Half-a-Mile From the Bridge
By Bob Kamm
This is the day
Jack Bacon
introduces his son, Jackie,
and me, the neighbor boy,
to the trinity
of rod, river and trout
…out of the driveway
in the dark
all three of us smelling
of dreams;
the trip to the Rahway River a mere twenty-minutes
but in the moonless morning
far longer
--a voyage across the Milky Way
into the realm of Orion,
as I doze in the back seat
leaning against Jackie
leaning against me.
A smear of light in the low Jersey sky just above the tree tops
…we reach the bridge
follow Jack
single file
down the slope
to the river’s edge
where tree-tall men in hats and jackets
stand side by side,
the water visible only
in glimpses
between
heavy-denimed trunks.
Jack is our leader
and we are his boys.
He carries the gear.
We carry visions of arched rods
and water giving up its secrets,
visions that sustain us
walking by the
shoulder-to-shoulder giants
who cover every bump and dip of the bank
…Jack’s boys,
hungry to throw worms in water
to trick what he calls
“the wily trout”
…but he keeps walking
and we keep following
until the men thin out
and then
there are no more
between us and the river,
no human forms
or sounds at all,
only what Jack calls “true voices”
--water talking with rocks in its throat,
and wind with branches
and the squirrel with his cheeks full, chittering.
And now,
beside a dark
broad
quiet
pool
he places an upright finger before his lips
and motions with his hand for us to sit
and be still,
sit and be very still,
just as he has taught us the day before
and the day before that,
every day for a week.
Jack Bacon is our man
and we are his boys,
watching as if there’s nothing else on earth
but his thick fingers sifting through
the worm can
to lift out with index and thumb
a fat juicy night crawler that will,
he has assured us, dance on a hook
and curdle the brains of those fish
…thick fingers
the way we hope ours to be when
the distant voices of our own manhood
chase the birds from our throats,
hope on that day we too can find
in one quick sift
the best worm in the can
and hook him three times
so the line of his loop will be too beautiful
for the toughest old trout to resist.
Jack’s words are few and barely spoken
but the favorite is “beauty”
and at seven, I know how to spell
but every time Jack speaks that word
I see b-y-o-o-o-d-i-e in my head.
Three byooodies masterfully looped on hooks
cast to the other side of the pool
gently drawn into the depths.
All we can hear above the sweep of water
is Jack’s breath moving in and out
as he keeps a finger on the line,
studies it out there where it disappears
…we do the same,
hoping to know as Jack does
what is water nibbling
and what the mouth of a fish.
The silence is big
but doesn’t last long
because those loopy night crawlers do their jobs.
The fish go right out of their minds
and into our hands
dancing from dark water
--brookies, browns and rainbows--
their brilliant little brains
overcome.
Jack says, “Byooodie,”
and Jackie says, “Byooodie,”
and I say, “Byooodie”
over and over again.
A single word never felt so good
shooting from the lip.
We get to do a lot of
byooodie-shooting
this morning.
Jack is our man.
We are his boys
as we learn
to not just toss the fish in our creels.
No, he tells us a real man doesn’t want animals to hurt
and shows us the two-fingered
neck-snap
that takes them from misery and fear
in only a second.
Jackie and I study their eyes and actually
see the life shiver and swim
out of them
straight on up to the rivers of heaven.
Time
has been snagged
somewhere on an old log
back upstream
near the tree-tall men
until Jack Bacon whispers, “We’ve got our limit.”
Jackie and I are stunned
to be dropped so suddenly
back into the ticking world.
In silence
we tear open brown paper bags
and chomp down baloney
and peanut butter and jelly,
wiping our mouths
with the backs of our hands like Jack.
We gaze at the river
where it disappears around a bend,
wondering what secrets hold their mouths shut
down there
…yet, we stay silent
as Jack rises with his deep eyes on us
letting us know it’s time to go,
silent still
as we begin the journey back up stream.
Jack Bacon is our man
and we are his boys
--taller than when we got here
what seems like a week ago now
before the secrets came out
and the wisdom came in.
We pass the same few men,
then more and more,
hearing them curse the hatchery
for not putting enough fish in the river,
…still silent
as we stride up the final slope to the car
and get in with our heavy creels.
Then and only then, Jack speaks.
“You boys remember this.
Most of these fishermen are too damn lazy
to walk more than half-a-mile from the bridge.
It’s the same on every trout stream.
It’s the same in life.
So you remember. You remember to keep going
till they thin out and you find your own place.
That’s where the fish will be.
That’s where there’s treasure.”
This is the day Jack Bacon
is our priest
and Jackie and I his devoted,
leaning against each other
in the back seat
dreaming in the humming car
dreaming of the humming stars
across the realm of Orion
homeward…
homeward…to manhood.
C2007 Bob Kamm
