Entanglement

by Douglas Cole

I pulled into the River’s Edge Motel. Ruta, the clerk and owner, had a bad cold. She was sniffing. She said this was the busy season, yet my truck was the only vehicle in the lot. I asked for an upstairs room. A gray cat came up to the door of the office. “That’s Lucy. She stays outside.” I pet Lucy’s tough, dusty head.

I dropped my bag on the bed and went down to the river. The water was black flowing, shallow and fast, making a sound like a thousand castanets. The cat followed me and sat in the sand bank reeds. Across the river and through the trees, a light glowed against the white wall of a cannery. I touched the water.

I went back up to the motel. It might once have been a Spanish villa. I stood in front of my room and looked down the upper balcony with its rattan chairs and picnic tables and little bulb lights in wire cages under assault from clouds of black moths. I slapped my arms and whipped away the mosquitos.

I was buzzing, watching the river shadows flapping across the ceiling. I wore three shirts just in case of bed bugs. I heard a hum. I heard voices. I heard the river babbling away left to right out there in the night. Sleep did a fan dance on the back of unconsciousness.

When I woke up and went out and looked around, I was still alone. I walked the balcony, checking through windows of other rooms, all of them semi-identical and fixed up and ready for tenants. I went down to the river again. No cat that I could see anywhere. I called out, “Hey Lucy! Lucy!” The building across the river gave up none of its secrets. I don’t know why I thought it was playing a role in restructuring the whole framework. I stepped into the river. Further out would be dangerous. The warm light flashed from the surface of the water. Fingerlings exploded from my steps. An osprey cruised by overhead and plexed out a high code cry.

Now, the river flows east to west here. Further up the road it flows west to east but with a different name. I’ve never found the spot where it all starts. Only hills, mountain valleys. It must be underground somewhere. And sometimes it feels like you’re driving downhill when you’re really going uphill. How can that be? A mystery spot with no tourist sign.

I went back to my room and got my bag and went down to my truck and threw the bag into the back with the granite and the ash tree rounds. I climbed into the cab and sat there with the door open and all that built-up morning heat sort of huhhing out. In the willow trees up ahead was a man in safari grays. He was smoking a pipe. You don’t see people smoking pipes anymore. I had no way of knowing if he was connected to any of this. Was I supposed to check out? I felt like I was missing something. The office was closed. The No Vacancy sign was lit. I waited. That’s what you do, right? Then I drove on.

Douglas Cole has published eight poetry collections, including The Cabin at the End of the World, winner of the Best Book Award in Urban Poetry and the International Impact Book Award. His novel, The White Field, won the American Fiction Award, and his screenplay of The White Field won Best Unproduced Screenplay award in the Elegant Film Festival. His work has appeared in Beloit Poetry, Fiction International, Valpariaso, The Gallway Review and Two Hawks Quarterly. He also contributes a column called “Trading Fours” to the magazine Jerry Jazz Musician. He received the Leslie Hunt Memorial prize in poetry, the Best of Poetry Award from Clapboard House, First Prize in the “Picture Worth 500 Words” from Tattoo Highway, and the Editors’ Choice Award in fiction by riverSedge. He has been nominated eight times for a Pushcart and nine times for Best of the Net. His website is https://douglastcole.com.