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Wissahickon
by Julie Odell In her seventeenth summer, she came here often with her girlfriends, wandered through the woods in flip-flops until they found Devil’s Pool, where they’d swim in bikini tops and cut off shorts, lie in the sun and watch the boys dive off the rocks. She was skinny and long-haired then, and it was the most free she’d ever be, the water always cool, inviting her into its darkness, enveloping her like a cape. Two years later, she was pregnant with him. “This whole area used to be a mill town, populated with workers. There were factories and houses and taverns. It wasn’t always just wild. It was a real place, a vital part of the economy. And now it’s a National Landmark. For what? So hipsters can let their dogs terrorize people off leash. So mountain bikers can destroy the trails with their testosterone displays. Didn’t even know this place existed until I got sent here to take water samples.” Her son, now grown, took the lead. His pace was brisk to make the point: she was overweight. She huffed and puffed on the rocky, uneven trail that rambled across the top of the valley. Did he know how easily she could twist an ankle, step the wrong way on a gnarled tree root and tumble down through the woods, bashing her face on a boulder, tearing her flesh on a branch? She wouldn’t, though. She knew how to move through the woods. She would keep up with him and keep her labored breath as quiet as she could. “The WPA—Works Progress Administration—they restored the bridges, the outbuildings. Look at that stonework holding back the tree. Mother, over there. Think about how long that took, pulling the stone from the creek, carrying up the banks, across the path. Cutting out the earth and arranging the stones just so. How many men. It’s a marvel. No one works like that anymore.” She couldn’t remember when he became this awful know-it-all, a pedant. He’d been such a sweet kid. She was surprised and hurt than he didn’t remember coming here with her when he was tiny, the summer after his father left. Forty-five minutes from their cramped house in South Philadelphia, from the relentless cement and broiling sun and fears about her future. The woods were essential, like vitamins for her and her boy. She taught him to drink the thick, rich air deeply, like water. She’d carry a picnic in her backpack and hold his soft little hand as they made their way up a side trail to the cave, and she’d spread an old bed sheet on the rock and lay out Tupperware containers of toddler food: baby carrots, string cheese, Goldfish Crackers. She made him sit with his back to the rock so he wouldn’t slip. Sometimes it was slick up there, always cool. She could have been jealous of the couples around them, dreamy romantic love, but in those bright, warm days with her boy, she had everything she wanted. After their lunch, they’d walk along Forbidden Drive, stopping to pop seed pods on jewelweed plants, his laughter like bells when the pod exploded into ribbons between his tiny fingers. “So now the Water Department is in the middle of a storm restoration project, working on storm overflow and getting rid of sediment at the bottom of the creek so the water runs smoothly through the dams, so I have to come out here all the time. I hate it. If I want nature, I want Adirondacks, Vermont. Mountains. Not this urban faux-wilderness. I mean, look up ahead, those kids bringing beer down so they can party and leave their trash behind.” Suddenly the woods broke open and they crossed the viaduct over Devil’s Pool, where she’d first taught him to swim. It was exactly as she remembered, emerald green in the deepest part, reflecting the trees, the sky. He had been only three and it had felt like a baptism when she dipped his head beneath the water. When she was capable of delusion, she thought she’d forged in him a love and respect for nature that day. After all, he’d become an environmental engineer. “Did you know that after it rains, 95% of this creek water is treated sewage? One cut on your leg, one half-opened mouth and it’s Giardiasis or ryptosporidiosis, shitting your guts out for days, doubled over in pain. Even death. There should be a cop here writing tickets because it is against the law. People are idiots. If they get sick, they deserve it. Jesus, look at that. What kind of moron lets their kid swim here? Mother, come on. I have to get back before—“ Her feet remembered the path that cut between the rocks, taking her away from the viaduct, and she danced down like she was seventeen, still lithe, and when the rocks got too slippery, she took of the sandals and went barefoot. She could smell the water and yes, it did smell like shit, but it was so clear, beckoning, and soon it embraced her, knees, belly, shoulders, until she was all the way under and she couldn’t hear another word. |
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