The Sky Fisherman

by Craig Lesley

Still lurking behind the rebuilding of the plant was gossip about the fate of the old one. Rumors of arson persisted. The state police arson squad had listed the cause of the fire as "undetermined" but also cited the plant for negligence. The insurance company investigators hadn't reached a decision. No one was satisfied, and the bellyaching persisted.

  My mother put enough money on the table to cover the check and tip. "Well, our society has certainly made a mess of things. That's perfectly clear." Reaching across the table, she patted my hand. "I'm very thankful the bright minds in your generation can unscramble the mess."

  "I take it these are not the same hooligans staying after school in the library."

  "Speaking of the library, they have lovely wildflowers from this area on display. Tables of them. Be sure to compliment the librarians when you're studying. People remember good manners and are likely to return the favor—order a book you need or something."

  One of the farm kids pulled up in a white Ford convertible with a red interior and bucket seats. His muscular arms appeared even tanner because he wore a white sports shirt with little silver threads through it. When he removed his sunglasses, his blue eyes blazed. I regretted having to walk with my mother past his car and hoped he'd get an order to go.

  Several of the waitresses gathered around the Ford, jostling one another to see who might take the order. Rising off the seat, he snatched away one's black and orange hat, holding it at arm's length when she reached for it, trying it on and mugging at her when she didn't.

  "Don't I look just like a waitress?" he mocked. "Can I take your order, please, sir?"

  "You better give that here, Price. Right this minute." The waitress had red hair and a lapel pin that said BETSY. Her face was becoming red. "I'm going to tell Shirley." Pointing to the empty passenger seat, she asked, "Where is she, anyhow?"

  "Big deal, Lucille. That's for me to know and you to find out."

  "She went to Central," another waitress said. "A sick aunt or something."

  "Real sick." Grinning, he patted the empty seat. "Hurry and hop in before that old aunt recovers."

  "That obnoxious show-off," my mother said, witnessing the scene outside.

  The redhead started walking off but he called after her. "What about taking my order, Betsy? How do I get decent service around here? Where's the manager?"

  The other waitresses offered to take his order, but he enjoyed tormenting the redhead. After stalling a minute, she went back, hatless. "All right, then." She flipped open her pad. "What can I get you?"

  "Just a second, miss." He pretended to observe her. "You're out of uniform. Isn't that against A&W regulations? Can't take an order without your hat." He placed the hat on his lap. "Here it is, if you say 'Pretty please.'"

  My mother took some coins out of her purse and tapped them on the counter, attracting the cook's attention. "I'd like another root beer, please. To go."

  The redhead wouldn't reach for the hat. Her face was bright. She tried taking his order again, but he refused and threatened to call the manager.

  "I don't need the lid," my mother told the cook.

  "Listen, Mom," I started, but she was out the door, marching toward the car.

  "Give her the hat right this minute, you silly hooligan." Her chin jutted straight ahead.

  The sun was at her back, so he couldn't see clearly. Maybe he thought she was the manager. "I was just having a little fun."

  My mother stood over him with the root beer, and I thought she was going to cool off his head or crotch. "Right this minute."

  "All right, then." He had figured out she wasn't the manager but handed back the hat anyway. "You must be some kind of nutcase."

  "Excuse me, please." Reaching across him before he could react, she poured root beer all over the passenger seat. The paper cup seemed bottomless as root beer ran everywhere. He watched, mouth agape, until she was finished and stepped back. "Now, what else can I get for you besides the root beer?"

  He found his voice. "My car, God damn it! I just had it cleaned." The veins bulged in his neck when he stepped from the car. His white canvas shoes were spattered with brown root beer. He must have purchased the shoes in Central because no store in Gateway carried shoes like that.

  My mother handed him a wad of napkins from one of the tin containers. "You'll want to clean that up before you get Shirley. I doubt she wants to sit in all that stickiness."

  As we left, I could feel the looks of the waitresses and Price burning into our backs. "Who the hell is that woman?" he said. "Maybe I've seen that kid around."

  "I don't know why you couldn't wait, Price," I heard one of the girls say. "We've got a restroom inside."

  The others laughed.

  Price had been in the store a couple of times, and he'd acted arrogantly there, too. He might try to settle up later, so I decided to start working out with the weights in the back room.

  My mother remained casual. "Your father used to love going out for a root beer. When he got paid, we'd drive to a little place called the Hand Out for soft drinks and sandwiches. Way on the outskirts of town. They tore it down years ago to build tract homes. I believe the Hand Out had better root beer, but perhaps that's because I was so much younger then. Everything seemed so fresh."

  "You're not exactly tottering on a cane, Mom. But it's sure too bad we can't still walk to the Hand Out. We could really get in shape. Maybe we should walk to Central. Thirty miles—we'd get in top shape."

  "Stop it." She tapped my shoulder. "I'm glad you have a sense of humor. That was the single thing missing in your father. So serious."

  "Maybe I got my sense of humor from Jake. The 'ho ho' gene."

  "I certainly hope not. Humor is fine, but Jake carries things too far. All that horseplay."

  I stopped walking. "How can you say that after your root beer stunt?"

  "That boy made me a little crazy. I couldn't help it." She shook her head. "Most mothers would trade eyeteeth for a son like you. I consider myself very fortunate." We started walking again. "Do you think Price will come after you?" A worried line wrinkled her brow.

  "Maybe," I said. "But Riley taught me a thing or two."

  "Well, don't go breeding a scab on your nose. Always try to avoid ! violence." She paused. "But if that boy starts something, whip him good."

  We had walked a little farther when she said, "Since you mentioned Central, I was thinking you and Franklin should go shopping for that blazer as soon as possible, before all the merchandise gets picked over. You might get a sweater, too. Brown to match your hair and eyes. Or burgundy."

  "It's too hot to try on sweaters," I said.

  "Once the school year starts, the holidays will be here before you know it."

  "Maybe I should wait until then. They'll get in a bunch of new stuff."

  Her brow furrowed. "By then the merchandise will be poor quality, very poor."

  "For Christmas?"

  She nodded. "They know people are anxious to buy. They get you coming and going."

  She went on about the merchandising, but I quit listening because I had spotted Billyum's tribal rig outside the Alibi Tavern. The tavern was fringed by pickups and farm rigs, a few beaters that belonged to the field workers. Billyum's large arm hung out the window and he tapped his fingers against the side of the door, perhaps keeping time to the honky-tonk music. Neon glare kept me from seeing the other occupants clearly, but there were two. Billyum's head turned as he remarked to them.

  Mom was still talking about the blazer, and I knew it had taken on a kind of exaggerated importance to her, suggesting the new improved life she planned for us. "Okay, Mom, stop twisting my arm. I'll go with Franklin to buy the blazer or something else. Whatever works. But there's one condition—"

  "You absolutely must wear wool slacks," she said. "You're not getting by with jeans or cotton pants. You'd be so ... mismatched."

  I winced a little, remembering how my wool dress pants had itched back in the days she took me to church and I spent the min
ister's sermon time drawing airplanes in combat or studying the Zumwach boys, trying to determine which had the worst soup-bowl haircut. But that wasn't the condition. "I want to use some of my own money."

  She stopped, and I first thought she was going to protest, but instead she put her arms around me and gave me a little hug. "What a lovely idea. Jake must be paying you pretty well, after all. I guess you can chip in just a little."

  "Fifty-fifty, or else it's no deal." I knew my mother had been working hard. "Get something nice for yourself." I realized I could use Kalim's money and no one would be the wiser. I had half planned on using it to buy a new gun, but that didn't seem quite right, considering he'd been shot.

  "I just hope Jake realizes how valuable you are."

  "I'm the right-hand man," I said. "The glue. I hold everything together."

  "You went awfully quiet back there for a minute," she said after we got home. "What were you thinking about? I hope it wasn't that obnoxious Price boy. You're not upset, are you, honey?"

  "No, I'm not upset."

  "Well then, a penny for your thoughts." She dug into her purse. "Here's a nickel. You were thinking something profound."

  "Not really. I was thinking of the Zumwach boys and their crazy haircuts. Remember how they looked in church?"

  Surprised, she laughed. "Whatever brought that up?"

  "Your talking about wool pants got me to thinking about church and the gawky kids."

  "Those poor boys. I know people do the best they can. And God knows we've been plenty strapped. But I've always managed to get you to the barber. Some people attempt those home haircuts, but I know my limitations. I imagine they put soup bowls on their heads." She clicked her tongue. "I wonder where those boys are now. I wouldn't be buried with haircuts like theirs."

  ***

  But I had told a lie, because I wasn't thinking about the Zumwach boys all that time. As we passed the Alibi, the angle of light had changed and I could see inside the pickup. Jake and Sniffy were the other two occupants, a strange trio, especially the way they just seemed to be waiting outside the tavern, the truck sitting apart from the fringe of rigs driven by the patrons.

  Maybe the third man wasn't Jake; his face was partially obscured. Sniffy I recognized for sure. He sat wedged between the other two and his look indicated he wasn't any too pleased. He seemed to have what Jake called a stiff iron supplement, a rod shoved up his ass. The three together struck me as odd because after Sniffy had spilled his guts that night in the store, he returned two days later to tell Jake he had been cockeyed about his suspicions at the mill. Fire and fatigue had worn him down, or so he claimed.

  "I'm just sixteen months from retirement, Jake," he had said. "Who wants to see their old age go up in smoke?" He studied Jake, eager for sympathy.

  "So I guess you're feeling better now?" Jake asked.

  "One hundred percent. It's amazing what a couple nights' sleep can do."

  "No bad dreams, huh? My sidekick's been having nightmares about Seaweed and Tyler."

  Sniffy looked down at the floor. "Sorry to hear it."

  After a minute Jake slapped his back. "Cheer up. I'm just sorry everyone else doesn't feel as good as you do. Lots of those mill fellas are looking at a pretty bleak future."

  "They're young. Let's hope it's short term," Sniffy said. He tried to change the subject. "Say, I hope this unemployment doesn't hurt your business too much."

  Jake smiled, a little too wide. "I'll do dandy. When times get tough, people buy guns. Fishing tackle drops off, but that's mostly tourist stuff anyway. Worried people buy guns. Scared people buy lots of guns."

  Sniffy surveyed the rifles and pistols on display. "You're not kidding, are you?"

  "I've seen it before," Jake said. "Out-of-work men start poaching deer and elk. Around here, they've got pride. No father's going to be standing in grocery lines paying with food stamps where some snot-nosed schoolmate can ask their sons and daughters about the funny money." Jake paused. "Takes a lot of meat to feed four or five growing kids. But you can do it poaching. Raise a few vegetables."

  "So folks can get by," Sniffy said.

  Jake rubbed his chin. "For a while. But you can't poach school clothes or shoes. Pretty soon the kids get kind of shabby. The wife starts looking haggard. She might get a job, wear a cute little outfit and serve the pushy tourists."

  "They're still getting by, aren't they?" Sniffy had a worried look. "That's the main thing."

  "Problem is, no one's happy with just getting by. Maybe the dad feels a little less manly, so he starts double-timing with some hard-eyed woman at the Alibi or Stardust. She's laughing at his jokes, not asking for too much money. One night when he staggers home, another woman's perfume clinging to him, the wife shoots him." Jake paused. "But that's not your worry, I guess."

  "They might be planning to rebuild the plant, for Christ's sake. You got to look past these bad times," Sniffy said. "People can hang on."

  Jake nodded at the paintings. "Kalim's not hanging on. Remember what you said about those fellas and Kalim? Think they came after him?"

  Sniffy gripped the seat of his chair like he was about to be ejected from an airplane. "Jake, I'm telling you to back off, damn it. I was making mountains out of molehills. Now I've got things straight." Nodding at the painting, he added, "I was way off base about that Indian boy, too. Sorry."

  "What about the notes you been keeping?" Jake asked.

  "Just scribbles. They don't add up. For now, I'm holding on to them."

  Sniffy seemed so confused and miserable that after a moment Jake stood behind him and rested his hands on Sniffy's shoulders. "I appreciate your coming by—clearing the air." His voice had softened.

  Sniffy stood, holding out his right hand. "I've always considered you a friend, Jake." The hand trembled.

  After a moment's hesitation, Jake took it. "Remember those Red Cross women and the brandy? You want some nerve juice?"

  Sniffy shook his head. "The wife needs her medication. Got to get to the drugstore. If her arthritis gets worse we're moving to Arizona."

  Jake walked Sniffy to the door. "Come by and talk, anytime. But listen, fella. Watch your back."

  "I'm plenty jittery, Jake." His lip trembled and for a minute I thought Sniffy was going to cry.

  We both watched him leave. "He sure changed his tune, didn't he?" I said. "He seems scared as hell."

  Jake nodded. "Somebody gave him an attitude adjustment."

  "I'll bet. They might have threatened his wife, too."

  "Maybe he really was building mountains out of molehills," Jake said. "Who can tell?"

  "Isn't there any way to check it out?"

  "Not my job," Jake said. "I've got a hunch we're going to sell a lot of guns this fall. But first we've got to get through Labor Day, the last big fishing surge. I think you better get in the back room and start packaging up a mess of worms."

  21

  I RECOGNIZED this guy's type by the way he slammed the pickup door and headed for the store. A high school athlete starting to fade, a wiseass in a baseball cap, a boozer and brawler—in short, a small-town troublemaker. He had a slight limp that could have been an old injury or too much summer celebration. I'd seen him before somewhere but couldn't name the place. Thrusting his head in the doorway, he ordered, "Get me fifty pounds of ice, buddy. No, better make it a hundred. And hustle it."

  "Cube ice or block?" I asked, determined not to hustle for this guy. I pretended to be busy with some steelhead tags.

  "In this heat? Block. Cube melts too fast. Any dumb shit knows that." His voice got louder. "Jake around? Lazy bum's off fishing again, I suppose. Some job." He flexed his bicep. "Six years at the plant. Just charge that ice would you, buddy?"

  I began going methodically through the credit list. "What's your name?"

  "F. T. Meeks," he said. "A steady customer. But right now I'm in a hurry. Say, what do you think I want that ice for anyway?" He raised an eyebrow.

  "To keep something cool,
" I said. No point in being too nice to this guy. I had found his file in the credit ledger with Jake's scrawled "No Credit" across the top. Two checks returned for insufficient funds were stapled to the file.

  "To ... keep ... something ... cool." His mouth exaggerated each word. "Now I know why Jake hired you." He tapped his forehead. "Bright. Do you know how to make out a charge slip?"

  "I do if you've got credit." Suddenly I realized where I had seen him. He was one of the half-naked drunk men at the fire. Mullins had tied Meeks's feet to his truck's spotlight. I tapped the file. "No credit, it says here."

  He leaned over the counter, eyeing the checks. His hands were covered with what looked like dried blood. "That's my old man," he said after sucking in a breath. "Jake's got no credit beef with me."

  "Jake's not around," I said. "He expects me to go by the book. If you still want that ice, you've got to pay cash." Jake always said be firm with wiseasses and bullies.

  "What the hell?" He backed down sooner than I expected and pulled a five-dollar bill from his wallet. "How many rabbits do you think I've got in the back of my pickup?"

  "Half a dozen," I said, "and they're all looking for ice."

  "Come and see." He took a couple hitch steps toward the door, then beckoned.

  Outside in the glaring heat, I peered into the bed. "Holy shit!" A jumble of dead rabbits were piled three or four deep, and they were beginning to ripen in the heat. Flies landed on their unblinking papery eyes and sucked at the blood clots in the bullet wounds.

  I didn't want to get too close. "You're not planning to eat them, are you? Make you sick as hell."

  He grinned—goofy and wicked at the same time. "This dumb bastard from the city—used to be a buddy of mine. We met at a North-South Shrine game. He called last week to see what was going on since the mill closed. I told him I shot forty-six rabbits. Son of a bitch called me a liar, so this weekend I shot eighty-two. Cruised those alfalfa fields all night with a spotlight and pow, pow, pow." He pretended to sight along his arm.

  "The fun thing is he's gone all weekend. When he gets back late Sunday night, these rabbits will be partying on his lawn. That'll teach the rat fuck."