A Miracle of Catfish (55 page)

Okay now. He knew you needed a bobber, a weight, and a hook because he'd looked at his daddy's rods and reels before and that was what they all had on them. What size hook? What size bobber? What size weight? It looked like he had a little of everything, so he tore open a package of the red-and-white bobbers. He picked out one the size of a Ping-Pong ball. It had a little button on top and a little button on the
bottom. Jimmy squeezed the button on top, and saw that a little brass hook sticking out on the bottom was what you used to hook the line to it. Okay. So far so good. He picked up the rod and swung the practice plug back to him, and then he took the fillet knife from its leather holster and cut off the practice plug. He put it back in the tackle box so that he could practice cast some more this winter if he wanted to, just to keep his hand in. Then he looked at hooks for a minute. He had small ones with long shanks, big ones with short shanks, and everything in between. He found some he thought would work, and he opened the hook package and took one out. Then he picked up the lead weights. They were all different sizes, too, in a round plastic box with a lid that rotated to allow you to get out whatever size you wanted. He got one. Then he got another one. They were small […]. They had little jaws on them that you squeezed onto the line, pretty self-explanatory.

It took him a few minutes to tie a hook on, snap on the bobber, and put the lead on. Okay. He looked at it. He swung it in the air in a practice move. He thought he was ready. He knew you had to put the worm on the hook. That was just common sense.

Wait a minute, though. Shouldn't he throw it out there to make sure he didn't have too much lead on it, first? He thought he probably should. He made a good cast out into the water and the bobber immediately sank. He didn't think that was going to work. If you had a bobber, it had to bob, right? So he reeled it back in and looked at it. It looked okay. But he was pretty sure he had too much lead on it, so he took one of the weights off. Then he threw it out into the water again. The bobber floated perfectly. So he reeled it back in. He was now ready for bait, and finally, at long last, actual fishing. Jimmy didn't know how he'd managed to get so lucky. He started humming “Mama Tried.”

He got the paint bucket of worms from the go-kart and reached into the rotted leaf mold he'd added to the worm bucket to give them something natural to crawl around on instead of just dried-up paint, and he came up with one squirming. He took a good look at it. It was about four or five inches long and thicker than the pencils he used for homework. And which end did the hook go in? Did it matter? He didn't figure it did, so he stuck the hook into the worm and threaded the worm on. That caused some slimy stuff to get on his fingers. But after he got the hook
completely filled up with worm, he still had about three or four inches of worm hanging off.
Just let it hang
, he thought, and he stood up to make his first baited cast. It went out there about fifty feet and landed with a splash. Some small ripples went out from the bobber and then the bobber sat there. Only for a moment. In the next moment it dove beneath the water and went out of sight. Oh shit! He had a fish! His first fish! Jimmy started reeling. And something reeled back. The line got tight and it was tugging and Jimmy instinctively held the tip up and kept turning the crank, his tongue sticking out the corner of his mouth. The fish was pulling, but Jimmy didn't think it was a very big one. That was okay. He didn't mind catching some small ones at first. Mister Cortez had said they would grow.

He worked the fish closer and worked himself closer to the edge of the bank, and then he saw it. It was a little catfish about eight inches long, swimming back and forth. It had part of the worm hanging out of its mouth. Was it big enough to eat? It looked big enough to Jimmy to eat. He kept turning the handle and working the fish closer, and just when he thought he could raise the rod tip and swing it onto the bank, something happened. He didn't know what it was. Just something big that grabbed the little catfish, which caused the bobber to go back out of sight, and when Jimmy tried to turn the handle, it wouldn't turn. It wouldn't turn at all. It was like it was locked. But it wasn't locked. Something was pulling really really
really
hard and Jimmy didn't know what to do. He didn't know anything about setting the drag. He hadn't read his owner's manual. He didn't know that there was a small thumb wheel right there on the reel that would allow line to be pulled off without breaking if a big fish got on. So he just stood there tugging on the rod, trying to raise it, but whatever had taken his little catfish was going deeper and deeper and deeper and pulling the rod tip down and down and down and the line sliced across the water with drops of water leaping from it until Jimmy was forced to hold it straight out and he knew that he couldn't hold it because it was pulling too hard and he almost cried out for some help and then the line went
zing!
and broke. Jimmy had been leaning backward against the pull of whatever it was and he had to take a step back to keep his balance.

Jimmy stood there, stunned, his line lying limp in the water. He
reeled it in and looked at it. Everything was gone, bobber, sinker, hook. He caught the end of the line and looked at it. It was pretty thick line. Then he looked back out at the water, which had gone all black and still now that all the commotion had died down. And it had happened so fast.

Something mighty funny going on here
, Jimmy thought.
Mm hmm
. But he didn't want to take a chance on messing up his new rod and reel, accidentally breaking it or something, so he loaded up all his stuff and went back down the road toward the trailer. He looked down toward Mister Cortez's house when he passed his driveway, but he didn't see him. He was probably still sad over losing his wife, so maybe he'd better not go see him right now. He thought he'd ride around a little before supper since he still had plenty of gas. So he did.

Jimmy's daddy was home earlier than usual that evening, and he seemed to be in a pretty good mood. He was already in when Jimmy got in from fishing and riding around. Jimmy's daddy wasn't drinking, and he helped Velma with some of her homework, and he cooked some french fries in the kitchen while Jimmy's mama was cooking minute steaks and gravy, and the two of them were talking in there and sometimes even laughing. They all sat down and ate supper together, and Jimmy's mama had made a salad with tomatoes and lettuce and croutons and Bac'n Pieces and slices of cucumber, but Jimmy didn't like cucumber, so he slid his to the side of his plate. The girls talked about school and Kid Rock and Jimmy's mama talked about the new girl they had working at the bank and Jimmy's daddy said he might go out and look for some deer sign this weekend. Jimmy's daddy helped Jimmy's mama clean up the kitchen and wash the dishes and Jimmy heard his mama tell his daddy that she sure appreciated him helping her cook and clean up, that it was a whole lot easier when you had two people doing it, and he said he was glad to and was going to try and do it more often.

After supper, Jimmy went outside and opened his tackle box and looked around in the bottom until he found a little booklet he'd seen in there before but never had read. It had a picture of Jimmy's reel on the front of it, so Jimmy took it inside and opened it up and started reading
it. That's when he found out about the drag on his reel. He raised his head and looked over at his daddy, who instead of being back in his bedroom by himself watching hunting videos and drinking beer, was sitting in the living room on the couch watching
Law and Order
with Jimmy's mama. The girls were in the bathroom, fussing quietly. Running the hair dryer and playing the radio.

“Daddy?” Jimmy said.

“Yeah, Sport?” Jimmy's daddy said.

“You know how to set the drag on my reel?”

“I imagine so,” Jimmy's daddy said. “Bring it in here in the kitchen and we'll look at it.”

Jimmy got up and went back to his bedroom and brought it out. He wasn't trying to
hide
his new rod and reel from his daddy, but at the same time he didn't want his daddy messing with it without his knowledge. His daddy was already up, standing in the kitchen putting some ice cubes into a glass, pouring some straight Coke in. His daddy sat down at the kitchen table and lit a cigarette and then laid it in an ashtray. Jimmy put the rod and reel on the table and sat down. Jimmy's daddy sipped his Coke and picked up the rod and reel and looked at it. He did something with a little wheel next to the thumb button. Then he tugged on the line. It didn't move. He did something else to the wheel and tugged on the line again. It didn't move. Then he did something else to the wheel and this time when he tugged on the line, it made a peculiar sound almost like a cricket chirping as it peeled off the reel and out through the ferrules.

“C'mere, Jimmy,” Jimmy's daddy said. Jimmy got up and went to stand next to his daddy. He almost put his arm around him. His daddy turned the reel toward him.

“See this little wheel right here?” he said.

“Yes sir?” Jimmy said.

“That's your drag, Hot Rod. You can adjust it for tight or loose. That way if you hang a big fish, he can pull the line off and give you a chance to wear him down and land him. If it's set too tight, and you hang a big one, he's liable to break your line. You always got to set your drag before you go fishing.”

“I didn't know that,” Jimmy said. He wished he had known it. He
wished to
hell
he'd known it! He might have caught that big thing whatever it was.

“Oh yeah,” Jimmy's daddy said.

“Can I try it?” Jimmy said.

“Sure,” his daddy said, and handed him the rod and reel and picked up his cigarette and sipped his Coke. Jimmy's mama walked into the kitchen and walked behind Jimmy's daddy's chair and put her hands on Jimmy's daddy's shoulders. She looked happy for a change and Jimmy was glad to see that.

“What y'all doing?” she said.

“Showing Jimmy how to use his drag,” Jimmy's daddy said. “We gonna go fishing one of these days.”

“I wish you would take him,” she said. “It sure was nice of Mister Sharp to give him that rod and reel. You can tell he spent some money on it.”

“Oh hell yeah,” Jimmy's daddy said. “I know that rod cost at least fifty bucks and the reel probably eighty. He's got thirty or forty bucks' worth of fishing gear. New tackle box. I wish I had stuff that good.”

Jimmy wasn't listening that closely to what they were saying since he was busy pulling on the line and turning the wheel and then it dawned on him how it worked. It was simple. If you tightened the wheel all the way, the line wouldn't slip off. If you loosened it, it would. But then he had a question. What would it take to break the line if the drag was tightened all the way down? He'd figured out by then that the drag had been tightened all the way down this afternoon. And he'd also figured out that some huge turtle had already gotten into Mister Cortez's pond, and that that was probably what had grabbed his little catfish and eaten it.

Jimmy's mama bent over and kissed Jimmy's daddy on top of his bald head since he had his cap off. Then she got out the ice cream from the top of the refrigerator. Jimmy's daddy was sitting there smoking and sipping his Coke.

“How strong's this line?” Jimmy said.

“I don't know,” his daddy said. “Was that your little booklet that come with the reel you's looking at while ago?”

“Yes sir.”

“Bring it over here for me, how about it?”

Jimmy got it from the coffee table and brought it back over, still carrying his rod and reel. Jimmy's daddy opened it up and looked at it for a minute, reading in it. Then he pointed to it with his finger.

“Right here. ‘This reel is prewound at the factory with twenty-pound test DuPont monofilament.' There you go. Twenty-pound test.” He handed the booklet back to Jimmy.

Jimmy said, “Does that mean it takes something that weighs twenty pounds to break it?”

Jimmy's daddy picked up his Coke and his cigarette again. Jimmy's mama was scooping Rocky Road into a bowl. She also had a big pile of Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies. Like ham and cheese Hot Pockets, Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies didn't last long around there either.

“Well … yeah,” Jimmy's daddy said. “Basically. But if your drag's set right, it would probably take something that weighed more than twenty pounds to break it. Cause it'll just keep coming off if the drag's set right. I mean if you don't run out of line. I mean if you ain't out in the middle of the ocean or something.”

Jimmy stood there thinking about that.
More
than twenty pounds?
More
than
twenty pounds
?

He almost told his daddy. He almost almost almost almost
almost
told him. Almost told him everything, almost spilled all the beans. Almost told him about the big red fish truck, and the man with white hair, almost told him about the three thousand little catfish, almost told him he'd hung something in Mister Cortez's pond this afternoon that had broken his line. But when his daddy asked him where his casting plug was, Jimmy just told him that he'd taken it off. Which was no lie.

Jimmy's daddy went to bed by ten that night. The kids were already in their beds since it was a school night. Johnette said she thought she might watch a little TV and Jimmy's daddy told her he thought he'd try to get a good night's sleep for a change. She told him she'd be in later and told him again that she appreciated him helping her with supper and cleaning up afterward and he said she was welcome. Jimmy's daddy kissed her and she kissed him back and rubbed his back some while she was doing it, but he left it at that. Was she losing weight? Maybe they needed to go back to Seafood Junction at Algoma sometime. Maybe they wouldn't run into the preacher and his stupid dog stories. Maybe he needed to fuck her.