and he winced saying, “I can feel the fracture in the zygomatic bone. I have some doctor friends in Chicago. You can disappear there. They’ll treat you free. Our friend swam for the University of Michigan. He won a bronze at the Olympics.”

  “I was never interested in competing.” Thad felt shy.

  “Why, it’s the American way. We never stop competing.”

  “Well, I’d work all day on our farm on the island in the river. I’d dive in at lunch and at the end of the afternoon for an hour or so. It’s the most complete feeling of freedom that there is. The current guides your skin. It’s the closest we get to a bird. I was always obsessed with birds and fish since childhood. I just want to feel at home on earth.”

  The men looked at Thad as if he were daft.

  “We’re in Muskegon. It’s over a hundred miles to Chicago. I will give you a ride to town and spot you a ticket.”

  “I sort of want to enter by water. I can do it in a couple of days. I will sleep in Saugatuck and Gary, to spend the night with cousins and take some liquids. I still can’t chew.”

  “But why?” asked the oncologist.

  “Because it’s what I love best. I generally prefer rivers but Lake Michigan works. I studied conditions today and as you noticed it’s an offshore wind so the water is warmer. Hypothermia is your main enemy. You can’t think logically. Your blood sugar is low among other things.”

  “I admire you. Do what you want. Fais ce que tu voudras, as the French say,” said the least vocal of the fishermen, drinking from a pint of schnapps. “These guys make a lot of money but they haven’t done shit. Keep the Lexus washed. I didn’t do much but when I was fourteen I rode my bicycle to the Upper Peninsula, then way over west to Duluth with a friend camping all the way. These were balloon tire bikes.”

  “We’ve heard this before,” a fellow fisherman said.

  “Well, hear it again. What the fuck have you done? Go to Princeton and trade stocks. In a good society you would have been executed three years ago.”

  “Another rich radical. Big deal.”

  “Sure I put six nephews and nieces through college and I only got a few million left to fish on. Remember when I cracked up a few years ago? I fished ninety days in a row. Not a dime for a shrink. I am like the kid here. It’s water that heals a man!”

  It was near dawn before they turned in. The men shared their extra bedding with Thad and he awoke to a half dozen scrambled eggs he could get past his jaw.

  In a modest imitation of a Viking rite they all walked down to the turbulent outflow of the river. He plunged in and disappeared in a trice into the current and wave chops. The men stood there in a state of melancholia as if they had lost an appealing space visitor with his wrist wallet and a plastic pack of clothing at the back of his waist.

  “A great man,” the oncologist intoned to the embarrassment of the others.

  Meanwhile Thad was at home again, heading south toward Chicago, a thrilling place he had visited with his parents, especially the aquarium, also a city mostly surrounded by the fact of water. He and his father had walked along Lake Michigan while his mother shopped. His father had inherited ten thousand dollars from a maiden aunt and wanted a new car while his mother wanted the money saved for Thad’s education. He heard their night quarrels with disgust. His dad said, “He can swim his way through college.” The local superintendent knew some of the coach staff at Michigan State, his own alma mater, and the swimming coach had visited. Thad’s dad had driven him to a local lake and he had swum a measured hundred yards within a couple of seconds of the Big Ten record, and then holding back for reasons of orneriness. The coach said he had a free ride but Thad had his heart set on Scripps in California for the oceanography program if he went to college at all. If only there was a college with an oceanography program on the banks of a big beautiful river. His interests were pure and simply singular. He had thought of lowering his aim to hydrology but that seemed too mechanical. If there were indeed water spirits they had a firm hold on him like love eventually does on young men, an obsessional disease of sorts.

  He drew close to Saugatuck by early evening, went ashore for his chocolate milk shake, and called his cousin’s cell. It was a warm early evening and the beaches still had the lovely girls sprawled this way and that drinking beer. He had been somewhat embarrassed by how attentive his father had been to the bathing beauties of Chicago but supposed it was male nature. His cousin Rick showed up in a tuxedo jacket and swim suit with three delicious girls and made an extravagant entrance. Family gossip said he dealt drugs and had gotten arrested. Rick said he had talked to his mother who had said that Thad’s father had gone to town and kicked Frank’s ass after hearing of the clubbing from his daughter who was friendly with Thad’s mom. The fight took place in the parking lot of the mall near the auto dealership. The police didn’t arrest Thad’s father because Friendly Frank had tried to use a tire iron as a weapon and there was a sense of fair play. Thad was upset because he wanted this matter to be over despite his swollen face.

  They went to Rick’s obviously expensive condo. He said he was cooking a roast beef for Thad’s swimming energies. The three girls were spread out in the bedrooms and Thad figured he was destined for the sofa unless he got lucky though he needed sleep more than sex. Rick had taken him aside and explained the females were rich girls from Winnetka near Chicago who were there basically for cocaine.

  He took a very long hot shower to get warmth back in his body stolen by the water. His jaw wasn’t feeling nearly as bad and he hoped to get something solid in his body.

  The bathroom was dense with steam. He heard the door open and within moments the diminutive girl Emily slipped into the shower. She had told him that she was a poet and he didn’t know what to say never having met anyone who introduced themselves as a poet. She was a peculiar
lisper and had just spent a first year at Sarah Lawrence. She admitted she was with a fast crowd of childhood friends. He wasn’t partial to poetry until recently a young teacher in an American literature class had him read a book called Desert Music by William Carlos Williams which he liked, a waterless book. He kissed the top of her head and looked down her back at her pretty bottom.

  “I’ve never been this impulsive but I didn’t want you to get away,” she whispered. They coupled on the bathroom rug then sat there feeling shy.

  “Rick said you are a farmer and a swimmer. I don’t get the connection.”

  “Just that one body does both.”

  “Don’t swim at downtown beaches when you get to Chicago. The water isn’t clean. Come up to our place. The water is cleaner north of town.”