Back Cast
The gravel crunched under the truck tires as I pulled into the farm drive that led up to my parents’ house. I had not seen them in some time. In fact, I had been neglecting my duties as a son for years. What good on earth is a son who doesn’t even check on his parents? By what metric is a man counted among his peers if not by how decent he is to those who gave him life?
At the time my life was falling apart, and in the fray I could see no one there but myself, no one holding out a hand, though they tried. I was blind and prodigal, led to their house this day not by desire or love, but by the guilt of being gone so long.
“Would you like to go fishing, son? I have some time.”
The phone call had shocked me, and the content wiped away the selfish annoyance at having received it in the first place. He had bought waders and a rod, and he had bought me those things too, see, as an early Christmas gift. I was stunned. My father was generous with gifts, often, but not so much with thoughtfulness. That he had kept close to the vest like a dangerous secret for many years. I let the truck idle as my thoughts ran, and I waited for him to come out and meet me. He was a prompt man, and as soon as the clock showed six, he came out of the door and put on his cap, and walked towards me.
He was a larger than life figure, a Bunyan of a man who loomed tall and strong in my mind, replaced like a changeling before my eyes with a man of middling height and weight, balding, seemingly normal to the core. But I was not deceived; I knew that in there was a heart that beat strong and prideful, that pushed him to ever increasing heights and expected nothing short of the best from those around him. It was a once hard heart, softened by the years and mother’s illness, and that reckoning of time we must all face.
My father had a bad stretch of years, as his father had before him, and his before him. It was a legacy of ours, fueled by alcohol and anger, an issue of the mind passed down like an heirloom that was a slow smoldering flame that leapt fast and hot when least expected. There were many years where I not so much idolized as feared the man, and now I sat still and anxious in the driveway wondering about my own hard stretch of time that was coming to fruit.
He told me stories as we drove up the mountain; that one time he and his sisters were beaten for jumping and dancing on the hood of grandfather’s old Ford. The old classic about the time my grandfather threw a two by four at my dad for taking up for his younger sister. The time he got so angry he punched a window…a window!
“The blood was everywhere son, I mean everywhere…”
He laughed as he told tales and I realized in that moment that the old adage is true; sometimes if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry. The curves got a little sharper above Mountain Rest proper and I had to focus more on the drive.
“Was it really like that?”
He looked out the window and said quietly, “oh yeah. Oh yeah.”
I wondered as we took the curves slow and steady, about legacy, about what we leave behind in our wake. What would mine be? Would my own son be nervous in my presence as we drove up a mountain in late Fall one day? Would he wake up in the night sweating? What was he to inherit from me? Some things we get that we never expected, and certainly never asked for.
“We’re close,” he said.
The Highway 28 bridge was near, and I slowed around the last curves that took us by the old Russell place, and I hoped in vain that the tiny parking lot at the bridge would be full, and that we would turn back. As we approached I saw that this would not be the case, and eased the truck into the gravel lot and parked. We got out, wordlessly, and put on our gear. Walking was now in order.
“You know,” he said, “I remember this place well. My father used to bring us here in the summer, to fish on the rocks in the middle of the river while he snuck away to old man Oliver’s house for a taste.” He laughed.
My father was a lifelong teetotaler, a hatred of alcohol born of his father’s rage and the sip of beer he stole from him one night as he lay drunk, an eight year old’s introduction to the fruits of the barley. It did not go well then, and it clung to him his entire life. He thought that denying that baser call to the whiskey and beer and homemade wine of his relations would save him from the demons. But the devil knows tricks far exceeding what little brews man can make.
I laughed too, at the thought, and listened.
“Yeah old man Oliver was something else I tell you.” He paused. “He was a good man really. Put his children through Clemson by himself, by farming and running a little liquor on the side. How else could he make it? You had to sell corn by the jar in those days to get anywhere.”
I looked him over as we started walking, him still chatting away.
“Four kids I think it was. I think they went on to do things you know? What a feller. Nothing but his bootstraps and a knack for farming tall corn right here on the riverbank. Wasn’t any national forest then, no Wild and Scenic protection. Just corn fields, all the way up to near the water. Right over there mostly.”
He pointed and I eagerly followed his finger with my eyes. The fields took a turn downward away from the river and the trees there were small, maybe a few decades old, children compared to the tall hardwoods that dominated a treeline some distance away, and they babes compared to the hemlocks that grew up near the top of Russell Mountain; the old gnarled roots having chewed at the earth for eons now. I listened as the winds swept down the hillsides and across the gentle water, the river presenting as a meandering stream, belaying not the torrent that would find you a mere few miles downstream. But here she was peaceful, at one with the breeze and the hemlocks and the trout splashing in the quiet green pools that formed lazily at the end of gentle shoals. The trout…
“Hey Dad, let’s fish.”
He looked at me and smiled. “Good idea.”
We walked what felt like a long way along the river bank, the grass low and pleasant in the Fall dew. The morning was breaking gently with a light mist over the river, the cool water air rising up and meeting our faces. It was then that I realized there was no place like this in the lovely South, no river so raw and powerful yet forbearing. This water flowed in my veins. We McCalls have lived on, farmed next to, and died by this river since the early 1800s. I knew the first time I saw her that it was love, but this day I felt the call stronger than most.
We finally came to the bend in the river that just felt right, and we waded in. The water slid smoothly past my waders and I started to cast. My form was poor and I worked to get my back cast just right, to feel that point where I knew I had to go forward instead of relying on what was behind me. I tried again, and again, and suddenly felt the arrest of the hook caught in something at the river’s edge. I cursed under my breath and headed over to get unstuck. I looked over and saw my dad struggling to walk across some unsteady rocks. We were a sight to be seen.
I had long been what some fisherman called a “corn chucker,” and in reality had used a simple rod with simple lures with silly names like “trout assassin” or some such variety of rubber minnow-like creatures. I had pulled many trout from local fishing holes, and knew the area somewhat well. This new foray into a more time-honored method of tricking fish held a mystical allure coated in frustration. I was learning, and so was Dad, but the curve was a bit steep. Eventually we both got ourselves straightened out, and we even managed to get some small rainbows on the line. The day moved on.
For lunch we ate a fisherman’s delight; a few packs of crackers and some pickled eggs, a timeless classic. We spoke little, but the company was nice and the breeze was still cool. He told me more about sitting on the large rocks that dotted the river and fishing with his brother. His brother had passed on a few years earlier from the ravages of lung cancer, something that had been especially hard on my father. My uncle Calloway had inherited some of his father’s demons as well, but in his later days was a genuine and kind hearted man with a deep but gentle voice. He always had a kind word for me at family gatherings, and as we sat there near the river, I realized I missed him.
After lunch we fished again, with some success. A nice little Rainbow decided to grace me with its presence, and Dad actually pulled a sweet looking Brookie out of the water. I noticed as he grinned over an upraised net that he was as native to this place as the fish; sometimes wild, sometimes content to hang simply in slow, deep green pools. After that the fishing slowed considerably, and we decided we had had enough. We pulled out and headed back down the trail, laughing over missed fish and some amount of time spent in the trees. We were both new to this, and it showed.
We wound our way back down the mountain, a few words passed between us. I pulled into the gravel drive and he sat for a minute before getting out of the truck. He didn’t say anything at first and as the silence became awkward, I felt and searched for something to say to break it. Finding nothing, he finally said:
“That was fun, son.”
“I think so too.”
“Caught a few fish anyway, didn’t we?”
“Yessir”
The silence returned for a bit, then he popped open the passenger door, and as he stepped out he said:
“Love you son.”
“Love you too Dad.”
He nodded and went into the house, me noticing that he moved just a bit slower than he used to. As I pulled out of the driveway and onto the road I thought about our new gear and learning to use it, about Mr. Oliver and corn whiskey and blowing grass near the meandering water. I thought about how poorly the fishing went and how much we had to learn.
We’ll keep trying.