Richard Pike Bissell (1913-1977) was born in the Mississippi River town of Dubuque, Iowa, and the river was in his blood. In his youth, he worked on towboats on the Mississippi and other rivers, rising from deckhand to pilot.
Ultimately, Bissell returned to Dubuque to help run the family garment factory, and he began to write short stories and novels about his river experiences. He proved to be a gifted writer. Many critics called him “the Modern Day Mark Twain.”
In 1953, Bissell wrote “7-1/2 Cents,” a humorous novel about a strike at a garment factory. The story became the Broadway play and motion picture “The Pajama Game.”
“I learned three-quarters of what I know about writing from reading Richard Bissell,” Elmore Leonard wrote. “God bless him.”
Bissell’s first novel, “A Stretch on the River,” is a semi-autobiographical story about the colorful, hard-working characters who man the river barges. Especially memorable is the chapter below, which in its own right is an excellent work of fiction.
The chapter is slow reading, but superb storytelling.
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The Death of Shorty
By Richard Bissell
From the novel A Stretch on the River, 1950
“Now I went and done it,” Shorty thought, “here I am about to be drownd, how and the hell did I ever pull such a dumb one as that?”
Just then his head hit the steel bottom plates of the barge rake: crack! and the current shoved him around the bottom of the rake and under the barges.
“This is worse than the carnival,” Shorty thought. “So long Ma, so long boys. It’s hell to die so young,” and he did so. He felt better immediately.
“It sure is one hell of a lot cooler now, and no more worryin about which watch will get Keokuk lock. Poor Bill, I bet he like to had a hem’rage when I went over. Now they have got the engines stopped, and Joe and Bill and Diamond are gettin the yawl out to look around for me, I must be clear back to the first coupling by now, or maybe by the boat, but I don’t hear the generator, I don’t hear nothin. They can have my stuff, but I hope they send my watch belonged to Pa home. Sargent will go crazy — oh how he hates a drowndin on his boat. And I had no lifejacket on after all his preachin — that will make him even wilder. No sleep for the Captain, I’ll give him bad dreams for a week. Well I’m down here to stay for a while and I know one thing sure, I will never get back to that lock. We must of been right at Victory Bend when I took that dive. I suppose if I can get around the bend without goin aground I will make her down past Lost Channel to De Soto. It all depends on how much water I am drawin by that time. If I would of ate more for supper I s’pose I would drift a little closer to the surface in a couple of days. If I can stay out of the weeds and them little sloughs and cricks down by Indian Camp, maybe I can make her around Lansing Bend about the time I am gettin ripe. If I could get picked up there it would be handy, a nice thing to pull on a guy out in a yawl with his girl, but if I get past Lansing where am I — down the crick and no paddle, nothin below there clean to Lynxville and I would get lost in the pool sure. Maybe some duck hunters next fall would ketch what’s left of me by then; if I can flank in at Lansing somehow and kind of bob around in there by them fishermen’s boats they will see me, more’n likely they will be lookin for me anyways. I suppose Cap will tell them at the lock and they will all know it from here to Guttenberg and be on the lookout for me. That is gonna be tough gettin past them bends and out of the sloughs without no Pilot’s License. I will look nice in a box there on the baggage platform of the Milwaukee at Lansing. Poor Ma. Looks like I ain’t ever gonna see Beardstown again or find out how Uncle Jim’s corn come out. They all tole me I was crazy to go roamin off on the river when I could of worked on the farm. Funny the way I was standin there that day watching the flood and along comes ole Batty Welch, but I didn’t know him then, he said, ‘Boy, how would you like to work on a steamboat?’ I says, ‘I never give it no thought.’ Yes sir, that was the old Western Belle, a beat-up little coal burner with a split wheel. After the first time we come down the Chain of Rocks and past Burlington Elevator and on down under McKinley Bridge and then on down under Eads Bridge and I see the lights of St. Louis and the boats tied up, the Federal boats and the Streckfus boats and the old Ralph Hicks rotting away and the showboat and the Golden Eagle and the Susie Hazard and them big smokestacks up in the air across the river at Cahokia, after that I never could go it no longer down the corn rows. Never would be here now layin under the tow so far from home in the Upper Mississippi if I hadn’t just a been there that day Batty come along and he says, ‘Boy, how would you like to work on a steamboat?’ Was I ever green and they sent me to the Engineer to fetch a bucket of steam, but how the hell did I know the difference? And the first time we made a yawl play at Havana they made me watch the yawl while they went uptown and got beered up. I remember it was a hot afternoon and there was a dead carp layin on the bank where the water had gone down, and an old boy was tryin to patch up a motorboat and I talked to him. I bet Bill will be all tore up about this, the poor bastard will figure he coulda grabbed me, I be god damned if I can figure how come I fell off that barge — I knew that lock line was there, right where it always is, laid out in bights — seems like I slipped in that loose coal on the deck. I always thought it was a lot of bull sweepin them decks off but look at me now, boys, look at me now, no more beer and no more girls — I ain’t never goin to see that ole Marth no more. It grieves me when I think back on that time we was makin hay to her Dad’s place and we went down to the crick in the evenin, nobody never caught on. We got all mosquito bites and then we use to get in the crick and do it under the water. I wonder where Batty Welch is now, I heard he was pilot on the Chicago Bridge, and then again some deckhand off the Hurley told me he was a mate on one of the City boats, he took me in hand and he says, ‘Boy, I’ll make a deck hand out of you, and you’ll be ridin these cinder throwin devils till you lay down some day and die out on the barges.’ Well, I’m dead all right but I’m under the barges, not on ’em. Then when we broke up our tow there at Cottonwood Island we had barges all over the river and two down through the Burlington railroad bridge and one went down and hit the Quincy highway bridge — we was out there thirty hours and run through a couple of new coils of line and Jackie Winders fell overboard and come near to drowndin. When he was all done and had her made up and Captain Leverett had her goin up the river again we was settin there on the barges too tired to even go back to the galley for coffee, we was right abreast of Hogback Island and Batty says to me, and he give me a tailor made, he says, ‘You done good, kid, you done good, you’ll make a deckhand yet, even with the manure still in your shoes you’re a better deckhand than some I know.’ He meant that wise guy — what was his name, Ken something? — from St. Louis who was always ravin about all the big boats he been on, ole Batty couldn’t stand the sight of him. I wonder if Marth is still workin there in the cafe. What will she think when she sees it in the paper: ‘Randolph Calhoun drowned on the Upper Mississippi, an employee of the Inland Barge Line and the nephew of Jacob Randolph, route #2.’ I must be clear of the boat now and them poor bastards are out in the yawl and Al is out of bed and the other deckhands they got them up to tie the tow off, I reckon, and Bill is givin his version of it again, the poor bastard. They got a fine chance of findin me tonight with no life vest on and the river dark anyways; if the Sprague was sunk in the middle of the channel, they couldn’t find her tonight, dark as it is. Then after the Jane Collins Batty took me over onto the Federal after he got a watchman’s job over there. We spent the summer on the James W. Good until I fell in that empty lease barge one night at Red Wing and was laid up — it was nice in the hospital and they give me magazines to read. The next season I went back on the Illinois on the Betty Jane but the less about that season the better. Then I got on the Federals again for two seasons and worked for Uncle Jim in the winter. And then there was the Transporter from Cincinnati to Helena and ole Cap Saunders — he was all right except when he would get on the bottle and Flea Williams and I would stand watch together. Flea was a comical bastard — I can laugh myself sick now thinkin of some of the rare ones he use to pull — then he got married and went to work in a fillin station in Hannibal. She’s been a grand ole time and I’d just as soon be down here makin friends with the catfish as of spent all my days shovelin manure and plantin corn. I sure hope they fish me outa here, though. I don’t hanker to stay down here after the heat wave is over. Ole Joe will be sore he got nobody to help him with the jackknifin, I s’pose he will get Bill to help him jackknife and leave Diamond handle the head line and get one of the other watch to stand the stern line. They will prob’ly pick up a deckhand up at La Crosse or Winona or Fountain City if they can find one, some kid out of a ice cream parlor that will last for about two locks, maybe they can get one of them guys at Genoa on the way down , some good deckhands around there. Well, he’s got ole Bill and Diamond anyways and they can hold up their end any time. Here goes my chance at relief watchman I been in line for — Al told me Sargent had me in mind for relief man when he went on next vacation — ain’t that the roses though? Then let’s see, after the Transporter I went over on the dredge for a while and then on the Mackenzie on the Upper Mississippi and spent the summer foolin with that ole fuel flat and we hit the Burlington Bridge and took half the pier right on up the river with us; the ole Mack never even hesitated and the limestone blocks and half the bullnosing was right on the deck of the barge. After that I went over to the Illinois again on the Marcia T., quite a comedown after the big Mack, and we messed with them ice cakes all winter and punched a hole in her bottom at Marseilles and all got off but the messboy — when they raised her they found the poor bastard down in the hole. Lookin for some soap powder, I suppose, when she went down. And we use to go over there to the Ace of Clubs by the landing in Joliete and play the juke box and get lit up and go out in a cab to them whorehouses when we got a chance, and then two months on the little Mortimer Jones in the drainage canal and a few trips down the Sag to South Chicago with one load at a time but that run gets old awful quick and I asked for transfer and got onto the new boat and we run from Joliet to Havana and every time you looked up there was some more out of the Chicago office comin aboard with their wives to see the new boat and the port captain was around all the time and Captain Ferris had to show them what a big rough tough ole boy he was and had the megaphone stuck out the pilot house all the time. What a joke — not only that but all them landins every other day and makin up eight loads at a time, carry out all that riggin just to carry it back forty hours later and make up all over again. To make a long story short, then I tole them I had enough of it and they transferred me to the ole Inland Coal and yours truly is now under water for good. I don’t see I can make it down to Lansing. Thank god they’s plenty of fishermen around her, maybe one of them will pick me up. She’s a rough go and that will be tough gettin past them bends and sloughs without no Pilot’s License.”
And then Shorty was clear of the barges and the towboat, but instead of rising to the surface to help make Genoa lock, he sank slowly and the current and wheel wash gently rolled him over in the soft mud at the bottom of the river.
Bissell, like Mark Twain, was licensed as both a riverboat captain and pilot.
A towboat pushes barges down the Mississippi River.
A deckhand casts a line to secure a barge. The same task is performed despite high winds, snowstorms, and icy decks.
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