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©
2004 Jason Stahl
The
One That Got Away
I think it was when I was six or seven years old when my uncle took me on
my first fishing trip, but it's hard to say because I was so young and
the trip was so fleeting and now it's 21 years later. Even though I do
have an outstanding memory, especially for faces, as some of my former
kindergarten classmates can attest, I can only see the fishing trip in
parts, as if I'm watching a show on television and someone's changing
the channels, then going back to the program I was watching. I see the
inside of Uncle John's car and the remnants of a Big Mac which I had
boldly said I could finish (even though I knew I damn well I couldn't).
But that was on the ride home. Then I see the lake I was casting my line
out to and the faint shadow of a hole under the surface where I pulled
fish after fish from. And then I feel a tap on my shoulder, and when I
turn around I see Uncle John with his hands spread about a foot wide and a
grin spread even farther holding what looked like the world's most
perfect largemouth bass, emerald green with a radium-white belly and eyes
like obsidian.
I remember that at some point he had gone off with his
buddy from the police department to fish at another spot, and the buddy's son
and I had been so busy pulling one bluegill after another from
our wonder hole that we'd forgotten all about them. That's what made
Uncle John's catch all the more thrilling; I had been told by my dad
that he was quite a fisherman, and in those days when I carried frogs and
salamanders around in my pocket as frequently as I carry a wallet around
today, telling me someone was a great fisherman was like telling me that
person was God. I was in awe of my Uncle John, and pointing us to one of
the greatest fishing holes I have ever seen and catching one of the most
beautiful fish I have ever seen only pushed him higher on the pedestal I
had put him on.
That was one of the last times I ever saw him. Oh no, he didn't die; it
was far worse. He was alive, and my family ignored him. He divorced my
Aunt Jean, with whom he had had one son, Casey. He then quite the force
after 10 years without an explanation, and if my mother was telling the
truth, he cashed in his benefits and flew off to some exotic island and
spend every last cent he had, all the while refusing to pay child support
and alimony to his dear wife and son. It was then I was told he was a
weirdo. Then there were rumors that he had claimed he'd been shot on duty,
but surely, my father and mother and Great Aunt Margaret said, if he had
been shot it would have been all over the newspapers. Then I'd heard of a
horrible bicycling accident he'd been in where he'd hit his head very hard
and had to go to the hospital. Aunt Margaret believes that the head
trauma he suffered as a result of the accident accounts for why he is the
way he is today. Crazy. Looney. Not all there.
Obviously, I had a hard time believing all of this. But I have heard my
Uncle John say some strange things before. I remember one Christmas
(before the divorce, escape to paradise, and bike disaster) when he'd made
a startling revelation while nestled in my parents' expansive couch and
surrounded by at least eight other family members. "I've quit fishing," he
simply said, and there was a collective gasp as everyone couldn't believe
that he'd given up on his lifelong passion. Aunt Margaret
was quick to tell him to shush up in case I might hear him and get hurt,
but it was too late. I'd been playing with a new fire truck right behind
where Uncle John was sitting, and had heard the whole thing. It felt like
I had just chugged liquid nitrogen and could feel it slowly work its way
down my innards. I had also heard my Aunt Margaret tell him to keep it down,
so I slinked off quiet as a mouse and cried in a corner.
Then, it was one humid, summer day, when I was 14, when I heard Uncle
John's name surface once more, again without any compliments attached to
it. My mother had asked me to cut the grass, and, as lazy, unambitious,
smart-aleck 14-year-olds are prone to do, I refused. I was swayed a little
closer to the task when my father asked me, but all I could think about
was how hot it was outside and how much blue smoke the old Lawn Boy farted
from its engine I was going to swallow. "You're just like your Uncle
John," my dad had said, and I might as well have been punched in the
stomach. My dad had just called me a deadbeat, liar and quitter, when
"lazy
bastard" would have sufficed; and instantly I knew that there had been
something more between my father and his brother that perhaps I would
never know, something that made the time a 12-year-old John broke his
brother's nose with a baseball bat pale in comparison. But on that lazy,
hazy day, my father had also unknowingly called me one of the greatest
fishermen in the world; and thoughts of my Uncle John holding that
brilliant bass with a timeless grin frozen on his face was enough to make
mowing the lawn seem like an afternoon of fishing.
All
work is copyrighted property of Jason Stahl.
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