The Man On the Mississippi

Lucas the Unusual

The weather was a little warm for the man as he stood there beside the edge of the road, but he was still there. He was still watching for the people on the river. It was his life He had come here, and watched the people every single day. He had learned to live with that. It was a part of his charm. It always had been. Lucas was one of the few rescue workers who felt it important to make sure that someone was there near the river to help incase something went wrong. 

He knew there were always going to be chances that something could go wrong, but he was not going to be the one to tell them how bad it could be. 

He hated to give bad news to good people. It was hard. There were many people who always thought that he was some sort of omen, but in reality he was not all that bad of a person. He was always trying to be the best he could be. Lucas did what he did because he had lost his father to the river when he was young. He didn't want it to happen, no one wanted that, but he had made a promise that he was not going to let someone else go down without a fighting chance. 

He had seen things though. 

He had seen far too many things. 

Drunken boaters falling overboard and drowning before he can get to them. He was sorry to say it, but there was just something wrong if someone out there was having too much and wasn't paying attention. He couldn't always get there. 

There was a certain charm to some of the people who were down on the river. He knew that there was something about the people who lived there. He had seen the others who avoided places, but he knew that he was someone different. He is not the kind of person that wanted to simply ignore the people around him. Sometimes he would just go and sit on one of the park benches and sit and think about the one thing that was on his mind. What was going to happen today?

He was sure there were plenty of others who would have agreed with them. 

There were plenty of people who thought that he was never going to be able to make it without some sort of problem, but then there was Lucas, he always had hope for the people. He loved them. 

Tonight though he had decided to bring along his camera. He wanted to be a part of the picture process. He wanted to take a picture of the sun setting on the river. Maybe no one else cared, but he did. It was the kind of person he was. He loved the artistry. He loved every little thing about it. He was not sure why he loved it, but there was something special happening here, something that didn't happen just anywhere. 

It was life on the Mississippi River. 

Then he spotted him. He was across the river. Lucas was not sure what to make of him. He could see that he was wearing ragged clothes. He was not in the best of form. He had a long beard with long stipes of gray in it. 

Was this the man someone that he needed to be concerned about? 

Lucas was a man who was always on the lookout for trouble. He had always been the kind that had held out for better things. But then again, at his station along the river, it was hard to be objective. He had to take things the way they came. It was bogus that he was the one that was here and not someone else.

He loved everything there was, really. It was as if there was something else about the man that did not understand the way that he was. Here he was sitting at Chester, Illinois. It was a small town but it had a haunted history. It was strange to think that there was someone out there who wanted anything more than just to get across the river. It was a very short distance across the river at this point, and right now that was not a good thing. The river level was low. Very low. If one tried hard they could probably run across the thing. 

However the farther north one went the wider it got for a while. It was a mile in some of those places. That was a good run, and he bet that it was deep enough. Lucas had heard about the other watchers and he was afraid to not watch his part of the river. He had always been the center of attention.