Around Kenner's Bend

Two a.m., you're down in a grain barge on the Mississippi.  Around the river's bend is New Orleans, a smiling old woman with too much make-up.  The firehose throbs as you blast rotten kernels from their cracks.  Crazy Joe is sitting in a triangle of half-light down on the low end.  He's keeping the pump clear, cramming his fist up into its guts.  You're wet to the waist and covered with bits of corn from the knees down.  The barge simmered in the summer sun for weeks; the darkness stinks.  Someone approaches making tiny figure-eights with a pale red ember, holds it to your lips.

A ladder leads to a square of stars where the air comes from.  You turn your face up to it and yell, "YO!  TURN HER OFF!"  You drop the hose, and it ascends, the nozzle scraping on the black barge bed, goes clattering up the rungs.  There's a line of men with brooms and squeegees coming up behind.  Crazy Joe is on his knees; the end is nearing.

When the last fistful of corn and cup of water has been sucked up, there's the inevitable bump and push, mad race for the stairs, hands clawing at your legs as you climb, but once out, there's the equality of naked angels standing beneath the stars and beautiful moonlight swan dives into the Mississippi.


(Arkansas Magazine, Arkansas Democrat, July 27, 1986)