River Idyll

by J. August Larson

 

Christian and his sister had arrived at his grandparents’ not ten minutes before his grandan sprang inside like the devil was on his heels.

“What,” Grandma screeched, “has gotten into you! You’ll rip the door off its hinges if you aren’t careful.”

“Ah, Christian,” said his grandan. “I see you made it okay. Where’s your sister?”

“Here!” she called from the living room that she and their grandma had busied themselves converting into a dining room.

“Hiya, darling!” he called back.

Andrea “Andy” Anne came to the entry room to give him a hug. Chris just watched from his spot on the sofa. Grandan went with Andy to see how the dining situation was coming, and Chris returned to his book.

He struggled to focus, however, because the sounds of their chatter filled the house, and even though he was finally in college and basically a fully grown adult, he felt frustrated at being excluded, which made him feel like a child. So, he bookmarked his page and crossed into the dining room. It was a small space. When they visited with their parents, the six of them barely fit at the table, but between the massive television on one wall and the couch filling up the other, Grandma and Grandan always figured out how to fit in the middle of the room one of their folding tables with four, five, or six chairs around it. That’s what Chris had done before Grandma told him he could go back to reading. Andy had laid out the table settings, and Grandan had come home, so all there was to do was bring in the food.

Then halfway through the meal—cauliflower rice and green bean casserole because Grandma was vegetarian this week—Grandan tried to convince Andy he’d met a prince for her.

She was in her third year of college, so she hadn’t thought of princes since The Princess Diaries 2 and thought right now that her grandan was being ridiculous.

“And how do you know he was a prince?” Grandma asked as she finished a bite of green beans and had a hand on her glass of white wine.

“Ah, Roselyn, you should’ve seen him. That tells you most of what you need to know about a person, how they look. You best believe me this prince of yours takes care of himself.”

Andy laughed. “He’s not my prince.”

“He could be! Had this flawless tan skin on him and this hair that looked just like Crayola’s gold crayon, and when the light hits just right, you can see hints of red in there. Can’t always trust a man with red in his hair, but boy if it didn’t flow. Hit his shoulders when he took off his bike helmet. Did I mention he was on his bike? Well we got to talking and agreed to bike down to the canal tomorrow.”

Grandma smiled behind her wine glass. “Sounds like Grandan has a date,” she said with a wink to Chris—who laughed, but the effort was humorless. He was distracted, thinking about golden hair.

Grandan dismissed her with a wave of his hands. “It’s not a date, Jesus. I’m trying to get a date for my beautiful and very smart granddaughter. Andy, he is tall as can be, I know that’s important, and fit as a fiddle, I tell you. Told me he rowed in college.

“A rower?” Andy scoffed into her green beans. “No thanks, Grandan.”

“Why? What’s wrong with a rower?”

“I was a rower, once,” Grandma chimed in.

“Yeah, one semester.” He leaned over to Chris and whispered, loud enough for the table to hear, “She kept dropping the paddles and had to keep jumping out of the boat.”

“It’s called a shell.”

“Sure it is, Rose.”

“It is!” She looked at him with bewilderment in her eyes and a wry smile that said, “You get under my skin, boy, but dammit if I don’t love you.”

“Thank you, Grandan, but I’m not looking for a prince right now,” Andy said.

“I am,” Chris wanted to say.

“Oh, once you get a look at him, you’ll change your mind,” Grandan assured her. “You can use your grandma’s bike tomorrow when we go to the canal.”

Grandma finished her wine.

“I am afraid,” she said, “that Andy’s already committed to volunteer with me at the flower market.”

Grandan scoffed. “I don’t understand why you give those men free labor. You’re supposed to be retired, Rose—”

“So maybe that’s why I don’t feel right taking money from them. They offer every time, I swear it, but I can’t take it, not from Maggie’s boy.” She made the Sign of the Cross. “Anyway, I’m afraid Andy’s spoken for.”

“Not by either of those fruitcakes,” he whispered to Chris with a low chuckle.

“Watch it!” Grandma barked, not smirking anymore.

“Alright, alright. Chris, how’d you like to go to the gardens with me tomorrow and ride down to the canal?”

“With the prince?” Chris asked, half cheekily.

This earned a smile from Andy, who shook her head a little and picked up some rice.

“Yes, with the prince,” his grandan sighed, but then his face lit up again, “and you can bear witness with me and report back to Andy and Grandma that I wasn’t lying about the young gentleman.”

Chris looked back at his sister, and her smile had turned a little devilish.

“Chris is a great judge of character,” she said. “I trust his opinion.”

He wanted to reach across the table and shake her by the shoulders and tell her to shut up.

“You do have good taste,” Grandma added, grabbing his shirt collar with the tips of her fingers. 

“Fine, Andy and I will look forward very much to your eye witness’s report.”

“Be sure to do a thorough investigation,” Andy added.

Chris couldn’t keep his face from heating up, so he buried it into the green beans and rice. Grandma thought he’d had too much wine, even though he hadn’t touched the glass she’d put in front of him, and Grandan had already started saying something about the canal. Chris ate the rest of the meal in silence.

 

He stood in front of the mirror in his room the next day.

It wasn’t that he was out of shape, he just didn’t like the part of his stomach that went a little past the waistband of his shorts; he wasn’t insecure either, he just didn’t like how pasty his skin was and how he couldn’t get his hair to do anything worthwhile. He’d switched from glasses to contacts as soon as he graduated high school, but it hadn’t made as big a difference as he would have hoped. And if he could just get a flatter stomach—

“Eyes are up there,” Andy said from the doorway.

“Can you not?” he muttered, shoving his shirt back down.

“Sorry,” she said and meant it. “You shouldn’t be so flustered. God knows Grandan has as much taste as an English breakfast.”

That earned her a smile from Chris.

“I wish I were going to the flower shop, though.”

“You can come next time. We’re still here a few more days.” She couldn’t help herself: “But besides, you’ll have a better shot with this prince character than with either of the shop’s ‘fruitcakes.’”

“Andy!”

“I’m right!”

He rolled his eyes and couldn’t help but laugh a little. She was right, of course. The flower shop’s owners, Jonathan and David, had been married since before the state said they could, and they’d been monogamous even longer. Not that Chris had any inclination for polygamy—or for men as old as his dad—he just knew they’d never quit each other, so there was no room for any home-wrecker worth his mint.

He picked up his baseball cap from the bed and put it on, then took it off and threw it back on the bed. “Doesn’t even fit my head.”

“Lotta brains up there,” Andy said. “Besides, you’ll be wearing a helmet.”

“Andy?” called their grandma from the entry room.

“Coming, Grandma!”

Chris looked to her for approval, so she looked him up and down before giving him two thumbs up and a bright wide smile.

“Go get ‘em, tiger.” She cackled as she left him to groan.

“You’re so stupid.”

But when he looked back at himself in the mirror and tried seeing what she saw—or at least, what she said she saw—he decided it wasn’t all that bad. This was a young man who just might catch a prince.

One of these days, anyway.
Chris completely forgot about the prince as he struggled to keep up with Grandan on a bike. The man was a fiend, and he should have known better. This was the same man who spent his undergrad summers cycling up and down the Dolomite, Luberon, and Pyrenees mountain ranges before marrying his would-be wife of forty-nine years.

The roads to the gardens were flat enough, and Chris made the bike work for him. Without a shred of wind or single angle of decline, however, he had sweat through his shirt—and his shorts, he thought with dread—long before they arrived at the garden driveway.

The Benedict Gardens were the pride and joy of Barrow, South Carolina. They sat right up against the Cooper River in a remote corner of an enormous plot of land to the tune of a few thousand acres. Most of it was forest some locals and Charleston townies used for hunting; a couple of acres were dedicating to growing corn, which Grandan, a true friend of all creatures and critters, had once told Chris was for attracting the deer, and they both hated that; and this sliver of the land with the grand gravel driveway up the middle was the Benedict Gardens.

They cycled past the open gates and the welcome desk. Grandan waved and smiled through the window to the women behind it, and they waved and smiled back.

The first stretch of the gardens was the most unassuming; a few trimmed lawns and lines of oak and a few hedges, all draped in Spanish moss that looked grayer and grayer as the season turned colder.

The seasons couldn’t turn fast enough for Chris, who was, as true as could be, drenched in sweat.

They passed the labyrinth on the north side of the driveway. It was an enormous, circular maze made up of swamp sunflower, coral bean, and baptisia flowers.

They began to pass the first of the walled gardens. The oldest and the largest, this had been given the moniker, the Rose Garden. It sat left of the driveway, as they rode. Four great brick walls made up the “walled” part of it, and behind the large, rusting iron gate, the gardens within those walls bore red roses, and a few gravestones from ages past cropped up between the bushes.

Just beyond the walled garden, some steps had been cut into the hillside south of the Rose Garden. These led down the slope to two little ponds. When he was younger, Chris had wanted to go swimming in these, but his grandparents quickly pointed out the alligators hiding within the reeds.

“You bother them,” his grandma had warned, “even a little, they’re going to bother you a whole lot more.”

They passed two more gardens, one with another, though shorter, brick wall, and the second was more of a sculpture garden made up of a real assortment of stone columns, bronze and copper statues that had been metal-worked to death, and tree trunks that had gone under the chainsaw and come out the other side tattooed with small figures and designs.


The driveway ended and looped itself around a great old oak tree, itself dressed to the mossy nines in the fashion of such southern trees. Just beyond it, the Cooper River flowed from Lake Moultrie down through Charleston and to the sea. And just before its enormous trunk, a strapping young man in a neon green cycling kit leaned against the tree beside his bicycle, also a sickening Granny Smith green. Chris could see as they got closer just how lovely that bike was, and he wanted to turn around and go home before he had to stop and show off his rusty old scrap metal on wheels.

As they approached, the young man—the prince, Chris assumed—took off his helmet and shook out his hair. It was as beautiful as Grandan had made it sound. Sickening, Chris made himself think, vile. If he let himself think what he was really thinking, he’d have more issues with his shorts than just sweating through them.

His grandan held up a hand in greeting, and the handsome stranger waved back.

“John!” He called Grandan by name.

They pulled up to the tree. Neither bike had a stand, so Chris held them up; he didn’t feel right about leaning them on such a noble tree.

“Well aren’t we all dressed up?” Grandan said with a hearty laugh. He took the man’s hand as if they’d fought in a war together. A pit fell in Chris’s stomach as the thought crept in that his grandfather might like this stranger more than he liked his grandson.

That thought washed away when the stranger introduced himself to Chris:

“Mickey.”

“That’s Christian,” Grandan said before Chris could speak up for himself.

“Chris,” he managed.

“Nice to meet you, Chris.” He smiled. Good God, he smiled.

“So! How about that ride down to the old Sweeney Canal, then?”

The prince grinned to his best bud John. “I thought you’d never ask.”

“Lead the way!”

Grandan took his bike from Chris and drew it out of frame from the two boys so he could settle himself on the seat without an audience.

“You don’t mind taking up the back?” Mickey asked Chris, then added at a whisper, “Keep an eye on the old man.” He winked. Good God, he winked.

Chris nodded, then shook his head, then didn’t know what to do.

“Can do.”

“Right on.” Another smile. Oh sweet heavens.

Mickey pulled his helmet onto his head, and Chris realized he’d never taken his own off—not that there was much to share with the world, with the prince—but he just knew he looked like a dork, keeping the helmet on the whole time they talked. The whole span of, maybe, thirty seconds.

Mickey clipped onto his bike and tread lightly, waiting for his two companions to saddle up themselves. Grandan was up next, then Chris waved them on:

“I’ll be right behind you.”

Mickey smiled—again! Then headed off, trailed by Grandan.

The truth was, Chris didn’t want them to see him get onto his bike either, especially Mickey. What if he fell? It would be the first time in his whole life of riding bikes that he fell off a bike, but what if! What if this prince of theirs was scrutinizing him as much as he was scrutinizing himself and saw how Chris’s stomach didn’t stay flat when he hopped up on the bike but bounced like a little mound of gelatin. The horror was too much for Chris to risk.


What a relief it was when they made it to the canal and not once had their fearless leader turned to look back at Chris. Grandan had checked on him once or twice at the start, but he stopped babying his grandson eventually.

The trail they took was more than Chris had bargained for, but he survived. He couldn’t say he was thriving, but when pride is at stake, survival is the name of the game.

Mickey took them off the driveway near the Rose Garden, led them past the alligator ponds, and up a hill. This was the worst part, but it was over before Chris could lodge a complaint; the rest was downhill. The trail seemed unofficial, or at least under-tended, as it wound through a stretch of wood more unkempt than the wildflower labyrinth in the Gardens. They bounced and bobbed over so many roots and fallen branches that Chris had to put his insecurities—that were not actually insecurities, of course, just parts of himself he disliked—aside. It was going to be what it was going to be, but at least it wasn’t going to be right in front of Mickey.

Some of the path cut close to the river, offering views of the water and her plant life, drawn with the current.

“And not a single boat,” Chris marveled to no one who could hear him.


The Sweeney Canal had been built two centuries ago as a way to connect the Savannah River and the Cooper. Poor engineering and vacant waterways left the canal all but abandoned within its first century, and all in the last quarter of the second century of its wanton existence, it had become a historical landmark, a summer oasis for local farm boys, and something of an aquatic Lover’s Lane for College of Charleston undergraduates. It was curiously both well-kept and accessible; it was a local joy and never became a public nuisance, so all was well with the Sweeney Canal.

“You know this is where Dana and I met…” his grandan began after they had parked their bikes, taken off their helmets, and walked to the water’s edge.

Dana wasn’t Chris’s grandma, but she was grandma’s best friend who introduced her to young John some forty-nine years ago. And Chris had heard the story as many times as he’d biked to the Sweeney Canal, which had added up over the course of his and Andy’s annual visits.

John and his college friends struck out from Charleston at the end of either their second or third year. Either way, it was the worst year for cicadas that he remembered, and they roared from the oaks and sycamores that lined the canal. They drove his bud Matt’s father’s fan boat up the Cooper until they reached the canal, then they ran it over the low remnants of a dike and rode into the canal a fair way ’til they were sure as could be there’d be nobody bothering them. They parked the boat up on the edge of the canal, tied it to the sturdiest tree they could find, then stripped to their skin—‘cause that’s how they did it in their day, just didn’t think twice about it—and went swimming. They were like that for about an hour or so, maybe less, maybe more, when sure enough there comes Dana along the canal bicycling with her two charges she was babysitting, a pair of children too young to be peeping Tom-ing a couple of college gentlemen. Didn’t seem to care, though, they were laughing up a storm. They kept going past eventually, then later, when the sun was just about down and we were just about ready to leave, who comes back but Dana with a friend. A much more age-appropriate friend, mind yourself, and would you believe it, that was my Roselyn.

“That’s a beautiful story, John,” said Mickey.

“I don’t know if it’s beautiful per se, but it’s a good one. Better than meeting on a website like you kids do now.” He laughed and clapped Mickey on the back.

Chris didn’t even think about how his grandan never clapped him on the back. He was thinking about the canal, going swimming, maybe even swimming with the prince…

“It was mighty beautiful that night. ‘Course we stayed once Dana and Roselyn came back. They had the sense to bring lights and some cookies Rosie’d made. We stayed out almost all night and watched the stars.”

“Is that when you knew she was the one?”

“Hell no, she was more interested in Matt. But he was a fairy himself, so he had no eyes for either of the two ladies. Moved to New York soon after. He still writes from time to time, God love him.”

“I see.”

“But sometime after, we got to talking without Dana or the others, and we took quite a liking to each other. The rest is history, truly, truly history.”

“Still,” Mickey offered, “it’s a nice story.”

Grandan smiled sweetly. “Sure.” He turned to Chris. “Although this one’s probably sick of hearing it a dozen times, huh?”

His grandson shook his head and attempted to smile. “It’s a great story, Grandan.” Then, with some discovered confidence: “You’ve never taken us here at night before.”

HiIs grandfather frowned. “Haven’t I?”

But Chris shook his head.

“Ah, we must!” Mickey cried. “We have to do it. John said you’re only in town for a little while. How much longer is that?”

“Um” —just say a few more days— “a few more days.”

“Then there’s no time to waste.” Something about Mickey made Chris think of Peter Pan. Grandan had called him a prince, and there was some fairy tale quality to him. His hair was a huge selling point, and the way his cycling kit clung to his figure like a second skin didn’t hurt, but he was also kind and well-spoken. Chris wanted to know more.


After another hour of Grandan’s stories, he and Chris excused themselves so as not to be late for dinner, but they agreed to meet back up with Mickey that evening. He insisted there would be a meteor shower, and if they were going to come back to the canal some evening, it might as well be that one. Maybe Andy could come along, Grandan had said, and Mickey said he would love to meet her, and Chris’s insides turned in on themselves.

 

When the hour came to leave Grandma and Grandan’s house to head back to the canal, Grandan was fast asleep.

“Tuckered him out on those bikes today,” Grandma said with a soft chuckle. She had set herself up in her rocking chair by the piano with a Nora Roberts paperback in one hand and a steaming cup of tea in the other. “I’m sorry you won’t get to see your friend tonight, but I’m glad the prince lived up to your grandfather’s big mouth.” She laughed some more at that. “Oh, well…” and she went to reading quietly.

Chris wanted to die.

Andy was making a puzzle on the floor of Grandan’s old office when he closed the door and sat on the floor next to her.

“You’re still going to the canal, right?” she asked without looking up at him.

Her brother groaned and lay down on the floor to watch the fan spin above him. He groaned a second time. “Would it be wrong of me to go?”

“No.”

“It’s safe, right?”

“Sure.”

“Grandan trusts him.”

“I think he more than trusts him, but—”

“I should go, right?”

Pause. The fan kept spinning, but Chris sat up.

“Andy?”

She was staring at him with a slight frown and her head tilted to the side. “Yes, dumbass, yes, you should go. YOLO, or whatever.”

“2012 called,” he started, but she threw a puzzle piece at him, and he laughed and stood back up. He went to the office window. “OK, here goes nothing.” He lifted it up, and one limb after another, climbed outside. “See ya later!” he whispered.

“I’ll be sleeping!” Andy replied, then added: “Hey, Chris!”

“Yeah?”

“Good luck.”


When Chris got to the canal, he feared he had gone to the wrong spot. He took the main road instead of the trail from earlier because he felt better about traversing that in the dark, but he hadn’t thought about whether or not it would get him to the same part of the canal where Mickey expected to meet him. Not to mention Mickey expected to meet him and his best friend John, who was not there. Not John. Just Chris.

He was torn between riding further down to see if the prince was somewhere else along the canal or riding back home and putting the whole thing behind him, but—

“Chris!”

He remembered his name.

“Hey, Mickey.”

The prince was out of his cycling kit and in a pair of really ripped up jeans, cowboy boots, and a tank top. Fitting wardrobe choices all around, Chris thought, considering how sweltering the evening had stayed, even as the sun had gone away enough to release the stars to the sky. He also thought about Mickey’s muscles, and before he could stop himself, he announced:

“You must work out.”

Good heavens.

Mickey laughed a little, but not a lot, and Chris thought he might die.

“I mean, not really, but I work on my neighbor’s farm, and cycling helps keep me, I don’t know, lean?” He laughed some more and shook his head, shook his beautiful, golden hair. “What do you do for fun? You bike a lot too?”

“When I come here, yeah, but not so much back home. Not a whole lot of biking in LA.”

“You’re from LA?”

“Grandan didn’t tell you?”

“He covered a lot of ground, but that must’ve slipped his mind.”

“I’m sure it did,” Chris said, more bitterly than he had intended.

“Talked a lot about you and… what’s your sister’s name again? Annie?”

“Andy Anne.”

“Andy Anne.” He blew a whistle. “Hell of a name.”

“Hell of a chick.”

That earned a hearty laugh out of Mickey. “You two get along? Damn, I always wanted siblings. I barely had parents, but that’s by the by.”

“We do, I think.” He wanted to add: “Tell me more about your parents, your neighbor, your work, your life—”

“That’s nice. No John tonight?”

Chris shook his head. “He’s fast asleep.”

Mickey laughed. Like a chandelier, the other boy thought.

“Well I’m sorry John’s not here, but I brought a blanket if you still wanted to see if there are any shooting stars.”

He loved that he called them shooting stars.

“Sure,” he said, as though that’s not exactly what he came here to do.

“Cool.”

Mickey rolled out the blanket, a green woolen Pendleton with red stripes.

“Have a seat.”

Chris tried to sit down as suavely as he could manage. Which wasn’t very suave, but Lord help him if he didn’t try.

Then his companion sat next to him—thigh touching thigh—and laid down, stretching himself over the blanket as far as he could, which was quite a lot.

“How tall are you?” Again, speaking before thinking.

Mickey smiled, looked up at the stars, and thought about it a moment. “Six-two, six-three, maybe?”

Chris just nodded knowingly.

“How about you?”

“Like, five-eleven, I think.”

Mickey just nodded his head, then shot up onto his elbow and pointed to the sky.

“Did you see it!”

Chris shook his head, looking at Mickey.

“Well,” he laughed, “look!”

So he did. He lay on his back as instructed and looked up at the stars.


When he woke up, Mickey was leaning over him, laughing.

“Hey, sleepy head. I said, wanna go for a swim?”

Chris closed his eyes again. This had to be a nightmare. He’d fallen asleep?

But then Mickey shook him again, gripping Chris’s arms gently and firmly.

“Come on, it’ll feel so refreshing!” he taunted him.

“We don’t have towels.”

“We can use the blanket.”

“I don’t have a swimsuit.”

“That didn’t stop your grandpa.”

Chris opened his eyes, horrified.

“Don’t look so scared, it’s just us.”

I don’t know you.

“Like your grandan said, how they did in his day, didn’t think twice about it.” But he could tell he was just losing ground. “Look,” Mickey said, pulling off his tank top, “if you don’t want, you can go home. Or just stay here, I don’t care. But I want to swim.”

“What about alligators?”

Mickey kicked off his shoes and shrugged—

“Trash?”

—unzipped his jeans and shrugged again—

“Aliens.”

Mickey threw his head back with laughter. “Now we’re talking.” He took his jeans off all the way. Chris had never seen underwear like that before, and he knew he was staring, but hopefully he had torn his eyes away before it became obvious.

“I’ll go in first, and if you want to join, I’ll close my eyes.” Mickey finished undressing, and Chris kept his eyes on the ground. “Promise.”

He listened as the other boy walked down the slope and slipped into the canal.

What would Jesus do? Hell, what would Andy do? If Andy were with a boy she liked and he’d just invited her to go swimming—to go skinny dipping, no less—by God she’d get in without a second thought. Chris wanted to be like Jesus, just maybe not yet.

“OK,” he called to Mickey, “close your eyes.”

The boy in the canal pushed his wet hair back behind his ears, grinned widely, and covered his eyes with his hands.

It felt like ages, but in a short moment or so, Chris had hurried out of his shoes, socks, shorts, and t-shirt, hesitating at his boxers. But what the hell.

He hurried into the canal water, and Mickey cheered for him.

“Huzzah!” You’re joking. “Sir Chris has conquered his dread and braved the icy waters of the great, roaring River Sweeney!” He splashed Chris relentlessly, laughing all the while until Chris was laughing with him.

“Stop!” he shouted between bouts of laughter. “Stop it!” He didn’t mean a single one of them. “Stop!” Never stop. He splashed back until it was outright warfare. The farm boy prince had become entangled with an invading Angeleno. It could only end one way.

Or, it could end in a surprise, alternative way.

The boys swam for longer than either of them could tell, and the stars fell all the while. They played games, resumed their splashing war a handful of times, and then they just swam. Once, Mickey floated on his back for a couple of minutes, and Chris didn’t even mind, couldn’t care less. He even joined him.

It was just Mickey, after all, not a prince.