An excerpt from
The Island
Robert Paul Wilson
I’m riding in the passenger seat of a silver Mercury Topaz. It’s 1997, and Ben is driving over the Susquehanna River on the Bloomsburg bridge. On the left as we drive out of town, maybe a half-mile upriver, maybe 4 or 5 car lengths from the eastern bank, is an island, trees brooding low in the afternoon sun.
Ben shoots me a sly look. He’s pondering the island’s accessibility. We cross the bridge, and Ben pulls the Topaz down a rocky path that leads along the railroad tracks. He shuts the car off, and we walk towards the riverbank, our school shoes crunching in the coarse gravel. We climb down to the water’s edge and sit on the bank for what seems like hours, neither one of us quite sold on the idea of plunging in fully dressed. It’s like some sort of dare gone soft, with the involved parties cowering in the face of something that’s actually quite tame.
We sit and sit, staring at the passing ripples as they crest and dip. Cars hum by on the bridge, and we wonder if their occupants can see us. Ben turns to set his wallet and keys down on a rock that protrudes behind him. As he does so, he hears a splash, the sound of broken silence, the measured split of conquered banality. He turns to see me, yards out, swimming feverishly to fight the left-bent current. “C’mon, c’mon!” I yell, flailing like a moth on a candle, swimming for what seems like my life. My head cocked back, I see him dive, streamlining himself into the murky flow of the Susquehanna.
We swim like fiends. We don’t wish to imagine the consequences of doing otherwise. As it turns out, what seemed from the bridge like a distance of 4 or 5 car lengths is actually more like 15 or 20. I can feel my arms starting to burn with fatigue. My legs droop under the weight of sopping jeans and soaked Pumas. This was a dumb idea. I’m not even halfway. Jesus. How am I ever gonna get back? My mind races. I think of Jeff Buckley, the rock star who drowned just a few short months ago, his head bobbing on the surface of Wolf River Harbor before it disappeared completely, his friend on the bank, proverbial dick in proverbial hand, watching a legend gasp at his last few breaths.
The island. I need the island.
At last, sand. Or, more properly, mud. I skitter ashore, my chest heaving, my legs and arms an indistinguishable ache. I feel like I just climbed out of a hurricane. I gasp and wheeze as Ben sidles ashore. We sit in silence. A minute. Five. The burning wanes, the breathing slows. We have swum for our lives, staving off imminent death amid the rushing waters of Pennsylvania’s mightiest river, and we are exhausted. We wish to rest indefinitely. If only we had a tent, some flint, a can of beans…
But we can’t escape the aftermath of our stupidity, the niggling desire to make this idiocy end as soon as possible, to return home, to hang our dripping school clothes on the line, to wash Bloomsburg’s acid rain and raw sewage from our teenage coifs, and to skip to the part where we tell unsuspecting friends about our journey as we accompany them across the bridge in the ensuing years. “See that island out there?” we will say. “We swam to it once, wearing all our clothes.” Our friends will ask why, and we will cast them a steely stare, resplendent with incredulity and triumph. “Because,” we will say, “it’s there.” We will be champions of whimsy.
I decide to start walking back toward the mainland to see how far I can make it across before I have to start swimming again. I begin my descent into the water, my sneakers digging in silt, kicking up slow-motion clouds.
I walk all the way across. [...]
From Issue 1, Number 1
To read the rest of The Island order Watershed, Issue 1, Number 1.
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