There When You Need Him

The next morning, a Saturday, I’m driving north on a country highway. The September leaves are still green, but dried and wrinkling, their season almost spent. I’m headed for Louie’s River Camp, up by Wausauk, a small town on the Wisconsin River. I know the place from camping and canoe trips over the years. At the River Camp, there’s a bar and grill and a wraparound deck that cantilevers out over the river. The weathered cedar planks of the deck push out just enough through the tall pines so that at the best tables you can see across the wide expanse of water to the opposite shore. This time of year, I’d have the deck to myself.
I arrive about noon, and go looking for Louie, the owner. Louie is a big man—over six feet tall and 350 pounds, easy. He moves in low gear, planting each foot and swaying ponderously from side to side as he walks. He wears a chef’s apron as big as a sail, and the edges of it float and riffle as he lumbers through his establishment. He and I had been buddies in high school, both of us in marching band, and we’d kept track of each other over the years. I’d launched many a canoe trip from his beach, and we made time to gossip at high school reunions and mutual friends’ weddings. I find him in his bar cleaning spigots.
He smiles wide. “Emily. A good surprise.” I lay my cheek against his chest as he folds me into his arms. “What brings you here? Staying for awhile?”
“I just wanted to be by the river for a bit, do some reading, relax.”
Louie raises his eyebrows, but he’s never been one to pry. “Well, make yourself to home. Karen’s not here. Got a family reunion to get ready for over in Steven’s Point, so I’m alone with the inventory and deliveries today. But I’ll try and get away and visit later on.”
“Sounds good. Any chance for a cup of coffee?”
“I’ve got some fresh,” he says.
I amble out to where the deck hangs over the river and take one of his best riverside tables. Louie won’t mind, since it’s past Labor Day and the place is deserted. I just have time to wish the seat cushions had thicker padding for my bony frame when Louie arrives with the coffee and gives me a weather report—warm and sunny all day—then he stumps away, the deck boards groaning.
The steam from my coffee floats above the cup, like the mist on the surface of the water. The warbling songbirds have just entranced me into peace when the sudden flurry of a kingfisher winging off a branch signals he’s heard something. Now I can hear them, too, the colors of their laughter in gold and green bursts as they come around the river’s bend. They’re kids, teenagers, sunk in a swirling flotilla of huge, fat inner tubes, arms and legs poking out like sticks. They salute the day with cans of soda, toasting the cloudless sky with rasping cries, like crows. One of the boys waves and flashes his white teeth at me. I smile, hoisting my coffee cup.
The kids swing around another bend and out of sight, leaving a few seconds of glittering silence. I remember when that was me floating along in the goodwill of friends, belonging to the righteous beauty of a late summer morning. But now the cicadas, becoming confident in the river’s quiet, explode into a loud clacking. Their metallic clatter startles me back to the present, into a dread I can’t control. My heart ratchets up, booming in my ears. Adrenaline cramps my gut and my hands turn cold in the hot sun. With a gasp, I pull up my knees and hang on. Then, as suddenly as it attacked, the fear drops me from its jaws. Now in a full sweat, I loosen the grip on my knees, take a stuttering breath.

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