Saturday, August 24--
6:15 p.m.-
EZ
had her purse packed and stowed by the door when I arrived home after work an
hour ago, in the off chance--perchance--that a trip to the office might be
somewhere in my mood.
It
was. So excited, she was, that she forgot it inside and lunged out the door and
jumped into the car from a wrong angle, tripping over the bumper and splaying
herself half in, half out of the back.
I
brewed up a thermos of coffee and iced a cooler with drink but forgot too to
bring the humid and chewed sow's ear inside EZ's purse; something to do for her
while I worked. No matter. She's occupied watching three young otters sliding
down the water saddle slope.
The
water level has continued to drop since Thursday; ten inches lower than then, a
distinct change in personality. The air smells muddy. Submerged tree trunks I've
known were lurking are now dry and sticking dead feet up into the air. I've
discovered others that were always there but beneath the motor's lower tip. We
dragged sand rounding the shortcut exit--the spot where I sawed underwater
branches in May.
We
dragged sand then too, but by June big motor thrusts and deep secret currents
had rearranged the sandbar, and I no longer cared. A sandbar along Sonbeam's
Secret Channel is above water the first time this year, and idling through the
office hallways is like moving through a tall-sided canyon. Grasses tall like grass
cloth walls. I expected to bump the submerged angled tree trunks going through
the final gate and I could say that we did, so I will. Minorly, and by manually
holding the design-flawed motor up we made it. A sand mound at the opening to
Chelsea's channel, the one we explored last summer when wrangled the oars
against tight-woven lily pads, has shown an oval grassy circle six feet across
all summer. This afternoon it's a fifteen-foot long atoll, cartoonish in style
as though a sea-stranded man would be seen on it with one or two bleached fish
skeletons. I see the palm tree there too if I squint and peek through my
fingers.
Up
into the leaning tree chamber where the sun rarely shines and we got to cool
down on hot days. The water saddle tree, I figure, sank during the winter,
accounting for current still flowing over, as it's done more forcefully all
summer until today. The far end of my channel is closed to traffic; the sandy
lip just around the tip of a horizontal tree is only six inches deep.
Fascinating
to see my old friend change so abruptly, like it's converted to religion and
refuses too still play by my rules.
6:46-
The
boat approached from the south fast out on the main river. I know by the
direction of the sound where boats out there. The sound curves through the
narrow passage where the bird nest still rests, then a quick turn right,
straightening out into a wide quarter-mile shallow stretch, too shallow to go
slow. Onward toward the wide friendly curve of Sandy Flats where, nearly
nudging the bank, is the water deep enough to go. An oddity like nowhere else
either up or down from it, most of the rest of the river there is only six
inches deep. But the bottom is soft sand.
The
sound of the high whining motor carries through the woods. Further, onward,
turning to the east. A sudden blast of high RPM's reaches out to us. The
boatist has struck the waterlogged log. Motor stops. Swear words spray between
the trees and slap my ears. Then splashing noises and unholy grunts and a woman's
voice chanting bitchy refrains.
A
minute later the outboard restarts and retreats toward the south.
The
damn sun is going away. It's only 7-oh-two-and-a-half. Damn, I hate this. I don't
want it to end.