ARR 1988 - Flipbook - Page 58
want us arrested and the buzz was coming on. Tony, the outgoing introvert,
who had made an effort to come out of his shell, was drinking himself into a
coma. He knew the others couldn't help, only watch and join him on that
familiar yet vague "obliviating" path, just another "walk through the
pudding." Larry's lingo.
But Tony wasn't completely away from the world. Not yet. He was
going to the river! He felt the force ofNature, to him a tangible presence. He
thought of growing up by the river, how it had possessed an almost maternal
quality for him, as if this element of nature had a living soul. At ten and
eleven he had sat on the banks alone for hours, attuned, one with the only
bloodline he would claim; it coursed through the bloodline of the riverbed,
through the backwashes of minor streams that snaked their way through the
old strip-mining fields, down from the foothills. He could hear Nature
speaking in the gushing power of the rapids, and in the songs of the resident
waterfowl, who, along with other birds, joined in flight, danced in spiral
formations, called out to him. Nature, the river, was more caring, more
sensitive to Tony than even Pat, his closest friend. It seemed to Tony he'd
had a "lover" all along.
Larry was another story, Tony thought, watching him through the
cab window as Larry negotiated the curves of the highway and they neared
the river access road. The adopted son of a retired Army major, Larry knew
that the one who throws the most bull gets the least amount of shit on them,
and boy, could he throw. His childhood had been one of sheer fantasy, but
unfortunately it hadn't been his fantasy: the family just moved every
eighteen months. It wasn't the packing, the leaving of friends, or even the
whirlwind transitions that made it so hard for Larry, Tony thought. Larry
just never had made friends. He was obnoxious enough to drive people away
in droves. He had once told Tony he used to wonder why nobody would play
with him more than twice, but then he figured, "So who needs 'em?"
What kind of a case history approach to friendship was this anyway?
Geez, Tony thought, pulling himself back, trying to return. Who said
I needed to be a shrink?
He looked up from his ruminations in time to see the River Rider come
into view. Provisions, yeah! As luck would have it, an aquaintance of Larry's
was working the register. Life sure is sweet, sweet, sweet when you're
seventeen and you just discovered you're going to have no problem getting
your daily bread or, in this case, the liquid, the drink.
By twelve-thirty the three were high, high, up on the cliff, basking in
God's own sunshine, drowning in Milwaukee's glorious product, feeling the
lazy summer wind whispering around them. It really doesn't get any better,
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