I Am a Stranger Here Myself by Debra Gwartney

Author:Debra Gwartney
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
Published: 2019-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Three hours in, our uncle’s shoulders had turned a brilliant pink on top of his berry-brown tan. He’d been at the oars from the start, insisting he was the best at handling the fast current, refusing my brother’s offer to give him a break. He kept rowing, while others drew beers and wine coolers from bags floating alongside the raft. When the sun came out and warmed us up, we stretched our long legs over the sides to put our toes in the water.

My nine-year-old cousin made a game of climbing over the rest of us to balance on the stern, legs straddled, where he’d pee out the Cokes he’d been drinking. I tipped my head back, letting rays baste my face. I was lulled into the rhythm of our ride as we floated, cans tied to the frame clinking a tinny song.

A halcyon day. But after a while our uncle got fidgety. He set down the oars with a clunk to lean over for another drink. The raft veered toward the left bank, chugging through a mass of uprooted foliage. Ahead of us I saw a cottonwood snag that had been yanked out of the banks by the high stream, slammed across the point of an island.

“How many strokes do you think I need to get around that?” our uncle said to Ron, who’d been half dozing in the warmth. I followed our uncle’s outstretched hand and my brother’s gaze toward the small patch of exposed land, maybe a hundred yards in the distance. The felled cottonwood’s leaves shimmered like coins in the sunshine.

Ron got up on a knee, flat hand over his eyes to better study what our uncle was talking about. “Hey, don’t,” he said, turning toward him and scooting in the direction of the extra set of oars. “The girls are nervous.”

Cindy and I, the nervous ones, sat up. “What’s going on?” she said.

Our uncle waved his hand, picked up the oars that groaned and snapped in the locks, and stuck them into the water again, his thighs bending into the effort. After the first couple of strokes he sat up straighter. He’d let the raft drift too far. That’s what I’d put together later when we sat at our grandmother’s table combing over details. Now he said to Ron, “Get over here.” My brother tipped forward, bear-walking toward our uncle, the group of us alert to any flinches and nuanced messages between the two. My husband reached over to squeeze my shoulder while I stared at the island screaming toward us.

“What the fuck?” my husband yelled. Then we were silent. All of this happening in about one minute. Our uncle dug into the water, dug again, his back arched and face in a knot. He dug with the muscles of his arms and legs and his tight red neck.

My sister wrapped her hand around my wrist, tethering the two of us together.

“Hold on,” Ron shouted, and he began to pick up loose items—a flip-flop, a half-empty can of Coors, a plastic-wrapped chunk of cheese—to throw overboard.

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