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HANCOCK COUNTY |
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| The two men disabled from fleeing for help, he threw the gun in the boat, undid the rope, kicked the boat away from its mooring, then twined the pull-rope around the motor cog, pulling to get it started up and running. It resisted once--he heard the men moaning; it was slow a second time--heard them groaning, then it burst to life with a chug of smoke, and he washed away in that tiny boat, leaving the camp-house rocking in his wake; leaving the two men lying in pain. But he didn't care. He had to get free. And so he was free, out on that bayou, with a few dollars in his pocket for food, and a gun to command him some respect. The water before him lay still as glass and as green and as dull as olive drab. The cypress trees outstretched their limbs as if only to air the moss draping them. Behind him he left the water's pane broken and cracked, and the egrets took flight overhead, rustled up out of the shadowy trees by the smoke and the grinding of the little boat's motor as it pierced forward on the water, surrounded on all sides by a thick wall of scraggly brown and green, of roots and logs and leaves, vines and sticks and cypress knees, denying access from off the water, making the boat its prisoner, sentenced to skim the bayou until, in its judgment, he deserved a fork in the waterway in which to turn and on which to take a new gamble: Will this one lead to a dock or landing? Or will it lead to another puzzle? But not so for those who know these green waters, for those who have them in their veins, who hunt in them, sleep by them, depend on them for their livelihoods and to keep sustained. They, even in the dark, could troll these waters and return home each night safe. But not so for this young man, the street warrior with the gun who happened upon this bayou by chance, a wild renegade on the run! And behind a bend of palmetto leaves he saw a large flat boat carrying twelve people, maybe more, listening to someone who spoke to them through a microphone about the foliage and exotic animals; it was a swamp tour under way! They looked so cool and comfortable beneath the boat's canvas-tarp shade. He was hot and miserable, pressed down by the heat of the open sun's rays, without even the slightest breeze to sooth and cool him. But he didn't care. He had to get free, free to go his own way. Again, around another bend and he found himself floating a watery alley lined on all sides by trees and vines, but also by high stilted houses, their wooden sides fading old and grey, with big shady porches high over the water draped with white folks on second-hand couches who were drinking beer, and hard at play in their little "camps" so far from the 'burbs, grilling fish out on Bar-B-Ques, zipping by on boats pulling skiers and leaving wakes as if that was all they ever had to do. And what's this? What's a DARKY doin' out here? He could feel himself fill up with hate. They looked down on him from their stilt porches with loathsome eyes that said "GO AWAY!" (He felt like taking that Tech-9 and blowing some of them away!) But another fork in the water got him out of there, and he found himself at peace, cruising slowly over that glassy green walled-in by stumps and trees. And he really hadn't been out too long before the motor gave out. He wound up the rope and gave a few pulls, but he ran out of gas again, it seems. Always running out of gas! Always out of cigarettes! It seems nothing's meant to last (well, not for him at least)! But there were two oars he could use, even though it felt weird to do, as he'd never been in a rowboat before. Hell, he'd never even been out in any bayous or even out of the city limits too far! His were the smells of concrete and road tar, not muddy bayou waters and trees. And he floated into a very large stream, paddled his way northerly and beneath a highrise bridge at whose top he couldn't see the small sign with white lettering on metal green, all pock-marked by buckshot and gravel dings, giving notice to all: "ENTERING HANCOCK COUNTY" So he had crossed the state line into Mississippi with little to no clue that's where he could be, rowing the little boat upstream in what seemed to be a regular river, in a place where blacks were once all just "niggers," at least to most whites, it would seem. |
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