Confluence

After a dozen or so calls, I finally get access

from Mr. Kopanski, the superintendent of the whole water treatment complex,

to see Fort Peachtree, or rather a replica of it

built by employees of the Bureau of Drinking Water

no one knows quite when. He can’t remember the last time someone wanted to see it.

The original was probably up on the rocky outcropping,

Kopanski tells me, where the very utilitarian River Water Quality Control Center

now stands, abandoned, asbestos insides being gutted as I explore the fort.

This is where they had space, I guess, Kopanski says—

close enough. Pretty dang impressive for Drinking Water employees, I remark

to myself. Kopanski sent someone to let me in—we spoke over the phone—

and I’m left here alone at the edge of the autumn woods, hemmed by barbed wire.

I step within the staked walls of the palisade, and the one building therein—

more of a log cabin than a fort—seems in decent enough shape

until I step inside. The dust rises like fog, and I cough

as my eyes adjust. The sarcophagus of a log structure

hasn’t been touched in who knows how long—it’s thick with years

of cobwebbed neglect, the crude, old display cases shattered

like cracked mud (it was looted in the ’70s, Kopanski says over the phone)

and the dirt daubers patching the gaps in the chinking.

In the center, facing the crumbling chimney, a massive table

slumbers under a once-clear sheet of Plexiglas—

blowing off some of the dust, I can make out a miniature fort replica, replicated,

a whole world frozen within a filthy pond.

I tear off sheets of notebook paper and scrub and streak at the grimy surface

until I run out of spit. Then, realizing there’s no one around,

I shut the stout wooden door and heave off the display top (much heavier than I expect)

to bring the musty world to light.

There it is—just as I’d read—the fort atop a hill

at the confluence of the Chattahoochee and the Peachtree

(I couldn’t see this as I pulled in to park)

and manned by tiny soldiers, circa 1812.

This was not Georgia then, of course, but rather Creek land

and their town of Standing Peachtree straddled the creek—

the river perpendicular dividing their nation from the Cherokee.

When Mr. Madison’s war began, we allied with those Cherokee,

while the Creek unwisely sided with the redcoats, thus overlooking their town

the fort—and, as it was, the very beginnings of the city:

before Terminus and Marthasville and Sherman and Coke and King

and the Bureau of Drinking Water.

Of course, this is a replica of a replica, mind you,

but this is the spot, or close enough—of such

significance, obscure and inaccessible—and naturally, intriguing.

I heave the Plexiglas up in place, with a cough,

examine the bird’s nest gourd by the mantle and head out.

In the parking lot, two Drinking Water employees

linger on a smoke break. They are not replica builders and

know little of it. Where is the confluence? I ask.

I figure that’s the closest I’ll get to the source.

Well, you’re not really supposed to be down there, they say, but

you might be able to see it from there, pointing

to a squat tower over a raw water intake turbine (they tell me).

They go on about the history they do know

and how a water treatment complex works and when I mention Kopanski

they let me go walk the gangplank out to the tower on the river’s edge.

I can’t see it, I say when I return, and

Well, you’re not really supposed to be down there, they say, but

there’s a trail, an old road, go through this first gate here

and you’ll see these two columns, can’t miss ’em,

but I wouldn’t drive down there, it’s real muddy, I’d walk if I was you.

Thanks a lot, I say and get in my car and drive

back up the road, as more men emerge from the

River Water Quality Control Center wheeling barrows of asbestos.

I miss the columns because they’re not columns—they’re two-foot-tall poles.

I park, and it is muddy I see as I start down the old road.

There’s a barbed wire fence on my right, along the Control Center,

and one on my left, in the fall woods, so I’m not sure at this point who’s

keeping me in or out of where and which drinking water facility

I’d get sent to if they caught me—I didn’t even get those

guys’ names and invoking Kopanski probably wouldn’t help in that event—

but soon enough I spy the Peachtree Creek through the woods

and no one’s spotted me yet so I keep going

(there are still enough leaves on the trees, I figure).

The road eventually opens into a clearing on the back side of the Control Center

and I skirt across this quick and slip into the brush on the far side.

There’s a little trail there—who knows how old or when last used—and

around the bend, down through the foliage, at last

the confluence. I skip down to the top of the bank and smile

at the full, round creek slipping into the broad, coffee-milk ’Hooch.

Though I’m not really supposed to be down here,

sliding down the muddy bank—nearly baptizing myself—I stick my hand in.

I’m not sure what history’s meant to feel like—my clothes are filthy and I’m paranoid—

but I linger at this confluence a good while,

the peach tree standing by, and its fort,

the replica of the replica, the creek of the Creek, sweeping downstream together

below the turbines of the Chattahoochee inhaling the Peachtree exhaling

the nativity of this city.

As I head back from where I came, I’m fairly certain

no one sees me from the Bureau of Drinking Water.