Nancy A. Collins, page 25
“Like, pretend you been savin’ up all your money. Putting a little bit aside for years an’ years, so’s you can get yourself a nice doublewide, with one of them wrap-around decks you can barbecue on, and be able to put it in a nice park, like the ones where there’s trees and grass instead of gravel an’ dirt. Then, after scrimpin’ and savin’ and workin’ yourself damn near to death, you come home and find someone’s been into your savings jar. And when that someone comes back, he’s stinkin’ drunk and drivin’ a shiny new pick up and towin’ a brand spankin’ new bass boat. That would be worse than standin’ in the cold waitin’ on the bus, don’t you think?”
“I reckon so.”
“You can let me out here.”
I pulled off onto the shoulder, the gravel crunching under the tires. I glanced through the windshield at the shadowy collection of decrepit trailer homes set a couple hundred yards from the highway.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to drop you off a little closer to home?”
“It’s okay. I live right there.” She pointed to a trailer with a sagging screen door, cinder block front step, and a shiny new pick-up truck with a boat hitched on its rear bumper.
As she climbed out, I leaned across the front seat and looked up into her face. “Are you gonna be alright, lady?”
She smiled, and it completely transformed her face. The result was startling-like your aged auntie flashing a beautifully proportioned calf encased in a sheer black stocking.
“Oh, I’m gonna be all right. There’s no need to worry about rue,” she said with a laugh. “Thanks for the ride, mister.” And with that she shut the passenger door, turned, and walked up the gravel road that lead to the trailer park.
I sat there for a long moment, wondering if she knew I’d seen the handle of the butcher knife sticking out of the corner of her purse. For all I knew, she carried it every night for protection while waiting on the bus.
As I threw the car back into gear, I thought about what she’d said, and decided that if there’s one thing worse than a shattered dream, it’s a pissed-off dreamer. As no doubt someone was going to be finding out real soon.
Nice bass boat, though.
CATFISH GAL BLUES
Flyjar is the kind of Southern town where time doesn’t mean much. Maybe that’s because there’s little in the way of change between the seasons-the difference between winter and summer a mere fifteen degrees on average. And when you’re as poor as most folks in Flyjar, there isn’t a whole lot of difference between one decade and another-or century, for that matter.
The two constants in Flyjar are poverty and the river. The town clings to the Mississippi like a child to its mama’s skirt, and its fortunes-for good or ill-have been tied to the Big Muddy tighter than apron strings. At one time it had served as fueling stop for the riverboats that once traveled up and down The Father of All Waters. But those days were long gone, and all that remained of “the good old days” were some deteriorating wooden piers along the riverbanks.
Since most of the wharves extended several hundred feet into the river, there were plenty of crappies, channel cat and garfish free for the taking, provided you had the know-how and patience to catch them, as Sammy Herkimer, one of Flyjar’s better fishermen, was quick to tell anyone who’d listen.
There were several docks to choose from, but Sammy’s favorite was the one at Steamboat Bend. It was a mile or so from town and, because of that, was not in the best of shape. Since that meant keeping an eye on where you walked, not many of the locals used it, which suited Sammy just fine. Then one day, while he was sitting on the dock, sipping iced tea from a thermos, he was surprised to find himself joined by, of all people, Hop Armstrong.
Hop was the closest thing Flyjar had to a fancy man, since the good Lord had seen fit to bless him with good looks, but had skimped in the ambition department. When it came to playing guitar and getting women to pay his way, Hop was second to none. But when it came to physical labor …well, that was another story.
“Lord A’ mighty, Hop!” Sammy proclaimed, unable to hide his surprise. “What you doin’ here? Someone set fire to your house?”
“You could say that,” Hop grunted. “My woman said I had to bring home supper.”
“That a fact?” Sammy said, raising an eyebrow.
Hop’s most recent sugar mama was Lucinda Solomon, the proprietress of the local beauty parlor. Lucinda was a good-looking and well-to-do, at least by Flyjar’s standards. She was also notoriously strong-willed, and rumor had it that in living off Lucinda, Hop had finally met up with something approximating hard work.
Sammy glanced at the younger man’s gear, noting with some amusement that while Hop had remembered to bring along his guitar, he hadn’t bothered to pack a net. He returned his gaze to the river, shaking his head. After a lung stretch of silence between the two, the older man spoke up abruptly.
“You know why they call this stretch of the river Steamboat Bend, Hop?”
“I figgered on account of it bein’ a bend in the river and there was steamboats that used to come down it,” he replied with a shrug. “That’s part of it, but it ain’t the whole reason. A long time ago there was this big ole paddleboat that used to cruise up and down the river called Delta Blossom. She was a real fancy pleasure boat, with marble mantelpieces and crystal chandeliers and gold door-handles. When folks heard Delta Blossom was coming, they ran from the houses and fields to watch her pass. Anyways, one day, without any warning, Delta Blossom went down with all hands right about there,” Sammy said, gesturing towards the middle of the river.
“Why did she sink?” Hop asked, a tinge of interest seeping into his voice.
“No one’s rightly sure. Some said the boilers blew out th’ side of the boat. Some said there was a fire below decks. Maybe it got its hull punched open by a submerged tree. Who can really know, after all this time? But my old granny used to swear up and down that Delta Blossom was scuttled by catfish gals.”
Hop scowled at the older man. “You funnin’ with me, ain’t you, Sammy.”
“No, sir, I ain’t!” he said solemnly, shaking his head for emphasis. “Before there was any white or black folk, or even Indians living in these parts, there was catfish gals here. They live in the river, down where it’s muddy and deep. They got the upper-parts of women and from the waist down are big ole channel cats. They keep their distance from humans, and, for the most part, are peaceful enough. Some folks said the catfish gals sank the Delta Blossom on account of one of them gettin’ caught in the paddlewheel and crushed.”
Hop turned to fix the older man with a curious stare. “You ever seen one of them catfish gals, Sammy?”
“No, I ain’t. But I ain’t gone lookin’ for them, neither. But my granny said they was why no one ever finds folks who are fool enough to go swimmin’ in the river. They take the drowned bodies and stick `em deep in the mud, until they get all blote up. That way their flesh is easier to eat…”
Hop grimaced. “Hush up about that! Its bad enough my woman’s got me out here without you goin’ on about catfish eatin’ daid folks!”
“Sorry. I didn’t realize you was sensitive on the subject.” After another stretch of silence, Sammy nodded towards the guitar. “So-if you’re here to fish, why the git-box?”
“Man can do more than one thing at a time, can’t he?”
“I reckon so-but I don’t recommend it. You’ll scare off the fish.”
“Mebbe I’ll just charm me a catfish gal instead,” Hop grinned.
“If anyone could, I reckon it’d be you,” Sammy sighed as he reeled in his line. “Well, I caught me enough for one day. I better get on home so’s I can clean this mess of crappies in time for supper. Good luck on charming them catfish gals, Hop. Y’all take care.”
“Y’all too, Sammy,” Hop replied absently, his gaze fixed on the river.
000
Hop had to admit that being out in the sunshine on a day like today wasn’t all that bad. It wasn’t too hot and there was a nice breeze coming off the water …plus, there was the added advantage of being out of his woman’s line-of-sight.
Lucinda was far from an easy woman to please, and an even harder one to live with when riled. And she was most always riled. Hop knew the signs well enough by now to realize that his days of leisure at the feisty Miz Solomon’s expense were drawing to their close, but he didn’t like to jump ship unless he had a new girlfriend lined up. Unfortunately, for a man of his tastes and inclinations, Flyjar didn’t have much in the way of available lady folk for him to choose from-so it looked like was going to have to make do with Lucinda for awhile longer. At least Steamboat Bend was remote enough that the chances of Lucinda actually finding how hard he was-or wasn’tworking at making sure there would be supper on the table come sundown were in his favor.
Hop pulled a forked stick from his tackle box and wedged it between the loose planks of the dock. After baiting the hook, he cast the line into the murky waters and propped the reel against the stick. Keeping one eye on the bobber, Hop leaned against the nearby wooden pylon and picked up his guitar.
There was not a time in his memory where music didn’t come easy to him. Ever since he was knee-high, he’d been able to make a guitar do whatever it was he wanted of it. It’s pretty much the same with women, too. Playing guitar came as natural to him as breathing and eating-and felt a lot more pleasant than chopping cotton or driving a tractor.
Hop scanned the deceptively calm surface of the river. It was so wide the current’s strength was difficult to gauge with the naked eye. The only way to figure out just how powerful the river truly was by the sire of the driftwood and the speed at which it went past. There were days when full-grown oak trees raced one another to the Gulf of Mexico. Today was relatively placid, with only a few deadfalls the size of railroad ties headed down river.
Hop found his mind turning once again to the story Sammy had told him. Not about the catfish gals-that was pure hokum if ever he heard it. What piqued his imagination was the Delta Blossom. Hop wondered what it must have been like back in those days, when the steamboats cruised the river, bringing glamour and wealth to pissant little towns like Flyjar.
To think that one of the grandest of the old paddle wheelers had come to its end a stone’s throw from where he was sitting, taking its entire splendor to the Mississippi’s silty floor. All Hop had ever seen gracing the river were flat-bottomed barges and the occasional freighter or small leisure craft. These were hardly the kinds of boats that sparked the imagination and quickened the heart. Folks didn’t flock to the levees just to watch a barge pass by.
Hop wondered if there was still anything left of the old Delta Blossom at the bottom of Steamboat Bend. There was no way to know. What secrets the river held it did not give up readily. Still, it didn’t keep him from idly hoping to spot the sunken pleasure ship’s outline.
In his mind’s eye, he could see the long-lost floating pleasure palace, white as new cotton with towering double-smokestack puffing away like a rich man’s cigars as she made her way along the Mississippi. He could picture the southern belles in hoop skirts lining the ship’s second story promenade, silk fans fluttering like caged birds, while riverboat gamblers in pristine linen suits and wide-brimmed hats tossed silver dollars and gold-pieces onto the felt of the gaming tables. Hop saw himself dressed like Clark Gable in Gone With The Wind tipping his hat to the young ladies of fashion gathered in the Delta Blossom’s grand salon for the evening’s entertainment. What a swath he could have cut back then!
As his well-dressed phantom-self began to dance underneath the swaying crystal chandeliers with a young woman who looked a great deal like Vivienne Leigh, Hop’s nimble fingers were quick to provide the music. Granted, Goodnight Irene wasn’t around at the time, but it was his daydream, after all, wasn’t it?
As he played, a sudden movement in the middle of the river caught Hop’s eye. From where he was sitting, it looked as if a swimmer had surfaced in the middle of the bend, near where Sammy said the Delta Blossom had gone down, then just as quickly submerged. But that was impossible.
Swimming in the Mississippi was only slightly less hazardous to your health than brushing your teeth with lit dynamite. Every so often some fool would get drunk enough to try and swim the river—and disappear without a trace ten feet from shore. If the family were lucky, the body would turn up a few days later, fifty miles down stream, snagged in the branches of a tree on the flood plain, looking more like a drowned pig than a human being. But what Hop saw hadn’t looked anything like a floater popping to the surface. For one thing, it stayed in one place and didn’t follow the current. Hop shaded his eyes against the sun, trying to get a better look, but there was nothing there. His attention was brought back closer to shore as the bobber on his line registered a strike. Hop dropped his guitar and snatched up the fishing rod, reeling in a ten-pound catfish.
It looked like Lucinda wasn’t going to have anything to scold him about tonight that much was for certain.
But as he headed back home, his fishing pole draped over one shoulder and his guitar slung over the other, Hop couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched-and by something besides the catfish hanging from his belt.
000
That night as he was lying in bed, Lucinda snoring beside him, Hop got to thinking.
Maybe what Sammy Herkimer said about catfish gals wasn’t all hogwash after all. He remembered reading in one of them yellow-backed magazines down at the barber shop about some kind of fish everyone thought was extinct being found in some foreign country a few years back. Besides, who was he to decide there weren’t no such things as catfish gals, when he didn’t know a soul who’d been to the bottom of the Mississippi and lived to tell the tale?
The very next day Hop went fishing without Lucinda telling him to. He decided to try his luck again at Steamboat Bend. When he arrived at the dock, he was relieved to find he was alone. Hop set himself up on the dock just as he had the day before, but after a half-hour of sitting and waiting for something to happen, he put down the fishing rod and picked up his guitar to pass the time.
Halfway into “Moanin’ at Midnight”, Hop heard what sounded like a fish slap the water near the pier. When he glanced up to see what had caused the noise, what he saw caused him to nearly drop his guitar into the water below.
There was a human head bobbing in the water a hundred feet away from the dock. At the sound of his astonished gasp, the head ducked back down beneath the muddy surface without leaving so much as a ripple to mark its passing. Just as suddenly, there was a strike on Hop’s line so powerful it nearly yanked his fishing pole into the river.
000
Although Lucinda was extremely pleased with the fifteen-pound catfish he brought home that evening, Hop didn’t say anything about what he’d seen on the river. Something told him that whatever it was that was out at Steamboat Bend was best kept to himself.
The next day Hop didn’t even bother casting his line into the river. He knew what was drawing the thing in the river to the dock, and it sure as hell wasn’t the shiners he was using for bait.
He made his way to the very end of the landing, careful to avoid the loose and missing planks, and sat so his legs dangled over the edge. After a moment of deliberation, he decided “They Call Me Muddy Waters” would be an appropriate choice.
Just like before, the thing surfaced halfway through the song. Hop’s heart was racing so fast it was hard to breathe, but he forced himself to keep playing. He didn’t want to scare it off, so he kept playing, switching to “Pony Blues” once he’d finished with his first song.
While he played, Hop kept his head down, ignoring his audience as best he could. As he launched into ”Circle Round the Moon” he risked glancing in the thing’s direction, only to discover it was almost directly underneath his dangling feet, staring at him with big, dark eyes that seemed to be all pupil.
Hop was surprised at how human the catfish gal looked. From what Sammy had said, he’d pictured a fish in a fright wig, but that wasn’t the case. Hell, he’d seen worse looking women in church.
Her upper lip was extremely wide, with the familiar whiskers growing out of them, and she had slits instead of a nose, but outside of that she wasn’t too ugly. Her hair was a real mess, though, with everything from twigs to what looked like live minnows caught in the tangled locks. He couldn’t see much of what she looked like below the waterline, although he did glimpse vertical slits opening and closing down the sides of her neck.
Hop couldn’t help but smile to himself when he saw how the catfish gal looked at him. Half-fish or not, he knew what that look meant on a woman’s face. He had her hooked but good and now was as good a time as any to reel her in
Hop looked the catfish gal right in the eye and smiled. “Hello, lit’l fishie. You come to hear me play?”
The catfish gal’s dreamy look was replaced by one of surprise. She glanced around, as if confused by her surroundings, then shot backwards like a dolphin walking on its tail.
“Please stay! Don’t go!” he shouted, stretching out one hand to her retreat.
To his surprise, the catfish gal came to a sudden halt, regarding him curiously, bobbing up and down in the Mississippi, as easily as a young girl treading water in a swimming pool.
“You ain’t got nothin’ to be scared of, lit’l fishie,” Hop said, smiling reassuringly. “I ain’t gonna hurt you none. Do you want me to play some more for you?” he asked, holding up his guitar.
The catfish gal nodded and lifted a dripping arm and pointed at the guitar with a webbed forefinger. Hop smiled and obliged her by picking up where he had left off on “Goin’ Goin’ Down Slow “.
By the time the sun was starting to go down, Hop’s hands were cramping and his fingertips bloody. He’d played a little bit of almost everything -blues, bluegrass, honky tonk, camp songs, even a couple of nursery songs-trying to figure out what the catfish gal liked and didn’t like: turned out she was partial to the blues-which made sense, seeing how the blues was born on the banks of the Mississippi.
