Joe Lansdale - Waltz of Shadows

“What in the hell’s in this bucket?” I asked.

“Terminally spoiled chicken necks,” Arnold said.

“What for?”

“You forgot how to fish for channel cat?”

“Guess I have,” I said. “I don’t think I ever used any chicken necks.”

“I’m surprised,” he said, “that was Daddy’s way.”

“Me and him didn’t fish much,” I said. “When we did fish, we didn’t use chicken necks.”

“That might be because when you were growing up, he wasn’t working at the chicken processing plant where he could get ’em free.”

“I didn’t know he ever worked there,” I said.

“There’s lots of things you don’t know,” he said.

We crossed the junk yard, and I was amazed at all the cars.

“Ugly, ain’t it?” Arnold said.

“Yeah,” I said. “Pretty ugly.”

We came to the creek and worked our way carefully down the bank. Arnold stopped at the edge and watched the water run. It was clear and cold looking and not deep at all. You could see the sand and gravel beneath the water and minnows above that and hardy water bugs swimming about on the surface.

We strolled along the water’s edge, found a narrow place, jumped over, went up the bank on the other side and through the woods. We came to a clearing where the sun was bright and shiny on a pond the color of a dimming hazel eye, and it ricocheted off an aluminum boat turned over and pulled up in the weeds, made it flash bright as the little silver minnows we had seen earlier.

We turned the boat over and put our gear in it, got water sloshed in our shoes as we pushed it onto the pond and jumped inside. Arnold got a paddle out of the bottom of the boat and shoved us into deeper water. I took off my shoes and socks, poured water out of the shoes and wrung my socks out.

“Cozy yet?” Arnold said, as I slipped the socks and shoes back on. “Help me out here, would you?”

I got the other paddle and stuck it into the water and reached the bottom and pushed until there was no bottom to reach. The boat began to drift lazily, gave that strange feeling of being on top of the sky.

“Thing is, Arnold…” I started.

“Not yet,” he said. “Let me be doing something I lisom" wke to do before you talk to me about something that might make me mad. That’s how it’s going to be, isn’t it?”

“I’m not here to make you mad. I need a little advice.”

“Advice?” Arnold said. “That’s rich. Thought you had decided I was a dumb redneck you ought to keep out of your life, lest your wife and kids think I’m kin to them. Which I am, I want to remind you. Just by half, I admit, but kin. You know, I’ve never seen my niece and nephew. Not even a picture. I’ve never had the chance to say more than three words to your wife, who, by the way, is too damn good looking for you.”

He opened the bucket of chicken necks and got one out. The smell was almost enough to make me want to jump and swim for shore. He stuck the chicken neck on the big double crappie hooks and cast it toward a grouping of reeds and water plants. The chicken neck and the hook went in with a heavy splash and sought bottom.

Arnold stuck his hand in the water and sloshed it around, then pulled out a pack of chewing tobacco, took a wad from it and poked it into his cheek. He chewed a few times, looked at me, said, “Go on. Fix up.”

I got the spare rod and looked into the bucket, holding my breath as I did. I didn’t want to get hold of one of those necks. They were a little green looking.

“Damn,” Arnold said. He got one of the chicken necks and fixed it up for me. “Think you can handle the casting part?” he said, “Or you want me to do that too?”

“I’ll do it,” I said.

“Don’t tangle my line,” he said.

I considered whopping him across the back of the head with the heavy rod, but I figured that wasn’t going to repair things between us.

I cocked the rod and flicked my wrist and let the reel spin. My line went way out, almost to the far side of the bank, into shallow water.

“Nothing there,” Arnold said.

“I know,” I said. “I just over cast.”

“Tell me about it.”

I reeled the line back until it was in deeper water, let it hang there. The boat drifted and the sun dipped and the air cooled and a cloud bagged the sun and turned the pond water dark.

“There’s people think fishing for cat is second best,” Arnold said. “Those people are full of shit. There’s people say the only place to catch a good cat is on the river, and they’re full of shit, too.”

“I’ve caught catfish before, Arnold.”

“But you don’t understand the spirit of catfishing, boy. You’re more of a bass man, or a trout man. That’s bullshit. The real stuff, the real essence of fishing is the cat.”

“These days, I’m more of a fish dinner at a restaurant.”

“Figures,” he said. “Thing is, catfishing is like Zen. It’s basic and clean and to the point. A catfish is like nature itself. It just is. It hasn’t got haes, any morals about itself, just blind persistence. It keeps on coming because it doesn’t know anything else and doesn’t understand what it does know.”

“So, you do read those Zen books?”

“Without moving my lips even once, grasshopper. Those Japs have some pretty good thinking going.”

“That’s quite a recommendation. Maybe you could get a job as ambassador to Japan.”

“Zen is good stuff. It calms me. Particularly when I’m in a special kind of mood, like seeing you, and suddenly being overcome with a nonconstructive urge to stomp your ass. Times like that, I like to find my center. Get out here on the water. We fought here, it would turn over the boat. I’d get wet and you’d get wet. I wouldn’t like that. What the fuck do you want?”

“I don’t know exactly.”

“Think it’ll come to you?”

“I want to say I’m sorry,” I said.

“Hey, I feel better. Here we are some thirty years after the fact, and except for ten years ago when I saw you at a funeral, and later when you came by to help me move a fucking chair, we haven’t spoken or had any contact… No, that’s not true. Let’s be fair. You’ve waved at me a couple times in town, I think.”

“That was someone else Arnold. I haven’t seen you in town.”

“Perfect. Pour us up some coffee, would you?”

I put the rod down, poured his into the thermos cup and mine into the spare cup. “I’m going to be blunt with you. I did what I did to you those years ago because I’m a jackass. I didn’t really admit to myself I was a jackass until just the other day. I knew it, but I hadn’t really admitted it. I was young when it happened, Arnold. My judgment wasn’t good… and I do think about you. I just didn’t think there was any use opening old wounds.”

“Boy, I feel better. Things are all right now.”

“I stayed away at first because I was scared, then because I ought to, and finally because I just didn’t know what to say. I made you out to be worse than you are so I could be more than I am. I know I’m a hypocrite, and I know you never said a word to anybody. You just took your medicine and drank mine too.”

“Let’s don’t make that much out of it,” Arnold said. “I’m lucky I didn’t get the pen and a lot more time. What hurts is the way you did me after it was all over. Family ought to mean something.”

We floated for a while. My feet felt very cold. Arnold looked at me sideways. “You know, I rent from one of your stores, one over on Main.”

“I’ve never seen your name on the rental cards,” I said.

“Do you look?”

“No,” I said. “I mainly work at home, in the study. I order movies. Pay bills. Now and then I drive out and check on things.”