A Trip to Dogtown

"What's that?" I ask, pointing to a spot on my phone's map. "Have you been there before?"

Probably Amanté has. He's lived in Evansville for most of his twenty-nine years and knows all of it. He maneuvers through a maze of side-streets faster than I can keep up with which direction we're going.

But I find a place. I find one place he hasn't been. It's Union Township on a map, but Dogtown from the mouths of locals. It exists in a horseshoe bend of the Ohio River, a mostly unpopulated floodplain that's submerged in water every few years, tucked away at the bottom of Evansville civilization. There's a locally renowned tavern and a boat ramp and...what else? There's no through-traffic, because there's no way through. A ferry ran from the southern tip, decades ago, to take you across the river to Henderson, but not now. Now the way out is the way you came in, so you only go if you need to.

We don't need to, but one evening, we go anyway. There isn't much to see. The main road is an endless narrow loop along the inside of the horseshoe, with crowding trees, a marsh to one side, and the river just beyond. The occasional street of gravel intersects, dust still and long settled. A handful of bungalows dot the way, unmarked industrial buildings like something out of The X-Files, an ancient train trestle leading across the water into Kentucky. It's so strange to be in one state and constantly have view of another. It's really no different, though, I know that. Just a man-made border borrowed from where a river already flows a line between.

Amanté comments that this is where you dump a body in Evansville and he's right. The old train bridge towers against the graying sky with an ominous look. Dark clouds blot out the sun, already hanging low on the horizon. The trees lean over the car like something from a cartoon, like something with bony hands and a long, ghoulish face, obscuring the last of the fading light. I know we're fine, but there's a sense of tension in the air. We are somewhere neither of us has ever been and we haven't seen a soul since we got here and a storm is brewing and I don't know if we even have cell phone service, but I doubt it. If anything should happen...

At the end of it all, we find an abandoned yellow building, piled high with refuse. There are still numbers visible on the mailbox and I jot them down to research later. We stop to gawk from the safety of the car and Amanté points out that there's some kind of artificial light in there, behind all the junk. I think it looks like a meth house. We elect not to investigate.

Imagine this, but grimmer and full of garbage.

I look it up later. The Internet reports:

-The yellow house is often referred to as Old Dogtown School.
-A bunch of people were murdered there.
-It is haunted.

The truth, as is usually the case, is much more prosaic. I find it with a minimum effort at research. Built around 1915, the structure served as the lock and dam house for a reservoir that existed in the area until a flood destroyed it in 1975. Exactly zero people are confirmed to have died horrible deaths in it. The current owners began renovations on it a few years ago. The mountain of garbage inside indicates that they gave up at some point. Maybe that flood in 2011 was just too much and they realized nothing was going to get all that mud out of the basement.

And why is there a basement, when it comes to that? A basement with windows? It was built in--indeed, for--a flood-prone area and even has marks up one side of the building to measure how high the water levels get. I'm not used to this lack of foresight. Houses in Wilmington just don't have basements, for the very same reason, i.e., they're going to flood anyway.

I still think it could be a meth house.

We make it out of the wilderness just fine. Half-drowning in the summer downpour, but fine.

If you're interested in more pictures and information on the dam house or other abandoned buildings in the Evansville area, The Recreational Trespasser (from whom I borrowed the modern photo of the structure seen above) is a fantastic resource.

Other Fourths

July 04th. People milling the downtown streets, heedless of the odd vehicle passing through, the drivers white-knuckled and tense, weaving through a crowd that just doesn't care. We stick to the sidewalk and find a curb that looks fine for sitting.

A bar somewhere nearby plays shitty cover songs. Barefoot children a few feet away dance to all of it, indiscriminate, a startling amount of hip involved. My eyes sweep the mass of expectant spectators, noting the differences from what I'd see at home. Small-town farming families, the parents stuck in some early '90s time warp that involves teased bangs, jean shorts, white sneakers.

When I was a kid in Florida, we used to watch the fireworks display over the Banana River. Someone on Merritt Island put up a show every year. In the back corner of my favorite neighborhood playground along the east bank of the river, we'd sit on a blanket and watch in awe. I'm not sure how our parents tolerated all our heavy-handed oohing and ahhing.

Colorado was different, a lake. Prospect Lake. One year, a heavily intoxicated man sitting somewhere nearby spent the entire spectacle bellowing, "YEAH, BABY! YEAH! I LOVE THIS COUNTRY!" in the dark and my sister and I were the only people who acknowledged it in any way.

Living in southern Indiana meant watching from the edge of the Ohio River. Every year, my dad, my aunt, my cousin Lacy, and I would find a spot near the boat ramp and settle in, waiting ages for the sun to set and the fireworks to begin. Lacy and I would play cards and clapping games, guess which summery songs the city would pipe over the sound system along the river walk. I was good at guessing. When the sky grew dark, we'd lie back and look for the first star to wish on, something I got from my mom. I still do it.

Most July 04ths for the last decade, I've watched from along the Cape Fear. The Battleship North Carolina is anchored across the way and the fireworks fill the sky over it while "The Star-Spangled Banner" blares on repeat from somewhere, patriotic as hell. I never see it without texting Lacy to tell her I'm thinking of her. There are always loads of kids losing their minds over sparklers. I envy them.

And here I am, another year, another river. I'm watching from the Ohio again with our small, quiet group. Heather, Chris, my nephew, me.

Which is how it comes to pass that my sister and I watch the 04th of July fireworks together for the first time since we were children, occasionally murmuring, "Yeah, baby! Yeah!" to one another, laughing as a low-quality copy of "God Bless the USA" deafens everyone in that bar.

I picture the tiny versions of us from other Fourths nearly 30 years ago, sitting with my brother in a park that hasn't existed in decades. Indian-style on an old blanket laid out among the faded spring riders that were once meant to look like turquoise sea horses and red lions, our faces lifted to the sky, mouths agape when we're not pointing out our favorite style of fireworks, the smell of sulfur from spent firecrackers mixing with a hundred backyard grills fired up all over the neighborhood. Our parents were always on lawn chairs behind us, guarding the fresh sparklers and their smoldering counterparts, still glowing-hot at one end. We'd watch the show and then they'd walk us home under the safe, orange glow of the streetlights. In the front yard, they'd let us fire up the rest of the sparklers in the box, one by one, etching pictures in the dark that only lasted a moment.

Pictured: Brother (top right), sister (second from top right), me (second from bottom right), kids we might have watched fireworks with at some point (everyone else). Not pictured: The actual 04th of July.