This Bend of the River

Dylan Chan

When I have a free afternoon to spend, I give it to a muddy beach on the Hudson River’s eastern bank. The beach rests twenty miles north of Manhattan and two hundred south of the General Electric capacitor factory, now abandoned, which the state shut down in the seventies over pollution concerns (environmental groups found that G.E’s petrochemical waste had killed thousands of sea-critters, and a handful of fishermen). On any day, you can see evidence of both landmarks, upstream and down: the city skyline rising above the river-mouth and signs that read “no swimming,” and “fish from these waters may be harmful to eat,” posted here and there on oak trees near the shore. Bound on one edge by the local commuter railroad, part of the land belongs to the Metropolitan Transit Authority, and the rest belongs to the owner of a nearby warehouse. Styrofoam, driftwood, and other flotsam are year-round denizens of the sand, and once, while walking along the beach barefoot, I stepped squarely on an upturned woodscrew. Still I am attached to the riverbank, have been for a long while and likely will be forever. There is no better place to be alone and aimless, and so far I know of only two other people who feel the same. 

Every morning an older gentleman drives his white sedan over the triangle-truss bridge that hopscotches across the railroad tracks, and parks in the small gravel lot at the bottom end of the beach. He idles there until sundown. His name is Dick, and we are acquaintances, only because every time I’ve made it down to the river—in spring, summer, or fall—he has been there before I arrived. 

We met for the first time last August on what must have been the hottest day of the new millennium. Against the advice of the signs nailed to the oaks, I had stepped out of my shorts and run into the Hudson to get my head and body wet, hoping that my blood would cool down from a boil. I budgeted ten minutes for the swim—just enough, or so I believed, to enjoy the water without absorbing the mercury left in the current by G.E. The river had a fickle smell, one that wandered between foul and fresh unpredictably, and fine-grained muck crawled up into the cuticles of my toes. The bald sun baked the crown of my head continually, and every so often I had to wipe my eyes, blow my nose, shake a thimble’s worth of river water out of my ear. 

I came back onto the sand after the dip, and drank furiously from a gallon jug of water that I had bought earlier from a deli up in town. The heat had warmed the jug, and the water tasted of plastic. Dick called out, asking for a swig. At that point we had never spoken, though I had seen him many times before—his white hair, his white sedan. I waddled over to his car, dripping and in my boxers. He swung open the door, stepped out carefully, and readied his hands. I passed over the jug. He hoisted it up to his sun-beaten face, steadied it an inch away from his lips, and then tipped and chugged in little spurts. Satisfied, he put down the jug and introduced himself. Now, when I pass by his car, I knock a knuckle on its dented hood, or come up to the window and say a few words. 

The other loner who is a loyal to this bend of the Hudson is much younger than Dick or I and quite elusive. I do not know his name, only his possessions. At the border line between the sand and the soil—where the cattail reeds grow, and shade can be found under the tree branches —there are many little structures, creations, and hidden objects: a plank swing, a lean-to, an unfinished raft and a single oar, a chipped Louisville Slugger, piles of rusted rail spikes collected from the train tracks, a pair of sunglasses. All these belong to a boy of about twelve or thirteen. I have watched him drag driftwood from the water’s edge up towards the sand-soil line, and add it to one of his forts. I have seen him rock back and forth on the plank swing. I have even collected a number of rail spikes and added them to the boy’s pile without his knowing. 

Most days, however, the boy is not around, and his possessions go unmonitored. For a time I would take advantage of his absence and whack pebbles into the water with his Louisville Slugger. When the trains came flying by, I’d wind my arms back farther and swing with more force, hoping that a passenger would witness me bat a stone way out into the wake and think highly of me for a few moments. It was my favorite thing to do, and the way I spent many of my hours. Then one day the Louisville Slugger was nowhere to be found. Presumably, the boy must have taken it home or found a better hiding spot. Either way I was mildly upset. Now I use a two-by-four that washed up on the beach to play the same solo game, and it leaves splinters in my palms. 

Not long ago I tried to get to know Dick better. It was roughly seven o’clock in the evening and the sun was a molten red. As it fell below the western horizon, the water and all the dry world began to take on the color of wine. The hour and the tone of the sky made reflection seem timely, so I asked Dick to tell me why he spends most of his day idle in the gravel lot. He paused, and then got out of the car. A breeze blew. His thin white hair swayed with it. 

“Because you can see the river working from here,” he pointed to a tugboat pulling a barge upstream. It had a piece of machinery akin to a crane atop its deck. “The birds too,” he gestured towards a duck, floating carelessly. “And no one ever tells me to leave,” he finished. Those were all the words he offered. Dick is very concise. 

I realized soon after our short exchange that though Dick watches the river from dawn to dusk, he is not idle or useless—never has been, and so long as he parks his sedan in the gravel lot, never will be. The Hudson needs his company. Who otherwise, will have the time to admire the morning light, and the way it hits the shiny silt revealed by the low tide? Who otherwise, will be there to see the geese pluck around on the rocks, or witness a herring catch a small fish? Who otherwise, will track the seasons as they change, and time as it passes, and the river as it flows, in all its dirtiness and beauty, lazily into the future? 

Not a soul. Not even me, at least for the time being. Right now there is too much road left ahead, too much that I haven't seen. Perhaps when my bones become brittle as driftwood, I’ll inherit Dick’s job of keeping the river company—of noticing, of appreciating. Perhaps the boy, the fort-builder and raft-maker, will inherit it as well.