The Creek
by Julie Anne Phillipps
I stand on the top of the 51st Avenue bridge listening to children playing below and remember all the secret places that, thirty years ago, I believed only children could find.
It is the end of August, and the month has gone by without rain. The clinging grit of exhaust from Highway 55 permeates the dry, hot wind as we run along the bank of Shingle Creek. Dusty fields of limp grasses, the remnants of a long forgotten farmstead, enclose the creek like curtains on a stage. Cat-tails bow heavily on withered stems; their reedy presence a reminder of the shoe-stealing mudholes where they grow. Now dry, and caked, the mud feels hot on our bare feet. The day is hot, and we want to swim.
We run close to the creek avoiding “the Dump." It is a strictly grown-up place full of rusted appliances and broken bottles. Rising in the distance is “the Tunnel," a large sewer pipe that drains into the creek. The other kids run inside its cool interior while I linger out of reach from its dark, and musty passages. I stand alone in the mouth of the tunnel where the harsh sun burns into me. The tunnel yawns onto a wide sandy beach stretching along a bend in the creek. Here the water runs wide, and is deep enough for swimming. Posted on the beach is a “No Swimming” sign. It does not matter. I will never swim here. The body of the boy who drowned has been removed, yet I sense him down there still. He lies coiled, a great tentacled serpent. He is waiting. Goose bumps rise on my flesh as I see his scaly fingers reaching out to drag me down into the water.
“Snakes!”
“Snakes!”
The other kids scream as they pour out of the tunnel. Together, like a pack of small wolves, we run. We keep to the field avoiding the steep embankment as the creek zigzags its way through the land. But, the field is treacherous. Gigantic, tobacco- spitting grasshoppers leap about in the tall grasses. We run faster. Sharp-fanged field mice snap at our heels as we race onward. “The Jungle” is visible ahead of us. It is dark with the welcoming shade of towering oaks, elms, and aspens. We fly like fairies under the long branches of a sheltering elm. Overhead the trees vibrate with the flight of sparrows as we jump into the cool water.
High in the trees, in the crowd around the 51st Avenue bridge, I see young boys climbing and I, an adult, leave my reverie.