A mile or so out of Guysville we are stopped by an expanse of water in front of us. The river has spewed onto the road and the surrounding fields and the whole place has become a lake. Cars on both sides are waiting patiently for the flood to subside. The cabdriver says he cannot wait because no one knows when the road will open up. He has many passengers who are waiting for him in Athens. Despite Obed’s pleas he insists that we either go back to Athens and pay double fare or he leaves us here for the one-way fare up to that point. I pay him his fare and he drives back. I am wondering if we’ll ever get a ride, with Obed looking all bloody and tattered. People may think he is an escaped convict or even a mental patient. But none of the waiting motorists seem to think there is anything wrong with him. Or with me. Instead, from what I can tell, they are ogling us.
While we wait on the side of the road Obed tells me about the floods. They happen quite often and villages like Stewart, Kilvert and Cutler are cut off from the rest of the world. Sometimes for days on end. Especially at this particular spot where the bridge on the runlet that joins the Hocking is very low. Like now: though we haven’t seen any sign of rain in the past few days it has obviously rained elsewhere and the rivers and creeks have brought the floods to this innocent area. When the road is flooded like this, one can take the New England Road just after Guysville, which is mostly gravel. But sometimes it is flooded too. It is most likely flooded today; that’s why all these cars are here. Waiting.
“Floods here are very unpredictable,” he adds.
“Why can’t the people move to better places?” I ask. “What keeps them here?”
“It’s the pull of the ancestors.”
It is my first time to hear an American talk of ancestors. I thought ancestor veneration was our sole preserve. Granted, I only know Americans from soap operas and situation comedies, and they never talk of ancestors there. I do not ask him to elaborate though.
After about two hours the water is beginning to recede, but not enough for any of the cars to risk being swept away by the current that still looks strong. A heavy but unloaded truck approaches and it seems the driver is prepared to brave the water. He stops when he spots Obed and hollers at him to swim across if he “ain’t no pansy.” Obed tells him that he is not suicidal yet. The driver offers us a ride to our destination if we don’t mind getting swept away, since there is no guarantee that he’ll make it to the other side. He is going to die trying though, because he has to spend the night with his children “who ain’t got no mama or nothin’.” Obed says if he is willing to risk it, so are we. When he notices my reluctance he assures me that his friend is an excellent driver. His truck, he adds when he notices I am still reluctant, is safe in this sort of situation because it has a diesel engine. “When the water splashes up on the engine it ain’t gonna short out the ignition because there ain’t no ignition to short out,” he says.
We jump in and the engine roars. He introduces me to the driver as his friend from Africa. The driver’s name is Nathan, he tells me, and he works for a water hauling service in Athens, delivering steel tanks and cisterns to construction sites all over the county. He lives in Cutler, about five miles beyond Kilvert.
After the two men have exchanged a few cuss words about the flood, Obed turns to me and picks up the conversation where it had been interrupted by Nathan’s arrival.
“We don’t move from here,” he says. “Even those who leave to work in Columbus or Chicago, they come back all the time because the darn place pulls them back. You know why? It’s where our race of people was molded.”
He stops when he realizes that I am no longer paying any attention to him. I am holding my breath because the truck is sinking in the water as Nathan slowly forces it forward. It moves on in jerks. He seems to find his way on a road that is completely under water by instinct. We sink deeper when we reach the vicinity of the low and narrow bridge. “The current is strong,” says Nathan. “If the water gets a few inches up on the door we are screwed.” Apparently the vehicle will become too buoyant to maintain traction and the additional force against the door will make it float off the roadway.
Fortunately the monster machine is quite high and Nathan is able to maneuver it very slowly until it reaches the other side. Both Obed and Nathan break into loud laughter when Nathan steps on the accelerator as soon as the vehicle hits the solid black road. I am not laughing at all because I am trying to bring my lungs back to settle at their appointed place in my body after they almost jumped out of my mouth.
In no time we are in Stewart, a pretty little village of white houses and well-trimmed lawns and gigantic trees. We begin a series of sharp bends as the road snakes its way in a forest of elms and sycamores.
“My people call them ghost trees…the sycamores,” says Obed to me. “They’re carriers of memories.”
“Come on,” says Nathan. “It’s just because they’re very light in color and stand out among other trees, especially when the moon is shining.”
“They are carriers of memories still,” insists Obed. “You wouldn’t know nothing about it.”
They argue. I am more concerned with finding the Hocking River. I think we lost it somewhere at Stewart. I ask them where the river went, if only to stop their loud boyish banter about someone called Orpah who is playing hard to get, which is beginning to irritate me. Nathan explains that it took another direction on the outskirts of Stewart toward West Virginia to join the mighty Ohio River.
The monster truck is devouring sharp curves down the hill and then up the slopes and down again. The road is quite bumpy, although thankfully there are no potholes. Very much unlike the roads in the city of Athens, which have more potholes than I have ever seen on any road in all my life. That is one thing that has made an impression on me about roads in this country: potholes. And it is not only in small cities like Athens. On my arrival I was struck by the potholes on the road between the airports in New York and in Newark, New Jersey. Where I come from such potholes would have been the subject of a national news story or even of a commission of inquiry and somebody would have to pay the price for them. Thankfully this county road, though its surface is uneven, is better maintained. And so are the sprawling lawns on the side of the road. They are always so well trimmed in front of the farmhouses and log cabins and corrugated iron structures of different shapes and sizes that are hiding among the trees. And sturdy barns that pay homage to a German heritage. I am able to see them only because of their bright colors. Those that are red or brown manage to blend with the trees in perfect camouflage. Judging by the barns these are farming communities, although I don’t see much farmland on the side of the road. Mostly trees and gullies and lawns. There is, however, tall light brown corn on sporadic patches of land.
About four miles from Stewart we cross the Federal Creek, and there is Kilvert, nestled in the middle of one of the three units of Wayne National Forest. Nathan drops us on the side of the road.
“Tell Orpah Northwest Territory is playing at the Stuart’s Opera House in Nelsonville on Saturday,” he hollers after us as we walk on a narrower blacktop road that leads into the village.
“She knows that,” Obed hollers back without stopping.
“I’d like for us to go.”
“Ask her yourself.”
Nathan laughs and breaks into the band’s all-time favorite, “The Veteran’s Song”: If they didn’t sacrifice for us, we would be eating rice and drinking German beer. Then the engine roars and swallows the rest of the song as he tears away.