Flood Waters [Excerpt]

Flood Waters

[Excerpt]





The flood of ’93 rolled in with the summer and so did my little brother, gawking and screaming and being such a nuisance for everybody that in my mind they became permanently linked together.  Floods and Sam.  Sam and floods.  The flood of ’93 rolled in and washed away the early part of my childhood and ushered in the next and to be honest, I don’t really remember what the world was like.  What the world was like before the flood.  I just remember after.  You could sit under the Arch, the Gateway, and look at all that water and you wouldn’t need an ocean, because that was all the water you could stand.  That was water rushing over sandbags and invading your home and drowning your pets and maybe some of your relatives too.  So maybe the river isn’t nearly so special as I like to think but sometimes the earliest memory I can think of is sitting under the Gateway and wondering what was under all that water, wondering what that water had swallowed up.

         And I always think of the river whenever I’m away.  In the drier places with no rivers and no lakes and no oceans I think—how can you stand it?  How can you live somewhere so peaceful and how can rain be a rarity and how can you look at mud rushing down a hill and not remember.  Not remember what it was like to stare into all that grayness and wonder what you’d lost.

         I think the first place I ever went that was really dry was New Mexico.  We vacationed there a couple of times, late in my adolescence.  There’s a saying that I have been told is particular to St. Louis, although I’m sure only St. Louisans think so.  The saying goes It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.  And when I first came to New Mexico I knew once and for all that it was true.  The heat is beautiful.  You can stand in the heat all day and it’s just being warm, it’s not sticky and it’s not repellent.  You can stand in the heat all day.

         I remember I was amazed that there was no water.  The hotel had a swimming pool of course and a good one too.  But once you drove out into that desert you would go for miles and the only water around was your own spit.  And if you forgot a water bottle you’d get sick of your own spit pretty fucking fast.

         But the water, or the lack of water, isn’t the thing about New Mexico, or at least it isn’t for me.  The thing is all that quiet.  All that quiet and the land stretching out on all sides and no wonder this is where the aliens land.  Or, well, crash.  Sam and I are tacit believers in aliens.  There are a few things like that that we have, but most of them you can’t really put a name on.  They’re not active things.  They’re just things that are true and we know it.  Things that would just get dirtied if we said them out loud.  Things I can’t really explain to other people.

         Of course, that doesn’t mean I haven’t tried.

         I had driven for hours through the dessert of the Western and finally arrived at my destination late last night.  Marina, as she is wont to do, greeted me with a hug and a night out at various parties and clubs.  And now, the day after, we were watching TV, and fighting about something.  Except we were fighting the way we do, which meant we had exchanged words about an hour ago and now were just silent.  We were in a fit of silence.  And I was beginning to think there were words I would never say again.  I was considering saying anything just to say something but in the middle of that kind of fit talking was tantamount to admitting defeat.  Of course I knew it would be me in the end.  It was always me.

         I sighed and swallowed my pride.

         “Do you mind if I switch to the history channel?  There’s a UFO special on,” I said off-handedly.  Casually as if it could be casual.  As if she might not notice.

         She turned to stare at me and out of the corner of my eye I could tell she didn’t entirely believe me.

         I shrugged.  “We don’t have to watch it.  It’s not that important.”

         She stayed silent and turned to face forward again.  It had taken all my willpower to say what I had just managed; I would not do it again.  So the minutes passed and she said nothing at all.

         Sometimes she needs a little more time to get over whatever we’ve been fighting about.  Of course I never point out to her that 9 times out of 10 she starts it.  She even admitted to me once that sometimes she deliberately starts fights out of sheer boredom, and that she seldom cares about whatever the topic of the day is.  That day it had been some TV show I had seen all of once, some years before, that had disturbed me with its carelessness.  The moment we lapsed into our silence, of course, I lost my grasp on the argument completely and could no longer remember just exactly what she had disagreed with me on, or why.  But, well.  She’s not the only one repeatedly choosing to make herself miserable rather than live with boredom.

         “So…do you think you’ll learn something?” she asked, an unforgiving edge to her voice.

         “Not really,” I answered.  “I just think I might enjoy it.”

         “I would just like to point out,” she said steadily, losing some of that hard edge, “that you think religion is all ridiculous and shit.”

         I nodded.  “That I do.”

         “But you still buy into…all this.”

         “Sure, if that’s how you want to phrase it.”  I gave her a moment to respond, then added: “But I wouldn’t say it has anything to do with belief.”

         “Uh huh.”

         Sam would get it, of course.  He gets very little else about me, but he would get this.  If you’re raised in a house with thousands of very logical books about conspiracies and aliens, with the assumption that the government is always lying about something, and a very factual acknowledgement that most truth is obscured, then certain things come to you like facts and it is not about believing.  It’s just about a greater truth, or even sometimes just a greater possibility.

         Marina wasn’t interested in any of that, of course.  She’s never mocked it outright, has even defended it to strangers.  And maybe sometimes she is open to possibility.  But there are some tacit things between us too—she doesn’t mock aliens and I don’t mock God.  And apart from that and a few other small things, I have more in common with her than anyone I have ever known.  I don’t know if in common is the right way to express it but I’ve never found a better one.  On the face of it, we have very little in common.  She’s blonde and tiny and she wore pink in high school and she gets cold too easy.  And I am dark haired and not tiny and I wore all black in high school and I get hot too easy.  And if you stacked up all these truths about us they would almost all oppose each other the same way.  But mostly those are trivial things.

         Marina wasn’t looking for fights anymore.  Instead she was looking to make fun of me, which for her is as close as she gets to apologizing.

         “So, did you have fun last night?” she asked.  My hangover was displeased with the question.  I glanced back at Andrew, snoring on a sleeping bag, to make sure he was still asleep.

         “I guess,” I mumbled.  I looked at Andrew again.  “Don’t you guys have a bed?  Why is he on the floor?”

         Marina shrugged.  “I warned him about Megan Copeland.  I told him she’d try to make out with him and get me all pissed, but did he listen?  No.  And that is why he is on the floor.  That, and he thinks the couch is bad for his back.”

         I looked back at the TV screen.  “The way you guys talk sometimes…it makes me feel old.”  Marina laughed softly.  I raised my eyebrows and asked, “What?”

         “It’s just…you’re funny sometimes.”

         “Am I?”

         “We went to like five parties last night, and you got up to all kinds of shit and then fell asleep in an armchair.  And now you tell me you feel old.  Sadie, old is for people who get married and have kids.  I don’t think you’ll ever have to worry about that.”

         “No, boring is for people get married and have kids.  Old is for everybody.  Granted, when we’re 70 you won’t be able to tell we’re the same age anymore because my face will be so full of botox I’ll be able to power a small chemical weapons plant.  But my joints will still creak.  Unless they’ve cured that by then…”

         “The point is, you are closer to 20 than you are to 25.”

         “Actually, I think the point is that Andrew has back problems.”

         “Oh, you are just so clever.”

         I made a face at her and changed the channel.  The flow of conversation had smoothed over all raw feelings between us, and everything was fine.  I remembered then that she had an exam coming up and forgave her completely, though I didn’t say so.  I didn’t need to.

         We passed a few more hours in the comfort of old, ever-aging friendship.