And recently the old song of the calliope is again floating up the hill on the night air. A flock of new excursion boats is bringing a new generation of pilgrims from around the world to pay homage to our river.
Those who could afford it, like doctor Richard and the wealthy Petersen family of department store fame who built our Clay Street house in the early 1900s, built safely, high on the edge of the bluffs. From there they easily overlooked the river’s excesses. But even those who lived down below did the same, strangely blind to flooding, merely cleaning up the mess with little complaint. From the early 1800s the federal government tried to make the Mississippi dependable for navigation, and in the ’30s the Corps of Engineers hired thousands of depression-weary men to soften its cycle of flood and drought. The men constructed the twenty-six navigational locks and dams between Cairo, Illinois, and St. Paul, Minnesota. This plan succeeded just well enough to encourage unjustified complacency.
Responding to some primordial schedule, the foaming, mindless river still periodically reverts, erupting in a flood both relentless and insidious. The murmur of our supposedly tame river becomes the chest-rattling roar of the Mississippi as it used to be, relentlessly re-leveling its flood plain, eroding whatever is not completely solid. And even miles away, manholes pop open as the river snakes through storm sewers and into basements, seeking its own level.
The flood of 1965 is the one I remember best. They foolishly called it a hundred-year flood. All of our cities banded together against the river-turned-enemy. Old and young frantically shoveled sand and piled sandbags. Our company towboats were running on River Drive, rescuing and ferrying people past Petersen’s Department Store, and delivering sandbags where needed. From the pilothouse of the Jay Hawk I saw rows of television antennas poking up from rooftops like periscopes peering above the rushing water. I saw deer, raccoons, foxes, a horse. I saw a cow struggling, trying to swim against the current, her eyes rolling with fear. And once I saw the body of a man in a T-shirt and flowered shorts come swirling downstream facedown, knees and arms bent like a fetus.
For weeks, like everyone else, I stared in vacant-eyed disbelief, feeling betrayed.
Jan Williams Rittmer is an ex-harbor boat dispatcher who has been related by marriage or birth to twelve licensed Mississippi riverboat pilots. From experience she knows that when families challenge Mother Nature, their victories come at a price. Jan’s grandson was licensed this year, and became the sixth generation of river pilots in the Williams family. In addition to having sold and dispatched for the family business, Jan holds a BA in English from Augustana College in Illinois and an MA in expository writing from Iowa University. She taught technical writing, and has been the go-to writer for numerous volunteer organizations. Now, as a very latecomer to writing creative nonfiction and fiction, she has begun to share her experiences with the working Mississippi River from an anti-Twain perspective. Jan and her husband are retired in Davenport, Iowa.
Sleet Teeth
by
Goran Sedler
I didn’t bring my gloves, Christian Clark realized as he gave his snow-covered driveway a hard look.
What had seemed like a fun little exercise was turning into a terrible idea.
He buried the blade of the shovel in the snow and started his chore, cursing Diane with every swing for talking him into abandoning their penthouse in the city and moving down here to the suburbs. In his old life, he would’ve been sitting in front of his big-screen TV right now, working on increasing his carbon footprint and dismissing the vicarious news reports for hyping a case of falling flurries into an overblown natural disaster. In his new life, he was destined to freeze. And down here, snowfalls came in no flurries; the flakes were as fat as cherubs.
Back in the house, while putting on his winter clothing, he’d had the confidence of a wooly mammoth, but standing in the driveway, up to his elbows in his least favorite state of water, he felt more like a plucked penguin. The cold was hurting his face, his hands, and his neck.
After a dozen swings of the shovel, his back started reminding him of his poor shape and a lifetime of unhealthy choices. Christian was forced to give his forty-year-old heart a short pause.
He found himself thinking about the Program and wishing he wasn’t on Step Seven. But giving up now would be a disaster. He was so close to the Twelfth Step he could almost, in a clumsy way of putting it, taste it.
The air felt like liquid destined to turn to ice, yet Christian’s body was somehow able to perspire. As he wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, the friction scratched him like sandpaper. This body was falling apart as efficiently as his life was.
A sound not unlike something peeing in the snow pricked his ears. Christian looked down his relaxed arm, his wiping hand.
Where there had been skin, he was now staring at proof of his mortality. The flesh on his hand was glittering like a split grapefruit. The knuckles were peeled to the bone and the snow under his fingers was a bloody mire.
Christian ran.
Where are you running to? And from what?
His heavy clothing tripped his legs, and Christian, a middle-aged lawyer who had spent his career warming up the world to the agendas of big corporations, landed facedown in the snow.
He pushed himself up and stared at the impression his face had left behind. The imprint was a creamy tomato soup.
Christian’s scream turned to steam.
He went for the fence, trying to bring himself up, but instead of a fleshy hand, he shoved a set of bloody bones against the iron rail. Whatever was eating him, it was doing it fast. God knows what it was doing to his face.
He felt the fiery cold on his cheeks burrow inside, deeper and deeper, well beyond his eyes, deep enough to cut the cord that enabled him to see the world and plunge him into eternal darkness.
The fall on his ass was as undignified as it felt.
Christian’s breathing slowed while his mind drowned in a hive of questions that would forever remain unanswered.
In another reality he was drinking scotch, watching TV, and hugging his ex-wife like their marriage had never fallen apart.
Here and now, Christian Clark was a bag of winter clothing filled with an oozing paste of meat and blood.
I should’ve gone back for the gloves, was the last thing that crossed his mind before it too was finally devoured.
“I think Clark is drunk again,” said George Reed to no one in particular.
He knew Martha wouldn’t be listening (well, definitely not on this day) but he had to satisfy his need for gossip.
The tip of his nose touched his upper lip as he pressed his wrinkled face against the window.
“How can anyone drink liquor this early in the day? The man should be locked away.”
George’s neighbor was on his ass, back against the iron fence, while the angry snowfall was turning him into a snowman. The headline on the newspaper in George’s hand promised (and delivered) the worst winter in thirty years, which meant the most he’d get out of his life in the next couple of days would be spying on his neighbors.
And this was a promising start.
“He’s not moving,” said George, disappointed the show was already nearing an end. “Just sitting there, in the snow. How cold d’ya think it is outside?”
His wife didn’t say a word. She was kneeling in front of the living room couch, her clasped hands bound by a rosary, murmuring prayers as old as sin. George had decided a long time ago that these fits of hers were insane. A normal person would’ve let go of the pain, and embraced the rest of their life for whatever it was. In other words, moved on. But not Martha. Not his damn wife.
“He fell down,” said George. There were still some surprises left in the old drunk. “He probably passed out. Should I call someone?” But before he reached for the phone he remembered. “Oh yeah, the lines are out.”
This got Martha’s attention. She left her religious trinkets on the living room table and joined him by the window.
>
“See?” asked George, worried her old eyes might miss the show. Clark was all the way across the street, and the heavy blizzard didn’t help the resolution. “I bet you he’s vomiting.”
She turned away from the window and went for her coat in the hallway.
“I’m going out there,” she said. Whenever Martha wasn’t sure about her actions, she announced them out loud to the world, as if the sound of her own voice was a good enough reassurance.
“Don’t be crazy,” shouted her husband, “this is between him and his hangover!”
If this were any other day, his remark would’ve led them to an argument—but not today. There would’ve been a fight, and later on, who knows, maybe even some good old sex to amend the wounds of exchanged verbal missiles, but—you sure as hell know it, George—not today.
She slammed the door behind her as she stormed out. He could hear her on the other side putting on her boots and stomping them on the welcome mat. Crazy old woman. She could’ve put them on inside.
George went back to spying on his passed-out neighbor when he noticed something fall on their snow-covered lawn. It was bigger, faster, and blacker than a snowflake. And it made a nice little crater in all that whipped cream.
Standing on his toes, he saw it was a bird. A raven.
Or was it?
He could’ve sworn he had seen a lump of black feathers; now the thing looked more like a small red ball.
There was that cramped feeling of misdiagnosis in his gut again. The fear of getting things wrong forever looming over all of his actions.
George grabbed his glasses from the living room table. He was sure as hell, once he put them on, that everything would be clear; the world would return to normal.
But as he focused, trying to make sense of what he saw, he realized that thing inside the hole was not a bird but the contents of a meat grinder. Immediately, armed with crystal vision, his eyes went to Clark. His neighbor wasn’t lying down and vomiting; his neighbor was nothing but vomit of blood and pieces of meat, all wrapped up in winter clothing.
And Martha was out there.
Out there!
He could see her fighting her way through the deep snow, trying to reach the leftovers of Christian Clark.
Jesus Christ...
The old man ran to the front door and found it locked. Locked? Why would she lock the damn door?
He fumbled through the hallway cabinet and found the keys. Hitting the lock proved to be more of a challenge. George cursed his arthritis. It had cost him his career; would it now cost him his wife?
When he unlocked the door, cold air greeted his pajama-clad body. The snowfall was so furious the outside world looked like bad TV reception.
“Martha!” he screamed. “Martha!”
His wife, the love of his life, the woman he hadn’t told nearly enough how much he loved her, was standing at the end of their driveway. She still hadn’t crossed the street. She was just standing there, frozen. A bundle of a hirsute coat and boots buried in the snow.
Why wasn’t he rushing after her?
A gust of wind swept through the street and blew her body away. All her flesh and skin turned to glittering confetti. The coat fell down on the snow; an empty shell of a dead animal.
Where Martha had been standing, a red rain colored the white snow into a cute shade of pink.
This was it. This was the “until death do us part” of their magnificent love story.
While George’s brain was still processing his new widowhood, a snowflake landed on his palm.
The pain was short and convincing. George yelped, grabbed his hand, and watched as the trickle of blood ran down his palm and under his wrist.
Has the world gone mad? Has he?
He walked back into the living room and stood before the window, where, just minutes ago, the day had promised bad things would be happening to someone else.
The spot where Clark leftovers had been sprawled was evenly covered with a blanket salmon-colored snow. Even his clothes were gone. The same was happening with Martha’s resting place. A minute later and you wouldn’t be able to tell that anyone had died there.
It was only then that it occurred to him how unnaturally quiet the street was. Sure, the heavy snowfall always brought its own kind of silence, but this was like pressing an ear to a coffin.
The street hadn’t been cleared (where the hell were the snowplows, anyway?), and wasn’t that little Steven’s winter hat across the street, on old man Henderson’s white lawn? No footsteps around it. Nothing that would indicate the boy had dropped it while delivering the morning papers.
All traces of death, carpeted by snow.
Over at Stewart’s place, wasn’t that Julia behind the window, crying and pleading for help? Her face whipped with open wounds (she hardly looked like a teenager now), her hands as red as used surgical gloves. She was dressed for a winter walk, but most of her clothing had been soaked in blood and ripped to shreds. She wouldn’t stop crying. Crying and slapping the glass window with her tortured hands.
It was then George remembered the front door of their house. He had left it wide open and inviting.
The snow was already inside. It was crawling through the entrance and spilling in the hallway; a billion white ants riding a white wave. Piling higher and higher ...
How could he accept this? He was looking at nothing more than crystals of frozen water. How could he, in his right mind, stare at it and be scared shitless?
Unless he wasn’t. Unless this was him losing his mind.
The creature didn’t care about the state of his sanity. It was prodding the inside of the house like a fat white tongue in search of food.
Where are you, old man? No use in hiding.
There was a room in this house George Reed had promised himself he would never enter. A shrine that had been built in memory of a future that had never materialized. A temple raised up and sanctified with tears and wounds that had never healed.
There couldn’t have been a more fitting place to hide.
If this white monstrosity were of his own making, he would go to the place where even his insanity would be terrified to follow.
The house creaked under the weight of snow.
It was like being trapped inside the hull of a ship, all that force of destruction just a squeaking layer of protection away.
George had barricaded the door with all the furniture he could move. He had shut the blinds and covered the only window with blankets. Now, George was holding his breath.
Something crashed upstairs. Just another victim of the snow’s deadly embrace. He could imagine the white powder of death slowly filling every corner of the house. Searching. Hunting.
Except in this one room.
This was Jonathan’s room. This was the room Martha had given all her care and attention to, to make it look as though it were being lived in. George could trace his finger down the kid-sized work desk (which he had used to block the door) and there wouldn’t be a single speck of dust on it. The pictures in frames had been updated with memories of George’s and Martha’s latest safaris. The blankets he had stripped from the bed smelled as fresh as morning.
The place tried to be everything but a room-sized memorial, yet the weight of its purpose was undeniable: This would always be the room Jonathan would have lived in.
Plaster from the ceiling snowed on top of George’s head as the house sighed under the deadly squeeze. These walls wouldn’t be able to take much more of it.
Why? Why is this thing so bent on eating him? Why can’t it move on to someone else? There is a whole town out there teaming with sin; what gives his own such a coveted flavor?
Yes, George, what else could it be.
It wasn’t just a piece of trivia that thirty years ago today this area had one of the heaviest snowfalls the town had ever seen.
Thirty years today? On the anniversary of your wife’s miscarriage?
He thought he had managed to build a wall around that me
mory but, without breaking a wrinkle, George recalled the vivid details of the evening like it had been yesterday.
Martha had been in another room, celebrating over the fake ultrasound photo that was showing all was fine with their unborn baby boy. George was in his study, brooding over the original he had decided no one ever needed to find out about. Outside, the world had been engulfed in a heavy snowfall. Inside, George kept staring at the black and white ultrasound that, if you blurred your focus enough, looked exactly like another blizzard.
But if you looked at it with the eyes trained to recognize abnormalities and deformities, you’d have felt kicked in the stomach and your vision would have fogged with burning tears.
Their bundle of joy was a lump of horror.
The future in store for this family would be one of pain and sacrifice.
And they could handle it, and George was sure there had been enough of love in their marriage to make martyrs of them both, but he had also witnessed what the torture of a child could do to a parent.
The only sensible option left was the one he had spent his entire career perfecting. Lessen the pain.
When Martha went to bed, dizzy from a half a glass of wine he had graciously allowed her to enjoy, things were already unraveling according to his premeditation. As she lay dreaming of names for their cherished offspring, he sneaked to her side and injected her with a solution to the problem. The solution he had spent most of the morning mixing up and concocting in the solace of his office.
The solution that really hadn’t solved anything.
There hadn’t existed a chemical compound that could have just as easily flushed the soul of that unborn baby from his wife’s body. And Martha remained a mother, without ever giving birth.
He used all his influence and money to take them across the world in search for a cure for her sorrow. Pristine jungle reserves were opened for their enjoyment, elephants were ridden for their amusement, tigers were petted for their satisfaction, but no matter where their days ended, the nights were as haunted as being back in this goddamn house.
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