“Yeah, sure,” I said.
“You want to talk about something, you can go wityoun="h me to the pond, go out in the boat, and we can sit and fish and talk. That’s unless you just come over for another thirty seconds, thinking I might need to move another chair.”
“I came to talk.”
“I warn you, you’re gonna talk to me about something, I got something I’m gonna talk to you about, and you know what, so get yourself ready, or go on out of here and come back in another ten years. I’m not trying to be a bad ass here, I’m just saying how it is. If I’m gonna open this can of worms for us to chew on, I want to be sure you’re ready to digest them.”
His voice was very calm, thoughtful, not the way I remembered him at all, when everything that came out of his mouth seemed to be announced with a trumpet.
“All right,” I said. “I owe you that, and maybe I’ve got some things to say about that, too.”
He got his coffee pot and the fixings and put coffee on. He got a couple bottles of nonalcoholic beer out of the fridge and gave one to me and twisted the cap off the other for himself.
“I don’t drink the real stuff much anymore,” he said, swigging. “I get fat enough, way I eat. I switched over to this, I started losing a few pounds. I quit getting in fights too.”
“I prefer this,” I said. “I never drink to get drunk, even when I do drink a beer. Fact is, since that night, I’ve never been drunk again.”
He didn’t say anything. I thought it was an opening he’d take. I lifted the bottle and drank so I could hide some of my face from him.
“Coffee’ll be finished time I get dressed,” he said. He set his bottle on the counter and went into the bedroom, and after a few minutes came back. He was wearing jeans over his love handles, and had on high rubber boots and a thick coat, like the one I had in my truck.
“By the way,” he said, “that Elvis thing behind you there. I got to let you know, I think that’s a piece of shit. Gal that was living with me put it up there and I never took it down.”
“How long ago did she leave?”
“Couple of years,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said, “me too. I think she did for me what your mother did for Dad. Before I met her, I just thought I was a man. But I guess some of my learning came a little late.”
I didn’t know exactly what to say to that, so I changed the subject. “You use the cabin a lot?”
“Hardly go out there,” Arnold said. “Used to quite a bit. Not these days. I keep the electric paid up, but I’m not sure why… Before you come up with more small talk, come on and help me with my gear.”
Arnold got a thermos and an extra plastic cup and poured the coffee into the thermos, and we went out into the cold.
11
Arnold walked out back and I went to my truck. I took off my coat and youn=: pagebreaput on my Dad’s coat, joined up with him behind the double-wide.
I watched him gather his gear: a tackle box and a couple of stout rods off the carport, and a bucket of something out from under a tarp. A smell came from the bucket that made me think of highway kill.
Arnold gave me the bucket and a rod and reel to carry, and he got the rest of the stuff, and we started off walking toward the creek.
“What in the hell’s in this bucket?” I asked.
“Terminally spoiled chicken necks,” Arnold said.
“What for?”
“You forgot how to fish for channel cat?”
“Guess I have,” I said. “I don’t think I ever used any chicken necks.”
“I’m surprised,” he said, “that was Daddy’s way.”
“Me and him didn’t fish much,” I said. “When we did fish, we didn’t use chicken necks.”
“That might be because when you were growing up, he wasn’t working at the chicken processing plant where he could get ’em free.”
“I didn’t know he ever worked there,” I said.
“There’s lots of things you don’t know,” he said.
We crossed the junk yard, and I was amazed at all the cars.
“Ugly, ain’t it?” Arnold said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Pretty ugly.”
We came to the creek and worked our way carefully down the bank. Arnold stopped at the edge and watched the water run. It was clear and cold looking and not deep at all. You could see the sand and gravel beneath the water and minnows above that and hardy water bugs swimming about on the surface.
We strolled along the water’s edge, found a narrow place, jumped over, went up the bank on the other side and through the woods. We came to a clearing where the sun was bright and shiny on a pond the color of a dimming hazel eye, and it ricocheted off an aluminum boat turned over and pulled up in the weeds, made it flash bright as the little silver minnows we had seen earlier.
We turned the boat over and put our gear in it, got water sloshed in our shoes as we pushed it onto the pond and jumped inside. Arnold got a paddle out of the bottom of the boat and shoved us into deeper water. I took off my shoes and socks, poured water out of the shoes and wrung my socks out.
“Cozy yet?” Arnold said, as I slipped the socks and shoes back on. “Help me out here, would you?”
I got the other paddle and stuck it into the water and reached the bottom and pushed until there was no bottom to reach. The boat began to drift lazily, gave that strange feeling of being on top of the sky.
“Thing is, Arnold…” I started.
“Not yet,” he said. “Let me be doing something I lisom" wke to do before you talk to me about something that might make me mad. That’s how it’s going to be, isn’t it?”
“I’m not here to make you mad. I need a little advice.”
“Advice?” Arnold said. “That’s rich. Thought you had decided I was a dumb redneck you ought to keep out of your life, lest your wife and kids think I’m kin to them. Which I am, I want to remind you. Just by half, I admit, but kin. You know, I’ve never seen my niece and nephew. Not even a picture. I’ve never had the chance to say more than three words to your wife, who, by the way, is too damn good looking for you.”
He opened the bucket of chicken necks and got one out. The smell was almost enough to make me want to jump and swim for shore. He stuck the chicken neck on the big double crappie hooks and cast it toward a grouping of reeds and water plants. The chicken neck and the hook went in with a heavy splash and sought bottom.
Arnold stuck his hand in the water and sloshed it around, then pulled out a pack of chewing tobacco, took a wad from it and poked it into his cheek. He chewed a few times, looked at me, said, “Go on. Fix up.”
I got the spare rod and looked into the bucket, holding my breath as I did. I didn’t want to get hold of one of those necks. They were a little green looking.
“Damn,” Arnold said. He got one of the chicken necks and fixed it up for me. “Think you can handle the casting part?” he said, “Or you want me to do that too?”
“I’ll do it,” I said.
“Don’t tangle my line,” he said.
I considered whopping him across the back of the head with the heavy rod, but I figured that wasn’t going to repair things between us.
I cocked the rod and flicked my wrist and let the reel spin. My line went way out, almost to the far side of the bank, into shallow water.
“Nothing there,” Arnold said.
“I know,” I said. “I just over cast.”
“Tell me about it.”
I reeled the line back until it was in deeper water, let it hang there. The boat drifted and the sun dipped and the air cooled and a cloud bagged the sun and turned the pond water dark.
“There’s people think fishing for cat is second best,” Arnold said. “Those people are full of shit. There’s people say the only place to catch a good cat is on the river, and they’re full of shit, too.”
“I’ve caught catfish before, Arnold.”
“But you don’t understand the spirit of catfishing, boy. You’re more of a bass man, or a trout man. That’s bullshit. The real stuff, the real essence of fishing is the cat.”
“These days, I’m more of a fish dinner at a restaurant.”