Winding Rivers

I sat in the quiet, super clean waiting area of a popular downtown tire center intrigued by the continuous stream of business that the holiday week-end did not deter. Only the matriarch of the establishment was missing from the familiar pleasant faces administering the great service synonymous with the business. After quickly finishing a collection of Lydia Davis short stories I started reading a few days before, I sat enjoyably distracted by the customers and workers while my van towered above me in the bay beyond the storefront, useless. The pungent smell of new rubber emanated from the neat rows of display tires that filled most of the room where I sat.

We used to tube down the Tickfaw sometime during mid-summer, when the days stretched endlessly into the thick heat of a Louisiana July. Tubing was not the fast-paced, out of control run down mountain streams that we learned to love in the Smoky Mountains. We did not hike up long trails for quick, cold rides through rapids on rented tubes with wooden bottoms that protected soft bottoms from ragged rocks and boulders. I grew up with a more southern bent to tubing that consisted of languid drifting down quiet flows of murky waters.

While Mom and Dad busied themselves tying ice chests filled with soft drinks, snacks and a picnic lunch into large black inner tubes, we kids waded our old tennis shoe-clad feet into the cool waters of the river. We splashed water refreshingly onto our bodies, our swimsuits already damp with sweat under our old shorts. Tall pine trees along the edges of the banks rounded the curves as the river wound its way out of sight. My brothers took off with their tubes amid a torrent of splashing, pushing each other off and paddling with their hands. As they disappeared my mother shouted for them to stay close and to watch for sunning snakes falling out of the trees into the water.

My sisters and I plopped into our tubes, our bums submerged and our limbs splayed over the warm rubber that required, as the day grew hotter, an occasional dousing to keep the smooth black surface cool. Our faces turned upward to the tops of pines and oaks, where the sun hadn't yet reached and submitted to the slow moving water that would carry us downstream. My parents, and in the early days, the youngest of us, took up the rear in a wide makeshift raft of tubes tied together with twine indulgently transporting the load of supplies my family of eight needed for a day on the river.

Although I am floating somewhere between the swift rush of Deep Creek and the slow crawl of the Tickfaw with no idea of the curves and drops ahead, I do now know where the trip will end. A part of me, already eager to be in the Boston area, wants to paddle ahead, my hands churning up the water around me and propelling me to the destination. At other times, I want to lean back against the rubber tube, studying the scenery that I know I won't be back to enjoy (for a long time, anyway).

I try to adhere to a deliberate, observant approach to activities that may be our last in Asheville, not unlike the way I tried to manipulate time when Rem was born.

"Look," I told Craig over the tiny head of black hair of our swaddled infant, "we know he'll talk and walk and won't go to school in diapers. Let's just be in every moment without looking ahead, without expectation and maybe it won't go by so quickly."

Miren and Lise by that time had already shed the last remnants of babyhood, alluding more to the grown up versions of themselves that they would be. Of course all of the strategizing proved fruitless as Rem is speeding through life at the same rapid rate as his sisters.

The five of us spent our last Thanksgiving in Asheville with calculated purpose as we tried to relive the best of Thanksgiving pasts into this last one. (Four of us, anyway. Rem was disappointed that the turkey had no head and bore no resemblance to the turkeys in Mrs. Rogers' yard. He was the only one on our walk not to pause for mental snapshots of the leaf-strewn park, the empty swimming pool, the quiet neighborhood.)

My attempt to preserve the end of the Asheville chapter in the Chenevert book of life has proven faulty. Often, when things have slowed down enough for me to ponder the gravity of the moment, the moment isn't so grave. I slipped out of the house during the holiday week-end while Craig worked madly to finish our house to purchase much needed tires for the van.

"This is probably the last time I will be here," I told myself, soaking in the surroundings. My inner voice exhibited great dramatic flair as I took in the framed pictures of old race cars and recognition from various local charities.

"Well, it better be," the more practical me answered, thinking of the cost of tires and knowing that a return trip could only mean a tire-blow out or accident. I could hear the hum of power tools through the glass and looked up at my van. It needed washing.

"I hope I have luck finding a place like this in Boston. But who am I kidding? That's all on Craig." I almost laughed at myself but the whole conversation began to make me uncomfortable and self conscious so I started to pay attention to the happenings in the store.

The patriarch of the business ushered an older woman into the store. She wore white Reeboks and grey sweat pants and her loud, demanding voice, rang through the open room. Her quick speech and repetitive comments released traces of anger that sent the volume of her voice louder before returning to the more controlled banter. Apparently, she had spoken with three employees on the phone and two of them smiled in recognition once she began talking. She really had no intention of using them for anything other than bringing their fair quote to the crooked dealership that was handling the repairs on her car. The dealership was taking advantage of her and robbing her blind.

"Let's see if we can help," the business owner answered, his tall frame bent towards the woman with his head cocked slightly to her face. He stood calm and attentive, patient as she sped through unconnected pieces of her story. His stylish glasses rested near the tip of his nose. I imagined that he stood this way often, listening to his constituents as they made requests for city assistance or criticized city actions while getting their cars serviced. He remained, as expected, level headed and gentle and responded to the woman with respect. He could have been a priest. If he had been I probably would have gone to confession more.

The woman rattled on about the cost of repairs that the dealership quoted that included two new wheels and tires and an alignment that by itself cost over one thousand dollars. She didn't even know what that was and if it was necessary. The gentleman took the quote from her hands and quietly began explaining each item and the associated cost. It appeared that while the estimate was a little high, as dealerships often are, the quote seemed pretty reasonable. The woman continued to fume and the gentleman excused himself to go and look at her car.

The woman stood helplessly and then began to complain to the employees about being taken advantage of.

"I'm not even paying for it. My insurance is but fifteen hundred dollars is a large sum of money. They are just trying to get everything out of me that they can." She paced around the store. "I was in an accident," she explained loudly to no one in particular. "My insurance company will pay for the repairs."

I noticed that her silvery white hair sat in pressed tufts against the back of her head, as though a chair or a pillow left a permanent stamp of loneliness on her. She turned as the gentleman returned and I saw that the hair around her face fell neatly around the heavy make-up and wrinkles. While she listened to the extent of damages on the car I counted the safety pins that dangled from the key chain in her hand.

"I was in an accident," she began to explain again. "I almost hit a boy on a bike. He was riding on one of those things on the road and there he was. I swerved and ran up on the curb and into the thing and I could have hit that boy. "

I wondered what all of the things were that she mentioned.

Suddenly I understood the woman's fury. She was angry at herself. Angry for almost hitting a boy on a bike; angry for damaging her car; angry for understanding nothing about the repairs; angry for having to deal with everything alone.

I left the woman without resolution but clearly in capable hands and headed back home. Pisgah and the rat rose regally beyond the Patton Avenue Bridge, erasing the unattractive sprawl of strip malls and parking lots between the view and me. Rem hasn't made the steep, rocky climb to the top of Pisgah yet. I want to look ahead but the mountains get in the way.