Mississippi Mud and Catfish

MISSISSIPPI MUD AND CATFISH

What noise does Mississippi mud make, Jordan asked. I looked at him a grin spreading across my face. We were still quite a few miles from the great river, but I could already sense it flowing, moving, rolling down past the old levee towns that lay at the end of the two lane country roads we had taken from Chicago. He was driving his new car, a twelve year old Toyota, he'd bought it a couple of days before. He told me he'd got it straight off a used car lot in some big farming town. A bargain Jordan said. I didn't know anything about cars, I'd once driven a Volkwagen Bug.

I didn't really understand Jordan. I never knew what to expect every time we caught up with each other. We'd had an on again off again relationship for about ten years. It seemed like once more we were making an attempt at getting our act together, making plans for two.

Jordan was like most men I'd known, not that there were a lot that I came to know properly. His distinguishing feature was his sense of humour. It was hard to spend time with Jordan and not laugh. His observations of people, places and situations invariably touched on the funny side. I'm sure there were plenty of people who wouldn't have found Jordan funny at all, but I did.

I didn't answer his question about Mississippi mud. I'd never seen the Mississippi, but his one promise in the letter I'd read before I arrived at Chicago's O'Hare airport, was that we were going to travel the Mississippi. There was something romantic about it, a touch of the Huck Finn's and Tom Sawyer's. In moments of foolishness for which I regarded myself famous I saw myself as Becky Thatcher.

The question of mud fell away, replaced by the confusion of coming to a T junction and not knowing whether to turn left or right. The map hadn't indicated a choice. Right would take us north, left south, but it was the river we courted. It had been a quiet and even day. Bright sunshine, a warm day to travel, comfortable, uneventful. Rapid progress was never Jordan's style. Slow and steady wins the race may have been his motto.

We were both over thirty by now. Our paths having crossed several times since we first met at university. Back then we hadn't fallen in love, we'd simply drifted into a relationship that consisted of going to the movies or cheap restaurants on the weekend and then going back to Jordan's house and fucking. For some reason he never slept at my place. There were no plans for the future, no discussions of marriage, children or even of living together. Invariably or maybe predictably on Thursday nights Jordan would phone and ask if I wanted to see The Shining or An American Werewolf in London or something similar. If not he'd ask if I wanted to go to an Italian restaurant, nothing fancy just pizza or spaghetti. A bottle of red wine was always my weakness.

I was trying to read the road map which we'd used since we'd left Chicago. Jordan's new old Toyota didn't have GPS. But getting out of what was known as the Windy City hadn't been difficult we just followed the enormous freeway system and overhead signs which pointed us west towards the Mississippi. Then once we had shaken the city free we found a network of back roads and small rural towns that eased us gently towards our destination. We were either on a road that wasn't on the map or I had made a mistake. Still we couldn't be too far off course.

It was amazing how many things ran through my mind in the small amount of time between deciding whether to turn left or right. Left I said, no right Jordan had countered. I knew I had missed a turn several miles back. And while the Mississippi was humming a come and see me song I remembered other times I'd gone to meet Jordan in some faraway place. Australia where he was working as a radio reporter and then London where he had decided to go back to university. There were also visits to Europe when he was between jobs and now I had gone all the way to the United States, where he had somehow managed to get a job as a journalist. I didn't follow him easily though. Most of the time I set my own course, did my own thing.

It was while I was thinking all these things and Jordan was asking left or right that I saw it. Lying by the side of the road in the lush green summer grass was a package wrapped in brown paper. A smallish package not much bigger than a size ten shoe and roughly about the same width. There was no string, it was held together with tape. I told Jordan about the package putting off the turn left or turn right decision for a few more moments. It would be easy to open the car door and get the package.

"Do you think we should pick it up?"

I was curious. I wanted to know what it was. From where I sat it looked slightly cylindrical, like someone had wrapped it tight.

"Nah, leave it there."

And having said those words Jordan slowly turned right and headed away from that T junction which neither of us would ever see again. Jordan busied himself then by telling me about a range of options we'd have when we reached New Boston. His words flicked and bounced around my mind, not truly sticking. I couldn't let go of the image of the parcel on the side of road.

"Catfish stuffed catfish." It's the best you've ever eaten.

I wanted to correct him. I'd never eaten catfish.

"Nothing upmarket you know, just incredibly good and lots of fries and salt and maybe they'll have some lemon. You know like fish and chips. Some cold beer too. Cold beer overlooking the Mississippi."

And then we were in New Boston, and then we were eating Catfish, but it wasn't stuffed with anything. The beers would make me sleep in the afternoon, so I would have to go easy if Jordan wanted me to be his navigator and our way down to Keithsburg so he could take a photo of some railway bridge that finished half way across the river and then further on to Oquawka. I loved the sound of the name. An elephant was buried there apparently. Jordan said the elephant's name was Norma Jean though he presumed that the long deceased quadruped was not of Marilyn Monroesque proportions.

That night in a motel room in Burlington the package came to me in my dreams. It was a parcel for a child. People talked about how it had been lost. How it had fallen from the back of a borrowed truck. How it would have been delivered if only a name had been written on the paper. An address too. The elephant had come to look at it as well, unfurling its trunk but never picking the parcel up. The elephant like us had turned and gone, but unlike us it had turned left while we had turned right.

When I woke in the morning Jordan was already up. He offered to make me a cup of coffee, or better still get one from the lobby where it was percolated. When he came back I told him about my dream. He sat and listened. Patience was one of his strong suites. I guessed at the time that was why he was still interested in me.

"Well if someone lost it they'll know it's on the road somewhere. If we picked it up where would we take it, who would we give it to?"

I didn't have an answer I just remembered that Tom Sawyer had wanted to impress Becky Thatcher one time and offered her his prize brass knob. Something from a fireplace. I thought if Jordan really wanted to impress me he would have turned around and driven back to the Joy - New Boston road to find the package. But Jordan was not up for impressing. He watched as I slowly dressed but my temptations fell short of the mark. How long had it been? Not for the first time on that trip I wondered how many women Jordan had been with since we were last together. He never spoke of such things though and I knew he wouldn't ask me about my recent lovers. A handful of forgotten one night stands.

In the motel car park we again went over the plans for the day. Down to Nauvoo, the place where the Mormons had left for the West. Our ambition was to be in Quincy that night. You'll like Quincy Jordan had said. I didn't know what he based his opinions on. As best I knew, and as much as he would tell me, he was writing articles for a travel magazine. The towns we were visiting would form the basis for an article. It was the beginning of our second day together. I hadn't laughed much, Jordan's humour it seemed had been replaced with an elusiveness.

"This is like a working holiday then Jordan." I commented while he reeled off statistics about the one time Mormon capital of America. The heat of summer blew in through my open window as I tied my hair back and put on sunglasses. By now I was lost. I knew where we were on the map but I couldn't get any sense from Jordan as to why he had wanted me to come with him. Something stretched between us. I thought I could smell the mud from the Mississippi as we drove into Quincy.

"We'll be in Hannibal tomorrow. Mark Twain wrote Tom Sawyer there. It was his home town." Jordan said as we ate dinner that night. I was going to tell Jordan I knew. Tell him that Twain's real name was Samuel Clemens. I didn't have to though. He would already know, it was just a test for me.

In the years to come there would be no more tests and no more trips to see Jordan. At the end of our Mississippi adventure he went his way and I went mine. I have never found out what happened to him but something tells me it would have been different if we'd picked up that package. As clear as day I always see it sitting in the grass, a present that I will never unwrap.