Episode Two: Alone

The Potomac River is sliding smoothly past me, its seemingly placid surface hiding the turbulence below. I am sitting in a wooden rowboat that is shackled to a tree by a metal chain. I was able to drag it off the bank and into the water about two feet to float in the shallows.

I am surrounded by a seedy array of other vessels, maybe eight, likewise secured to the thin trees growing in the mud by the water’s edge. Some are made of dented metal, rusty in places, the rest are wooden. All have seen better days. The dank smell of both decay in the undergrowth and dead fish is close with the July heat and humidity and mixes with the strong stink of fetid river mud. I am on the Maryland side of the river.

Virginia seems closer than usual across the water, its trees shrouded in a thin veil of haze. The Potomac is brown and somewhat sluggish today, filled with silt and because it is an overcast day, has no blue skies and sun to reflect back. But make no mistake, this is not the tame Seine of Paris, lapping at its stone corset. It’s not Andy Williams’ huckleberry friend, Moon River. It’s a wild, dangerous river as many who underestimate its power—and those left behind—discover. Seven or eight people drown in this river every year.

“Between Great Falls and Chain Bridge a rare combination of geology, hydrology and demography have combined to create a brutally effective drowning machine.” [1]

Niagara Falls sends an elegant curtain of water racing over the brink of land, accompanied by its thunder. Great Falls roars as the Potomac dashes rough and tumble over the giant rocks that span the river.

C&O Canal, Maryland.

My house on MacArthur Blvd. is a 10-minute walk to the canal and the river’s edge. I come out on the back stoop and let the screen door slam shut, go down the stairs, avoiding the prickly pyracantha bush to one side, its red/orange berries vivid in the heat, and walk down our long, wild back yard to a small, rough lane called Woodrow Place.

There are only four houses that sit along it. Turn left and I’m at the cottage where, I heard my mother say, there once had been a two-girl whorehouse. Men collected on 78th Street and created a commotion, drinking and fighting. Not anymore. I turn right here, passing the rectangular, squat Monroe house on the right. I pause and make sure that mean Sharkey Monroe isn’t in view. He ain’t right.

Then I slip through the slash in the chain link fencing, go down the short hill and hurry across the yet-to-be finished four lanes of the parkway. Many years from now it will be named after Clara Barton. Her house is just down the road in Glen Echo.

On the far side of the road bed, the embankment is steep and leads to what will be a parking area. Then I’m practically tumbling down the steeper path on the other side, which spits you out at Lock 8 with its tiny stone lock house perched on the lip of the canal. For now, it’s empty, but later a family of three will crowd into its small rooms. It’s called Lock 8 even though one of the nearest streets is Seven Locks Road. That’s because there are seven locks in this part of the system.

The canal is 184 miles long. It begins in Washington, D.C. at sea level and ends in Cumberland, Maryland, at an elevation of 610 feet.

I’ve had enough of squatting in the boat, so I pull on the chain, hop out and drag it back onto the muddy bank. There’s a clear track to the tow path next to the canal, crowded on both sides by low dense vegetation, a hive of life. Bugs fly low over the undergrowth, sometimes performing slow loops as they zero in on their targets. There are a lot of dragonflies, and more mosquitos. God knows how many snakes and salamanders. The trees are thicker closer to the tow path and looking up, their leaves offer a mosaic of light to dark green, in spite of the overcast skies.

The bird cries are muted for a hot summer’s day. I don’t linger here. In spite of my familiarity with the river and canal, I don’t want to meet up with a snake. Not even a black snake, but certainly not a poisonous water moccasin or copperhead.

I leave the boat on the muddy ground, and climb to the tow path, heading west toward Great Falls. The path is gritty beneath my Keds and is of a brown gravelly material, with grass and weeds pressing at the edges of each side.

I am nine years old and quite alone, as is often the case. The year is 1962. I watch the smooth surface of the canal for turtles and carp and catfish. The water today is high and an ugly opaque green slick of algae sits on its surface. Many a goldfish has been released into the canal. My know-it-all big brother tells me the goldfish will grow in accordance with the size of their habitat. I don’t see any massive goldfish. Maybe a heron or two have grabbed them all up.

As the years pass, I’m proven wrong about the goldfish. Seems Jake was right; a wee goldfish can grow into a ferocious invasive species in lakes around the country.

Giant goldfish.

Above me on the other side of the canal are a few beautiful stone houses built on a ridge overlooking the river. They must have a spectacular view in winter, but to me it wouldn’t be worth dealing with the occasional snakes and other critters that turn up in their living quarters. In winter, we go to the first house where they keep a box of ice skates in a range of sizes outside on the stoop. We grab what we can.

Then we run down the sharp hill to the canal, trying not to slip on the ice and snow. One of the boys throws a large rock on the ice to determine whether it will hold our weight. Not the best measure, but we have confidence in the result. The canal here is not very deep. I never catch on to ice skating, though. Maybe it is due to weak ankles, or the too large or too tight skates available. But I flail away at it anyway and luckily never fall through the ice.

As I continue past the houses, I notice a jumble of strong-looking vines draped in the trees between the canal and the river. We haven’t yet been overrun by kudzu. I don’t usually try this alone, but I manage to grab hold of one and pull it toward me on the path. Giving it a few sturdy yanks, for a nine-year-old, I decide it’s an adequate Tarzan vine, so I grab hold and back up, then run off the side of the path into the trees and hold my breath. My ride is dizzying as I swing out over that dense, swampy undergrowth I was avoiding just five minutes ago.

I realize this is a bad idea. It takes forever to fly out over the brush and the muck but miraculously, I don’t hit any of the trees. Then the vine falls back and my legs are scrambling to get a purchase on the edge of the tow path and I just barely manage not to fall into the soup below me.

Hmh. I won’t be doing that again.

I go on my way to the next lock and balance carefully as I walk across its wooden beams to a small plot of grass. The locks are narrow and short. This space is where the barges used to cuddle in to wait for the water to rise, in order to move up to the next level of the canal. Here I lie down on my back in the grass and look for splotches of blue in the sky. The grass tickles my legs and arms. If I were to continue on, there is a larger lock house in which a family with several children lives. I don’t know them.

I decide to go home. When I get there, I go to the small bathroom off the kitchen. It contains a toilet, a sink and a mirror. I’m not shocked when I see my face reflected back at me. It is utterly filthy, and so are my neck and elbows, but that’s not unusual. I grab the soap and wash away the evidence of where I’ve been.

No helicopter parents here.

My thoughts are a jumble as I settle into the rocker on the back porch. There are big changes at my house, in my life.

Nothing will ever be the same.

[1] The Washington Post, August 13, 2013