The River Queen Read Online Free Page A

My father had scarlet fever when he was a boy. Though he could hear music, he often couldn’t hear what was being said. Restaurants were particularly difficult. For the first fifteen years of my life, until he had a surgery, he never heard footsteps, the sound of a train’s wheels when he rode on it, voices on the telephone. In order to communicate, he shouted. In the end he shouted about many things.
    My father was charming, handsome, debonair, and people said he looked like Cary Grant. Greer (as in Greer Garson) and Cary, that’s how people referred to my parents. At one time he was considered to be Chicago’s most eligible Jewish bachelor. He was very much in demand, a fact that made my mother jealous, not of other women, but of his allure.
    But underneath, as my brother and I knew, my father was a very angry man. Seething in ways few could imagine. Street angel, house devil, the Yiddish expression goes. His temper was reserved for those closest to him and limited to peccadilloes, the smallest of things. To lights left on and dishes in the sink. Bread not broken before it was buttered. The offenses varied, but the result was the same.
    His anger was never physical. It was only words, but, as I’ve learned over the years, words can kill. The pitch of his voice would rise. I was always a little afraid of him. We all were. To this day his outbursts are incomprehensible to me. He never apologized. He never acted as if anything was wrong. He’d blow up and call us names, then make us popcorn or take us to play golf, as if nothing had happened.
    Now Jerry, with his head cocked the way I’d seen my father’s a hundred times, still hadn’t moved. I could tell that he was turning something over in his mind. After what seemed like a long while, he said, “Actually, I’ve got a boat I’ve been thinking about taking south.”
    â€œYou do?” I was stunned.
    He nodded. “It’s an old houseboat. I want to start wintering in Mississippi on the Tenn-Tom. I’ve got some friends down in Portage Des Sioux who said I could dock with them over the winter, then I’d move her farther south next spring.”
    Jerry paused again and I took this as my cue. “So you have a boat that could make a trip like this?”
    â€œWell, not all the way, but…” He nodded. “Yes, I do.”
    â€œThis boat?” I asked, pointing to the one we were standing on. It looked big and roomy with nice curtains and an outdoor grill. Jerry shook his head.
    â€œNope. Another boat.”
    â€œOh. Where is this boat? Can I see her?”
    Another pause. “Sure,” he said, not moving. “You passed her coming down.”
    He pointed to the parking lot, then slowly headed that way. I followed him up to where boats in various states of disrepair sat on trailers in dry dock. I had passed her coming down, but hadn’t noticed. That’s probably because she wasn’t much to look at. The paint was peeling from her hull in strips and it looked as if you could poke holes through the wood. A line of greenish brown muck that reminded me of pudding oozed from her baseboards. The railings were rusted away and smashed-up plastic chairs were piled on the stern. She had a FOR SALE sign taped to her back door and scribbled below it in pencil the words River Queen.
    â€œShe’s been out of the water awhile,” Jerry offered by way of explanation. Three years in fact, he said as I climbed the rickety ladder onto the deck. The windows were so dirty I couldn’t see inside so Jerry popped open the door. It was about 140 degrees in the cabin and the floor was covered with power tools and cardboard boxes filled with junk. Dust and grime coated every available surface. “So what d’ya think?”
    I was thinking that I’d seen other houseboats with their window boxes and Weber grills, sun awnings and deck chairs, but my options seemed to be running out.