The River Rubicon

CHAPTER 4: FISHING AND REASON

The stars are out tonight---glowing bright and piercing against the black sky. There are so many of them, as though they are a blanket for us. My Daddy says the stars are pot holes in the golden streets of heaven, places where God's light shines through. The streets of heaven are badly in need of repair tonight.
The crickets seem to outnumber the stars and they are all I can hear. Their loud and full, sporadic chorus fills my ears and the sky above. Out here at the end of the pier their music surrounds and engulfs me even though it is further than I can throw a baseball from me to the woods. A boat speeds by on the river---its front light stabbing the darkness like a knight's lance. For a time the crickets get drowned out by the motor and then overtake it again as the light lances out of sight. The wake comes to shore and laps against the pier in time.
I have baited my hook with a night crawler and swing the line out over the end of the pier and watch as the line sinks in one smooth motion. The fluorescent bobber my Daddy bought me tonight sinks too. This is the first try with this new cork and I am thinking that maybe it is broken. I pull the bobber back up to the top and it sinks again. It must be broken. I pull the glowing cork back to the surface and it sinks again as if only from the weight of the sinkers Daddy put on my line.
"Richard. It looks like you've got a fish." Daddy has snuck up behind me and is standing, towering way above me as I sit with my feet dangling off the end of the pier.
"Eeeks! Daddy, you scared me."
"Not so loud, son. You'll scare off that white perch you've got on the line."
I pulled up the line. It came out smoothly without a jerk and a white perch flapped lightly on the line.
"You were right. Big fish on the line, just like you said." I swing the line so the fish comes to me. He wiggles in my hand as I take him off the hook.
"That new glow bobber you bought me works pretty good, huh." I hold the fish towards him.
"I think it’s the skill of the fisherman myself," he says.
"You think so, really?"
"I know so," he says. He stands towering over me like a giant, his hands on his hips. "Where are you going to put this prized fish," he asks.
"In this grocery bag I brought out here," I say as I reach down into the paper bag to set the perch down. The bag swallows my whole arm---my armpit resting on the top of the bag.
"I'm not sure that's the best place for him," my Daddy says.
"Why not?"
"I don't know, son. I'll let you find out if it’s a good place or not."
"Why won't it maybe be a good place, Dad?"
"I'll just let you learn on your own. Better that way."
The perch flipped and flopped making a heavy slapping sound against the pier and the bottom of the bag as my Dad walks away.
"Where are you goin', Daddy," I say as I squish my fingers through the worm carton for another night crawler.
"Back to the cabin," he says, turning and walking backwards. He is looking at me kind of funny and sad all at the same time...he sees me against the stars, against the darkness...
"Well, why don't you stay out here for a while with me, Daddy," I say as I pull a wiggly worm from the round bait carton, "There's lots of room out here on the pier for you,” I say as I pat the dock. “Maybe you could give me some more fishing tips. I'd like that."
"I don't think you need anymore tips, Richard. I think you'll do just fine without me. Quite the fisherman you are," he says, with that funny and sad look in his eye.
He turns and slowly heads up the trail along the bluff back towards the cabin. As I bait my hook, I half watch his silhouette rise up into the dark like Jesus or Moses.
I bait my hook and swing my line out over the Tombigbee. Once the fluorescent bobber is settled and floating on the dark I turn back to follow my daddy's silhouette as it rises and paces its way up the trail, fading. I feel the pull of the line and my attention is grabbed by the river again.
The line tugs hard at me and it feels like the pole will be yanked out of my hands, but I regain my grip and hold on. I am scared that I will be pulled into the river by this monster and I call out, “Daddy!” but my cry for help falls in the damp dead air and gets swallowed up by the crickets. I sit down on the dock so that I can get the leverage on the fish and keep from being dragged into the river. I turn. I want my Daddy and I cry out again...but the rising silhouette has faded into the darkness.