Lordes Crossing

The river poured itself into another as I sat on my raggedy porch chair and watched the sun creep its way into shadows. This is my third porch chair in as many years. I call it a porch, but really it's just a salvaged piece of 5/8 inch plywood settling itself below the back door of my trailer, just another jewel embedded in the riverbank. My back porch floated to my little cove about two months ago and the natural law of river residents is finders' keepers. My trailer is one of those Holly Hill models from 1949. The tires are flat and I don't recall when they weren't flat. Char and I live in the second trailer of three. When I look out my window I see a Holly Hill wagon train obtusely placed just off the flood zone of the Wabash River. My neighbors are mirrors of me, James Wilter on the east and Bunky Hall on the west. I've known Bunky since high school and James I don't know at all. I say I don't know him, but I do. I just haven't known him for very long, maybe two years. Two years on the river is only a pause. Char sniffs at the heavy river air, perks his ears, and curls deeper within his folds of fur. He is a contortionist like most cats. His predecessor, Greaser, used to sleep upside down on a nearby tree stump, rotted now, with one eye on the local squirrels and one eye closed, engaged in some sort of cat dream. Bunky has an old black Labrador, Earl. Has to be fourteen-years-old, that dog. James says he "ain't got no use for a shitting mutt." I say James ain't n got use for anything except the Jerry Springer Show. Bunky swears James gets off on watchin' those crazy women slug each other in the boobs. Me, I just think James likes a good fight of any kind. Like most folks, you probably want to know my story. Thing is, it's not a crock of shit. It's the godawful truth and it all began forty-seven years ago when my wife Ruthie gave birth to our son Christian. Ironic that his name was Christian, because what I'm about to tell you has nothing Christian in it. It scares