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

Along a river of flesh Can these dry bones live? Take a king or a beggar And the answer they’ll give Is we’re all gonna be, yeah, yeah I said we’re all going to be just dirt in the ground. — Tom Waits

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

Her interest in true crime books and documentaries was a hobby turned obsession. It was her one escape from the dullness of her own reality, the emptiness of everyday life that suffocated women far stronger than she was.

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

Mist rose up from the valley in a white squall, assuring the river was not far away, fog drifting through the mountains like a dreary dream. Edmund’s words return to her. I ain’t the one the key belongs to anymore. You gotta take it to The River Man.

But then, Abby didn’t always make sense. Brain damage took her places no one else could understand. The caverns of her mind could swallow her now and then, sometimes bringing the unprovoked terrors, other times initiating a state of near catatonia. They couldn’t afford one of those spells now.

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

What a fool she was to be friends with this murderer, and to tease him with the possibility of something more. But it was just like the girls who fall head over heels for rock stars who are always touring or the girls who spread their legs for movie stars they know they’ll never see again. Women had one thing that could get them close to a man who made magic, and they used it, even if for just one night.

But was Edmund really a champion? He only bested other men when it came to brutality and cruelty. Musicians and artists made magic, but if what Edmund made was magic, it was magic as black as the grave. Stop it! Lori flinched against her own thoughts. We all make mistakes. You’ve made some terrible ones yourself, you stupid bitch. So who are you to judge him?

Lori sobbed in horror. Seeing Edmund’s cruelty firsthand brought the reality of it home. It wasn’t just a newspaper headline now, not merely stories scrawled on notebook paper in the killer’s own hand. It was gruesome, violent death up close—a personal glimpse into a woman’s brutal and ultimate end. What did you expect? He kills people. He did this. He did this and you’re obsessed with him.

It was early fall and I decided to take a walk in the woods. I love that time of year and always enjoyed going for hikes while listening to my Walkman, playing bands like The Cure, Tori Amos and The Smashing Pumpkins (what were your favorites growing up?).

Is this me?

Ya know them old stories about a bluesman sellin’ his soul to the devil to be the best guitar player in the world?” Lori nodded and Buzz continued. “That’s what they said about Robert Johnson—that he sold off his soul to the Prince of Darkness down in Mississippi. Lotsa songs about sellin’ ya soul to Satan, lotsa stories. River Man was a story like that, only he didn’t make no deal with the devil. People along this river make deals with The River Man, deals like the one Robert Johnson made with Satan.”

I just read a book about Robert Johnson wtf lol

“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.

Dearest Edmund, There are secrets I want to share with you. They are dark secrets, ones I’ve never told anyone. I have done bad things. I want you to know that, because it will help you see that we’re not so different. I understand how someone can do a terrible thing, how something black and evil can grow inside them and just take over. It can start as jealousy, maybe envy. It can start as greed or anger or hatred or despair. Grief can turn to rage and rot you from the inside out. I know these things just as surely as I know I would take what I have done to my grave, telling no one, if it weren’t for you….

Pete was crumbling inward, and Lori was watching him fall with a detached awareness. She’d always wanted to believe she could ignore a problem into no longer existing.

I feel sick

The frothing chaos of that darkness was like a reflection of her rambling mind. Her thoughts were of misery and despair, a load too heavy for a teenage girl. She wanted to cry, to release a scream that would echo through the valley, singing her own pain back at her.

Lori hadn’t been leading him on after all. She had desired him in her subconscious mind, mentally disguising her growing love as a mere act to gain Edmund’s trust. 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.

The River Man’s words returned to her again. Only you can tear down the walls. You must destroy the obstacle to free Edmund, and free yourself.

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