Little Red

The only thing better than having a cabin is having a friend who has a cabin.

This sage advice was bestowed on me throughout my entire childhood by my very wise father every time we drove up to my godfather’s cabin.

Dad would wake me up early some Saturday mornings smelling of freshly cut grass and a shower and tell me to “hop in the truck” because we were “headin’ up to the river.” I would contentedly do as he said with bleary eyes and my favorite doll in hand. My doll tagged along with me everywhere, but she was especially close by in the summer. Her little plastic face always felt cool somehow, and I used to press her face against my hot cheeks when the Arkansas summer showed no mercy.

Arriving at the cabin, Dad would come around to the passenger’s side of his truck to hold my hand as I jumped down with my doll. I excitedly ran to the rope swing looking over the large embankment of the river. I hopped on the swing facing the river, wiggled myself as far back as I could go with my feet, and took off. Each time I came back, I pushed off until I was swinging high enough to soar over the embankment. I felt like a Lost Boy covered in pixie dust, flying over the river. I would stick my legs out straight so I could watch the shadows and late morning sun play with the iridescent colors of my jelly sandals.

That sun made the trees this golden green color that, to this day, I have only ever seen in Arkansas. This color is too bright to be emerald, but too deep to be yellow - it's a very confusing and vibrant color that cameras never seem to capture just right. And I always thought that somehow, as I swung in and out of those trees, the air itself had to be golden green, too.

Far too soon, Dad always called for me.

“Risa!”

I sighed and dragged my jellies in the dirt to come to a halt. Doll in hand, I trudged through the carport and up the steps to the deck where Dad prepared the cooler, stocking it with a bottle or two of cold Corona, a few wrapped bologna sandwiches, and a package of hot dogs to use as bait.

"Alright, arms up!"

I groaned dramatically and assumed a jumping jack position. Dad pulled out some pungent white sunscreen and slathered my face, shoulders, and arms with it. He then grabbed a bottle of bug spray and went to town covering me in it. Dad never needed sunscreen or bug spray. He had built his tan for many, many years on many, many rivers and therefore was apparently exempt from sunburns altogether. The mosquitoes rarely got him, too.

"They just like you 'cause you're so sweet," he would say if I questioned him.

Thanks, Dad.

Every Arkansas summer smells faintly of bug spray, I think. You can’t go anywhere without being assaulted by mosquitoes in the Natural State; they are basically our state bird. Thus, you have to cover yourself, or at least your eight year old, head to toe in the stuff if you want to take them out on the river and not cover them in anti-itch cream later that evening.

Such was life on the Little Red River.

Satisfied that I was fully protected from the elements, Dad took his fishing reel in one hand after handing me my little blue one and picked up the cooler in the other. He carefully led the way down the steep pine or cedar ramp (I'm not good at identifying different types of wood, okay?) leading to the dock. Once there, he sat the cooler down into the boat with a metallic thud and brushed his hands off on his jean shorts before heaving the boat off the dock and into the water. Soon after, he lifted me up and placed my feet beside the cooler. I waddled, uneasy on river legs, and sat on the plank at the far end of the boat with my reel in one hand and doll in the other. Dad stepped in with his reel and sat next to the motor.

After a few faintly muttered curses were spat out over the reluctant revving of the engine, we were off. The humid air beat at my pink tank top and shorts as we picked up speed. The curls around my face that could never be contained in a ponytail waved in the wind like the fins of a fish. I squinted as we moved upstream and the wind and bright sun reflecting off the water started to blind me. We zoomed past other docks and cabins, waving to other river dwellers as they raised their Koozie-bound beers in lazy greeting.

I liked this part of going to the river: the feeling of flying, the cool spray of river water, and the chillest community you can imagine.

My affections stopped when the boat did. Once we dropped the anchor, I knew that the next couple of hours would be boring for me. I would want to read, but the sun was too strong and made the white pages so bright they stung my eyes. I would want to talk, and Dad would want to teach me the value of peace and quiet. I would want to go as fast as the boat could go, and Dad would want me to practice my cast.

After placating him by catching a rainbow trout or two, I would try out that peace and quiet thing.

I sat and watched Dad work for a while before I would inevitably end up sitting on the floor of the boat, leaning back against the bench seat and closing my eyes against the unrelenting sun. It smelled fishy, sitting in the bottom of the boat. I curled my nose up and wished I lived closer to the ocean so at least the fishy smells would be salty and more exciting. Oh, how I longed for the sea.

Maybe it was my love of my Floridian side of the family, and maybe it was my love of Jimmy Buffet, but I longed for Mother Ocean.

I yearned for salty air and pirate ships. I needed puffy shirts, big brown leather hats, and cheeseburgers in paradise. I wanted to sail away on a motor-less boat and know how it felt to have the horizon surrounding me, not the towering golden green leafy trees that surrounded me daily in Arkansas.

Just like Mr. Buffet, I was a pirate 200 years too late.

Dad squinted as he removed his massive sunglasses and handed them to me to help block out the sun's rays. I slid them on and pressed my doll’s face to mine, sighing. Trying to entertain myself, I listened to the water as it slapped the bottom of the boat. I listened to the tweedles of various birds as they sang to each other in the trees.

“You know what those are, Ris?”

“Three-toed, web-footed, red-crested lake loons,” we said in unison. I giggled at this silly joke every time, and I still do.

Settling back into our comfortable silence, I listened to the distant "plop" of a fish sucking up a piece of food from just under the surface of the water. I occasionally heard the little zippy noise of a line being cast from Dad's end of the boat. I thought about how badly I wanted my own boat. Dad was welcome to visit, of course, but I wanted my own.

No, not a boat.

A ship.

A pirate ship.

I wanted to rest my foot on the edge of a helm, whatever that was, and pose like the man on the rum bottle I saw at the grocery store a few times.

I wanted a golden telescope in my hand to search the horizon for ships full of ruffians.

No, scratch that. Mine would be the ship on the horizon. I would be the ruffian. I would be Marisa the Marvelous or Risa, the Ruffian of the Little Red River. I always thought Little Red alone would make a good pirate name.

Little Red would have been revered for her sword fighting and shanty singing. She would "yo-ho" with the best of them.

Little Red would have put the shiver in the timbers of every other pirate that dared to sail her sea. She would have them shaking in their boots.

Little Red would have sent every hooligan who dared challenge her straight to Davy Jones's Locker. Once she had found out where that was, they would have been toast! Good riddance.

On the sea, playful dolphins leapt through the air just to say hi. Sailors sang shanties and played fiddles. They would do a jig and swab a deck. The air smelled like salt, exotic fish, and coconuts, probably. The sun would either be setting or rising; at any other time, I would be below deck dozing in a gently swinging hammock. At night, I would go out onto the deck all alone to search the moonlit waters for mermaids and search the sky for shooting stars.

On the river, trout and catfish could not get away from you fast enough. A squirrel might walk out on a limb hanging over an eddy near the edge of the river, bark at you, and throw acorns. There was no dancing on a small river boat, unless you were interested in capsizing it. The air smelled like moss, mud, and hot dogs. Well, it also smelled like honeysuckle when the wind blew just right; that part wasn’t so bad.

Regardless, the sea was just superior to the river. Plain and simple.

It was always my hot face that pulled me out of my daydreams of being a feared but respected nautical thief with a heart of gold. I pressed my doll to my face, feeling a sunburn coming on. I knew Mom would tell Dad he should have put more sunscreen on me, but I really did hate the smell of that stuff. I didn’t mind rosy cheeks and a pink nose; it made me feel like an elf in a Puffs Plus commercial.

“Alright, Risadoodle. We're heading home soon. Here,” Dad said, interrupting my daydreaming and popping open the cooler. “Eat your sandwich.”

I opened my eyes, squinting as I adjusted to the sunlight. I wiggled my way back into my seat and took the sandwich from Dad. I unwrapped the plastic around it and took a bite as Dad pulled up the anchor and gently revved the engine to head downstream. He reached out his hand soon after, silently asking for his sunglasses. I reluctantly returned them.

Squinting again, I finished my sandwich quietly on our leisurely journey back home. After a few minutes, Dad got the boat to the edge of the dock and helped me up and out of the boat. I had to wait for him to hoist the small boat back onto the dock. I stood there, reel and doll in hand, completely exhausted. Dad grabbed the cooler and his reels out of the boat and gestured with his head that I should start making my way up the ramp.

I was always a slow poke at this part, but the ramp really was very steep for a little girl. When I finally made it to the top deck, I would sit down heavily on a wooden bench nearby. Dad would take my reel from me and load the car. Kindly, he always got the air conditioning going before he asked me to hop in. On my bench, I would yawn and yawn before he finally called me over to the truck. I slowly padded over to him in my jellies, and he helped me climb into my seat. I watched the rope swing gently sway in the wind as we pulled out of the yard and onto the road, finally heading home.

It never took more than a few minutes for me to fall asleep with my hot forehead pressing against the cool window while the coolness of my doll’s face reset in the air conditioning. The truck rocked me to sleep just like a hammock would below the deck of Little Red's pirate ship.

On that day, and many others, I may not have had decks to swab or timbers to shiver, but I had Jimmy Buffet's "Songs You Know by Heart", my dad, and a friend who had a cabin.

And that will always be good enough for me.

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Special thanks to the Geroy family for being the best "friends with cabin" anyone could ask for.

I love you all, and your cabin, dearly.