Read 1 The Bank of the River for Free Online Page B

other
people didn’t seem to be able to feel or notice.”
    “What do you
mean?” Steven asked, sensing he was about to hear what Bernie had referred to
years ago. He felt uncomfortable.
    “You know
what I mean,” Roy replied. “I know you know. You just hate admitting it.”
    “I’m not
sure I do,” Steven told him. “Maybe I do. But why don’t you just tell me, so I
don’t have to guess.”
    Roy shook
his head. “Always this way. You’ve always been this way, ever since you could
speak. Always on the banks, but never with a pole in the water.”
    “What?”
Steven asked. “What are you talking about?”
    “Stevie,
there’s a wide river in front of you, rushing along, thousands and thousands of
gallons of water moving every second, all coming from somewhere, all going
somewhere. You can’t see what’s in there, but there are things in there, moving
along with it. We both know that. You, because someone told you there’s things
in the river. You like to pretend they’re not there. Me, I know they’re there because
I jump into it and find them, touch them, experience them.”
    Steven wasn’t
prepared to go along with it. It sounded too kooky. “A river?”
    “Not a
literal river, no. It’s one that most people can’t see or choose not to see.
But it’s there, moving, full of things. I found out when I was younger that I
could jump into that river, swim in it. Find things. Come back out. When I told
some people about it, it scared the hell out of them, but my father knew what I
meant. He could do it too. He taught me to be selective in whom I told.”
    “I had no
idea,” Steven said. It was a lie, but he wanted to see where this was going.
    “Your mother
knew,” Roy said. “She did not approve of it. There was an incident, early in
our marriage, just after you were born. She got a glimpse of it. Scared her to
death. I felt bad about it, tried to soothe her. I tried to explain it to her,
make her understand it was nothing to be afraid of. But she was so jarred by
it, so shaken, that she went the other way. Turned completely batshit
Christian, made me swear to never do it, especially not around you. Or your
bother, when he arrived. I agreed, partially because I knew I could still do it
and she would never know, I just had to keep it secret from her. But I
suppressed it for years and I think that created a sense of something being
bottled up. Every year she got more and more churchy, dragging you boys off to
bible-this and that, goddamn church camps and all, and it didn’t matter what I
had to say about it.”
    “I always
wondered why you never came to church,” Steven said.
    “Did you like
going to church?” Roy asked.
    “God no,”
Steven said.
    “Neither did
I,” Roy said, slapping the table. “Wasn’t going to waste my time. But I think
she felt that shoving Jesus down your throat would protect you from this other
side of things. I think she was afraid one or both of you would…inherit it, and
she was gonna build up defenses so it wouldn’t take.”
    Steven
considered this. Was Roy implying that Bernie, or himself, might have this same
ability?
    “What do you
call it?” Steven asked. “This ability you have. Does it have a name?”
    “I don’t
have a name for it,” Roy replied. “And to be honest with you, I haven’t dabbled
in it much for a while. I got so tired of hiding it from Claire, I gave up
after a while, it was just easier. She got really crazy about it in those last
few years, I didn’t dare mention it, it would send her into hours of crazy
bible thumping. I think at the end she began to view me as the devil or
something like that. Accused me of it more than once during the dementia. Then,
after she passed, I considered cranking it back up, but I’ve not done much with
it. One night after she was gone, when I was particularly lonely, I thought
maybe I’d try to contact her – you know, from the other side.”
    Steven felt
a lump in his throat, saddened that his