It wasn’t the kind of day that made you think about going for a bike ride, but there, heading down Main, pedaled a small boy. He was dressed for the sleet in nothing but a T-shirt. His legs poked through at the tattered knees of his pants with every pump he made against a bitter north wind. Behind him he towed two red Radio Flyers loaded with laundry.
Out in front of McCracken’s, Junior was helping Etta May Harper out with her groceries as the boy pedaled by. Junior, wearing a sweater, was cold just coming outside. The thought of being on a bicycle made him shiver.
“Why that kid will catch his death,” Etta May said. “Who is that boy?”
“I don’t know,” Junior answered, surprised that he didn’t, for Junior knew everyone in Travers. With three kids of his own in school he knew all the children in town as most of them come through his living room on weekends, or so it seemed. But he’d never seen this boy.
He watched the kid pedal past Dolores’s, then angle across the street to the Take ’r Easy Motel and its Laundromat.
Back inside, Junior returned to a small remodeling job he’d started near the front of the general store. He was running behind, as usual, so he only puzzled over the anomalous sight of the boy and his bike for a moment. Then it was back to the carpentry at hand.
In the charge of an accomplished woodworker, the job, new shelving around the front windows, would have taken one or two days. In the hands of a mediocre handyman, it would take maybe five days. Junior had been on the job for over two weeks, and given what he had been able to accomplish so far, he was confident he’d be finished sometime—maybe even soon. Tools didn’t exactly leap into Junior’s hands. They even looked odd there, as if they didn’t belong, and this was because they didn’t.
Consulting his plans, which were letter perfect, and his measurements, which were precise, Junior reached for the power saw. This is where things generally start to go wrong for him. Hand tools were a concern in his hands, power tools were frightening. While his plans and measurements might be perfect, Junior is always strong on the slide-rule end of construction. It is the application part of building that throws him. Sure, he could triangulate the most difficult miter and cut it to the exact degree, but it’s the actual mechanics of the cut that confuses him. Tool coordination—he’d none. Coordination in general is not one of his strong suits. Wood in his hands becomes lumber and that’s lumber the verb not the noun. An observer watching him work would hardly think the man was a qualified pharmacist, but a man afflicted with hopeless dyslexia. This inability to translate from the theoretical to the dimensional reality of spatial relationships was hampered even further by Junior’s chronic absentmindedness. He made a grab for the saw. It was an air-grab. The saw wasn’t there.
In all fairness to Junior, it should be mentioned that every time someone needed a prescription filled he would have to leave his shelving project, usually carrying whatever tool or material he happened to have in his hand with him. Somewhere between the front door and the pharmacy, he would lay whatever he had down, never in the same spot, hence initiating his next search.
A few hours later Jud came into McCracken’s. Junior, just minutes before, had drilled some holes in the walls. So right now he was looking for the drill. The drill was the least of his worries. It was fairly large and brightly colored, but he couldn’t find his drill bits, or the key for the chuck, for that matter.
“Hey, Junior.”
Looking up from under a counter, “Oh, hello there, Jud.”
Having seen Junior down on his knees before, Jud asked, “What are you looking for?”
“Um, some drill bits and a chuck key.”
“Ah.” The amazing thing about Junior, Jud thought, was that he had to spend 30 percent of his waking hours looking for things he had just lost, and it never upset him. He treated looking for tools as part of the process, part of the cost of construction. He was like that as a kid. He got straight As, but he never had on matching socks. He had a telescope in his room and he could identify all the constellations, but he would get lost on the way to his homeroom. In today’s vernacular he would be a nerd. Back then he was a bookworm.
“Have you been fishing lately?” Junior asked, standing up and brushing off his knees.
“Got out last night.”
“Did you do any good?” Junior asked.
“It was okay.” Jud knew he needed to change the subject, and quickly, for once Junior got wound up about fishing he would be trapped. “I need some number ten two-inch brass screws. I need thirty of them.”
He didn’t dare ask Junior how his fishing was. He knew better than that. It was well understood among the fishermen in Travers, that you never ask Junior how his fishing was unless you have plenty of time. Ask Doc or Henry how their fishing was, and you get something like it was good, it was fair, it was lousy. But Junior tells you in detail. Starting with the fly he used and how it was tied, when he tied it and why, through all his fishing sequences, fish by fish, jump by jump, strike by miss, cast by false cast, riffle by pool, Junior wants to tell it all. Doc says that he comes away from one of Junior’s fishing stories as tired as if he had spent the day on the river himself.
Passing by the corner window, heading for the screw department, Junior saw the young boy from this morning pedaling back from the Laundromat. This time he got a good look. “Hey, Jud, have you ever seen this kid before?”
The boy’s face was pale, save for the reddened cheeks. His lips were bluish white. A pair of oversized eyes watered against the wind. He was still in his T-shirt. His bare arms were thin and mottled by the cold. He looked understandably miserable as he pedaled past. His face was sad—a look that anyone who had spent two hours in a Laundromat would understand.
“No.” Jud hadn’t seen him before. “Damned cold to be without a coat.”
“I’d guess.”
The boy pedaled beneath the window where they stood, and the two wagons wobbled in tow. Even though they were standing behind glass they could hear their rattles and squeaks. Wobbled past because they hardly rolled, there wasn’t a matching tire in the eight. What few parts there are to a Radio Flyer were held together by baling wire. The laundry, done and sort of folded, shifted back and forth from the uneven ride. The loads were secured to the beds under the weight of several bricks.
His bike was a combination of bikes, a fusion of nonmatching parts, and though it was far from symmetrical, he seemed to pedal it quite well. A piece of cardboard, taped to and extending down the back fender, kept the spray of his rear tire from hitting the clean clothes. This wasn’t his first trip to the Laundromat.
“Wonder what that kid’s mother is thinking about?” Jud said as he watched Junior count out his screws.
“I don’t know. Weatherman says it’s going to start getting warmer. It was great last week. I got out on the river twice. Did I tell you about the day I had last Sunday?”
“Uh, no you didn’t. But listen, Junior, I really have to get going. I’m expecting a phone call. Tell me about it later, will ya?”
On his way out the door, Jud called back, “Hey, Junior, your drill bits and chuck key are up here by the magazines.”
“Thanks.”
Walking back to the Boat Works he thought about the boy once more. Then he didn’t think about him again until May.
Jud only thought about him then because bicycling up the hill came the boy. It was a far different day from the last time he saw him on his bike. It was a warm, almost summer morning. The door was open to the workshop, and Jud watched him pedal closer as he went about fastening cedar strips in place along the ribs of a river dory.
“Hello,” Jud greeted him.
The boy greeted Jud back by coming straight to the point, “You need any help around here, mister?” The look in his eye was that of determination, but his voice was so shy it lacked only the hiss to be a whisper. He asked this not as a boy who was out trying to earn a little spending money, but as a boy who needed a job.
Jud was getting a good look at the boy who was thin, too thin. His color wasn’t good. His face wasn’t the face you would expect to see on a young boy. It was a troubled face, a face that was in dire need of some laughter.
“Well, I don’t know. I might need some help,” Jud answered as he took two Pepsis out of the fridge, then handed one to the boy. He took it, but he didn’t smile. “How old are you?”
“Ten.”
“What’s your name?”
“Michael.”
“Michael what?”
“Chase.”
Grabbing his glasses, Jud picked up a piece of paper and a pencil from the tool bench and acting very formal he asked, “Well, Michael Chase, I have a few questions I’ll need to ask before I can consider you for employment,” then pretended to read off the paper. “Do you own your own car?”
“No,” Michael’s face puzzled.
“Do you have your Social Security number?”
“No.”
“Have you ever been married?”
“No,” he answered, growing a little impatient with questions that were only intended to make him laugh.
“Have you ever been arrested?”
“No!” He was missing the humor and growing visibly frustrated.
It appeared that nothing was going to make Michael laugh, but Jud wasn’t going to give up and gave it one more attempt. He tried his combination of Jabberwocky and Jerry Lewis—a sure laugh getter with ten-year-olds.
“Okay, I do have a job. I need someone to spanner a winnelpeg on my credesvance so my mahalioprope will once again be able to transmogulate.” He reached for his hat hanging behind the door, put it on backward while turning his glasses upside down and added, “Do you coginify my soliference?”
That worked. He got a laugh, but it was a short laugh. Then the boy returned to the business at hand. “Really, mister, I need to find a job.”
“All right, I have a job. How are you at mowing a lawn?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never done it.” Annie the Wonderlab wandered in through the open door. Delighted to see a short human, the only size range in the species that really knew how to play, she ran to pick up her stick and then nosed it into the boy’s hand.
Pulling his pocket watch from his vest, Jud asked, “It’s almost eleven thirty. Why don’t you join me for lunch? We’ll go down and have a couple of hamburgers at the Tin Cup. If it’s all right with your mom.”
“She won’t care.”
Jud looked at Michael’s shirt, ragged and outgrown some time ago. He looked at his hair, face, and elbows, which hadn’t seen much in the way of soap and water lately. He looked into a pair of young and unhealthy eyes. He found his mother’s not caring easy to believe.
On their walk down to the Tin Cup, then over a cheeseburger, Jud was finding out more about Michael. His mother was ill—a bad back from an automobile accident. No father. Mom was taking a lot of pain medication. She couldn’t work. No money. A sister who was eight. They were living in one of the trailers across the tracks. At his house, it was Michael who took care of the laundry, the shopping, the cooking, his sister.
Michael ate from hunger. He wolfed down his fries, downed his shake, and had a helping of pie. But he divided his hamburger, wrapping one half in a napkin.
“Was your mouth bigger than your stomach?” asked Jud.
“I’m gonna give this half to my sister.”
“Well, you’ll need all of that hamburger if you are going to mow a lawn. Takes a lot of energy to mow a lawn. So, you go ahead and eat that one and I’ll ask Sarah to make another burger for your sister.”
Elated, Michael tore open the napkin, while Jud caught Sarah’s eye and waved her over to the table. The prep work was done and she was poised and ready behind the grill, psyching herself up for the lunch crowd, shifting from one foot to the other like a shortstop. In her Yankee’s cap it made for an easy analogy.
“Michael this is Sarah. Sarah owns the Tin Cup.” This garnered the same amount of awe from Michael as if she owned Trump Tower. “Michael has a sister at home and he’d like to have a hamburger to take home to her, and a piece of apple pie, too.”
“You got it, Jud. Do you live here in town, Michael?”
Michael with a face full of burger just nodded. All Sarah could see above the bun were Michael’s eyes. They were beautiful and rimmed with red. He was too pale.
“He and his family just moved to Travers a while ago. They’re living out in one of the trailers.” At that point Jud raised his eyebrows, and he and Sarah traded questionable expressions, both knowing that if you were living out in the trailers, you were automatically impoverished. Michael’s being way too slender and in need of a good scrubbing told her everything else she needed to know.
“Well, you come back and see me, Michael,” and she gave him one of her soft Sarah smiles. She went back to the kitchen and they heard the sizzle of the burger hit the grill.
The lunch crowd came with the noonday whistle, but by that time Jud and Michael were gone. Michael delivered the hamburger to his sister at the trailer. Jud went back to the Boat Works to make a call.
“Sarah.”
“Yeah?”
“Do me a favor? Ask around, see if you can find out anything about Michael’s mother. There is big trouble in that boy’s life.”
“Will do. Gotta go. Got a grill full. Sure seems like a good kid.” Sarah had a hair appointment at Dolores’s after work. Dolores would know something about Michael and his family if anybody would.
Though Jud had only been around Michael a short while, he could sense a quality about him. He was a good kid. He was polite. His table manners needed work, but it could have been the hunger. He was smart and well spoken for ten. The eyes, though troubled, were bright.
Michael was quickly back at the Boat Works and trying to catch his breath from the bike ride. He followed Jud out to the backyard. “So, you’ve never mowed a lawn before?” Jud asked pulling the mower from a corner of the workshop.
“Nope.”
“Well, grab a hold of it. See how it feels.”
Then picking up a length of doweling from a wood bin, he motioned for Michael to follow him and to bring the mower. “Well, yard work, my b-o-oy,” Jud said in his best W. C. Fields, “is the very b-a-ane of my existence. I’d rather take a sound beating than do yard w-o-ork. I have the lawn mower, mind you, but I lack the inclin-a-a-tion.” Then he rested the doweling on his shoulder, as Fields rested his cane, and with his hat he mimicked W. C.’s patented schtick where he tries to put on his skimmer, but misses his head, and instead balances his straw hat on the end of his cane. Then he would look all around for his hat. Finally realizing where it really was, he would recoil surprised, fingers splayed, and say something akin to “Godfrey Daniel.” Jud did the bit to a tee.
This time Jud got a belly laugh. A belly laugh when an hour ago he couldn’t even make Michael smile. Now that was progress. Amazing what a little attention and a full stomach can do for kids.
“Now, you told your mother where you are?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“She was asleep. She always sleeps in the afternoon after she takes her medicine.”
“What about your sister? Who’s watching her?”
“She’s over at Sissy Henderson’s playing dolls. I gotta pick her up and take her home when I get done mowing the lawn,” Michael answered, grimacing at the thought of playing dolls and having to put up with his kid sister.
Once he had checked Michael out on the lawn mower, gas, oil, throttle, and safety instructions, Jud returned to his workshop. From the window he could look out now and then to see how Michael was doing, and he was mowing that lawn as though his life depended on it. Back and forth he went, never stopping for a breather or to wipe his brow, only stopping a few times for a drink from the hose. He wasn’t treating the lawn like a summertime chore, but as a pivotal point in his work record—his first job. He didn’t want to look bad. He wanted more jobs.
Mowing the lawn wasn’t easy as it was the first cutting of the season, and Jud had let it get a little longer than he should have. Yard work was way down an already long list of Jud’s procrastinations. It took Michael over two hours, but he got it done. The lawn looked good, especially for a first-time mower, and a ten-year-old at that.
“You did a great job there, Michael,” Jud said handing him a cold soda.
“Thanks, can I get paid now? I gotta get home.”
“Well, uh, sure.” Jud dug out his wallet then looked at his pocket watch. He put his glasses on and fingered through the bills while calculating what a fair price for the gardening might be. He realized from the urgency in the boy’s voice that he was asking for the money, not for candy and comics, but for staples and rent.
He handed the bill to Michael, who was no longer there. He was now standing looking inside a just-finished river dory. His eyes were wide and Jud was really seeing them for the first time. He rubbed the gunwale and twirled the oarlocks. “You make these?”
“Yep.”
“They’re really cool.”
“Well, maybe one day this summer I’ll take you and your sister for a ride down the river. If it’s all right with your mom.”
“Yeah! That would be great.” For a moment Michael looked like the child he was. Then he noticed the money in Jud’s hand and started to reach for it, but then pulled back, unsure how one was to accept wages, these being his first.
“Listen, Michael, I don’t want to pry into another man’s business, but would you say that things were good or bad around your house right now?”
“Bad,” he answered with no hesitation.
Jud pulled another bill from his wallet. “Now, I’m about to pay you roughly five times the price of an average lawn-mowing job. When a guy needs money five bucks isn’t going to cut it. So, for a while, it will be you who owes me. You can work off the balance. I’ll pay you three dollars and twenty-five cents an hour. I know that is well below the minimum wage, but that works out fine because you are well below the minimum age. So I am going to give you twenty-five dollars, you’ve worked for two hours and forty-five minutes at three dollars and twenty-five cents, off six, that means you own me … ummm … let’s see, two and a half—”
“I earned eight dollars and ninety-three cents,” Michael said. “That leaves … mmm … sixteen dollars and seven cents. So that would be … mmm … that would be 4.3 hours of work that I still owe you.”
Jud gave him a double take.
“I like math.”
“See, like that woodpile over there needs straightening, and the workshop needs a good sweeping, and there’s weeding, et cetera. When you’ve worked off this advancement, this loan, we’ll start afresh and I’ll pay you as you go. But you have to check it out with your mother first. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“You tell your mom to call me.”
“We don’t have a phone.”
“Well, I’ll come down sometime when it’s convenient and meet your mom, and—”
“No. It’s all right, my mom won’t care. I gotta go.” He was on his bike and down the hill. Jud went back to work, and for the rest of the afternoon things were quiet around the Boat Works. But he couldn’t stop thinking about Michael.
Things are never quiet around Dolores’s, and the beauty parlor was its usual jumble of noise. Margie Morris was under the dryer, while Dolores was curling Emily Hanford’s hair in the next chair. The country radio station was playing, as it was always playing. Sarah was waiting her turn. She’d come a little early for her haircut just so she could share in a bit of the gab with Dolores, who with the phone to her ear, was making an appointment. If you want to know what’s going on in Travers Corners, Dolores’s is Command Central.
“Yeah, sure we can do it for you, Mary … okay, sweetie, see you, Tuesday … huh? … oh yeah, I heard. It’s awful … how long have they been married? … no kidding … okay … gotta go.”
Dolores put down the phone, scribbled the appointment in the book, and went back to curling Emily’s hair, “Mark and Joleen are gettin’ divorced. Been married a whole three months. Three months, that sorta sounds more like a timed event than a marriage. I’ve had head colds last longer than three months,” Dolores laughed at her own joke.
Dolores was looking fine today, looking like only Dolores could look. She called it her early truck-stop look, bowling-alley colors. Her orange pants and yellow blouse were fitting tight. Dolores has, and always has had, a figure that favored the tighter fit. She had on red shoes and her hair was redder today than it was last week. Her face was lineless and beautiful.
She and Sarah have been best friends since Sarah moved to town, even though their backgrounds, other than sharing an Italian ancestry, lie on either ends of the spectrum. Sarah, the ex-schoolteacher from Brooklyn. Dolores born and raised in the Elkheart. You would never put these two together by fashion or looks. For Sarah was in her Yankee’s hat, Hawaiian shirt, baggy pants, Reeboks, and her hair was the same color brown as it always was. When Sarah smiled, crow’s-feet fanned from the corners of her eyes, and that smile has been known to turn a few heads as well.
Following the news of Mark and Joleen, the natural course for discussion was divorce. Who was thinking about it. Who had done it lately. Of course, they covered their favorite divorce topic: those who would do it if given half a chance and why. Sarah wasn’t much for spreading gossip. She never repeated anything she heard, but she loved listening in. Loved it. A voyeur gossip.
Waiting until Dolores had finished helping Margie out from under the hair dryer, Sarah asked, “Do any of you know anything about a new family living out in the trailers? A young boy named Michael, his mother, and his sister?”
Dolores, Margie, and Emily all shook their heads. Then Dolores spotted Betty Dorsey heading for the library. “There’s someone who oughta know somethin’ about ’em.” As principal of Elkheart Elementary, Betty Dorsey did indeed know something about the Chase family. In fact, she knew almost everything as a report concerning the Chases had been sent to her from the county offices only yesterday. Dolores flagged her down, and the principal crossed Main where Sarah met her in front of the parlor.
“It’s a terrible situation, the Chases,” Betty explained in her nervous and speedy manner, “They have no money. The father is gone. The mother is a former junkie who is right now in a lawsuit against the state over a phony insurance claim. The children are neglected and mistreated. The little girl, Marcie, is such a sweet little girl, but timid. The boy is having real problems. Temper tantrums in class. Fights, brought on mostly by other students teasing him. They come to school dressed in rags. She transferred those kids out of their school in Billings with only a few months left in the year. That’s so hard on children.
“She’s on heavy-duty pain medication for her supposed bad back and is in bed most of the time. She is reported to have late-night gentlemen callers. Very shady. The boy takes care of himself, the mother, and his sister. I just hate situations like this,” Betty continued, shifting a stack of books in her arms. “As a school, we are helpless to interfere, as are any of the people at the county, because there are certain minimums a mother must drop below before the county can step in, and Mrs. Chase is raising those kids right at those minimums. Those kids would be better off in foster homes. How’d you come to know about them, Sarah?”
“Actually, I was asked by Jud if I wouldn’t check it out for him. He seems to have taken a real interest in the boy. He says this kid is special.”
“Oh, he is very special. I’ve watched him look after his sister. For an older brother he is very attentive and caring. He is also very bright. Mark Webster says he is without exception the best math student he has ever taught. Gifted. The little girl, however, is horribly shy and overly dependent on her brother. She isn’t doing well in school at all.”
“Thanks, Betty,” Sarah said. “I’ll relay what you’ve said on to Jud.”
“It would be great if Jud could take an interest in that Chase boy. There is so much anger and frustration there. He just needs someone who will listen and pay attention to him.” Then Betty turned for the library and Sarah went back inside the parlor.
During her haircut, since Margie was now gone and Emily was under the dryer, Sarah filled Dolores in on what she had learned from Betty.
“Why that’s plumb awful,” Dolores said. “After work, I’ll go talk to the Reverend Allen and see if anyone in our church can help with clothes, or food, or anything for them kids.” Then she swung Sarah around in her chair and handed her a mirror. “Is that short enough for ya, girl?”
“That’s just fine,” Sarah answered, as Dolores pulled away the apron. “Listen, when you find anything out about the church helping out, give Jud a call, will you?”
“Sure will,” Dolores nodded.
“See ya later. Of course, saying see you later in a town the size of Travers is superfluous.”
Dolores laughed, making a mental note to look up superfluous and popped another piece of gum in her mouth. Sweeping up the cuttings beneath the chair, she felt her mood change. She became frustrated and angry. Her sweeping and gum popping picked up tempo as her emotions gathered momentum. The Del Vecchio blood stirred. She was angry, because she couldn’t imagine child abuse. All of her life she had wanted to have children, but was unable to with either of her husbands, or any of her lovers for that matter. If she had children she would smother them with love, while this witch of a woman down at the trailers had two children only to neglect them.
She looked at herself in the mirror. Everything that was female Dolores had done well. She was attractive and seductive enough to summon any suitor she wished. She had the build for motherhood and the pheromones to seduce any potential father she chose. But the ovaries had let her down. Barren.
She was also a little frustrated because Henry hadn’t been around since last Friday night, and she really needed to see him. How she loved that man. Too bad she couldn’t stand living with him.
Past the library, past the Roxy, up the hill, and for the rest of her walk home, the words neglected, mistreated, and minimum care echoed again and again in Sarah’s thoughts. Minimum care, just the words you would expect from a bureaucracy. Social services would devise a two-word criteria for child care, and in those two words create an oxymoron. Minimum care—what is that?
The thoughts of her own boy flooded her memory, then her eyes. Being part Italian for times such as these is a plus. First, because Italians are in no danger of harboring any emotions, and second, God was kind enough to give the Italians wine, without which the race would surely be extinct by way of combustion. Once in her kitchen, she opened the good Chianti. Though she had been at the grill all afternoon, she suddenly had the urge to cook. She had the need to feed someone. She called Jud, inviting him to dinner. She made sauces, and she made pastas. Every pot in the house was being stirred. Linguine, cannelloni, tortellini. In a couple of hours, after a frenzy of cooking, slicing, dicing, sautéing, and drinking wine from a measuring cup, Sarah stepped back from the stove. Though she didn’t really remember doing it, she had made enough food to feed twelve. She went to the phone and invited Henry and Dolores as well. Then she invited Sal—knowing how much her uncle loved her cannelloni.
Throughout dinner most of the conversation centered on Michael and his sister, Marcie. “So, the bottom line here is abuse,” Sarah concluded as she walked around the table offering anyone more cannelloni. All refused. Everyone was stuffed. She was well into her cups, five and one half, well-measured cups. She’d eaten more than anyone else, yet she had room for one more large bit of cannelloni. She ate it with the serving spoon right from the dish, as she comically plopped herself back down in the chair next to Henry. Everyone laughed. Then she promptly burst into tears to no one’s surprise.
Friends this long, they knew what was the matter. In fact, when she called for this impromptu dinner, they knew it was coming. It happened about three or four times a year. They knew a breakdown was imminent, because she was cooking Italian, and because of those she had invited. Her three best friends, and Sal, who was the only family she had left. It was a pattern her guests had come to recognize. After a lot of wine, the memory of her son and her husband would swell until she burst. “That great beast of a woman down there with those two children, not caring about them. I would give everything to have my family back,” then she fell against her uncle’s open arms and freely wept.
Dolores, being Italian herself, a woman, and deprived of children because of a tricky ovaries, began to sob. She knew the pain Sarah suffered at times, the pain of not having a child of her own. But what she suffered could not compare to Sarah’s tragedy of having a child, only to lose that child and your husband in one senseless moment—killed while walking back from a playground, caught in the cross fire of gang members. The horror of that was unimaginable, and Dolores moved over to hug Sarah as well.
Henry started to clear the dishes. He felt uncomfortable being so close to this much emotion. Sal, with a few tears in his own eyes, shared in her sorrow as Sarah’s loss was his nephew and grand-nephew. “Well, look what you do got, sweetheart—you got friends that love ya. I love ya.”
“Oh, I know,” Sarah blubbered.
“And, we want ya to know,” Henry added as he picked up another handful of plates, “that we’ll continue to love ya just as long as ya keep feedin’ us.”
Humor was about the only thing that helped, the only way Jud and Henry had ever found to snap Sarah from these bad moments. They also knew the laughter needed to come immediately, otherwise they could lose her to an all-night depression. She was a sucker for humor. If they could get her laughing, they could turn her blues around.
“There’s one thing I would like to know,” Jud asked, his tone and face as somber as he could make them, as if he were going to continue along the same serious vein as Sarah’s tears.
“What’s that?” Henry asked.
“What’s for dessert?”
It had worked. They had caught her in time. Sarah’s smile came through the tears, such understandable tears. She was content just to be held for a while. Then she sat up, slowly. Her eyes were red from crying and round from the notion that was formulating. “The county can’t do anything, the mother won’t do anything, and so the kids are all set for a future of never having anything. We can’t let it happen and we’re not going to.”
“Well, what are we going to do?” Jud asked.
“I don’t know, but the five of us are going to do something to help those kids out.” They all knew the look. Her jaw was set. There was no stopping her now. Saint Sarah was on the case. “Give me a day or two to get some ideas.”
“How old is this little guy, again?” Sal asked.
“Ten.”
“Little League starts practice in just a coupl’a weeks. I need ballplayers—ballplayers I got. What I need here is some pitchin’.” Sal shook his head as he thought about the returning lineup from last year taking the field again this summer. “I mean, if I don’t find myself a pitcher this year, well, to be honest, we’ll end the season in the cellar just like last year.”
“Michael’s going to be at my house in the morning,” Jud said, “so I’ll run the baseball idea by him.”
“Yeah, tell him not to worry about buyin’ the uniform. Tell him I’ll spring for it. Tell him if he turns out to be a southpaw with a curveball, I’ll buy him a new car.”
The conversation then turned to baseball and lighter subjects until it was time for everyone to head home. Jud left for the Boat Works and a good book. Sal went home to ESPN. Henry and Dolores went back to Dolores’s so that Henry, who was bone tired from a long day, could do something about her frustrations.
Sarah just went to bed. She stayed awake until after midnight, tossing, turning, and thinking about ways to help those kids. Bright and early the next morning, her morning off, she was up and on a mission. She drove to Reynolds and the county offices. Social services.
That afternoon, just a few minutes after the final school bell, there came Michael pedaling up the hill. There were tears in his eyes, and Jud could see his troubled face from the workshop and came out to meet him. “Are you all right, Michael?”
“Ye-eeh-eeh-Yeah,” he answered between sobs. “But I-I-I can’t work for you today, ‘cause my mom says I have to stay ho-h-home and take care of my sister.”
“So, you’re crying because you are going to miss work?”
“Yeah.”
“Someday, and somewhere, Michael, you will be named employee of the month.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind. Well, that’s okay, Michael, the yard work can wait until tomorrow or the next day. Day after tomorrow is Saturday, maybe you can get in a few hours on the weekend.”
“Yo-you’re not gonna fire me?” he continued to sob.
“No. I’m not going to fire you,” Jud laughed.
“Marcie’s going to a birthday party on Saturday. I won’t have to babysit. I can work then.”
“All right then, Saturday it is.”
“I’d better get home, or my mom will kill me.”
“Hold on. Let me grab my bike and I’ll pedal down as far as McCracken’s with you.”
There is something so joyous to a child about watching an adult engaging in a childlike activity, such as the riding of a bicycle, and Michael was no exception. Pedaling in place, coasting in figure eights, turning in circles, and laughing for no apparent reason, Michael looked on as Jud quickly pumped a little air into the tires. The bike hadn’t been ridden since sometime last summer. Together they pedaled down the hill.
Jud took in a deep breath, “Sure is a great day. Fishing will be good today. You like to fish, Michael?”
“I don’t know. I never been fishin’.”
“You’ve never been fishing? Why that’s positively un-American.”
They pedaled over Carrie Creek, stopping briefly so Jud could show him the trout swimming under the bridge. But Michael was edgy about getting home, and there was something about the way he said his mother would kill him that was backed by fear.
“You know, Michael, you are going through some tough times right now, but I think your luck is about to change.”
“How come?”
“I don’t know—just a feeling.” He said nothing about the pact that was formed the night before; nothing about Saint Sarah and her appointed band of angels. Jud coasted up to McCracken’s and Michael pedaled away, his bike rattling and squeaking. “See ya Saturday.” Michael waved back.
Junior was out in front of McCracken’s sweeping up and talking with Doc Higgins who had just ducked out of his office and over to the general store for a bar of candy.
“Who’s your buddy?” asked Doc.
“His name is Michael Chase. Lives down at the trailers,” Jud answered putting down his kickstand.
Doc rubbed his chin, “The Chases, mmm, the little girl was just in my office last week. The school sent her over. They were worried about her color and below-normal temperature. Turned out the child’s malnourished. Evidently the mother is a no-good-nik. I had Kim call social services. They are aware of the situation, but their hands are tied.”
“That boy does all the shopping. Food stamps. He comes in, buys what he needs. Never says a word,” Junior added.
“Well, the kids are heading into a lucky streak,” Jud said, “Saint Sarah has been re-canonized.”
“Oh, I know,” Junior laughed knowingly, “she was already in today explaining the situation. Talked me into giving the family a discount. I wouldn’t have done that for the mother. I fill her prescriptions. That woman’s a junkie. But for Sarah and those kids …”
Doc just nodded his head. No explanation was necessary, for it wasn’t the first family Sarah had helped in Travers.
“Henry was in this morning. Bought a brand new bicycle, mountain bike with all the gears,” Junior winked. “When I asked him who it was for, he just said that he knew someone who needed one. If ever there was a kid who needed a bicycle,” Junior looked over to Jud. “Wonder if there’s a coincidence somewhere?”
“More than likely,” Jud smiled.
“Well, the fishing should be coming around on Carrie Creek. I’m going out on Sunday. Either one of you guys want to go?” Junior asked.
“Can’t do it on Sunday,” Doc answered. “We have guests coming. I’d better get back. See you two later,” and he headed back to the clinic.
“How about you, Jud?”
“Yeah, sounds good. But I’ll have to meet you out there, because I have someone coming in from Great Falls to talk about boats.” He hated lying to him. No one was coming from Great Falls. But if Junior went with him, he would want to fish right alongside him all day. This would be Jud’s first day of fishing for the season, his personal opener, and by tradition, a tradition observed only by himself, he always fished the opener alone. The solitude, the needed separation, the feeling of being disconnected, the weightless feeling of being out there. This is what awaited him on Sunday.
Junior was needed inside and Jud got on his bike and headed for the Boat Works thinking about there.
There: the angler’s noun. There, every fisherman has one. Someplace on a river or stream. There is seldom a generality, but a precise footing on a bend somewhere, a place where every riffle, every willow, every cloud is in place. You can be near there, or around there, or by there, but there is no place like there. Easily dreamed, there. You can get there from an easy chair or on a downtown bus. There is an exact passage from a fisherman’s back pages, virtual reality without the helmet. There is the reason for being here.
Jud was pedaling and grinning, because the only thing standing between him and there was Saturday.
Saturday and Michael seemed to arrive at the same time. But Michael had good reasons for rising early. Sure he wanted to get to work on time, but he was up before dawn, and he was excited. He had a new bike to ride. He and his sister had new clothes to wear, hand-me-downs, but new to them. The Chase family refrigerator was filled. Canned goods were in the cupboards. There were some used beds and furniture arriving this afternoon.
Saint Sarah was in full swing. Dolores and the church were right behind.
That Saturday Michael worked as a boy possessed. He did the work of three boys twice his age. That kid was all over that yard, raking leaves, weeding, and sweeping. But, wherever he was working, he would take the time to move his bike so it was close by.
Michael wanted to do the best job he could for two reasons. He wanted to be hired again, and he wanted somehow to get even. Michael knew there was a connection between meeting Jud and his sudden good fortune. Sarah, Dolores, Henry, and Mr. McCracken, all of them were there to help his family. All of them were Jud’s friends. Only yesterday Jud had predicted that his luck would change. Today he had a new bike, and this, through the eyes of a ten-year-old, was more than a change in his luck. It was some kind of miracle.
“Hey, how about some lunch?” Jud shouted to him across the yard.
“Okay,” and Michael came on the run.
“I was wondering, do you think we should walk down to the Tin Cup or take the bikes?”
“The bikes.”
“Something told me that you might say that. All right, come on,” Jud smiled and Michael laughed, realizing he had just been teased.
A boy on a new bike is like being one with the wind, Jud remembered as he watched Michael coast out in front of him and down the hill.
They ordered their sandwiches to go because it was just too nice outside to eat indoors. Anyway, the Tin Cup was packed, and all they saw of Sarah was just a wave from behind the grill. They rode over to the river and ate their lunch. Afterward, Jud suggested, “Let’s bike on down to Miller’s Bend. It’s only a couple of miles.”
“But what about the leaves?”
“The leaves, my boy,” relapsing into W. C. Fields, “will be there waiting for us. There are only two things in life which are certain-n-n, my little tadpole, and that is death and ya-a-ardwork. Although, there are many among us who have trouble distinguishing between the two-o-o.” Michael laughed.
“We’ll take the old river road. See what that new bike of yours can do. C’mon I’ll race you,” and Jud stood on the pedals and gave a few hard pumps forcing Michael into the race. A contest Jud had no intention of continuing more than a hundred yards or so.
It took the two of them an hour before they managed to pedal back into Travers, as there was time spent at Miller’s Bend skipping rocks across the Elkheart. Skipping rocks and a bike ride were a combination not found in one of Jud’s days for many years. He was having fun. He pedaled over Town Bridge far behind Michael, who waited for him in front of McCracken’s. He’d been there long enough to catch his breath and to grow a little impatient.
Fun, Jud ruminated coasting into Travers, how many times as a grownup do you have fun? And by that he meant the good ol’ rock-skipping, daydreaming, bike-riding, wholesale, Huck Finn kind of fun. Maturity breaks down the good times into select behaviors and responses. For adults things can be enjoyable, amusing, entertaining. On certain nights mirth is still achieved. But, for the most part, adult fun is much more sedate, sophisticated, stuffy, practiced, and certainly much more expensive. Spontaneous childhood fun is an elixir of sorts, at least that’s how Jud was viewing it, and it was free.
As they crossed Main and headed for the Boat Works, Jud looked over in the alley behind McCracken’s. Junior, who was helping unload a shipment at the loading dock, spotted him and called out, “See ya tomorrow.”
“See you out there,” Jud waved.
“Where are you guys goin’?” Michael asked, pulling up next to Jud and riding without hands.
“Fishing.”
“I’d like to go fishing,” Michael said, and realizing that he had just invited himself along, he was embarrassed and grabbed the handlebars. “I’ve never done it before,” he added, knowing that he had said it before, but there was no harm in a reminder.
“Well, we’re going to do just that and one of these days soon.”
But not tomorrow, for there is a place Jud went alone. When he thought of there, no one else was in the picture. There is a selfish moment, an afternoon stolen from the time continuum and stolen without an accomplice.
Michael worked until supper. The leaves were almost done, but there was yard work still ahead of him. Tired and sweaty, he picked up the rake and the hoe and leaned them back into their place beside the workshop. Inside, Jud was standing at the drill press when Michael came through the door. “I gotta go now,” he said startling Jud from his calculations.
“Well, let’s go out and see how you did.” Turning Michael’s shoulders around, Jud followed him outside.
“Wow! Look at this place. You’ve been busy. I am really very impressed. Well, I guess you’ve worked off that twenty-five dollars and then some.”
“Ten hours and fifteen minutes at three twenty-five an hour is thirty-three, thirty-one. Subtract the sixteen dollars and seven cents I owe you, leaves seventeen dollars and twenty-four cents you owe me,” Michael said.
Amazed once again and digging into his wallet to supply an already out-stretched palm, “I’ll take your word for it. How do you do that?”
“I didn’t finish that part over there by the picnic table, but I can do it tomorrow morning.”
“Okay, whenever. I wasn’t kidding you, Michael, you really did a great job and you should be proud of yourself.” He pedaled away, heading for the trailers and home, without the smiles and laughter seen at lunch or on the ride to Miller’s Bend, but with the same expression on his face as when Jud first saw him pulling laundry.
Sunday morning Jud was awakened to the sound of leaves being raked. This sound has the same effect as nails on a blackboard to a yardaphobic. It was seven o’clock. So much for the Sunday sleep-in. From his window he could see Michael dragging the tarp closer to his work. “That kid’s gonna be a CEO someday,” he mumbled.
“Have you had any breakfast?” he shouted down from the second-story window, and Michael shouted back that he had. He had stopped by the Tin Cup for a doughnut, and ended up having biscuits and eggs with Sarah. In exchange he filled all the pepper-and saltshakers. He was ten, certainly not a man, but he had a very definite crush on Sarah.
Sunday morning. His season opener, and warm already. Jud was whistling. Not bothering to shave, he dressed and immediately began sorting through his tackle and gear. Though none of it had been used for the better part of six months, like most tackle and gear, it had somehow managed to move around. Things, not misplaced or forgotten, had at least been scattered. But nothing was lost.
Eventually the Willys was loaded, and with every trip from the house to the Jeep, Jud watched Michael’s face growing longer. But, when he loaded up Annie the Wonderlab and slid the fly rods over the tailgate, Michael began to cry. Crying and raking, raking on blisters earned yesterday, Michael could barely see Jud coming through his tears.
“Hey, Michael, what’s the matter?”
But he couldn’t answer. His shoulders shook. The crying had taken his breath. It didn’t take a degree in child psychology to realize that these weren’t merely the tears of a child left out of a fishing trip, or even a boy working with blistered palms. These were deep-seated tears, flowing from a much sadder place, the tears of neglect and deprivation.
“Yard work affects me the same wa-a-y,” Jud hoped a little W. C. could stop his crying. “Why the very thought of gardening makes me quive-e-r, covers me in go-o-osefle-e-sh.” But there was no response, other than sobs. Jud was trapped. There was no way out. “Say, you know I think maybe you should go fishing with me today. In fact I could use the company. But, only if it’s okay with your mother. You’ll have to go on home and ask her.”
When it came to children Jud was much closer to W. C. Fields than to Father Flanagan, but even the great W. C., who loved children, “pa-a-ar-boiled,” could not have refused Michael.
“It’s okay. My Uncle Jack is there.”
“Well, you go home and ask anyway.”
Michael pedaled home and back. He was right, she didn’t care.
Michael, Annie the Wonderlab, and Jud were then southbound out of town. Things were just the way they were supposed to be, not a trace of cloud, not a hint of wind, save for the wind rushing through the windows. Michael had a Pepsi in one hand and a Snickers in the other and as they drove they talked about W. C. Fields, trout fishing, flies, rivers, Carrie Creek, trees, hawks, frogs, the many merits of not having any sisters, warts, math, Star Wars (the movie not the policy), Annie the Wonderlab, hunting, and the reasons why there were clouds. Michael had a curious and eclectic mind.
Normally the trip to there was reserved for time alone at the wheel, alone with his thoughts. Some great ideas have been born on a back road with a little Bob Dylan on the tape machine. Certainly being there is the best, but going there can be just as good. Instead, he was now playing Ask Me Another with a ten-year-old. But surprisingly, he was dealing with it. In fact, he was enjoying himself.
Rolling to a stop at streamside, Jud parked the Willys in his traditional spot, under the same old cottonwood, and at the same old angle to take advantage of the shade. This is where any similarities between his usual there and this one came to an end.
As he opened the door Annie bounded over the seat, somehow managing to squeeze her seventy pounds between Jud and the steering wheel before his left foot reached the ground. Then she was instantly thrashing through the willows and brush, securing the area against the possibility of any wildlife. She’d been here enough times to know the best places to look, and in moments a rabbit was chased out of the clump of sage.
“How come, if you don’t like to hunt, that you have a Labrador retriever?”
“I need someone to take care of me.”
Michael laughed.
“How come—”
Interrupting what had to be his fortieth question in a row, Jud said, “Okay, the first rule of fishing: you have to be quiet. You have to sneak up on them or they’ll hear you, and that spooks them, and they never give you a second chance. Especially the big browns in this part of Carrie Creek.”
“How come?”
“Well, once they get frightened they stop eating.”
“What do they eat?”
“Bugs.”
“Do trout have ears?”
So the questions flew as Jud rigged up. Questions on fly rods, reels, knots, leaders, floatant, and flies. They also had a rather lengthy discussion about catch-and-release as Michael wanted to keep some of the trout. The boy grasped everything he told him about the rods and reels, Jud could see it all registering in his eyes, but turning fish loose to a kid who knew hunger firsthand needed edification.
Finally, they were ready to fish. The questions put them twenty minutes behind schedule. “All right, here is how we are going to work it. Using one of these fly rods is kind of tricky if you’ve never done it before, so I’ll do the casting. When I hook one, I’ll get him on the reel, then you can take over. You will fight them and land them. Is that a deal?”
“It’s a deal.” Michael was excited, but he couldn’t figure out why Jud was going to let him fight the fish. He’d never fished before, but he knew that had to be the best part. “Do fish sleep, and why—”
“Now, remember what I said about being quiet. We can make all the noise we want after we have hooked one.” They moved closer to the edge of the creek and looked upstream.
“See, there are a couple of fish rising at the tail end of the current,” he could see spinners and duns on the water. He whispered back to Michael and pointed, “That’s what they are eating. They’re called mayflies. I have imitation mayflies in my vest, so that’s what we will put on first.” He tied one on, and the fishing began.
That afternoon the trout were nosing in the current, next to the current, and nowhere near the current. Fish were up and feeding at every bend. Jud would hook them, and as agreed, Michael would land them. The first four got away. But the fifth one Michael, with a little help, landed, and he was thrilled. “A historic time in a man’s life—his first trout,” Jud said, and the boy swelled with pride. “And what a beauty. My first fish, and I remember it clearly, wasn’t five inches long. But yours is fifteen inches and a fat one, and you played it just right, Mr. Michael. I think you have the makings of a fine fisherman.”
They released the trout, which prompted a refresher course on catch-and-release. Michael didn’t want to let it go. If he couldn’t keep it, he wanted to at least hold on to it for a while. But the fish was released, as were the next five, and those came within an hour.
They worked out a system on wading as well. Michael would cross on his own where the stream was only knee-deep, and where the water was deeper, Jud would carry him piggyback. They stopped at a clearing in the willows for a quick lunch of granola bars and apples. From there they could see the roof racks of Junior’s pickup through a clearing.
“Well, wonder how old Junior is faring?”
“Mr. McCracken?”
“Yeah.”
“Is he a good fisherman?”
“He really loves fishing,” Jud never disparaged another man’s skill as an angler, but euphemisms aside, the answer would have to have been no. Although Junior is knowledgeable about fly fishing, buys all the books, buys the videos, ties his own flies, builds his own rods, fly fishing held the same unfortunate problem that he faced with tools. The hand-eye coordination just wasn’t there. Jud laughed, as he grabbed his vest and his rod, remembering Junior in school. He had the biggest baseball card collection in the Elkheart Valley, knew all the players and their averages. He knew every rule and facet of baseball, but he couldn’t throw the ball. He rarely caught the ball, and he almost never hit the ball.
“What are you laughing about?” Michael asked.
“Oh, I was just laughing ‘cause I’m having a good time. How about you, are you having a good time?”
“Yeah, fishing is really fun.”
“That’s just what it is.”
They fished on and the action remained a constant. By the middle of the afternoon, they had landed nineteen fish. It was just one of those days, and Jud had long switched to more durable flies: Renegades, Humpies, and the like. It made no difference what fly he threw out on the creek, the trout were going to eat it.
A little after three they finally had fished to within a bend of where Jud had parked the Willys. They had fished back to there. Jud always saved it for last. Clouds were building to the north, but there was still no wind. There soon would be.
“Michael,” Jud introduced, “this is one of my favorite places on earth.” He didn’t bother going into the esoteric world of there with a ten-year-old. “There can be some big ones here. Really big ones. Great view of Mount D. Downey, huh?”
W. C. bubbled to the surface, not the voice but the attitude. “Michael, I know we have been fishing as a team all afternoon, but I was wondering if it would be all right if I fished this pool on my own? The fish here are very spooky and I just don’t think it’s a two-man job.” Michael understood and agreed to stand by and watch. In fact he, with Annie, crossed in a riffle, and sneaked through the underbrush on the opposite bank. Then they inched their way, Michael on his belly, Annie on her belly right beside him, through the willows to a spot three feet higher than the creek, and with a perfect view of the pool. They were well hidden.
Checking his knots, Jud moved out into the riffle that he had fished so many times before. He felt his shoulders drop and a peaceful sigh rush from his lungs. Nothing feels quite so deep and easy as fishing a familiar haunt.
With Annie and Michael secured in the willows, he slipped into Carrie Creek. Above him the pale spring leaves of a cottonwood twisted in a wind no stronger than a sigh. He waded free of its shade and into the cool, clear water rushing against his legs, curling downstream in silver ribbons suspended in a watery breeze. The sunlight pierced the river and fragmented over its rocky bottom. He moved slowly and with each step the light and the colors of Carrie Creek would change. Each step a quarter turn on the kaleidoscope. Spotting a fairly large trout amid the ten or twelve actively feeding fish, browns and rainbows, he began to false-cast. It would be a very routine cast: short, straightforward, with a perfect angle to the trout.
From the corner of his eye there was at first movement. Then came a yelp from Annie. The bank had given way below their prime viewing spot, and seventy pounds of Labrador, seventy pounds of Michael, and about a ton of stream bank were suddenly in the creek. Annie was immediately swimming, Michael was instantly drowning. Throwing his rod up into the willows, Jud ran through the creek and grabbed Michael who was flailing in the current. The first cloud had reached the sun just as a cool gust of wind raced across the meadows.
“Are you all right?”
“Y-e-e-eah.” Michael was soaked. The wind hit him and he was turning blue and shivering.
“C’mon, I got some dry clothes and a towel back in the Jeep. Man, that must have taken you by surprise.”
Michael was so cold he couldn’t speak. His troubled look had returned to his face, an expression that, until now, had been missing all afternoon.
Back at the Willys, Michael dried himself off and was slowly warming up inside the Jeep. Wearing one of Jud’s sweaters, which fit him more like an overcoat, and a pair of Jud’s socks, which went clear to his knees, his shivering subsided. His mood, however, remained the same. The wind arrived in a long, heavy gust.
“Hey, there is no reason for the long face. Everyone falls in the river now and then,” Jud explained as he took off his vest and was loading it into the Jeep, “it’s part of fishing.”
“Well, I wrecked your chance for catchin’ that big old fish.”
A small fly box tumbled from an open vest pocket and landed beneath the truck. “Catching that fish didn’t really matter that much,” Jud said, lying through his teeth. “It’s just fun being out here. That’s what counts. There will be other days.” The rationalizations rolled right off his tongue.
Through the open door Michael watched as Jud got down on his knees and then crawled halfway under the Jeep to retrieve his box of flies. Annie quickly moved into position. It was now time to perform her favorite of all Labrador tricks. The one where she waits until the least opportune moment to shake, to rid her coat of water, which, given its thickness, could easily measure in the gallons.
Jud backed out from behind the rear tire and looked up just as Annie gave it a good, full, hard shake. Cold, muddy creek water spiraled from her coat. He tried to block the spray by raising his arms, but it didn’t work. He was drenched. Annie rolled in the grass, proud of her prank, and surely beside herself in dog laughter. Michael laughed. Jud, wiping the mud from his face tried to laugh, but couldn’t until he saw Annie on her back, legs spread-eagled, and tail wagging. Even though her lips were curled upside down, nothing could hide her smile.
Standing up, he walked over to Annie and lapsed into W. C., “I think tonight I will have you in a stew. Retriever a la Fi-i-ields. Labrador pi-i-i-e.”
Michael was legless against his giggles. Kids, Jud thought, one minute they’re sad, the next minute they’re laughing until their sides ache. Their feelings at the ready, their emotions so exposed, and all they have to protect them is their honesty. “I’m going back to get my fly rod. I threw it up on the bank when you and Annie decided to go swimming. I’ll be right back. You better stay here and get warm.”
The clouds were now threatening rain and the wind was a constant. He had crossed Carrie Creek, picked up his rod, and was now mid-riffle thinking of how this afternoon’s there compared to those before. He glanced upstream. The water had cleared from the slide, but none of the fish had recovered from the spectacle of a flying Labrador and a falling human. Not a trout, rainbow or brown, was in sight.
Nearly across the creek, he paused and looked once more upstream. There in the deepest water heavy rings were forming, moving the water as only an eminent trout can. It was larger than the one he was going to try for earlier.
There is something completely irresistible about the ring of the rise; something so enticing, hypnotic, beckoning. The rings, the rises, the promise of trout—they hold the angler happy and powerless. Their wakes slap against his consciousness as surely and as rhythmically as the swings on Freud’s pocket watch. The angler grows numb, inattentive, insensitive to all that surrounds him. His very being focused on a ring of water. Let no stone go unturned and let no ring go uncast.
The wind made the casting impossible, but still this angler had to try.
The trout was an indiscriminate diner, feeding on what appeared to be anything floating past, foraging on any and all insects caught in the wind. Jud made cast after cast trying to reach it but he needed to be closer. Ahead of him was deep water, deeper than his waders allowed. There was no way to get an angle on the fish either, as the banks were nothing but a tangle of willows and rose hips. Most of his casts fell short, crumpling against the wind. Overcompensating, other casts landed dangerously close to spooking the fish. Even his worst casts failed to put the fish down. It rose regularly. He did manage, in between the gusts, to put a few casts very close. Certainly close enough to earn the trout’s interest, but none was taken. This was followed by the frustration of watching the fish come up for another morsel moments after his fly had completed a drift above it.
Over and over again, he sent his fly. Most fish would have long ago been spooked, but this was a fish that would not be put off its feed. He cast until his arm ached since the throw was a full-on effort; double-hauling while stretching, trying to get those last few feet. He was suddenly aware of someone watching him.
“Michael,” he said, a little surprised. The fact that the boy had to come looking for him quickly told him perhaps he had been fishing a little longer than he thought. Jud hadn’t forgotten about him, anymore than he had forgotten it was spring, that this was Carrie Creek, or that it was daytime. Michael was just sort of lost right along with everything else. Lost in that haze that lies beyond the rise.
“That’s a really big fish over there,” he explained, though he thought no explanation was necessary. After all, Michael had been fishing now. Surely he knew the meaning of the rise. But Michael had that sad look back on his face. Sad, not so much from being forgotten (with his mother he had grown accustomed to that), but sad because he felt like he was being left out. Left out of a rare moment, a good time—rare commodities in Michael’s life.
Jud began to make the cast but the boy’s face was imprinted over the rise. It was the rise of a grand trout, a trout that doesn’t come along but once in a season, a trout most serious, but Michael’s face finally got to him. “No matter how big it is, Michael, if I hook her I’m gonna let you land her. Okay?” He looked over his shoulder to see Michael, still with a sad face, his hand being nuzzled by Annie. “But I don’t think we have a chance in this wind.” He made several more casts, but couldn’t get close. The rings continued.
The windstorm then died for a long moment, though not completely. There was still a breeze, but it had quieted to a wind he could deal with. He made the cast. The Renegade landed precisely where he wanted. He mended and mended again. The fly drifted along the lacy edges of the current and into the bulging water. The trout was right at the surface. She took it. She felt the prick of the barb, the tension of his line across her body, the sudden, unnatural, and frightening resistance to her movements, and she reacted accordingly. There was a midstream eruption of water and rainbow trout. Darting downstream, Jud gave her the lead. She jumped within fifteen feet of where Michael and Annie were standing. Michael was so astonished by her size his mouth dropped, and his knees buckled, and his breath was taken away. Annie became excited and began barking. She’d been fishing enough to know a big trout when she saw one.
Then the rainbow left the pool for the faster water downstream, jumping once above the riffle. It was a long run nearly taking Jud into his backing. He was now running through the shallows. “C’mon, Michael.” he shouted. Michael had no shoes on, but he came on the run and jumped onto Jud piggyback. The trout shot straight down the current, then moved in behind a large, exposed rock. Hunched awkwardly under the added weight of the boy, Jud went after the fish. Michael was astride his back, but barely. He had one leg hanging free while the other was entangled with Jud’s rod arm, making it nearly impossible to fight the heavy fish.
They traveled, in tandem, quickly over an uneven bottom. The rainbow was threatening another run downstream. Jud could feel it. Then it was no longer a threat. The trout took off.
Jud reeled in hot pursuit. Water sprayed all directions as he ran through the shallows. Michael, bouncing all over his back, was desperately searching for a better handhold. At first one hand was over Jud’s left eye and the other grabbed his collar. But he just couldn’t maintain a grip against Jud’s running, that and the fact he was laughing so hard he could barely hang on. As they neared the big, exposed rock he had finally gained purchase. With both hands clasped tightly around Jud’s neck, right on the windpipe in a near-perfect stranglehold, Michael was still hanging on. Jud reeled, splashing through the creek. He could feel the boy’s laughter, Michael’s ribs laughing against his backbone. Pure and infectious joy, and despite the fact that he was turning the first shades of choke-hold blue, he laughed as well.
“You get off here,” Jud gasped, setting Michael on the boulder. “Rock-hop to that gravel bar,” motioning with his head, “and wait for me.” While he waded slowly, he reeled quickly.
The slack was in. He was straight to the fish—now in the thin water just above where Carrie Creek drops into another deep pool. Still winded, he waded out of the shallows up onto the sand. Making sure all the tackle was in order, Jud handed the boy the rod, but keeping one hand on the cork himself. Then he guided the boy’s hand to the reel, but he kept Michael’s small hand in his. They were set for whatever it was that was going to follow. “We’ll play this one four-handed.”
Though aware that he was being helped, Michael was lost in a world of his own. A boy against fish, a whale of a fish. His mouth was agape. His face contorted through all sort of wide-eyed, wondrous expressions, for he had no idea what was to happen next. Jud figured, “Just follow my lead, Michael. She’s probably going to try another jump. She’s tired. She won’t have another long run in her.” The line was taut to the fish. Michael played her, under Jud’s hands, for quite a while. He helped Jud let line off the reel when the rainbow moved away. He helped Jud reel line in as she swam toward them.
They watched the trout slowly swim upstream into the shallow water. But just when she was dead opposite of where they were standing, she bolted; flying from the current, jumping high above Carrie Creek in a watery prism of spray and light. The hook broke loose. The rainbow was free, and now another memory from there.
“She’s off, buddy. We lost her,” Jud said sadly, looking over to Michael whose question was answered before he could ask it. He was speechless and a little in shock. Losing the fish had never entered his mind.
“How?”
“Just got off the hook.”
“I really wanted to hold her. She was so big. I wish … I wish I didn’t lose her.”
“There’s an old saying, ‘if you caught everything you ever hooked, they wouldn’t call it fishin’, they’d just call it catchin’.’ Anyway, it wasn’t your fault. The fish just won, that’s all. That happens more times than not some days, especially with the big fish like that one.”
“How big was she?”
“About three pounds I’d wager.”
“Wow.”
“Wow is absolutely correct. I can tell you this much—it was one heck of a day of fishing. Believe me, most days are nowhere near this good. But for your first day of fishing, well, you just couldn’t have had a better one.”
They crossed the creek and walked through the meadows back to the Willys. Jud, with one hand on Michael’s shoulder, fell back into his W. C., “Why I clearly remembe-e-er the first time I went fishing. I was a much younger fello-o-w then, no more than a bo-o-y. Took to the sport right away. I was a piscatorial prodigy-y-y. I could catch fish from a dry w-e-e-ell. I could pull leviathans from the deep at will. Immediately, I set about breaking most of the world reco-o-ords. Caught cod. Caught the mighty sturgeon-n-n. Marlin and swordfish were child’s pla-a-ay, putty in my ha-a-nds. Caught a five-hundred-pound, man-eating, mackera-a-l with nothing but sewing thread, a safety pin, and a little tar-tar s-a-auce.”
Michael laughed. “And you just caught a five-pound trout.”
“Michael, my b-o-oy, as I said before, you have all the makings of a fine fisherma-a-an. With your mind and its math, exaggerations could prove to be-e-e positively logarithmic.”
Well, as Jud predicted, Michael’s future did improve. The county offices never did step in to help him or his sister. Of course, this was fortuitous. Instead of a bureaucracy of strangers taking over the children’s lives, which surely would have separated the two and placed them in foster homes, they were sort of adopted—but not through the courts. Michael and Marcie were simply taken under the collective wings of the following flock: Dolores, Junior, Henry, Sal, Jud; under the leadership of Saint Sarah.
Seven years came and went. And in those seven years Michael and his sister excelled because of the fact that they were never at home. Marcie shared her time between Sarah and Dolores. Michael stayed mostly with Sarah for the school year then at Henry’s during the summers where he earned his keep helping on the ranch.
This arrangement was perfect for Michael’s mother. She had more time to have the men in for company. The company would express their gratitude for a good time by giving her money, more booze, and better pills. Welfare sent her a check and she nursed her phony back claim for all it was worth. Her illness gave new meaning to the term bedridden.
There was virtually no contact with her children, and she liked it that way.
Michael grew tall and rangy. Gone were the temper tantrums and fist-fights in school. He began to make new friends, and he kept them. Jud and Henry were always around, so he learned how to ride and take care of Henry’s horses. He learned quite a bit about woodworking hanging with Jud at the Boat Works and, of course, with Jud and Henry as his mentors, Michael learned how to row and fly-fish.
Schoolwork was never a problem for him. Absolute math wizard—in love with computers. Student body vice president. Played football all four years.
Marcie was fine as well, no longer shy, above average in her grades. She played the piano like a dream. She was funny and a little bit of an actress—and reminded Jud a little of Dolores. Marcie wants to be a schoolteacher.
Jud often recalls the summer Michael turned eighteen. He was working for McCracken’s part-time. He’d graduated from high school. Full-ride scholarship in math to the University of Montana. He had grown too old for Little League many summers before, though he hadn’t turned out to be the pitcher Sal had hoped for, and seems to hope for every season. But Michael was a darn good second baseman. In his final season he hit .352.
These days when Michael’s name is mentioned, two images come together in Jud’s mind: the first is Michael, ten years old, pulling his laundry wagons down the road, and the second is the picture of Michael in the doorway of his workshop, coming to ask a very large favor. He waited until the day of his eighteenth birthday.
He’d walked up to the Boat Works that afternoon knowing what he was about to ask was a lot. He certainly felt comfortable around Jud. He could ask almost any favor without trepidation. But, to ask Jud for the Jeep—well, that was another thing altogether. Jud had a thing about his Jeep. It was thirty years old then. He had it just the way he wanted it. He saw no reason, if it was well taken care of, that it wouldn’t last him the rest of his life. He never let anyone drive his Jeep. Henry, maybe.
He could have borrowed Sarah’s car, Dolores’s car, Henry’s truck, Junior’s truck, and he borrowed Sal’s car all the time, but he wanted to go back up to Carrie Creek in Jud’s Willys. For only the Willys could truly transport him back to there.
“Er … I was wondering … if … er … umm … if I could, maybe … and I’ll fill it with gas and everything and wash it and … mmm … wax it, well, maybe you would let me borrow the Willys?” he asked.
“What for?” Jud asked.
“I want to go fishing up on Carrie Creek.”
“I see. And why do you need the Jeep?”
“Well, I know this is going to sound corny. But it’s always been kind of a dream of mine to drive the Willys up to Carrie Creek. I suppose it’s because that’s the place you first took me fishing, remember?”
“Sure. If you can hold off until day after tomorrow, I could go up with you.”
“Well, I … uuuh … really wanted to go up there … mmm … kind of by myself.”
“Kind of out there on your own?”
“Yeah.”
“Out there fishing and not a soul around?”
“Yeah.”
“I understand,” Jud smiled. “The keys are in it.” Then he returned to his cedar work wondering what kind of world it could be if every child could have the chance to share in a there, to have the chance to realize his worth and his reason.