Dangerous Derrick Needs Cash

Chapter One

The World’s Coolest Bike

It was an August Sunday, the summer before third grade.  Just after getting home from church, Derrick and I were sitting on the hard, prickly, brown grass of my front yard.  Derrick reached in his front pocket and pulled out a crumpled ball of paper.  He uncrumpled it, sighed and stared at it for awhile.

“Man, Billy, I gotta get me one of these,” Derrick said as he held up an advertisement for a sporting goods store.

“Weird, you want pink jogging shorts?!”

“No, you dope, this,” Derrick said as he pointed to the bottom of the page.  There, in smudgy full-color, was a picture of a bicycle that was tricked out to look like a Harley Davidson motorcycle.

“Wow, that is so cool.  I want one too!”  Then I read the print under the picture.  “But Derrick, it’s two-hundred and fifty dollars.  You don’t have that kind of cash.” 

“I don’t need that much.  Keep reading.  You can make your own bike look like that with a kit that only costs fifty bucks.” 

“That’s a lot better.  Do you have fifty bucks?” I asked.

“No.  I bet I could get it, though.” 

Chapter Two

The Need for Green

Derrick and I spent several painful minutes thinking of ways to come up with some cash.  We generally considered “thinking” as off limits during summer break, but this was an emergency.  Thinking didn’t seem like it was paying off, so we gave up and just tried wishing and hoping for a while.

After several minutes it turned out that wishing and hoping was going to be the ticket.  Help arrived, and it came in the form of Jim Pounder and his gang.  They weren’t trying to help, but something we heard them say was the answer to our prayers.

“Hey guys, let’s go down to the waterfall where that kid fell off the cliff and broke his back,” Jim said to his gang.  His gang grunted in agreement. “I heard he was down there looking for gold.”

Derrick and I could hear them from over on our side of the hedge that separated my yard from Jim Pounder’s.  I was happy that the bushes hid us from the big kids.  If they had seen us they probably would have practiced their favorite hobby: chasing and pounding me and Derrick.

“Did you hear that?” Derrick whispered to me, as a grin began to grow out toward his ears.

“Ya, I want to go see that waterfall,” I answered.  Derrick and I kept very still and quiet, because we didn’t want to miss anything important about the waterfall.  We were really disappointed later when we found out the guy with the broken back wasn’t there anymore.  The least they could have done was put up a bronze statue where he had fallen.  After all, that was history. 

The waterfall sounded cool enough on its own, but after listening to Jim Pounder and his gang talk, we found a totally perfect solution to our need for cash, too.

Chapter Three

A Possible Solution

“I heard what that kid was doing when he fell down by the falls.  Do you know what it was?”  Jim didn’t wait for his gang to answer, “I heard he found gold down there and had started his own secret mine.”

We didn’t need to hear anything else.  When the big kids headed for the falls, we followed them all the way.  We were very sneaky and careful so they wouldn’t know we were tailing them.  We didn’t want them to “shake us off their trail.” That’s what the bad guys always tried to do in the TV westerns when they were headed for a hide-out or a lost gold mine.

“Billy, we should have changed clothes when we got home from church,” Derrick said while we were hiding behind some bushes.

“You’re right.  My mom’s gonna get mad if I get them dirty.”

“Huh?  No, I mean it’s going to be hard to hide in these white Sunday school shirts.”

The big kids walked a long way out of the neighborhood.  I hadn’t thought you could get that far away from home without taking a car.  After miles of walking, the big kids turned off of the road onto a trail.  The trail went into some woods, but they weren’t our woods.  They were someone else’s woods.  I held back.

“Billy, what are you waiting for?”  Derrick asked.

“I haven’t been in these woods before.”

“Me neither.  Cool huh?” Derrick said as he plunged into the shadows.  We could hear the big kids ahead of us.  They made a lot of noise crashing through the bushes.

            We crept along through the woods behind them. The trail wound through a sea of green ferns under the dark canopy of tree branches.  Not far into the woods, the trail began to follow the twists and turns of a stream that had carved a trench into the forest floor. 

Derrick and I hopped down into the gully with the stream, so we could be stealthier trackers.  As we splashed noisily through the shallow water, clanked over piles of rock and grumbled at tripping over branches, we got closer to Jim and his gang.  From our hidden position, down in the stream bed, we could hear their conversation.  Then one voice raised above the others.

“Boy, I think I’m ready to head home.  If there were any little kids around they might want to follow so they wouldn’t lose their way.” 

“Yeah, I think I’m ready to head home too,” said another voice.  “You’re right, though.  A little kid wouldn’t want to forget how to get home.” 

I silently agreed with the second voice.  It was a good thing there weren’t any little kids around. 

“Yep,” the voice said again, “a little kid sure wouldn’t want to be out here come dark.”

COME DARK! The words screeched through my brain, like a metal rake on a chalkboard.  Derrick and I both stared at each other.  Neither one of us liked the thought of getting caught out come dark.

At the sound of the big kids trudging back through the forest toward the road, we began to scramble to the top of the gully where we had been hidden.  Just before we reached the top, the dirt crumbled and we tumbled back into the stream. 

“It’s a good thing we landed in the water,” Derrick pointed out, “It cleaned most of this red clay out of our white shirts.”

After climbing and tumbling back into the stream a few times, Derrick and I were able to make it to the top.  We turned in the direction the big kids had headed and started to follow.  We couldn’t see them, but luckily big kids are easy to track, mostly by sound and smell.

Chapter Four

A New Direction

Suddenly, Derrick froze.  “We haven’t seen the falls yet.”

“Yeah. That would be embarrassing.”

“Yeah.”

We turned and headed down the path in the opposite direction of home.  Somewhere ahead we knew that we would find water thundering down with rock crushing, and back breaking force onto the boulders below us.

It didn’t take us long to find the falls.  The trail ended at the edge of a cliff.  On our right, the stream that we had been following downhill gushed out of a V-shaped opening in the top of the cliff and crashed into a small pool, fifty feet below us. 

“Wow, that’s awesome,” Derrick said. 

“Ya, wow,” I said.

Next, we did what any boy would do.  We started throwing stuff.  For a long time, we picked up and threw rocks, sticks, and small plants over the edge.  After a while, the thrill of throwing stuff took a break.  Any boy, of any age, will tell you that that thrill never really goes away. 

“You know, Billy, I bet that spot over there by those rocks is where the kid fell,” Derrick said as he pointed.

“I bet you’re right.”

Chapter Five

The Ideas Just Keep Coming

“Wait a minute.  I got an idea.  We could make money being tour guides to show people where he fell.  Like those guys that give tours at the Grand Canyon,” Derrick said.  He was starting to bounce up and down the way he always does when he gets really excited. 

“That sounds like an awesome idea.  How about if we see if we can find the gold first, okay?”

“Okay, we’ll make more from the gold anyway.  Let’s go down in the canyon.  That’s probably where the gold is.”  Derrick wasn’t bouncing anymore, but he was still grinning excitedly.

Half way through our climb down, the dirt crumbled under us and we again tumbled down into the water.

“Hooo Boy, that was fun!  Let’s do it again!” Derrick yelled.  Then he jumped into the waterfall and let it splash down all over him.

“Derrick, wow, your shirt is really clean now!” I said after he stepped out from under the falls.

“That’s neat!  I wonder if it will get even cleaner?” Derrick said and stepped back under the water again.

“Oh man, your pocket tore off,” I said to Derrick when he stepped back out of the waterfall.

Derrick leaned over and picked up the square of fabric that was floating by his knee.  “But look how clean it is.  My mom is gonna be real impressed,” he whispered.

“Wait a minute!  We could make money washing people’s clothes down here.”

“I don’t know, Derrick,” I said slowly, “Maybe we should just keep looking for the gold.”
            “Okay,” Derrick said and then started looking around at the edge of the water. 

“Derrick, do you hear a dog barking?” I asked as I watched Derrick splashing in the shallows.

“Never mind that.  Come here quick,” Derrick said as he motioned me over to him.

“I’m sure I hear a dog.  It sounds like your dog Stinky.”

“So what?  I think I found the gold.”

“You what?  Where?” I said and splashed toward Derrick. 

“Right here.  Look.”  Derrick held out his left hand to show me two shining gold-colored pea-sized nuggets.  “I think there’s more.  Help me find it.”

While we were collecting the nuggets Derrick’s dog, Stinky, came barking and bouncing his way down toward us. 

“Stinky! Get out of the way,” Derrick said as he pushed his German lab-hound to the side.  Derrick’s appropriately named dog, Stinky, soon got tired of trying to see what we were doing and instead started wrestling with the waterfall. 

“Billy, I think we have enough to get those bikes.  Let’s go.”

“I bet you’re right,” I said as I patted my heavy bulging pockets.

“Come on, Stinky.  Let’s go,” Derrick called to his dog.  His pet rushed over to him and jumped his front paws on Derrick’s shoulders and tried to do what looked like a slow dance with Derrick.

“Stinky, knock it off,” Derrick said.  “Hey, Stinky,. . . you’re not stinky anymore!”

“No way,” I said.  I leaned over and took a careful sniff.  “Geez, Derrick.  You’re gonna have to get your dog a new name.”

“I guess so.”

With Derrick’s newly unstinky dog following us, we headed for home.

Chapter Six

That Won’t Work Either?

My dad is really smart.  Sometimes that doesn’t feel like a good thing.  When we walked up my driveway my dad was leaning under the hood of his car doing something to the engine.  We told him what we had been doing and showed him our treasure.

“Well, Bill,” my father said to me, “I hate to be the one to tell you this, but this isn’t really gold.”

“Are you sure, dad?” I whined.

“Aww, Mr. Billy’s dad, it’s gotta be.  We need the cash to buy some really cool bikes.”

“I wish I could tell you different, Derrick, but it is called iron pyrite.  Some people call it fool’s gold.  Don’t feel bad though, it even fools grown-ups sometimes.”

“I don’t feel bad ‘cause I got fooled.  I feel bad ‘cause I wanted that new bike.  Hey, you know what Billy, we could still be tour guides.”  Derrick looked questioningly up at my dad, as if he wanted some support.

“You know, you guys might want to talk to Billy’s mom about that,” my dad said and quickly turned back to work on the car.

“Hi, Billy’s mom,” Derrick said as we walked into my house. 

“Hi, Derrick.  Hi, Billy,” she said as she looked up from reading one of her doctor magazines.

We told my mom our plan to be tour guides.

“Boys, I know how interesting the story about the young man breaking his back is to a couple of eight-year-old boys, but I’m pretty sure you won’t get anyone to pay you to show them where it happened.  Besides, I was working in the emergency room the day that happened.  He didn’t actually break his back.  He cracked a rib, and he is all better now.”

“Oh,” we both said glumly.

“Well, we could still make money washing people’s clothes,” Derrick said.  The excitement was back in his voice.

My mom lifted her magazine back in front of her face.  From behind it we could hear her say, “Maybe you boys should go talk to Derrick’s mom about that one.”

“Hey, mom,” Derrick yelled out as he banged open his kitchen door.  “Mom, where are you?”

“Right here, Derrick,” his mom said tiredly from the kitchen table.

“Mom, we’re gonna make money washing clothes for people.  Then we are going to buy these really great bikes with all the money.  Can we wash clothes for you, first?  Look how white my shirt is.  I washed it myself.  Pretty good huh?”

“Derrick, where is your shirt pocket?” his mom asked.

“Right here,” Derrick said pulling the wadded piece of fabric from his pants pocket. “The waterfall tore it off, but look how white it is.”

Chapter Seven

The Golden Ticket

“Derrick, I am not going to pay you money to tear up clothes.”

“Aww, Mom.  But look how clean it is,” Derrick pleaded.

“I don’t care how…”

Just then Derrick’s dog banged through the kitchen door and jumped up on Derrick’s mom for a wrestling match.

“Derrick!” his mom yelled, “get your filthy dirty stinking dog off me.”  She stopped, sniffed the air, and stared at Derrick.  “Wait a minute.  Derrick, your dog isn’t dirty and stinky anymore.  What did you do?”

“He got cleaned off in the waterfall where we were gonna wash the clothes.”

“Well, that’s something I’ll pay for,” his mom said.  Then she walked to the counter and pulled four dollars out of her purse.  Then she handed two of them to each of us.

“Thanks!” we sang out.

“Billy, are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Derrick said.

“Probably not, but how about if we try to make money washing dogs?”

Half an hour later, we had completed our first advertisement.  It was a hand painted sign that read:

“Dog washing $4.00. 

No extra charge for

Extra stinky dogs.”

Becoming a Man

           Just the other day my roommate, Persephone, said something to which I took a great deal of personal offense.  Typically, I don’t get upset by the things she says about me, as she is quite a kidder.  However, I think she must have experienced a great deal of trauma as a child, because her humor has an overly caustic quality about it, at times.  The reason this little joke of hers caught my ear is that I suddenly realized that I had heard her repeat this same "joke" on numerous occasions. 

There was the appearance of “the joke” at the mall the other day.  Persephone and I had taken her two kids to the mall to play in the Kid Zone.  I was innocently ordering an unruly child to walk the plank, on the big cushiony boat in the kids’ play area, when I heard it.

“I should have only brought two.  Three children are too many for me to handle,” Persephone was saying to a red-faced mom, who sat next to her on the couch area.

As I turned around to point out to Persephone that she had only brought two (she has a little problem with math), I caught her gesturing toward me with her thumb.  As she noticed me eyeing her, she quickly dropped her hand and smiled at me innocently.  I felt like gesturing with something other than my thumb and smiling innocently right back at her.

“Oops, did I lose count again, Ken.”  She said as the other woman barked out a laugh.  It was very unladylike.  It was at this point that I started to realize the problem might be with attitude more than arithmetic, and I decided I would pay a little more attention to Persephone’s comments from that point on.

In that one visit to the mall, the joke cropped up thirteen times.  For criminy’s sake woman, get some new material for your act.  Over the next week, I noticed that her joke had infiltrated every arena of my life.  At the gun range, even the range master seemed to have been infected.

“Hey, hey, Ken.  It’s nice to see you back, Young Fella’.  I guess you did all of your chores around the house, so you got your allowance this week, huh?”

 “Ya, ha, ha.  Give me some shells.” Like I do any chores. 

The infection seems to have spread to my workplace, as well.  Last Wednesday, when I returned to my classroom after recess, one of my students informed me that I had had a call from the office.

“Mr. Goree, the office called and said to pick up your brother and sister; Stephen and Carly from daycare.  What grades are your brother and sister in, anyway?”  I don’t have any young siblings, but I do have two children who answer to those names.

“Never mind.  I think it’s silent reading time?” I said.

After a week of this abuse, I suddenly realized (I’m that smart. I suddenly realize a lot of things) that I should do a bit if deep thinking and contemplation on the topic of my maturity.  Am I a boy, or am I a man?  I thought the answer was obvious, but apparently it isn’t for many of the people in my life.

Being a man of science, I decided to sort through the evidence.  As a beginning point I decided I needed a clear definition of “manhood” to go by.  I tried the online definition, and didn’t like the “humorous” definition of the noun.  I certainly am not something that gets caught in a zipper.

 Webster’s Dictionary was a little too easy, but it had the definition I was going to use: A fully-grown male.

“Ha!” I said pointing to the dictionary that I held toward Persephone.

“To the letter of the law, yes.  In spirit, I don’t think so.  When did you become a man anyway?”

“You don’t really want me to go into that, do you?”

“No really, when did you get to say, ‘Now, I’m a Man.’ When was the point where you really knew your childhood was gone and you were man?”

“Um, I’ll get back to you on that.”  That was tougher.  I didn’t think the dictionary was going to help me answer that.

I climbed into cyberspace and started to look for information on becoming a man.  I found out immediately that I needed to be careful of what I asked for on the internet or I would get a whole lot of information that I couldn’t use in this story.  After a few hours of university articles, encyclopedia articles, and opinion pages, I started to see a pattern forming.  Becoming a man seems to rest on “rites of passage.” 

I want to say now, for the record, my information is from the internet and has not been checked for factuality.  I, personally, am okay with that as I find that they (facts) often get in the way of a good story anyway.  In the research I performed, it was mentioned that usually a period of isolation, often accompanied by fasting, was the first step in the initiation into manhood.  Isolation!  You mean by myself, with nobody else around?  Hot diggity dog! I can do that.  Please let me do that for a while.  A long while.  And you will notice it said often accompanied by fasting; not always; often.  Some Native American tribes go through what is called a Vision Quest; part of which is this period of isolation and fasting.

Then there was the mention of a period of trial.  This consisted of either physical or mental hardship.  In several regions of the world a circumcision is done at the time of becoming a man.  Yowch!  It seems to me that this would be best done to a baby who won’t remember it, and who can’t punch you in the nose if you try.

In another area of the world, initiates into the ranks of men have horizontal cuts gashed across their foreheads.  These leave permanent scars, extend from ear to ear, and go as deep as the bone.  Of course, I do like to play the “My scar’s bigger than your scar” game, but I prefer to get my scars the old fashion way; accidentally through stupidity and negligence.

Then there is the modern version of the trial period.  That’s right, the armed forces boot camps.  In this setting, the recruit is physically and emotionally broken down.  He is then built up to be a man who can defend a nation.

Some regions of the world support the theory that a boy is not a man until he makes his first kill in a hunt.  This symbolizes his being one with the world, and his ability to provide for his family and community.  Until this test has been passed, he may not be permitted to marry.  This seems to me, a really good argument for why men shouldn’t hunt.

I believe that expeditions and adventures fit into this category.  Luckily, I just so happen to have had my share of adventures and expeditions (A&E).  I covered both A and E on a road trip to my cousin’s place in Colorado one summer.
            Then there is phase three of becoming a man; the taking on of adult responsibilities.  At the age of thirteen, a Jewish boy becomes a man and then becomes part of the religious community and prayer.  He is at that point accountable for his actions, and is made aware of his responsibilities.

Some of the times, stages, and situations that I have been through seemed like they were stepping stones toward manhood.  Each of these steps, now that I look back, wasn’t the passage.  There was my first successful hunt.  My first girlfriend, was another step.  Then there was my first job; the driver’s license; being able to vote; graduating from high school; being able to drink legally; graduating from college; getting married; and having kids.  I don’t think any of these moments was my passage.  There was no line I stepped over and, poof!  “Hey look Ken’s a man!”  It just didn’t happen that way.

            One of the articles that I read fascinated me, and I now realize that it explains me pretty well.  The article states that, often without a threshold event, or ceremony, men may carry their adolescence into adulthood.  This is reflected in their behaviors, which other people interpret as irresponsibility.  Here is the best part; this is called “extended-adolescence.”  Is that cool or what?

            I am going to keep this to myself though.  Otherwise, someone might try to give me a “threshold event,” and I would have to start acting responsibly.  I might even stop playing on the climbing toys at the mall. 

            I am glad to have found a reason to be able to blame my extended adolescence on my parents; they didn’t give me a party when I was thirteen.  Do you think 48 is really too late for a bar mitzvah? Skip the bris.  I am especially happy to know what causes the particular condition of “extended-adolescence,” because I want to make sure my son has these threshold events.  After all, when I get old and gray, (older and grayer), I’m going to need someone responsible around to take care of me; and get me to the mall to play on the big boat climbing toy.

            “Argh! Swab the deck ya land-lubber.”

Last Tide

Last Tide

            The fog drifted in ghostly tendrils along the smooth dark waters of the Puget Sound.  Sputterings and rumblings of outboard motors, which pushed wood and metal through the dark, could be heard to mark the passing of unseen numbers of fisherman on the early August morning.  In one such 16 foot aluminum Lund, two men could be seen, illuminated by the white light of a Coleman propane lantern.  One looked on in abject silence as the other, with studied confidence, deftly cut herring at precise angles as he steered with his knee. 

            Small sharp slaps of the water, and the whisper of a fishing knife slipping across a cutting board were, for a brief instant, the only sounds that could be heard.  It was well past the hour of the dead, but perhaps death didn’t carry a wristwatch.  These were the morbid mental wanderings of one man’s mind just before he felt he must shatter the silence or go mad. 

            “I don’t know Marty, I’ve never fished with a downrigger before.” Jim Zahn said, breaking the misty pre-dawn silence of the Puget Sound.  Jim looked on the rugged lantern lit profile of Marty Shore as the man thought this comment over with the apparent depth of an Eastern Sage.  “I’ve always used Pink Ladies.  They take the bait plenty deep for the silvers.”

            As if touched by divine talent, Marty Shore spat a glistening brown stream of tobacco juice in a fabulous arch that passed out of the sphere of lantern light, more than fifteen feet from the boat.  He spoke low, and slow, as he leveled his empty gaze at Jim.  “You tryin’ to teach me how to fish, boy?  In my own boat?  I been feedin’ my family for thirty years outta these waters.  They been eatin’ well too.  Every one of 'em fat.”  The volume of Marty’s voice never changed; it never raised; it never changed pitch, but a cold dread ran all along the length of Jim’s spine all the same.  “You try givin’ me advice again, I’ll kick your sorry Bellevue ass outta my boat, and you’ll be luck I don’t tie you to my anchor line first.”  Marty leaned his compact frame toward Jim.  “Are we clear, Boy?”

            “Uh-huh” was the best response Jim could come up with.  He didn’t think now was the time for anything humorous.  He had been regretting for over an hour that he had begged Marty to take him fishing.  This feeling had just increased exponentially.  He remembered his discussion of the fishing trip with a buddy at work.  Jim had told his buddy how he was going to be learning how to fish “The Sound” from the best.  To this his friend Daryl had responded that the fish were biting so good on the Sound this summer that all you had to do was shake your dick at them and they’d jump in the boat to get at it.  Daryl had insisted that learning a few new fishing tips was not worth spending a day in a boat with the scariest son-of-a-bitch this side of the Mississippi.  Jim was just thinking that he had come to agree with Daryl and was seriously considering faking an appendicitis attack to try to cut the day short with his guide, when the master spoke.

            “Okay, your line’s ready, Boy.  I’ll hook on this weight.  See how you do it?”  Marty didn’t wait for a response.  “Then you loosen up the drag on your real a little.  Yeah, like that.  Now, back off the drag on the downrigger.  Not that much!  Okay, there.  Now, let it bail out until it reads 80.  Then you tighten it back down.  Don’t light up a smoke though.  You’ll have a fish on your line before you could dig that pack of smokes out of your shirt pocket.”

            “Wanna bet?” Jim said, taking a risk and trying to gauge his mentor’s mood. 

            “Ten, or fifty, what’ll it be?”

            “I can’t afford fifty.”  Jim said, not knowing how Marty would react to losing fifty dollars before the sun had even come up. 

            “Okay, Pussy. “  Marty spat contemptuously.  “You’re on.”

            Jim watched as Marty quickly set up his line, and noticed that he didn’t put it into the water.  “Aren’t you going to fish?”

            “Don’t want to get our lines tangled.”

            “So you say.  Here I am coming up on eighty.  There we go.  Tighten it up.”  Jim murmured “Like that?”  He asked and caught the nod from Marty.  Jim decided he’d test Marty’s mood a little farther and was reaching for his Marlboro Lights when the tip of his fishing rod began to dance.

                                    *                                  *                                  *

An hour later, Jim and Marty were setting up to catch their last two silvers.  They had been throwing back “Humpies” left and right, and were sticking to silvers for the day.  It hadn’t even become fully light and the two were about ready to head in with their limits.  Jim, not only had given up his plan to fake appendicitis, but was considering recommending Marty for sainthood. 

Marty had kept them fishing the same area since they started, but now decided to change his tactics for their last two fish.  Jim didn’t see and point, but he had long since ceased to question Marty’s expertise in this fishing expedition.  Jim figured if he wanted to keep his next month’s paycheck, he had better keep his mouth shut.  He was already close to a hundred dollars down from taking Marty’s bets.

The two were making a pass near a buoy a bit south of their previous location and Jim was letting out line.  Marty was holding back on his bait as Jim had noticed him doing all morning.  Suddenly, the tip of Jim’s pole dropped hard.  He turned to give his guide another “well done,” but noticed a strange, anxious look on Marty’s face. 

“That don’t look right,” was all that Marty said.

As he worked at bringing up his catch, Jim said, “This thing must be huge.”  He slowly heaved up on the pole.  Then he let the tip drop as he quickly reeled in, trying to keep up with the fishing line before he lost any headway. 

“No, it just ain’t fightin’ any.  Might even be dead.”

Jim didn’t know why, but he was feeling that prickly sensation along his spine again.  “Should I just cut the line and let it go? If it isn’t anything we want to keep we might as well let it go before we even bring it up.”

“No!  No, we ought to see what it is, at least.”  Jim was thinking this was the first time during the day that Marty had seemed to have gotten riled up.  He hadn’t even wiped that sleepy look off of his face for the last ten strikes.  All of a sudden, a spark seemed to have been lit under him.  Jim guessed that Marty had played the same fishing scenario over and over for the last 30 years without anything out of the ordinary happening.  It must have gotten to the point of being tiresome if nothing unexpected turned up. 

“Don’t jerk up on the line like that.  You’ll snap it.  Just pull up slow and steady.  Let him come up through the water at his own pace.  There you go.”

“Can you see it yet, Marty?”

“Sometimes fishin’ is slow work, son.  Just keep at it.”  Jim wondered at being elevated in rank, in Marty’s book, from boy to son.  “Well I’ll be a son-of-a-bitch.”  Marty shouted.  “Hey, you gotta’ weak stomach?”

“No, not really.”  Jim grunted as he wrestled the weight up with his pole.  “Why do you ask?”

“Cause if you puke in my boat, you’re cleaning it.”  Marty answered, never raising his eyes from the murky green waters of the Puget Sound.”

“I don’t puke.”

“Betcha fifty bucks you do today.”

“You’re on!” Jim spat quickly before Marty could take it back.  He figured he could make back at least some of his losses on the day.  Jim leaned over the side to get a look at what he was bringing up.  He was so shocked at the sight of the shirtless corpse, which looked like it might be a young man, suspended five feet below the surface that he lost hold of the fishing pole he was using.  Through the swirling eddies of plankton and green tinted water, the man’s pants, held up by a black belt, appeared to be a pale green, though Jim assumed they were actually white.  At least, they probably once had been.  Through the imperfect light of the morning the men could not make out any more details. 

Marty sprang from the back of the boat and lay hold of Jim’s pole on the first bounce.  A bloated body doesn’t sink fast, and this one looked as though it might already have been floating up on its own, so there wasn’t much worry that it could have dragged the pole over the side in any hurry. 

“Boy, that’s a $150 setup you almost had to pay me for, alongside the other $150 you owe me.”  Jim guessed he had just lost ground on the Marty respect scale again. 

“Huh. . . $150?  Wait a second.  I haven’t puked.  That’s going to bring me back to 50.

“We’ll see.”  Marty said confidently.  Jim watched as Marty called for Coast Guard help on his radio.  “They’ll be here in about twenty minutes.”

“I heard.” Jim responded.

“Well help me get it in.”
            “What?  No way.  What would you want to do that for?”

“Cause if we lose it before the Coast Guard gets here, they’ll think we made it up, and they might fine us.  I’m not sure you can afford that.  You’ll be eatin’ Top Ramen for the next month as it is.  Hand me that boat hook.  I’ll wrap it around the belt and yank it up.” 

“Okay, but I’m not touching him.” Jim said weakly.

“Whatever you say, Pussy.”  Marty then jabbed the boat hook toward the belt, but the body’s bloated abdomen deflected the pole several times before he got it caught up.  Eventually, Marty was able to bring the body close enough to the boat that he was able to run a length of rope through the belt and secure the body in case they lost their grip on it.  “Okay, now you can cut your fishin’ line”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Let’s stow the gear so it ain’t in our way.  I guess we’re about done fishin for the day.”  After the men had packed away the fishing equipment in the sixteen foot boat, Marty announced that they were going to bring the body aboard.

“What the hell for?”

“We keep it hanging off right here in the open, something’s gonna start trying to snack off it.  You want to tell its family, and the Coast Guard you let that happen?  Don’t worry, Pussy, we’ll loop this rope under the armpits.  You won’t hardly even get your hands dirty.”

After a few minutes, the two, men had the line around the body and were trying to lift it clear of the water.  Jim had worried about it being gross when Marty had insisted on bringing the body in.  Now he realized, it was going to be hard work, too.  The body, which had floated lightly, didn’t seem so light as they tried to lift it up and clear over the gunwale.  The boat tipped, though not enough to put it in danger of flipping.  As the men brought the shoulders above the gunwale, the head flopped toward Jim.  Hearing the clunk of the head against the cold aluminum side of the boat, Jim wondered that the body wasn’t stiff with rigor mortis, like on TV.  Frozen, he stared at the cracked and pale purple blob that had swollen to fill the mouth.  There was a wet belching sound and gas escaped past the tongue, followed closely by an insect that scurried out of the mouth and dropped into the bottom of the boat.  When the sour, sweet smell of decomposition hit him, Jim lost his hold on the body, and lost another bet.

“I guess maybe we better just leave him tied off on the side here until the Coast Guard shows up.”  Marty chuckled darkly past a smirk.  “Gotta’ hand it to ya’.  You didn’t get none of that puke in my boat.”  Tucking chewing tobacco into his lip, with dirty hands, Marty said, “I guess you got time for that smoke now, son.”

Shaker and Rock

Charlie Jansen could feel the cold breeze and spray of salt water splashing up against his face. Through the dense ocean fog he could see the transport boat that was carrying his buddy Aaron. They had grown up together; gone to school together; even went to basic training for the Coast Guard together, and now they were going to be stationed together on the rock, Tatoosh Island. Charlie had arrived a week earlier, and now Aaron was pulling up to the dock. Charlie could see that his lifelong friend had been making his usual amount of friends, in the short ride from Neah Bay, out to the island. One of the deck crew was roughly throwing his duffel bag onto the dock. It looked like he would have liked to throw Aaron out onto the dock, as well.

Over the crash of the waves, Charlie couldn't hear Aaron, but he could see his mouth moving while the men working on the boat rolled their eyes and turned away. Then Aaron looked up to see Charlie on the rail above and waved animatedly. Aaron's bags, and other supplies for the island were loaded in a large metal basket and brought up to the top of the cliff by enormous galvanized hoist. Aaron started up the ladder talking well before he was close enough for Charlie to hear. Charlie knew it didn't matter, Aaron would repeat everything he had said several times. It was his way

"Oh man, this rock is desolate," said Aaron.

"Get used to it, you're going to be here for a while," said Charlie.

"You said there were trees."

"There are. See, there's one over there and one over there."

"Oh man, those aren't trees, those are weeds. I mean being from the Northwest aren't you supposed to know what trees look like? Trees are big things."

"Oh, those kinds of trees? You are going to have to look over to the mainland for those," Said Charlie said while he pointed southeast, over the bluff.

"Well, at least the view is nice from this hockey puck of an island."  Aaron looked around sadly.  "I guess there aren't any girls here either, are there?"

"Not a one."

Aaron reached over the side of the giant metal basket that carried the duffle bag that was his luggage and said, “Well, are you doing to show me around this landfill?"

The men started up the gentle basalt slope toward the light house and research buildings.

"Holy crap, am I seeing what I am seeing?" Aaron said, pointing. From the top of the rise, the men looked down towards the buildings. Moving along a wall and then disappearing around one corner of the building, was a Jack Russell Terrier. With a hopping style of walk, the dog was tipped up on its front two paws, with its rear end up in the air.

"Be quiet, Man."

"What are you talking about man, did you see it, or did you see it."

"Yeah, I saw it, but shut up."

"Why?"

"I'll tell you later. Just shut up."

"Fine," Aaron said, looking puzzled and annoyed.

The men walked down toward the buildings. There was a lean, tan, gray-haired man sitting on a bench, next to the door. As they approached the man looked Aaron up and down. It didn't look like he approved, or disapproved of what he saw. He also didn't look like he was very interested.

"Hey Derek, this is my buddy Aaron that I told you about. Derek Jansen, meet Aaron Blaine.  Aaron, Derek."

"Hi, Derek, it's good to meet you," said Aaron.

"Yup," Derek said. "I can already tell you were right about him, Charlie."

"I often am, Derek," Charlie said, and then putting his hand on Aaron's shoulder, he said, "Follow me Buddy, I'll show you where you’re bunking down."

Charlie pushed open the door and walked in. The room had that tight, musty, sealed-in smell that is usually reserved for junior prisons and junior high buildings. The light that filtered in through the dirty windows did nothing to brighten the heavily painted cement and cinderblock interior.

"So what did you tell Derek about me?"

"I told him you would get on his nerves pretty quick."

"Well thanks a lot, Pal.”

"I was right. That is Derek's dog, and that dog is the only thing he cares about. Don't get me wrong, he is a good guy. He'll treat you better than you deserve, but I'm pretty sure he won't get attached to you. Eric doesn't attached to anyone or anything, except that dog."

"What are you talking about?"

"How old do you think Derek is?"

"About 45?"

"Not even close, Buddy.  Try two decades younger."

"No shit, what happened?”

"Derek has seen a whole lot of hard, in his lifetime. He used to run an auto shop. Owned it, actually. They say he's some kind of genius with a wrench. I don't doubt it.  I've seen him fix everything there is around here in just the one week that I've been here. He got a shop running and open for business before he even turned 18. He got his girlfriend pregnant they got married and had a kid. Heck, they may even have done it in the proper order. Then I guess when the kid was about four, the neighbors pit bull got into the yard and attacked him. That dog broke them up and tore him up pretty bad. It probably would've killed him if it hadn't been for that two legged wonder you saw a few minutes ago. That little Jack Russell was about six months old and it took on that pit bull. Shaker over there, kept that big dog busy until the neighbor on the other side took out the pit bull with his 30-06 rifle.

That poor little kid lasted three weeks. One of his lungs had been punctured, and they couldn't get the infection under control. Derek's wife killed herself with a bottle of vodka and a handful of painkillers a week later.

I guess Derek kept trying to work in the shop, but not long after the accident, he turned the business, house, and everything he owned over to his brother. One day, he climbed into his truck with his dog and headed north leaving Eugene, Oregon behind. Some friend of the family got him the job as the caretaker of this rock, and he's been here for the last two years. He isn't actually an employee of the Coast Guard, or NOAA, he works for the local Indian tribe. Apparently this island belongs to them with an indefinite lease to the US government."

"Damn, how do you live through something like that? I mean, damn! What would you even say to a guy like that?"

"For Christ's sake, don't say anything. If you ever thought there might be a time in your life to shut up, this would be it. Don't ask him about it at all.  If you just go on with your work, and keep your mouth closed, he will talk a little bit. I got the story from Steely."

"Who's Steely?"

“Luke Steele, he's one of the weather guys. He's pretty cool, not quite as dirty as the rest of them.  If you don't get on his nerves, take a salmon fishing. The guy is a fanatic."

"All right, why does that dog walk on its front feet?"

"Broken back."

"That pitbull got him?"

"No, that happened here. Some asshole from one of the local fishing tenders, got tangled up in one of the tsunami warning buoys. He tore up some of his equipment on it, and was pissed off. He broke it loose and brought it here wanting to yell at somebody. I don't know if he is going to do any really hard jail time, but the Feds don't like it when you mess with their equipment. Well, he pulled up to the dock and rolled that 200 pound float off the side of his boat and clipped little Shaker. I guess for a while, Shaker was paralyzed from the middle of his back on down. Derek took care of that little dog, twenty-four seven. At first he would just drag himself around by his front feet, then one day he realized he could get around a lot better, and a lot faster if he just walked on his front feet. It's funny, his back has healed up a bit, so we can walk on all fours again, but most of the time he just tips it up on the front two anyway. You should see that little bastard go up and down stairs." 

"No shit?"

"No shit."

First Step

“I hate it.” Willy screamed at his mother.

            “Honey, Uncle John got it for you.  He knew you wanted a puppy.  He was just trying to help. “

            “It’s a freak.  I don’t want it.”  Willy pushed up against his headboard, kicking his blanket covered leg at the black lab puppy. 

            “Sweety..”

            “I don’t want it.  It’s a freak like me.  Get it away.”

            “I’ll just put it in its bed in the corner, here.”  Jane MacArthur carefully picked up the struggling bundle of happy black fur and chubby folds of skin and tucked it into the dog bed in the corner.

            “Get it out.”

            “I’ll just leave him here while I get you some soup,” Willy’s mom said and quickly exited the room. 

            “No!”

            Willy fixed a malevolent stare at the squirming puppy.  “Stay,” he grumped at it.  At the sound of his voice, the puppy looked up and noticed him.  Big round eyes fixed Willy with a joyous gleam, a pink tongue popped out between smiling lips and the little mass of fur and folds came to life.  “No!  Stay!” Willy yelled as the pup started into motion.  The pup staggered to get out of its bed and fell tumbling out onto the hard, cold oak floor.  Three legs scrabbled on the slick surface as the young lab labored to reach the human.  He could feel the hurt and wanted to make it better.  Try as he might, the pup couldn’t stand on the slippery floor, so he dragged himself.  He had to reach the boy. 

            The long struggle ended at the side of the bed.  Willy’s protests grew less and less as he watched the puppy’s determination.  Willy looked down over the edge of the bed at watery adoring eyes.  He didn’t move.  He just stared quietly.  Eventually, the puppy whined, and again tried to stand, to reach the boy. 

            “I don’t know what you’re whining about.  You got two more legs than I do,” Willy said.  He continued to stare down.  “Oh, fine,” he said reaching down and grabbing the puppy.  His fingers sank into the warm soft wrinkles, which seemed all the puppy was made of.  He could feel the wriggling excitement travel all the way up his arms. 

            “Here’s…” Willy’s mom froze at the doorway.  A tear dripped down her cheek.  There could be so many reasons why.  For now, relief seemed the most likely cause as she looked at her poor damaged son, asleep with a ball of black fur nestled up under his chin.  She didn’t know how long she stood there, but she finally left the room with the lukewarm bowl of soup.  She had seen the puppy’s nose twitch at the smell of the soup and worried that it would break the magical scene she was looked on.

            “John, it’s Jane, “ she spoke into the phone.

            “Ya, what’s up.”

            “We’ll keep the puppy.”

            “Oh, so you don’t think I’m an asshole anymore?  You decided this isn’t a sick joke?”

            “John, I’m sorry.  I didn’t understand.  You should see them.  They’re so beautiful.”

            “I can imagine.”

            “Thank you, John.”

            “I did it for the boy.”

            “I know, but thank you anyway.”

            “You gonna be all right?”

            “Yes.  Yes, I think we will be.”

            “You want to talk about Bill sometime, you let me know. “

            “I will, but not yet.  I’m not ready for that.  I just want to look at Willy and the puppy for now.  I better go,“ Jane choked.

            “You got it, Sis.  You need me, I’m here.”

            Jane hung up the phone, and shaking, slipped down the wall to the cold linoleum floor.  All of her grief and pain, everything she had held in since the accident, came spilling out as she held her palms to her face.

Anastasia

            Long ago, I began my second career, teaching.  There was so much I needed to learn.  I got the job by having developed the reputation in my old job of being able to turn around difficult groups of kids.  Note to self:  When you are hired specifically for your ability to work with difficult students, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!”

            The memories of that first group of kids, the first that I could truly call “my kids,” are still vivid within my aging skull.  One of these young beings, Anastasia, brings a smile to my face every time I think of her.  Well, now I smile; back then I’m sure I walked around with a constantly surprised and frustrated look on my face.  

            Annie was an exceptionally brilliant young lady, and because of this I held her to a higher standard than the rest of the class.  She was also more mature than the average sixth grade student, particularly in the way she liked to dress.  

            From the first writing assignment, I knew Annie had a gift with words.  She was clear, precise and could unveil “her” world to her audience.  That is where the trouble began.  Once I saw what Annie could do, I wouldn’t accept second best.  Most of the rest of the class was starting the year with average, to sub-average writing ability and I expected them to do their best and progress.  I wanted the same from Annie, but that meant more effort than she was willing to give.  She felt the higher expectation was unfair, especially when I handed work back for her to redo.    

            Our relationship was punctuated with misunderstandings.  The first thing I misunderstood was Annie’s morning behavior.  I knew that she was on the swim team, and when I was a kid swim teams worked out in the morning.  When Annie would walk in at the beginning of the day with wet hair, I assumed that she had just finished practice.  

            I am an extremely energetic morning person, and Annie was extremely not.  Each wet-haired morning, at 9:00am, Annie would trudge into the classroom, shoes scraping along the tight-knit carpet, hunched over, head down, her wet, dark-brown hair pinned back except for one long, beautiful, corkscrew curl dangling over her left eye. I would assume that she had been up exercising for hours and that her entry behavior was simply her way of expressing a bad attitude.

            I would greet Anastasia loudly and enthusiastically, trying to get her energized for the day. 

            “Good morning!” I would boom to Annie each morning, trying to get her energized for the day.  “Aren’t you excited to be alive?”  I had no idea that my enthusiasm was considered borderline torture by my 12-year-old zombie. 

            “Unnngh.”

            “Come on Annie, it’s a great day!”

            “Unnngh.”

            “Annie, before you start your morning work, look over your exposition paper.  I put it back on your desk. There are a few things you need to give a little more attention to.”

            “What, again?  You have to be kidding,” Annie bellowed with her first real words of the morning, her long curl whipping over as her head snapped up.  

            “Nope, not kidding.  Give it a look over.  You’ll be able to find the problems pretty easily.”

            I agreed to wait until well after 10:00am to focus my peppiness on Annie.  At her conference, I also brought up the lack of modesty in the way Annie dressed for school.  Her mom suggested that I let her express her individuality through her wardrobe choices.  I suggested that I would hold Annie accountable to the school dress code, which would mean she would either be sent home or have to cover up with ugly old sweats from the nurse’s office if her wardrobe choices did not begin to cover more skin.  That did not improve my popularity with the family.  Annie tested me on that policy throughout the year, always choosing the ugly sweat option over the calling for a ride home option.  

            In the springtime, we had the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program in our school.  The culmination of the program was the “DARE Essay Contest,” which was an expository piece stating the student’s resolve and plan to resist drugs and alcohol.  No matter what I did to inspire Annie to do her best, she continued to turn in work far below her ability.  I think the essay contest was where she had decided to “make her stand” against higher expectations. I handed Anastasia’s work back to her time after time; close to 20 rewrites.  Eventually, someone must have convinced her that she might want to go outside with the rest of the girls instead of rewriting an essay over and over during her recess.  The final product was outstanding.  

            Annie won the essay contest.  There were no other papers near the quality that she had created.  The DARE officer then sent the essay off to the National Headquarters, where it was recognized as exceptional. 

            In the years since, Annie has continued to send Christmas cards and presents.  When she graduated from high school she had to submit an essay as part of the application process for a college scholarship.  The paper was to be an exposition about someone that was influential in her life, and that person was me.  

            Annie wrote, “I wish I had realized he was helping me.  I thought he was hard on me because he didn’t like me.”  Annie candidly talked about the rough times we had together, and thanked me for not giving up on her or letting her do less than her best.  She said she knew how that had made a positive impact on her life and character.  

            I believe I taught Anastasia to be her best.  I know she taught me to be a better teacher.