It was the first real warm Sunday in April. The Boy thought fish might rise and bite today. The crick was cold and the fish would never bite till the first warm day in April. The preacher had warned about fishing on the Sabbath, but the Boy couldn’t get away from his chores any other day. He sometimes couldn’t even make time on a Sunday. He chuckled about the preacher, and about the image of an ox in a ditch. He wondered if an ox could pull a plow like a mule did.
He went to the barn to retrieve his pole and tackle, and the Hills Brothers coffee can filled with black worms, brown leaves, and black dirt.. The boy wished he had sifted the rafts of the branches for pennywinkles but he hadn’t had time. He also wished he had some catalpa worms or drone bee larvae, but he supposed he would have to make do with what he had.
The cane rested on the seal over the barn door. Some kept their cane pole leaning in a corner, but the Boy knew better. They were best lain flat so as not to warp. He had put up a strong and supple one last summer to cure, and it was ready now, the color of clover honey and almost 10 feet long.
The boy crossed the terraced field and made his way down to the waters.
The boy knew that the crick widened as it flowed, and the eddied pools that waited half a mile away held bream (brim,) blue on the back and red on the belly. He could taste them as surely as he thought of them. He could taste the flour, and the pepper, and the lard, and the corn dodgers the Mother spooned into the crackling grease.
The maternal Uncle taught the boy where and how to fish. And although he didn’t mind fishing alone, he missed the Uncle. The Uncle passed last spring. The Boy could still hear the Uncle cough and still see the bloody sputum on the white handkerchief he kept in the bib of his Duck Head overalls. The Boy didn’t mind fishing alone, but he missed the Uncle, even though he was glad he had finally stopped coughing.
The Boy’s Father didn’t fish and he didn’t cough, but he had died anyway, just 3 months ago. He didn’t suffer like the Uncle. “Time and chance,” the Boy thought. He was eating his tomato soup and cornbread and just fell from his chair, dead before he hit the plank floor. The doctor called it a widow maker, a heart failure, the same doctor who couldn’t even stop a cough. Sometimes the boy thought physicians and preachers were just guessing.
But the Uncle had taught the Boy to fish and the Father had taught the boy to be small, silent … invisible, cause you he was less likely to beat what he didn’t notice. And now they both were gone and the Boy had learned all his lessons well.
The Boy extended the cane and dipped the struggling worm in the eddy. He employed neither bobber nor weight, but used the cane’s tip to move the bait up and down and ease it closer to the opposing bank. The line swirled and then went taut. The Boy set the hook and eased the struggling fish out of the water and worked the cane under his right arm and slid his catch back to his waiting hands.
The Boy gently removed the barbed hook and marveled at the colors he saw, every slant of light a revelation. Then he slid the now-subdued fish back into the stream. Though he didn’t know why, the Uncle had always freed the first, and the Boy knew he would always do the same. Then the boy began to cry as he had not done since he learned to be small, silent, and invisible, and the tears flowed like the waters of that mountain stream.
Alan Caldwell is a veteran teacher and a new author. He has recently been published in Southern Gothic Creations, Deepsouth Magazine, The Backwoodsman Magazine, and oc87 Recovery Diaries.
