The River Queen by Mary Morris Page B

is slippery and I’m having trouble getting a grip. It is actually not that easy to keep the dish from crashing into the wall. Jerry’s very nervous about this. And I’m getting soaked. The wind blasts under my slicker, threatening to raise me like a dandelion spore. I improvise and slip beneath the satellite dish, which provides a kind of umbrella as I keep my blue-gloved fingers pressed to the wall.
    Tom, who thinks this is very clever, gives me a thumbs-up.
    â€œYou’re going to teach me how to have fun again, aren’t you, Mary?”
    I am surprised by this comment. It seems as if Tom is nothing but fun. “I thought you were going to teach me!” I call back.
    As we sail out of the lock and dam, we leave the storm behind. There is demarcation in the sky where the bad weather ends. Blackness, then light. Again it strikes me as almost a special effect, an almost unnatural line. I have never seen the weather so clearly defined. Suddenly it is a warm evening, without a cloud or trace of storm as we enter the east channel. “That’s Scrogum Island on port side,” Jerry says.
    â€œSay what?” Tom laughs.
    â€œScrogum, Tom. Not Scrotum.”
    9
    T IME ON the river is a relative thing. Not like any other kind of time. We’re traveling at about eight miles per hour and three of those come from the river’s natural flow. Your average marathoner can do better than that. At this speed I can see the underside of a bird’s wing. The eyes of a disenchanted woman, hanging laundry up to dry. Children taunting a mongrel at the river’s edge. The bait, wiggling on a fisherman’s pole. The grimace of an old man, his life behind him now. It’s more poem than story, but the long, narrative kind.
    River time, as far as I can tell from my now brief experience, bears no resemblance to land time. When you’re driving down the highway, you can say, well, if I’m driving sixty miles per hour and I’ve got one hundred and eighty miles to go, I’ll be there in three hours. You can calculate, give someone an ETA.
    But here you can’t really account for time at all. A boater might tell you it takes two hours to get from Hannibal, Missouri, to Rockport, Illinois, which is a stretch of fifteen river miles or so, but if you’ve got a lock and dam in there, you might luck out and float through in ten minutes, or, if there’s a double barge in front of you, two hours. Or four. You might do better tying up for the night. It’s anyone’s guess.
    Given our late start, two locks and dams, one tornado, and me weaving across the river for an hour, we did pretty well. We traveled on our first day sixty-six miles in about eight hours. Jerry says there is a dock at St. Feriole Island, where we can spend the night, and, after a long day, I am ready for dry land.
    We arrive at this little “courtesy” municipal dock, an appendage to an old 1930s levee, where Jerry says we’ll tie up. “Really?” I ask. “Are we allowed?” I’m not expecting a red carpet and a marching band, but I thought we might be pulling into a marina with lights. And possibly a shower.
    â€œWell, if we aren’t, someone will let us know,” Jerry says with a wave of his hand.
    â€œWe’ll get a parking ticket,” Tom quips.
    â€œBesides if we get away early enough, they won’t come and charge longside.” This feels a little dicey to me, but then I’m a person who is uncomfortable with library fines. I mumble something, but Jerry ignores me. He’s annoyed because a fishing boat has tied up in the middle of the dock, but after some maneuvering, we sidle alongside. It turns out to be a very peaceful place with just the gentle ripple of water and wind. Two kids fish off the pier.
    Jerry pauses to admire the levee, an old stone wall that’s fifty years old. “Don’t make’m like that anymore,” he says. It is