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High Water

Terry Sanville

    Large drops tapped out a drum roll cadence on the back of my guitar. The rain came straight down, a dense white curtain falling through the smoke plumes of our breaths. Rudy got busy with the straps to his knapsack and dug out two Army surplus ponchos he’d brought along just in case it rained – not that us Southern Californians ever expect rain. I slung my guitar on its strap across my back, pulled the poncho over my head and slipped its hood on. After snapping the poncho’s sides, I stuffed my sodden sleeping bag up under its front.
    “Christ, Elliott, we gotta get outta this shit,” Rudy muttered. “The North Coast is no place to hitchhike in winter.”
    “But only say the word and my soul shall be healed,” I said in Latin, proud I could still recite my alter boy’s Missale Romanum.
    Rudy stared at me cross-eyed. We hustled north along Highway 101, with me looking like a hunchbacked pregnant monk. The highway crossed a creek a couple hundred yards down. The water hadn’t come up yet, leaving dry spots under the bridge. We slid down the bank and pushed our way through the willows – the young ones next to the water had already laid down for the fast-moving stream. We huddled under the overhead decking next to stone abutments, feeling something like the flattened willows.
    The steel rungs of a ladder protruded from the wall, allowing highway engineers to climb up and inspect the bridge. Rudy hauled butt up the ladder and I followed close behind. Struggling to hang onto my sleeping bag, I shouted at Rudy to hurry.
    At the top of the abutment, he suddenly stopped. “Ah hell, man . . . ”
    “What? What is it? Damn it, keep going.” My arms trembled from the strain of hanging on, twenty feet above the rocky creek bed.
    “There’s somebody already here.”
    “I don’t give a fuck. Go up or come down, but keep moving.”
    Rudy disappeared over the top into the crawl space beneath the bridge. I pulled myself over the edge, blowing hard. The square space had a low ceiling. A man clothed in rags huddled in a back corner, knees drawn up under a gray-bearded chin. Pale blue eyes stared out at us from beneath a battered canvas hat.
    Rudy recovered his breath first. “Hey, what’s happenin’?”
    The blue eyes blinked rapidly. Thin lips quivered but didn’t speak.
    “Listen, man, we just need a place to stay dry,” I said. “We won’t bother you or anything. Okay?”
    The man lowered his knees and leaned forward. “You fellas got any food?”
    “Sorry mister,” I said, my own stomach cramping from hunger.
    “Didn’t think so. Anybody stupid enough to be out in this storm wouldn’t have no food.” He leaned his head back against the stone wall, eyes closed as if in prayer.
    “How long have you been up here?” Rudy asked.
    “Since the rain came.” He sighed and pushed at the mounds of filthy clothes and other gear that surrounded him. “I’m trying to get south, but this early storm caught me out.”
    “Yeah, we’re trying to go north, maybe to Canada – how smart can that be.” I tried to lighten the mood.
    Mr. Ragman laughed, showing black gaps between yellowed horse teeth. “You boys must be new to the game. You gotta learn your seasons if ya plan on stayin’ alive out here.”
    “We don’t plan on doing this forever,” Rudy said. “Just long enough to make a few mistakes.”
    “Why would ya wanna go to Canada, ’specially when it’s rainin’ holy hell all the way? And they got real winters up there, ya know.”
    Rudy gave a huge sigh. “To avoid getting drafted and killed in Vietnam, why else?”
    Mr. Ragman paused to consider what Rudy said. “You know . . . if I’d done the same I might not be out here driftin’. But times were different back then.”
    “So, why are you out here?” I asked, figuring maybe this guy might have an answer that I could use.
    Mr. Ragman grinned. “Why am I out here? That’s a good one. It’s a long story and you boys look too young to get it.”
    “Hey, man, we’re not going anywhere and we’re getting older by the minute.” Rudy pushed himself farther inside and leaned against the wall next to Mr. Ragman. I stretched out flat, propping my head on a hand.
    “I was raised in Watsonville south of here. You know that town?”
    Rudy and I nodded and he paused, staring at me before continuing.
    “I got drafted into the Army and sent to Korea. Didn’t come back with everything I went over there with.” He shifted his left shoulder forward and the sleeve of the tattered work shirt hung limply down.
    “Ah man, that’s so not cool.” A shiver ran through me.
    “Yeah, well, when I got home, I couldn’t work no more on my family’s spread – we mostly grew strawberries. I thought about going to school on the GI Bill. But the damn Congress reduced the benefits . . . and I wasn’t keen on book learnin’ anyway.”
    “I didn’t even know they had the G.I. Bill back then,” I said.
    “Oh sure they did. It started after World War II. But they cut back the benefits for Korean vets – maybe ’cause we didn’t win that one. Assholes!”
    I asked, “Didn’t they have job training for people coming back that were, ya know, like you?”
    “I was mad as hell when I got stateside. Didn’t want no fucking government handout. Figured if I couldn’t farm, I might as well see the world – at least this corner of it. Say, you boys wouldn’t have any booze, would ya?”
    “Sorry,” Rudy said.
    “How’s about some weed?”
    Rudy’s face brightened. “Yeah, hang on a minute.”
    He dug into his overcoat, extracted the dregs of our stash, then rolled and lit a number. Rudy passed it to Mr. Ragman, who drew in smoke and held it. A beatific smile creased his battered face.
    “So how the hell did you get up here with only one arm?” I asked. “That’s quite a climb.” I hoped Mr. Ragman would hurry up and pass me the joint.
    “I can do most anything, but sometimes it takes me longer.” He grinned and swiped at a runny nose. “You should see me jump freights – bet I can run faster than you. I was an athlete in school, ya know.”
    “No kidding – like track and field stuff?”
    “Yeah – I was fast in the hundred. Once ran it in ten-six.”
    “Jeez, that is fast. I could never break twelve – that’s why I ran the mile and longer races.”
    “Out here, sometimes ya gotta be quick. But endurance will help ya stay alive.”
    Rudy and I nodded, though we hadn’t talked much about drifting long-term.
    The rain continued pounding on the decking above us. I felt snug in our bridge cave with only the occasional squishing sound of a car going overhead to disturb my reverie. Below, the creek grew from a modest stream to a small river. If the rain kept up we’d have to abandon our refuge to avoid getting trapped by its rising waters. I envisioned being stuck in our hole for days while the great Columbia raged at our doorstep.
    I lay back and closed my eyes, taking in the soft roar of the creek. The smell of rain on willows and dead leaves mixed with the stench coming from Mr. Ragman’s clothes. I thought about his history and why he’d ended up under a bridge with us, three trolls avoiding the storm. Rudy and I had been drifting for less than four months, ever since our trip to Montreal and Expo ’67. We both dodged the draft and tried to avoid being sent to Vietnam where people got killed. I tried to escape the memories of being dumped by a girlfriend and my failures in college. But the longer we drifted the lamer those reasons became, especially compared to Mr. Ragman’s. I wondered just how much longer we could stand it, in a wet winter with water everywhere.
    But it was our aching bellies that finally drove Rudy and me back into the rain.
    “I gotta get food,” I told Rudy.
    “Yeah, me too. Do ya want to come with us?” he asked Mr. Ragman.
    “Nah, I can wait it out – I’m used to goin’ hungry.”
    “Don’t wait too long,” I said. “That creek’s gonna come up and could trap you here.”
    He grinned. “Look who’s telling me how to survive. I’ve been here before, ya know.”
    “I sorta figured you had. Maybe we’ll see you on the road.”
    “Not likely. I don’ got many more trips left. And you boys will be lucky to survive this one.”
    We left Mr. Ragman cackling and coughing in his dark sanctuary.
    Climbing down the ladder from under the bridge seemed easy. Scrambling up the creek bank proved difficult. We slipped on its muddy banks and tried several different ascents before finally clawing our way out, mud-spattered and weak. At least the rain had slacked off.
    Back at the highway we let the storm wash the outside of our ponchos. Ponds of water hid the road’s painted centerline, slowed the motorists down, but not enough to keep them from sending up a wall of spray that drenched us if we stood too close.
    We took turns hitchhiking – one of us stayed back near the highway fence while the other stood at the road’s edge. When it became clear the oncoming car wasn’t going to stop, the hitchhiker would jump back from the road to avoid the spray, then advance again to take up his station with arm and thumb extended.
    Near sundown we caught a ride from a bobtail semi that took us into Willits. We found a greasy spoon filled with truckers and locals trying to escape the rain that threatened to downpour at any moment.
    “You wanna do it or should I?” Rudy asked.
    I grinned. “You do it. You look more pathetic.”
    “Thanks, asshole!”
    Rudy banged on the café’s rear door and talked with the cook. We waited in the rain as the light disappeared over the sodden ridgeline of mountains. The cook returned with a brown bag full of stale rolls, half-eaten hamburgers, and a steak dinner that didn’t look like it had been touched. We found an unlocked and empty storage shed in back of a mill yard at the north end of town, rolled out our sleeping bags and devoured the food until we couldn’t eat any more.
    The storm continued pounding us. We slipped into our bags and within moments Rudy snored. I lay awake, thinking. From outside the sound of running water came from everywhere: sluicing down streets, overflowing creek banks, gushing from culverts like high-pressure fire hoses. I wondered how long Mr. Ragman would wait before escaping his cave. Would he make it one-armed down the ladder, its rungs slippery and cold? And where would he go?
    In that symphony of rain, I thought about the Korean War vet and smiled, realizing that for Mr. Ragman it was more than just age or experience that mattered, but the purpose of his drifting. For him it seemed that traveling itself was the purpose. But for Rudy and me the destination proved more important.
    The next morning we regained the highway and headed north, reaching Crescent City in two days. We still didn’t know where we were going but knew we must decide before high water washed us away.

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