l i f e
shadow fish
contributions
christopher@30seconds.org
I was glad he'd gotten the new waders too, because I knew that now there was a chance I could do more than stand on the bank and watch the icy water move about the legs of my grandfather. I knew when he opened the shop and I saw the green and yellow waders, almost standing on their own, there was a chance I could climb into his old ones and join him.
Behind the white plank-board boathouse I'd practiced casting into a brush pile with only a weight attached to the end of one of his older rods. I used a heavy weight for ocean fishing so the rod would bend and I imagined what it would feel like to set a fish with one of the wooden lures my grandfather held in such high regard. To him, lures weren't just bait, the means to catch a fish; they had personality and ability. Each one had a history, and it always seemed the plainest most unattractive bait had, to my amazement, succeeded in bringing the most fish to the dinner table.
In late March when I had spent a week with my grandfather we took the small fishing boat far into the coves of High Rock. He always gave me his favorite baits, not ever thinking that I'd lose them to hanging branches or the rocks and brush where the crappie nested. It was that sense of trust that first suggested love above anything else. I was always careful in casting and reeling, and continually falling short of the best spots as a result of my care; but it didn't matter because my grandfather and his lures had a power, and whether I caught anything or not, at eight years old, I was glad he shared that power with me too.
The morning was a hazy gray with lines of yellow promising to turn into blue as the hours of afternoon came closer to Little Crane Cove. My grandfather woke me early with the smells of strong coffee and fried eggs. The coffee I could never have and I was too excited to eat right away. I lay in bed and listened to the cast iron skillet pop and crack, throwing grease over onto the stove top. NaNa would clean it up, but her eye's nervous twitch would begin to water and she'd complain that nothing ever got done unless she did it herself.
But I was thinking of a pair of green and yellow waders and cold water and fish.
"You'd better hurry up little buddy or the sun 'll catch us."
I rolled over on my side, wondering halfheartedly if dream was better and managed to get out, "Okay PooPoo I'll be there in a second."
I had dressed the night before when the house was quiet and gone out to the shop opening the tackle boxes and making sure everything was right. I did what I saw my grandfather doing before. There was no moon, and the small flashlight I carried made wall-sized shadows of the hooks when I held them up. I thought of catching shadow fish, big as the shop itself, big enough to swallow me and all I believed in whole. I touched the bits of dried worm on the hooks, polished a couple of lures, and went back under the sheets.
Now I folded back the covers and rubbed down the goose bumps on my legs. In another two minutes I was eating eggs and watching my grandfather drink his coffee.
"Only way to drink coffee is black, like John Wayne."
I'd seen John Wayne before in a war movie but he didn't drink any coffee. I figured maybe he'd been in some of those cowboy movies PooPoo was always watching. I hated cowboy movies.
"But I like milk and sugar PooPoo."
"Bah, coffee should be black." He just shook his head.
PooPoo finished his cup and waited while I ate one more piece of toast.
"Your pole ready?"
"Yes sir."
We left the dishes on the table and went out to the shop. It was still dark inside, the sun barely creeping it's way through the window closest to the water. The grass was still black. I remembered the night before when I checked the tackle.
"Think we'll catch anything today PooPoo?"
He opened a silver aluminum bait box and pulled out some line and a hook, "Hard to say. Might."
He held the hook in front of his face and its size grew on the wall. My grandfather had stuffed so many fish the walls looked like an aquarium. An aquarium of shadow fish. They were near as long as old man Brock's black Ford and I could imagine they'd be about as big around. As PooPoo tied the line the hook pierced the lip of a large mouth bass and it began to fight. It turned like a weather vane and pulled the line knocking over a can of rusty nails.
My grandfather tightened his grip on the line, "I'll be, it's about time he bit again."
The fish came loose from the wall. I grabbed at it's grayish blue tail, surprised to find shadow fish had no roundness to them at all. As it flailed this way and that it changed in size randomly becoming larger and smaller with the contours of the walls and tables. PooPoo pulled on the line and the fish shrank as he jerked it in front of the ice-box. Knocking it to the floor he sat a tool box on it so that only the head was still visible. He then took the hook out and gave me the rod, "Here you go little buddy."
Shadow fish were amazingly agile and not very heavy, but the trick was keeping them out of the full light. At first I led them in the wrong direction and they would disappear completely leaving me holding an empty hook and line swinging near the dirty carpet of the shop floor. Then, after I'd gotten the hang of it and every box and table leg had a shadow fish under it I gave the pole back to PooPoo. He looked around and hooked the last few remaining. Laughing to himself in half-light, he didn't seem so old at all. His hair was black from where he'd run his hands through it and the wrinkles on his face seemed just extensions of the smile I had been used to seeing all my life. He took one last fish and shrank it so small it was no bigger than my thumbnail. Laying it on the table he kept it in place with a pencil.
"Lord help, what would your grandmother think of this mess."
All around us, and underneath everything we could lift were shadow catfish, bass, crappie, and brim. He put his arm across my shoulder and I wondered if he felt as young as I felt old. In the semi-darkness it didn't seem time really mattered. A couple minutes more, and he drew back the shades and let the daylight in.
goodnight 4.9.98
