"Up or down?" I asked.
"Up," Caleb said.
So I drove us up to the secret channel then suggested he lay low
and fold the seat down too. He read the problem just fine and we slipped
through under maple leaf branches.
Later, far upstream past Grand Sandbanks and Glitter Beach and fishing
just for something to do my rod dipped suddenly. EZ barked because I yelled
and kept yelling and Caleb yelled, "Boa-howdy, yew got sump'in big
by the nuts."
A northern--at least twelve feet long--jumped over the boat and showered
everybody with water, but I kept my senses and yelled and played the fish
weary so I could filet it in strips as it lurched past the boat.
We played Crazy Eights. Then immediately tired of that and my intelligent
son showed me his Exploding Can 'O Baked Beans Blisters on the inside of
his right thigh just north of the knee. (A graduation party campout perked
up when the can of Van Camps blew up more vigorously than the high school
boys expected it to after being tossed into the campfire to see if it would
explode.)
Drifting downriver we played verbally with words, enjoying how much
fun they are to hear and how expressively so many audibly match what they
mean.
"Pounce." We see a kitten springing on a skittling dead
leaf. "Lurk," hints at bad-intensioned brutes about to break loose
of their murky hidey-holes.
"I love words like that," Caleb says. "Hulk,"
you think muscle, huge, not spry."
"You want to drive?" I asked Caleb when he and EZ got back
in the boat after a pee.
"Sure!" he replied, his "sure" more like "I'm
thoroughly sure that I do," than "Oh, I suppose so."
I'd asked him the same question a few times during past years but
he always said, "Naw," in a way that seemed he held no interest
in it, and I always thought it strange that a boy of fifteen or sixteen
wasn't panting to get ahold of the tiller to crank the throttle wide open.
Chelsea usually begs the job and always cranks the throttle wide open.
He drove from the bridge south toward town. I got to sit on the bow
seat and feel the sensation of flying high and silent, wake spray and engine
noise far back behind. EZ was glad to have me up front for a change and
insistently nosed into my armpit for petting while I navigated using hand
signals. Cabe responded quickly and well, a marvel how we so naturally became
a team without discussing which motion meant what--hand pushing air toward
the starboard side--like patting somebody's arm in passing, pointing ten-degrees
left or right for him to minorly adjust course, and wildly gesturing ninety-degrees
perpendicular to our course meant, "Swerve NOW or we'll die,"
so he did and we didn't.
I'd reminded him of the favorite fishing spot behind the piney island
in town a few days ago. He asked me to direct us there to see if he could
snare a bigger northern than I'd caught--"fourteen-feet," to feel
the pull and the weight and the muscular power of a fighting-back fish.
We rounded the point under the remainder of twilight. I hadn't brought
along the worms so he didn't catch anything, but that may've been due to
his not carrying a fishing license.
Beaver has disappointed me; a life lesson I'd forgotten to remember:
quit thinking that circumstances changing my familiar world are bad. They're
opportunities to discover and learn and receive great windfalls if I stop
fighting to make life be the way I think it ought.
I repented of Beaver contempt, realized that I'd enjoy seeing him
dam up the secret channel and transforming the marshes and meadows into
a wide watery pond. It would mean the loss of the channel as I've always
known it, but I could still use the north entrance. It would reduce the
amount of bitter rancor and constant labor I'd have to put in daily, undoing
his work, worse if I missed a day or two or three. He lives on-site and
would have no trouble getting ahead of my demolition. So, let Beaver go.
Sit back and record the construction and appreciate his engineering expertise.
I went out Friday morning for a look around, expectant of great changes
after a week away. Nothing doing. The saplings I threw out on the bank two
visits ago were still there, sinking under the rising summer growth.
Earlier tonight-
We passed through the narrows with ease. Beaver still has not been
back. Up to Grand Sandbanks we hurried then parked on the shore and waded,
and upset two snapping turtles laying eggs into the 45-degree slope, 8 feet
above water. They slid like surfers along the slide of loose sand and submerged
out of sight into the river.
Wasting time until dark. I want to "paint" Sonbeam's Secret
Channel with flashlights after dark, photographing it during a time-exposure.
It's an experimental side interest I've been playing with for years--strobes,
flashlights, fireflies leashed onto fish lines so they could flit about
during a time exposure, etc. So we went farther upriver. Past the campsite
where we had to scare two deer away so they'd quit eating our grass. Up
past Black Box Spot where we played last Labor Day, then shut off the motor
and drifted. Caleb smoked a cigar, almost legally purchased by himself at
the gas station a few days ago, hours short of his 18th birthday. He was
hesitant, but I encouraged him to go ahead and get carded then argue his
case that in only 5 hours he'd be legal to buy tobacco, but that right now,
5 hours too early, was he morally incapable of--childishly incompetent to--make
such a decision? Then ask the attendant what changes would happen in his
maturation 5 hours later when his clock struck 18? Would his genetics switch
when the time clock chimed 12:00, and he'd suddenly blurt out, "Oh
m'God, what am I doing with this filthy red box of Swisher Sweet Perfectos
in my hand?" weeping, fling them to the sticky convenience store floor
and stagger horrified back out to the car?
Drifting and talking, I cast a Baby Torpedo lure into the shallows
along shore, aimlessly without expectation because there are no fish in
that river and the men in fishing boats who hold up fat big-mouth bass took
them down stuffed off the wall in their den. A co-worker boasted of the
Baby Torpedo's efficacy in attracting a fish.
"Boatloads," he assured me.
I was distracted listening to Cabe tell me something exciting about
his camping weekend, outside town a mile, skinny-dipping at night (girls
too), leaving the hatch to his van open all night and being bugged by that
infuriating close-by whine of a mosquito near the ear, disgruntled girls
who went home at 2:30 a.m., "to get some sleep!"
and detailed descriptions of the bean-shaped burns on his leg (perfectly
oval, dark red around the perimeters, pussy faint yellow in the centers)
which were applied to his skin when the can ("we had way too much food
and experimented by throwing stuff in the fire to see what would happen")
of baked beans exploded and showered himself, the van, and fellow campers
with sizzling Van Camps. He retold all this while spraying himself with
mosquito repellent, balancing on one foot in the bow and showering the rest
of the boat with chemical solvent.
Wham! The fish took the Baby Torpedo and headed upriver. EZ exploded
off the deck and tripped over the anchor rope and tipped over the side.
She surfaced, paddling hard, and set off toward the splashing far end of
my line, snapping at the commotion yonder, still a bit embarrassed to discover
her quick change of scenery. The fish dove under the boat. I brought it
back, and it swirled up currents of feisty attitude nearsby the right gunwale.
EZ found footing on shore, turned around and barked at the fun back on the
boat: me yelling at Caleb to, "Quick, take off your shirt and net it
with it!" though he was engaged with the camera recording the sentimental
moment.
The fish got away.
To kill time we got out the boat cards.
"What shall we play? There's the usual Golf, and of course King's
Corners, and Go Fish. How about Crazy Eights?" Cabe wondered aloud,
which is what we played two hands of before deciding it had been stimulating
fun 10 years ago, but not now.
So he and EZ peed on shore at the bridge and we headed off for town
with him at the helm. My God! Riding high and fast ahead of the entourage
with nothing but quiet river sights sliding past my eyes. It was the real
thing, as portrayed in Titanic, though free of computer simulation. My eyes
filled with tears, so I asked my son to get the pair of safety goggles out
of the dry box so I could see clearly and be free of flying insects.
EZ laid down on my right in the bow and crossed her legs just as
I was doing and held her head high in the wind so she'd not miss anything
fun.
We only spilled my beer once retreating through the secret channel.
A branch tipped it over, but Caleb was driving so it's not my fault.
We got back into the secret channel after dark. Fireflies flashed.
The new 1-million candlepower Sport Spotlight, "Rechargeable
up to 500 times," is a testosterone kick-ass device. It doesn't fool
around. It lights up the night instantly, then, when the trigger is released,
takes a couple of moments to fade out and go dark. I set up the tripod and
camera. Tripped the shutter, got in the boat and we idled upstream, he with
the 3-cell Maglight and me with Phallic Avenger.
Took two 12-minute exposures, watching the dark woods light up, imagining
what our beams on tree trunks and underside leaves will look like later.
There's a chance you've already seen the results but I have to wait until
the film is finished and processed to show myself.