A little after 9:00 a.m. I head out for my morning class. I cut down to Dock Street along the Kanawha Canal. By now the office drones are all busy with their coffee breaks and the roads into the heart of the city are empty. I can imagine, almost, that I'm not in town yet.
The land on the wrong side of the floodwall holds strips of parking lots, the road, the canal, and a mostly wild park. Dock Street runs between the floodwall and a black iron trestle which carries coal trains east from the mountains and empty trains west to the mountains. One lane of Dock used to run under the trestle, but the US Army Corps of Engineers rearranged the roads down here when they built the floodwall. Now gravel, chunks of coal, and weeds slowly assert domination over the ground beneath the trestle.
Unusually, I have the window rolled up. It went and dipped down to freezing again last night. Even with the greening of the trees, the gray sky and the cold reek of winter. I am therefore surprised to see three men without coats standing beneath the trestle, beside the canal. At first I think they are there to fish, but something doesn't fit.
They are standing close together, very still. The last one stands behind the second with his hands on his shoulders. His face tilted to the sky, the second stands with his arms almost at his sides, palms forward, fingers spread. The first stands facing him, head bowed and his hands placed on the second's forehead. He is wearing waders.
Is that a baptism? Somebody's going to get really cold. That water can't be more than 40 °F. I turn my head to watch them as I drive by and consider stopping to take their picture. I'm wondering how far in they'll go, on purpose or by accident. The canal is too murky there to see the bottom and the banks are steep, so it might get deep more abruptly than they expect. But school calls me on and I leave it to my imagination.
354 words | March 30, 2004 10:51 PM | Real true story