Rocky Morrison stands at the helm of a 28-foot-long aluminum pontoon boat that he designed and built himself, zooming down the Merrimack River from Methuen toward Andover. He looks like you’d expect someone named Rocky to look: tall and tough, with calloused fingers, a shaved bald head, and a tribal tattoo inked around a thick bicep. The boat cuts smoothly through the middle of the river, which looks pristine from here, sparkling in the spring sunlight while birds swoop gently over the rippling current.
But as the boat slows and closes in on a stretch of riverbank along Andover’s AVIS Reservation, the scene changes.
“That’s a fl
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