Floating People

Cam Stewart

There is a line of cars waiting to leave the island. It grows with every halting Saab or Cadillac. To leave Grosse Ile, an island in the Detroit River, one can choose from two bridges: the Toll Bridge or the Free Bridge.

Today I was without tokens and chose the Free Bridge- an obvious mistake. The bridge is now sluggishly opening to make way for an approaching barge or recreational yacht. When a bridge opens, a large red light glows over the entrance. This means there is no escape. Unless you are in the very rear of the line, you are forced to wait while your day is put on hold for an over-sized boat. Such an absurd inconvenience is the humor of living on an island.

Grosse Ile is tucked between Canada and a town called Trenton. But we are not Canadian (and we certainly are not from Trenton!). Roughly 10,000 people reside on the island and many of these people frequent one of the various golf and yacht clubs.

Behind me the line of cars is now spanning the length of Grosse Ile Parkway. The Dirtbombs’ raucous guitars blast from my speaker for a moment before fading out. During the fade-out, I hear the siren of an ambulance. First a light whistle, the sound builds into a piercing cry as it joins the line of cars. I wonder whether or not the driver will commit to waiting with the rest of us, leaving its desperate passenger to the mercy of an open bridge. Or will it turn around; pull a sharp U and head for the Pay Bridge?

The image of an injured person pawing at the walls of the motionless ambulance makes me feel a strange anger. It is not so much directed at the bridge, but at the helpless situation.

I think of how many times I have crossed this bridge without even acknowledging it. So frequently have I driven over the water, seen the shimmering river below me and thought nothing of it.

Life on an island is a series of leaving and returning. Because we are surrounded by water, we are not a physical part of the continental United States. However subtle this disconnect may seem, it is at play in the conscience of every island resident. When we are leaving home we are returning to the mainland, when we are leaving the mainland we are returning home.

And because of our physical disconnect, we establish for ourselves our own identity- one of tennis courts and swimming pools, one of kayaks and Sperry’s. Parents drive along the river to drop their children off at Middle School, watching the sunrise over the water. Our homes are a makeshift combination of the American Dream and wild plant and animal life.

There are no white picket fences to mark property lines. We have trees instead. Pine and maple trees dwarf many of the houses; their bodies are nature’s demarcation. The lush vegetation on our island also helps diminish the 1950’s nuclear-family-image you might expect. That, and the coyotes.

Coyotes roam the island, often favoring the open terrain of golf courses, feeding on the infinite population of deer and rabbits. On summer nights it is not unusual to hear the hum of a Jet Ski echoing from the river, the buzzing of cicadas singing their August hymn and the howls from a pack of coyotes. It is a strange, sonorous harmony found only on Grosse Ile.

Like a giant exhalation from Canada, the wind blows waves that scrape at our shores. When winter comes and the waves subside, the river freezes; the white space like a natural bridge to a foreign country.

However bizarre this place might seem, however famous you may guess it to be: it is not.  We residents of Grosse Ile locate ourselves to the unfamiliar by holding up our right hand and pointing to a vague space below our thumb. We are the small tear of land floating calmly in the Detroit River. When we cannot hold up a hand to locate our town, we describe it in rough proximity to Detroit. To someone out of state, Grosse Ile becomes “About 25 minutes south of Detroit.”

We dwell in a place we feel is unique and charming, but are forever finding it to be non-existent to the rest of the world. This residential contradiction can certainly make one feel as insignificant as someone living in a normal suburb!

Perhaps this is the source of our “GI Pride.” Perhaps we are slowly trying to come to terms with what the rest of the state already knows: that although we are floating we are no different from the rest of Michigan.

Somewhere in the back I notice the ambulance is still flashing its lights. People are now exiting their cars to observe the bridge clasp itself shut. I see two men from separate cars shake hands, smile and then point to the bridge, acknowledging their familiarity with both each other and the situation. This does not surprise me.

Just as the men get back inside their respective vehicles, I see the ambulance cut and maneuver into the opposite lane. As it completes its 180-degree turn, it restarts its siren and drives away from our line. In a quick dissolve the ambulance becomes distant, just one more vehicle crossing water to get from one part of Michigan to another. 

(For Lives)