and a small but outrageously expensive Leitz photo enlarger, some basic darkroom gear, and her Nikon F4. She sometimes takes photographsof places and things that she wouldn’t want a photo lab to get curious about.
W E ’ D FALLEN BACK in bed together, though it took a while. After my spasm of honesty on the morning I drew her sleeping, she’d been walking circles around me. I let it go. There was something new in our relationship, but I wasn’t sure what it was or if I wanted it.
Three days before we left, LuEllen made a quiet trip down to Longstreet, flying into Memphis, then rolling down the river road in a rented car. She was carrying a fairly expensive piece of electronic equipment from a friend on the West Coast. She got back late that night and checked back onto the couch.
Then, the day before we left, I hauled a carload of personal stuff and computer printouts down to the boat and stowed it. With nothing much left to do, we rented a movie—
Jeremiah Johnson
with Robert Redford—and sat on my couch with a bowl of popcorn between us. About the time the Indians started hunting Jeremiah around the mountains, she picked up the bowl, moved it to the other side, said, “Fuck it,” and plopped her ass down beside me.
I couldn’t think of anything to say, and she said, “Don’t say anything clever.”
So I didn’t. We sat on the couch, watched the end of the movie, and then fell to necking likekids. Later we moved into the bedroom. LuEllen usually made love the way she wore clothes: like a cowgirl. Lots of enthusiasm, not much finesse. This time she seemed small. Fragile. When we went to sleep, I had my arm around her, and when I woke, eight hours later, we were still like that. She felt too good to move, but the little man in the back of my head was getting nervous: What the fuck is going on here, Kidd?
W E LEFT in the early afternoon, still not talking much. LuEllen took the
Fanny
out, while I got a gin and tonic from the bar, put my feet up, and watched Wisconsin go by. It was a fine day, with sailboats batting around Lake St. Croix, China blue sky with mare’s tails trailing across it, and just enough breeze to ruffle the
Fanny
’s dispirited pennant.
T HE S T . C ROIX enters the Mississippi below St. Paul, at river mile 811.5. From there it was six days to Memphis. One of the days was a hot, unpleasant transit of the Chain-of-Rocks Canal around St. Louis. We were wedged between two river tows, bathed in the fumes of their oversize diesels.
The other five days were as good as days get. The sun was shining from clear pale dawns to rose madder dusks. I painted or tinkered with alittle junk shop laser while LuEllen ran the boat, or I ran the boat while LuEllen read or sunbathed. LuEllen would peel off her bathing suit in the most provocative possible manner, warn me to mind my own business, and then roll around nude on the white foam sunbathing pad. Her browning body would relax and open and build a shiny patina of perspiration under the brilliant river sun. I’d keep one eye on the water as we chugged along, another on LuEllen. When I couldn’t stand it, I’d drop the anchor and jump in with her. We went along that way until the bad day at Chain-of-Rocks Canal and picked up again on the other side.
Fifty or sixty river miles south of St. Louis, beautiful white sand beaches stretch along the Illinois side of the Mississippi. They are cut off from land access by the marshes along levees and so are virtually untouched by humans. We stopped at a bar on the fifth afternoon, and LuEllen jogged naked along the water’s edge, a small woman with a gymnast’s body running in a shimmer of heat and sand. She stopped here to look at a piece of driftwood, there to examine the desiccated remnants of a fish or animal that had washed up on the beach.
On her way back to the
Fanny
, a river tow rounded the bend below us. Rather than duck through the screening willows, LuEllen ran gaily along the edge of the water.
W E ’ D FALLEN BACK in bed together, though it took a while. After my spasm of honesty on the morning I drew her sleeping, she’d been walking circles around me. I let it go. There was something new in our relationship, but I wasn’t sure what it was or if I wanted it.
Three days before we left, LuEllen made a quiet trip down to Longstreet, flying into Memphis, then rolling down the river road in a rented car. She was carrying a fairly expensive piece of electronic equipment from a friend on the West Coast. She got back late that night and checked back onto the couch.
Then, the day before we left, I hauled a carload of personal stuff and computer printouts down to the boat and stowed it. With nothing much left to do, we rented a movie—
Jeremiah Johnson
with Robert Redford—and sat on my couch with a bowl of popcorn between us. About the time the Indians started hunting Jeremiah around the mountains, she picked up the bowl, moved it to the other side, said, “Fuck it,” and plopped her ass down beside me.
I couldn’t think of anything to say, and she said, “Don’t say anything clever.”
So I didn’t. We sat on the couch, watched the end of the movie, and then fell to necking likekids. Later we moved into the bedroom. LuEllen usually made love the way she wore clothes: like a cowgirl. Lots of enthusiasm, not much finesse. This time she seemed small. Fragile. When we went to sleep, I had my arm around her, and when I woke, eight hours later, we were still like that. She felt too good to move, but the little man in the back of my head was getting nervous: What the fuck is going on here, Kidd?
W E LEFT in the early afternoon, still not talking much. LuEllen took the
Fanny
out, while I got a gin and tonic from the bar, put my feet up, and watched Wisconsin go by. It was a fine day, with sailboats batting around Lake St. Croix, China blue sky with mare’s tails trailing across it, and just enough breeze to ruffle the
Fanny
’s dispirited pennant.
T HE S T . C ROIX enters the Mississippi below St. Paul, at river mile 811.5. From there it was six days to Memphis. One of the days was a hot, unpleasant transit of the Chain-of-Rocks Canal around St. Louis. We were wedged between two river tows, bathed in the fumes of their oversize diesels.
The other five days were as good as days get. The sun was shining from clear pale dawns to rose madder dusks. I painted or tinkered with alittle junk shop laser while LuEllen ran the boat, or I ran the boat while LuEllen read or sunbathed. LuEllen would peel off her bathing suit in the most provocative possible manner, warn me to mind my own business, and then roll around nude on the white foam sunbathing pad. Her browning body would relax and open and build a shiny patina of perspiration under the brilliant river sun. I’d keep one eye on the water as we chugged along, another on LuEllen. When I couldn’t stand it, I’d drop the anchor and jump in with her. We went along that way until the bad day at Chain-of-Rocks Canal and picked up again on the other side.
Fifty or sixty river miles south of St. Louis, beautiful white sand beaches stretch along the Illinois side of the Mississippi. They are cut off from land access by the marshes along levees and so are virtually untouched by humans. We stopped at a bar on the fifth afternoon, and LuEllen jogged naked along the water’s edge, a small woman with a gymnast’s body running in a shimmer of heat and sand. She stopped here to look at a piece of driftwood, there to examine the desiccated remnants of a fish or animal that had washed up on the beach.
On her way back to the
Fanny
, a river tow rounded the bend below us. Rather than duck through the screening willows, LuEllen ran gaily along the edge of the water.
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