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Saturday July 14--

6:44 p.m.--

Violent, high-pitched smoker's yaps erupt five feet to my left as I edge the boat into the shallow shoreline of Hickwater's Backwoods Bar. A pair of under-sized dogs (the sort that wear colorful bows in their hair) are tethered by chain to a table in the littered fore of an outsized pontoon. They are wearing fuchsia and limy-green bows in their hair. They continue hacking and yelping as the stink of worn-out fryer grease wafts down at me on the bank. It's Saturday night during tourist season. Patrons like to come by boat and conveniently dock alongside the establishment, squeezed among other tightly packed boats, including--tonight--a tiny orange fishing boat with a huge orange outboard motor, idling, watched over by a surly mid-thirties guy with goatee and sideburns and a blue baseball cap. "Born To Be Wild" booms raucously from his boat speakers, radiating the place with indolence.

EZ begins vibrating ... but sitting obediently, eyes desperate, imploring for understanding.

I began this state of upheaval ten minutes earlier when a family in a big boat hailed me (after first plowing past us towing a huge heaving wake, metronoming EZ and me side to side) from a weedy slough where they'd taken a wrong turn, inquiring as to the whereabouts of the Bar. I gestured "up there." The peered north, uncomprehending. I hollered, "Follow me." Since I'd forgotten to bring extra smokes along, and thought it quicker than parking the boat and driving back to "Northwoods Convenient" store five miles away, I decided to escort them to the tavern and secure cigarettes at the same time. They followed upriver, past the ten-foot high inflatable balloon shaped--and giantly labeled--like an 8-foot high bottle of Jim Beam. Guy-wires anchor it from in four spots on the eaves, secured against thieving by tonight's guests.

So, here I was. Tag alders crowding my shoulder on the right, shallow river muck halting me five feet from shore, and a pair of hoarse terror-ior dogs to my left. Tying the thick nylon bowline through EZ's collar while she quivered, I left her to this deranged duo "for just a minute or two," is how I told it to her. I leapt toward shore, two feet short, and splashing. It was the best I could do. It's warm tonight and the rest of me is wet anyway from an earlier rain shower. I climbed onward toward the clamor of human violence, leaving behind the interfusion of Steppenwolf and the pair of gagging river rats. Summiting the steps and rounding a corner and stepping through a deformed aluminum door, I was suddenly assailed by July's Saturday night bedlam. This bar and restaurant, intended for no more than twenty or thirty, contained double that number--crowded thigh to hip. Bar stools were all taken, tables too, except the one on its side. The Jukebox fought for volume against shouting revelers too boozed-up to sit. An unrefined gentleman, wearing a sweat-stained white shirt, stood with his back to the bar jabbing keys on the register. A nervous tic twitched his neck in synch to the thumping of bass notes. Crushing my way to the bar I waited, while meaningfully flipping my wallet open and shut, as a coquettish young lady at my left, sitting coyly cross-legged with highball in hand, watched up toward me, questions, and their answers forming behind a sweaty slick forehead. Pores on her face opened like tiny mouths and oozed opaque liquid. Aware of her stare, and after a deliberate amount of time, I swiveled my head to acknowledge her attention. Dissatisfied twenty-something. Thin lips tight with despair widened briefly in smile. I turned away. She didn't. I waited.

"What do you want?" (her)

"Cigarettes."

"What?"

"Cigarettes!"

"Mumblerbreton undt brlimerschmuck!"

"What!"

"All we have is Marlboro and lights! What do you want?"

"Anything with tobacco and paper to hold it in!"

Sweatshirt man turns, glaring indignation out at the room, now approaches my post.

"What you want!"

"Marlboro!"

He reaches low toward my knees behind the counter, flips a pack up on the bar, takes my ten, turns to the cash register and rings it again.

"Crazy here tonight, huh?" (the girl)

"It sure is."

"I'm glad I'm off now!"

"You work here?"

"Yeah, just got off! But there's nothing to do." She leans near my ear, "Wanna' do something?"

Moneychanger turns back to me, flipping four ones on the bar. I gather it home, tell her "thanks-no," and weave back through tables, jounced by gyrating frolickers and grim summer bliss, with ketchup. Glancing back toward the bar I see a young man returning to my new girlfriend's side wearing excessive tattoos and "Fuck You" stenciled to his muscle shirt. They quarrel enthusiastically and she points once at me.

Opening the door takes little effort. Pulsating heat and blaring music shove us out.

Yapping snarls have continued without pause. A nice mother is soothing a wailing child who "only wanted to pet the doggies." EZ is staring shock-eyed up toward where I'd gone. She brightens vaguely, but briefly, when she sees me approach. Her demonic tormentors spy me and escalate their emotion.

I ascend. She livens. They quicken.

Babbling and drooling, I leap aboard, whimpering to untie the tether around EZ's neck. I sit in the rear and begin backing the boat from its shallow grip by jerking my body backward against the seat back. Motor down, then notched up for shallow depth, starter cord yanked, and freedom ahead from it all back there. Motor fully down, drift into the channel, turn downriver, and idle away.

7:35 p.m.--

EZ and I are now quietly anchored where the only disruption is an occasional huffing of a deer, out of sight inside the placid woods. Bullfrogs are chugging in the shallows downstream. Furtive rapids say lovely poetry and rainwater still trickles from trees. Aromas are summer ripe, hovering, a faint green vapor drifting above the water. Streamside seed heads seem motionless, unless observed on purpose. Hidden submergings of current tickle through and around their submerged stalks, reassuring growth. The sky is orchidy orange away to the southeast where the storm has gone, bluing into a humid pale above, dark wisps edging east, too low to catch the sun's end.

Time to go. The mosquitoes have begun dinner.