Strelnikov
4th Level Red Feather
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by Strelnikov
Copyright 2003 by the author
The carousel in Chattanooga’s Riverside Park plays “Proud Mary”. The tune got stuck in my head, so I wrote this story to exorcise it. The stars are Anne Kincaid and her sibs, who first appeared in Tickle Street Chapter 12 – “Con Artist”. The intent was to create a Southern mood piece.
However, as often happens, the characters took it in a direction all their own. I held off from posting it because it came out a good bit darker than the usual run of my stories. My sense now is that it’s a cross between “Carrie” and “The Sand Pebbles”. Hope you enjoy it.
Anne Kincaid keyed the walkie-talkie and said, “OK, Daddy, we’ve cast off.” Her father double-clicked his radio in acknowledgement. With two long blasts of her whistle and a thrashing of her 36-foot paddle wheels, the riverboat backed away from her dock and into the river current.
The occasion was a dinner-and-dance cruise on the river for the River City High School prom. The boat was small as riverboats go, but River City, Mississippi was a small town with a small high school. She was plenty big enough for the prom.
Anne was a lovely young woman with light-brown hair that fell past her shoulders, long dark lashes and dazzling hazel eyes. Spring comes early in Mississippi – she was already starting to acquire a tan. She wore a bright red prom dress that displayed her shapely body to good advantage, pearls, a corsage and heels. It was a far cry from her usual working attire on board – blue-and-white pinstripe overalls and Casey Jones hat, and a collarless checkered shirt.
But Anne had tonight off. This was prom night.
As usual on board, her two brothers were dressed like old-time riverboat crewmen – collarless pillow-ticking shirts, unbleached canvas trousers, cloth caps. The clothing wasn’t the best choice to work in, but it was part of the ambience they were selling.
“We’ll handle the rest of this,” her younger brother Jim said.
“Go to your prom, sis,” said Josh, her elder by two years. “Have fun.”
“Thanks, guys. I’ll try,” she replied, and headed up the wide staircase from the main deck to the passenger deck.
***
The main deck of a riverboat is for cargo and propulsion machinery. The enclosed passenger deck above was set up as a buffet restaurant. Above that, the Texas deck held tables surrounding a dance floor – a balcony-like walkway with deck chairs went all the way around it. The highest deck was the open, awning-covered hurricane deck, aft of the pilot house and the tall black smokestacks.
The old riverboat had started life as the sidewheel steamer Choctaw before World War I, carrying local passengers and freight. Motor vehicles and better roads had eventually put her out of business. In 1950, as the General Forrest, she had started a new career carrying tourists on day trips. A generation later, the Arab Oil Embargo and the Nixon Recession had put an end to that too. She spent years tied up at her dock, slowly rusting away.
Anne’s grandfather Hunter Kincaid had crewed on the Choctaw as a young man, before and after his U. S. Navy service in World War II. Later, he had gone into the towboat business – first as crew, then as master and pilot, finally as owner of Kincaid and Son Navigation Company. But around the time of Anne’s birth, he had gotten tired of the travel and the time away from family. His son Greg, Anne’s father, felt the same way. They mortgaged their towboat, bought the old paddle steamer and set to work restoring her for the day trip and dinner cruise trade.
Fortunately, both men were world-class scroungers. They replaced the electrical system, added automatic fire sprinklers, and installed central air conditioning with equipment from a closed rural hospital and a factory put out of business by NAFTA. The steam tables and furniture for the buffet restaurant came from a bankrupt hotel. The original scotch marine boilers and steam engine were beyond repair, but they had gotten lucky there too. The propulsion machinery came from a wrecked towboat – a turbocharged Caterpillar 3512 marine diesel drove the big wheels now, through a reversing reduction gearbox.
Hunter had wanted to name her Mary Kincaid after his wife. Greg had a better idea, and after some consideration, Hunter agreed that it was appropriate. They painted her new name on the sides of her wheel boxes in Steamboat Gothic lettering 10 feet tall: Proud Mary.
They had done their best to keep Proud Mary’s appearance original. Now that the boilers were gone, the starboard smokestack carried the diesel exhaust – its mate was strictly for decoration. The steam whistle operated on compressed air these days – they had gone to a lot of trouble to make it sound the way it always had. The striped awning canvas was a pattern that Hunter remembered from his time as a youthful crew member before World War II. The Carpenter Gothic gingerbread and the fluted columns that held up the balconies were actually painted fiberglass, but looked pretty good.
All in all, they had done a good job. There had been some lean times, but the business had finally taken off. Hunter and Greg sold their towboat and retired the mortgage.
It was a family operation. Greg’s wife Cheryl came on as book keeper and business manager. Their three children – Josh, Anne and Jim – grew up on board. Now that they were full grown, they were crew.
The engine room was Anne’s bailiwick. She had been 16 years old when the engine came due for its 40,000 hour rebuild, and she had insisted on helping. The diesel mechanics had been amused, and a little patronizing – isn’t that cute – but she was the owner’s daughter, so they had to put up with her.
She had surprised them, and earned their respect. Anne had done her homework and read the manuals. She asked intelligent questions and listened carefully to the answers. She pitched right in and got dirty with the rest of them. The men had given her a “Cat Hat” at the end of the job – a black ball cap with the white-and-yellow CAT logo on the front. She hadn’t been a journeyman diesel mechanic – not yet – but she had been well on her way to becoming one, and they all knew it.
***
Fun was probably out of reach tonight, Anne thought as she climbed the stairs. She had broken up with her boyfriend just two weeks before, far too late to get another date. She would have blown the prom off, but Mom had insisted she go. It would be her last opportunity – Anne was a senior, and would graduate from River City High this spring.
Her grandfather was waiting for her at the top of the stairs. Hunter was retired – he was crowding 80, after all – but he still made an appearance on board during dinner cruises. He was dressed as an old-time steamboat captain, with a neatly trimmed General Lee beard, scrambled eggs on the bill of his captain’s hat, and four gold rings on the cuffs of his navy frock coat. But like Josh and Jim’s outfits, that was strictly for the passengers. Anne’s father, the real captain, was in the pilot house – he wore khaki work clothes, shades and a long-billed cap that advertised a boatyard in Shreveport.
“Look at you!” Grandpa said. “You’re beautiful!” He chuckled. “Must have got it from your ma or your grandma – it sure didn’t come from me. Knock ‘em dead, sweetheart!”
“Thanks, Grandpa,” Anne said, hugging him. His beard tickled her cheek. “See ya later.”
I should have blown it off, Anne thought after a while. She felt like a fifth wheel – a single in a crowd of couples. Worst of all was the sneers and the hurtful laughter from the group of “popular” kids at one of the big corner tables, the ones who considered Anne and others like her to be their social inferiors.
Every high school has a Jamie Lee. She was the center of that group, and the acknowledged leader – head cheerleader, homecoming queen, prom queen, student council, voted most likely, etc. etc. She had long blonde hair, fair skin and bright blue eyes. Her slender, elegant form was clad in a designer evening dress from Paris – her family had plenty of money – it exactly matched the color of her eyes. She wore strappy high-heel sandals without stockings and her mother’s jewelry – the jewelry was worth as much as a small car. Her boyfriend was Jeremy Welch, the captain of the football team, but she would leave him behind in due course. Next year, she would start hunting an aspiring future doctor or lawyer of “good” family at Ole Miss.
Jamie’s father had hired the boat for his daughter’s prom, and she hadn’t let anyone forget it. She treated the crew and the caterers as “the help”. Anne worked for a living. She didn’t have time to be a social butterfly like Jamie, even if she were so inclined. She detested the girl. The feeling was mutual.
“Hey Scotty!” Jamie called out as Anne passed their table. “When are y’all gonna put this tub in warp drive?”
“Probably low on dilithium crystals,” Jeremy said.
“Nah,” said Jamie. “They ought to have plenty – Daddy paid enough for this cruise. Probably Scotty’s fault – you know…” (and here, her voice shifted to a horrible imitation of a bad Scots accent) “…I’m givin’ ye all I’ve got, Cap’n! Enna morre, an’ she’ll blow!”
They all laughed. The sound was like wolves baying.
That was enough for Anne. She looked in on Mom, who was supervising the caterers, then went up a flight of stairs and took a walk around the balcony on the Texas deck.
Josh found her leaning on the aft rail and gazing into the wake. The live band had just started to play. “Come on, sis,” he said. “Don’t be so glum. Come dance with me. Listen – they’re playing our song.”
Left a good job in the city,
Workin’ for the Man every night and day,
But I never lost a minute of sleepin’
Worryin’ ‘bout the way things might have been –
Anne laughed. “OK, Josh, I’ll dance with you,” she said.. The band was pretty good – Jamie had seen to that – and the song was appropriate: They walked onto the dance floor hand-in-hand.
Cleaned a lot of plates in Memphis,
Pumped a lot of pain down in New Orleans,
But I never saw the good side of a city
‘Til I hitched a ride on the riverboat queen –
He was a good dancer. She even cheered up a little – Josh could charm the birds down out of the trees, and he jollied her along. No one could stay grumpy for long around Josh.
If you come down to the River,
Bet you're gonna find some people who live –
You don't have to worry ‘cause you have no money,
People on the river are happy to give –
Someone jostled her from behind – Jamie. “Hey, Scotty,” Jamie said, “That’s pitiful – dancing with your brother. Where’s your boyfriend? Did he get tired of the diesel fuel perfume and the grease under your fingernails?”
Big wheel keep on turnin’,
Proud Mary keep on burnin’,
Rollin’, rollin’,
Rollin’ on the river.
That had been part of the problem, thought Josh – but by no means all. Anne’s shitweasel ex-boyfriend didn’t know what he had – Anne was worth ten of him. But Anne burst into tears and ran off the dance floor.
“What’s the matter with your sister, Kincaid?” Jeremy asked. “No sense of humor?”
“Blow it out your ass!” Josh snarled, and went after her. The spoiled rich girl had called her Scotty… No. A young McAndrew, perhaps.
The former boiler room on the main deck had been divided into three spaces. The first was the boat's business office. The second, much larger, was a storage room – it held rolls of striped canvas that would eventually be sewn into a new awning for the hurricane deck. The third was the boat's original engineering workshop, now walled off from the rest of the space. Its big double door opened aft onto the transverse passageway that separated it from the engine room.
Josh rapped on the closed workshop door.
“Just a minute,” Anne called.
A moment later, she opened the door. She was in her checkered shirt and overalls now. Her Cat Hat, bill turned resolutely forward, perched on her bound-up hair. Her discarded dress and nylons were draped over an exposed overhead electrical conduit like shed snakeskins.
“Come on, sis,” Josh said. “Don’t let that bitch get to you like that.”
“It’s OK, Josh,” she said. She had stopped crying, though her cheeks were still wet. “I didn’t really want to go to the prom anyway.”
He hesitated.
“Go on – get outa here,” she said. “I’m OK – really. I’m gonna go check on my engine.”
He left – he had work to do. Anne crossed the passageway and went aft through the engine room door, down the six steel steps to the deck plates. The throttle, the reversing and clutch controls, and a complete set of repeater engine gauges were in the pilot house. Her father could run the boat by himself if absolutely necessary – there was really no need for Anne to stay here. But this was her place. No one could humiliate her here.
The diesel was smaller than the steam engine it had replaced, but “smaller” is a relative term. The big V-12 was about the size of a Tradesman van. Anne made her quick checks, scrolled through the data on the engine controller, updated the engine log book, and then stood at ease next to the big Cat.
Anne balanced on spread legs, hand resting lightly on a valve wheel. Her grandfather stood that way too, old habit from his Navy days. He had been secretly amused to see her that way – unlike his World War II destroyer, the riverboat wasn’t likely to roll and toss her into the machinery. But he had held his tongue. She was a good girl, very much like his Mary, gone to God these five years past.
Anne was listening for any hints of trouble, eyes unfocused and half closed. Her mind was in a zen state – the sense of the engine as an extension of herself, of knowing where every part of the engine was, and what it was doing, like she knew those things about the parts of her body.
It was a feeling of joyful, boundless, tireless power. Rudyard Kipling had captured the essence of it, as he had so many other things:
From coupler-flange to spindle-guide I see Thy Hand, O God –
Predestination in the stride o’ yon connectin’-rod.
Something bright came flying in through the engine room air intake. It blurred across her field of vision, spanged off the side of the engine and hit the floor in a shower of sparks. Anne cursed, stamped them out, picked up the offending object. A cigarette butt!
She ran up the steps, into the passageway and onto the deck. There – on the starboard gangway, near the wheel box – a passenger, a young woman dressed in blue, was looking into the store room.
“Hey!” Anne called. “This deck is off limits to passengers – you’ve got no business being here.”
Jamie turned around to face her. “Are you talking to me?”
“Did you come down here to sneak a cigarette? Is this yours?” Anne asked, holding up the cigarette butt.
“What if it is?” Jamie asked, not really caring about the answer.
Anne took hold of her temper with both hands and held on tight. “You threw a lit cigarette into my engine room,” she said. “You could have caused a fire. That was pretty foolish.”
“Oh, lighten up, Scotty,” Jamie said disdainfully. “You’ve got an extinguisher, don’t you? And insurance on this tub?”
Anne lost it. She grabbed Jamie by the hair, twisted it around her hand and yanked the girl off balance. Jamie yelped and tried to get loose, but Anne pulled her stumbling backward through the open storeroom door. Jamie’s heel caught on a half-finished awning – she lost the shoe, tripped and fell backward onto the canvas.
Anne was a lot stronger than she looked. She grabbed the edge of the canvas, flipped it over Jamie and rolled the girl. Jamie ended up rolled in the canvas with just her head and feet sticking out. Anne secured the roll with edge-binding tape at shoulders, waist, knees and ankles, ignoring Jamie’s struggles and shouted protests. She was by no means gentle.
Rudeness is still an unforgivable sin in the South. This incident was the culmination of years of rude behavior. The bitch was gonna get it.
Anne kicked the door shut and waited until Jamie wound down. The girl was becoming a little frightened now. “I’m sorry I threw that cigarette butt, Sco – …Anne,” she corrected herself in a small voice. “Please, turn me loose.”
In response, Anne pulled Jamie’s other shoe off and tossed it over next to the first, near the door.
“What are you doing, Anne?” Jamie asked in a panicky voice. Wordlessly, Anne sat at Jamie’s feet and secured the girl’s ankles in a leg lock.. She traced a figure-eight on one bare sole. “Hehehehe!” Jamie giggled. Her toes twitched and curled.
Horrified realization came to her. “OH SHIT! NOOOO! NOT THAT! HAHAHAHA-HAHAHA-HAHAHAHA!” she laughed as Anne’s tickling fingers danced over her ticklish soles.
Anne flicked and scratched Jamie’s soles, traced tickling shapes in her arches, scrabbled her nails on the ticklish heels. Jamie’s feet were baby smooth, newly pedicured the day before the prom – it tickled far worse than she could have imagined. She arched her back and laughed at the top of her lungs.
Anne kept it up, fingers flying. She scratched and scrabbled the heels, the arches, the soles while Jamie laughed and laughed. She threaded twine between Jamie’s toes and pulled it back and forth, tickling between each pair and forcing more bursts of helpless laughter. She held Jamie’s toes back and tickled the soft skin underneath, and Jamie’s laughter went off the scale. Anne had found the place where Jamie’s feet were insanely, unbearably ticklish.
Anne was no stranger to tickling. She held Jamie on the edge, never letting her zone out, until Jamie thought the tickling would drive her crazy. Anne always let her catch enough breath to laugh, but never enough to yell for help. And who would hear her anyway, down here? Jamie laughed her head off, helplessly, hopelessly, tears of laughter streaming down her cheeks. It went on for what seemed like forever.
The door opened. “Jeez Louise, sis!” Jim said. “Take it easy – you’re gonna kill her.”
“Good!” Anne snarled. “You can have some of this if you want – my fingers are getting tired.” She kept on tickling. Jamie laughed like mad.
Jim shook his head and left, returning a few minutes later with Josh.
“Got her rolled up pretty good, don’t you, sis?” Josh said quietly. “Rollin’ on the river for sure.”
Anne said nothing. She kept tickling Jamie. Jamie’s laughter had a desperate edge by now – Anne had tickled her to the limit of her endurance, and maybe a little beyond.
“Chill, sis,” Josh said gently. “Enough. You’ve punished her enough.”
Anne held Jamie’s toes back again with one hand and put on a burst of speed with the other, tickling back and forth under all ten toes. Jamie lost it and laughed herself breathless.
Anne stood and walked out the door. She stumbled over Jamie’s shoes, angrily kicked them over the side, and went to lean on the starboard rail. She was still furiously angry.
Josh and Jim released Jamie. The girl was a mess – sweaty, short of breath, hair in tangles, her dress a mass of wrinkles. Her abs and ribs ached from laughing.
“You’ve had this coming for a long time, Jamie,” Josh said. “Go back to your friends. Leave Anne alone. If you don’t, you’re gonna get hurt.”
“We’ll see about that!” she yelled, and stormed out. It’s hard to stomp in bare feet, but she tried.
Josh hugged his sister from behind – she sighed – and went back to work, taking Jim with him.
But it wasn’t over. Jim heard angry female shouts on the main deck five minutes later, and ran down the stairs from the Texas deck to investigate.
Jamie had gotten up a posse of her sycophants and come back. She and Anne were in each other’s faces, shouting, fists balled up. It was headed toward a fistfight, and there were three couples against Anne.
“HEY RUBE!” Jim yelled.
Jamie swung and missed. Jeremy grabbed Anne’s arm. Jim stepped in close and cold-cocked Jeremy with a right cross to the jaw. Jeremy went down hard and laid unmoving on the deck, out cold.
Jim rubbed his knuckles. “Anybody else want a piece of the Kincaids?” he asked in a curiously gentle voice. Josh came pounding up behind him at a run and stood ready at his side. “Looks a little different now that it’s a fair fight, doesen’t it?”
Jeremy’s two buddies shifted uneasily. The three girls stood behind them in a tight little group, shocked silent.
“Go on – light a shuck, and take this peckerwood with you,” Jim said, poking Jeremy with the toe of his boot. “If I see y’all again before we dock, all of y’all are going over the side.”
Jim liked to fight – and he was good at it. He had dropped a load of whup-ass on guys bigger and tougher than these two. He faced them down. And so it ended – for the time being.
The whole family was gathered outside the riverboat’s office the next day, getting ready for a Sunday afternoon tourist cruise, when the sheriff came calling.
“Coffee, Sheriff?” Anne’s mother offered. “What can we do for you?”
“I had two complaints filed at my office today,” he said. “One alleges that Anne held Jamie Lee against her will and tortured her; the other, that Jim assaulted Jeremy Welch. I suspect there’s another side to the story. What do y’all have to say for yourselves?”
They told him the story from the beginning. It was simple enough – Jamie richly deserved the treatment she had gotten, had brought it on herself. And anyway, it wasn’t torture – Anne didn’t leave a mark on Jamie, just tickled her, nothing more. Jeremy had laid a hand on Anne, Jim had stood up for his sister, and Josh had backed him up. They were unrepentant.
There was more. Jim had bruised knuckles and a cut over one eye – Jeremy and his two running buddies had jumped him today, looking for payback. Jim had given all three a set of lumps for their trouble. He was unapologetic about that too.
“I… see,” the sheriff said thoughtfully. “Jim, do you want to press charges against them?”
“No, sir,” Jim replied. He grinned. “I kicked their butts pretty good. The justice system is supposed to deter crime, isn’t it? I think they’re deterred.”
The sheriff sighed. “OK, have it your way, Jim. As for the rest, the law grants the crew of a vessel under way broad freedom of action to safeguard the passengers, the crew and the vessel itself. Jamie endangered everyone – she could easily have caused a fire. Jeremy interfered with a crew member when he grabbed Anne. That’s how I’ll write this up. The DA won’t bother with either case – as far as I’m concerned, that’s the end of it.”
He looked at them sternly. “But – don’t ever do anything like this again. Y’hear?”
“Yes, sir,” they chorused.
He stood to leave. “Thanks for the coffee, ma’am. Y’all have a good’un.”
“Well, that’s that,” Dad said. “Y’all got away with it – again. Anne, what possessed you to tickle that girl? I’ve never understood why you and your brothers are so into tickling.”
Grandpa spoke up for the first time. “Your mother was like that too, when she was young. It skipped a generation with you, son, but your kids came by it honestly.”
“Well, at least it’s over now,” he replied.
“Think again,” his wife said. “Jim got in another fight over it this morning. I know that y’all have done things like this before. It always got passed off as high spirits and harmless pranks. But y’all went too far this time.”
“Ummm… You’re right, Cheryl,” he said. “Those kids aren’t going to forget this incident. Neither are their parents. Looks like we’re burned in this town. We all have to decide what to do next.”
“I’ve wanted to move on ever since your mother died,” Grandpa said. “All we need is enough water to float our boat. When Anne graduates from high school, let’s find us another place.”
And so they did – but that’s another story.
***THE END***
Afterword…
These days, we tend to think of riverboats as a Southern institution. But riverboats ran on all of America’s navigable rivers. They hung on longer in the South and West, in some cases well into the 20th Century, because the distances are longer and the transportation alternatives fewer.
Stability wasn’t an issue – riverboats didn’t have to deal with ocean swells – so the superstructure could be built up like a wedding cake. But vessels on “unimproved” rivers had to have shallow draft – 4 to 6 feet at most – or they would have run aground pretty often.
Paddle wheels are mechanically inefficient, but they do have advantages. Unlike paddle wheels, a propeller needs minimum submergence to operate properly, which would have increased the vessel’s draft. Furthermore, paddle wheels are tolerant of large floating debris – logs, for instance – that would destroy a propeller. And in case of an accidental grounding, paddle wheels will walk right over a sand bar and come to no harm.
Those things haven’t mattered much for the past 70 years or so. The Corps of Engineers has kept the rivers dredged out for towboat and barge traffic since the 1930’s. But they were once of vital importance, and that’s why riverboats look the way they do.
Diesels have displaced steam on the rivers, just as they have on the railroads. It had to happen – boilers and steam engines cost too much to operate. But it’s a shame anyway. There’s nothing quite like the smell of hot lube oil and coal smoke, the steam in the air, the stately dance of gleaming metal, feeling the stamp and pound of the engine through the vibration in the deck plates. The lines of poetry in the story are from Rudyard Kipling’s “McAndrew’s Hymn” – see the rest of the poem here: http://home.pacifier.com/~rboggs/KIPLING.HTML
As always, constructive criticism is encouraged and welcome. Hope you enjoyed the story.
Strelnikov
Copyright 2003 by the author
The carousel in Chattanooga’s Riverside Park plays “Proud Mary”. The tune got stuck in my head, so I wrote this story to exorcise it. The stars are Anne Kincaid and her sibs, who first appeared in Tickle Street Chapter 12 – “Con Artist”. The intent was to create a Southern mood piece.
However, as often happens, the characters took it in a direction all their own. I held off from posting it because it came out a good bit darker than the usual run of my stories. My sense now is that it’s a cross between “Carrie” and “The Sand Pebbles”. Hope you enjoy it.
Anne Kincaid keyed the walkie-talkie and said, “OK, Daddy, we’ve cast off.” Her father double-clicked his radio in acknowledgement. With two long blasts of her whistle and a thrashing of her 36-foot paddle wheels, the riverboat backed away from her dock and into the river current.
The occasion was a dinner-and-dance cruise on the river for the River City High School prom. The boat was small as riverboats go, but River City, Mississippi was a small town with a small high school. She was plenty big enough for the prom.
Anne was a lovely young woman with light-brown hair that fell past her shoulders, long dark lashes and dazzling hazel eyes. Spring comes early in Mississippi – she was already starting to acquire a tan. She wore a bright red prom dress that displayed her shapely body to good advantage, pearls, a corsage and heels. It was a far cry from her usual working attire on board – blue-and-white pinstripe overalls and Casey Jones hat, and a collarless checkered shirt.
But Anne had tonight off. This was prom night.
As usual on board, her two brothers were dressed like old-time riverboat crewmen – collarless pillow-ticking shirts, unbleached canvas trousers, cloth caps. The clothing wasn’t the best choice to work in, but it was part of the ambience they were selling.
“We’ll handle the rest of this,” her younger brother Jim said.
“Go to your prom, sis,” said Josh, her elder by two years. “Have fun.”
“Thanks, guys. I’ll try,” she replied, and headed up the wide staircase from the main deck to the passenger deck.
***
The main deck of a riverboat is for cargo and propulsion machinery. The enclosed passenger deck above was set up as a buffet restaurant. Above that, the Texas deck held tables surrounding a dance floor – a balcony-like walkway with deck chairs went all the way around it. The highest deck was the open, awning-covered hurricane deck, aft of the pilot house and the tall black smokestacks.
The old riverboat had started life as the sidewheel steamer Choctaw before World War I, carrying local passengers and freight. Motor vehicles and better roads had eventually put her out of business. In 1950, as the General Forrest, she had started a new career carrying tourists on day trips. A generation later, the Arab Oil Embargo and the Nixon Recession had put an end to that too. She spent years tied up at her dock, slowly rusting away.
Anne’s grandfather Hunter Kincaid had crewed on the Choctaw as a young man, before and after his U. S. Navy service in World War II. Later, he had gone into the towboat business – first as crew, then as master and pilot, finally as owner of Kincaid and Son Navigation Company. But around the time of Anne’s birth, he had gotten tired of the travel and the time away from family. His son Greg, Anne’s father, felt the same way. They mortgaged their towboat, bought the old paddle steamer and set to work restoring her for the day trip and dinner cruise trade.
Fortunately, both men were world-class scroungers. They replaced the electrical system, added automatic fire sprinklers, and installed central air conditioning with equipment from a closed rural hospital and a factory put out of business by NAFTA. The steam tables and furniture for the buffet restaurant came from a bankrupt hotel. The original scotch marine boilers and steam engine were beyond repair, but they had gotten lucky there too. The propulsion machinery came from a wrecked towboat – a turbocharged Caterpillar 3512 marine diesel drove the big wheels now, through a reversing reduction gearbox.
Hunter had wanted to name her Mary Kincaid after his wife. Greg had a better idea, and after some consideration, Hunter agreed that it was appropriate. They painted her new name on the sides of her wheel boxes in Steamboat Gothic lettering 10 feet tall: Proud Mary.
They had done their best to keep Proud Mary’s appearance original. Now that the boilers were gone, the starboard smokestack carried the diesel exhaust – its mate was strictly for decoration. The steam whistle operated on compressed air these days – they had gone to a lot of trouble to make it sound the way it always had. The striped awning canvas was a pattern that Hunter remembered from his time as a youthful crew member before World War II. The Carpenter Gothic gingerbread and the fluted columns that held up the balconies were actually painted fiberglass, but looked pretty good.
All in all, they had done a good job. There had been some lean times, but the business had finally taken off. Hunter and Greg sold their towboat and retired the mortgage.
It was a family operation. Greg’s wife Cheryl came on as book keeper and business manager. Their three children – Josh, Anne and Jim – grew up on board. Now that they were full grown, they were crew.
The engine room was Anne’s bailiwick. She had been 16 years old when the engine came due for its 40,000 hour rebuild, and she had insisted on helping. The diesel mechanics had been amused, and a little patronizing – isn’t that cute – but she was the owner’s daughter, so they had to put up with her.
She had surprised them, and earned their respect. Anne had done her homework and read the manuals. She asked intelligent questions and listened carefully to the answers. She pitched right in and got dirty with the rest of them. The men had given her a “Cat Hat” at the end of the job – a black ball cap with the white-and-yellow CAT logo on the front. She hadn’t been a journeyman diesel mechanic – not yet – but she had been well on her way to becoming one, and they all knew it.
***
Fun was probably out of reach tonight, Anne thought as she climbed the stairs. She had broken up with her boyfriend just two weeks before, far too late to get another date. She would have blown the prom off, but Mom had insisted she go. It would be her last opportunity – Anne was a senior, and would graduate from River City High this spring.
Her grandfather was waiting for her at the top of the stairs. Hunter was retired – he was crowding 80, after all – but he still made an appearance on board during dinner cruises. He was dressed as an old-time steamboat captain, with a neatly trimmed General Lee beard, scrambled eggs on the bill of his captain’s hat, and four gold rings on the cuffs of his navy frock coat. But like Josh and Jim’s outfits, that was strictly for the passengers. Anne’s father, the real captain, was in the pilot house – he wore khaki work clothes, shades and a long-billed cap that advertised a boatyard in Shreveport.
“Look at you!” Grandpa said. “You’re beautiful!” He chuckled. “Must have got it from your ma or your grandma – it sure didn’t come from me. Knock ‘em dead, sweetheart!”
“Thanks, Grandpa,” Anne said, hugging him. His beard tickled her cheek. “See ya later.”
I should have blown it off, Anne thought after a while. She felt like a fifth wheel – a single in a crowd of couples. Worst of all was the sneers and the hurtful laughter from the group of “popular” kids at one of the big corner tables, the ones who considered Anne and others like her to be their social inferiors.
Every high school has a Jamie Lee. She was the center of that group, and the acknowledged leader – head cheerleader, homecoming queen, prom queen, student council, voted most likely, etc. etc. She had long blonde hair, fair skin and bright blue eyes. Her slender, elegant form was clad in a designer evening dress from Paris – her family had plenty of money – it exactly matched the color of her eyes. She wore strappy high-heel sandals without stockings and her mother’s jewelry – the jewelry was worth as much as a small car. Her boyfriend was Jeremy Welch, the captain of the football team, but she would leave him behind in due course. Next year, she would start hunting an aspiring future doctor or lawyer of “good” family at Ole Miss.
Jamie’s father had hired the boat for his daughter’s prom, and she hadn’t let anyone forget it. She treated the crew and the caterers as “the help”. Anne worked for a living. She didn’t have time to be a social butterfly like Jamie, even if she were so inclined. She detested the girl. The feeling was mutual.
“Hey Scotty!” Jamie called out as Anne passed their table. “When are y’all gonna put this tub in warp drive?”
“Probably low on dilithium crystals,” Jeremy said.
“Nah,” said Jamie. “They ought to have plenty – Daddy paid enough for this cruise. Probably Scotty’s fault – you know…” (and here, her voice shifted to a horrible imitation of a bad Scots accent) “…I’m givin’ ye all I’ve got, Cap’n! Enna morre, an’ she’ll blow!”
They all laughed. The sound was like wolves baying.
That was enough for Anne. She looked in on Mom, who was supervising the caterers, then went up a flight of stairs and took a walk around the balcony on the Texas deck.
Josh found her leaning on the aft rail and gazing into the wake. The live band had just started to play. “Come on, sis,” he said. “Don’t be so glum. Come dance with me. Listen – they’re playing our song.”
Left a good job in the city,
Workin’ for the Man every night and day,
But I never lost a minute of sleepin’
Worryin’ ‘bout the way things might have been –
Anne laughed. “OK, Josh, I’ll dance with you,” she said.. The band was pretty good – Jamie had seen to that – and the song was appropriate: They walked onto the dance floor hand-in-hand.
Cleaned a lot of plates in Memphis,
Pumped a lot of pain down in New Orleans,
But I never saw the good side of a city
‘Til I hitched a ride on the riverboat queen –
He was a good dancer. She even cheered up a little – Josh could charm the birds down out of the trees, and he jollied her along. No one could stay grumpy for long around Josh.
If you come down to the River,
Bet you're gonna find some people who live –
You don't have to worry ‘cause you have no money,
People on the river are happy to give –
Someone jostled her from behind – Jamie. “Hey, Scotty,” Jamie said, “That’s pitiful – dancing with your brother. Where’s your boyfriend? Did he get tired of the diesel fuel perfume and the grease under your fingernails?”
Big wheel keep on turnin’,
Proud Mary keep on burnin’,
Rollin’, rollin’,
Rollin’ on the river.
That had been part of the problem, thought Josh – but by no means all. Anne’s shitweasel ex-boyfriend didn’t know what he had – Anne was worth ten of him. But Anne burst into tears and ran off the dance floor.
“What’s the matter with your sister, Kincaid?” Jeremy asked. “No sense of humor?”
“Blow it out your ass!” Josh snarled, and went after her. The spoiled rich girl had called her Scotty… No. A young McAndrew, perhaps.
The former boiler room on the main deck had been divided into three spaces. The first was the boat's business office. The second, much larger, was a storage room – it held rolls of striped canvas that would eventually be sewn into a new awning for the hurricane deck. The third was the boat's original engineering workshop, now walled off from the rest of the space. Its big double door opened aft onto the transverse passageway that separated it from the engine room.
Josh rapped on the closed workshop door.
“Just a minute,” Anne called.
A moment later, she opened the door. She was in her checkered shirt and overalls now. Her Cat Hat, bill turned resolutely forward, perched on her bound-up hair. Her discarded dress and nylons were draped over an exposed overhead electrical conduit like shed snakeskins.
“Come on, sis,” Josh said. “Don’t let that bitch get to you like that.”
“It’s OK, Josh,” she said. She had stopped crying, though her cheeks were still wet. “I didn’t really want to go to the prom anyway.”
He hesitated.
“Go on – get outa here,” she said. “I’m OK – really. I’m gonna go check on my engine.”
He left – he had work to do. Anne crossed the passageway and went aft through the engine room door, down the six steel steps to the deck plates. The throttle, the reversing and clutch controls, and a complete set of repeater engine gauges were in the pilot house. Her father could run the boat by himself if absolutely necessary – there was really no need for Anne to stay here. But this was her place. No one could humiliate her here.
The diesel was smaller than the steam engine it had replaced, but “smaller” is a relative term. The big V-12 was about the size of a Tradesman van. Anne made her quick checks, scrolled through the data on the engine controller, updated the engine log book, and then stood at ease next to the big Cat.
Anne balanced on spread legs, hand resting lightly on a valve wheel. Her grandfather stood that way too, old habit from his Navy days. He had been secretly amused to see her that way – unlike his World War II destroyer, the riverboat wasn’t likely to roll and toss her into the machinery. But he had held his tongue. She was a good girl, very much like his Mary, gone to God these five years past.
Anne was listening for any hints of trouble, eyes unfocused and half closed. Her mind was in a zen state – the sense of the engine as an extension of herself, of knowing where every part of the engine was, and what it was doing, like she knew those things about the parts of her body.
It was a feeling of joyful, boundless, tireless power. Rudyard Kipling had captured the essence of it, as he had so many other things:
From coupler-flange to spindle-guide I see Thy Hand, O God –
Predestination in the stride o’ yon connectin’-rod.
Something bright came flying in through the engine room air intake. It blurred across her field of vision, spanged off the side of the engine and hit the floor in a shower of sparks. Anne cursed, stamped them out, picked up the offending object. A cigarette butt!
She ran up the steps, into the passageway and onto the deck. There – on the starboard gangway, near the wheel box – a passenger, a young woman dressed in blue, was looking into the store room.
“Hey!” Anne called. “This deck is off limits to passengers – you’ve got no business being here.”
Jamie turned around to face her. “Are you talking to me?”
“Did you come down here to sneak a cigarette? Is this yours?” Anne asked, holding up the cigarette butt.
“What if it is?” Jamie asked, not really caring about the answer.
Anne took hold of her temper with both hands and held on tight. “You threw a lit cigarette into my engine room,” she said. “You could have caused a fire. That was pretty foolish.”
“Oh, lighten up, Scotty,” Jamie said disdainfully. “You’ve got an extinguisher, don’t you? And insurance on this tub?”
Anne lost it. She grabbed Jamie by the hair, twisted it around her hand and yanked the girl off balance. Jamie yelped and tried to get loose, but Anne pulled her stumbling backward through the open storeroom door. Jamie’s heel caught on a half-finished awning – she lost the shoe, tripped and fell backward onto the canvas.
Anne was a lot stronger than she looked. She grabbed the edge of the canvas, flipped it over Jamie and rolled the girl. Jamie ended up rolled in the canvas with just her head and feet sticking out. Anne secured the roll with edge-binding tape at shoulders, waist, knees and ankles, ignoring Jamie’s struggles and shouted protests. She was by no means gentle.
Rudeness is still an unforgivable sin in the South. This incident was the culmination of years of rude behavior. The bitch was gonna get it.
Anne kicked the door shut and waited until Jamie wound down. The girl was becoming a little frightened now. “I’m sorry I threw that cigarette butt, Sco – …Anne,” she corrected herself in a small voice. “Please, turn me loose.”
In response, Anne pulled Jamie’s other shoe off and tossed it over next to the first, near the door.
“What are you doing, Anne?” Jamie asked in a panicky voice. Wordlessly, Anne sat at Jamie’s feet and secured the girl’s ankles in a leg lock.. She traced a figure-eight on one bare sole. “Hehehehe!” Jamie giggled. Her toes twitched and curled.
Horrified realization came to her. “OH SHIT! NOOOO! NOT THAT! HAHAHAHA-HAHAHA-HAHAHAHA!” she laughed as Anne’s tickling fingers danced over her ticklish soles.
Anne flicked and scratched Jamie’s soles, traced tickling shapes in her arches, scrabbled her nails on the ticklish heels. Jamie’s feet were baby smooth, newly pedicured the day before the prom – it tickled far worse than she could have imagined. She arched her back and laughed at the top of her lungs.
Anne kept it up, fingers flying. She scratched and scrabbled the heels, the arches, the soles while Jamie laughed and laughed. She threaded twine between Jamie’s toes and pulled it back and forth, tickling between each pair and forcing more bursts of helpless laughter. She held Jamie’s toes back and tickled the soft skin underneath, and Jamie’s laughter went off the scale. Anne had found the place where Jamie’s feet were insanely, unbearably ticklish.
Anne was no stranger to tickling. She held Jamie on the edge, never letting her zone out, until Jamie thought the tickling would drive her crazy. Anne always let her catch enough breath to laugh, but never enough to yell for help. And who would hear her anyway, down here? Jamie laughed her head off, helplessly, hopelessly, tears of laughter streaming down her cheeks. It went on for what seemed like forever.
The door opened. “Jeez Louise, sis!” Jim said. “Take it easy – you’re gonna kill her.”
“Good!” Anne snarled. “You can have some of this if you want – my fingers are getting tired.” She kept on tickling. Jamie laughed like mad.
Jim shook his head and left, returning a few minutes later with Josh.
“Got her rolled up pretty good, don’t you, sis?” Josh said quietly. “Rollin’ on the river for sure.”
Anne said nothing. She kept tickling Jamie. Jamie’s laughter had a desperate edge by now – Anne had tickled her to the limit of her endurance, and maybe a little beyond.
“Chill, sis,” Josh said gently. “Enough. You’ve punished her enough.”
Anne held Jamie’s toes back again with one hand and put on a burst of speed with the other, tickling back and forth under all ten toes. Jamie lost it and laughed herself breathless.
Anne stood and walked out the door. She stumbled over Jamie’s shoes, angrily kicked them over the side, and went to lean on the starboard rail. She was still furiously angry.
Josh and Jim released Jamie. The girl was a mess – sweaty, short of breath, hair in tangles, her dress a mass of wrinkles. Her abs and ribs ached from laughing.
“You’ve had this coming for a long time, Jamie,” Josh said. “Go back to your friends. Leave Anne alone. If you don’t, you’re gonna get hurt.”
“We’ll see about that!” she yelled, and stormed out. It’s hard to stomp in bare feet, but she tried.
Josh hugged his sister from behind – she sighed – and went back to work, taking Jim with him.
But it wasn’t over. Jim heard angry female shouts on the main deck five minutes later, and ran down the stairs from the Texas deck to investigate.
Jamie had gotten up a posse of her sycophants and come back. She and Anne were in each other’s faces, shouting, fists balled up. It was headed toward a fistfight, and there were three couples against Anne.
“HEY RUBE!” Jim yelled.
Jamie swung and missed. Jeremy grabbed Anne’s arm. Jim stepped in close and cold-cocked Jeremy with a right cross to the jaw. Jeremy went down hard and laid unmoving on the deck, out cold.
Jim rubbed his knuckles. “Anybody else want a piece of the Kincaids?” he asked in a curiously gentle voice. Josh came pounding up behind him at a run and stood ready at his side. “Looks a little different now that it’s a fair fight, doesen’t it?”
Jeremy’s two buddies shifted uneasily. The three girls stood behind them in a tight little group, shocked silent.
“Go on – light a shuck, and take this peckerwood with you,” Jim said, poking Jeremy with the toe of his boot. “If I see y’all again before we dock, all of y’all are going over the side.”
Jim liked to fight – and he was good at it. He had dropped a load of whup-ass on guys bigger and tougher than these two. He faced them down. And so it ended – for the time being.
The whole family was gathered outside the riverboat’s office the next day, getting ready for a Sunday afternoon tourist cruise, when the sheriff came calling.
“Coffee, Sheriff?” Anne’s mother offered. “What can we do for you?”
“I had two complaints filed at my office today,” he said. “One alleges that Anne held Jamie Lee against her will and tortured her; the other, that Jim assaulted Jeremy Welch. I suspect there’s another side to the story. What do y’all have to say for yourselves?”
They told him the story from the beginning. It was simple enough – Jamie richly deserved the treatment she had gotten, had brought it on herself. And anyway, it wasn’t torture – Anne didn’t leave a mark on Jamie, just tickled her, nothing more. Jeremy had laid a hand on Anne, Jim had stood up for his sister, and Josh had backed him up. They were unrepentant.
There was more. Jim had bruised knuckles and a cut over one eye – Jeremy and his two running buddies had jumped him today, looking for payback. Jim had given all three a set of lumps for their trouble. He was unapologetic about that too.
“I… see,” the sheriff said thoughtfully. “Jim, do you want to press charges against them?”
“No, sir,” Jim replied. He grinned. “I kicked their butts pretty good. The justice system is supposed to deter crime, isn’t it? I think they’re deterred.”
The sheriff sighed. “OK, have it your way, Jim. As for the rest, the law grants the crew of a vessel under way broad freedom of action to safeguard the passengers, the crew and the vessel itself. Jamie endangered everyone – she could easily have caused a fire. Jeremy interfered with a crew member when he grabbed Anne. That’s how I’ll write this up. The DA won’t bother with either case – as far as I’m concerned, that’s the end of it.”
He looked at them sternly. “But – don’t ever do anything like this again. Y’hear?”
“Yes, sir,” they chorused.
He stood to leave. “Thanks for the coffee, ma’am. Y’all have a good’un.”
“Well, that’s that,” Dad said. “Y’all got away with it – again. Anne, what possessed you to tickle that girl? I’ve never understood why you and your brothers are so into tickling.”
Grandpa spoke up for the first time. “Your mother was like that too, when she was young. It skipped a generation with you, son, but your kids came by it honestly.”
“Well, at least it’s over now,” he replied.
“Think again,” his wife said. “Jim got in another fight over it this morning. I know that y’all have done things like this before. It always got passed off as high spirits and harmless pranks. But y’all went too far this time.”
“Ummm… You’re right, Cheryl,” he said. “Those kids aren’t going to forget this incident. Neither are their parents. Looks like we’re burned in this town. We all have to decide what to do next.”
“I’ve wanted to move on ever since your mother died,” Grandpa said. “All we need is enough water to float our boat. When Anne graduates from high school, let’s find us another place.”
And so they did – but that’s another story.
***THE END***
Afterword…
These days, we tend to think of riverboats as a Southern institution. But riverboats ran on all of America’s navigable rivers. They hung on longer in the South and West, in some cases well into the 20th Century, because the distances are longer and the transportation alternatives fewer.
Stability wasn’t an issue – riverboats didn’t have to deal with ocean swells – so the superstructure could be built up like a wedding cake. But vessels on “unimproved” rivers had to have shallow draft – 4 to 6 feet at most – or they would have run aground pretty often.
Paddle wheels are mechanically inefficient, but they do have advantages. Unlike paddle wheels, a propeller needs minimum submergence to operate properly, which would have increased the vessel’s draft. Furthermore, paddle wheels are tolerant of large floating debris – logs, for instance – that would destroy a propeller. And in case of an accidental grounding, paddle wheels will walk right over a sand bar and come to no harm.
Those things haven’t mattered much for the past 70 years or so. The Corps of Engineers has kept the rivers dredged out for towboat and barge traffic since the 1930’s. But they were once of vital importance, and that’s why riverboats look the way they do.
Diesels have displaced steam on the rivers, just as they have on the railroads. It had to happen – boilers and steam engines cost too much to operate. But it’s a shame anyway. There’s nothing quite like the smell of hot lube oil and coal smoke, the steam in the air, the stately dance of gleaming metal, feeling the stamp and pound of the engine through the vibration in the deck plates. The lines of poetry in the story are from Rudyard Kipling’s “McAndrew’s Hymn” – see the rest of the poem here: http://home.pacifier.com/~rboggs/KIPLING.HTML
As always, constructive criticism is encouraged and welcome. Hope you enjoyed the story.
Strelnikov
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