BITTERSWEET BELLS

“Like sweet bells jangled out of time, and harsh.”  Hamlet

First sound he heard, as always, was the clink of metal tags on her collar.  Then she stood beside him at the open hatchback, waiting for help. Time was this still-beautiful German Shepard would have leaped past him, but that was before dysplasia had eroded her hips.   Derek struggled to lift her 50 or so pounds up and in, pressing his face into the familiar musk of her thick fur.  She scrambled in, the tags jingling, then settled with her usual patient sigh.

 When Derek parked, she pushed to her feet and her eyes followed him as he walked around the car.  Her ears drooped a bit and she tightened slightly when she recognized the veterinary clinic.  Still, she walked beside him through the door, claws clicking on linoleum, her leash a mere formality required by veterinary rules. Derek stepped up to the receptionist.  His voice nearly broke as he gave Lydia’s name, and he  barely heard the soft reply. 

Lydia sat restless beside him in the waiting room, sniffing the medicinal air, watching two other dogs, shifting from side to side.   She let Derek lead her back to the stark white and chrome examination room, though she moved more slowly than could be explained by her hips alone. 

With the vet’s help Derek lifted her onto the table.  Once again he noticed its slickness and sharp edges, but realized it didn't matter much now, and soon wouldn’t matter at all.  He coaxed her to lie down, stood before her, one hand on each shoulder, lightly bunching the soft flesh.  His grip was firm but gentle.  He accepted the vet’s offer of a few minutes alone, but found nothing new to say.  He buried his face in that familiar fur, and absorbed the smell he knew so well.  He told her he loved her and would never forget her, empty words but kind and true, trying to reassure them both, speaking not only to quiet her, but also to blunt the sharp edge of his awareness.  He stepped back, and she moved to watch him, those trusting eyes so dark and brown and deep, tags jingling as she turned her head.

The door clicked open and the vet walked in. Derek held her as the vet shaved a spot on her front leg and tied a rubber tube below the spot.  When the vet took hold of her paw, Derek hugged more tightly than she probably liked, but she didn’t complain.  She never had.  With quick professional tact the vet slid the needle in and pressed the plunger.  Lydia winced, then relaxed, breathed slowly, slower, stopped.    Derek stroked her head, from the top and around one ear, then dropped his hand to his side. He turned to leave, but the vet called him, softly, holding Lydia’s collar, which trembled when Derek took it in his unsteady hand, making a soft irregular jingle. Derek clenched the collar, held the tags tight in his fist. In time he would want to hear those bells again. Not now. Not yet.

IT'S NOT OKAY

Recent writing sample from UW writing class (scene triggered by object):

IT’S NOT OKAY

He knew something was wrong as he and Beth pushed open the white-framed screen door, which banged shut behind them.  He’d sensed it during the goodbyes and confirmed it by her cold silence and her stiff determined walk. 

He squinted in the bright afternoon sunlight, and barely noticed the cars on the farmhouse lawn, along the graveled driveway.  He sort of heard the chittering sparrows around the faded barn, and the soft rustle of corntalks in the fields, pushed by the warm autumn breeze.  Mostly he waited for her to speak.

“I hate this” she hissed as they entered the shade of the huge old  cottonwood.  He stopped and looked at her, startled by her intensity.   

“You hate what?”

“This.”  She pulled a creased 5x7 photo from her pocket, which she shoved at him, almost against his face; he took it from her and studied  it.  A younger version of himself, smiling, beside a tall dark-haired woman.  His ex-wife.  One of the photos his mother kept in a tattered box in the bottom bureau drawer, an unsorted jumble of memories, Dad’s black-and-white 3x5s from the Second World War, snapshots from the 1950s, class pictures and family photos, obscure ancestors, and God knows who.

“What about it?”

She grabbed the photo back. “You know what I mean.  Everybody acts like this was the best time, when she was here.”  She shook the photo at him.  Or perhaps her hand trembled.  She tossed the photo into the air and it fluttered to the ground.  “She thinks it’s my fault.  They all do.”

As he reached down to pick it up he considered what to say, knowing – or rather presuming – that whatever he said would be wrong.  “It’s just a picture.  They’re just pictures.  What’s the big deal?”

“She pulled them out on purpose, to make me feel left out.”

Now he knows.  She is Emma, his 12-year old daughter from that first marriage, who had sorted through the photos, “who’s that?” and “I remember this,” and so on.  He and Grandma had identified the photos, while aunts and uncles and cousins had paid polite attention.  Even Beth had laughed and smiled with the rest.  Or so he remembered.  He was no longer sure.

 “C’mon, Beth, she’s a kid, it’s okay that she remembers what things were like.  Doesn’t mean she doesn’t like you.”  She started walking again.  He followed.

Silence until they reached the car.  “No, it’s not okay.”  She climbed in and he stepped around to his side, slammed his door, started the car, and headed down the dusty lane toward the highway.   He put on the turn signal even though there was no traffic for miles.  Out of habit, maybe out of anxiety.  He pulled onto the two-lane asphalt, and focused on driving.

She sat with her arms crossed, looked out the window, breathing shallowly.  It would be a long drive home.

Foiled again

Everyone at home is tired of the story, but it still exhilarates me.

It has to do with my quest to catch that big catfish.  In preparation, I bought a high class, albeit closeout, baitcasting rod and reel combo -- a Daiwa Strikeforce 6.3 100h reel and a Megaforce rod (if you're keeping score) -- and filled with 15 test monofilament line.  I’d considered braided line, on the theory that stronger is better – but when I realized that I’d have to use a leader with that, of uncertain test, I decided to stay with the heavier mono.  I also pondered buying a net, but decided that was overdoing it -- not to mention a hassle to carry around.

I put on two, not one, egg-sinkers, and a treble (three-pronged) hook.   I arrived at 4:30, under dark skies spangled with stars, and soon settled onto the rocks, in my usual spot.  The water was black and still, reflecting the stars and the pale lights that marked the entrance to the lagoon, one red, one green.  A slight chill breeze came and went, the only sounds the occasional splash of jumping fish and the intermittent lap of small waves.  When I arrived it was too dark to cast the catfish line (the reel is kind of tricky for the neophyte baitcaster like me) so I spent the hour until daybreak fishing for perch with the other, using a bobber baited with worms (a paltry few and scrawny collection gathered from my backyard, nothing like my usual store-bought collection of beefy night crawlers, or the ones I recall gathering in my childhood; I blame the drought and the usual exaggerations of memory).

Nothing happened.

So it was with welcome anticipation that the sky lightened, and I squeezed a ball of stink bait onto the treble hook and launched it . . . . about 3 fricking feet.   As I said, it's an art.  A few casts later I had it close enough to my intended spot and propped the rod into the rocks.  Still nothing doing with the perch or bass or bluegill, so I took the bobber off and let that sit on the bottom, too.  And I waited, watching the clouds and birds, exchanging brief pleasantries with passing boats (some time I'll tell you about a recent incident when one of those boats snagged my line and began stripping it off the reel, nearly severing my fingers when I foolishly grabbed the hotly whizzing line -- as though I could stop a boat -- until I fished the scissors from the tackle box at the last second and cut the line, cursing the beer-bellied driver as he obliviously went off into the wider lake).

Then I noticed the bait caster line moving, pulling, then slacking, then pulling again, hard.  I  picked it up and jerked to set the hook.  Line began stripping from the reel and the rod bent nearly double.  I went through a mental checklist -- let him run, keep up the tension, keep cranking steadily, let him tire himself out.   At the same time I thought, "it's working.  This rod, this line, treble hooks, I've got him."  I couldn’t believe things were working out exactly as planned, first time. 

He ran toward shore and out again, then clear out the mouth of the lagoon, into the lake.   I tightened the drag a bit, and reeled him back.  Ever so slowly, in two, out one; he surfaced, and i saw he was big, moving with steady, bullheaded determination.  He circled, churned up a large wave, and dove again.  I held on and cranked, my shoulders tiring; eventually I could see the two leaden gray egg-sinkers, like a pair of oversized rosary beads; one long foot of line remained, then he was at the edge, bigheaded with  baleful yellow eyes, olive-green and black, pale underside, about two feet long and thick as a yule log.  I held the rod with my left hand and reached toward him.  I stuck my index finger in his mouth, felt the rasp-like tiny teeth, and tried to get a grip with my thumb.  He was not moving, exhausted I think, then slowly rolled over, and was still as death.

Then it happened.  Again.

The line parted (I like to think it was too much strain, but I’m afraid it might have been my knot giving way).  He moved ever so slightly with the loss of tension.  He lay at the edge of the water, and I dropped to my knees, hard on the hard rock.  As I reached down, he twitched, flicked his tail, and was gone.

Damn.

I stood and stared, literally trembling with tiredness and disappointment.  I looked around and saw that I’d knocked over my tackle box, scattering sundry things near or in the water, so I stepped into the water and gathered them robotically.  I saw the other fishline twitching.  I reeled it in, and landed a fairly good-sized sheepshead drum, which would have pleased me much, earlier.  Instead, I methodically unhooked and released it.  I noticed then that my right knee hurt.  I looked down -- the pants were ripped across and my knee was seeping blood, as was the knuckle of my right hand.  Nothing serious.

The disappointing sheepshead drum

I rebaited the catfish line and let it sit.  I put the bobber back on the other line, and caught a few small perch.  Nothing doing on the other line.  The bobber got tangled, so I called it a morning.  I trudged back to the car, shoes squishing lake water, kind of achy all over, and sorely disappointed.

I'm not going to say that I'm glad he got away, but I am grateful for the experience, and have come to appreciate the raw sense of primal existence I had felt, the total absorbtion in a challenge and the full expenditure of energy.  For those few moments I was fully alive, and the memory bobs pleasantly through my consciousness as I drift off to sleep.

Next time though, I bring a net.

Call Me Ishmael -- or is it Ahab?

There will be more here about fishing, but, first a brief regression. Be patient.

Monday, for the first time in more than a year, I got out the Bilenky Tandem bicycle -- and 15-year-old daughter Anna.  We set out on a shakedown voyage, partly on streets, partly on paved bike trails – including a long tunnel -- starting and ending from the house.  A good day to ride, slightly overcast, slight breeze, mid-70s. there's something about a tandem that makes onlookers smile and wave - perhaps the old "Bicycle Built for Two" song, and especially this bike, with its traditional back rider – me, the captain – and the passenger in the front, recumbent.  In any event, we had lots of comments and smiles, and Anna looked a bit like a homecoming princess waving at her public.  

I'd forgotten both how good it can feel, and how well the bike performs.  Although I did learn one thing -- being such a lengthy bike, it has some problems with bumps- specifically, we went over a series of small "waves" in the asphalt trail, at moderate speed, and the thing bounced a lot, so much that we began wobbling, almost went off the trail, and nearly spilled.  But didn't, and Anna only complained a little – I don’t think she realized how close we came to going over.

The moment of decision soon arrived – whether to go home in fine fettle, or go further and tempt fate.  Fate won.  Not long after I was reminded of how quickly one's energy can drain if one is not in shape, and the risk not allowing for the return trip.  Which was demanding.  But we made it, and cruised down the home street in style.

We were both a bit rubberlegged when we dismounted -- testament to how far I have fallen, I guess, from my century-training days.  But now that the bike’s been dusted, the tires filled, and it all hauled upstairs (damn thing is heavy and awkward to carry), perhaps it will become a routine again.  I hope so.

Meanwhile, back to fishing, which I had done the previous Saturday, usual time and place, 5 a.m. at the flat spot amid the riprap, between two medium boulders.  Sunrise comes later each week, and the shadows stay darker longer, so it's good thewalk is becoming familiar.  Gray black clouds under a slate sky, no breeze; cool enough for a long-sleeve T and a thin felt vest. The only sound, other than the shuffle and crunch of my feet through the grass, was the gentle dinging of the buoys and the occasional soft slap of a small wave. No mermaids singing, at least to me.

I settled in, arranged the tackle box and bait on one flat surface, lay the two rods on another, and tucked the livenet away in a crevice by my feet, doing it all more by feel and recall than by sight.  I opened the tackle box and pull out first the small scissors, then the flashlight.   I released the line on "my" rod, carefully set it out on the surface, using the flashlight to lay the hook out.  I twisted open the worm bucket, and pulled out a nightcrawler, still contracted and tight from its refrigerated sleep.  I stretched the worm out --it began to stir to life -- then snipped off a small portion, and both parts squirmed.   I dropped the larger part back in the bucket, and slid the other part on the hook.  Not for the first time the old martial phrase "cold steel" came to mind, and not for the first time I was reminded of the moral imprecision of fishing.  But I soldiered on, and tossed the line into the steel-smooth water. I could barely make out the bobber at first, just enough to know nothing was happening.  Reeled in a few moments later, and recast, and watched.

Not much to do but sit.  As I did so, I wondered how what I was doing differed from yogic meditation.  Obviously, I wasn't cross-legged, and my eyes were open.  But I was pretty much free from outside distractions, just me, the slow brightening sky, the smell and sound of water.  I thought, I suppose, that is, thoughts and memories and reflections passed through my mind, but I was at ease, free to let things come and go. As much in the moment as I have ever been during my intermittent efforts at traditional meditation. 

Maybe, I decided, rather than pure sitting, my fishing was more like a cross between a tea ceremony and a long bicycle journey.   Fishing is its own a sort of art, observing and performing, adjustments, alterations, and technique.  In all cases, for those few hours the outside world is at bay -- the cell phone at home, no "real-world" distractions.

As the sun rose, the gulls began to stir; I saw the local muskrat paddling across the water, and the ducks appeared, nuzzling and mumbling among themselves.   As the sun rose things came into focus.  I've been to this spot often enough that its  indentations and irregularities have become familiar, a landscape in miniature, hills and valleys and peaks.  Signs of previous habitations by others  appear, a couple old beer bottles in a crevice, a rusty bottlecap, curled wisp of fishline.  I'm beginning to feel proprietary enough to maybe clean up a bit.  Maybe.  Sometime.  The most I did that day was to break off a couple weedy stems that tend to interfere with my casts or to snag the line as I work on it. 

I reeled in the line again, ostensibly to check the worm, more honestly simply for something to do. (Maybe I'm not all that good a yogic sitter after all).  The line jerked and pulled back and I ended up with a moderately-sized bluegill that had grabbed the bait just as it reached the surface.  I held him in one hand, and noticed the bright colors around his gills; a flash of memory and awareness flickered by – I saw the fish and the waves and the sunlight as beauty, and recalled the wonder of being young and outdoors on a fine summer day. 

The fish squirmed and drew my attention back to the present.  I noticed he had swallowed the hook, so I cut the line and carefully dropped him back into the water.  He flicked his tail and vanished.   I rebaited and recast.

A Bluegill in all his glory

On the theory, based on informal research, that fish bite best when the fisherman is preoccupied, I began setting up the other rod, placing on an egg-weight and treble hook, and a glob of stinkbait, which I cast out to where that big old catfish had hit the week before, the one that had broken the line.  When that rod was set, I went back to watching the bobber, which was drifting unnoticed and unbothered.

So the morning went, an occasional boat passing by, the mutual tips of the baseball caps, the growing conviction that the phase of perch and bass-fishing had passed for awhile.  I reeled in and refreshed the worm and recast, wondering how long to stretch this visit out.  

Suddenly a loud clack drew my attention back to the catfish rod, which bent double, then sprang back.  I grabbed it, but immediately sensed the futility  -- no weight whatsoever, the line had snapped again.    Damn.  This had been on Anna's reel, and I wondered if the line were too light, or too old, to hold.  At least it hadn't been my knot that had given, because the weights were gone, too.

So I decided to use my rod for the catfishing, but was reluctant to go through the whole process of removing the swivel to slide on the egg-weight; I opted to switch hooks, remove the bobber, and put on a series of small shot to give it enough weight.  I  recast,to the same spot, and used Anna's rod for the bobber fishing.  To little avail; as I cast and re-cast, I realized that to some extent I was fishing for my convenience instead of using the best technique --I was avoiding weedy or awkward areas because they caused me problems, instead of placing the bait where it might be the most effective; similarly, because I hadn’t  wanted to hassle with removing the swivel on the catfish line, I had minimized my chance of success -- there's a reason those egg-weights are used (to minimize resistance when the catfish is testing the bait).

Be that as it may, I decided it was too late in the morning to adjust the catfish line, which sat still and quiet.   Toward the end of my allotted time the bobber on Anna’s line began to gently disappear under the water, without a strong enough hit for me to set the hook. That engrossed me for a while, until I finally did catch the culprit -- a moderately sized perch, which had also swallowed the hook, so I once again cut the line. 

Eight o'clock was near, so didn't bother to rebait Anna’s line, and simply reeled in the catfish line -- and while doing so snagged the line that had been broken off before, and dragged it in, "hook line and sinker (and bait)"  Apparently the catfish that had hit and broken the line had spat back the bait.

He was taunting me.

I recalled an earlier fishing trip to the spot, on the other side of the channel, when a younger man -- though more and more are younger and younger these days -- had mentioned to me that "there's a real monster in here", describing a battle he had had that had finally ended up with a broken line for him.  At the time I had put his words down to simple fisherman talk, but it occurred to me on this August morning -- he  was likely describing the same fish.  My fish.

At that moment I found myself a new mission.  To catch this guy.  I resolved to plan and upgrade, and every week cast to that same spot.   He cannot treat me with such disdain and get away with it.  He is my Moby Dick, albeit not white and I hope not as dangerous.

My Moby Dick -- or is it Walter?

Call me Ishmael.  Or is it Ahab?

For Whom the Bell Tolled

Last week’s bit about the bullhead, got me thinking even more about fishing. Specifically, about fishing during the dog days of summer, when the water is warm and the "decent" fish all move out to the deeper water. When I was a kid, we did some of our best fishing on hot summer afternoons, for the aforementioned bullheads, catfish and carp. So I decided next time I go out I would make a special effort to catch catfish, since the trendier species had moved out there where the boat people go.

I got some nice rancid stink bait -- chicken liver type -- and bought some medium treble (three-pronged) hooks and some egg-sinkers, kind of oval-shaped with a hole through the center, so that when a catfish tests out the bait, the line pulls through the sinker and thereby minimizes the odds that the fish will sense something amiss. Then, to top it off, so to speak, I splurged (if $2.99 is a splurge) on something I've always wanted -- a brass bell attachment for the end of the rod, so that when the fish begins to nibble the bell will tinkle, drawing my attention from whatever else I might be doing, probably messing with another rod, with a traditional bobber and bait. And I could use my other reel, the spinner, which is harder to use and tends to tangle, but would work fine if I just cast it out and let it sit. So Friday night, just before bed, I carefully attached the sinker above a new swivel, and as I fell asleep, I visualized how it would go the next morning.

Which arrived dark and still. I got to the fishing spot just as things were pale gray, walking alone beneath the dark trees, the lake shining palely before me, only one or two cars in the lot, and a couple guys getting ready to launch the first boat of the day. I picked my way over the rocks, trying to settle into my usual spot, suspecting what my wife thinks she already knows, that my balance is not quite what it was, and that carrying two rods, a tackle box, and a live net under one's arms on uneven and shifty riprap in irregular light is probably not the wisest course. But I made it and settled in. My first discovery was that while walking from the car the line with the egg sinker had somehow managed to wrap itself intently around the bobber on the other line, in that miraculous way that knots seem to blossom. In good light I could maybe untangle it in half an hour or so, but holding a small smelly flashlight in my mouth while trying to unsort the lines was not so productive. So I cut the sinker off and set that rod aside. I baited my bobber line and tossed it out, waiting to see what would happen, and for the sunrise.

Nothing doing in the water, so I began working on the egg-sinker, reattaching it and a new swivel, packed a glob of dark purple and smelly bait onto a treble hook, tossed the whole mess into the center of the channel, and set the butt of the rod down into the rocks. I got out the bell attachment, a sort of alligator clip, and attached it to the rod. It seemed rather loose, so that I doubted it would ring unless the rod were whipping so violently that I would hear it anyway. I readjusted the bell, onto the top of the end of the rod. And I waited. A few twitches on the bobber of the other line, and I landed a small perch. Which I tossed back. Then nothing more.

I reeled in the egg-sinker line, which gathered a lot of weeds as it came in. I cleaned it up, made a few adjustments, and flung it all toward the center of the lagoon. Two plops followed -- one was the bait and sinker, the other the bell, which had detached and gone off on its own trajectory, landing with a solid and final plunk into the water, leaving a series of perfectly concentric circles. That was an outcome I had not visualized. So I cursed a moment, then set the rod back into its rock base, making a mental note for next time, and next bell.

I looked back toward my bobber, which twitched a second, then disappeared altogether. I set the hook, and the rod bent, I tussled for a few moments, and the line went slack -- the hook came back clean. So I rebaited and dropped it back in the same spot. Two minutes later the bobber vanished again, I set the hook, and immediately the drag on my reel began growling, as line pulled out against my cranking. I wound in, and line went out. But ever so slowly I was making progress. The line ripped through the water from one side to the other, and the water boiled. I saw a flash, and lost more line. I cranked more, and more, and the dull green, bewhiskered, vaguely irritated face of a large catfish appeared at the surface, then submerged, then reappeared. Finally I had the line almost all reeled in, but couldn't draw in anymore. He was obviously tired, and didn't struggle much. We were at a standoff. I couldn't reel in, he couldn't get off -- I could see that the small single hook was solidly into his lip, but I was afraid to put too much raw tension onto the line.

A guy on a boat edged past. I asked if he had a net, and he said no, "but it looks like you've got a nice one there." Thanks for nothing. Out of desperation, I reached out, grabbed my line, and hoisted the fish up and onto the rocks. "Good job," my boat friend said, kind of reminding me of other animals talking to the little red hen. But anyway I pushed the catfish, a channel cat about as long as my arm, into the live net, removed the hook and rebaited it, and cast it out into another area. Where I bagged another perch, this one so small that I didn't even know he was on until I checked the worm. But at least he was hooked through the lip, so I was able to release him unharmed.

A couple more small perch, and I decided to go back to the spot from where I had dragged the catfish -- maybe his absence opened up some space for other fish, perhaps a bluegill or larger perch. About ten minutes later the bobber vanished again, I set the hook again, and went through the same long struggle. This time I conciously measured the intake and outgo of the line, and measured how close things were getting. Again the ripped water and the boils, the flash of pale green, and another equally ugly channel cat, this one even a bit larger. I hoisted him out and over the rocks, at which point the line did break, but I dropped onto him and held him to my chest -- fortunately not impaling myself with his evil-looking spikes. As I carried him over to the live net, a voice called to me from across the channel -- "nice fish." A guy and his girlfriend were over there, with their dog, and they'd been watching. "Thanks, " I said, and heaved out the live net, and slid this one in next to the other. "You have two of them?" came an incredulous voice. "Yep," I said with a false air of indifference.

I rebaited the hook and tossed it out. Nothing more doing, the sun was growing hot and my allotted time was running out. I watched the ducks, and heard a jay, and a couple doves. Suddenly a clatter arose from the other, forgotten rod, which was bent double. I grabbed for it, knocking over the uncapped container of worms, picked up the rod and set the hook, and began to reel in. Again the ripping and boiling, and soon a flash of blue-green – could this be a blue catfish, even bigger than the channels? -- and I began wondering if lightning could strike three times; but something was missing -- the growl of the drag as it released line. It wasn't set on this reel, and I didn't know how to adjust it. As I pondered that, the pole bent over even more as the fish made another run. I held on, then came a sudden snap, the pole whipped back, and the line whirled briefly and faintly about, looking as wispy as a strand from a spider web, and about as useful.

 I set the rod down and spent the next few minutes rummaging under the rocks, trying to pull the worms from beneath the rocks, feeling a bit unfinished, wondering what might have been, and telling myself to be content with what I had. Nothing else bit on the bobber line, and I didn't bother to fix the other. A few minutes I gathered up my gear, including the now-hefty and bulky live net, and picked my way back over the rocks, onto solid ground. I walked across the parking lot and noted a few glances from boat people, some intrigued by the size of my catch, others purporting to sneer – or suppress a sneer – at the idea of catfish as anything more than trash and welcome to it. I knew better, and drove home happy, hauling the two fish in with what my wife later described as a look of accomplishment. My teenaged daughter was amazed, asked me if I had caught them at "our spot" and demanded to go with me next time. I cleaned the fish -- a major undertaking at that size, we froze one and baked the other, which came out flaky, white, and tender (though also more than ample); my Asian-born wife also cooked up the heads, which is a cross-cultural issue to be addressed at another time. That night as I drifted off to sleep I didn't have to visualize -- I replayed. Except that, in my reconstructed memory, I heard the soft tinkle of a bell, and the perfect whirr of a reel with the drag set right, and that third one was a blue cat, and the biggest and baddest of all.