Mississippi River Days 56-67

New Madrid, MO to Vicksburg, MS (through Memphis, TN)

450 Miles (1,839 Total)

Boredom is when your mind tumbles into a dark, bottomless hole, swirling downward into a black abyss where time stops and the only thing remotely resembling the passing of seconds is the thought of you thinking about how bored you actually are. There’s no way to measure this, no way to gauge the relative progress of your mind. And this holds especially true while paddling long distances.

Each bend in the river is much like the last. The trees are all green and the water is bluish-brown, the exact color of clouds and mud and sadness, which fuels your never ending resentment for it. Your mind loops in cycles like a broken record, then folds in on itself, making it hurt, punishing it for being itself, for getting stuck in this deranged, pitiful muck.

You think about the past and then the future. You think about a conversation you had awhile back, about what you should have said. You think about missed opportunities and you think about what you will be doing in a year or two from now, and then you think about what you will be doing in 20 years, in 30. Your hair is all grey and you’ll be sitting on a comfortable leather chair staring at a clock. It will be cloudy outside and raining, and despite how sad the weather makes you feel, the birds will be chirping and the sun will be there, just behind a cloud, trying to shine in. Maybe you’ll be holding a photo in your hand, a photo of you when you were 30 years younger. You’ll look at the younger you and hate him, hate the way he smiles, hate the way he looks at you through the photo, not knowing what is to become of him in 30 years, not realizing how time is so small and weak and pathetic.

You’ll sit there not knowing what to feel. Because now the sun is shining, and it filters in through the window, dances along the hardwood floor in small, undulating patterns. It makes you feel better, warmer. It may even make you feel hopeful. Time is still on my side, you’ll think. Time is not all that bad. Just think of the wisdom that comes with time. Just think of all the things that get better with age. Like cheese and wine and art, and a good, stiff whisky.

And then, without notice, a shift happens. Maybe it was something someone said, or perhaps an unusual bird, something that catches the eye. The mind lifts, comes back to focus. Clarity resumes and you realize how intense the sun is. A barge comes into view and it makes you nervous by just how big it looks, like a battle ship on the horizon, slowly coming your way. The standing waves roll behind it, a trail of white water that gradually energizes the surrounding water. Roller coaster waves come at you slowly. This isn’t scary, you think. It’s fun, or, at the very least, this is what fun has become. This is the closest thing to having a good time you’ll likely get. So you go up and over the waves and try and smile at the world around you. You try to make the most of the time left you have on the river. You trick yourself into believing this is all worthwhile and your on an adventure of a lifetime.

It will end, eventually, you think. One way or another this train will stop. Be present. Enjoy the wide open landscape. The river is so wide, isn’t it? The bends are 5 miles long and it stretches into forever. It’s big and wild and wonderful out here.

But, despite your best efforts to trick yourself into liking something you hate, you don’t succeed. There’s just no way to enjoy 5 straight days of wind, no way to find pleasure in getting battered by waves time and time again.

Sometimes things go on just a little too long, like a conversation that drags on, or a guest that doesn’t leave at the end of a party. They linger on the fringe of the moment, like a button on a thin strand of thread, just waiting to fall free. Just leave already, you think. Why are you not gone yet? Why are you still talking, standing there moving you mouth, quivering your nose, the creases of your brown and dark and boring eyes moving with all your pointless annunciations? There’s literally nothing left to talk about. How are words still possibly falling out of your mouth?

And you notice their beer is gone. They’re just holding an empty, brown bottle. They pick at the label around it. It’s gone soft and squishy and peels off easy. They roll little bits of it between their pointer finger and thumb, flick the small pieces on the floor. It makes you anxious and nervous by how empty the bottle is, about how they don’t even know what they are doing.

You nod and smile, not even hearing what they are saying. You’re too focused on the empty beer, how the label is almost all peeled away. It eats at you and claws at your brain until you can’t take it anymore.

So you ask them, “Do you want another beer?”

And they say, “Sure, I’d love another one.”

And you think, yeah, just one more. It’s always just one more.

On the final day before Vicksburg, Mississippi, at the end of an 8 day stretch from Memphis, we spotted another paddler on the river. He was far away, on the opposite bank. He looked like a tiny black speck in an ocean of burnt chocolate water.

We took out the binoculars.

“Yep, looks like a Kayaker,” said Qball. He passed the binoculars to Beardoh.

“Yeah, looks like it,” Beardoh said.

This was exciting stuff. We hadn’t seen another paddler for over 1500 miles.

We wrapped up lunch and headed out to meet him. After paddling for 20 minutes we finally caught up to the kayaker, a guy named Gene in his mid 50s, large tan brimmed hat with tufts of curly blond hair sticking out, and skin the color of tanned leather.

“Hey, how’s it going?” Beardoh asked.

“Not too bad,” Gene replied, stopping his padding.

We learned that Gene had started at the headwaters of the Arkansas River, and was paddling to the Gulf. We also learned that this was day 202 for him, having started his journey back in April.

“There’s a public and a private reason for me doing this,” he went on. He packed some tobacco in his pipe, lit it and took in a deep breathe.

“Publicly, I’m doing it for Tribute Life Accomplishments. But really, the reason for me being out here, is to move on with my life after the death of my only two children.”

He talked more about his son and daughter, how his son died first, a few years ago, and how his daughter just passed away in February.

“I started researching trips, seeing what nobody has done before. I was living near the Arkansas at the time, and it just appealed to me. Nobody has soloed the river as far as I’ve see . So I sold everything I owned to start this trip.”

Gene sat in a small, pale blue kayak. It was no more than 10 feet long. He had stacks of gear on both ends tied down by cords, making the vessel look top heavy. To overcome this, he had Jerry rigged some driftwood on both sides of the kayak, tied up by rope and duck tape, to keep the boat more level. The small vessel was fine on the small, tiny Arkansas. But when the Arkansas ended, dumping what little water it had into the bigger, faster, meaner ‘Ole Miss, the conditions were an entirely different beast. The waves are big, rolling and unforgiving. And the wind whips faster than anything else as it gets funneled through the flood plain. It’s no place for an unworthy boat.

“Will you be stopping in Vicksburg?” We asked.

“No,” he said. “I ran out of money weeks ago. I’ll go as far as my current stash will take me.”

We floated for a while, side by side.

It was a calm, pleasant day. The fist one like this we’ve had in a long time. There were no waves and no barges. The sun hung high in the afternoon. The days were getting shorter and shorter, pronounced by cold weather that had been permeating the night, forcing me to wear all my clothes to stay warm.

Gene took another drag of his pipe. The smoke gently whisped away, back up river and into the warm sun. A soft breeze lingered, breaking apart the last of the smoke, making it disappear in the cool autumn air.

“Well, shall we go on?” Qball said, breaking the silence.

We moved slow, dipping our paddles into the water. We said goodbye to Gene, and wished him luck on the rest his journey.

We were close to the end, now. Less than 300 miles remained until the river ended and the Gulf began.

Everything comes to an end eventually, I thought. Everything stops.

At some point, there’s just no beers left to hand out. Somebody is drunk somewhere, teetering on the fringe, trapped in his mind and his thoughts. Thoughts that shift and fade, ambitions that are left unfulfilled, searching for something that gets lost in the flow of everyday life.

And the best part, the part that really matters, is that you don’t have to ask them to leave. They all just fade out into the muddy brown current, out to sea, to wander the black expanse of waves, as ghosts that never sleep.