Authors: Jim Harrison
He had finished breakfast at 6:00 a.m., cooked himself because the Finnish girl was packing up to go home during his camping trip. Marion wasn’t due to pick him up until 8:00 a.m. so he decided to take a little morning walk. He argued with the Finnish girl who thought she should accompany him as per Diane’s instructions. He angrily said “no.” He wanted to be alone.
Chapter 3
A block down the street on a fair late summer morning a runner passed him with a nod. It was a lovely girl in shorts, perhaps in her late teens. It was a warm morning and she was in tight shorts with a butt as lovely as Mona’s. He cautioned himself against thinking about Mona’s body now that he and Diane had adopted her. It had become the ancient taboo of incest which gave him a slight shudder. The running girl in the shorts had given him the first twinge of lust since his back was broken. This both reassured and confused him. What was he going to do with lust, certainly not return to his old girlfriend, his secretary? The thought of her and their absurd couplings repelled him. The fresh-looking girl with the delicious butt suited him though the odds against finding one were preposterous. He tripped on an uneven piece of sidewalk and fell on the lawn in front of Mona’s old house. He couldn’t seem to get up with his faulty back. A dapper man half dressed for work rushed out of his house, the yoga woman’s husband, and helped him to his feet. Sunderson explained his back surgery and they agreed to have a drink as neighbors. His wife came out in a scanty nightie and asked if he was okay. He said “fine” much taken by her body which was much sexier than at the vantage point of the window in her yoga contortions.
He went back in his house thinking of the
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shadow in the nightie. He rechecked his gear, had another cup of coffee, and felt lonely for the old days when he drank a lot and didn’t think much. Marion finally came, only minutes late but Sunderson was already irritable from his falling. His mood recovered when he spent a few minutes peeking next door and was delighted that the neighbor woman was doing yoga in her nightie which slipped up so that he saw her whole lower half nude. What good luck he thought with a sexual pang in his stomach as if he were ill.
The twenty-mile trip to the cabin brought him back to earth. The last seven miles through the woods they were stuck briefly in a mud hole which was watery from the last winter runoff. They roared out and were delighted to see a fairly big bear near the cabin. Marion knew the bear and speculated that it had gotten much larger from eating all the deer that had died from cold in the hard winter. The bears normally reached their peak weight in late fall before the long winter but this spring they came out of hibernation to a sort of a waiting deep freeze with plenty of deer meat and had fattened up quickly.
They were anxious to get unpacked and start fishing well before the midday sun and heat. They burned a large branch of cedar in the fireplace to sweeten the cabin air, an old Indian tactic.
Sunderson began fishing where a small creek emerged from a swamp about a mile behind the cabin. Marion plunged into the swamp toward a beaver pond, his favorite place. The rough walking gave Sunderson a painful twinge at the site of his surgery so he sat under a tree to rest and took a painkiller. He hated knowing the pills would make him feel drowsy and goofy but the pain was a poor start to fishing. He felt better in half an hour and made his way, now more slowly, toward the creek.
He caught a few small fish then missed a larger one that sensed his presence fleeing upstream. Maybe later when it calmed down, he thought. It didn’t take fish that long to calm down and then you had to put the sneak on them.
He became prematurely tired and sat down under another tree for a rest, a fir with piles of soft needles beneath it. He reflected that in literature our lives were rivers which seemed inappropriate to him. Rivers were unstoppable, of great power. We were primarily creeks or rivulets that flowed into rivers. You could hope your life to be a smooth, clear, strong creek. You could make it so with care. Or you could muddy it up with carelessness. Sunderson had to put himself in the latter category but then nothing was stopping a change. He drifted away in fantasies of a clean life and fine behavior. He would find a retirement job of some sort to occupy his time properly. His long career as a state police detective had worn him out. He dreaded the many cases of physical abuse of children and wives. His gorge rose in the woods.
He did not want to change that much. He was comfortable like most of us in his sloppiness except he didn’t want to be drunk anymore. He was tired of being drunk in the evening at his kitchen table with tears in his old retired eyes over his lost wife.
Marion showed up very muddy after two hours with a nice creel full of brook trout for dinner. He was proud to have stalked and caught a big one, about two pounds, nearly a trophy for a brook trout, and a few smallish others, enough for lunch. Sunderson was mildly jealous but there was no way his cripple body could reach the beaver pond in the center of the swamp. Sunderson faltered and Marion carried him piggyback. He was always surprised by Marion’s massive strength, which Marion explained by describing a long youth spent as a farm laborer often for twenty-five cents an hour. Indian kids were cheap he said because they were so poor. He spent most of what he made on food because his family had so little, his father gone long ago. He told Sunderson now how proud he was to one day have brought home to his mother a big beef roast from the butcher. His brothers and sisters were delighted with everyone sitting in the kitchen watching TV while the roast cooked with a delicious odor. Once for Christmas dinner they had eaten three roast chickens that Marion had bought live from a farmer and killed. He and his mother plucked them outside on a snowy day laughing at the cold.
His little sister Susan had been in prison ten years for shooting a man who had raped her but Marion felt there was a chance of getting her out this year.
They napped after lunch then drove a few miles to a bigger stream that also had rainbows and brook trout. Sunderson immediately caught a nice brown trout of about two pounds, less impressive than a brookie but it put him in a glowing mood with his actual life left well behind. He slipped the beautiful wildly colored fish back into the current. Brown trout weren’t nearly as good to eat as brook trout. Maybe he could catch him here next year when he gained a pound. A thought that goes with all released fish.
Chapter 4
Sunderson was roasting a chicken for lunch six months later in January when he was startled to hear a car. He went to the window then quickly bundled into a coat and went out on the porch. It was Diane and she was crying. She whispered through her tears that she had gotten an email and then a phone call from Mona in Paris. She was sick with hepatitis, the boyfriend had abandoned her in a hotel, and she wanted to come home.
“I’ll go get her,” he said.
“Are you well enough?” she wondered.
“It doesn’t take much to ride on an airplane,” he said. In fact his back was aching and he dreaded the idea but Diane was the manager of the hospital, it was a busy time of year, and she couldn’t get away. He was counting on an extra pill to take care of the pain. The reservations were for tomorrow morning fairly early and Diane had gotten money in anticipation. She also got him a reservation for a night in Mona’s hotel before leaving the next day.
Diane drove him to the airport in the morning saying he smelled like a distillery. He didn’t reply but he had had more than a touch of whiskey the night before. He had been full of anxiety over going to a foreign country without a word of their language. He reminded himself that lots of people do it but that didn’t help much.
He flew via Chicago and felt nervous and out of place in the fancy Air France lounge. In consideration of his bad back Diane had bought him a business class ticket for the spacious seats. When he looked closely at the ticket he had been appalled at the price. In the lounge he limited himself to a single Bloody Mary in penance for the night before. He asked the bartender to go a little heavy on the vodka as a precaution, a steady drinker’s trick. It was a dark dull day and he had hoped for a weather cancellation due to ice or snow but no such luck.
He had been brooding about the word “hepatitis” in connection with Mona. The disease was common among heroin users with dirty needles and he kept thinking of the death of his beloved brother through heroin in Detroit. His brooding circled back to Mona’s boyfriend because musicians were big users of heroin.
On the plane he was diverted by what he thought was a pretty good dinner, washed down by several glasses of wine, and the fact that he was surrounded in his seat by French people. This was good as he didn’t want to talk to anyone and he also liked the sound of the French language. He became a child who understood nothing. They drank a fair amount of wine but less than he did. He had never been successful at sleeping on long flights so he was pleased to cover himself with a blanket, push the seat well back, and sleep until nearly morning when they were only two hours out of de Gaulle.
He was deeply intimidated by customs and showed his badge with his passport but it went smoothly. He caught a cab and had time to dread seeing Mona. Their conversation in New York had been discouraging. She was staying in a pretty little hotel near the Théâtre Odéon on the Left Bank. A desk clerk showed him to a room next to Mona’s on the fifth floor. It had a wonderful balcony on which he intended to smoke and drink. He slipped his revolver from his luggage into his shoulder holster. Handguns were strictly forbidden in France but he did not intend to be unprepared as he had been in New York. He felt icy cold when he knocked on Mona’s door. He heard a wispy
Qui est là
and correctly answered “Dad, from America” and she opened the door. She looked thin, sallow, slightly fatigued in a dark nightgown. They embraced and collapsed backward on the bed. He held her while she cried and mumbled. Her boyfriend paid for the room for a month but abandoned her. He wanted her to help him seduce the young French girls who followed the band. She did it once but was hurt and disgusted. They separated. She became ill after using drugs. He found her a doctor and that was that. He was having a good time and she became disposable.
Dizzy with jet lag Sunderson fell asleep and when he awoke she had his penis out and was sucking it. He tried to withdraw and she suddenly sat on it. He was trapped he thought. “I want someone to want me not a fucking twelve-year-old,” she said, grinding away. He had his hands on her buttocks but his back was too weak to lift her off. Shame nearly overwhelmed him. Finally he came off with a mighty groan but she continued. Afterward they slept for a while then she led him down to Café de Flore for a snack. He admitted to himself that his guilt intensified the pleasure. The ham and salad were delicious. She slowly ate a bowl of onion soup while he had some glasses of Brouilly. She looked better now, more alive. He hastily got up and went to talk to two cops standing out in front. She watched him show his identification and they talked animatedly. One cop wrote in a notepad and they left in a hurry. They agreed not to make love again and he felt the heat and sweat gather in his face. They took a walk in the Luxembourg Gardens. The gravel paths were free of ice and the day was bright. They held hands on a bench near the fountain and she confessed that she felt stupid. She wanted to get well and go back to college. He said that was certainly possible. Sparrows chased each other around the fountain. Sunderson pictured how lively it must be in the summer and wondered why America didn’t create such pleasures.
Back in the room they decided it was a “French thing” that would certainly go away back in America. Sunderson was mystified by his painful vigor. He must have been saving up, he thought. He remembered his vow to limit the amount of messiness in his life and worried about the chance of catching hepatitis from her.
At the Charles de Gaulle he was delighted when Mona translated an article from the newspaper about an “American rock star” being caught in a hotel room with two nude twelve-year-olds and an eleven-year-old. He would be able to get bail but would have to surrender his passport. The paper went on to discuss the seriousness of the charges that would merit fifty years in prison. It was now an international charge and if he made it back to the United States he would have to serve the time there. There was currently through the United Nations an effort to fight sexual predators throughout the world including the men who traveled to Southeast Asia to sexually abuse children there. “He’s in deep shit,” Mona said. “His mother won’t be able to get him out of this one with all her money.” Sunderson kept thinking that it was the seemingly harmless mother who was responsible for his wretched back. He was however pleased that he had tipped off the French police to Mona’s rock drummer. That took care of him for a long time. The little girls had told the police that he had given them heroin which increased the charges.
When they made it back on the long ride to Marquette Mona was put in the hospital immediately with her hepatitis and Sunderson took three days to regather his back strength. He was put in elaborate traction which was terribly uncomfortable but solved his back pain without medication. He was less dopey but still terribly guilty about his sexual behavior. The guilt swirled through his mind and increased when he saw Diane. He and Diane had adopted Mona, so how could he have committed this crime? Marquette brought him back to the unpleasant earth. His guilt was all the more repellent because there was nothing to do about it. There was also the additional niggling foul thought about how wonderful it had been. It occurred to him it was his all-time record for sloppy behavior. What do you do when you wake up and a beautiful woman is blowing you? Run for it? Get out of there! He mourned for the simple time when Mona was only the girl next door he watched through his secret library peek hole. He had always been a bit ashamed of himself about this but not to the point it stopped him even though he had arrested window peepers on occasion.
After he got out of traction he needed several days of hard rest to get his wretched back workable and then he took to the woods like a madman every day from dawn to dark. He was fairly safe from Mona while tramping around but invariably each day several times he’d be stopped in his tracks streamside to mull over his guilt, churning his stomach and dizzying his brain.
One early evening just as he returned and poured a sturdy drink Diane stopped by with a roast beef she had cooked with some potatoes and onions. Sunderson was suddenly tearful and confessed he had made love to Mona in Paris. “That’s disgusting. You’re quite the father,” she said coldly. “She likely seduced you which couldn’t be hard. She was angry over losing her lover to kids.” She stopped and stared at him in contempt. “You may not have started it,” she added, “but you truly are a sucker, letting a sick girl twist you this way and that.” She handed him a tissue to wipe his tears then walked out without looking back.
Sunderson felt better as he ate his dinner, the questionable relief of confession. This is not to say that he didn’t also feel stupid but there was a sense that he could also breathe freely again. He reminded himself errantly that he intended to read the New Testament again to see if he still believed any of the stuff from his childhood churchgoing. There had been an unpleasant reminder early that morning when he had pulled the book in his library to watch his neighbor’s wife doing some yoga in her nightie and got a clear view of her nude butt reared up in posture. He gasped from the strength of his lust. She seemed to look at him and he wondered if she had caught on. He thought of masturbation but look what his peeking had got him.
Almost comically he began with his last bite of dinner to think of spiritual life. He certainly wasn’t sure what it was except in a literary sense. It was the one thing Marion wouldn’t talk about. He claimed that the spiritual life gained power by being kept secret. Once they were having a roaring political argument while having lunch at Marion’s cabin when Marion had suddenly stopped and laughed. He wouldn’t continue to Sunderson’s disappointment who was enjoying himself. Marion said, “Nothing but child abuse is more disgusting than the U.S. Congress. Just now I remembered I was having a nice lunch in the middle of a galaxy. Each night before bed I step out and look at the stars. It’s good for humility. If it’s cloudy I have a childish faith that they are still there so it doesn’t matter that it’s cloudy.” That was as close as Marion had ever come to saying something spiritual. That afternoon while hiking Sunderson remembered what Marion had said about being in the middle of a galaxy. He was an earthbound man and if he had any spiritual life it came from close observation of the natural world. The stars were beyond him. Diane had a nice telescope but he almost never looked through it. Once he had looked at the full moon and it frankly scared him. How can this be, he wondered. The mystery in his life came from water. In school they had clumsily just said H
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O, but from early on Sunderson had been hypnotized by creeks, rivers, lakes, though it was mostly moving water that mystified him. He was openly frightened by Lake Superior which had killed men in his family who had been commercial fishermen. Even on a placid summer day Lake Superior seemed endlessly ominous. Maybe it was the moving water being frozen that made him so restless over Mona.