He looked at me like I was crazy. So I had to fill him in.
The ferry was slowing down. The dock was a few hundred yards away. It’s kind of like a religious experience—coming in over there. Having that dock and everything move toward you real slow. I imagine Columbus and them guys had it all the time, coming up on islands and stuff. The wind wadn’t so strong anymore—blocked by the island.
The ferry crew, some high-school student, maybe a college student, I can’t tell no more, threw a line to Fox. Fox lives on the island, like I say, because of his legal troubles. He’s always tan, and he’s got this yellow-white beard. He wears this little camouflage canvas rain hat. He passed the line around a pole and looped it on a bollard. Captain maneuvered the ferry with the engine in forward, rum-rum-rum-rum, reverse, rum-rum-rum-rum-rum, forward, reverse until it backed up against the loading dock. Fox fastened her to, and then lowered this ramp onto the stern of the ferry, chains rattling and squeaking and all. It’s all got in my blood, somehow. “Crank em up,” he said. “Four-wheel drive.”
The first truck, this red GMC, in reverse, bounced its rear wheels up onto the ramp, then fell back to where it was before. The engine raced and it got up on the ramp—rear wheels, then front wheels. The driver, with his arm up on the seat, looked back through his rear window. Listen. This is funny, now. We were all standing there watching. In other words he wadn’t doing a real good job of getting his truck off the ferry. Then all of a sudden this second guy in there, in the truck on the passenger side, this guy that we hadn’t seen, sits up. I guess he’s been passed out in there or something. He had definitely had a few. Some people come over here to drink instead of fish. Well this guy sticks his head out through the window—his hair was gray and sprayed out in all directions. His eyes were red and brown and wild looking. He started to say something, pulled his head back in partway about time the truck bounced down off the ramp, knocking his head—bam—up against the window. Well, the truck turns around and starts off toward the cabins. The passenger door opens. Red brake lights come on. The driver grabs for his passenger, see, but misses. So the man is standing out on the sand, unsteady, looking at the ferry, wild-like, then looking at the ground, around at the cabins off behind him, then back toward the ferry. He staggers, you know, brings his hands to the top of his head and screams, “Where the goddamn hell am I?”
I’ll tell you they get all kinds over there.
When all the trucks were off the ferry, Fox backed that old World War II ambulance or utility vehicle or whatever it is onto the ferry, helped us load up our gear, then drove off the ferry and along a sand path toward our cabin. Faison, the old man, and me sat up front with the driver. Tate and the boy sat on the tailgate. I got a strong whiff of the ocean air—bringing that funny feeling to my chest. I looked at the cabins while we headed toward ours, number 14. They all look like old smokehouses and feed shacks.
Fox helped us unload. It didn’t take but a minute.
I put up groceries while the others unpacked.
In the cabin was chairs, a table, a two-eyed gas stove, a sink, two sets of bunk beds, and a rollaway. Good thing we had the rollaway. Hell, I tell you, I won’t expecting no family reunion.
I scratched my crotch. “Damn, I caught something,” I said. “If I got the crabs we can fish with them.”
“I don’t want the bunk under you then,” said Faison. “Where you sleeping?”
“I’m on top right there.”
“Hell, I’m getting over here, then. Tate, you’ll have to sleep under there.”
Far as I was concerned the boy would have to sleep in the rollaway. “Hell, I’m just kidding,” I said. “I ain’t got no crabs.” I scratched again. “I got something though.”
Faison was ready to hit the beach and I was too, so that’s what we did. Tate and the old man and the boy stayed behind to finish unpacking or something.
Morgan
This place was awesome. It was like something you see on TV. There was nothing but sand and these little shacks and the ocean. That’s it. That’s all there was. Uncle Faison and Jimmy went on down to the beach to fish. The beach was just beyond these sand dunes that are out behind the back door. They barely took time to unpack. They had all this paraphernalia they were taking with them. The surf-casting rods are ten to thirteen feet long. Mine, the one I’m using, is ten feet long. Uncle Faison showed me some stuff about it coming over on the ferry. Uncle Grove said he didn’t want to fish.
When Dad, Uncle Grove, and I got to the beach, Uncle Faison was standing in the surf, knee-deep, fishing. All together in a little camp on the sand were these like lawn chairs, tackle boxes, a cooler, buckets, and a bait fish cut into chunks on a wooden board. We bought the bait fish, about fifteen of them—millet or mullet or something—in Beaufort before we drove to Kelly Ford. Jimmy’s got a King Cab and I had to sit in my dad’s lap between Beaufort and the ferry. We’ll be flying to Wilmington to pick up some snakes on the way back. Teresa Charles, this girl I been talking to, made me promise to call her when we get back to let her know how it goes. She thinks it’s pretty wild. I didn’t tell Mom about the snake part of the trip.
Jimmy, when we got down to the beach, was standing with his rod leaning against his shoulder. What was neat was, he held a small whetstone in one hand and a fishhook in the other. Just under his nose he was sharpening the hook. What was funny was the way he was looking at it cross-eyed, sharpening, looking at it, sharpening. He’s got like some kind of strange energy, which being cross-eyed made even stranger.
Uncle Grove says to Jimmy, “Most people won’t sharpen hooks.” Then he tells him he’s sharpened every hook he ever used and they talk about that for a few minutes, and then Jimmy hits him with this question: “Were you really trying to throw in the towel, do yourself in—you know—with the grave and all?” Uncle Grove sort of looks at him like what are you talking about, and then he said something like, “I was. Then I got to thinking about this fishing trip. You can’t fish when you’re dead. Besides that, it’s a sin to kill yourself.”
Jimmy goes in to talking about if there is and if there isn’t a God, and Uncle Grove tells him if he doesn’t believe in God he’s going to hell.
All I had to do was put some bait on my hook and like cast. I was using a pair of Jimmy’s waders. The water’s still too cold from winter to wear just a bathing suit.
Uncle Faison hadn’t showed Dad anything about his reel like he had me, and as far as I know Dad hadn’t ever been fishing—since they were little anyway. So down on the beach there, Uncle Faison starts showing Dad some stuff about the rod and reel and all.
Dad watched, then kind of grabbed the reel.
“No,” said Uncle Faison. “Let me—”
“I got it,” said Dad. “I got it.”
“Okay, okay. Some of this ain’t so simple though. At least let me show you how to get the bait on there so it’ll hold.”
“I can do it. I been fishing.”
Dad didn’t want anybody to show him anything.
Uncle Grove sat in a chair and didn’t fish. I sat beside him and held my rod and reel. Dad, Uncle Faison, and Jimmy had their rods stuck in these rod holders that were stuck in the sand. We were kind of spread around on the beach. They said I could put my rod in a holder, but I wanted my hands on mine.
Uncle Grove said he just wanted to look at the ocean. He was wearing a sweater with holes in it, and he’d stopped shaving, so he looked kind of ratty, and his eyes were bloodshot. He started talking, talking about his “hot head.” He said his papa had one, said his papa and some guy named Saul Proffitt would get into a fight over a cow or something like that and his papa—who would be my great-granddad—would jump at Saul with a pitchfork or whatever he could get his hands on. He had a pitchfork at Saul Proffitt’s throat one time, he said, and gave it a little jerk-stab like he was going to stab Saul—Uncle Grove is sitting there on the beach kind of acting all this out—and Saul jerked his head back real quick like and hit a nail,
nail sticking out of a post. Once Uncle Grove starts talking it’s impossible not to listen because of the way he talks and tells.
He went on to tell me that after his daddy died, his mama never said a word to any of the children about marrying this Mr. Harper and that when word came that Mr. Harper had whipped his sister Evelyn, my grandma, that’s when he went after him. He was boiling, he said—Uncle Grove—when he stepped up onto the step there at the house and old man Harper was inside. Uncle Grove had moved out by then, and he like told Mr. Harper to come on outside. He could see him in there behind the screen. It was dark in there and him sitting, and he wouldn’t even get up. Just sat there. These are the kinds of things that Uncle Grove puts in his stories. Looking through the screen and all like that, so that it seems real. He’s got all this stuff from way back in the past pulled up close, real close.
So Uncle Grove went in after him, through the screen door, and they had this pushing-shoving-hitting thing around the living room. After that he said he didn’t have anywhere to go but to town, and then he said he got in with the wrong crowd and all. And then there were what he called woman troubles, and some kind of car business, and hauling liquor, and the concessions, and this and that and the other.
All the stuff from last week about the graves was in the newspapers. Aunt Bette and Aunt Ansie blew up I guess when they found out about Uncle Grove being back in town and all. I can’t figure out what they’ve got against him. They cornered me at the funeral home and said that Uncle Grove had been a bad influence on everybody he knew, including his sister, my grandmother. I don’t know why they’re so obsessed with all that. It happened over forty years ago, her running away. It’s like when she left, that was the end of the world.
Mom says she’s glad she’s out of the family for good.
The sun was getting low in the sky. Uncle Grove had gone back to the cabin. The wind had died down. It was very peaceful. I hadn’t been all that sure I’d like it, but it was so peaceful, and big out there—so much space and nobody, nothing, way, way down the beach anywhere. The times I’ve been to the ocean before there were always all these people around and everybody worrying about suntan lotion and all that. But this was different. We’d all sit quiet for a long time and look at the waves rolling and foaming. Uncle Faison and Jimmy would go to the cooler for a beer every once in a while. I’d go for an apple or a Snickers. It was like nobody was going to tell me what to eat or drink. I thought about drinking a beer, but Dad would get all bent out of shape.
There was nothing out there but the ocean and sand and us, fishing. But mainly we were just sitting around. The rods were lined up along the beach in the rod holders, except for mine. I was still holding it. No bites. No nibbles. The sun was hot and the air was cool.
Your mind gets to wondering about things, like it begins to get a little disconnected from . . . from whatever. I would look at the sand and think about counting the grains and I thought about like how long the ocean had been there doing the same thing over and over. I thought about Uncle Grove. I thought about what if my grandma hadn’t left—how it would have been different for my dad. I thought about Junior getting killed in the car wreck. There was supposed to be some argument between Uncle Faison and Aunt June Lee that led to the wreck. I’ve never heard anybody talk about it, but I got that from somewhere.
Jimmy stopped by my chair on the way to the cooler. “One of the best things about this,” he said, “is that there ain’t no streets and cars over here. You ever think about how much noise cars make?” He was like actually talking to me. “You ever think about back before cars, when everywhere sounded just like iss? You ever think—HOLY SHIT!” he screamed. He pointed.
The rod on the far end of the line was just booking. Dad and Uncle Faison started getting up, which isn’t easy in these waders we had to wear. We were sort of scattered around on the beach, far apart. Jimmy was screaming, “YOU GOT A TIT, BATE—A TIGHT, BATE—A BITE, TATE. GODDAMMIT. GODDAMN, THEY’RE GONNA START HITTING. I KNEW IT. I KNEW IT!” He was like going crazy.
It was Dad’s rod. He pulled it up out of the rod holder, looked at the reel like he was trying to remember how to hold it.
Uncle Faison grabbed at it, trying to turn the reel handle over some other way or something.
Dad pulled away, keeping the reel in front of him. The end of the rod like suddenly dipped down hard.
“Whoa!” said Jimmy.
The rod suddenly bent even more, dipped, and the reel whined.
“WHOA, LOOK AT THAT!” said Jimmy. “That fish weighs twenty pound if he weighs a ounce. God,” he said, “I hope it ain’t no sand shark. Yippee, this is the year. This is the year. WHOA, HEY, LOOK, I GOT ONE!” He started toward his rod, which was dipping and pumping. “This is the year,” he yelled. “This is the year!”
And that’s when the first one hit my line. It was like a fist hitting me in the shoulder. It was unreal.
Jimmy
We lined all the fish up on the cleaning table outside the back door—just a-shining. One flapping here, one flapping there. We were about to clean them, all but the boy. He was still on the beach fishing. When they had started hitting, he about flipped, screaming and I don’t know what all. His voice is changing and all that.
We went to work on the fish with pliers and fillet knives. Tate fell behind. I was using my Leatherman tool. Best tool I ever had, except my fingers. Man I used to work for at the sawmill was always saying, “There’s no tool like the fingers.” Huh?
We skinned, filleted, stopped, drank beer, flipped the fish over, done the same thing on the other side, cut the fillets into steaks, dropped them onto ice in the cooler, drank some more beer. We had twenty-two big bluefish. Averaging out at twelve to fifteen pound. A real sight.
“Here, let me help,” says the old man.
“You’re the overseer,” said Faison. “You give the orders.”
The old man looked like he felt pretty good. He’d had a few.
Tate was standing at the fish-cleaning table, talking to him. “There, Uncle Grove,” he said. “Over there. Get that chair and sit down.” He pointed to a old stool by the faucet. The old man started over and Tate said to Faison, “He’s swaying.”
Faison says, “Yeah, I know. Pass me a beer, Jimmy.”
“We should have bled them,” I said. But hell I didn’t have time. You need to cut a bluefish’s throat soon as you catch it. Especially the big ones. Just like a deer or a pig.
“Wha’s a matter?” said the old man from his chair. “One of ’em ain’t dead? Here, I’ll shoot his ass.” He stood up, reached into his back pocket, pulled out a snub-nosed .38.
“Well, that’s a load off my mind,” I said.
“Whoa,” said Faison, walking over to him. “Here, let me have that.”
He put the gun back in his pocket and sat down. “Never mind. They’re just fish,” he said.
Old man made me a little nervous. Not too nervous. But a little nervous.
“That’s right,” said Faison. “Don’t you want to give me that gun?”
“Oh no.”
“What the hell you need it for?” asked Tate.
“You never know. You never know.”
“Did you know he had that gun?” Faison asked Tate.
“No. Think we ought to take it?”
“Go ahead, if you think you can.”
“He ain’t going to hurt nothing,” I said. “We should’ve had him shooting down at the beach. That second or third one—second one I hooked—was like he was pulling me out, man. I had to keep, you know, walking out farther and farther. I tell you one thing: for his size, that was the fightingest fish I ever caught.”
Fox drove up in his truck, got out and walked over. “Looks like you boys had some luck. How do you do, sir?” he said to the old man.
The old man says, “I catch them. They clean them.”
“Pretty, ain’t they,” said Faison.
“They sure are,” said Fox. He thumped his cigarette out i
nto the sea oats. “Y’all need anything from the mainland?”
“We might be needing some beer before too long,” I said.
“I need a woman,” says the old man. “Anna Phillips.”
Later on that night we’re eating supper in the cabin. The boy finally come in. He’d caught four more blues, but they were small. I got him out on the cleaning table and showed him how to clean them.
For supper we had fresh, fried bluefish, corn bread, cheese nachos, pork and beans, and beer.
We’re sitting around the table after supper, more or less shooting the shit, talking a little about what that farm would bring. So I told them about Timmy winning twelve hundred dollars in a crap game last year. We were feeling pretty good. The man won twelve hundred dollars. This really happened. As soon as he won the money he decided we’d go live in a condominium on a golf course for a week. Wherever that is—Pinehurse. I tell all about the trip—crazy trip—and then the old man, he’s feeling pretty good by now, starts in.
“Hell, I been to Pinehurse,” he says, “right when they come out with electric golf carts. I was down there with Merle Mayberry, a guy I was in business with. I never played no golf, but he had two sets of clubs, see. And he let me play with the god-awful one. We get down there and we rent two carts. Him and the other fellow got one, and I got the other one. Hell, I ain’t never been on no golf cart. Merle has. I ain’t. He tells me to follow them on over to the place where you practice hitting it.”
The old man is going good. He can tell a story, and we’re just sitting there listening, with all the time in the world. There’s nothing else to do on the island.
“Well, hell,” he says, “I didn’t know them golf carts don’t make no noise. So I figure it won’t crank, so I get mad and stomp on the gas pedal and wham, I run into this sweet gum tree and shake all the golf clubs out the back and roll back over ’em and so forth and so on. Crazy.”
In Memory of Junior Page 15