Did
The Big One Get Away? I wake from my reverie to discover I’m now parked beside the river near those same rocks. Okay, since I’m here, may as well wet a line, but only for an hour. As I get to river’s edge and pick my approach to where fish may be, I hear the man I’d spotted on the neighboring out-crop about 100 yards down stream calling to me. He had been working on his rig, and was now still seated, but motioning for me to come over to him. No, said I to myself, ignoring him. I begin to cast, but keep half an eye on this fellow, which is why I noticed that he very unsteadily had gotten to his feet and began to gather up his things. After a few more casts, next glance found him sitting again and talking on a cell phone. I wondered if he were ordering another six-pack. A few more casts, and now he’s up again but not for long as one step later finds him flat on his back. I’d like to ignore this turn of events, (I have only a short while to fish) but I give him my full attention. I can see he’s moving now, and I shout over the distance and the din of rush hour traffic on the expressway, “Are you okay?” He gives me a wave and says something that sounds like “okay” and I go back to my fishing, which so far has not been fruitful save one very small chub. The man carefully climbs off his clump of rock and painstakingly picks his way along the shoreline in my direction. His movement is awkward and shuffling. I’m not watching exactly, mostly fishing, but turn when he calls to me from the bank directly behind my out-crop. He is wearing a Yankees baseball cap, tan shorts, (now wet in the butt), and is holding a blue soft-plastic thermal lunch box in one hand and a spinning rod with line dangling from the reel in the other. He wants to know if I will help him attach the line to his spin rod. He’s diffident, tentative, and apologetic for bothering me. He says he’s been trying to fix up his line for an hour and a half. Yikes! Why do I now find myself hooking up my line and moving toward him? 1) I’ve made my internal assessment that this man is probably harmless; 2) How much trouble could it be to fix his rig? 3) I’m always a sucker for the challenge of “fixing” something, anything. Meet Stanley: He’s probably thirty-something, very talkative, clumsy, with the hand dexterity of a crayfish, intoxicated. He speaks slowly and has a speech impediment. He has trouble grasping the persistently curling fishing line, not to mention the concept of keeping tension on the line while I attempt fastening it to the reel. His body has an odd puffiness, sort of like the Pillsbury Dough Boy, and he’s got bruises, scrapes, cuts and scratches everywhere. A few injuries are bleeding from his recent fall. He tells me that because his buddy started the boat up too fast the day before, he’d gone tumbling out, getting quite banged up. The accident also ruined his cell phone. He’s got a loaner today. He becomes quite agitated as he recounts his buddy’s recklessness, complete with a round of cursing. For a moment I feel a little anxiety about my proximity to this strange man. Soon he’s telling me about his parents (father left when he was small; mother is a “fortune teller” who has a lot of “over-night guests”), his dog, how he goes fishing a lot. He asks about my husband: does he fish? (These assumptions! Someone should write a handbook of clever retorts for such moments.) At last, we have enough line attached for resumption of his fishing pleasure. He is grateful. I go back to fishing, this time I do some wading to get onto rocks further from shore. I guess my new friend was inspired by this tactic, and before long, I hear a splash and loud muttering. He’s fallen in about ten feet from shore. Now he’s up again, no, down he goes, this time flat backwards again. Each fall seems to be in slow motion, and he doesn’t move to catch himself. He is like a balloon character in the Macy’s Day Parade toppling this way and that. Okay, I’m resigned: my fishing is done for today. I call to him as he’s struggling to get up, “Stop! Just stay there, right where you are. I’m going to help you.” Just before I can get to him, he’s fallen again, face forward. He is totally soaked, hat and spinning rod in the water along with the blue soft plastic cooler. He comes up sputtering and cursing, and going for the cooler. I grab it and hand it to him. I know what’s going to happen if he attempts to move. “There goes the cell phone. Dammit! Now I’m gonna have to pay for that one, too. And my cigarettes are all wet!” What a pathetic creature before me. Painstakingly we edge toward the bank. I’ve got him with both hands and tell him exactly where to put each step. He is quite cooperative. He stays upright until we are both on dry ground. “Well, I’m ready to call it a day” I say. “Can I drop you somewhere?” I can’t believe it when he tells me in that slow way of talking, “No, I know where I’m going to fish. I’m going right over there.” And off he shuffles, dripping, but not deterred. I suggest tomorrow’s another day to fish, but clearly he is not ready to give up on today. I packed it in and left, feeling relieved to be finished with this odd encounter. But as the rest of the evening settled about me, I began to replay the events, watching again and again the soggy disheveled fisherman heading up river for another clump of rocks. By bedtime I was in full-fret mode and very annoyed with myself for leaving without him. I resolved to get up at dawn and dash back down to the river. I arrived in full-dread mode for what I might find. Will “Pillsbury” be unconscious on the rocks? Floating downstream? Still fishing? I found nothing save the drowned pack of Newports along the bank…proof positive it all happened. But what about that determined fisherman? Did he get his fish? Did he get back home? Clearly I won’t know unless one day hence, I might catch sight of a lumbering figure fishing along the Schuylkill, struggling for vertical advantage. Until then, an abiding uneasiness: did the big one walk away that night? --Judith Palmer--
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