The River Why

by David James Duncan

  A week before Halloween Nick came knocking in the evening for the first time, so I knew what was up. When I opened the door he gave me a bashful smile and a gift-wrapped package. He said, “Goin’ away present. Wife got off early. We leave for B.C. tomorrow. Can’t thank you enough, Gus. It’s just an old book, but I thought you might like it.”

  I opened it… and barely managed to thank him without bursting into hysterics: it was The Compleat Angler.

  Then I told him I’d a gift for him, too, if he’d wait outside while I wrapped it. He left and I packaged up twelve rods and a gross of flies, wet and dry, thinking he could start his shop with them. But when I went out and laid them in his truck he carried them right back in the cabin. I followed him in and we settled down to dickering: I got him to take a steelheading pole, a flyrod, a dozen flies, and one of H2O’s discarded Coleman lanterns, but only by threatening to chuck them all in the river if he refused. I also gave him a drawing of the cedar grove and cabin that Charlene had done. (I remember it was Charlene because it was in charcoal, not darcoal or marcoal.)

  After we wrapped and loaded the stuff we stood by his truck a while. He’d already promised to write; we’d said we’d try and visit each other; it seemed there was nothing more to say. I kicked a rock. He kicked a tire. I said, “Nippy out.”

  He said, “Frost by dawn.”

  Then we both said nothing. But the silence didn’t settle right. All those quiet hours working together—they’d been good hours. I blurted, “Hell, Nick, this is no way to say goodbye! Just because you’re older than three of me and don’t drink doesn’t mean we shouldn’t step back inside for a farewell dram!”

  Loquacious as ever, Nick said, “Right.”

  We stepped inside. Nick started a fire while I poked in the cupboards. I figured if we were going to have a farewell conversation and not a farewell silence he’d need a fair amount of lubricating, so I grabbed a half-gallon jug of cheap burgundy, dumped a quart of it in a pot, added cinnamon and clove, heated it, set it on the hearth, dipped two mugs, handed him one, and we both pulled up a rocker. To my satisfaction and, judging by the sheepish smile, to his, Nick drained his mug without a breath. He leaned back and said, “Right good.” I could see we hadn’t quite arrived. I followed suit with my mug, then refilled them while he fed and fired a pipe—and as his hand cupped the flaring match I saw once again the scar on his palm. I’d watched that scar for hours as we’d worked, wondered about it, even dreamt about it. But I’d never asked about it: I’d never lost that initial certainty that the scar was the key to his sadness, his calm, his way. To ask about that scar casually was impossible; I’d watched it too long, seen it too well. It ran clear through to the back of his hand. As if he’d been one-quarter crucified. I knew this night might be the last chance I’d get; I drained a second mug for courage; I avoided his face; I said, “It’s none of my business, but all these days I’ve been wondering, Nick. What left that scar on your hand?”

  I felt the change; felt his eyes; felt him hesitate—like a deer when it first sees you—watching, testing the air. I knew without looking that I had pried, and, raising my eyes, half expected anger.… But all the softness and sadness in him had blossomed, not just into the green eyes, but into the creased flesh of his face. He said, “I’d like to tell you, Gus. But it’s a long story.”

  I told him I had food and drink enough to last us a month.

  He smiled his smile. “There’s no story I’d rather tell, providin’ someone with ears is willin’ to hear it.”

  I pulled back my hair to let my ears poke into view. He smiled again. We drew our rockers closer, placed our feet side by side on the hearthstones. It was strange: sitting that close to anyone I knew so little usually made me uneasy, but I liked sitting close to Nick. There was a little cloud of quiet that hovered around him. I’d found it by accidentally bumping his head, again and again, when scrutinizing the fine points of his smaller dry flies. He wasn’t just low-key; he was no-key, and my head, expecting air, would bang into his.

  I lit a cigarette. Nick worked down his second mug, closed his eyes, puffed his pipe, waited for the words to percolate up to a place he could speak them from. He said, “I should warn you. It’s a war story. I’ve seen war stories hit some young fellas like pints of laudanum.”

  I shrugged. “Couldn’t be worse than fishin’ stories I’ve stayed awake through.”

  Nick frowned. “That’s the other thing, Gus. It’s a fishin’ story, too. But it’s one I take mighty serious, and I’d as soon skip it if your tongue’s gonna be jammin’ sideways into your cheek. Because this story is true.”

  I said, “I’ll let my tongue rest right up to the part about how you and Blackbeard and Moby Dick and Popeye joined forces and sank the Bismarck.”

  He smiled a little, but he didn’t laugh. I could see he wanted quiet before he started—quiet not just in the room, but in our minds. He said, “There’ll be no pirates, no whales, no battleships. But there will be a thing I might have quit believin’ myself, without the documentation.”

  “The documentation?”

  He held out his palm like a book: on its one page, the red scar. Then, tentatively, he began his story:

  “Happened durin’ World War Two. I served on a minesweeper, in the North Sea. You familiar with sweepers?”

  I nodded.

  “Small boats. An’ we were small even for a sweeper. But we had a brave an’ rowdy crew, an’ we did our work well. If it hadn’t been war I might say I enjoyed it. War or no war I figured I couldn’t have been on a better boat with better men, except one—the chaplain.” He paused and poked the fire, dipped more wine and went on: “Boats our size didn’t usually have a chaplain. We reckoned it was our devilish reputation that won us ours. But the other men seemed to like him all right. He was the serious, devout sort, an’ since we didn’t have a cook he did the cookin’. Not bad cookin’ either, though I never told him so. I guess, the kind of religious minds we had, there wasn’t a hell of a lot else for him to do. Only times we listened to him was when he said Time-to-eat, and Sundays. Sundays we had to squeeze into a little room in two shifts, sing some hymns, an’ listen to Chaplain preach a sermon. He really cut loose on those damned sermons. They were as full of that zeal an’ faith an’ dead-ass certainty some Christians have as bacon’s full of grease. I hated ’em! Still remember ’em. Every week at some point he’d talk about Jesus, always callin’ him ‘Fisher of Men,’ always pointin’ out how ‘HE’ stilled the seas, always hammerin’ at how HE helped sailors an’ fishermen an’ whores an’ cripples an’ died for you an’ me. Then it came time for Allegories—an’ time for me to start wantin’ to throw up. Every Sunday, the same little Allegories: because the Fisher calmed the Sea of Galilee, HE’d calm the North Sea for us; because HE fed the multitudes (this really made me barf, since you-know-who was cook), HE’d feed us; because HE did this, that an’ the other thing two thousand years ago HE was still doin’ this an’ that for us men there on the sweeper praise the lord amen. I tell you, Gus, he and HE both made me tired.”

  Nick drank deep and watched the fire. “I couldn’t stand that pious crap. It wasn’t just the hollowness or smugness of it; it was what it might do to the men. It was scary out there—damned scary—an’ all of us but Chaplain felt it was our courage an’ skill an’ the way we did our jobs that kept us from gettin’ blown to Kingdom Come. I felt those sermons could jinx us if jittery men started listenin’ an’ believin’ an’ left their work to the Fisher ’stead of carryin’ out their duties themselves. An’ what did Chaplain care? Gettin’ blown up was a ticket to Heaven, to him.

  “So one day when he started in on me with his Jesus talk in private, I was ready. It was the chance I’d been wantin’. I said Jesus died too damned long ago to make a difference now. Chaplain said HE was still living. I said alright, maybe he was, but if he was it was worse than if he’d died, because if he lived he was a liar, because what kind of compassionate Saver of Men would create an’
rule a world where men, women, and children were bein’ tormented an’ mutilated an’ tortured an’ gassed an’ squashed like flies by the millions. Chaplain said it was men who tormented men, an’ that Jesus suffered whenever any man suffered, an’ that HE suffered more than all men put together. An’ that made me mad. I cursed him to his face, told him he was crazy, told him it was people on earth who were suffering, an’ Jesus was either dead or in heaven where he couldn’t be hurt or feel pain or pity. Chaplain stayed calm, said he was sorry I believed that way, said he thought I was a good man an’ that one day I’d understand that Christ’s suffering never ended. And I saw red. I wanted to put my fist through his righteous face. I shouted that it was human suffering that never ended. God didn’t suffer. God didn’t do anything! What God would allow a thing like the war we were in the middle of? I told him he was a condescending sanctimonious son of a bitch, told him to take his piety and his Bible and go swim down his Death-god’s throat! He said nothing after that. So I left.…”

  Nick was up and pacing, the words pouring out:

  “That same damned night a storm come up. Storms spin down out of nowhere on the North Sea faster an’ harder than anywhere else I’ve sailed, an’ this was a bad one. We were batted around pretty good. Between the roarin’ an’ winds an’ seas an’ my wantin’ to go find Chaplain an’ toss him in an’ say ‘Where’s your wave-calming Man-Fisher now?’ I didn’t sleep at all. I was pretty useless when I got up to go on duty.

  “It was just gettin’ light when I come on deck. We’d set in toward the Norwegian coast to get lee of the mountains an’ were idlin’ in the wind there, maybe a mile offshore, waitin’ out the storm.…” Nick stopped pacing, stared at me absently, turned to the fire.

  “We struck a drifting mine. It blew the front of the boat to hell in a second. Killed half the crew in their sleep. I was knocked down by the blast, but stayed conscious. I lay stunned on the deck, watchin’ men pour out the hatches, but the boat went down so fast most never made it up. No lifeboats were launched.

  “A wave washed me over the side. Or maybe the side just sank. I was alert through it all, but spellbound: I felt almost no emotion. As I floated up the side an’ over the top of a big comber I looked around: there were maybe fifteen men an’ some debris in the trough below. That was all there was.

  “If it hadn’t been for the daze I was in I’d have panicked an’ started swimmin’, an’ the movement would have squeezed the air pockets out of my clothes, an’ I’d have froze an’ drowned. But I just floated there, almost peaceful feelin’, though a little sad that the water was so cold, because I knew in a vague way that we’d all be dead in fifteen, twenty minutes. Yet I felt no fear,

  nor happiness either when, from the top of the next swell, I saw a big trawler bearin’ down on us. Six men stood on deck mannin’ two lifelines, an’ a seventh shouted orders in a voice so powerful I heard him over the seas, though I couldn’t understand him. The lifesavers were bein’ thrown to our men, sometimes actually hittin’ ’em. But some were too cold to grab hold. I still have dreams about the way they’d quietly sink, or drift away.…

  “Next time I come to the top of a wave the boat was just one swell off, headin’ right for me. Each of us, the trawler an’ I, slid off our waves an’ met in the trough. Then I saw that one lifeline was thrown for a man on the other side of the boat, an’ the second line already had a man hangin’ onto it, gettin’ pulled in. Those two were all the lifelines they had. I still remember what I said. Just ‘Jesus Christ.’ That was all.

  “Then I saw the seventh man bellowin’ an’ wavin’ at me, grinnin’ like we were at a picnic an’ pointin’ to a fishin’ pole he had in his hand, an’ I thought, ‘Yeah, that’s a nice pole, fella. Thanks for showin’ it to me.’

  “It was a heavy, stubby pole, but he was handy with it, or I was lucky. He cast way over my head, but the fishin’ line fell right on top of me.

  “I tried to grab it… but I couldn’t feel. Couldn’t feel my fingers, my hands, couldn’t tell if they were open or closed ’less I looked. It was like a dream, all in slow motion: I watched the line runnin’ away through my hands as the boat moved off. I had to grab that line and hold it, an’ all I could do was watch it slide an’ trickle an’ fritter away. My hands couldn’t squeeze it. For all I could feel, it might have been made of air.

  “As the boat too slid away the big fisherman on deck bellowed at me. But it wasn’t English. I didn’t know what the hell he wanted. Maybe he was just cussin’ me, or sayin’ goodbye.

  “The trawler disappeared over the next swell while I still floated up its side. I came to the end of the line. There was a big ring of cork tied to it. Just as I clutched the ring I was washed over the top of the wave.…

  “When the water cleared out of my eyes I saw the trawler, already near the top of the next swell. I looked at my hands. They weren’t together anymore. But then I saw the cork just floatin’ there, a few feet away. I didn’t get why. Thought maybe the fisherman had chucked his pole, disgusted at my helplessness, but what he’d really done was pay out line to keep the float near me.

  “I took the cork into my hands again, but it wasn’t much solace. I could never hold it if the man on the deck started reelin’ me in. I was too weak, too cold, too stupid. I tried to curl my whole body around that little cork, to hug it to me, to somehow make it part of me—and that’s when I saw it!”

  Reaching in the neck of his shirt, Nick turned to me, his face flushed; he pulled a string over his head, and something that hung from it, hidden in his hands. He offered it to me: it was a fishhook. Black, heavy gauge, maybe five inches long. And hanging on an ornately woven line, ancient and frayed, but still strong. I knew then what line it was, and how the story ended. Nick said,

  “I couldn’t feel that hook, but by God I could see it! And I knew what hooks were for. Coward that I am, I tried to trap my wrist in the crook—but you can see, it’s too small. The boat was atop the next crest. It was my last chance. I took the hook, then, and held the point, steady as I could, right against the palm of my hand.…

  “The trawler disappeared over the wave. A pain shot up my arm. I was dragged over, then under the water. I began to drown. It scared me at first, then it got peaceful and the awful cold went away. And I knew nothing.…”

  Nick sat back in the rocker and swallowed his wine. “I awoke in the galley of the trawler, pukin’ up water an’ wonderin’ why whoever was bilge-pumpin’ me hadn’t let me die in peace.” He laughed, frowned, drank some more. “When I started comin’ round I saw a big Norwegian, the blond hair all ocean-smatted onto his head, grinnin’ an’ hollerin’ into my face like he believed I’d learn his language if I heard it loud enough. It was the hollerin’ I recognized him by: it was the fisherman. I wiped away some vomit, smiled at him as best I could, and said, “Don’t you ever shuttup?” Another Norwegian started laughin’: I realized he had some English, so I’d have to watch it. Hearin’ me speak, the big fisherman squeezed my shoulders and boomed another string of babble. The other Norwegian laughed harder. I asked what was funny. He said, ‘Gunnulf he say you gives up one hells of good fight!’ I didn’t know what he was talkin’ about till I wondered why my hand hurt so bad. I looked at it—an’ started retching. That blessed hook was still stuck through my palm!

  “Ol’ Gunnulf roared with what seemed to me to be entirely uncalled-for laughter. Then he held up a huge pair of pliers. I fainted on the spot. When I come to I was swayin’ in a hammock, my hand all bandaged up.”

  Nick stopped, turned to me, and for the first time saw and held my eyes. He said, “I tell you, Gus. I was right about God. He isn’t just. If He was, I’d have sunk there in my North Sea stupidity. But thank God He’s more than just.…

  “It isn’t that it would have been so bad for me to drown, an’ it isn’t that I was salvaged—these aren’t the things that make me glad. What scares me, what makes me happy, is what I’d have died believin’ then, compared to what I’ll die bel
ievin’ now.” He shook his head. “I don’t know how to put it. I’m still not religious. Never will be. But since this hook pierced me the world hasn’t been the same. I just didn’t know anything, nothing at all, till God let me watch that line run away from me, my hands all powerless an’ cold. You’re young, Gus. I don’t know if you’ve been to that place beyond help or hope. But I was there, on the sea that day. And I was sent the help unlooked for, an’ it came in the shape of a hook. An’ nothin’ will ever be the way it was before that day, not for me it won’t.…” Nick’s voice seemed to fail him, but he stretched his right fist toward me. He opened it in the firelight: in the center of the palm lay the scar, red and waxy. “Behold, son,” he whispered. “Behold the sign of the Fisher’s love for a wooden-headed ass!”

  I gazed at the scar dumbly. He said, “Touch it!”

  The skin round the wound was calloused and hard, the scar soft, tender. It almost didn’t look healed. And the feel of it set my fingers trembling. “Does it hurt still?”

  He nodded. “Sometimes… yeah. Good hurt.” And he grabbed my fingers in the pierced hand and squeezed till they hurt, too. Then he released me. We watched the fire.

  After a long silence:

  “All nine survivors were in good shape once they thawed. The captain, the chaplain, most of my closest buddies were gone. Anyone wounded went fast in that icy water. No survivor was even scratched, except me.” He laughed. “You know, they gave me the Purple Heart! I tried to talk them out of it. Told them just what happened. But they insisted. Pretty damned religious of the United States Navy to give a man a medal for gettin’ himself saved, purple ass an’ soul!”