Needmore
A short story after the John Cheever story The Swimmer
johnClare stokes
We cannot fathom the reasons men do the things we do. Why we climb oxygen-starved peaks, dive into Floridian light starved caves with our oxygen upon our backs. There is ever the thought, I need more out of life. In the case of James Cash Strickland, he simply found himself on Highway 94 beside the Tom's Creek Bridge, less than a mile out of Needmore in Echols County, Georgia.
It was on that day, approximately ten on the May morning, James Cash decided, "I shall swim to the Gulf of Mexico." James was not a particularly adept swimmer, he had a pool which he cleaned daily, but rarely entered. It was one of those painful lingering memories of children now grown and gone.
He had planned a two day kayak trip down the Tom's, entering the Suwannee River just across the Georgia border in Columbia County, journeying on to his take out point at the Highway 6 bridge. As he stood with his kayak and gear, his friend Steve from White Springs having already left with his car, leaving it at the six bridge on the Hamilton County side, he pondered. He thought of this river, the years he had spent upon it, how it was the dividing of two nations, the Timucua to the east, the Apalachee to the west. Guasaca Esqui they called it, River of Reeds. Years later in 1528 Narvaez would see it, in 1539 DeSoto would cross this River of the Deer, or San Juanee, Little St John's, in search of gold.
We do not know what led James Cash of leave the kayak beneath a tupelo tree off Highway 94 as he entered the water that morning. All he knew was a certain freedom felt, the need for more out of life taking on new meaning.
He mostly did a freestyle dog paddling kick as he was accustomed to in his pool down the narrow Tom. He eventually found his rhythm as he passed the Woodpecker route, the only bridge he would see until Road 6 and the car awaiting. The upper Suwannee was a grand swim, the water in the mythic river this time of year low enough from lack of rain that the current was not too swift, making the narrow channel a joy to swim.
The sound of the bees busy above in the tupelo trees was intoxicating and it only gave him strength to continue on. The fisherman at the Six bridge were totally fascinated to see a boat-less person making his way down stream. Like most folk in these parts though, they did not meddle into his mission and did not question when he walked over to his vehicle and left the note on the windshield and the keys on the driver side tire. "Swimming to the Gulf. Need More." James Cash.
He slipped quietly into the tannic below the fishers who never saw him, assuming him to be somewhere in the woods camping.
The river between bridge six and the old Cone bridge, named for the former Governor from Benton was lined with tupelo and cypress, a very familiar part of his journey. He recognized many of the bends and banks he had once paddled to, the old Prospect Primitive landing, Turner Bridge, Roline and the Limp Dick bend where he and his two boys used to camp up on the high sand bar.
He wondered as he continued on, if his friend Johnny wasn't somewhere near, writing about the river he too loved, still happy to be among the number one more day. He thought of following the trail through the palmetto and inviting him to come, but he had an unction, a need more to continue on without haste if you will.
Big Shoals was a thrill to shoot through. With low water, it was a raging Class 3 rapid. He knew how to safely make his way through the sharp limestone rocks hidden by doing a crab walk over them, hold high his tail bone. He had learned this years ago in a canoe class taken at the "communistic" junior college over in Gainesville.
Past the Shoals, he heard the Robinson branch falls back up in the woods a bit but he was more concerned with the large alligator he knew long dwelt on the Hamilton County side above Bell Springs. He kept to the Columbia or Timucua side as he quietly floated by the sleeping gator on the bank. Fortunately he never saw the swimmer.
The river was growing wider below the Shoals with steep, high banks and pine forests spilling right up to the waterline. He could hear the sound of traffic ahead as he went through little shoals to pass under the CSX and 41 bridge out from White Springs. He recalled the largest moccasin he had ever encountered as he once stepped over a log on the bank. He swam on to the sounds of the clarion tower bells of the Stephen Foster Memorial Park playing Foster songs, forever bringing more fame to the little St Johns, by naming it Swanee to fit his Old Folks at home song. He did some backstrokes under the 136 bridge, looking up at the Sophie Adams home by the bridge, then the Springhouse, once a thriving mecca for tourists. He was loathe to leave such familiar stretches of river, sections made immortal by the many poets and artists, including Theron Gaulding, the painter who thought so much of the river he had his ashes spread upon them.
As the bells of Foster faded, the river took him westward where it made the big bend before dipping downward toward Ellaville at the Suwannee River State Park. Ellaville, once a large sawmill owned by another Governor, George Drew, was named for Ella, an old negro woman in the Governor's employ.
He passed under the US90 bridge, then the noisy Interstate 10 dual bridges. He thought of the many travelers speeding past above, rushing East and West. He did not give it much thought, He only knew his need for more and he was heading South. By Dowling Park and the 'old folks at home' home, he was beginning to take on less the appearance of ;man and more fish, Sturgeon to be more accurate. He was no longer led by the nagging cravings that once so ruled him; need to eat, need to sleep, need to possess, need to chase. No, like the Sturgeon who would annually migrate up the river to spawn, James Cash was in a reverse spawn. Sixty years of living had come to this. It was all he had to show for. It drew him on, the journey from Needmore to need more.
The mid part of the river from Little River Springs on down to Fannin' Springs was a spring hopping nirvana: Turtle, Fletcher, Rock Bluff, Sun, Hart, Otter and a myriad of lesser known clear, cool paradises flowing into the wine-colored waters. James loved the rush of cool each spring gave and infused new energy into him.
By now the river was wide and the boats many. He was like the manatee, in danger of a prop cutting his white flesh to shreds.
The water past the Dixie County bridge at Fannin' was growing brackish. By Fowler's Bluff, the site of the pirate Black Beards sailing to bury treasure, the river was tidal with the Sturgeon and mullet jumping. He was no longer interested in any treasure from Black Beard or gold from DeSoto. Passing Hog Island, the many channels were confusing and one not familiar could easily become lost. Fortunately, he knew the way to the Gulf. He passed the charter boats coming in, heading toward Suwannee and other ports of showing their catches. He did not need to follow the buoys or channel markers out.
It had been a long, two-hundred fifteen mile serpentine swim.
His skin was white and leathery as a Sturgeon. He was at the end of the journey.
Never again in this life would he ever see Needmore.
