The River-Man: The Beauty Of Spring

As long as you keep moving, you begin to understand the language. Not the one that people actually have to spend a moment or to tell you some something about where you are at as the language on the sidewalks; and the traffic, where it must slow down and perhaps even consider stopping. It is where they draw up all of their circles and arrows, winding up their pride like a town hall clock and over-filling the walls of their churches with those glad-happy tunes. It is in the corner bar, where someone inevitably has stopped in for a few, from the moment it opens to closing time.

Carlyle is just another place where those that live in the outlying areas get dressed up to come into, mostly on weekends. They spend the rest of their time living their own lives out on the fringes of this town. Unless you were born here, you never deliberately show up. The townies are a breed all unto their own, the life's blood really. They're the people that disappear inside of the small store-fronts in the wee-early morning hours, and do not leave it until well after everyone else is gone. They usually do not have to go very far to be home, or at least inside of the place that they pay a little bit more for every month just to maintain what they've got. They withstand weather, wars and hard times to keep some place like Carlyle above the river-mark.

It is the small town's central feature, this old river. It begins way before it winds on through Carlyle lazily, and ends in a place that no one in town has likely ever been before. They love and hate that "the river," which has another name that they rarely use, as it refers to some place other than their own town. They believe that they know it better than anyone else, and for at least a couple mile stretch-- it doesn't hold to the name that someone from somewhere else had given to it. They don't know a fucking thing about that other place, and do not really care to know it.

There's an old manufacturing plant on the south end of town, just across the "south bridge," that has been shut down and restarted several times. It really depends on the age of the person you ask as to the answer you get, as to what it had once made and who owned it. No one really knows who actually owns it now, but most would speculate that the state of Missouri owns it now-- or some bank in God only knew where. Some believe that someday, it will open back up, and the town will begin to prosper again. Not that they can ever envision a time and place where Carlyle just disappears altogether, but the small town has certainly seen its finer days.

Every spring, Norman Dellman's florist shop gets paid to fill up the town's flower pots with some color. The only one who really gives a damn as to what kind of floral patterns get used is Norman himself. Norman doesn't charge the town council as much as he would charge any other customer that had come into his small shop on the corner of Pixman & Third Street. There have been some springs that he didn't really charge them at all. Norman had never been technically trained in landscaping, nor as to what any  individual certain flower or plant needed.

Norman feared and hated the river, on account that it damn near kilt him back in 1921. It was on account of the river that Norman never really learned to swim, and to some degree, where he had lost the girl that he knew would have made his life very different than as it turned out. He always thought that there was a natural meanness to it that no else seemed to notice.

Which was why he paid Billy Ritt money in the spring to set up those few half barrels with some annuals down near River Bend Park. The river was always bigger and wilder in the spring, its water over-flown its natural mark and taken on a swift current that'd either haul a body down into it, or smash it against the rock and debris. To his own knowledge, that river had taken off three people that he remembered, and Norman was damn near the third.

Instead, it was his older brother, Riley Dellman, that dies that day. Some people in town were half convinced, such as his daddy was, that that was somehow his fault for falling in... for never learning to swim... for not being near the sort of boy that Riley had been. Norman was eight when Riley died, and was probably the best friend that he'd been allotted to in this life. Not so many could recall much about Riley as they could back then, but Norman damn sure could. There was more than once that he felt certain that his daddy might have been right, that the wrong Dellman had died that afternoon. It had hurt more to hear it then than to admit it now. It was a fair lonely life from then to now, especially the day Laura Burke had turned him away for ol' Cal Collman.

Everyone in Carlyle was half convinced that Norman was a bit touched. Harmless, most suspected, but they had never seen Norman with no one out at the house, and he mostly kept to himself. Everybody knew him, sort of like he knew everyone else. He really didn't give the gossips much to work with, all aside for the days when that drifter river girl had came through, and started staying on Norman's property. Some talk had started up then, though she wasn't anymore than thirteen when she first started filching food from his house. There wasn't anybody that ever got to know the full effect of the gal that called herself Rose.

Folk had always known that there was some people living out in the woods, north of town. Rose would never say where she had come from, nor why. It just became easier to feed her than to try to keep her out of his kitchen was all. She was kind of a wild girl, not quite like she had been raised by animals, but not so far from it either. Rose didn't ever stay up at the house, as some suspected after he had bought her some few things to wear and gave her job at his shop. Rose was real different, but Norman...

Well, she was gone, and had been for better than a year now. She had lived out in that old hunting shanty that his daddy used to use, mostly for his drinking, which Mama held no account for in her house. Rose was a bit dark in color, but there was no real suggestion that she might be part darkie until after a few of the boys had taken notice of her working in his shop. It was mainly Jack Zellers and Greg Hinton's doing, in that regard. Rose didn't take to their liking, and to some degree because Norman had warned her off the pair of them. Greg may have turned out alright, if there were never any Jack Zellers in his days. Norman had never really seen good win out over the bad in folk. Norman really couldn't afford her much in the way of protection from his attentions, which soured up when Rose asked him to let her be. It was no more than a week later that Rose was gone, and even Norman didn't know why nor where she had left so much as the old shack was empty, and she didn't come by for her supplies anymore.

Slow was what most folk accused Norman of being. Norman didn't argue that out, especially as no one really ever said it to his face. Well, not since he had quit and left school. Even if they did, "Abby-Normie," surely wasn't going to be able to convince them that they were wrong about any of that. His daddy sure as hell thought so, but Norman was convinced that the river might have taken more away from him than his best friend in the world. No one had ever thought he abnormal before that, or Abby-normie as they preferred to poke in at him during his schoolyard days.

Later, after he had opened up this here shop-- more like took it over when Grace Newton died back in 1937. Norman had worked for her for a time, while his Mama was still alive. His daddy had already died in Nineteen and Thirty-One. He had lost his job down at the Johnson factory. He sure wasn't the only one, it was only about a half year later that Hal Johnson had to close up the doors permanent, and it eventually was sold off to the Miller Corporation, who used to make some pretty nice furniture. It was different than most of what folk in Carlyle kept in their house, and they used to take it away in a big ole truck, driven to and from St. Louis by ol' Gus Hanley.

Gus was kind of a friendly sort of man, in some ways that really didn't pay off so well in a small town like Carlyle. Gus had a habit of buying flowers from Miss Grace before he would take off to the city. Most suspected that he had himself a woman in the city, which was how Gus let it be thought. Norman might have been the only one to know that he didn't have just one, and he never kept a woman past a night. Gus had suggested that he might want to go along with him, not so long after Norman had taken over the business himself. Norman didn't tell anyone about that, ash he knew that folk would think differently about ol Gus. Gus had told him that there was one of those sorts of places nearer by, if'n he didn't care for the ride out to the city.

He cal't 'em the river girls.

If the thought of going into the big city made Norman nervous, the idea of a boat ride up a river that had terrified him all of his life surely was never going to happen. The idea of a woman's company never really stray far from his mind, and it was even worse while Rose was around. It made him feel just awful inside when he would realize how pretty she was. Not to say she was like one of those movie stars that you would see up on the picture-show, but she was definitely as fair as most in town, and didn't think near so severely on Norman as most did.

Norman had accepted the fact a long time ago that he just wasn't a very good looking man, and he sure didn't know all so much about what it took for being one. Sure, he worked, and had most everyday of his life... excepting Sundays. Norman had tol't most that invited him to church that he had his own, which wasn't in town. It may have been kind of lie, which is likely more what they figured, on account that the only way he had to get around was an old pedal-bike that he had had since he was eleven years old.

Norman was nearly done with his spring set up for the town of Carlyle. He had set out some red and white in the high hanging pots that dangled from the light posts, and added in a few other colors down at ground level for the sidewalks and near the bridge. Billy was just getting lazier every year, and he had not hardly started when he come bursting in through the back door, and dang near broke it in.

"You-you... hear... you hear about what they found down at the river?" Billy said breathlessly.

"No," Norman said, his voice already taking on a tone of disapproval. "I take that to mean that the park isn't ready yet?"

"Hell no Norman, the sheriff has the river-park all choir-denned off, on account that they found some girl's body down in the water."

"That's a shame, I try to warn folk that the river is a pretty dangerous place--especially this time of year, when the water is riding high on the banks." Norman said, as he repotted some begonias into a larger clay pot. "You know who it was?"

"No," Billy said, seeming to be put off by Norman's lack of enthusiasm to hear his news. "But I do know that she had no clothes on, I seen her bare behind for myself"...

"Lord in Heaven Billy, is that all you got to say 'fer a woman's death?" Norman's brow had lowered deep, and his tone had raised.

"Well... no. Not like she is going to care about none of that anymore, but she was all bloated and fat up like an ol' cat that'd been washed along for a few days. Her skin was kind of gooey, and her hair looked as if it had been yanked out of from her head in places."  

"Okay Billy, that is quite enough. You just bring my flowers back on in, and we can try to get them set up again tomorrow."

"Tomorrow is Sunday Norman," he reminded him, and Norman sighed and nodded.

"You going to be able to do this after school?"

"Yeah... I suppose. You might want to pay me a little more for that though, on account that I'll have no day left to myself." Billy braved, and Norman arched his brow.

"Or I might could find myself another young man that would appreciate the opportunity to earn a little spending money," Norman suggested, as Billy's half expectant gaze dropped. "I really don't have so much to myself anymore Billy, or I'd pay your ransom." Norman said as he sat the small spade aside, and turned to wash his hands at the sink. "You can go on home now Billy. Just let me know if you don't still want to put the flowers up in the park, and I'll manage something."

"I'll do it," Billy groaned before turning back toward the door that he had came in through. "I don't think that gal just fell into the river Norman. She looked pretty bad."

"I'm real sorry to hear that," Norman said, and then turned toward the door as he heard a car pull up to the front. It was black and white, with a large red globe poised over the driver's side, and likely had one to match over the passenger side-- Norman just couldn't see it through the large store-front window.

"It's Deputy Sawyer," Billy said as the driver got out. "You didn't do nothing bad, did ya Norman?"

"No," Norman said absently, as his heart began to hammer in his chest and he didn't really know why.