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158 Raymond Luczak Depths of the River ALL HER LIFE Angie had heard in whispers, always half-believing, half-doubting, about the river people. No one ever saw them out of the water, but many who lived on the banks of the snaking Abbott River sensed the very distinctive presence of intelligent creatures who didn’t just swim around like fish, but nonetheless lived just under the surface. No one could describe their facial features precisely, but no one could forget their eyes, the way they blinked slowly with their translucent eyelids as they stared upward from underwater. Needless to say, this creepiness scared away parents who’d wanted to buy houses with a backyard river for their children. Many factories further upstream folded soon after dumping toxic wastes, even illegally in the guise of night. Factory workers were too spooked by disembodied sounds of pain and yearning, and left in hordes after reliving inarticulate nightmares of water and sound. The towns lining the recalcitrant river knew enough not to rely on it for anything; it was a presence that tourists and visitors did not quite comprehend—they only sensed its sinister power. So it was hardly surprising that so many towns, once booming a century ago, dwindled. No one could pinpoint when the river acquired its incontestable power; even the local historical societies couldn’t find any mention of the river’s strange character after combing through the diaries of those who founded their towns on the river. Long ago, when Angie was twenty-seven, she turned to prostitution when she lost everything: her job, her husband, her children , her home. Her short temper had lost her job as receptionist in a town that had no other openings left; her desperately clinging loneliness and philandering husband ended her miserable marriage; her fists battered her constantly-crying babies, and they Gallaudet Book 5/1/02, 9:56 AM 158 Raymond Luczak 159 eventually had to be handed over to her self-righteous sister; and her inability to meet her mortgage payments after her husband left her meant the end of her home. All this happened many years ago, all acknowledged with slowly shaking heads by ladies who gathered for cups of coffee after weekday masses at Our Lady of the Rosary whenever Angie strolled by in a mini-skirt and a waisthigh mink coat in the cold of winter. Later, when she finally lost her looks to age, she built herself a small shack deep inside the woods on the fringes of Joe Peabody’s river property. There, Angie installed a small wood stove, a bed, and a trunkload of blankets. She had no friends, for she was left with what any aging prostitute in a small town had: a bad reputation and a thorough lack of interest in her as a person. She sat for hours next to the puffy stove, feeling the crisp heat caress her face while she dreamed of love, the kind that existed only in pulp romances. One morning, when the old woman leaned over to scoop up the ice-cold water from the Abbott River with her bucket, she saw a baby floating in his bassinet. As it floated slowly by, the baby never once made a sound, just slept contentedly as if there was nothing to fuss about. She leaped into the river, which she’d never done all her life, as she’d always been afraid of the river people she sensed lived nearby, and caught the bassinet before it could pass. Angie pulled it along to the shore and brought it into her warm shack. There, as Angie dried herself, she kept staring at the baby. It was slightly strange-looking; it looked like a baby, yet there was a transparent aura of old age and jaundice surrounding it. An hour later, she brought the baby over to Joe Peabody’s house; from there, she became front page news in the local newspapers . The police searched the birth records of all the hospitals within a thirty-mile radius, even going so far as to query the onehundred -and-three doctors to see if they could account for the births of their recently pregnant patients. Nothing. Every recent birth and pregnancy in the area was accounted for. It was a bizarre case because the blankets keeping the baby warm were hardly wet, Gallaudet Book 5/1/02, 9:56 AM 159 [18.188.66.13] Project MUSE (2024-04-25 16:31...

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