A Drink from the Creek

As a boy, I thirsted for adventure. All kids do, I think, but the thirst ran deep for me. I sought relief in Bridge to Terabithia, looked to sake my thirst on The Neverending Story or The Wind Waker. Outside I would go, where my friends would gather in the backyard bringing swords and books and notebooks where we’d draw maps and charts to treasures we’d invent. But the backyard was fenced in, finite, empty. We needed somewhere boundless, where our desire could be quenched. For our money, nothing satisfied our craving like the forest. And in the forest, the sweetest, fullest drink, as far as adventure was concerned, was the creek.

Our creek wasn’t particularly noteworthy as creeks go, but we found ourselves often headed for its ankle-deep waters all the same. Augie, despite finding the outdoors more unpleasant than I did with its bugs and dirt and strange plants that he was sure would give him a rash, would follow me through the bramble to see the brook week after week. As we went we’d look for changes, seeing hundreds but calling out few. One day we found three boards nailed to the trunk of a sturdy looking tree. Our neighbor Mr. Passah was building a treehouse for his son, but gave up after only three measly boards. Sometimes, we were silent as we walked, content to let the forest sounds score our journey. I thought of the birds as an orchestra, the crackling twigs and leaves underfoot percussion, the babble of the creek a symphony. I couldn’t get enough of the music the woods played for us. It filled my body, opened my lungs to breathe it in deeper, made my vision clearer and my mind more focused. I think if Mr. Passah had finished that treehouse, I’d have tried to live in it.

We’d follow the path until it came to an end on the banks of the creek. There was no bridge to cross it, and no path beyond it. The gap was just too wide to step across even if you spread your feet as far as you could. You could jump it, but the banks were steep, and you were just as likely to slip into the murky clay below as you were to land safely on the other side. Someone had placed a toppled over tree across the ravine, no wider than my shoe. It bowed beneath even the lightest kid’s weight, but it did not break. Crossing it, a task that required balance, speed, and most of all luck, was a challenge we took each time. It was part of the adventure, a hurdle to overcome.

We rarely had a plan when we got to the creek. Adventures were supposed to be spontaneous. We’d follow the creek downstream, mapping out the forest as we trekked further away from the neighborhood. We’d find crawdads and coins and interesting rocks buried within the muddy creek floor. In the winter, we’d build snow forts between the various oaks on opposite sides of the creeks and pelt each other with snowballs until our faces turned pink and our fingers blue. Adults never came with us, and we rarely saw kids we hadn’t brought along with us. The creek was our realm, our adventure.

One time, we actually had a plan as we headed for the creek. Another friend, one who lived further away and couldn’t come to the woods as often, had forgotten an action figure he’d brought with him last time we visited it, and we decided to be good pals and rescue the poor Obi-Wan Kenobi. Finally, I thought, a quest, a real quest, a real adventure! We were especially talkative on our way through the woods. We came up with strategies and potential hiding spots for the lost Jedi Knight. Perhaps it was hiding in the underbrush around the creek, or stuck in the muck and pebbles at the bottom of the creek, dropped while our friend braved the crossing tree? It was possible even that it was carried downstream, and we’d have to break out the map and follow the flow of water until we found it! Ideas overflowed until we babbled like brooks ourselves, reaching the end of the path and quickly making our way alongside the bank of the creek.

We did not find Obi-Wan. Instead a man, hunched over the stream as if admiring his own reflection, stared in our direction. He looked toward us, not at us, as if we were invisible but the sound of our footsteps through the forest attracted his gaze.

He was engulfed by a heavy green coat, and his worn tan boots sunk just a little into the mud. He had dirt on his brow and on his cheeks and under his eyes. Sweat, or creek water, or we could not tell what dribbled from his face towards his beard, the messy brown hairs like unkempt wires. Behind him were a few glass bottles, one broken, some others tossed into the mud at the bottom of the creek. The man looked to me wild, like a coyote sat by the creek for a drink disturbed by the sounds of nearby hikers. I could not read his expression – it was not angry or alarmed or curious or anything. His dull brown eyes, partially obscured by more wires of wavy brown hair, showed no signs of anything. They looked through us like one looks through a window.

He did not move. I did not breathe. Augie grabbed my shoulder, pulling me backwards towards him and almost making me lose my footing on the uneven forest floor. I did not turn to see the fear I knew was on his face. I already knew it mirrored my own.

Slowly, the man reached into his coat pocket. I thought it must be unnaturally deep for how long his hand lingered there. When we finally saw his hand emerge, I almost didn’t register the familiar Jedi Knight in his grasp. Cautiously, he held it out to us. The corners of his lips twitched, like he was mustering a smile but couldn’t manage it.

I tried to reach for the offering, but found my arms wouldn’t move. My gaze would not stray from the unreadable expression on the man’s face, my eyes never parting from his.

Finally, after moments that felt like years passed, Augie snatched the toy out of his hand and backed away. I hadn’t noticed his hand had left my shoulder.

One of us muttered a “Thanks”. I’m not sure which one of us it was.

Then we were gone. Gone from the creek and the crawfish, past the never-started treehouse, over the mulched path and out of the woods. We stayed silent, not wanting to somehow accidentally summon the man towards us, praying that we souldn’t hear his heavy boot steps through the brush behind us. There was no bird orchestra to play us off. I heard nothing at all until we reached those rows of white-grey houses and asphalt streets, and then I only heard our own breathing.

That was the last time Augie and I went to the creek. I had drank its most adventurous waters and found the taste too bitter.

I stand today at the entrance to those woods, some twenty years since that meeting by the brook. The mulch trail is paved over with tarmac, smoother and less rugged than the old natural forest paths. I was told a bridge has been built over the creek, a real sturdy bridge to replace the old crossing tree, which rotted and snapped and was hauled away. You can follow the path all the way through the forest now, over the creek to the other side where once there was nothing but trees and grass and foliage and now gives way to a new neighborhood. I can still see the boards that Mr. Passah nailed to the tree, a tombstone for the treehouse that never was, and a relic of the forest of my childhood.

These are not the same woods, and it is not the same creek. New water has flowed from upstream, cool and clear and bringing new life. My fears, the fears of my friend, and what I now think was fear – a solemn, tired fear – in that man’s face are all washed away. I would like to see this new creek. I would like to stand on its bank, hear it flowing, look in my reflection for the boy who once so loved the creek. I would once more like to drink its waters.