outdoors – Jas Mardis

On my birthday, a sunny Tuesday with dry air and heat rising early from the chalky, broken earth and dusty, defeated blades of Texas grass, my daughter calls me through the Face Time app and forgets to be kind. In the beautiful morning heat, before the insects are hungry and the breezes are boldly rolling across the top water of this city lake, I am shirtless in a pair of thin brown overalls with thick, black straps, plastic guides, large, round snaps and a brass zipper that triggers her laughter. “Hey, Ol’ Man…where yo clothes at?”

"Lying Thru His Nose" $500 — “Lying Thru His Nose”

I am using a mesh wrist phone carrier that she gifted me on a previous birthday, with a touch sensitive plastic screen and Velcro wrap, so the laughter that follows her question gets lost in the flick of my wrist that casts my fishing lure toward a sudden ripple in the lake and near the bank. My daughter is a graduate of the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff Fisheries Program. As the line races out from the reel her view on the wrist strapped phone is of the lure pulling fishing line through the eyelets before skidding into a glass-like top water with sunlight and blue sky on the horizon. Her laughter shifts into awe as I bring the rod into submission and tighten the line as the lure bobs and rests in place. She says, “Geez, Pops. Smooth”. I turn my wrist to see her face and say, “Took off my shirt to attract some largemouth girl bass”.

She is living in Missouri, not Texas or Arkansas or Louisiana or on a cruise ship, like a few of her classmates who use their fisheries knowledge to manage large aquariums or Sea World populations. She’s landlocked and there are few expanses of water to ply her skills. It also gets cold with ice and real snow with tall banks and tumbleweed-like clusters of cold debris-balls and some weird activity known as, Ice Fishing. So, catching me on a truly sun-drenched lake with action shots makes this more of a birthday gift for her.

“Pops, you’re reeling too fast. I don’t think the bass have seen Speed Racer!”

“You gotta use a five-count on your retrieve, Ol’ Man.”

“Are you using 4:1 reel? That looks too slow for a top water lure! Invest in your sport, Dude! Get a 7:1 gear ratio reel if you want to actually catch big bass, Pops!”

“Lord, Pops…are you still using that Abu Garcia from when I was a kid?”

These are rhetorical and she is not anticipating a reply. I retrieve and cast again toward a ribbon of lake with overhanging tree branches and tufts of wild grass. She orders,

”Twist the wrist band so I can see your retrieve”

“Hold your elbow higher, Pops…!”

“That’s too high. You won’t have any leverage to set the hook!”

“You’re gonna have to retrieve fast with that old reel, Pops…Twitch it…snap your wrist!”

“Look at the clouds on the water…WOW…beautiful…I miss Texas”

“Do you have a Texas Rig set up?” I tell her yes. She says, “Are you fishing a 7 or 10 inch work?” I say, big bait, big fish and she responds, “Whatever, Ol’ Man”.

When I switch to the worm combo I show her the setup and brace for what I know is coming. When she was a kid and learning to fish I had a large fish on the line that breached when I reached for it and slapped me in the face. I leapt back to avoid any chance of the hook snagging me, but that fish continued to thrash and before returning to the water had slapped my chest, then tail-whipped and danced down my forearm; knocking my rod combo from my hand. The hook dislodged and the fish escaped with my combo quickly following it further into the lake.

“Hey, Ol’ Man, try not to lose the rod and reel this time!”

I don’t.

When I cast again into the grassy area at the bank she is quiet. There is a plop of water circling back into the air as the large worm, with a quarter ounce of weight atop it replaces it.

She adds, “Just like Michael Phelps” and is silent again.

We both wait for a pull of the fishing line through the rod’s eyelets to indicate the rate of fall for the worm. I feel the rumble of the quarter ounce weight against the rough wall of rocks and dirt and roots. She sees the thin waxed, braided thread of line as it loops through the ringed eyelets. I catch a hanging sensation suddenly causing a lag in the line and know that the hooked worm has hit the bottom and know that she is seeing the line hesitate for a brief second in her view. We both know that the line weight has been halted, most likely be a root or rock, and created a natural-looking wiggle in the curly tail of the lure as it lands on the lake bottom.

She guides me, “Twitch it, Pop…” Her command is nearly silent. It is the same pitch and hammer that she wants me to use with the tip of the rod at this moment. I agree with her and give the six foot long rod a whisper of a wavering shudder…and feel a sliding tug on the fishing line as the weight shifts into a slide and pull on the line and finds the tied off top of the hook. We know that this is the action which triggers the hunting fish to strike. The hammering fall of the weight on the top of the hook creates vibration and gives the sense that the worm is on the move.

When she chuckles, “Humph” it is with the knowledge that a strike is imminent and there is an immediate thump echoing through the line and rod that is familiar and wanted and taunting! A Bass Strike!

I stiffen the rod and the line tightens into a tug of the hook bearing witness through the rubbery flesh of the ten inch, watermelon red, speckled, ribbed worm and into the hard, snapping mouth of predatory fish. My daughter does not laugh or scream or bother the familiar moment. I rear back on the rod and fast retrieve the line by turning the handle with fact and harried rotations of the red handled reel. There is all the force and grit of muscled-up surprise gnawing through the line and causing the six foot rod to curl and the line to ping…ping…whine into the morning air. I shudder every time this moment is upon me. It is a mystery that is solvable, but not immediately: I weigh two hundred and forty-seven pounds; the fish is likely three or four pounds and the gear is designed to handle something akin to thirty pounds. But, in this first moment, the fish is in the lake and that feels like I am pulling away at a man through a rope that is fixed around his waist and he is tied to a tree.

But, she returns…

“If you’re done flexing for the other fishermen, maybe you could land the fish, Ol’ Man” comes through the speaker and I look to my wrist to see her shaking head. “You are just a shirtless, HAM”. When I am able to land the behemoth it is nearly four pounds. I show her the fish and she applauds before leaving me for life in Missouri. “Happy Birthday, Pops!”

Jas Mardis is a 2014 Inductee to the Texas Literary Hall Of Fame and an Artist. The facts of the story are true…except that the Largemouth Bass was later weighed and found to be a cousin of Moby Dick and broke the scale. Happier Birthday.

for Anne

I am awkward at love. Even now, at the age of sixty-three with an unwed son and daughter and an already remarried, impregnated and divorced again ex’s, I am thunderously awkward at holding down a woman in my life for more than ninety days…tops. I am better at fishing. Last July the two conditions came together when I met a young widow and discovered that she had never been fishing. Not as a child and not as a college athlete or post college newlywed or in the ensuing 30-odd years of wedded, child rearing and subsequent disillusioned early demise of her spouse. So, ready to win her heart with the smell of worms, minnows, Blue gill and largemouth bass, I brought her out to an enclosed City pond and took her heart on the roller coaster that is first-fishing-at-fifty!

The city pond is just an acre and a half of water surrounded by playground, bathrooms and dotted every forty yards with those memorial benches and gates of the wandered-off loved ones. We began with baiting the hook and when to know the fish had bit; followed by reeling and squealing instead of yanking and tripping over the tackle and lunch boxes. Good thing, too because as soon as we lowered the line into the water and rested the rod against the railing it took off, bending the rod and lifting it nearly over to the pond! (insert spilled tackle box and rolling oranges, squashed grapes and smashed crackers).

The memorial bench on the walkway where we fished became my refuge for the next two hours as my friend lifted forty-three fish out of the pond. As a first fishing trip she quickly moved from a trembling bait toucher-to-a quick dehooking and self-baiting pro after the initial twelve red ear bream and powerfully built small mouth bass. I merely leaned back against the bench and snapped and eventual seventy three pics to document her prowess. She was kind enough to document my two very small bass of the day before we paused to eat lunch in the heat. Both she and the fish are pretty good dancers according to the photographs. Before leaving, she removed her head scarf/bandana and tied it around the arm rest of the memorial bench to mark the occasion and location to show her grown children later.

As for love, unlike the success of Jesus with the loaves and fishes, not even seventy-three fishes were enough to land me back in the throes of love and we parted ways Christmas-eve in the most awkward exchange of my dating life sagas.

I told as much to an elderly gentleman this morning as I fished and he stopped to visit three times before asking if he could sit on the bench with me for a minute. He smiled and laughed with me at the idea that I was returning to warm up the area for another shot at love-by-blue gill this summer. He agreed that it was worthwhile and even offered to ask his “lovely wife” to do what she could to boost my post-fishing luck with a new friend. I paused when he offered her services and asked if they lived in the surrounding neighborhood for her to swing by a pie or a plate of sandwiches to help my love game.

“No…no, she’s recently passed” he offered and moved aside my jacket to touch the name plate behind. “She’s been listening and laughing at your story. I’m rather sure of it!”, he mused with tears coming into his eyes. “She always loved a good story and you tell it pretty good”, he said, moving his touch to the date below their names, “1965”. “We met in high school and attended College in Oklahoma together and married our senior year. Two kids came after almost eight years later and we have just one grandchild. It’s a sixty year love affair, Mister Sir. I’m sure if you keep bringing your potential sweeties here to fish my Anne will whisper a hint to their hearts to help you out.”

He stood, wiped his fingers gently over her name and said, “I better take off since crying probably won’t help you catch any more fish”, and then headed off down the walking path. No other fish took the bait and the sun grew too hot for anything but packing up and leaving. On my way to the car I read the bench placards and wondered if they get visited, too. A soldier. A son. A full family and a favorite dog are among the memorial benches on that park. As for me and memorials, I really had to admit that I don’t return to the park and that bench, set into the curve of the walking path, in the hope of fish. I honestly stop trying after my second smallmouth bass. I squeal inside myself and dance a pointed-toed jig, with my rod squeezed between my knees and let the fish dangle and wiggle and jump itself into loops before reclaiming my hook and returning the monster back to the tiny sea. Then, I take my knife and notch the rail just in case my last chance at love comes by to remember the spot where we caught a day of joy.

JAS