Gone to See the River Man

by Kristopher Triana

Going to see the river man Going to tell him all I can About the ban On feeling free. If he tells me all he knows About the way his river flows I don’t suppose It’s meant for me. Oh, how they come and go. — Nick Drake

There’s only two places anyone can find peace—the woods and the grave.

In conversations with those who took life, Lori no longer felt dead inside. Killers, of all people, made her feel alive.

The people we make suffer stay inside of us longer and more deeply than those who we bring joy, don’t you think?

“River Man ain’t wantin’ nobody’s soul. What he wants is for your soul to be as bad as his. Ya get what ya want without havin’ to do anythin’ for him, but somehow he just brings out the worst in ya. Ya go rotten in your heart after dealin’ with The River Man.

“Gone to see The River Man,” she said. “The River Man gonna see us.”

But their new kinship was as real as their old cruelties. All the world is guilty. It’s just a matter of degree.

The Hollow River existed in its own unnerving universe, and The River Man was the sun at its center.

“That’s what The River Man do. He ain’t gotta ask ya to do nothin’ evil. He just bring out the evil that’s already in ya.

Truth is pain—sharp and deep and merciless. Only love can ease the suffering, for love is the sharing of those truths.

That’s what he wants, she realized. The pain of others. Our suffering. Our heartache and regrets. Our grief and fear. All so his music can be unflinching and true, raw as road-rash flesh.

Every note he plays is a drop of blood from someone’s heart.

There’s only two places anyone can find peace—the woods and the grave.

“Will it hurt, darling?” she asked. Edmund flicked the blade with his finger. “Love always does.”