A Drowning Hungry

A Drowning Hungry

When I finally had the courage to open my eyes, which didn’t take long, I knew I was about to drown, right there is that brown, Kiwi shoe polish looking water, not even a mile away from my house! I couldn’t believe it, but there I was. My turn in the window I thought… not now!!! The police and news crews would eventfully show up, and there I would be… The Star of the 6pm Local News, maybe even a National mention. Floating down that stinking, brown, polluted Rouge River…. I was terrified!! When I first hit the water, it was SO much colder than what I had thought it would be. It was April, early April and me being a seasoned Mid-Western boy, so I thought should have known better! I had taken the bet or a commission to swing across the widest part of the Rouge River, which ran through this heavily wooded area in my city/suburban town West of Detroit, MI. The river was pretty tame in that area for the most part, although the current was still pretty strong even through the river always appeared to be moving really slowly. It was where the river bent to the South just a little, which gave the area a nice size bank where folks use to hangout and do all the things that kids and young adults aren’t supposed to be doing. One guy that use to hangout at The Bank, that’s what the locals called it, name was Mike! Crazy Mike that is… not in the sense of being institutionalized, I don’t think; but him hanging out with kids my age kids or even younger was a concern to some! See, I was only 10 at the time and this guy who we called Crazy Mike was probably around 16 or so. He didn’t really look that old, so no one ever said anything to him. And because everyone knew he was a little off, people with any type of common sense used to just avoid him altogether. He was always in the neighbor, not locked up or anything like that, so we thought if he was not in jail or at the local mental Hospital, Eloise D Block, that he was OK. Mike always had lots of CASH, so people use to hang around him for that. He was basically harmless I thought, outside of when he got to talking to himself, then watch out. But other than that, he was kind of funny. Mike used to hang out at The Bank everyday looking for someone to get a cheap laugh from. The Bank was the widest point of the River in that area as I said; it was also the best and fastest way to cross the river. There was two ways at The Bank to cross that locals had built, my contribution was clearing leaves and bushes. One was via a deliberately placed tree bridge used to crawl across, and the other a make shift swing with several knots that hung high above the sometimes swiftly moving Rouge. The rope was replaced yearly to try and ensure the safety of those brave enough to try and swing from one muddy bank to the other. Mike also used the swing to entice young kids to do dangerous things that so far had not gotten anyone seriously injured. If you didn't cross at The Bank, folks mostly kids and thugs had to make the nearly 2 mile hike due West toward Middlebelt Rd. to cross at the closest pedestrian and traffic bridge.

The swing is where Mike use to hang out with his cash and bet, or pay kids to either swing across to the other side; which if you made it, would earn you 5 whole dollars, or he would up the ante for really “desperate for cash kids” and challenge them to swing out, let go near the edge, not in the middle because that was too deep, yeah right Mike, but near the edge so that you would make a splash, give them a good laugh and still get out of the brown smelly water quickly. If a kid could do that, Mental Mike would give them a crisp, dry ten dollars bill for their deadly carnival escapades!

That’s the stupid decision I made on that fateful sunny, April afternoon! The day I decided to trade my poor, carefree, football loving 5th grade existence for a chance at winning 10 dollars of Crazy Mike’s probably stolen money! I knew, from the moment I let go of that rope – that I was in trouble… The Rouge was swift that day. There had been a big snow melt from the last storm of the season due to the stretch of sunny days and the water was higher than it might be later is the Spring season! I was initially in shock. The water was FREZZING, the brown smelly water filled my throat quickly! The water was much deeper too, I could touch the last time, not now!! I could feel the current starting to drag me under, I was terrified, but I couldn’t move. It was as if I was watching someone else drowning!! At the time I was a decent swimmer for a city kid, but as much as I fought, and hopefully didn’t scream because the ass wholes that live in my neighborhood would have never let me live it down had I survived that river! A life-long tease about how I was screaming like a baby, even though I was slowing losing my life over some stupid-ness that I should have never been doing in the first place!! Me drowning… and them just looking and watching… Just standing on that muddy river bank laughing, not taking my kicking and thrashing serious at all. It was as if they were really making me earn that 10 dollars. I guess Crazy Mike’s 10 bucks would have turned out to be about a buck a year for a hungry city kid like myself… I suddenly thought about all the good I had ever did for people. How I had always been taught to help and now one was doing anything for me! All I heard was laughing… Especially Mike… laughing as if he/they were watching some type of variety show, like Carol Burnett, or The Flip Wilson Show or something funny like that. Me drowning was a Benny Hill moment for them I guess... Mike really was crazy after all, or was I the crazy one for jumping into that nasty brown water for 10 dollars… I was for sure The Drowning one! Right in that cold muddy water! Man, I thought, if only I had not been so hungry. I wanted to live so badly!!! One more chance dear God! My last thought, and before I took that last and I’m sure final gulp of that cold shoe polish colored river water was: I hoped that my Mama was not going to be too mad at me for getting myself drowned. We didn’t have money to eat, I know she did not have money for a casket and all that burial stuff. So I just prayed, I ask God to let me live. Just lift me up, out of that bowl of brown and I promise, I will never ask for anything else to eat, for the rest of my life…

t. forman

10/16/2021