In a few long steady strokes we had reached the down stream end of the first rock ledge. The overhang faced up current. I skirted the rounded end looking for a handhold and found one on the far side of the rock. I grabbed onto a natural groove where I could hook my fingers over and get a secure grip. By placing my feet flat against the rock just under the water, I used the resistance of the dry ledge to lock my fingers in place to hoist myself up far enough to grab the rock higher up and pull onto the top of the ledge. I lay there in the sun, breathing hard after the swim and exertion of lifting my body out of the water, waiting for Charlene to follow me around. The stone was warm from the sun. My skin was cold from the fresh water. Charlene stretched out next to me.
“This is so nice,” she murmured. “So relaxing. I live my life in small offices and stuffy courtrooms. Sometimes I feel like I want to throw all the papers on my desk out the window and watch them fly. Just fly to the winds anywhere they want to go.” She closed her eyes to the sunlight and breathed deeply. “Is this what it’s like to be an artist?”
“Sunning on a rock?”
“No.” She giggled. “I mean getting inspired by nature. Letting down your guard. Letting go of the everyday world.”
“Not exactly,” I told her. “Artists have all of the same struggles everyone else has. Except they rarely make enough money to live on, and they have the extra burden of being pushed internally by ideas and visions that nobody else has. It’s not a decision. It’s built in.”
I raised my arms and let them fall back above my head on the rock. Sunlight bathed my body and the warm rock felt solid under me. I stood up on it and Charlene didn’t move. Her eyes were still closed. I walked to the end facing the current and knelt down. I leaned as far out as I possibly could without falling back into the water. One of the women called to me. Was it Hope? I focused on the water below the overhanging rock. It was not too shallow. The current was slow here. I reached gently into the water, letting my arms hang down about three feet apart. With great care and control I moved my hands, fingers splayed open, under the ledge feeling blindly for what I knew would be there in the middle of the day, hiding from the sun, asleep for a time. Then I felt the belly of it. Soft. Slick. Its tail swishing faintly with the current. I ran my fingers gently under its belly, tickling in little strokes. When I reached the gills, fanning in the water, I quickly locked my fingers inside them and yanked the head back, instantly killing the trout. I pulled it out of the water with almost no disturbance and laid it behind me. I moved to a new spot on the wide ledge and repeated the procedure.
By now the fire was crackling and the rest of the food had been prepared. When I had caught six trout, Charlene pulled over a large piece of flat driftwood that had settled on the rock, abandoned there by high water after some storm. I laid out the fish on the wood and we let ourselves down into the river. The water was cool and fresh. My feet glided over the pebbly bottom while I tried not to rock the wood.
With great care we floated the trout raft ahead of us, walking all the way back to the island, even though in the middle between the rock ledges and sandy island the water was almost too deep to touch bottom. When we got close, the others scrambled into the water up to their knees to meet us.
I salted the trout and then wrapped them in big leaves and we steamed them over the coals. When the aroma was at its peak, we took them out carefully and peeled away the shriveled leaves. Inside the trout were perfectly cooked.
“Where did you ever learn how to do that? Catch a trout like that?” Hope asked after we had settled down and eaten lunch.
“I have a lot of odd skills. I picked up this one from a boyfriend when I was nineteen. He was older. Twenty-three. He was going off to medical school in the fall. His family was from the Ukraine. When he was little they escaped from the Communists, moved to Austria, and then to the states. They used to go to the Smokey mountains in the summer when he was a kid. He had learned how to catch trout with his hands before they left the Ukraine. He took me up there camping for a week and we lived on what we caught in the river and found in the woods. He taught me a lot.”
“I’ll bet,” said Charlene. “Tickling trout while he was tickling your fancy.”
* * *
I learned to fish in the Keys. Easy fishing in the beginning. Practice casting off the stern of a skiff in the Gulf. Hooking sea trout and snapper on a feather with light spinning tackle. Later fly fishing for bonefish on the flats on the Atlantic side. We’d go down for the tarpon tournament in June when the sun was so strong it could knock you on your ass if you didn’t wear a hat and long sleeves and drink gallons of water. I loved it. Being out there with the men. Keeping up with them, casting to the exact spot where the guide told me a fish was lurking and then hitting that spot like I had a homing device on the line.
I was fifteen. My father, me, and a guide named Buddy took off for tarpon from Bud and Mary’s marina in Islamorada. We arrived just before dawn. Brought a bagged lunch – sandwiches and drinks – enough for ourselves and the guide. That was the protocol. I wore a white cotton hat I could dip in the water to cool my head later when the sun was up and a long sleeved white cotton shirt. Light weight long pants. The guide supplied rods, reels, shrimp if you were using bait, feather lures if you weren’t, fly rods if you thought you were good enough to hook a tarpon on a fly. During tournaments no bait was allowed. No cell phones or two way radios. We went out in an open sixteen foot skiff with a Bimini top the guide would raise for shade at lunchtime. Along one side of the boat a long pole was lashed to a couple of hooks. At the stern of the boat, the built in bait box road in the water to keep the shrimp alive. Once we headed west into the uncharted uninhabited dry islands west of the Keys in the gulf, we were alone with nothing but the water, the sky, the sun and the birds. If we had to pee, the men turned their backs and let go off the side. They would pull into one of the tiny mangrove islands and let a woman off to squat behind a pile of bleached white driftwood or anything she could find. There wasn’t much. Land crabs. Roseate spoonbills. Egrets, herons and pelicans. Once in a while, a fin rode along in the water and if it came close enough, you could see the shark sidling by. Sometimes they were as long as your boat. Dark gray shapes moving stealthily through the pale, milky, blue water. You hoped none would be nearby if you hooked a tarpon. Out there, if a squall came up, or you drank too much gin and fell overboard, you could disappear and no one would ever find you.
We were far out in the Gulf. We’d had lunch. Not seen many fish. Buddy said if we didn’t spot any tarpon in the next half hour he’d run us over to the ocean flats and we’d try for bonefish.
I was casting. A spinning rod with a feather on fifteen pound line. Light tackle to hook a legend among fish. I spotted a tail. I cast out and watched the little feather lure float through the air. Arching above the water, the line dropped and landed the white feather slightly beyond and in front of where I’d seen the tail. I jigged it. Jigged it again. Watched the tarpon tail again and then roll, its silver belly like a big crystal log. I jigged the line inches past where I calculated its mouth would be and wham. It hit. Yanked hard at the line. Pulled the rod tip down. I hauled up with all my strength to set the hook in its bony throat. If this was a good set I would have a struggle ahead. If not, the tarpon would spit my hook back out and the rod would snap back up. But it curved down in a half circle, dipping toward the water. A good set. My father and Buddy pulled in their lines.
I walked my line back along the gunwale following where the fish was headed.
Buddy was on it in a second. He lifted the pole and leapt onto the bow. He watched the water. Guides spend almost every day year after year out there on the water. They can read a shadow in the water like a lynx on the hunt. They could tell how many fish were in a ripple, what kind of school made a wake, if one fish was hunting another. They could spot the shadow of a tarpon, as it swam alone or in twos or threes in the channels.
“Set him again,” Buddy yelled. “Set him hard before
he jumps.”
It was too late. The giant fish broke water. It leaped high into the air, its glistening muscular body twisting, head shaking to get rid of the lure. I dropped the rod tip to let up on the tension. If you pulled when the tarpon breached, you’d yank the hook out and lose the fish.
“Give him slack,” Buddy yelled. “Don’t lose him, now.”
Down he went flat on his side, splashing water, making waves that rocked the small skiff. I pulled at the rod to raise the tip again, trying to lead the fish toward the boat. But the tarpon had other ideas.
It plunged down under water again and then it did what no one expected. It started to run. Straight out toward the open Gulf waters. My line sang as the fish pulled it farther and farther. I tried to reset the drag but the line was running too fast. Besides, when you have a hundred plus pound fish on a fifteen pound test line and he’s running away from you, setting the drag too tight will just snap your line.
Buddy stuck the fourteen foot push pole into the water and started to pole after the fish. He ran the pole along the side of the boat and pulled it up when he reached the very stern, then ran back up to the bow and started again. Over and over he poled after the fish while I hauled my rod tip up against it and reeled in on the downward drop. After fifteen minutes of this, the fish seemed to be running out of steam. Buddy quit poling and I reeled in steadily.
Finally we could all see the tarpon coming closer to the boat.
“A monster,” Buddy said. “A cow if I ever saw one. Must be a hundred and forty pounds if he’s an ounce. If you can boat that one, my hat’s off to you.”
I pulled up on the rod again and reeled the fish closer. Buddy got out the gaff hook. He leaned over the side, getting into position to hook the fish and haul it in for a picture.
As he held the hook over the water, I walked toward him, pulled the line alongside the boat, steering the fish in for the final catch. The fish came within six feet of the boat and then it leapt into the air completely clearing the water with a huge splash that soaked all three of us. The huge fish thrashed its silver body back and forth and with one last swipe of its tail and fling of its head, spit out the hook, plopped back down into the water and took off like a torpedo. Just when you think you’re in the clear, you’re looking down at an empty hand.
* * *
By the time we had eaten and cleaned up, doused the fire and repacked the canoes, the afternoon sun had cleared the trees and was full on us. I had put my pants and T-shirt back on when I emerged from the water and now even my underwear was dry.
“It’s so hot,” Valerie rubbed her forearm against her face. “I’m dripping.” Her blue pants were sweat stained in the back and there were large patches of dark stain under the arms of her pale blue shirt. She took off her hat and wiped sweat from her forehead.
“Me too,” Hope said.
They both looked at the water as if they had the same idea at the same time.
Roz shrugged her shoulders. “There’s nobody around for miles.” She pulled off her creek shoes and pulled her shirt over her head as the rest of us watched.
“What’s the big deal?”
“Yeah,” Charlene nodded. “No biggie.”
She stripped down leaving only Erica and me still dressed.
“What about you?” Hope asked me.
“Oh, it’s fine with me but I can tell you it will feel better later if you get out of your underwear too.”
I began to undress again, then Charlene decided it was her duty to direct even Erica.
“If you do not disrobe with the rest of us we’ll throw you in fully dressed.”
“I want to,” said Erica. “I really do. But … ”
“Come on. It’ll be fun,” Hope said, patting her arm. “If I can do it, you can do it.”
“You all go in first and I’ll follow. But you can’t look at me.” Erica folded her arms.
The sun was blasting hot. No breeze stirred the willows at this time of day. We stripped bare and ran naked to the water. With squeals, we hit the cold water and ran splashing like puppies until we reached the deeper part and dipped down beneath the surface where we swam and swam. We all headed for the rock ledges and soon Erica was behind us doggie paddling her way across the narrow channel.
I led them to the spot where there was a handhold. I hauled myself out first and helped the others, dripping and scrambling. Erica was the last.
She reached up and took my hand.
“I never felt so free in my whole life,” she said. A big smile lit up her face. Her hair hung in wet strands grazing her shoulders. “What if you can’t pull me up?” She rested her right foot against the rock.
“Push up with your feet while I pull you. And use your left hand on this ledge. Right here,” I guided Erica’s left hand until she grabbed the rock.
“This exercise will help you develop climbing fingers,” I smiled down at Erica reassuringly.
“Just close your eyes when I come up out of the water. I don’t want anyone looking at me.”
“Oh for God’s sake, Erica. We’re not beauty queens here, Nobody cares what you look like.” Charlene again, the executive.
“Val’s a beauty queen,” said Hope.
“Not any more I’m not,” said Valerie.
With a grunt and a splash, Erica pulled herself up and onto the rock ledge. Water cascaded off her in a rush. The sun hit her body as she crawled over to a flat place and stretched out her stomach. The rock was warm. She lay there, her breathing shallow, with the sun on her back.
“Oh the hell with it,” she said as we lay there quietly soaking up the sun like turtles lined up on a log.
With an intake of breath, Erica raised herself onto her knees and then stood straight up, arms raised toward the sky. “Here I am. Take it or leave it.”
“You look just like a Rubens,” I told her quietly. “A beautiful, lush, full-bodied womanly Rubens.”
“What happened to that woman? When did we decide that emaciated was beautiful?” Hope asked.
“When gay fashion designers wanted their clothes to look like they were hanging on a clothes hanger and not on a body. Don’t think just because I’ve always been thin that I’ve always loved my body. I don’t know one woman who wouldn’t change her body in some way. The models I knew all thought there was something wrong with the way they looked.”
“I blame Hugh Heffner. The old letch.” Erica laughed but there was an edge of resentment in her voice, too.
We sat there quietly. I thought about a study I’d read. When men were asked to look in a mirror and report what they saw, they said they were handsomer than they really were and that their bodies looked better than they really did. Women reported the opposite. What was wrong with women? Why did they think there was something wrong with them? When did that happen? I supposed it was when the culture shifted from an agricultural base, when women were prized for ample hips and a wide birth canal so they could provide lots of hands to tend the farm.
One by one, each woman turned to face the sun. We sat down in a line like children, legs hanging over the rock where I had caught the fish, feet sloshing in the cool water. We swung our legs and grinned at each other.
“This is the best day I’ve ever had without a man,” said Charlene.
“Almost as good as sex. Maybe better. Don’t have to worry about…” This from Roz. After the stories about men I couldn’t help but ask.
“About what?”
“What I look like. What I’ll feel like when he’s gone. If he’ll call again. If he doesn’t, what I’ll do. If I even want him to.”
***
Before we pulled out again, I asked the women how they’d each decided to be on the council.
“I met Erica through a local save the animals fair,” said Hope. “My parents were Methodist missionaries in Ghana and then Sierra Leone. When they retired, I came back to Vermont. I got a job as church secretary, but I think being a nurse will suit me better. I still want to serve. It’s ju
st that the missionary life is not right for me.”
Erica followed, “Well you all know how I got on it. Carter Cummings died and the other men on the council asked my husband, Will, to take his place. As an appointee. Just until the next election. What a joke. Will said he was too busy golfing so he asked me to do it instead. He had to talk those men into taking me on. But they made me promise not to suggest anything or go against any of their votes.”
“That’s disgusting,” said Charlene. “I wish you’d told me that before. I would have taken them to court.”
“Steady, Clarence Darrow,” Roz wisecracked.
“That was before they decided to bail on the town. And before our son, Matthew, was deployed. Now I’m glad I have something to occupy my mind,” Erica said. “He’s a lieutenant in the infantry, a communications specialist. I worry about him all the time. Constantly im-ing him & sending him care packages. He tells me not to worry but what can I do? Will’s way of dealing with it is not to talk about it. I blame him. All that be a man crap. It drives me crazy. I’m sixty-two, retired from a government job, and have a husband whose main interest in life is golf and trying to forget his son’s off fighting a war for who knows what. So that leaves the council.”
“Didn’t Will have something to do with developers when he was still practicing?” asked Charlene.
“He was a real estate lawyer. If that’s what you mean,” said Erica. “Like you. I mean the lawyer part. But, yes, he worked mostly for developers. He always said that’s where the money was. I suppose it still is.”
“Well at least Charlene does some pro bono work,” said Hope. “She helps people who really need it.”
“That’s how I got on the council,” Charlene turned to Katelyn. “My firm represents a green coalition and I suggested getting on the council would fit in nicely. So here we are.”
The Naked Gardener Page 8