The River Reveler
Mr. Kirk Wareham
Lounging on his lime-green inflatable raft, the audacious river reveler appears to be sacrificing his body to the elements. Record-setting temperatures and extreme ultraviolet rays do not deter him in the slightest. Languidly he snoozes on his back for hours, his soft pink flesh outrageously exposed to the steady, stifling, sweltering sun.
Come as you are, his inert form seems to say — no goggles, no hat, no shirt, no flip-flops to protect the soles of his feet, only a checkered-blue swimsuit. He carries no entertainment with him, no smartphone, no radio, no book. He is simply an antisocial old geezer suffering in heroic fashion.
The first time you see him, driving back to work after lunch, you take a second look and slow down suddenly.
“Did you see that?” you ask your wife.
“I saw it,” she nods, her mind clearly more focused on the geraniums that need transplanting to the patio before the next rain.
At this time of day, most Americans are well into their workday, attempting to provide financial security for their families. But here is this fellow, with not a care in the world and no time-card to punch, an incongruity that puzzles you, confounds you.
You smile and move on, forgetting all about him.
Until the next day.
Driving past the same section of the river, you do a double-take.
“There he is again,” you tell your wife in a voice steeped in awe and disbelief.
His choice of location is odd. One could easily imagine him opting out of the rat race, leaving the grid far behind, and retiring, “far from the madding crowd,” to one of the pristine lakes in the Adirondack Mountains where bass leap joyfully in the shallows and a disgruntled moose snuffles through the bulrushes, where cheerful cumulonimbus clouds boil energetically into great white towers and Canadian geese honk their way northward toward Avalanche Pass and the high-peaks region.
But this ultra-bathing Spartan . . . his chosen spot to chill has multiple downsides.
First, it is squarely between two significant roads, a busy two-lane county highway and the Thruway, New York’s superhighway. Tossing an object from either road would send a spray of water sloshing over the man asleep in the river. Traffic on the county road often slows as local drivers rubberneck at the strange sight. Vehicles race by on the Thruway, SUVs, glitzy campers, somber mini-vans, and split-axle tractor-trailers grinding a pound or two as they hurtle toward Albany, air-horns blasting, noxious pollutants spewing from vertical exhaust stacks.
Tossing an object from either road would send a spray of water sloshing over the man asleep in the river. Traffic on the county road often slows as local drivers rubberneck at the strange sight.
Secondly, the lime-green raft is positioned directly beneath a power-line with high-voltage wires, which sway disconcertingly above him. From where he parks his car, you can hear the wires sizzle and hum. Is it twenty thousand volts? A hundred thousand volts? Not exactly a place to relax, one would think.
But oddest of all is that this man has chosen to vacation just a couple hundred yards above a waterfall. Trust me on this one, because I’m not kidding. The waterfall is one hundred feet wide and fifty feet high, and after a heavy rain, it becomes a thundering churning mass of water carrying branches, logs, and entire trees to their demise on the hungry boulders below.
But the proximity of the waterfall does not appear to hold any influence over this reveler. Perhaps he tethers himself to the bank, which would be a truly grand idea, but you don’t know that for a certainty. Once asleep on his back, he doesn’t appear to open his eyes for hours.
After observing him for a few days running, the topic begins to drive a wedge between you and your wife.
“There he —” you begin gleefully, but she cuts you off.
“Stop! Just stop it,” she says, annoyed. “Just let it go.”
To preserve domestic tranquility, you puzzle it over silently in your mind, for it baffles and disturbs you. Why would any person lie for hours and hours, day after day, in this particular place, fully exposed to the brutal rays of midsummer? Certainly, all of us have pressures that life thrusts upon us, that weigh us down, and we also all have different coping mechanisms. Perhaps this is his relief-valve, his unique way of relaxing.
“To thine own self be true,” sings Shakespeare, and it appears that this river-dwelling paragon, who has become a familiar presence in your day, almost a friend, is doing just that. Gripped by admiration, you anticipate each new encounter with the man and his raft. Days stretch into weeks. His dusty car waits patiently in the gravel lot; the green raft drifts on its (real or imagined) tether; the roasting flesh sizzles.
“To thine own self be true,” sings Shakespeare, and it appears that this river-dwelling paragon, who has become a familiar presence in your day, almost a friend, is doing just that.
Then one amazing day, he goes above and beyond, taking his hibernation to a new and impressive level. For eight hours — count them slowly — he lies there, in one long continuous stretch, never budging, oblivious to the world around him, an accomplishment worthy of a Guinness World Record.
After absorbing eight hours of direct sunlight in record temperatures, you might expect that his toes would be curling inward, the red and purple skin blistered and oozing. You are genuinely concerned, and you pull over to take a closer look, needing reassurance that he’s still alive.
He is. Small waves ripple out from his raft as he changes his position ever so slightly.
Those ripples spread far and wide. You never have the opportunity to talk with the river reveler, so you’re left to wonder what his back story is, and your curiosity remains unfulfilled. But that’s okay. You realize that this man is important. And whatever his story may be, it is now part of your story.
Aren’t people fascinating and delightful?
We may live in a fallen world, a world filled with darkness and trouble and sorrow and strife and suffering. But one thing we know and believe: we also live in a world filled with joy and kindness and warmth and beauty and gladness and compassion and humor and hope. We live in a world that holds not only danger and distress, but also the irrepressible trust embodied by a man calmly spending a workday afloat above a fifty-foot waterfall. You pass and you think about his life and your own, of how the two of you are bound together not just by this brief daily intersection during his revel and your drive, but by the distinct family resemblance you share — both of you created in the image of God. Whatever may happen to him, or to you, you’ll always have that.
Two more weeks go by, and like clockwork he’s there every day, passively broiling, reveling in his river. And then one day, he isn’t.
