Summer 25
Inspired by Marguerite Duras, Summer 25 explores a world in revolt through the prism of art and writing. Two of ten.
Four of us stand in a paved parking lot for a boat ramp in a municipal park in Rome, GA. The asphalt is the gray-blue hue of aged and sun-beaten bitumen—rain has wormed its way through the bits of sand and gravel and binder, forming web-like cracks running throughout the lot. The asphalt where we park is frayed and crumbles into the dirt barrier before the grass starts, then slopes abruptly to the river. I reach with hands open wide for the blazing Georgia sun, lengthening my arms before bending at the waist in a modified sun salutation. I straighten my knees and breathe into the stretch. I stare at my black water shoes. I release and reach up again. Surya namaskar. The full force of the sun beating down through denuded sky. I lengthen my reach and listen to the new timbre the pops and creaks of my joints now make. Salut.
We—or some configuration of this group—have floated together down Georgia waterways for more than a decade. This is our first time tubing the Etowah River. This configuration is well-prepared: we each take sun protection out of our totes. One uses the spray-bottle applicator type, while another wows us with what appears to be Reddi-Wip, dispensing sun screen like little dollops of whipped cream. Like a Luddite, I lather on 70 SPF lotion after my wife hands me the squeeze tube.
We walk through the paved parking lot. The only spots worthy of having their fissures filled with tar snakes are the elongated spots for trucks towing boats trailers. The tubing company is set up in a flat grass lot edged by trees and the start of a soccer compound. A small camper acts as the main hub; the different purchasables on display beneath the pull-out awning; partially disassembled shipping containers, like the ones you see on large ships, have a few chairs and tables for outdoor lounging; inner tubes are stacked two tubes high with a third diagonal acting as an anchor; kayaks lay on either side in tight, slanting formations.
The teen cashier tells us that walk-ins are limited to the 2-hour float—which is all we had planned for. We scan the QR code and get enough signal to sign the liability waiver. Two workers—one older and one younger—load our inner tubes into a trailer attached to a small shuttle—like those you take at the airport. There is air conditioning and a radio. The younger worker gets on and sits in the front. My friend is waiting to drop her keys off with the cashier who is busy with other customers. The older worker gets on, closes the door and starts to drive off. The manager bangs on the side of the van. He leads my friend to the shuttle and takes her keys, runs over to the trailer, and hands them to the girl over the other customer’s heads.
We take a long drive through Rome and arrive at another public boat dock. The workers get off first and start unloading the tubes. They hand one to me, which I hand to my wife and then I get another for myself. Lyndsey takes the tube from the younger worker, who offers to carry it to the river for her. Kimberly lets him carry her inner tube, and is the first one to be helped into the water. The only way is for the workers to hold the tube while you launch yourself backwards into the tube and onto the water. The workers help the rest of us in turn; and out we turned, like Rimbaud, onto a river we could not control.
Helen, GA is a town in the Appalachian Mountains designed to look like an alpine village. All the buildings in Helen look Bavarian; I was always told that is why there is a Wendy’s and not a McDonald’s in town. Something about the arches.
The town has grown a lot since I was a child—an obvious statement I know, but Helen’s position between the mountains and Chattahoochee River limits the amount they can truly expand. I’m glad the mainstays are still there—the novelty t-shirt shop with Christian parodies (“Got God?”) and the Three Stooges and Fife Security; the knife store with impractically designed blades; the fudge shoppes; the funnel cake stands; shops full of tacky trinkets and homemade tchotchkes. Newer additions include rolled ice cream, a Bigfoot statue, a store specializing in jerky, and the hot sauce store that specializes in sauces that threaten physical harm to your asshole if you dare try even a drop. There’s now a spa, a mountain coaster, ropes courses, and I’m sure lots of things I’ve simply been too old and nostalgic to notice.
I remember a shop at the outskirts of town owned by people of the Cherokee nation. I remember the cigar store Indian on the front stoop. They sold jewelry to the tourists who stopped on their way out of Helen. The owner was an old man; I remember him asking if I was Cherokee. I remember his kind eyes.
It’s now a cabin rental company.
The magic shop is gone and that’s a real bummer. I spent a lot of money in that shop—I still have a Svengali deck I bought there. It’s now where you take wild west photos. The car museum where, if the owner had shown up, I would have purchased a red 1975 Cadillac Eldorado convertible. It’s now a haunted house open during Oktoberfest. The Castle Inn is still there on Main Street, but the wax museum that terrified me is gone. I can only find one photo to prove it existed. I often wonder where those fairy tale figures have gone.
And it goes without saying, the river is still there.
It is the Chattahoochee that runs through Helen, but it’s the river in its infancy. It’s not unheard of for the river to dry completely in spots when there’s not been any rain, forcing the tubing companies to close during their busy season. Even when it’s been raining, you still have to get out and do a little bit of walking. You also have to deal with a river full of fellow tubers: whole families tethered together trying to pull themselves over the exposed rock; teenagers; intoxicated couples with bluetooth speakers; good dogs who stay in their inner tube.
The Cool River Tubing Company employs dozens of people—it’s not uncommon for the line for wristbands to go out the building, down the outside stairs, and along the sidewalk. The cashiers keep people moving; people who pay for lockers put their clothes and valuables in a tiny cube, then go outside to wait in line for the next repurposed school bus. While they wait, workers are pulling people from the river, passing off the tubes and getting them ready to load after getting a head count.
There are at least two school buses making the same loop over and over. One of the buses has a former Air Force disabled Dachshund with a permanent seat at the front of the bus—the driver told us she loves to say hi to the tubers.
The Etowah River is much wider and deeper than the Chattahoochee that passes through Helen. Most people sign up online for the long float, so we’re alone on the river. We can’t see the bottom of the river and if something were to happen while we were in the middle, we’d really have to swim for it to get to land. We paddle with our hands to feebly escape branches sticking out from the water.
“What three people do you want to hex?”
My mind draws a blank—I can’t think of one, let alone three. I beg off. “I only like bringing positivity into the world.” We spot a blue heron stalking along the waterline, waiting for the greedy fish to pop out of the river to snag the downed flies floating on the surface. The heron eyes us, turns its head, then takes flight—its powerful wings flap loudly before it glides along for a while, landing once it’s found a shady spot.
“Plus if the hex comes true, it comes back to you times three.”
The blue heron keeps pace with us for the next two hours: Fishing, flying, gliding, landing. We approach a pedestrian bridge along the river—the blue heron is ahead of us but before the bridge. An old man in an orange vest is taking photos with his phone. He waves. Kimberly flicks him off. The blue heron takes off as we approach, leading our way underneath the pedestrian bridge. “I’d say more if we were closer”. We pass beneath the bridge. Swallows build nests under bridges like these—from this distance, they look like dirt daubers flickering in and out of mud homes. I look back once we float past, but the old man didn’t follow. The blue heron keeps flapping his powerful wings, snapping like whips right above the waterline, and curves off left to an adjoining river. Kayakers paddle up that river, stopping to watch the blue heron fly by. They let the current take over and float along with us tubers. The young worker paddles out in a kayak and uses his paddle to poke our tubes along until we can be pulled out of the water. One by one, we make our way back to the parking lot, gathering beneath the tree shade, waiting for the shuttle to arrive.