Once covered I turned toward an ungodly thumping on the dock behind me: old Ralph was sitting on the drowned fisherman’s stomach, slugging him repeatedly in the chest. I said, “What the hell ya doing, Ralph. He’s already dead.”
“Got t’help,” he gasped, none too sanely. “Got t’git ’is ’art a-goin’.”
“Day or so late,” I murmured, too spent to argue. I thought maybe Ralph agreed when he left off punching, but once he caught his breath he began to pick the dead man up by the ribs and drop him back onto the boards, over and over and over, Sflup! Sflup! Sflup!
“Got t’git ’im breathin’,” Ralph explained. “My Maggie shown me how.”
The sloppy thuds sent the blood to my feet. I reeled toward the store, wondering how far I’d get before my knees buckled, the thought of what Maggie might do to revive me making me queasier yet. Halfway up the gangplank the boards began to look so soft and inviting I had to stop and try them out.… Next thing I knew, powerful hands were yanking me to my feet. “No, Maggie!” I groaned.
“The name is Titus,” said a voice even deeper than Maggie’s.
I looked into the grim face of a stranger, taller but not much older than me. He said, “Let me help you,” and wrapped his coat around my shoulders and my arm around his neck. I saw he had on some kind of nineteenth-century suit, with waistcoat and knickerbockers: it made as much sense as anything that had happened since the fog set in. As he dragged me up toward Eaton’s store he murmured, “‘his gory visage down the stream was sent.…’”
I said, “Huh?”
“Milton,” he replied. “A Puritanical old goat, but the line seemed apt.”
“Thought his name was Abe,” I mumbled, wondering how this dandy could criticize a man or his religion when he’d only just drowned.
“I refer to the poet,” he said.
“Dressed more like a fisherman,” I pointed out.
“Easy, friend,” he whispered, helping me along. “Let’s go thaw you by a fire.” I’d have agreed with this plan if I hadn’t fainted first.
When next the world intruded upon my consciousness I wasn’t surprised to find my fortunes had plummeted still further: I was sprawled on my back on an ice-cold concrete floor, and Maggie Eaton was straddling me as Ralph had straddled the dead fisherman, or as Walton’s cowboy-frogs had straddled pike. But instead of attempting any type of respiration she seemed to be going for artificial suffocation: she was crushing my lungs with her weight, pinching my nostrils together and glaring at my closed mouth like it was a cigarette machine that had eaten her change but wouldn’t cough up the smokes. When I started to ask why she was misbehaving in this manner she tried to ram a huge pill down my gullet. I bit her, spat the pill in her face, and clamped my teeth tight, but she only cursed and pinched my nose till the tears ran, waiting for the moment I’d have to gulp air. I started to black out—but a heaven-sent hand yanked her claw from my nose and her carcass from my chest and she cursed again, at Knickerbocker. While he and she engaged in a Ma-and-H2O-like debate over the applicability of horse tranquilizers to my condition, I played possum and marshaled my strength, hoping to punch her and run for it if she straddled me again. But Knicker must have won—because Maggie abandoned the pill and began trying to break my toes off for some pious first-aid purpose. I was considering returning the favor by doing some dental work on her with my heel when Knickerbocker intervened again, relieving her of the instrument of torture—a pair of wool socks—and sliding them over my feet quite painlessly. I fell back into a stupor or faint or whatever it was.…
When I came to, my fortunes had improved beyond my wildest hopes: I was slumped in a wing chair and wrapped in blankets before a blazing woodstove in the corner of Eaton’s tackle shop; on a table to my right was a bottle of brandy which I began transferring first into a glass, then into myself. Then a door slammed: Maggie swaggered in. I started to feign hibernation, but remembering the glass in my nonsomnolent-looking hand, I figured the jig was up, so I upped the jigger to fortify myself. Maggie came marching toward me looking a lot like Napoleon, which left me feeling something like Moscow—but the door slammed again and my knickered guardian angel hollered in that Ralph was rifling the dead man’s pockets and wallet after an arduous but successful attempt to pull his waders down. Maggie rushed off, dragging a string of oaths behind her. My benefactor stepped in with a saucepan, poured in several healthy glugs of brandy, and set it on the stove to warm. “I’ll help you dispose of that soon,” he said, and was gone before I could thank him. Through the window on my left I saw him rush across the parking lot to greet and direct two policemen and an ambulance driver who’d arrived simultaneously. When they left my field of vision I sat back and stared at my brandy glass, enjoying the tiny police-blue and ambulance-red flashes on its side, which coupled with the hot drink and warm room to make me feel like Christmas; then, out the window, people passed bearing strange gifts—one policeman and the ambulance driver a loaded stretcher, Maggie my pack and poles, Ralph and the second cop Sardine, Knicker my creel, Abe’s life jacket, and the rest of my gear. The corpse went into the ambulance, my canoe and gear in and onto an ugly old ’59 Plymouth—Knicker’s car. As he loaded the gear he paused to peek in my fish-stuffed creel, and even at that foggy distance I perceived astonishment—the first genuine emotion I’d seen on his face: I knew from that moment that his was the heart of a true fisherman.
A fancy camper drove up and an hysterical man jumped out. He was led by the police to the rear door of the ambulance; when the blanket was lifted he hid his face and sobbed so hard I heard him through the window. So. His was the voice I’d heard calling in the fog. Poor bastard. The authorities and the Eatons all stood gawking at him, stubbing their feet in the gravel like bad boys in a principal’s office. But Knickerbocker approached him like an old friend, led him away from the others, talked with him a while, and he calmed down. He answered questions and signed papers for the police, then he and the ambulance drove away.
The Eatons crept inside and went to their living quarters upstairs. The cops and Knickerbocker came in by the stove and Knicker offered them hot brandy; they eyed him as if he had horns and a tail. “Oh!” he said. “Oh of course, you’re on duty. I’m sorry,” and with that he downed a half-glass at one throw. One cop frowned; the other licked his lips. Then they turned to me and started asking questions—who was I, where did I live, when and where did I find the deceased, why didn’t I just load him in the canoe, was he cold when I found him, was he stiff, were his eyes open, did I know him—and each question echoed in my head, answers, half-answers, shades of meaning and unmeaning rendering me near-incoherent: who was I? where did I live? when? when the fog came. where? in the river. cold? I don’t know, ask him, ask Abe. Did I know him? I knew his shirt, knew his waders, knew his thin hair and white fingers; he was a fisherman and I knew fishermen. “No. No I never met him. No, I’m not trying to be funny: I really did hook his sleeve, yes, a #10 Purple Jerry. Sorry, don’t mean to laugh; lost my paddle; haven’t slept; thought he was a fish, his hand I mean, I mean I was pretty drunk last night. No, yes, I’m sorry he drowned, I’d have given him my—I mean, he should have had a life jacket… or something. Yes, brushy banks. Deep water. Right. Used the bow-rope. OK. Sorry. Goodbye.”
Poor cops. They shook their heads and rolled their eyes, glaring at Knicker when he tried to interpret, scribbling on pink and yellow slips when my utterances made some sense to them. They looked even gladder to leave than I was to have them go. I watched their blue light disappear from the side of my brandy glass.
Knickerbocker drew up a chair. At his urging I emptied my glass and let him refill it, but I was no match for him: he worked at that brandy like it was his profession. On his fourth glass he started patting his pockets, then frowned, turned to me and asked, “Warm enough?”
“Me? Yeah, sure.”
“Might I borrow my coat back, then?”
“Oh! Sure. Forgot I had it.”
Knicker sta
rted patting coat pockets as he’d done with shirt, vest, and knickers. Not finding what he was after, he started emptying his clothes: he pulled out pens, notebooks, pipes, snuff, beef jerky, fly boxes, and a chunk of Dutch chocolate, then scowled and moved on to obscurer pockets—thigh pockets and rib pockets on his knickers and coat; a stomach pocket in his shirt; back and inner pockets in the lining of his vest. He pulled out two tobacco pouches, three packs of foreign cigarettes, a half-dozen boxes of matches, a pipe tool and reamers, wallet, keys, coin purse, agates, a compass, bookmarks, sunflower seeds, a silver flask, a telescope, snail shells, a magnifying glass, a mechanical pencil, vitamin pills, two little leather-bound books—muttering as he labored: “‘To his horror he recollected that he had left both coat and waistcoat behind him in his cell, and with them his pocket-book, money, keys, watch, matches, pencil-case—all that makes life worth living, all that distinguishes the many-pocketed animal, the lord of creation, from the inferior one-pocketed or no-pocketed productions that hop and trip permissively about, unequipped for the real contest…’” Then his gaunt face brightened: he reached up a sleeve of his coat, I heard a zipper unzip, and out came a thin glass tube from which he pulled a tapered brown cigar. He lit it, manufacturing a cloud that smelled like putrescent forest fire, then sighed with immense satisfaction. “That, I’m afraid, is my last cheroot, but help yourself to anything that strikes your fancy.”
“Glad that’s the last,” I said, covering my sore nose, “and it was that pocket speech that struck my fancy, Mister… uh.…”
“Toad. Toad of Toad Hall.”
I was confused. I didn’t want to laugh if his name was really Toad, but, well, Toad? “Didn’t you say your name was, um, Tyrone, or, uh.…”
“Let’s clear this up,” he said. “The ‘gory visage’ was John Milton’s; the many-pocketed animal is Toad; Toad is Kenneth Grahame’s; and I am not Tyrone, but Titus—Titus Irving Gerrard, at your service.”
“It’s clearer than that outside,” I protested. “The cops said he was Abe Mayfield, and he wasn’t gory, just drowned. And you’re the many-pocketed animal, not Toad Gramkin or whoever you said. That leaves John Milton and Tyrone Irving Jiwhoozits, neither of which is you if what you said before counts for anything. And no sense saying At-my-service now when you’ve been at it all day: I might be dead by now if you hadn’t fought off Maggie Eaton. I like all the pockets, by the way. The knickers too, though I wouldn’t be caught dead in… wouldn’t wear ’em… myself.” A wave of nausea washed over me.
Knicker lit a cigarette. When the coal was brilliant orange and an inch and a half long he used it to relight his cheroot, which had fizzled in its juices. When its stench had us hopelessly surrounded he looked satisfied. “I can see that further clarification is required, you being apparently unfamiliar with the employment of quotations in conversation. I concede the dead man’s lack of gore; the line wasn’t apt after all, which typifies Milton, whose verse (they say) renders the English language resonant and (they fail to say) attempts to stand us on our metaphysical heads. I, Allah be praised, am not Milton, at least not at present. Nor am I Kenneth Grahame, from whose fertile head Toad hopped. There remain the dead man in waders—apparently an Abe Mayfield—and the live man in knickers—certainly a Titus Gerrard. And if the Eatons tell me truly, you are Gus Orviston, son of the famous Henning Hale-Orviston, whose Summa Piscatoria I abandoned for boredom in midstream. But if in its tedious pages it contains the key to such catches as you have made this day, I’ll take it up again and read it ten times over. More brandy? Cigarette? And tell me why you’d hesitate to wear a kind of clothing you admire, which is comfortable, practical for its pockets, long wearing, and was, moreover, worn by Theodore Gordon, the Father of American Fly Angling?”
Trying to keep hold of the dozen loose ends, I replied, “We got the names right. I’m Gus, me pap is H2O, his book is tedious, and you are Titus. But no book contains the key to catches like I caught today: the trout I got on wet flies; the corpse I caught on a soggy dry. And you can take the trout with you if you want because, well, I can’t, I don’t… I wish I’d stayed in bed this morning, or was there now, I mean no I don’t, I mean I like to yack with you here, Titus, but I uh, don’t let me keep you though. I mean, I don’t mean I want you to, I don’t want, I’d rather not be alone in my cabin yet, or, I’m fine though. I’m fine I’m fine… sorry, uh.…” As I stuttered to a standstill Titus just smoked and waited as if I’d said nothing, as if I weren’t a pathetic fool. I drank more brandy and watched him nervously, wondering what he was waiting for. The knickers and waistcoat clued me in: he must be like two old English flyfishermen who’d once visited H2O—two of the few I’d met and admired—men whose eloquence at first struck me as outrageous, because I’d never met men for whom conversation was an art. Or a sport. I saw then that Titus was waiting for me, hoping to engage in a spot of good sport while I thrashed through the bushes, scaring off our quarry. I shook myself, straightened up, and said, “I digress.”
“Don’t mention it,” he said with a wave of his hand.
“Consider it de-mentioned,” I said, then took up the threads: “I’m as familiar as I want to be with quotations trashing a conversation—my parents are great slingers of quoted mudballs. I’m also familiar enough with guys like Milton, Pope, Dryden, Carlyle, Donne and Company to know I prefer the Lone Ranger. I’d like more brandy, and maybe one of those black cigarettes if they don’t smell like your cheroot. My magpie mother is why I wouldn’t be caught dead or alive in knickers, but if you expect me to believe that your six-foot several-inch self is wearing a suit once worn by the five-foot three-inch Theodore Gordon, you measure inches like a true fisherman.”
Titus smiled, tossed me a cigarette, filled my glass to the brim, and sucked hard twice—once at his cheroot, once at his drink. He said, “I concede my suit to be similar to Gordon’s only in cut. I wonder how familiar is ‘familiar enough’ with the authors named. I also wonder at your mother, that remarkable clairvoyant, who being neither here nor at your avowedly empty domicile is nonetheless capable of perceiving you in your hypothetical handsome knickers and transmitting her derision over the miles, through untold mountains, fogs, trees, and walls. As for your second catch today, I see no cause for regret or dismay. You’ve done the man’s family some service by capturing his remains. And since we’re all bodily destined for corpsehood and spiritually possessed of immortal souls, I see no reason to let the proximity of corpses alter our appetites. Nevertheless I’ll gladly disburden you of a brace of cutthroats.”
Completely caught up in our convolutions, I took a swig and made this reply: “If we are possessed of immortal souls, I’d like to see them. And ‘familiar enough’ means almost totally ignorant of every English author on earth except Izaak Walton, with whose Compleat Angler I may be more familiar than anybody—and familiarity bred contempt. I’m content to be ignorant because Walton alone brought me more trouble than you would ever believe. In these parts, the plural of cutthroat is cutthroat, not cutthroats: to catch ’em you gotta call ’em what they’re used to. As for my mother, she’s not clairvoyant, just invisible—she just now stomped on your left foot.”
Without a moment’s pause Titus responded, “Addressing ourselves to the essential first: I can’t visually exhibit my soul, but I can and do intuit its existence through occasional pneumatic detonations and wordless intellections, as well as through insights obtained by pondering the words of sages, saints, and scriptures. But any discussion of immortality had best be postponed to a time when our energies are up to them. Thank you for correcting my cutthroats. As for your mother, I must assume that she is impudent and weightless as well as invisible, if what you say about my foot is true. And contempt for Izaak Walton I find akin to contempt for friendly dogs, shade trees, flower gardens, sunsets, and the like: such misanthropy being incommensurate with your apparent good nature, I intuit factors distorting your judgment that have not yet come to light.”
Summoning a
ll the brain and brandy I had left, I took a deep breath and said, “I’m too tired to ask about your rheumatic detonations and wordless infections, but you have my condolences. I know two saints—Nick and Valentine. I know one sage—brush. But I did read a scripture called the Holy Bible and found it confusing and cross-grained and capable of starting but not ending feuds and wars, and some of my contempt for Walton’s book comes from the fact that it stars a Character the Bible is full of—a Character with all the invisibility, weightlessness, and impudence of my mother. A Character Who has no more to do with Compleat Angling or with fishermen like me than fish have to do with theology. And I apologize for the fact that I doubt I’ll hear you and I’m sure I won’t understand you if we keep on like this just now, but I’d be glad to go on some other time.” I ground to a halt for sheer exhaustion, my Cinderella intellect turning to rats and pumpkins.
Titus grumbled something about throwing down the gauntlet, then fainting before the duel, but he helped me across the parking lot and loaded me in his car—a vehicle worthy of its owner. It was a rusty, dented, yellow-brown ’59 Plymouth dubbed “The Carp” for the simple reason that it looked like one—not a healthy one either. But it had huge fins, a rod rack on the roof, and it glided carp-quiet through the fog. And inside it was a castle: sheepskin seats in front, and—where the back seat should have been—cupboards for food, for tackle, and for liquor, a cooler for beer, and a Coleman stove for heating up coffee, soup, or numb fragments of fisherman during winter steelhead season; it had a maple pipe rack and bookshelf built into the glove-box space, a row of carbon-crusted briars hanging above some twenty hardbound volumes—most of the latter in languages I didn’t even recognize the letters of. And stationed in the back window was a plastic Jesus who raised his arm in benediction every time the brakes were applied—but Titus had glued a flyrod made of three joined toothpicks to His hand, with an ephemeral line of monofilament ending in a #20 Royal Coachman: each time the Carp came to a halt the Good Fisher hauled back, set the hook, and somewhere in the world a saved sinner lay gasping on the planks of His boat, a transmundane dry fly dangling from his spiritual lip.
The River Why Page 13
