The Real Thing

by J. J. Murray

  The wind rustles the trees around me, and I hear their branches brush the roof. It smells so nice, like Pine-Sol on crack. This is so far from the “madding crowd,” so peaceful, so still. Was that a loon’s call? I hear they mate for life….

  I drift to sleep like the waves kissing the shore outside, dreaming of lonely loons, lightning lefts, and a corpo provocante.

  Chapter 7

  A soft knocking sound awakens me.

  It has to be a tree limb rubbing against the guesthouse. It can’t be 4 AM yet. I turn over.

  There it is again. I sit up.

  “Miss Artis,” a voice whispers. “Christiana, we’re leaving in half an hour.”

  It’s still dark. The fish have to be sleeping.

  “Miss Artis?”

  I rise, wrap a quilt about me, and open the door. A blast of cold air hits me in the face. “I’m up. I’m just going to take a quick shower.”

  DJ smiles at my bare feet. “Right. Don’t forget to dress warmly.”

  I shut the door. “Thirty minutes,” I whisper. “What’s so special about four-thirty? Are the fish only biting at four-thirty? Geez. Can the fish even see the bait when it’s this dark?”

  I stumble to the bathroom, flip on the light, and stare at the tub. There’s no showerhead here. How can I take a quick shower if there’s no showerhead? I’ve never heard of anyone taking a quick bath. It would take five minutes for the tub to fill up.

  Wait.

  I’m going fishing.

  Who’s gonna know if I’m stank?

  Besides me.

  The fish won’t care.

  While I search Evelyn’s clothes for anything heavy, fur-lined, and Arctic, I tell myself to be as not-Evelyn as possible today. DJ says she doesn’t like it here. Maybe she absolutely loathes this place. Therefore, I have to act as if I can’t get enough of this place. Yes. I have to suck up so Dante will open up.

  I put on layers of clothes starting with shorts over my underwear, fleece sweatpants over the shorts, and—geez!—tight-ass wind pants over the sweats. I can barely bend over to tie my hiking boots.

  I should not eat anything for breakfast.

  I’m almost out the door when I realize I haven’t brushed my teeth. I have no precedent in my life for this. I have never brushed my teeth this early before. When the icy water hits my teeth, they start to grumble.

  And it’s still dark.

  I lurch through the birch and pine trees to the kitchen, where Red is already awake and cooking something on the stove. It smells delicious, but I can’t possibly eat zipped up as I am. He sees me and points at a cup of coffee.

  “Thanks.” I take a sip, and my teeth settle down.

  He flips a bun of some kind onto a plate and slides the plate down the counter. “It’s called a Chelsea bun. You’ll like it.”

  Good thing I’m standing while I eat it, and it is yummy. “Red?”

  “Yes?”

  “Why is it so dark?”

  Red wipes at his eyes. “Dante likes to get up early.”

  I sip some more coffee. “So, is it dark because, hey, it’s four-fifteen, or is it dark because Dante likes to get up early?”

  “Both.”

  I see DJ walk through the screened porch wearing a floppy tan fishing hat. “Red, I need a hat.”

  He leaves the kitchen and returns with a Boston Red Sox cap, settling it on my head. “It fits you,” he says, “in so many ways.”

  “I don’t root for the Sox,” I say, taking it off and setting it on the counter. “I’m a Yankees fan.”

  “So is Dante, the poor man,” Red says. “I would have gotten you an Aylen hat, but I think this Boston hat says it much better.”

  I put on the hat. “Cuts him two ways, huh?”

  Red nods.

  I nod. Anything to infuriate Dante, especially since he got me up at the crack of freaking doom to go fishing.

  Red pulls several circular Styrofoam containers from the refrigerator and places them in front of me.

  “What are these?” I ask.

  “Worms and leeches,” he says.

  Lovely. I shouldn’t have asked.

  Red wraps up several Chelsea buns, and then pulls several bottles of water from the refrigerator and puts them in a little cooler. “Remember,” he says, “Dante takes fishing seriously.”

  I am tired of hearing that. I pull the cap down close to my eyes and frown. “Is this serious-looking enough?”

  “Just catch some fish, okay? You have to replace the fish you stole from his stomach last night.”

  I roll my eyes.

  “And don’t talk on the boat. Don’t even make a sound.”

  “It will be as if I’m not even there.”

  I carry the leeches, worms, and cooler down to the dock, a trillion stars still dotting the sky. Mist covers the water, and I can barely see Dante or DJ in the fishing boat. I get into the boat—without a word—and hand the containers and cooler to DJ. Dante unties the boat, backs us out, and we’re on our way.

  And it’s freaking cold! It can’t be much above freezing.

  The wind bites the tip of my nose and my earlobes as we haul ass down the lake. I clamp the windbreaker’s hood to my head, pulling the strings tight. My eyes start to water, so I close them, listening to my windbreaker ripple like thunder.

  After what seems like twenty minutes, we glide into a spot and float a bit. I can barely see the shore, an indefinite sun-like glow threatening the horizon. DJ hands me a pole, and while I remove my hood, I watch him put a leech onto his hook. It doesn’t look too hard. He hands me the container of leeches.

  They’re…swimming. I didn’t know leeches swam. They’re like overgrown black sperm. Ew. Which one, which one…that one. He’s stuck to the container. I choose him, give a little tug, and bring him directly to the hook, spearing him twice with the barb. I turn and face the shore, firing a cast into the mist and the darkness. Not bad, not great. I can still do this. I have no idea where I just cast my line, but at least my overgrown black sperm is in the water.

  “Rocks over there,” DJ whispers.

  Shit. How am I supposed to know? There aren’t exactly any signs out here, you know? We’re fishing in a black hole! I start reeling in faster when BAM! I must be stuck. I pull, and the line shoots off a different direction.

  I’m not stuck. That’s a fish! I wish I could see it! I mean, I hear it—

  That was a splash. It jumped in all that mist, and now I’m fighting it.

  DJ moves closer to me. “Big?” he whispers.

  How the hell should I know? It feels big. I nod.

  It takes me five more minutes to get the fish close to the boat as the sun’s rays finally creep over the tops of the trees. Whoa. That is a big fish.

  Dante, who has yet to get a line in the water, stands holding the anchor line while DJ gets a net. The closer I work the fish to the boat, the harder it fights. In my head, Granddaddy is screaming, “Keep the rod tip up, Tiana!”

  After an interesting dance DJ and I have with him sliding around me a couple of times with the net, he leans over the boat and…

  The fish is in the boat.

  I caught that. Uh-huh. I do a little strut. Looky there, Dante. Huh? Huh? What you got that I don’t got? Huh?

  DJ removes the fish, drops it into the live well, and tosses my line back into the water. “You still have your leech,” he whispers. “That one was at least four pounds.”

  I still don’t know what I caught. I hope it was a smallmouth bass. Red will cook it up for me, and Dante will have to ask me for a few bites, which I may not give him. I need to fatten Lelani up, don’t I?

  I reel in my line a little bit and cast to the same spot again, this time seeing the leech hit the water. A split second later and I get another BAM!

  Dante still hasn’t moved. He’s still fiddling with that anchor rope.

  The sun peeking over the trees now, I take off my windbreaker while fighting—geez, this one’s bigger!—and keeping
my rod tip up. When the fish hits the surface, it starts to dance before crashing to the water again. At least eight minutes later, DJ and I do our little dance, he nets the fish, and I rest on a seat. He pulls a scale from a tackle box and weighs this one.

  “Five pounds, three ounces,” he whispers, his eyes as big as donuts.

  I nod. I knew it was bigger. I roll my neck. Yeah. I’m bad. Uh-huh.

  “You’ll need another leech,” DJ whispers.

  Dante still hasn’t gotten a line into the water.

  Yeah, Mr. Get Up Early, I’m kicking your ass, aren’t I? I straighten my Red Sox hat. Who’s the champ now, huh? And who’s the chump?

  I put on a new leech and cast out to my spot. Dante finally gets with the program, ties off the anchor rope, and casts a long silver lure just to the left of my cast. Uh-huh. Going where the action is, huh? Trying to move in on my spot. Okay. We’ll see about that.

  Something swirls at his lure and misses.

  Dante grimaces.

  Ha!

  Then something hits mine, maybe the same something that missed his lure, and I’m fighting again. This one is smaller, though, and I have no trouble bringing it in and netting it myself. I even take it off the hook and drop it in the live well with my other fish all by my damn self.

  While DJ has to rerig after breaking his line and Dante watches in agony as fish swirl and miss a lure as big as they are, I make my fourth cast—and catch another fish.

  I spin my hat around my head once, bending the bill slightly. This Red Sox player is four for four in less than thirty minutes. After netting this one and adding it to my collection, I remove my wind pants and windbreaker and turn my cap around like a catcher.

  That’s when I catch Dante smiling at me.

  I like it when he smiles.

  None of us catches another fish for over an hour, but I am content. The sun burns off the mist, and I have to take off my sweatshirt and sweatpants. There’s something almost mystical about casting into a pool of sunlight, not a single ripple on the water, the only sound the gentle rocking of the boat, a loon calling somewhere in the distance.

  “They have left,” Dante says.

  “Or Christiana caught them all,” DJ says.

  I bite my lips together. I want to say something so badly! I want to tell Dante that his huge chunk of metal scared the fish away.

  Dante pulls up the anchor, and we cruise a short distance away to a sandy beach. DJ takes off his shoes, socks, and sweats, and hops into the water, pulling the boat up onto the sand. I leap off the boat holding my wind pants and windbreaker while Dante saunters over to the live well and looks inside. I catch his lips saying, “Wow.”

  Wow. I’ll take that as a compliment.

  I slip into my wind pants and zip up my windbreaker. The bugs haven’t been too bad, but I’m taking no chances. When DJ hands me a can of industrial-strength bug repellant, I spray my hands, my clothes, and my hat. The smell is anything but feminine, but at least I won’t be breakfast for something that buzzes, bites, or stings.

  Dante drops off the front of the boat, zipping up his jacket. “Andiamo,” he says, nodding at DJ.

  Andiamo, I say to myself. Let’s go.

  One task down, four tasks to go.

  Chapter 8

  DJ hangs back with me as Dante walks briskly down a path and into the woods, not a single glance behind him. He’s either angry I skunked him and DJ, or that’s just the way he normally hikes.

  As we follow, DJ points up at a huge rock jutting out over the forest. “That’s Old Baldy,” he says. “It’s only about fifteen hundred feet up.”

  Whew. When someone says “mountain climbing,” I think of K2 and snowy peaks. This climb will be a cinch.

  “That’s where we’re going next. Normally, we would have made a fire and fried up whatever we caught on the beach before climbing, but the ones you caught are too big. I’ll clean them for you, and Red will cook them for us later.”

  Whew again. The last time I dissected something it was green, unpleasantly froggy, and extremely dead. Granddaddy cleaned any fish we caught, and though I watched Granddaddy do it, I doubt I could remember all the steps. And those were saltwater fish from the Atlantic. I’ll bet Canadian fish require extra steps.

  Dante keeps a blistering pace once we start our ascent, bounding up the path. I barely keep up, fifty feet behind DJ, trying not to turn the burned-out stumps around me into grizzly bears. Only that thought makes me sweat, the ascent no more than a steady climb up a dirt path bisected by roots. Dante looks back occasionally, but other than brief glimpses of his eyes, I mainly get to watch his two “butt-fists” in action. Nice. Proportional. Definitely squeezable. Strange, they now remind me of the tennis ball he was squeezing last night.

  I am sweating profusely and oozing bug repellant by the time we near the summit, but I don’t care. As we near the jutting rock, the pathway gets rugged and narrow, and I have to use branches, roots, and even small pine trees to help me get to the top. Dante walks right out onto that huge rock and sits, seeming to brood over the horizon. I wish I had brought my camera. He looks as rugged as the scenery, and that shot would be sensational.

  The view is breathtaking, though I’m a little nervous to be so far above the towering trees we passed. They’re way down there looking like the ends of green party toothpicks. I follow DJ to another part of the slab, and he points out several little lakes to the north and west where he and Dante had fished before.

  “That’s Lake O’Neill,” he says. “We call it Pole Lake, though. The one to the left is Wilkins. It was a pain dragging our old wooden boat back to them, but the fish were so thick you could just reach in and grab them.”

  I doubt that, but it’s a nice image.

  I take off my hat and let gentle breezes dry my sweat as I finger-comb my hair, the rest doing me some good. It probably isn’t much later than 7 AM.

  Dante still broods. I’ll bet he’s angry that I haven’t given up yet, that he hasn’t licked me yet.

  I’m mad he hasn’t licked me yet, too, but that’s a whole other fantasy.

  On our way back, Dante and DJ add small pebbles to a cairn of rocks just off the path. I balance a piece of white quartz on top of theirs, and we start our descent. I slide a few times on the way down, but I don’t shout out, righting myself and continuing, never falling more than a few paces behind DJ.

  Two tasks down, three to go.

  When we get back to the boat, Dante pulls a cutting board and a wicked-looking filet knife from a bin and hands them to DJ. Then Dante grabs a plastic cup and wanders away down the beach.

  “Um, I guess this means you have to clean them now,” DJ says.

  Joy.

  I stare after Dante long enough for DJ to explain. “There’s a natural spring down there,” he says. “He drinks a cup every day he’s up here.”

  “Superstitious?” I say, finally breaking my silence. That has to be some sort of record. I’ve been with them for nearly three hours.

  “Delicious,” DJ says.

  He pulls the smallest fish out of the live well. “I can do them for you.”

  Yes!

  But no. That would be a victory for my brooding host, and I intend to go undefeated today.

  I sigh. “I really should do it. I caught them. But I’ll need some help here.” I step closer to him and whisper, “I have never done this before.”

  “It’s not that hard,” he says. “Just messy.”

  And slimy.

  DJ hands me the smallest fish, still wriggling like a hoochie-coochie dancer, and I grab it by the lip. “You have to break its neck first,” he says.

  I grimace. “How do I do that?”

  “Turn the fish over.”

  I do, and I am now staring at its whitish stomach.

  “Put your index and middle fingers inside its gills,” he says.

  He’s kidding. I look up. He’s not kidding. “These gills look, um, sharp.”

  “They are,” he sa
ys.

  Oh, that’s comforting.

  “As you put in your fingers, slide your thumb to just behind his head. Then…” He pulls back his wrist. “It’s like popping a pop top.”

  I don’t want to do this, but “tenere provare” rings in my head. I slip my fingers in through those scary-looking red gills and slide my thumb back, pulling with my fingers and pressing with my thumb at the same time. The fish’s tail jerks back and forth before I hear a sickening crack.

  The fish goes limp, blood spurting from a little hose or artery—whatever. It’s spewing blood, and it’s not a beautiful sight.

  “Now what?” I ask.

  DJ talks me through the next few steps with the filet knife. I start the knife just below a little fin where its—gulp—anus is. I start my cut and bring the knife all the way back to where I broke its neck, the fish’s guts flopping out like…

  I don’t have a metaphor for this. I don’t ever want to have a metaphor for this.

  The fish’s guts spill out, and it’s nasty.

  He points to a spot with a hooked finger. “Just…get under all that, pull it toward you, and the entire head should come off at the same time.”

  DJ is an excellent teacher, and though my fingers will never forgive me, I now hold the fish in two parts. DJ takes the head and entrails and begins feeling something with his fingers. “Look,” he says.

  I don’t want to look, but I do. I watch a little…lobster come out of a sac.

  “It’s a crayfish,” he says. “Dad will want to know. He always asks what they’ve been eating.”

  How…delectable.

  The rest of the cleaning process is much less grotesque. I slit either side of the top fins and pull them out. I peel back the skin to the tail on both sides of what’s left. I slide the knife as close to the ribs as I can, and—

  I have two okay-sized filets in my hand, nice white meat with little specks of green and blue.

  DJ gets a roll of aluminum foil from the boat and wraps them up. “Now all you have to do are the larger ones.”