by Jon Pineda
* * *
The truck shudders. I look over at the speedometer. We’re going almost ninety. It doesn’t matter. There are no speed-limit signs on this stretch. They’ve all been blown off their posts.
“HOW FAR NOW?” I ASK.
The river is on our left, chasing alongside us.
“Twenty klicks,” Fritter says.
“What’s that mean?”
“What it means.”
The truck’s shuddering makes my shins rub against the creel.
“Maybe we should go slower,” I say.
“Don’t you want to get there?”
“Alive, yes.”
“We’re fine. We’re alive now.”
The truck shakes harder. It feels like one of the wheels is going to roll off.
“I don’t think we’re fine. Just for the record.”
“Going fishing?” he says, trying to distract me.
“Yeah.”
“Where did you get it?”
“Where I got it.”
I look right at him. Two can play this game.
We start slowing down.
I sigh. “Thanks. I was worried—”
“Why are you thanking me?” He is stomping the gas pedal, but the truck keeps slowing.
We coast to a stop.
FRITTER TRIES TO START IT a bunch of times, but it won’t turn over. The electrical is shot. No lights on the dashboard come on.
“Alternator,” he says.
“No battery?”
“That’s right.”
“My phone is dead, too. I should’ve been charging it this whole time.”
“Dead just like this mother—”
Fritter pounds the steering wheel.
* * *
Before we abandon the truck, we take a quick inventory of what we have. The double barrel that was behind the bench seat is back at the boathouse. There are no shells for it anyway. What is stashed in its place is a canvas tool bag with some tie wraps, a small knife, and a rusty handsaw. I pick up the creel with the fly rod, and Fritter carries everything else. We don’t stay on the road, but cross over the embankment to follow the river.
* * *
I can still see the truck when a breath catches in my throat.
“We left Marianne Moore,” I say.
“Fuck.”
“She can take care of herself, right?”
“If she can’t, we’ll find out.”
* * *
At our pace, we’re a solid day’s walk from Dox and my father. That is, if Fritter’s ankles hold. I can’t tell if he’s laughing or crying now. We can’t head back to the road and hitch a ride because we’re who we are. I know that much. Fritter says we can walk on the loam and that might help some, so there’s that.
Up ahead is more field and more rows of Silver Queen corn and, of course, more and more river. The river is endless.
* * *
We follow it, and I can see the current trotting alongside us like Marianne Moore. What I wouldn’t give for one of those faint skiffs in the distance to come forward and pull up alongside us. I would even take a ride from one of Main Boy’s friends, a speedboat loaded with partyers while Fritter and I were dragged behind it on one of those huge inner tubes.
* * *
“Watch it.” Fritter holds up a fist.
I stop marching and suck in my breath. I crouch like him and get low.
A white pickup tears down a dirt road up ahead, pulls dust behind it like a parachute.
“What’s this motherfucker want?” Fritter growls, but the white truck is a toy now, it’s that far away. The blur of it has gone from our sight and disappeared into a glob of sycamores that cover a point up ahead.
“Should we wait here or what?” I say.
“I have to sit anyway.”
I scan the branches. Water moccasins are hanging off like tied-together pairs of shoes thrown over phone lines. When I set the creel down, Fritter asks me if he can take a peek. I hand everything over to him, and he’s gentle with each piece. He tells me the joining ends are called ferrules, and I nod like that’s a given.
“This is pretty nice stuff. You know how to use one of these?”
“It was a gift.”
“Okay, but do you know how to use one?”
“I was planning to teach myself.”
He smiles at me like he knows something I don’t.
“When I was your age, all I did was fly-fish. But not a nice one like this here.”
I try not to show my surprise.
“You don’t believe me?”
“Just seems funny, that’s all.”
“What? What’s funny?”
“I’m not going to say it.”
“I wasn’t bad.”
I pause. “You think he’s going to be okay?”
“Now, don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Stay positive. He’s in a better place. Besides, Dox is there with him.”
“A better place,” I say, repeating the phrase.
“That’s right.”
“That’s what people say when someone dies.”
“I didn’t mean he was dead.”
“Okay.”
“Here, you want a quick casting lesson?”
“I’ll take a rain check.”
THE WHITE TRUCK COMES BACK the way it came, down the path and pulling its parachute. For a moment, I think it’s Main Boy’s father, but there’s no way. I don’t want it to be him.
When the white truck gets to the paved road, it turns left, cutting the parachute loose. It heads in the same direction we need to go.
“Come on,” Fritter says, but I have to help him up.
“Your ankles.”
He hobbles like he’s barefoot and the ground is shards.
* * *
By the time we reach the bend, Fritter has to rest again, but I push on him when I see a clearing in the trees near the point. In the clearing is a cinder-block foundation and some framed walls going up on top of it. Next to it is a stack of wood, with the legs of sawhorses poking out from a huge gray tarp.
“Building me a house?” I say.
“That’s right. A beautiful mansion.”
“With my own room?”
“Of course.”
“And my own bathroom with a claw-foot tub and a sink and a big mirror that reflects everything.”
“You’ve been thinking a lot about this, huh?”
“It’s how I like to fall asleep.”
“That’s good.”
“What’s good?”
“To still have dreams.”
“I still have dreams.”
“If you say so.”
“Don’t say that.”
* * *
We beeline it over to the tarp and pull it back. There are power tools—saws, a compressor, and a nail gun—and a refrigerator-size generator next to beige army-grade containers. Some of the containers are empty, and others are still filled with gasoline. Stacked behind the generator are ropes and electrical cords placed one on top of the other.
“White Truck done us a solid,” Fritter says, and wants me to fist bump. I hold up a fist. He hits mine and pretends that his hand is a grenade that explodes right between us.
“This is a lot of shit,” I say.
“Yes, it is. So?”
“So?” I’m smiling now.
“So get to it.”
“Get to what?”
He shakes his dreadlocks. If they were beaded, they would be one of those hippie curtain doors. “Everything we need is here.”
“Okay,” I say, though I don’t know where he’s going with this.
He points at the river and then at the half-finished frame. “Is it just me or does that wall already look like a raft?”
“WHAT IF WHITE TRUCK COMES BACK?” I say.
“Fuck White Truck.”
“I know, but what if it does?”
“Pearl.”
“Yeah?”
> “Do you want to get there or not?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then shut the fuck up, please.”
Fritter digs through the tools and finds sledgehammers and a couple of crowbars. He hands me one of each and starts busting the corner of a wall loose. I try to get at the other end but nothing budges.
“Scoot over,” he says. “If we had more time, I’d show you what I’m doing.”
“Fine.”
He swings the hammer and things break. He loosens this other end and then pushes right in the middle. We have to jump back before it crashes down. The skeletal frame that’s left just leans.
“It’s not pretty.” He taps the makeshift raft. “But it should work. Especially if we put some of those canisters under it.”
We bust away the extra two-by-fours that had splintered off at the ends. We try to pull it over to the bank of the river. It’s a chore because Fritter’s feet are killing him. We wedge the empty canisters in any spot of the frame that will allow them to fit. We turn the whole thing over so it’s sheet side up.
“You think it’ll float?” I say.
“The river will let us know quick if it won’t.”
WE AIM THE RAFT TOWARD deeper water. Fritter pushes down too much on one side, and the raft nearly sinks. He sprawls across the deck like he’s been shot. The raft makes like it’s going to keep dropping down, but then it does something amazing: it springs back and levels out.
* * *
“Look at this,” Fritter says.
“What am I looking at?”
Fritter gets on all fours and then eases himself to standing. He grins and puts his hands on his hips like he’s king of the mountain. “Perfection.”
“Don’t forget, it needs to hold me, too.”
“Shoot, you’re barely there.”
Fritter tells me to grab some two-by-fours, and I hand them to him. I also give him the fly rod and the creel, and our canvas bag filled with our own tools. The tarp I grab just to take it.
“I feel like we should leave a thank-you note,” I say, still standing in the water.
“Girl, get your ass on this raft.”
* * *
We push on the soft bottom of the river. We find where the run weaves like cordage with other currents and gains speed. We catch on a part of the conveyor belt with our displacement. The landscape starts to slide past.
“You get to steer,” Fritter says.
“Really?”
I grab one of the two-by-fours. I try to touch the bottom, but I can’t. I even push the upper end of the two-by-four just under the surface of the water. We’re gliding along in a spot where the river is too deep.
“There’s no steering this raft, is there?” I say.
Fritter laughs.
WE DRIFT INTO THE EVENING. The river gets to look like it’s a sliver of glass. I’m starving, but I don’t say it. It’s a given.
I wonder if they’re feeding my father.
Fritter stands in the middle of the raft and doesn’t say anything. He’s assembled the rod and is tying a fly pattern on the end of the leader.
“You think it’s still out there?” Fritter says.
“Is what still out there?”
“Your fish.”
I look at him.
“What?” he says.
He shakes his head.
His head is on fire.
* * *
Fritter pulls out so much excess floating line from the reel that it bunches near his feet. He flicks some of the line forward and then puts his head down, like he’s saying a prayer.
“You okay there?” I say.
He nods and lifts his head. When he does, he also brings his right forearm back quickly. He stops his hand by his ear, like he’s listening to a seashell. The squiggle of line that had been floating on the river flings back behind him. Unlike my father, he doesn’t talk me through what he’s doing.
* * *
I study it all, every detail. He slides his arm forward to a sudden stop. His dreadlocks don’t move. The rod, curved like a bow, pulls the line hanging in the air behind him. All of the stored energy forms a tight loop that unrolls to a finite point on the air. I catch my breath.
* * *
Before the floating line can drift down onto the water’s surface, he repeats the action with the back cast. The whole thing is so elegant.
“I had no idea,” I say.
He doesn’t look at me.
“Has it been a long time?”
“Yeah, but it comes back to you. This is called false casting.”
Fritter grins, and something about his face softens. For the first time, I feel like I glimpse what he must have looked like when he was younger, when he was a boy. After a few more casts, he holds out the fly rod to me, but I shake my head.
“How many tours did you do?”
He goes back to casting, the line rolling and unrolling above him. “Don’t ask me that.”
The river keeps sliding on either side of us.
“Do you ever miss it?” I say.
“Each time I left, I hated being gone.”
“That seems like the opposite.”
“It doesn’t make sense, does it?”
“No.”
“I think you get used to living a certain way.”
“Do you ever want to go back?” I say.
He slaps his gut and smiles. “They wouldn’t take me back.”
“How do you know? Have you tried?”
“I just know I wouldn’t even take me back.”
“HOW LONG UNTIL WE GET THERE, do you think?”
“Tomorrow sometime.”
“That seems too long.”
“The current’s moving pretty quick, so maybe sooner.”
“So what you’re saying is that we’re at the mercy of the river.”
“When haven’t we been at the mercy of this river?” Fritter says.
We keep drifting.
* * *
“Are you happy?” I say.
“Am I what?”
“Happy.”
“Why would you ask me something like that?”
“It’s a harmless question.”
“If you say so.”
“You keep saying that. You think it isn’t?”
“I think it’s rude.”
“You think it’s rude to ask someone if they’re happy?”
“I do.”
I look at my hands.
“What about you?” Fritter says.
“Me?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re asking me if I’m happy?”
“I am.”
I don’t answer.
“See, it’s a silly question, isn’t it?”
* * *
The river vanishes. It’s just Fritter talking, but I stop listening. All I can think about is my father. I should’ve complained more about his drinking. I should’ve made it a point to check his feet more than I did. I feel like I’ve failed him.
* * *
“It’s not freezing,” Fritter says, when I finally tune in. “But it’s damn near close to it. I was young the first time I fished the shad run.”
I have to stop him now. “What’s the shad run?”
“It’s when the fish migrate from the ocean and return to the river to spawn.”
“Isn’t there a word for that?”
“Anadromous,” Fritter says, without skipping a beat. “Dox had left us that spring. He didn’t take any of his things with him. He came back, but not until later. I was tiny then, too.”
“I’m trying to picture a tiny Fritter,” I say, but he doesn’t laugh.
“I wanted to fish the run so badly I put on three pairs of Dox’s pants, bundled up, and waded in the cold water. No one was around to tell me I was doing something wrong.”
He goes on to explain how he just cast straight across and would let his line dead drift. When it finally swung near the bank, that’s when he felt the knocks on the
line, like there was this door floating under the river.
“The first time I pulled up, I was answering those knocks. Like Dox had come back to my mom and me already. I hooked into one. It was all loose voltage. When I pulled on the line, I could feel the fish on the other end.”
I close my eyes and listen to him go on. I can see this first fish leaping in the air, how it would leap three more times. I could see everything perfectly. Light turned the scales a silvered blue and lavender. When I open my eyes, Fritter is smiling.
“Funny how this one memory has stayed with me. Probably more so than any other. You asked me if I was happy? This was probably the happiest I had ever been in my life, Pearl.”
* * *
Thick fog appears on the river. I think we should start trying for the nearest shore, settle in until it passes, but Fritter says to stay the course. It sounds like something my father would say.
Fritter’s dreadlocks bunch under his head like a pillow made from piled skeins of yarns. His eyes start closing, and soon he’s asleep with his mouth open. His face goes soft again. I can see the boy in him, long before he grew up and put on a uniform to measure the world through a rifle’s scope.
THE FOG FINDS EVERY SPACE that isn’t us. Fritter lies on the raft and snores lightly. I grin. Deep down I’ve always loved a good joke. Main Boy’s not the only one. Dox says there’s no way to get through life without laughing as much as possible. Maybe I should blame Dox for what I do next, because a voice in my head tells me I should pretend we’re back home, that the raft has carried us in reverse, that we’re actually safe.
* * *
I start a conversation with my father and tell him about White Truck and the wall we made into a raft, and the empty canisters we used underneath for floatation, and when Fritter stirs, I say, “Dox, remember that fish I caught and we skinned it, but it came back to life, Dox, wasn’t that unbelievable? And it swam away, Dox, it did. Without its skin, Dox.” I even start clapping.