0312427891 (N) by Mary Morris

Author:Mary Morris [Morris, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

MAYFLIES

28

“WHEN I was a boy, there was but one permanent ambition among my comrades in our village on the west bank of the Mississippi River. That was to be a steamboatman,” Twain writes in Life on the Mississippi. He tells of the two packet boats a day that chugged into Hannibal. One came from St. Louis. The other from Keokuk. And after those boats came and went, “the day was a dead and empty thing.”

As we pull into the marina at the Keokuk Yacht Club, I note the significant absence of steamboats or river life or fanfare. It is hard to imagine this Iowa town as a bustling dock as it was in Twain’s time. But indeed the huge Victorian homes that line the bluffs, which we will see in the morning, attest to Keokuk’s glorious past.

I muse over what has become of these river towns. I recall my conversation with Cindy back in Muscatine and think how the malls and the automobile and the end of the steamboat business and the pearl button factories have decimated them all. As we pull up to the dock, Sally greets us. She’s a friendly dark-haired woman with a slightly weathered look as if she’s been at this marina too long, and she tells us we’ve got to change docks if we want to fuel up, which we do. “Fuel dock’s back there,” Sally says.

“Well, Mary,” Jerry says. “You wanta fuel up or you wanta hop off?”

“I’ll go check out the facilities,” I tell them as they move the boat. Up at the marina there’s a nice outdoor shower stall, but it’s filled with cobwebs and spiders and I decide to wait for morning when I can see them. The marina restaurant is empty except for a few stragglers who have clearly had one too many, listening to old Kenny Rogers tunes. The smell of cigarette smoke fills the room. The only available food is frozen pizza. One wall is covered with historic pictures. Apparently the Keokuk Lock and Dam 19, which is just below us, holds the title in The Guinness Book of World Records for Small Craft Lockthrough (88 small craft). This achievement is immortalized in a photo of dozens of people in their bathing suits and Bermuda shorts, holding lines. What a contrast this is to the empty river we’ve been on, so devoid of life.

I decide to skip the frozen pizza and return to the boat and scramble some eggs. As I see it, outside of eating a can of Tantalizin’ Turkey, which I refuse to do, this is my only viable food option. “You guys want scrambled eggs?” I ask. They are bent over the engine with a flashlight and give me what I can only interpret as disgruntled shrugs. “Gonna get me some of that frozen pizza,” Tom says, clearly happy about this.

We are docked beside a pool of standing water and there’s a hint of sewage in the air. The dock is illumined with yellow floodlights and the outside of our boat is covered with what looks like a million mosquitoes.

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