I had set my alarm clock for 7:11 not because of the convenience store, but because of the convenience to myself. I was already set, for some reason, to 8:11 and I, needing to wake up a little after 7, opted not to touch the minute hand. This was after I called my sister�s cell phone to tell her, among less important things such as the fact that she will die of cancer if she continued to use her cell phone so much, that I was going to the river the next day. Actually, it was well past midnight, so the day of the river was really the same day I called. I didn�t want her to pick up the phone, thinking that she very well might be asleep or busy at work and I would leave her a boring, longwinded message about the river and her future cancer. She picked up.
"Hello?" She�s the type of person who answers her phone with a question.
"Well you weren�t supposed to pick up."
The conversation continued in this non-linear fashion, including times when I called her the river-nazi for wanting to leave as early as possible and times when she told me that if I didn�t wear sunblock, I was going to burn motherfucker burn. The conversation ended probably as awkward as it had began.
Before I continue I think the whole concept of the river must be elucidated. It has been a tradition in the youngest Webb family generation, being my sister and me, to get a bunch of people together, rent some tubes, ride a shuttle bus, and float down Arizona�s Salt River every memorial day. The Salt River is a tiny river north of Gilbert where cacti and red rock lay around the outskirts while smaller rocks and bamboo and strange bugs find themselves along the shore. If the river were vaccated by the people, it would truly become an amazingly inspirational site to behold. As it is, however, hordes of teenagers and twenty-somethingers use the river as an opportunity to drink a lot and party on water. Any peaceful serenity one might hope to acquire from the river is immediately erased by seran-wrapped boom boxes blasting "Get Your Freak On" or young, drunk, horny misogynists yelling "Show us your tits!" to the young, drunk, horny women. This phenomenon happens so often, in fact, that one could probably guess how far he or she is along the river by keeping track of how many pairs of breasts have been exposed.
I, being alocohol free and actually having a somewhat decent moral standard, go to the river for other reasons. And I hold these reasons with the highest esteem despite whatever reasons I go for end up whittling down to my falling asleep and getting sunburnt. Nevertheless, the river is an experience unequaled.
So I woke up at 7:11 to get ready for this wet and wild river party. At 8, the phone rang. It was my sister telling me how late they were running and how many people hadn�t yet showed up: "But, I mean, you know we were going to be late, though, right?" Of course, if I knew they were going to be late, I could have slept in a little longer and not have even had to change the setting of my alarm clock.
Some river-nazi she is.
I passed time that could have better been spent sleeping in by reading a short story�a couple looks through a house for sale while their realtor pockets small items. The caravan arrived shortly after I had finished the story and by "caravan," I mean two cars filled with four people each; boys in one car, girls in the other. I vocalized that this scenerio made me feel like I was at a junior high dance.
On the car ride to the river, which takes about three quarters of an hour, we witnessed a man driving with only one eye�"he�s giving the other eye the day off for Memorial Day"�and a horse trailor tipped over on the freeway, stopping all traffic for at least 10 minutes while the police, the tow-truck driver, the old driver wearing a stetson hat, and his old wife with unabomber-style glasses and dyed red hair to cover up the stringy grey hair her years had given here were all standing on the freeway like monkeys scratching their heads, totally bewildered as to what to do next. Andy, one of the boys in the wall flower of a Toyota Camry we were riding in took out his digital "accident" camera and snapped some photos of the trailor on its side. Finally, after a short while for oridnary things but a long while for things that stop all traffic on the freeway, the tow-truck driver was able to flip the trailor back on its wheels, but not before andy got a picture of the trailor at a 45 degree angle. "I�m framing this one," he said. He sounded serious.
Finally we got to the tube rental and shuttle bus pick-up spot. I�m sure this place has a name that is more condensed than that, but I�m also sure that I have no idea what it is. So tube rental and shuttle bus pick-up spot it is. There were already hordes of people ready to drink their way down the river when we arrived. So much for that head start on the action my river-nazi of a sister wanted us to get.
We hastily rented our tubes in order that we could wait an hour for the next available bus who�s driver was a loudmouth throwback to the sixties; the type that still thinks she�s at woodstock. As we hopped on the bus with our tubes, a man who looked like he had some business being there, working there, even, wrestled Andy�s tube away from him and yelled, "Let go of it!" in the process. Andy looked back at me with a combination of fear and hilarity.
After the bus took off, the driver started yelling some of the most bizarre things I have ever heard anyone yell. Things like, "The water is 56 degrees, you babies, which means Shrinkage!" I did not need to hear that from her. (Note: I capitalized "shrinkage" in the sentence before last because I think that�s what the bus driver would have done if she was writing it and not screaming it.) Also along the trip, the passengers decided to sing or yell, I can�t tell which, "The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire. We don�t need no water let the motherfucker burn. Burn motherfucker burn."
Just before we arrived at the top of the river, an SUV was movingly slowly in front of us. This must have upset the spastic bus driver because she told the passengers all to, "Give these bastards the finger as we pass them." She didn�t really say it as much as she shrieked it. And the passengers, in fact, all gave that poor SUV driver the finger, and maybe even a couple of moons. As we got to the river, my group of seven, excluding myself, tied their tubes up to one another. "No thanks," I said, "I�ll fly this one solo."
And off we went, into the party river, with the eleven o�clock sun overhead beating down upon our skin. The water was cold at first, exhuming goosebumps on my skin, but gradually became bearable and, after a while, even pleasant. I opted to place my towel on top of the tube and lay my body across the towel, with my back to the tube. This seemed to be the most comfortable and most common position. I took off my shirt and laid back, letting the river consume my mind, thinking only of becoming one with nature, going back to my human beginnings, floating in the river of evolution, from which all life arises�humanity updating with the constant changing of the tides, from slow bathtub currents to raging whitewater river and back, consuming all existance. These thoughts were taken over by obnoxious teenagers yelling to the person tied to them, floating roughly a foot and a half away, that they need another beer and having the person tied to them yell back, "That�s the last thing you need, buddy." Everyone in the group would then laugh, but I wondered where the humor was deriving from. I wondered how they can think their lives are funny, or anything but predictable. These thoughts washed away with the waves of the river, and I knew I was being judgemental, but I couldn�t help it. By this time I was already so far away from my group and I probably looked so lonely floating by myself in a sea of conglomerate tubes, so I just gave up, put my head back, and fell asleep.
I awoke to something hitting my tube, falling to the water beside me, causing a splash over my body, followed by screams of, "hey man! Wake up and help us out!" I sat up, noticed dart looking football floating beside my tube, grabbed it, and flung it into the air, in the direction of those who were calling me. I then realized that I had floated in the middle of a game of catch between two separate conglomerates of tubes. I threw the ball to the grew in front of me, but it fell short, into an empty space of water, showing off my terrible athletic abilities. Then, out of irony, I looked at my Aztec Football shorts and gave a small sigh. The conglomerate behind me started booing my throw and I heard one man say, "Oh man! Go back to sleep." Which I did.
When I awoke again to think of this incident, I had to laugh at the man who told me to go back to sleep. What an appropriate thing to say. It was exactly what I needed, although now I was nowhere near my group, floating along some shorline as comglomerates passed me as though I were floating still. Then I realized I was floating still, and arm paddled my way back into the center of the river, where the current continued me along the path. A pretty girl called out to me, "Hey! You wanna tie up with us? You look sort of lonely."
"No, I�m fine," I said, adding, "but thanks for the offer."
"Okay, but don�t say I didn�t try."
It wasn�t until she bartered with a twelve year old boy about how many breasts she had to expose to get a beer that my glorification of her from my lonesome tube burst. And more out of pity than respect did I turn away as she exposed herself to the boy and his equally drunk father. I wonder what he�ll become when he grows up, I thought. Probably a lot like his father.
Eventually my river trip came to an end, with me getting on a bus without my group, with complete strangers, and with me finally catching up to my group at the tube rental and shuttle bus pick-up spot. I had worried my sister to tears while the rest of the group seemed somewhat less relieved to see me. I was driven home, wondering at the same time why I went and why I didn�t go more often. Of course, that�s not all there is to the story, but it�s all I will tell for today. That�s no matter, though, as now all I�m left with is a foggy recollection of this bizarre day. And a massive sunburn.