The Sky Fisherman

by Craig Lesley

  He pointed to a section of roof where smoke seeped between the corrugations and a makeshift crew was pulling up the tin. "Meet me in St. Louis, Louis," he called out, dragging his hose toward the new break. A man with a crowbar and ax hurried to join him.

  I started toward the ladder, going cautiously around pried-up sections when I heard a cry. Looking back, I saw that Seaweed and the other man had disappeared. Seaweed's hose led to a broken section of roof.

  When I reached the edge of the hole, I realized they had broken through a Plexiglas skylight. Careful to avoid a fall myself, I crouched and peered into the smoky interior. On the concrete floor thirty feet below, one man lay still. The second had landed on some empty pallets. Seaweed's hose had dropped halfway between the roof and floor. In the empty space, it waved and twisted like a frenzied snake, spraying the interior. Three stories below, the concrete floor rippled with water.

  Scrambling across roof and down ladder, I raced through the torn-out back section of the co-op and into the smoky interior. After a couple moments, my eyes adjusted and I could recognize each man. Still clutching his crowbar, the younger man lay on the wet concrete. He wasn't moving and the odd twist in his back made me almost puke. Seaweed groaned on the pallets, perhaps three feet above the floor. Although his eyes were open, he wasn't alert. Nothing registered in them as I came closer. Blood seeped from the back of his head, soaking a T-shirt one of the volunteers pressed against the wound. "Where's the damn ambulance?" he said. Glancing at Seaweed, he shook his head. "Better goddamn hurry up and get here."

  I touched Seaweed's shoulder. "Hey. It's Little Jake. Can you hear me? Just hang on tight. The ambulance is coming."

  He didn't say anything until a few moments later, after the gushing hose swept by, whipping us with its hard stream.

  "Captain. Captain. We're taking water."

  I bent over Seaweed, shielding him the best I could from the wild hose.

  "Pull the son of a bitch up, you idiots," the volunteer shouted to men on the roof. Heads appeared and disappeared at the broken skylight, but no one thought to lift the hose.

  The ambulance arrived, backing through the hole they tore out to carry off the ammonium nitrate fertilizer. As soon as the attendants rushed out to help, the hose whipped by them and they cursed the men on the roof.

  After a quick check of the young man on the floor, the ambulance crew lifted him on a stretcher and covered his face. They were more careful with Seaweed, trying to check his injuries. They asked the other volunteer firefighters and me a bunch of questions we couldn't answer before carefully lifting Seaweed, trying to prevent further injury. Even so he screamed twice, then lowered his voice to a whisper. "Getting dark, Captain. Should I put out the smoking lamp?"

  Those were his last words. The ambulance door closed, and I knew I wouldn't hear him speak again.

  No one cheered now, at least not around the co-op. The men seemed pretty glum, and the volunteer that had pressed Seaweed's wound picked up the crowbar lying on the floor and flung it straight up at the broken skylight. It sailed over and over, then thudded dully on concrete. Although his action was dumb, I understood, especially when he muttered, "Tyler had three damn kids, the little one barely walking."

  Outside, I wandered around a little—in shock, I guess. The full reality of the fire's danger had hit, the sheer craziness of it. Here was this inferno at the mill and along the cold deck, but no one had been killed or blown sky-high on the fuel tanks. However, on the co-op roof, by all appearances a relatively safe place, two men had plunged to their deaths.

  Stubborn firefighters still trained their streams on the cold deck and fuel tanks. Others climbed the ladders once again to the co-op roof. I gripped the rung of one ladder, then pushed away, scraping off a little mud with my palms. Everything was wet and slick now.

  My hands shook, and I started walking again to keep my knees from buckling. Nothing could make me climb that ladder to the roof.

  I wasn't too afraid to realize I was hungry and joined other firefighters straggling toward the makeshift food line Gateway's restaurants and bars had set up. The men looked like the wrath of God—covered with soot, mud, and reddish borate. In spite of their appearance, most seemed pleased to be there and shared a kind of jovial camaraderie. Nothing like this was likely to happen again in their lifetimes, so they bragged and joked like team members enjoying the locker room following a big game.

  Finally one of them turned his attention to me. "You look like death warmed over, kid. Really you do. You're as ugly as my wife's first husband."

  I grinned.

  "You got more teeth though. I knocked two of his out myself."

  They all laughed at that one. "She got two more with her high heel." The man kept the laughter going.

  "Hey, this is Jake's nephew," another said. "No shit now, your uncle's a big hero. Saved the day as far as I'm concerned. Grow up with half his balls, you'll do all right."

  I basked in my uncle's praise but tried to stick up for Billyum, too. "Jake had a little help."

  "Sure, we seen that big Indian up there. He did all right."

  ***

  What I hadn't counted on was my mother. Along with other women from the community, she was serving sandwiches, hot coffee, apples, slices of pie. At the end of the portable tables were coolers filled with beer and soda. Grocery merchants had donated food and beverages. The bars had sent cases of ice-cold beer. Mullins was cautioning the firefighters about too much drinking. One or two beers was okay, but more could mean trouble. The way I'd seen Seaweed go down, I could have drunk half a case and never numbed the shock.

  The women wore aprons that said, "Gateway Volunteer Firemen's Auxiliary." Where Mom had gotten hers, I didn't know, but she was the prettiest woman on the food line—and the only one wearing an Italian costume, so she must have come directly from the Festival of Floats.

  Astonished to see me, she tried handing over an apple, but paused, unable to let it go. "Culver ... What on earth? You and Jake were having supper with Juniper."

  I gently removed the apple from her hand. "We left a little early."

  I think she was going to comment on Jake, but then she saw my eyes. "You've been crying."

  "Soot and ash, Mom." I took a beef sandwich from the next woman in line.

  Mom left her place and followed. She seemed very flustered. "This fire's so dangerous, I want you home at once."

  "Don't worry. I've just been helping hold hoses, watching for spot fires. Nothing too dangerous."

  Reaching across the serving table, she gripped my wrist with surprising strength. "Go home, I say. You might get run over in all this confusion. I understand some unfortunate men fell through the co-op roof. The ambulance just raced by."

  The man in line behind me cleared his throat and started to say something about the delay, but she glared at him. "First chance you get, Culver. I don't want any of you boys getting hurt."

  "You should be proud, dear," the sandwich woman said. "My Jason's fighting fire and he's only fifteen."

  My mother gave the woman one of her brightest smiles. "Of course I'm proud, fiercely proud of Culver. And as citizens of Gateway, we're very pleased to be helping out." She resumed her place in line and smoothed her apron. "I just don't want any of the young men getting hurt before their prime. I'm certain you'd have to agree that young men's judgment can be a little shaky." Not waiting for the woman to answer, she turned to the next man in line. "Here's a nice apple for you."

  Scooting along, I grabbed a couple bags of potato chips. I craved salt. When Mom's head was turned, I snatched a beer from the ice chest.

  I walked past rows of men sitting on tailgates and lounging on folding chairs someone had brought from the Lutheran church. Sweaty, muddy, they resembled war casualties, and the reddish borate stains seemed like blood. All were sooty; it was difficult to tell where their clothes stopped, wrists and necks began. I realized that I must have shocked my mother by looking as bad as they did—probably worse�
��because I had witnessed something they hadn't.

  Choosing the tailgate of an empty pickup, I sat and began eating the sandwich. The roast beef tasted like smoke. Maybe it was my hands. The apple and chips tasted like smoke, too. At least the beer was cold.

  After eating, I studied the area. Sections of the cold deck still burned, the stacked logs glowing like giant embers. But the top layers of logs, those smothered in borate, weren't burning, and where the hoses fired water into the deck, the logs charred and smoked. Taking a naked-eye measurement, I felt they could salvage half of it.

  Equipment lay strewn about—helmets, fire coats, boots. Two men paraded around in their shorts; I believe they had spent more time drinking free beer than fighting fire. One stripped down to his briefs and tried diving into the millpond, using the tailgate of his pickup for a low board.

  "Shit," Mullins said. "He's going to drown or break his neck. We don't need any more casualties." Disgusted, Mullins dragged the guy out of the water and tied his feet to the pickup spotlight. "By the time he sobers up enough to get free, he can drive again," Mullins said.

  Axes, crowbars, shovels, seemed like toys left behind by careless kids. Waves and waves of heat coming from the glowing deck made the telephone poles seem eerily crooked.

  A dozen men remained on the co-op roof, taking care to avoid the treacherous skylight. With the cold deck burning less furiously, the raining sparks slowed a little.

  A man drinking a Mountain Dew sat next to me on the tailgate. Taking a wadded sandwich from his pants pocket, he started eating. "You look like dog shit, Bucko."

  "Damn it, Riley! What are you doing here?" The D on his baseball cap had been entirely blackened by the soot.

  He chuckled, but it sounded odd. One of his nostrils was packed with cotton, like he had a nosebleed. "Can't pass up a good fire."

  I glanced around. "You better be careful. Someone will see you."

  With the arm holding the can, he made a sweep of the cold deck and plant. "I been everywhere. Tied off a hose ten feet from Jake and he never knew me from Moses." He touched the can to his nose. "I held one of those tin shields awhile. Hot as a twenty-dollar pistol. Then my nose decided to get a period. But that's okay. The bosses want to see the workers' blood. Look at these dumb bastards risking life and limb to save the plant. What for? Tomorrow those same fucked-up heroes will be scratching for work. The owners will sell them downriver for an insurance check and a golf game." He paused. "We ought to torch the owners along with the cold deck."

  Riley's anger made me realize that somewhere he had crossed the main line onto a dangerous spur and I doubted he'd ever get back. I voiced my thoughts without realizing. "You didn't start this fire, did you, Riley?"

  He snorted, the blood bubbling up in the nostril. "What if I did. You turning me in?"

  I shrugged. "Maybe." He knew I wouldn't, even though dozens of policemen were around. "Two guys fell through the co-op roof. Both are dead."

  He removed his baseball cap, revealing a white line of high forehead that hadn't been smoked. Turning the cap in his hands, he seemed to be looking for some flaw. "The workers are getting screwed in this deal. Those two just checked out early, and I'm sorry as hell." He put the cap back on.

  "I just want to know," I said when I realized he hadn't answered the question.

  "Remember this, kid. When you're working in this society, you're a zero. Listen. Your mother and I were married for eight years, and I walked right past her. She gives me a sandwich, an apple, and a little dipsy smile. But she never had a clue. Working stiffs must look alike." He paused. "What's that stupid outfit she's wearing anyway?"

  His remarks about my mother got me started. "She's exhausted, Riley. What do you expect? Anyway, you're not exactly working."

  He drained his Mountain Dew. "Don't go getting snot-nosed on me."

  But I was overheated. "If you didn't set this fire, why are you here? Not for the citizenship award."

  "Let's just say it gives me a hard-on. Okay?" His voice softened after that. "Since when did you go drinking beer? You never did at my place."

  "Since I felt like it."

  "Well don't get too cheeky." He slapped my back. "Look at this damn soda." Riley held out the empty can for inspection. "How about you sneak back and grab us a couple beers. We'll have a drink—man to man, Bucko. If I go, your mom might get all excited and give me away."

  I went. After dipping a couple beers out of the ice chest, I stood observing her, the cans cooling my hands. She greeted every weary firefighter, smiled at him, offered encouragement.

  And it occurred to me then that if circumstances were different, if she had caught a decent break, my mother might have been the perfect hostess. The quick beauty of her smile, the slight forward tilt of her head—both suggested each word you had to say was important to her. I'd seen her act that way when she'd been a greeter in church, and I remembered how she always found something pleasant to say, even in the most difficult circumstance. I was tongue-tied as other church members poured out their woes: cancer, betrayal, accident. But in the most terrible circumstances, Mom found comforting words to make people feel better, to get them through the day—and perhaps the night.

  Watching her greet the firemen, I realized how much she needed a divorce from Riley. She had to escape this two-bit box, even if a better opportunity only meant marrying someone like Franklin. He'd have screens on the doors, at least, and I guessed that would be okay, if she chose him. Not that I could ever call him Dad or anything. Still, even though I couldn't picture it, I'd be leaving soon—off to college or the service.

  She glanced in my direction, although she didn't recognize me among the group of dirty firefighters, and I was struck again at how beautiful she appeared—a flower among all those exhausted workers, a bright crocus rising through dirty snow and winter ashes. At that moment I resolved to do whatever I could to help her.

  Returning to the pickup, I handed Riley his beer.

  He checked behind me to make certain no one had followed. "Thanks, Bucko. Took you long enough." As he drank, the beer foamed, running down his chin. "Shit. You shake this up?"

  "Did you get our message, Riley? When we came to the camp?"

  "I heard something." He studied me. "I've been your dad eight years now."

  "I know, but things are different now. I can't see you coming to many ball games, Riley. When you torched Griggs, everything changed."

  He wiped foam from his chin, leaving a black smear. "Everything changed before then. I finally had my say—loud and clear."

  "You can see how things got pretty cramped for her."

  He threw up his hands and some beer sloshed onto his wrist. "She can have a damn divorce. If that's what she wants. Sometimes people get back together."

  I didn't say anything.

  "If I went over there and talked to her, what do you think?"

  "They might put you in jail."

  He squinted at me. "Maybe she just wants to make it legal with pretty boy. Is he wearing the wallet these days?"

  "We're carrying our own weight. Whatever she does, that's her business."

  "Sure." Finished with the beer, he crushed the can against the side of the pickup but still gripped the metal tight. "Tell her to get the papers drawn. I'll let you know where to send them. Uncontested. I'll sign before a notary and ship them back. The declaration of her independence."

  "Thanks, Riley." Reaching out, I tried to shake his hand, but he just brushed my palm.

  "So long, Bucko." After tossing the empty can into the pickup bed, he started walking past all the firefighters and equipment, keeping to the raised track bed beside the twisted rails.

  I wanted to laugh. Here he was, walking by dozens of firefighters and police officers, with no one, including me, making a move to stop him. To be truthful, I felt a great sense of relief, knowing he was walking out of our lives forever. And I thought with him gone we would be safe, because I didn't realize then that the seeds of meanness and betraya
l lay buried in us all.

  I wanted to believe that he didn't set this fire, but I thought he might commit an act equally reckless that could harm my mother and me or others, like Seaweed and Tyler, who never met Riley and just showed up by chance.

  As he disappeared into the darkness beyond the fire's long glow, I felt unburdened of a terrible weight. In that buoyant moment, my thoughts returned to my mother and her chances. Free of Riley, she could do better than Franklin, I was convinced. She could marry a doctor or lawyer for another go-round. In one of my mother's magazines, I had read about a Supreme Court justice with several wives, the newest a beauty from the West. He appeared old and gray but they were hiking together over mountains, lovebirds basking in a spring start. Perhaps I would return from college to a justice's place.

  While my imagination was running wild, I got an even crazier idea. Maybe Mom and Jake would marry. They seemed an unlikely pair, but they shared me in common, and the way they quarreled made them seem almost married already.

  Then my imagination dead-ended. Fear cut through my fantasies. Perhaps it was dehydration and fatigue or the shock of seeing two men dying. I took rapid gulps of air, fighting back the urge to puke.

  Staring down the railroad tracks into the gloom beyond the glowing cold deck, my weary eyes conjured shadowy figures of Riley, Jake, and even my mother twisting in the eerie undulations from the fire's heat wave.

  Tearing my gaze away from the haunting specters, I tried to find comfort in familiar objects. Fire hoses lay strewn along the railroad bed and fire equipment littered the blackened and muddy ground. The telephone poles and lines wavered in the heat. Even the railroad tracks had buckled into grotesque shapes. Try though I might, I couldn't follow a straight line anywhere.

  18

  AT THREE IN THE MORNING, everybody left the fire to the relief and mop-up crews, then headed for the Elks Club. White or Indian, member or not, that night everybody was an Elk, and you didn't even have to sign the book. Firefighters, volunteers, wives, sweethearts, filled the small green building and gravel parking lot. Knots of celebrants gathered around pickup radios and the portable in the bar, listening to news of the fire on KRCW.