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Although I grew up in an area world famous for its fish­ing, my father would wake us up every Sun­day morn­ing in the spring to drive 60 miles to a small lake with very few fish. My brother may not see him­self as the nar­ra­tor, but I bet he will rec­og­nize his thumb.

Do you remem­ber the first time you caught a cat­fish? How about the first time a cat­fish caught you? I do. I have a inch-long scar under­neath my thumb­nail to remind me of how I once wres­tled with both a mud cat and my faith in my daddy. I had just turned twelve, and Daddy packed the fish­ing rods, my lit­tle brother Coby, me, and a dozen bologna sand­wiches wrapped in a bread bag into his Ford truck. About four in the morn­ing, he had woke us up with, “Hey boys, you going fish­ing?”

Like we had some kind of choice. By 4:30, Daddy had us and the bologna sand­wiches headed south on High­way 127 toward Gads­den, Alabama. I was itch­ing to go fish­ing, but Coby just slumped down in the front seat of the Ford, shiv­er­ing in his jacket and slob­ber­ing on my shoul­der. When my shoul­der got too soaked, I’d shove him toward Daddy. Coby’s lit­tle fat face would root around on the seat like a blind mole until he found Daddy. If Daddy got too wet, he’d send him back towards me. This game of Coby ping-pong would go on for at least an hour. We were not what you’d call full of moth­erly affec­tion.

Finally, Daddy would bark at Coby, “Boy, you bet­ter sit up and take off that coat. You’ll be cold down by the water and won’t have noth­ing to put on.”

Coby would sit up, squinch up his mole eyes, then shuck his jacket. It just so hap­pened that this par­tic­u­lar trip, our Uncle Hol­land, our cousin, Floyd Lee and his friend Tater would be meet­ing us at the lake. They was trav­el­ing in Holland’s land-boat, an Oldsmo­bile Delta 88.

When we got to the fish­ing hole at Cedar Bluff, we stopped at the bait and tackle shop and waited for Floyd Lee and them. The sun had just come up, ugly and gray, when the Delta 88 pulled up.

Uncle Hol­land got out, took a deep swig of the Alabama morn­ing and his flask. “Ah, smells like morning.”

I took a sniff. “Smells like dead fish to me.”

Daddy handed me the min­ner bucket. “Get eight dozen, Small John.”

Me and Floyd Lee, who was my age but smaller, waited out­side, help­ing the man count out the min­ners. Floyd Lee had on a flan­nel shirt rolled up at the sleeves. His blonde hair was greased down with Bryl­cream and tucked behind the ears, he combed it about forty times before the min­ner bucket was full. Then we went inside to grab us a Co-cola and some pork skins. Tater come into the store wear­ing this big old heavy overcoat.

“He’s going to get cold by the lake, with that thing on,” I told Floyd Lee.

“Naw,” he said. “He just wears it to go shopping.”

Daddy hollered from the counter, “You boys ready?” He had a six-pack of Schlitz and Coby ready to go.

I put my stuff on the counter and whis­pered some­thing to Coby, who was look­ing puz­zled over at the girlie mag­a­zines behind the counter. Just I was about to kid Coby about it, I saw Tater load­ing the lin­ing of his coat with Fun­yons and Cokes. My mouth just plopped opened, I was so shocked. Tater wasn’t much older than Coby and already he’d left the path of the straight and nar­row to become accom­plished in the ten-finger dis­count. They’d always said Tater was the black sheep of the fam­ily, but I thought they meant his com­plex­ion. I didn’t know he had sticky fin­gers, too.

“Daddy,” I said, “look here.”

Daddy watched Tater steal some Deb­bie cakes, I swear he did. But he didn’t say noth­ing, only picked up the bag.

“Grab them min­ners, Small John. Sun’s about up.”

“Coby,” I hollered.

He fol­lowed me out like a fat half-drunk lem­ming. All the while, I was think­ing about Daddy not say­ing noth­ing to Uncle Hol­land. I couldn’t fig­ure it out. My daddy weren’t no Abe Lin­coln, that’s for sure (he wasn’t that hand­some, for one), but he’d always told me to be hon­est. Then he goes and does some­thing like that–let’s Tater steal with­out a word. Now, was that what Hon­est Abe would’ve done? I decided my daddy was a hyp­ocrite, no two ways about it. Though that deci­sion changed the way I looked at him, it did not, mind you, change my desire to go fish­ing. Some things go beyond ethics.

A half-mile down the road, Weiss Lake jumped out of it hid­ing place behind some wind-breaking pine trees. We parked next to the high­way, beside the guard rail. When the cold lake air hit Coby, he snapped awake in short order, eyes flick­ing wide open like a baby doll’s. You’d think we was in Alaska the way he yanked on that jacket.

After grab­bing my rod and the min­ner bucket, I hopped down the big boulder-size rocks to the bank. Quick as I could, I baited my hook and threw the line in. My bob­ber was bob­bing before Daddy even got down to the lake. He set the ice chest down on level ground then sat down on top of it. He could both relax and keep an eye on the beers so me and Coby couldn’t sneak one. A few min­utes later, Daddy threw in. He worked the line, reel­ing in grad­u­ally, giv­ing it a yank or two. Daddy had learned to be a patient fish­er­man from his Grand­maw Hawk­er­smith, the best fish­er­man he ever knew.

Coby stuck a Sty­ro­foam cup in the bucket. “Gimme some them min­ners.” He chased the lit­tle fish around and around, then he reversed direc­tions and mad a awful scram­ble when them min­ners tried to put on the brakes. After a cou­ple of times, some min­ners give up the ghost and floated to the top.

I hollered, “Coby’s killing the min­ners again.”

Daddy turned his reel a cou­ple of times. “Boy, you bet­ter quit messing.”

Coby snatched up one min­ner and went off to his own rock to pout. He had a time bait­ing the hook: I thought his thumb was about to be an endan­gered species. When he finally threw in, that min­ner had six holes in him, no belly and just a piece of tail dangling.

“Min­ners is sup­posed to be live bait,” I said.

“Shut up.”

He threw that line in as hard as he could. The lead car­ried to line and bob­ber half-way across the shal­lows. The min­ner sailed straight up in the air then landed plop beside Coby. It stared up with its only eye.

“Good throw,” I said.

“Thanky.”

“Think you’d catch more fish with some bait?”

“Shut up, Small.”

He reeled in as fast as he could, re-baited with that same min­ner, the hook stuck between its eyes, then threw in again. The line zinged through the air. The min­ner escaped again, plop­ping into the lake about six feet from shore.

“At least it made it to the water this time,” I said.

Him being so sen­si­tive and all, he prob­a­bly would’ve cried and run back up to the truck if Floyd Lee and them hadn’t showed up, hol­ler­ing and jump­ing down the rocks like loose peb­bles. Floyd Lee car­ried his rod and reel. All Tater had was his pump action pel­let rifle. Uncle Hol­land puffed and heaved his way down to the shore beside Daddy. He spread out a fold­ing chair, stuck the pole-holder in the mud, opened a three-layer tackle box, and started mak­ing his choice of lures.

“Crap­pie ain’t going to bite no lure,” Daddy said.

Hol­land tied a spin­ner jig on his line. “Ain’t look­ing for no G-D crap­pie, Johnny. I’m shoot­ing for me some bass.”

Daddy popped the top on a can of Schlitz. I once saw him do the same thing when a Fire Alarm sales­man had come to the house. He’d hauled in three kinds of alarms, an extin­guisher, and a fancy tape player, along with a six-pack of Pepsi to grease the wheels. At first, Mama, think­ing he was an evan­ge­list, wouldn’t let him in the door, but when she saw that Pepsi, she said for him to come on in. Nor­mally, nobody made it past the door ‘less they had some Co-cola, but times was hard and like they say in church, beg­gars can’t be choosers.

The sales­man set­tled in with his tapes and pic­tures and liked to scared us to death. Turned out he was so con­vinc­ing about the hid­den dan­gers of night fires, I was afraid to be burnt up as soon as my head hit the pil­low.

Mama must’ve felt the heat, too, because she said, “Well, John Mark, what do you think?”

Daddy, who’d sat there, not say­ing a word, just popped the top on a Schlitz and took a good, long drink.

“Thanky, Mis­ter,” Mama said and held out her hand. “I don’t believe we’re inter­ested. We’ll be see­ing you. Shelva, help the man with the Pepsi.”

That night, I was sure our house would burn to the ground. When I got up the next morn­ing and the house still stood, I felt a pang of dis­ap­point­ment. For the next few nights, I went to bed expec­tant, only to wake up to dis­ap­point­ment. In the end, I real­ized my futil­ity. That house never did burn down, but it did make me think of my daddy as some­body who could see through folks, like that sales, and know when they was truth­ful and when they liars.

So when Daddy popped that can at Uncle Hol­land, I knew it was his way of say­ing just how lit­tle respect he had for Uncle Holland’s fish­ing skills. That’s what puz­zled me about Daddy not stop­ping Tater from steal­ing. Couldn’t he see through Tater like he could see through my Uncle?

“What’s the gun for?” Coby asked Tater, catch­ing my attention.

Tater pumped the gun twice. “Shoot­ing shad.”

I won­dered if he stole the gun, too. “Pull up a rock,” I said to Floyd Lee. “Let’s do some fishing.”

“Nah.” He laid his rod and reel next to me. “Think me and Tater’s going to shoot some shad.”

Coby fol­lowed them around to an inlet where the water had under­cut the bank. Shad schools hid under the banks away from the biggest fish like carp and cat­fish.

Tater pulled up his pump-action pel­let gun and fired two shots. “Got the suckers.”

“Let me try,” Coby said.

Floyd Lee grabbed the gun. He pumped the gun seven, eight times. The pel­let thwumped through the water.

“Like to blowed that one’s head off.”

He shot a dozen more times then Tater took a turn. When they took a breather to reload, a halo of dead shad–chunks of meat and fins and scales–glimmered in the water.

Now the fish’ll never bite, I thought.

“My turn now,” Coby half-asked.

They traded looks. Floyd Lee handed Coby the gun. When he pulled the trig­ger, the gun kicked. The pel­let skipped across the water like a smooth, flat rock.

Tater laughed. “How many you fig­ure he killed?”

“Give me that before you hurt some­body.” Floyd Lee took the gun back, and they went about their business.

“Let me have another shot, please. Please?”

I wasn’t going to look at Daddy. I wasn’t, but I could feel his eyes on me, and I got a bad case of the cold, clammy shiv­ers. Then I had to. I had to look. Daddy had his jaw set, his eyes set on the bob­ber. Then it hap­pened. He gave me The Look. He could’ve gone on for days, but I cut him off by look­ing out at my bob­ber while I reeled in.

My daddy was a man of few words, but he made his mean­ing clear in lit­tle ways. Nod­ding. Star­ing. Show­ing his teeth. All this meant some­thing. Liv­ing with Daddy was like hav­ing a third base coach in the house. Bunt. Pass the salt. Steal sec­ond. Hand me the Phillips head screw­driver. Take on for the team. Go help your brother.

I cussed to myself and set my rod down. I wan­dered over to the inlet, acted like I was check­ing out the scenery.

“Hey, Small,” Floyd Lee hollered. “You want to do some shooting?”

“Ain’t thought about it,” I said.

“Come on. It’s a lot more fun than bait­ing a hook.”

“I guess I could be per­suaded to.” I took the gun from him, pumped it two times, which was more than enough to kill a shad, and handed it to my brother. Coby gig­gled like it was Christ­mas. He man­aged the feat of shoot­ing every sin­gle pel­let with with­out injur­ing even one shad.

“Thanks y’all.” I handed the empty gun back.

“Hey,” said Floyd Lee, “that’s all the pellets.”

“Do tell.” I grinned, and they knew they’d been had.

Me and Coby headed back over to our fish­ing spots.

“You boys keep it down over there,” Uncle Hol­land hollered. “We’s try­ing to do some fish­ing here.” He reeled in his jig, which by then looked like a soggy wad of snot. “Don’t believe they’s bit­ing the spin­ner, Johnny. Maybe a rub­ber worm.”

“Ain’t no bass in this lake.”

“So I hear tell. But let me ask you this can you guar­an­tee that? Can you see into the hearts and minds of them fish?”

Daddy stuck a fresh min­ner on the hook and threw in.

I started to tell Uncle Hol­land about Daddy’s Ma Hawk­er­smith. From what I heard, that woman could catch fish with a bare hook, and when she didn’t have no hook, she just talked to them real gen­tle and they swam clean up to the bank. I imag­ine it was a plea­sure for a fish to be eaten by Ma Hawk­er­smith. She was a leg­end in Mys­tic, Geor­gia. I won­dered what she’d do about Tater’s steal­ing. I started to tell Uncle Hol­land all this, but some­thing told me he wouldn’t get it.

Uncle Hol­land took a big swig from his flask then spit liquor on the worm. “This’ll drive them nuts.”

“Wish I had me some of them rub­ber worms,” Coby said.

“What for?” I said.

“So I won’t have to bait the hook.”

“Won’t catch noth­ing with them.”

“Don’t catch noth­ing anyhow.”

There he was, belly-aching again, feel­ing sorry for him­self. At a young age, Coby knew there was two kinds of folks–them that was born to catch fish, and them that was born to cut bait. Didn’t take much to fig­ure out which one he was.

“Won’t catch noth­ing shoot­ing them shad,” I said. “Come on, let’s go drown some minners.”

“Nope. Don’t want to.”

“Suit your­self.”

We passed by Daddy and Uncle on my way back to the rock. Daddy had col­lected two fish that was barely keep­ers and a six pack of emp­ties. About the time I threw in again and was watch­ing that bob­ber out there mock­ing me, Daddy said, “Any you boys want some­thing from the store?”

I almost asked for some Fun­yons, but a funny wis­dom came over me and I kept joke to myself. “Another Coke,” I said.

“Can I go?” Coby said.

“I reckon that’d be a good idea. Tater, you and Floyd Lee come on ‚too.” Daddy eyed Uncle Hol­land for signs of a “no,” but he just sipped from his flask and watched his lure get water-logged. Tater and them shrugged then headed for the car.

“Daddy,” I ran up to him and spoke so nobody could hear. “Watch out for Tater. He’s got sticky fingers.”

Instead of nod­ding like I expected, Daddy squinted up his eyes. “Mind your own busi­ness, son. You let me han­dle the boys, understand?”

“Yes sir.”

“Keep an eye on my line while I’m gone.”

I flopped down on the rock, my mind all mixed up. I would have to think about this. My daddy always told me to be hon­est, includ­ing telling sto­ries about Abe Lincoln’s walk­ing miles to give back pennies–like he was kin­folks. Things like this made my head hurt, when you been told some­thing all your life, then you find out it might not be true. Like when Mama told me Santa Claus wasn’t real. My heart about broke. But this was worse, because with or with­out Santa, I still got Christ­mas presents. I knew I had to decide whether or not I was going to believe in my daddy.

Before I could, though, my bob­ber made for hills. Nor­mally, when a crap­pie bites, it just nib­bles the bob­ber almost never goes under­wa­ter, and when it does, it never stays long. My bob­ber dis­ap­peared so fast, I knew I didn’t have no crap­pie on the line.

I yanked to set the hook and started to reel­ing in. That old reel squealed like stuck pig, and the rod almost bent in two. That fish fought by yank­ing and pulling some­thing awful. I fig­ured I had me a carp or the like. My arms started to hurt. I almost let go of the reel to stretch out my hands, but I knew the way it pulled, I’d lose it sure as the world. The reel squealed again. I let the line loose so the fish could run, but the fun­ni­est thing hap­pened; as soon as it felt the slack, that fish just give up. When I didn’t feel noth­ing on the line, I just reeled in, disappointed.

When the bob­ber came in, the rod bent in two again. I looked down in the water, and star­ing up and me was the biggest, yel­low­est mud cat I’d ever see.

“My God,” I said. “I caught the grand­daddy of them all.”

Either it was dead or played bet­ter than any pos­sum, because it just floated in the water, not fight­ing, hardly even mov­ing. I reached down for that cat­fish, but there didn’t seem to be no place to catch hold. With a crap­pie or espe­cially a bass, you just grab it by the lower lip and that mouth opens easy as you please. With a cat­fish, though, that mouth’s like sharp sand paper. I stud­ied on it for a minute. I decided to do what Daddy always done. I hooked my thumb and pinkie fin­ger under its bot­tom fins and squeezed.

Like it’d been goosed, that cat­fish come to life, twist­ing and bark­ing up a storm. Before I let loose, it caught my thumb, right under the nail, with a razor-sharp fin. Blood spurted out ever which way. The cut burned like fury.

I dropped that fish real quick.

While the blood washed down my arm, that cat flopped around on top of the rock, hop­ing, I guess, to land in the water. I flipped it on its side, held it down with my boot. Lord, that thumb burned, but I let it bleed in hopes the poi­son would run out. The fish laid there, pretty much tuck­ered out.

When I reached for the hook, I found four rusty old hooks and a rot­ted lure in its mouth. They seemed sort of like medals, the fish-purple heart or Iron Cross. Maybe he’d got then in bat­tles with fish­er­men. I imag­ined some peck­ing order amongst the fish–“Here come o’ Joe. Lookit dat dere rub­ber worm he got on. Took it off some angler t’other day.”

I felt sort of sorry for him, until he tried to stab me again. For his trou­bles, I kicked him off the grass. I got the needle-nose pli­ers out of the tool­box. I squashed that fish again, sat­is­fied when it grunted. With the pli­ers, I yanked on the hook. It popped out, a piece of cat­fish jaw still stuck on it. Remorse was not what I felt at that moment.

I shoved a nylon stringer through its gills. Tempted as I was to let it go so the stringer could even­tu­ally drown it, I set the fish in the water. I tied the stringer off with a square knot. Bent down, I washed the fish slime off my hands. When the water hit my thumb, I screamed bloody murder.

“What’s the prob­lem son?” Uncle Hol­land sounded aggra­vated. “I’m try­ing to fish here.”

“My thumb.” I held up the evidence.

“Bring it over here. Let me take a look see. Come on, I don’t have all day.”

My legs didn’t feel too steady, but I made it over there. I showed him my bloody thumb.

“What hap­pened?”

“Cat­fish got me.”

“Cat­fish huh?” He never got up or took his eyes off his bob­ber. “Well, it don’t look too bad. Get you some ice and soak it. That’ll take out the sting.”

“You sure?”

“You dis­put­ing me, boy?”

“No sir.”

“Then do like I told you.”

I opened Daddy’s ice chest and to save time, stuck my hand straight in. “It burns,” I cried.

“Sure does, don’t it,” he laughed.

I kept my hand in the ice, mostly just to spite him. A minute later, Coby and them come run­ning down the rocks.

“We got us some more pel­lets,” Coby said.

Daddy hollered from the car, “Get your hand out of my ice chest, boy.”

I guess he thought I was sneak­ing a beer. “Can’t, Daddy. Uncle Hol­land told me to soak it.”

Car­ry­ing a gro­cery bag, Daddy climbed down to us. “What are you soak­ing it for?”

“Cat­fish got him,” Uncle Hol­land said. “Told him ice would take the sting out.” He winked at me, and I didn’t know who I hated more, him or that mudcat.

Daddy pulled out my hand and slid his six-pack and my Coke in. The bleed­ing had stopped, but the cut had puffed up some­thing ter­ri­ble. My thumb looked like it’d been boiled ’til it burst. The water in the cooler had turned the color of pink lemon­ade it almost made me thirsty, until I real­ized that was my blood. Daddy closed the lid.

“Hol­land,” Daddy said to Uncle Hol­land, “don’t you know noth­ing about cat­fish stingers?”

Uncle Hol­land just played with his lure, reel­ing in, rest­ing, reel­ing in, rest­ing. All of a sud­den, I knew the answer–he didn’t know noth­ing about cat­fish or fish in gen­eral. Like Coby, he’d been born to cut bait.

“You got the fish, son?”

He acted sur­prised when I said, “Over yon­der on the stringer. Lord, Daddy, this burns like fire.”

“Sit down.” He half-pushed me down on the ice chest. He reached for the fish, and it about yanked loose. Expect­ing it, he hauled it up, it wig­gling and squirm­ing, try­ing to cut Daddy it’d done me. He thumped twice on its belly, then seemed to tickle it. That durned mud­cat ceased squirm­ing, acted like it’d gone to sleep.

“Here.” He brought the fish over to me. “My Ma Hawk­er­smith taught me how to fix a mud­cat sting.”

“How’d you do that?” I said.

“Do what?”

“Make it go to sleep. It about sliced me to bits.”

“Ever seen one of them alli­ga­tor wrestlers? Same prin­ci­ple. Just tickle its belly some.” He grabbed my hand. “Ma Hawk­er­smith learned me about cat­fish slime. You ever stopped to think what hap­pens if a cat sticks itself?” He rubbed my cut thumb on the fish’s side, coat­ing it in thick slime. “Ma said its slime fixes it up real good.”

I flinched, waited for that fiery hurt, but I was amazed. When the slime sunk in, the pain went away. The swelling started sown gradual.

“Bet­ter than Mer­curochrome,” he smiled.

“Or ice water.”

He got a Band-Aid out of the tackle box.

“I never knew you had Band-Aids in there.”

“You’d be sur­prised, son. Being a Army medic makes you pack some unusual tackle.”

He wrapped up my thumb. He put on Band-Aids faster and bet­ter than Mama, who always took care of my cuts.

“All fixed up. You can go back to fishing.”

I couldn’t help grin­ning ear to ear, like I’d just got a new toy. I went back to my rock, amazed my thumb felt bet­ter. Daddy got out a Schlitz and sat down on the ice chest.

“I reckon the ice would’ve worked,” said Hol­land, “if you’d give it time.”

Daddy popped the top. “One thing I learned in the Army–a man’s got to have the equip­ment for the job.”

Every­body got quiet. Coby and them had gone off some­where. Daddy sipped at his beer like he didn’t want it and watched his bob­ber do the two-step. Hol­land reeled in his lure, water-logged and sad-looking, then changed over to a spinner.

Just when we’d set­tled down to some seri­ous fish­ing, Coby and them come tromp­ing through the woods on that inlet. Between them, Tater and Floyd Lee car­ried this big snap­ping tur­tle by the rim of its shell. Coby flit­ted around them like a puppy anx­ious to be patted.

I remem­bered this one time when I caught me a lit­tle snap­ping tur­tle and put it in a box. My mama said to watch my fin­gers. If that tur­tle caught hold of me, It wouldn’t let go until sun­set. The thought of putting my fin­ger in a turtle’s moth had never occurred to me. If she hadn’t said noth­ing, I prob­a­bly never would’ve done what I did.

I stuck my fin­ger in its mouth. When it didn’t do noth­ing, I tick­led its nose and neck. I was just about to give up when it chomped down on my thumb. Now, it didn’t hurt as much as that mud­cat, but I jumped by, that snap­per still stuck to my fin­ger, and ran around like a chicken with its head cut off. I tried shuck­ing it. I tried pulling on it. I even tried slam­ming it on the ground and against a tree. Still, it had ahold of me like it wouldn’t let loose until dooms­day. I sat down, worn out, and started to cry­ing. I felt so bad for myself, I didn’t notice that tur­tle let­ting loose and crawl­ing off. I must’ve felt pity for me because when I finally stopped bawl­ing, that tur­tle was nowhere in sight. I’d thanked the lord for good, Chris­t­ian turtles.

That tur­tle was a shrimp com­pared to the one Coby and them carried.

“Looky here,” Floyd Lee hollered to his Daddy. “Look what we got.”

“Well, don’t that beat all,” Hol­land said.

“Weighs at least fifty pounds,” Coby lied.

They set it down by Holland’s tackle box, arms and legs tucked inside for safety. Floyd Lee rum­maged through his Daddy’s tackle box. “Where’s the can opener?”

“What you want it for, son?”

Coby and them traded sin­ful looks.

“We’re going to open up this here tur­tle, see what’s inside,” Tater said.

“That’d kill it,” I said, bewil­dered they’d even think about it.

Coby said, “it would?”

Tater looked at me like I was some dumb shad. “So?”

“So? So?” I left my line in the water and got up in Coby’s face. “Who do you think you are?”

“You ain’t his daddy,” said Tater. “Don’t tell him what to do.”

“Yeah,” said Coby.

I looked the sit­u­a­tion over. “Shoot­ing shad’s one thing, but using a can opener on a tur­tle ain’t right. It just ain’t right.”

“Why not?” said Tater.

I could tell by the look on his face, he really didn’t know. “Because it ain’t like to Oldsmo­bile. You just can’t lift the hood and give it the once over. That shell’s attached.”

“So?” said Tater.

“So you’ll kill it.”

“That’s what I had in mind.” He smiled the same way Hol­land had when I stuck my hand in the ice chest. Coby and Floyd Lee turned pasty white. I could tell that wasn’t what they had in mind.

“The opener’s in the bot­tom,” Hol­land said flatly, “under­neath the tray of rub­ber worms.”

Tater got it out.

Daddy never turned around. “Put that thing up.”

Tater waited, unsure of him­self, for Hol­land to say something.

“I told you to put it up. I don’t want to tell you again.”

When Tater dropped it, the opener rat­tled in the metal tackle box.

“You boys let that tur­tle loose. Coby, you and Tater set him in the water over here by me.”

Tater didn’t want to, but both boys did like they were told. After it had drifted out some, the tur­tle stuck out its head, took a look around, and dove out of sight. Tater and Floyd Lee stood around, I think wait­ing for my uncle to do something–to say some­thing. Hol­land kept an eye his line like it was his birthright to sit there and fish.

“Coby,” Daddy said, “why don’t you bait you a hook and drown some minners.”

Coby knew that wasn’t no request.

Right about then, Hol­land got ready to go. “Don’t guess them bass is bit­ing today.” He clipped off the lure and threw it in the tackle box. “Boys, grab my seat. Let’s get on to the house.”

Nobody seemed dis­ap­pointed that Hol­land had made this deci­sion. His “boys,” grab­bing what they could or felt like, climbed up to the car.

“Y’all don’t rush off now,” Daddy said while shak­ing Holland’s hand. “We got a whole bunch of min­ners left to drown.”

“Just ain’t my day, I guess, Johnny. Let’s get together again sometime.”

By the looks they gave and the way Daddy let them leave with­out wav­ing, I knew we’d never go fish­ing with them again.

“So,” I said to Coby so Daddy couldn’t hear. “what else did Tater steal at the store?”

“Oh yeah, I didn’t get to tell you about that. Daddy took him by the arm to the counter and made him pay the man for what he stole.”

“You’re pulling my leg.”

“Ain’t done it.”

“And Tater done it?”

Coby wrin­kled up them mole eyes. “Would you tell Daddy you wasn’t going to do something?”

I didn’t even need to answer that. We set­tled into fish­ing. Even Coby set still for awhile so we could lis­ten to the lake, enjoy the frogs singing. We didn’t catch noth­ing after that, but we faith­fully baited and threw in until all the min­ners was gone.

“It’s get­ting about that time, boys,”

I got the stringers and the rods. Coby brought up the min­ner bucket. Daddy hefted the ice chest up to the road. We put the mud­cat on ice for the ride back home. A fish that big wasn’t no good for eat­ing, but it’d look great with me hold­ing it up for Mama’s Polaroid. I had me a tro­phy and a good scar. We got in the truck, squeez­ing together like sar­dines and smelling like them, too.

“That was use­less,” Coby said.

“What you mean?” I said.

“We didn’t catch hardly noth­ing, except that cat­fish, and it about took your thumb off.”

“Fish­ing ain’t about catch­ing fish, son,” Daddy said.

“Huh?”

I knew Coby didn’t get it and prob­a­bly never would. If wasn’t no explain­ing it to him, though, so I just popped the top on a Co-cola, took a good long sip, and set­tled in for the ride back home.