Brass Bed (7 page)

“Yes, it’s very good.”

“Do you think it’s strong enough?”

“It’s exactly right. You certainly have a gift for coffee-making.”

“It’s damn decent of you to say so, old boy.”

“Not at all. I’m only acknowledging a truth.”

“I know, but a lot of people wouldn’t say it, just the same. You know how it is. Some people simply won’t admit that someone else has a gift that they lack themselves.”

“I’m perfectly happy to concede that your gift for coffee-making is superior to mine.”

“Thanks, old boy. I appreciate it.”

We finished the cups of coffee, but there was an emptiness in my stomach that the coffee didn’t fill.

“Are you hungry?” I said.

“Yes, I am. I’m damn hungry.”

“Has it been an hour since we set the line?”

“I think so. Just about an hour.”

“What do you say to running it?”

“All right. Let’s go.”

I got a flashlight, and we went down the path onto the bar and across the bar behind a thin yellow projection of light that somehow made the objects it touched seem strange and different from the way they seemed in the day. In the boat, we rode down at an angle to the starting of the line, and I was hoping we’d have a couple of good bullheads hooked, and I could tell by the feel of the line, the weight and the resistance of it when I lifted, that there was certainly something on it somewhere between the banks. We moved along the line checking the hooks, and the turtles had already been at some of them, and they had to be rebaited, but pretty soon, about the middle of the river, I brought up a big bullhead and got him off the hook into the boat and put the light on him.

“Say,” Harvey said, “he’s a pretty good one, isn’t he?”

“Yes, he is,” I said.

“How much does he weigh, do you think?”

“About three pounds.”

“I’d guess nearer four myself. He’s certainly a good one.”

After rebaiting the hook, we went on along the line and took off another bullhead near the bank, a smaller one, and that was all we got the first run, which was plenty for a meal, so we rowed back to the bar and went up to the cabin. When we got there, Pete the River Rat was sitting by the fire waiting for us, and he had helped himself to a cup of coffee.

His name may have really been Pete, or it may not have. It was just a name we got started calling him by, and after we’d got started it didn’t seem worth while asking him his real one and having to start all over again with something else in case we were wrong. He lived down the river about a half mile in an old cabin set up on high stilts, and he was very dirty and very happy and altogether a first-rate bum. Every so often he would go off to one of the farms in the vicinity and work for a day or two in order to get enough money to buy some cornmeal and beans and stuff like that to eat, plus a few plugs of Horseshoe chewing tobacco for pleasure, but mostly he lived in the cabin and caught fish and watched the river. He was always doing one thing that I’d never do if I never caught another fish in my life, and what he’d do was noodle them. Noodle is a word that may not have common currency, and it means to go along the bank in the water, usually at night, and get down where the big cats lie in the mud and catch them with your bare hands by the gills. Some of the cats get damn big, and noodling them is something I wouldn’t have any part of myself, but Pete did it all the time, and he told Harvey and me that he’d once got on the back of a cat six feet long, but I personally put this down as a tall tale, or a damn lie, whichever you prefer to call it. He was pretty interesting and unusual, however, and that’s the only reason I’m making so much of him, because he doesn’t have a hell of a lot to do with what I’m telling about, and actually nothing at all.

Harvey stopped in front of him and said in a nasty voice, “Have some coffee, Pete.”

I could tell that he was sore at Pete for helping himself, and it was certain that Pete could tell it too, but he didn’t give a damn. He was absolutely impervious to insult. He opened his mouth and made a gusty sort of sound that was the closest he ever came to the sound of laughter.

“I got some,” he said.

“Well, so you have,” Harvey said. “I guess you knew you’d be perfectly welcome to it, so you just went ahead and helped yourself.”

“That’s what I did. I helped myself.”

“Sure. God helps him who helps himself. You and God must get along pretty good, Pete.”

“We get along all right.”

“That’s fine. That’s just mighty damn wonderful. How do you and God like the coffee?”

“We think it’s too weak. We like our coffee stronger.”

Harvey turned to me and lifted his arms and let them fall and slap against his sides.

“Did you hear that? Pete and God don’t like the coffee. Isn’t that a crying shame?”

“I think I’ll go clean the bullheads,” I said.

“All right, old boy. You clean the bullheads, and I’ll get everything ready here. It’s too bad we only have enough for two. If we had enough for three, for instance, we could invite Pete to stay for chow, but I guess it doesn’t really matter, after all, because he probably wouldn’t like our bullheads, anyhow. He doesn’t like our coffee, and I consider it very probable that he wouldn’t like our bullheads, either. Pete, of course, is a man with very particular tastes. He’s a regular God-damn gourmet, as a matter of fact.”

I got some pliers and a hammer and a large nail and took them with the bullheads down to the river bank. After setting the flashlight to shine on a cotton wood tree, I took the bigger of the two bullheads and nailed him to the trunk of the tree, driving the nail through his flat head. With my pocket knife, I cut through the skin all the way around the base of his head and on a perpendicular line down his back. Using the pliers, I peeled the skin off and then took the bullhead down and gutted him and afterward did the same things with the smaller one. When I was finished, I carried the pair of them down across the bar and washed them in the river. The sounds of the river were a kind of music, and it was nice there on the bar in the darkness.

I
WAS
thinking about her, about Jolly.

Harvey had the skillet and the cornmeal ready and was waiting for the fish. He took them from me and rolled them in the cornmeal and put them in the skillet, and they began to sizzle immediately and shortly began to smell about as good as anything can smell.

“They’re fine fat fish,” Harvey said. “Very good bullheads.”

“Where’s Pete?” I said.

“He got sore and left.”

“No wonder. You were a little rough on him, Harvey.”

“Do you think so?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Well, I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you.”

“I’m not worried.”

“Maybe you wanted him to hang around and hog some of the bullheads and tank up on our beer.”

“Say, that reminds me that the beer ought to be good and cold now. Shall I plug a couple of cans to go with the bullheads?”

“Maybe you wanted him to stay on and on and simply spoil everything for us.”

“Not at all, Harvey. I’m glad he’s gone.”

“Then why did you criticize me for being rough on him?”

“God-damn it, Harvey, I wasn’t being critical. You sound like your conscience is hurting you or something.”

“I dare say that’s true. I have a very tender conscience. Having a tender conscience is quite a heavy burden sometimes, old boy.”

“You are to be commended for having a tender conscience. It’s extremely rare.”

“Is that your honest opinion? Thanks, old boy. You’re making me feel a great deal better. I knew I could count on you for understanding.”

“Not at all.”

“If only the son of a bitch hadn’t said the coffee was too weak.”

“Well, I’ll plug a couple of beers.”

“What? Oh, yes, you do that, old boy. It ought to be good and cold now, and it will go wonderfully with the bullheads.”

I plugged the beers and opened a can of beans and set it at the edge of the fire to warm, and we sat there and drank the beers and listened to the bullheads sizzle and enjoyed ourselves. Pretty soon the fish were brown and crisp, and the beans were warm, and we ate the fish and the beans with bread and had two more cans of beer with them and two after them. After we were finished with the last two beers, we got blankets and spread them on the ground and lay down on them in our clothes, except for shoes, which we removed.

“Are you sleepy?” Harvey said.

“Yes, I am,” I said. “I’m pretty sleepy.”

“I’m quite sleepy myself. It’s the fresh night air that does it. There’s nothing like fresh night air to make you sleepy.”

“That’s true. The sound of the river and the sound of the air stirring in the trees are helpful also. Don’t you think so?”

“Very helpful. Lulling. They’re lulling sounds.”

“Of course it doesn’t hurt anything to have your belly full of bullheads, either.”

“Now you’re being rather coarse, old boy. I was hoping we could keep it romantic.”

“I’m sorry. I’m very partial to romance myself.”

“I know about that. However, I must say that it doesn’t seem to be working out just right for you.”

“I think probably you’re speaking of something else. I was thinking of romance in the literary sense.”

“Do you object to speaking of it the other way?”

“Not generally, but I object to speaking of it specifically.”

“You mean you don’t want to talk about you and Jolly, old boy?”

“Well, that’s specific.”

“Yes, it is. I admit that. I only refer to your romance because I have developed an intense interest in it. It’s a fact that I have your welfare very much at heart,” Harvey said.

“Thanks. However, you needn’t concern yourself any longer. In the first place, it could hardly be called a romance, and in the second place, whatever it was, it isn’t any longer.”

“Pardon me for being cynical, old boy, but I rather doubt that.”

“It’s true, just the same,” I said.

“I hope not. I sincerely do. I always found you and Jolly a charming pair. I was all for you.”

“I appreciate your support, but there were things against us. Principally, we were illegal.”

“There’s no denying that, and I consider it regrettable. Did you find it a great handicap?”

“I found it a very great handicap indeed, and now I wish to quit speaking of it.”

“Immediately? I was hoping that you would be willing to tell me how it got started. In thinking about it, it has occurred to me that I’ve never known.”

I hesitated before I said, “It was pretty ordinary.”

“Ordinary? With Jolly involved? I consider that incredible, old boy.”

“Well, I’ll admit that it didn’t stay ordinary very long. The truth is, she got the notion that she was ignorant and needed to know more than she did, so she came out to the college to take some classes, and one of the classes was one I happened to be teaching.”

“I don’t find that ordinary at all. In fact, I find it exceptionally romantic. I’m very pleased.” He sounded almost smug about it.

“I’m glad that it pleases you.”

“Did she stay in the class all term?”

“No. She only stayed a little while.”

“That’s too bad. Was it because she didn’t learn anything?”

“So far as I could judge, she learned practically nothing at all. In her case, I was an utter failure as a teacher.”

“Perhaps she found you a distracting influence. It’s pretty hard to concentrate on history when your glands are kicking up a fuss, you know.”

“Yes, I do know. There is probably no one in the world who knows it any better.”

“But I wouldn’t feel too bad about your failure, old boy. You may not have been able to teach her anything, but I’m positive something was accomplished the other way round, and it is my opinion based on observation that she has taught you plenty.”

“I concede that and merely wish to qualify it by saying that I would certainly be better off if I’d never learned it.”

“It hurts me to see you so bitter.”

“All right, Harvey. And now I believe I would like to go to sleep.”

“Immediately?”

“As quickly as possible,” I said.

“Shall we run the line at midnight?”

“Yes.”

“Will you wake up, do you think?”

“I’m certain to wake up. I always wake up at midnight when we are out here. It’s a habit.”

“That’s good, then. Just give me a shake, will you?”

“All right.”

“I’ll be very grateful,” Harvey said.

“It’s all right, Harvey. I’ll be glad to give you a shake.”

“Goodnight, then, old boy.”

“Goodnight.”

He rolled over on his side with his back to me, and after a while I could hear him breathing deeply and evenly in sleep, and I continued to lie awake on my back, hearing besides his breathing the sounds of the river and the trees and all the other sounds that occurred in the night. Finally I went to sleep, and a long time after that I woke up again, and sure enough, it was then just a few minutes after midnight by my watch. I shook Harvey awake, and we went down to the river and ran the line and took off four fat bullheads and a carp. We put the fish on a stringer and went back and lay down on our blankets again, and Harvey went right off to sleep, but I didn’t. I started thinking about Jolly and told myself that I had better quit, but I didn’t do that, either. The river kept running, and the trees kept stirring, and I kept thinking. The last time I looked at my watch before sleeping, it was three o’clock.

The next
morning we ran the line again and had breakfast, and after breakfast I took a rod down to the gravel bar and started casting for channel cats, but I didn’t have any luck. I enjoyed it down there, though, between the high banks with the water running swiftly through the narrow channel between the bar and the bank opposite, and I stayed on in spite of having no luck, and I was still down there casting when I heard a car come along the narrow dirt road from the highway and stop beside the cabin up on the bank behind me. It was then, I guess, about the middle of the morning.

I could hear Harvey’s voice sounding surprised and a little excited, and Fran Tyler’s voice saying something shrilly in response to Harvey’s voice, and I brought in my line and cast it upstream again and watched it float down past me with the current, and someone came to the edge of the bank at my back and down the path with a slithering of dirt and a small rattling of dislodged stones. I knew it was Jolly because I could feel her and smell her, and the feeling was quite disturbing to my equanimity, and I understood that whatever developed in the fishing from this time on, the peace and comfort of it were gone.