River Rats

“Workin’ hard, or hardly workin’,” my friend Randy Beck asked as he came up the hill from the beach, no doubt to mooch.

“What do you think?” I wiped sweat off my forehead. I was standing up to my armpits in thistles with sharp leaves and prickly purple flowers.

“You look hot, Schork.”

“I am hot, you idiot. I’ve been out here in the sun for hours.”

“And that’s all you got done?”

I looked at the tall pile of brush I’d created, full of tough old vines and yellow dandelions and milkweed pods bursting with seeds. Our property line extended downhill thirty feet to a grass-covered bank, then down another thirty feet to the “beach,” which was more mud than sand and under water at high tide on the Ohio. The middle bank was flat and ran across multiple property lines. Now that I’d cleared out our portion, it could once again serve as a playground for Mom and our neighbors for croquet and volleyball and badminton when they were tired of just getting loaded in a lawn chair. 

“Is Oscar making you do this?”

“No, Randy, I’m doing it for the sheer fun of it.”

 “No need to get sarcastic.”

“I disagree. Why the hell do you think I’m doing it?”

I looked at the silver sweep of crabgrass and wild grass and spider webs. Randy knew my stepfather, Oscar Mueller, wasn’t here this weekend. Nevertheless, even though Oscar was back in Louisville working overtime at the Naval Ordinance plant where he was a tool-and-die maker, he’d left me my marching orders.

“Where have you been? I could’ve used some help,” I said.

“Busy. Very busy.” Randy flopped and stretched out in the shade among the ivy and clover. 

“I’ll bet.” I returned to clearing the Virginia creeper with its black berries and orange blossoms. “By the way, that’s poison ivy you’re in.”

“You’re lying,” Randy said, but jumped up with the alacrity of a true river rat in his element.

A river rat’s defining quality, I’d learned last summer when I turned twelve, was the ability to transform any occasion, however grim or calamitous, into a rowdy party. No booze? No problem. Don’t know anybody? Don’t worry, you will before you leave. This was why river rats came to West Point. There was no other reason. It was certainly why Mom came.

She and Oscar had bought this small piece of land with an old house on the banks of the Ohio as a weekend get-away. It was something they could never have afforded to do in the city, where riverfront real estate was far more expensive. But this lot was located twenty-five miles downriver in a little down-at-the-heels town called West Point, where the Salt River empties into the Ohio.

When I saw the new place, and met our neighbors, my first impression was that they were all trashy, loud-mouthed, drunken idiots. I didn’t want to be there. I’d rather have stayed with my grandparents. But when my stepfather stopped coming to the river on the weekends, Mom insisted I was needed at our “camp” as a babysitter. I had no choice in the matter.

“Say, Joe, how about a cold beer?”

“Not for you.”

He gave me a hurt look.

“Maybe the Queen will come by. If she does, let’s you and I get on the first roller.” 

Randy meant the Delta Queen, an ornate old sternwheeler that cruised through, calliope blasting, once a week on its way between Pittsburgh and New Orleans. The first roller kicked up by the Queen’s huge paddle wheel was like a tidal wave. Everybody on the river knew that the Delta Queen threw out the biggest rollers of any boat, far bigger than any coal barge. You could water ski behind a coal barge, if you knew how—and Randy did—but not behind the Queen.

In my mind I could see breakers like moving mountains, juggernauts able to smash anything. And the closer you got to the paddlewheel, the higher the waves towered, with the very first roller being the biggest and most deadly of all. I’d seen those waves closeup last summer when we’d gotten on the third roller. But any closer than that was incredibly risky. If your aim, or your timing, was off even a little bit, you’d get swamped. Maybe sucked under those colossal paddles and chewed into little pieces.

“Are you crazy?”

“Aw, don’t be such a chicken, Joey.”

“Call me Joe.”

Getting on that first roller would require nerve and skill. You had to steer a steady course and hit each roller head-on, give her just enough throttle. Randy was good, but we could get broadsided, sunk. Last summer, as we climbed each wave, the bow would linger in midair at a terrifying angle longer than you’d believe possible, then plunge to the bottom of the trough. 

“Know anybody who’s ever done it?” I asked.

“I know some who’ve tried.”

“What about the Coast Guard?”

“Their nearest station’s twenty-five miles upriver.” 

“I don’t know. The first roller? Really?”

Randy yanked up a blade of grass and stuck it in his mouth and started chewing. “You sure we can’t get some beer?”

I shook my head. Randy knew there was always some in our refrigerator. The first time I ever drank a whole beer was with Randy earlier this summer. Of course, I didn’t tell him that.  He’d swiped us a couple from his parents and we’d cruised up the Salt River, the place to go when you wanted to do something forbidden. It was usually deserted for miles. I hadn’t liked beer much and the first time I got drunk—on only two beers—it scared me. Randy was more experienced. He could handle three or four without any problem. 

“Lucy coming down today?” he asked casually.

“I don’t know.”  

Snapshot: Black and white photo of Mom and Lucy Calendar, Mom’s best friend, in their bathing suits at the pool. It’s a bright sunny day and there’s a palm frond in the foreground, so this must have been taken down in Florida when they were both in their twenties. Mom is sitting on a stool on the low board, and Lucy is on her lap. They’re smiling confidently, relaxed and sure of themselves. You’d think that getting a man would be the least of their worries, but not long after this photo was taken both were divorced. In the picture, Mom’s wearing a dark one-piece bathing suit. Lucy, tiny by comparison, is in a two-piece. Her halter top has ruffles. 

Lucy had been coming around our house since I was a baby. She always gave me hugs and paid attention to me. I knew she liked me, and I had always liked her. But this summer her breathy voice was having a different effect. I had become aware of her as a female. Now that I was taller, sometimes she’d let me hold her, put my arms around her from behind and feel the contours of her body. In fact, when she gave me a good-night peck on the lips, I nearly swooned. I was pretty sure that falling in love with Mom’s best friend was wrong, so I must be sick in the head. I’d seen some sexy pictures in magazines but that was really all I knew about women and I couldn’t very well ask Mom—or Lucy—to fill in the blanks. Randy had told me some stuff, but I didn’t trust him.

“What do you care if Lucy’s coming down today anyway?”

“Maybe I’ll take her for a ride up the Salt.”

“Like hell you will,” I snapped.  

He was teasing, but he always acted like he was Mister Irresistible. Of course, one night he had taken a girl up there. I didn’t know if they’d done anything, but still.

“You don’t think you’re going to take Lucy up the Salt, do you?” Randy laughed.  

“Shut up.” 

“What’s the matter, Joey?”

“You disgust me, Beck. And I told you not to call me that.”

“Oh, I forgot—Joe. You know, Lucy’s way too old for you.”

“But not for you, huh.”

“That’s right.”

“I don’t think of her that way, Randy.”

“Why not? Don’t you like girls?”

“Asshole.”

Lucy had never seemed interested in Randy or any of the grown men who were always hanging around down at the river. Instead, she and Mom and Oscar—when he was there—would sit in lawn chairs for hours, talking and drinking. Sometimes, they played cards. Sometimes, they went swimming. 

“Wonder if she’ll wear that little two-piece again?”

I remembered the bathing suit vividly.

“Will you shut up?”

I’d never said one word to him about how I felt about Lucy, but he knew anyway. Lucy, on the other hand, never noticed. It was frustrating. Lucy had always seemed much younger than Mom, maybe because she was so petite. Lucy dressed younger, too—lots of necklaces and big loop earrings and bracelets, tight black pants, low-cut top. She was always smiling, care-free and happy go lucky, never fussed. 

“Maybe I’ll help her peel off that thing,” Randy leered.

I wrestled him down and rubbed his nose in the weeds. He fought back until we were both winded and scratched up. 

“Touchy, aren’t you,” he said.

While he went to get the boat, I stared across the wide expanse of water at the Indiana shore, imagining myself as a modern-day Huck Finn and the Ohio as the mighty Mississippi. It was easy to envision the steeply rising Indiana forest land as the same wilderness George Rogers Clark had found centuries ago. The occasional tree-sized debris that floated by was a reminder that you needn’t be in the water to appreciate the Ohio’s power. It was low tide right now. Our “beach” was littered with mouse-colored driftwood, as usual. High water was a fact of life on the river. Anybody who had a boat thought nothing about pulling it out until the water went back down. Periodically all three of our banks flooded. You could still smell the pungent yellow mud in the house from the last time. The Ohio always left a big mess in her wake, but you could count on river rats to turn the clean-up into a party.

Mom was on the beach with the twins. My sister and brother were nine years younger than me. They were making mud pies and throwing them at each other despite Mom’s futile screams. The deep channel began about twenty yards offshore, which left us a nice shallow bathing area to splash around. Usually, I perched on our moldy dock playing lifeguard, same as my father had years ago when he met Mom. The marriage was brief. They’d divorced when I was just a year and a half old. After that, I hardly ever saw my dad. 

Although everyone knew the Ohio was filthy—especially here below the dam—a true river rat would invariably claim, “Well, it’s better now than it used to be,” and dive in. And that’s what I did after grabbing an inner tube. I floated on the tube, blinded by the sun. The twins threw their mud pies at me. I was washing off when Randy showed up.

The Becks’ boat was a sleek canary-colored craft with a powerful Mercury outboard motor. The boat had been bleached pale by the sun. He let it idle, rocking gently in the slate-colored water. 

“Do your parents know you’ve got that boat?” Mom asked him.

“All they care about is who’s going to put gas in it,” he said, over the low growl of the motor. Randy and his two brothers had grown up around boats. Their busy distracted parents gave them free rein on the river. 

“Want to go for a ride?” Randy asked.

“Yes!” the twins yelled.

“Not you,” Randy said. “Joe.”

At that moment, Lucy Calendar came down the bank in her bathing suit, swinging her hips and carrying a little cooler.

“Hi, Joey,” she said, and waved at me. 

“He wants to be called Joe,” Mom said, humiliating me in front of everyone. 

“Oh, I’m sorry, Joe,” Lucy said, in her breathless Marilyn Monroe voice, somehow turning Mom’s belittling remark into a thrilling endearment. 

“That’s all right.” I wanted to escape. “Mom, okay with you if I go out in the boat with Randy?”

“I guess.”

Randy cut the engine and pulled up the prop so it wouldn’t drag. He dropped over the side, agile as a river otter and just as wild, and pulled the boat up onto the beach.

“Hey, Lucy,” he called. “Want to go for a ride?”

I stood open-mouthed, unable to believe it.

“No thanks,” Lucy said.

“Why not?”

“You’re taking Joe,” she said, while stepping from one big chunk of concrete to another, where the path turned into mud.

“I’d rather take you,” Randy said.

“Inez and I are busy,” Lucy said.

“How about that, Mama Inezzy? Are you busy?” Randy asked.

I hated it when he called Mom that.  

“Why don’t you ask us again later, Randy?” Mom smiled.

And I hated her for saying that. But being disrespected by Randy or others didn’t seem to bother Mom. She threw herself into socializing—gossiping, eating, drinking, playing cards, swimming, cadging boat rides. People were always dropping by our camp for a drink, which gave me a glimpse of how popular Mom must have once been, back in her heyday. She was still pretty and still a party girl. As her son, and unpaid babysitter, this I resented.

The twins were screaming now, wanting a boat ride. Randy said he’d take them later. As we backed out into the current, the engine whipped up the muddy water into a milky froth.

After we’d taken turns water skiing, Randy said, “I’m dry. Sure wish I had a beer.” 

“No.” 

“Look, I put the gas in the boat. It’s your turn.”

“We’re not stealing from Mom again.”

Randy usually did the stealing from his parents, while I minded the boat. The risk was even more intoxicating than the beer. But if you were going to steal, you should do it after dark, not mid-afternoon. Once the grownups were two sheets to the wind, they’d never notice a few missing cans. But in the middle of the afternoon, they might. Randy knew this as well as I.

“Look, they’re down at the beach. Just go up to the house. It’s a piece of cake.”

We argued. 

Later, after Randy and I had drunk the beer we’d stolen from Mom, I went home and drew the shades and lay down in the dark. I daydreamed about Lucy, wanted to tell her how I felt, but how did she feel about me? 

Footsteps on the back porch. Afraid Mom might smell the beer on me, I slid quietly to the floor, crawled under the bed, getting far back in the shadows where nobody could see me. Thanks to the odd angle of Mom’s dressing table mirror, however, I found that I could see others quite nicely. 

Lucy walked in and went into the bathroom.

She didn’t bother shutting the door behind her, thinking she was alone. Now was the time to speak up—or forever hold my peace. But how could I get out from under the bed without looking ridiculous? 

I watched her put the plug into the big old claw-footed bathtub and turn on the faucets.

She reached around and unsnapped the top of her wet two-piece, shrugged out of the halter, and dropped it in the sink. I watched her, rapt as she filled the basin with water. The roar drowned out my ragged breathing. I thought of tropical rains in the jungle, growing heavier. Of tangled mangrove roots wrapping themselves tightly around me, pulling me under. Of a growling fast-moving current sucking the shoes right off my feet. 

She started taking off the rest of the suit. The bottom was sticking, but she got a good solid grip with both hands and yanked it down over her thighs. With a final wiggle, she dropped it onto the floor and speared it with her toe and flipped it right up into the sink. I examined her as she examined herself in the medicine chest mirror, patting her hair, rubbing her fingers across her cheeks, pinching her waistline. I wondered if she knew how beautiful she looked.

She leaned over and stuck her hand into the tub, causing her heavy breasts to sway. The temperature must have been just right. I gulped as she stepped in and slowly slid down facing me but not seeing me, thank God. The tub was long, Lucy short. She leaned back and wet her hair, lathered up with shampoo, and rinsed off. Rubbing more soap on a washcloth, she slowly foamed up her arms and upper body. She slid down again and lay there without moving in the water, enjoying her soak.

After a while, she sat up, suds slipping down her neck and shoulders as she got to her feet. She stepped gracefully out of the tub, her wet skin sparkling. I didn’t dare move or breathe while she dried off. I hated it when she put on her clothes and strolled out of the house.

I waited a minute before slithering out from under the bed, making sure no one else was coming, and exited via the front door. I was wandering dazed when I heard a calliope playing “Camptown Races.”

The Delta Queen.

Only a fool would try to get on that first roller. Was I such a fool? I hurried toward the river, hoping to catch up with Randy Beck. There was not a moment to lose.

© 2025 Rick Neumayer

“River Rats” will appear in the forthcoming THREE FOGGY MORNINGS: Stories by Rick Neumayer. If you like this one, I’d love to hear from you.