River Rat Brothers on the Mississippi

11:30 PM – Writing by flashlight. Yesterday was the same as the day before. The river is wider. Can barely see either bank through the mist. It’s muggy all day. When the sun goes down the river mist comes up. We get soaked with the wetness and our own sweat from the top and from the bottom. Batteries dying, light goes dim. Sleep, please god, please sleep.
August 28, 1959
6 PM - After dinner. Well at least something broke the monotony. Corren, Tony and Dennis couldn’t take the heat any more. We are at a narrower place in the river and tied up to a dead tree snag stuck in the water. There is a small town or village on the other side of the levy. The three jerks decided to swim in the river, even though it is murky and smells funny. They had to cool off. Pouring water over our heads wasn’t enough. Carlos and I stayed on board to tend the raft. Besides, neither one of us liked the looks of the river. We were right. Corren and Tony swam towards the bank. They got too near some large pipe to examine it. Big mistake. It proved to be the outlet pipe for the town’s sewage. A flow gushed out as they got close. Boy, did they take off. Never saw anyone swim that fast. Carlos and I told them they couldn’t come on board until they swam out into the deeper part of the river. It was clearer water where we threw them bars of Lava soap to scrub down. Actually it was funny to see the looks of disgust on their faces. The soap nearly took their skin off.
August 29, 1959
10:30 AM – Things are getting bad on board. We’ve been on the river now for nearly three weeks and feel the pressure to finish the trip in order to get back for the start of the fall term. Boredom has become an everyday thick stinking cloud of apathy.
The water slides beneath the rafts’ deck. It’s been three days since we left the dying town of Cairo in a last desperate run to reach New Orleans. I watch the river run on for hours now. I’m in a trance in which, at some point, the raft and I feel suspended in time. There’s no movement. I hang above it all, the water runs under, around and once in awhile over the decking. I glance down as the thin water washes across my feet. This is how the boredom sets in again. The apathy rules, offset by sudden temper flare ups at insignificant slights.
“Christ, can’t you two shut up for a minute?”
“What’s your problem?” Tony shoots back at me.
“I don’t have a problem, you two have the problem. You’re always picking on each other or complaining about how bored you are.” I answer.
“Well, Tony’s being a prick again. He keeps threatening me about Joy.” Dennis groused, throws a wet sock at Tony.
“Hey!” Tony shouts back and jumps up from washing some of his clothes in a pot of muddy brown soapy water. “I’m going to split your lip wide open.”
“Okay, that’s enough” Corren, the self appointed raft captain, interjects as he comes out of the wig-wam tent. “If you’re done threatening, finish the wash and stay away from each other.”
This is easier said than done since the raft is only twenty feet long and ten feet wide. Somehow a truce ensues with a minimum of black looks.
”Stan, what was that about?” Corren asks.
“They were going on about Joy again. Tony didn’t get a letter at our last mail drop. I think Dennis is needling him about it. You know how Tony is about Joy; he thinks he’s in love. Probably will marry her after school.”
“You, think? Well, what about you, Stan. Still stuck on that little blond in Cairo?”
“Corren, screw you, that’s none of your business. Why is it so important to you? I seem to remember you disappeared with someone for quite awhile without telling any of us. Caroline Anne is none of your concern. What you were doing in Cairo was up to only you. Find some one special, Corren? Girl or boy?”
“You know Stan, you’re an ass. You’ve got a cruel mean streak. I’m going back to my nap. You can screw yourself for all I care.”
Corren shot me a dirty look and went back into the tent.
What’s bugging him, I wonder?
I pulled the Panama hat lower over my eyes and watched the river flow again. Caroline Anne, sex and Cairo drifted into my thoughts. Cairo, Cairo, Illinois, two hundred miles back up river and a hundred years in the past.

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Stan-The Man- was born on the longest day of the year. He was pleased to be born in the summer with two equal astrological signs. Writing has been a life long pleasure and pursuit. He wrote and published his first "book" when he was twelve. Family has always been important to him. It has been a source of strength and inspiration in his writing. He travelled to California from Cleveland, Ohio by train. He grew up in Westchester and has lived in the "Valley" for several decades. A graduate of Loyola, a former Marine, a father,a survivor of many tragedies, and grandfather at a young age, has helped him to write from the heart and soul with great understanding of the human condition, its joys and its follies.