A Fishing Story
-written approximately 2004

The day broke early a little before six when Eli walked into the black room
to wake his nephew for a cold morning of fishing. Steve snarled and turned
his back and pulled the covers over his small blond head. Eli smiled and
walked to the window and opened the curtain wide to allow the streaks of
light to angle in through the thin white sheet onto Steve’s pinkish face.
It did not work at first but the sun rose directly in line with the window
and soon the room was deeply involved with the morning light, which woke
Steve with reluctant eyes.

Eli walked to the kitchen and cracked some eggs into a cast iron skillet,
scrambling them in the grease left over from some bacon fat he fried before
waking Steve. He scattered a handful of grated cheddar cheese in the pan
for good measure, and because he knew Steve loved to eat cheese over
anything.

Steve stumbled into the quiet bare white room mumbling something to
himself.

– So you decided to go fishin after all, Eli said.

– Yeah, I said I did. I just needed to wake up a bit.

– You want somethin to eat?

– Whatchya cookin?

– Eggs, bacon and toast.

– Those eggs got cheese in em?

– No, I thought you didn’t like cheese.

– What? Man I love cheese, Steve said with a frown.

Steve sat in the squeaky wooden chair for a second and stared at Eli with a
pensive expression on his round sleepy face, as though he were sizing Eli
up, then said, Man you know I love cheese.

– Yeah, I know. I’m just playin. There’s plenty of cheese in em, Eli said.

– Huh. Well then maybe I don’t want your stupid eggs.

– All right. I’m sure Bud’ll eat em.

– Man don’t give that dog those eggs, Steve said. I want em.

Eli laughed and handed Steve the plastic yellow plate of hot breakfast
food, then prepared himself a plate with some extra bacon and spoonfuls of
grape jelly for the butter-sodden biscuits. They talked little while they
ate.

Steve began by eating his cherished cheesy eggs first, finishing half of
them before poking at the remainder of his food with his fork, flipping the
eggs over and over on the yellow plate.

Eli saw Steve’s tossed plate and said, How old are you?

– Eight and three quarters.

– Almost nine and you still don’t want to finish a plate of food? It’s not
there for you to play with you know.

– Yeah I know. I’m just not hungry anymore. But the eggs were good.

Eli shifted his position in the old paint-chipped chair, trying to get
comfortable, and finished his meal while Steve stared down at his messy
plate of scattered food, trying not to play with it anymore.

When Eli decided they both were finished, he took the plates to the sink
and said, You ready to go?

– Yeah. What do I need?

– Nothin. I got everything ready for you. You may want to bring a jacket
though. Sometimes it’s pretty cold on the lake with the wind in the
morning.

– I don’t have one with me, Steve said.

– Oh well, don’t worry about it. Looks like it may be a clear sky with a
decent sun out. I’ll just bring one of my long-sleeve flannel shirts for
you.

– Cool, Steve said.

After the gear was packed and placed in the rear of the truck, they climbed
in and drove out to the stumpy lake only Eli fished on, though not much
recently. The truck they rode in was an old baby-blue two-toned Ford F-150
with a white stripe down the sides, cracked paint with dented front bumper
and fender, mudguards covering the back tires. The engine rattled loudly
enough to disturb the mating practices of deer deep in the distant woods.
The ride to the lake, which rests in the dense unwalked part of a farm
owned by Eli’s grandfather, was a collaborative effort of comfortable
silence. Eli looked over at Steve who was staring out his open window,
captured by the stripped down beauty of the land with the rows in the
fields and the trees and the cows and the birds at rest on the telephone
lines, then smiled to himself and returned to the grey paved highway with
the faded broken yellow line down its center, fiddling with the radio knob
trying to pick up something they both could listen to. Every now and then
one of them spoke.

– So how’re your parents? Eli asked with his eyes still on the road.

– Oh they’re fine, Steve said, still staring out his window.

– They gettin along all right?

– I guess. You know; same as usual.

– Yeah; I know.

Eli knew they argued often with loud flailing words in front of Steve and
his little sister; he could sense rightly enough that Steve was not
interested in talking about it. But Eli loved Steve like a son.

– Eli. Can I ask you a question?

– Shoot.

– Do I have to leave on Sunday? Can’t I stay a little longer?

Eli stared straight ahead and tightened his grip on the steering wheel,
then tried to relax.

– Well, you’ve got school and everything, Eli said after a short
contemplative pause.

– Aw, I can miss a couple days. It don’t matter.

– ‘It don’t matter?’ You need to be concentrating on your English homework
it sounds like to me, Eli said.

– Spelling? Writing? I can write cursive pretty good. You wanna see?

– Pretty well. No, not right now. Grammar is what I’m talking about. You
know what I mean. It’s important to learn that stuff early. I wish I
would’ve.

– It’s hard though. They got us learning Spanish too. How can I learn two
languages at once?

– I suppose it could be tough, but I read somewhere that children your age
pick up languages pretty quick. You need to learn another language. You
like it?

– Eh, it’s all right.

– Well it’s good they’re teaching it to you. You’re gonna need it one day.

– That’s what they say.

– Well this time they’re probly right.

Steve looked out the window for a second with his narrow nearly nine-year
old brow furrowed as much as he could. He turned to Eli a couple of times,
attempting to say something but deciding against it. After a few minutes of
repeating this unvoiced exchange, with Eli looking at him each time
expecting him to say something, but saying nothing himself, Steve finally
said:

– So I can’t stay any longer?

– No. You can’t stay any longer. I’m sorry.

Steve turned and stared out his window again with determination and didn’t
say anything else the rest of the ride. Eli kept his eyes on the road and
one hand on the wheel, the other hanging out the always-open window, trying
to think of something to say that may assuage Steve’s disappointment a
little. He felt he had been harsh with his answer, but he knew he should
put a stop to Steve’s hopes early instead of later.

They pulled up to the farm and opened the aluminum gate, then turned onto
the narrow gravel road and drove through the tall pine trees that stood
clustered together in a random fashion, which seemed to provide Steve with
enough imaginative spark to lull him from his despondency. They both saw an
owl swoop down in front of the windshield, clearly bothered by the
grumbling of the engine and the loud suspension of the twenty-year-old
truck. They watched the owl in unified fascination but neither spoke or
commented on it. Eli wondered if Steve was still angry with him, but he
could not trace out any resentment on Steve’s young face. They just did not
see the point in talking about the beauty of the owl’s flight when they
both could see it plainly enough.

Soon Eli parked the truck on the side of the road beside a muddy ditch. He
grabbed the tackle box out of the back of the truck and handed Steve the
pole he would use on the lake. It was a short closed-face push-button
orange and white Snoopy rod and reel suitable for a young beginner, even
though Steve considered himself an experienced fisherman. Eli would use his
trusty black aluminum rod with the opened-face bait-casting reel because he
liked to let his thumb rest on the line as it soared out, allowing him full
control over the placement of the lure. He grabbed a bucket of minnows for
Steve to use and a package of rubber worms for himself along with the
tackle box, but Steve insisted that he carry the minnows. Eli smiled and
handed him the bucket telling him to be careful with them. Steve treated
them as though they were sacred, holding the bucket with both hands and
sloshing bits of water on the ground, while Eli took the rod and carried it
for him.

They walked along the flat bank of the large brownish lake kicking sticks
and Eli hitting Steve with the fishing poles as if they were swords. Steve
kept telling Eli to stop, so Eli began to do it only every now and then.
And Steve told him to stop each time. Even with Eli’s pestering, Steve
appeared to have forgotten about the conversation in the truck and returned
to his happy and carefree self, all of which made Eli smile broadly as they
walked.

– What are you smilin at? Steve asked.

– You.

– Why? You think I’m funny?

– I s’pose. You just make me laugh.

Steve placed the bucket of minnows on the ground, picked up a rock, and
threw it across the lake trying to make it skip at least three times, and
trying to ignore Eli.

They found the beaten rust-worn two man boat pulled up on the bank farther
down the lake, turned upside down and tied to an old stump with a short
piece of heavily used chain suitable for a small dog or a dirty bar-lot
fight. Eli put down his tackle box and untied the boat and bent down to
turn it over so he could push it into the chilly morning water. He told
Steve to watch for any snakes that may run out when he lifted the boat, so
Steve stepped tip-toe like backward a little bit and turned toward the
water to pick up some more stones to skip across the sleeping lake. He
yelled aloud when he managed to make one skip five times, as though he had
actually accomplished something in his life. Eli looked up to see what he
was doing.

– Now don’t do that Steve, Eli said.

– How come? Steve asked.

– ‘Cause it’ll disturb the fish.

– Oh.

Steve hung his head a little with his hands in his pockets and kicked at
the rocks but did not complain for he believed Eli and did not want to ruin
the day’s fishing. Eli felt slightly ashamed because he was not exactly
convinced the stone skipping would really disturb the fish too much, but
his father had told him the same thing so he believed it more on tradition
and superstition than anything scientific.

Eli pushed the boat into the water while Steve sat in the bow with his
oversized life preserver reluctantly worn, though he still managed to have
a large smile wrinkled onto his pink youthful face; they would soon be on
the water and he felt he could almost smell the relished mucky scent of the
fish in the boat. Eli shoved off and hopped onto his seat, getting his foot
and the bottom of his pants wet from stepping too far off the bank and
sliding in the shallow cloudy water. The water was very cold on his thick
socks, soaking through to his feet, jarring him awake, but he withheld the
curse word on his lips even knowing it wouldn’t alarm Steve at all.

After teaching Steve how to bait his hook with the minnow by placing the
hook through its eyes so it would stay alive and swim wildly underneath the
water, with Steve enthralled; Eli tied a spinner-bait to his line and
snapped it with his teeth, ready to throw his first cast of the day.
Neither of them were lucky their first few casts, but Steve told Eli he was
having a ball.

– I noticed you backing away from the boat when I mentioned those snakes.
What, are you scared of snakes? Eli asked with a sly grin on his face.

– No, Steve said with squinted eyes. I just wanted to skip some rocks
across the lake. I was gonna do that anyway before you said anything about
those stupid snakes.

– Oh OK, Eli said.

– I was, Steve said and turned away from Eli toward his line and watched it
as he reeled it in, making tiny ripples in the flat water. Oddly there was
no wind yet and the morning was calm and at ease. There were a few leaves
left floating on top of the brown water, but most had disappeared in
preparation for the coming winter, though in this part of the country it
never really gets bitterly cold, only enough to annoy. The birds found it
pleasurable, with their singing and darting back and forth like privileged
children.

Steve and Eli passed the next half-hour mostly in silence, watching the
various colors the light the rising sun made when it hit the surface of the
lake and the grime on top of the water, twisting the light into flat greasy
rainbows. Eli showed Steve the tight ripples on the water and how that
meant there was probably a school of fish underneath the water swimming
about and Steve made the perfunctory joke about whether the fish had
learned anything in all these years. Eli said he thought they had since it
had become harder to catch them over all the time he spent fishing the
overgrowing lake. Steve looked at him with an odd expression knotted onto
his face. Eli looked at him and shrugged his shoulders.

They both flinched then froze when Eli thought he had a bite, though it
ended up being only a limb under water. Eli unhung himself by pulling on
the 9-pound line until the boat floated over to where it hung, then
reaching under the water and pulling the stuck bait out. The hook was
straightened slightly by the limb and the pulling, so Eli bent it back into
its rounded position and recast.

– Eli. You think my parents are gonna get divorced? Steve asked.

– I don’t really know, Eli said after a pause. Nobody has an easy marriage.

– It wouldn’t be that big a deal if they did, Steve said. A lot of people I
know’s parents are divorced. They just don’t seem to get along, you know.

Eli was taken aback by Steve’s attitude toward his parents’ breakdown in
their marriage and was at a temporary loss of the correct words to use in
his response.

– Well, Steve, let’s just pray they do the right thing, Eli said. He threw
his line out into water and began reeling it in before adding, They don’t
take anything out on you do they?

– No. They just argue a lot’s all.

– I’m sorry about that. They shouldn’t do that in front of you and your
sister.

–
I don’t notice it as much anymore anyway. I just watch TV.

– Well, they still shouldn’t do that, Eli said, though he knew he had no
position to condemn. The conversation was beginning to anger him so he
decided to change the subject.

– How you likin school?

– It’s all right. I like my homeroom teacher. Sometimes I draw things for
her instead of taking a nap.

– Uh huh. I thought you had a girlfriend?

– A girlfriend? Man I ain’t got no girlfriend. Girls are for sissies.

– Y’all don’t play kissy-chase?

– Kissy what?

– Kissy-chase. Where you run around trying not to let the girls catch you
and kiss you.

– No we don’t play nuthin like that.

– Well, I heard you had a girlfriend.

– Who said that?

– Oh I can’t say.

– Who’d they say it was?

– Cathy.

– Cathy’s not my girlfriend, Steve argued though his reddening cheeks
betrayed his embarrassment.

– That’s not what I heard.

Steve decided not to carry on this conversation, so he concentrated very
hard on his fishing. He reeled the line in and hooked a fresh minnow and
cast as far as he could, ignoring Eli’s sardonic laughter and flinching
each time his line twitched slightly in the morning water. Eli slowly
stopped his laughing as he began to think that it had really hurt Steve, so
he too concentrated more on his fishing. He decided to switch from his
spinner bait to an artificial black and silver worm. He threaded the hook
from the top of the head of the slippery worm and then out the side,
placing the tip of the hook halfway through its rubber belly so that when
he laid it on the bank he could slowly draw it into the water without
getting hung on any limbs or debris in the way. They fished like this for a
while without words, with the sun slowly climbing toward the top of the
clean sky, both absorbed in their own separate worlds of thought. Though
Steve was young, he seemed to be comfortable with his thoughts, not feeling
the need so many do to converse when in the presence of another person,
especially younger folk. Eli had a feeling the lack of catching any fish
was beginning to frustrate Steve however, as it was bothering the piss out
of him.

Steve finally spoke with exasperation in his young awkward voice:

– You think the bream are gonna bite my bait before the bass get to it?

– Probly not. The hook’s too big for ‘em. Just be patient. You’ll hook one.

– We’ve been here forever and I still haven’t caught anything. Haven’t even
had a good nibble. I think the minnow is gettin loose and swimmin away.

– I doubt that. Be patient; they’re not gonna just jump in the boat. Fish
are like women; they’re smart but not as smart as they think. They need to
be tricked.

– Is that why the bait’s called a lure? Steve asked after thinking for a
second. ‘Cause we’re trickin em?

– Yep, Eli replied and smiled to himself.

Steve was silent in thought for a short time staring at his line lying limp
in the water, then said:

– Am I gonna have to be as patient with women as I am with these stupid
fish?

– Probly.

– I don’t think they’re worth it then.

– Sometimes they are.

They finished the morning with one fish, a bass that Eli caught on his
artificial worm as they were drifting toward the bank to leave. Steve was
thrilled and so Eli let him hold it by the lip, which Steve loved because
he liked the feel of the stubble of teeth on the bottom of the fish’s lip,
but Eli made Steve put the small bass back in the water because it was not
large enough to keep and eat. They would let it grow some then catch it
another day. Steve leaned over and placed the terrified fish back into the
water, watching it jerk back to life and swim away with startling speed.

While Eli pulled the boat onto the bank and turned it over to let it drain
and prevent it from collecting water next time it rained, Steve decided to
try throwing stones across the lake again. This time he asked Eli if it
would be okay. Eli smiled and said Yes, and watched Steve as he awkwardly
jerked his arm sideways to try and get the rocks to skate across the water.
After Eli had finished tying the boat to the stump, he walked up to Steve
and picked up a smooth stone and skipped it across the lake four or five
times. Steve was impressed and asked how he did it the first try. So Eli
showed him how to pick the right rock, flat and smooth, and then how to
release it low and to flick his wrist just right to make the rock scoot
across the water on its flat side in beautiful water dropped arcs. They
stood there throwing rocks in the water for half an hour while Steve
perfected his technique until he was able to consistently get four or five
skips each time. Eli couldn’t compete with him any longer, but he claimed
it was because Steve had an unfair advantage, being so close to the ground.

In the truck on the way back to Eli’s house they watched a red-tailed hawk
as it circled them in low-falling swoops, following them for a couple of
miles while they enjoyed the scene without words. Then Steve looked at Eli
in a serious way and asked one more time:

– You sure I can’t stay a little while longer?

Eli tightened his jaw and looked over at Steve with sympathy on his wooden
sun-burned face, saw the expectant look in his nephew’s large round eyes
and almost folded. He turned back to the grey paved road and said:

– No, shaking his round head. You can’t. You just can’t, he repeated.

Steve’s shoulders slumped in defeat. They looked at each other with
strained eyes, but Steve did not plead, and neither did Eli fold, as he
knew Steve wanted to stay longer than one or two days, which was
impossible. So they both sat looking out the windows, driving down the
paved grey highway with the radio off, silence now reverberating in the
tight cab like an undertow of ignored waves, watching the circling of the
hawk until it disappeared behind the distant line of trees. After that
there was only the rows of the fields and the birds on the telephone lines.