The Grasshopper Trap (17 page)

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Authors: Patrick F. McManus

I
have recently come into possession of some letters from camp. They were written by my next-door neighbor, Fenton Quagmire, during the course of a hunting trip he, Retch Sweeney, and I took to Montana a few years ago. The letters, written to Quagmire's wife, Marge, are of interest for a number of reasons. First of all, they show a childish and peevish man growing quickly to maturity as a result of enduring the hardships of his first hunting trip. Second, the letters were introduced as evidence in two lawsuits, one a divorce case that Mrs. Quagmire brought against her husband, and the other an alienation-of-affection case she filed against Sweeney and me. I am happy to report that Marge eventually regained possession of her senses and withdrew both suits. In fact, it was she who gave me the letters, along with some blunt advice as to their disposition. I thought the advice a bit extreme, if not unladylike, and have chosen instead to publish the letters here in the hope
that they will show the therapeutic effects of a simple hunting trip.
 
Saturday, 12:30 p.m.
My Dearest Darling Dumpling,
Am writing these letters to you in case I don't survive this trip with the two madmen and so you will have something to remember me by.
Have stopped briefly in middle of a godforsaken prairie here in Montana. The two madmen, McManus and Sweeney, have got out of car to settle dispute between them. Sweeney claims Indians used to attract buffalo within range of arrows by waving white flag. McManus argues trick was used on antelope. Small herd of buffalo near highway, and McManus is standing out there laughing uproariously, as is his fashion, while Sweeney waves T-shirt at buffalo.
Why I ever let them talk me into this trip I'll never know. To think that I'll be in their company for another whole week is almost more than I can stand. Must admit, however, that so far trip has exceeded my wildest expectations, which is to say that I am still alive and unmaimed and if I ever ge
 
Saturday, 3:30 p.m.
Back again, Dearest Darling Dumpling,
McManus peeved and even more sarcastic than usual, if you can imagine. Asked him straight out, would he rather cling with his fingers to rain gutter of station wagon for few hundred yards at high speed or have both vehicle
and himself
wiped out in buffalo stampede? Just fortunate for all concerned I had presence of mind to throw wagon in gear and stomp on accelerator. You'd have been proud of Hubby-Wubby!
As yet no sign of Sweeney. Have told McManus to calm down, not to worry. When Sweeney went over top of hill he had good lead on buffalo. Don't know how interested you are in buffalo lore, but their curiosity is aroused by waving white T-shirt.
Your Hubby-Wubby
 
Saturday, 5:30 p.m.
Dearest Darling Dumpling,
Back again.
Have left prairie behind and moving up into mountains. Scenery absolutely splendid. Peaks frosted with snow, foothills ablaze with color—chokecherry, birch, alder, quaking aspen. Which reminds me—Sweeney back with us again and none the worse for wear. Looks better for having shed a few pounds. Managed to run in a wide circle and, as I anticipated, we intercepted him as he crossed highway, although not until second time around. Buffalo exhausted. Sweeney recuperating fast, to judge from his determined but feeble attempts to reach up and squeeze my throat. Sweeney great clown! Such crude humor, tho, not to my taste.
Should make camp soon. Will try to add note to this letter before we hit goosedown.
Love, Hubby-Wubby
 
Saturday, 9:30 p.m.
Dearest Darling Dumpling,
At my wits' end! Oh, how I long to be curled up beside you under our dual-control queen-sized electric blanket! These imbeciles! These morons! Cannot believe what they perpetrated against me. One of the fatheads forgot his sleeping bag! Neither, of course, will admit to being the villain.
Even tried to make out it was
I
who forgot
my
sleeping bag. What they have suggested—no, in fact demanded—is we zip the two sleeping bags together and all three of us sleep in the communal bag! Can you imagine such a disgusting thing? Have told them I will sit outside tent all night by fire, rather than submit to gross indignity of such arrangement.
Your Hubby-Wubby, Fenton
 
Sunday, 10:00 a.m.
My Dearest Darling Dumpling,
Place where we're camped very wild, apparently inhabited by sizable population of grizzly bears. Last night one started howling short distance from camp. McManus identified the hideous wailing as that of grizzly. Still shudder when I think of it. Am exhausted, having got almost no sleep last night. Have you ever slept in a double sleeping bag with two men who snore? No, I suppose not. Most uncomfortable and distasteful, particularly when you are in the middle and other two have been chased by buffalo earlier in day.
Food terrible. McManus whipped up his infamous Watchagot stew for supper last night. We ate it in pitch darkness, the only redeeming feature of meal. Coffee tasted like boiled socks, biscuits had to be cracked with hatchet. Whipped topping McManus sprayed on instant dessert turned out to be my shaving cream. Ate only the shaving cream since didn't trust dessert. Must run now.
Your ever-loving Hubby-Wubby
 
Sunday, 7:00 p.m.
Dearest Darling Dumpling,
Today uneventful. Went on first hunt. Sport highly overrated.
Meatheads took me out to a cleared area and told me to watch it while they circled around mountain and “drove” toward me. Nothing more boring than watching a clearing, unless perhaps it is listening to McManus reminisce interminably about his childhood.
Finally, out of boredom and for joke, made huge grizzly track in soft dirt, left my hat on ground a few yards away, then went back to camp and caught some shut-eye in communal sleeping bag. Must have been exhausted because didn't wake up until heard McManus & Sweeney talking outside tent. You would have laughed!
“Poor Quagmire,” McManus said.
“Yep,” said Sweeney, “he was nice little guy.”
“You think a grizzly got him?”
“Maybe. Never seen a grizzly track that big before—eighteen claws!”
“We're going to have to tell his wife what happened to him. Now don't let me forget!”
“I won't. She's probably going to be upset.”
“Probably. You know what this means, don't you?”
“Yeah. We can each have our own sleeping bag tonight.”
Fearing they would turn maudlin, I leaped out of tent and yelled, “Surprise! I'm alive!”
“We thought you got et,” was all Sweeney could bring himself to say.
McManus struggled to control his emotions. “Anyway, tonight's my turn to sleep in the middle,” he said.
Sort of moved by their reaction. Hadn't realized they liked me.
Love, Hubby-Wubby
 
Monday
 
Dearest Darling Dumpling,
McManus & Sweeney teaching me all kinds of good stuff about hunting and camping. Let me build campfire this morning. Rather amusing, since both wanted to build it. After brief argument, McManus said, “Heck, why don't we let Quagmire build the fire? It's not fair for you and me to hog all the fun.”
“Yeah, I guess you're right,” Sweeney said. “Fenton, you get to build the fire.”
Building campfire isn't as easy as you might think. First had to knock all the snow off the firewood. Nearly froze to death before I got fire going. But it was worth it. McManus & Sweeney came out of tent later and critiqued fire.
“Not a bad fire for your first time,” McManus told me.
“Yeah, you done good, Fent,” Sweeney said.
“All he needs is just a bit more practice to get his fire-building technique perfected, don't you think, Retch?”
“Maybe we should let him get up and build the fire every morning,” Sweeney said.
“Yeah, I suppose you're right.”
Then they made me the official firebuilder! It's quite an honor.
Know it sounds crazy, but can't tell you how pleased I am that they would entrust me with this important chore. They even talk about letting me make the coffee in the morning! Which reminds me, Sweeney found the sock he lost. Coffee has since improved.
Now for the best news. Sweeney shot nice buck today; and I nearly shot one! Herd of deer came right by me. Slipped rifle safety off and aimed just behind shoulder of
big buck, held breath, and slowly squeezed trigger, just like McManus showed me. He watched through binoculars and said later I did everything just right! Said he is really pleased the way I handled myself.
“Starting tomorrow, Fenton,” he told me, “you get to put shells in your rifle.” Can hardly wait!
Love, Hubby
 
Thursday
Dear Dumpling,
You're not going to believe this, but I'm now official camp cook. Pat and Retch say they've never seen anybody catch on to hunting camp routine so fast.
Turns out that I'm a surprisingly good shot. Got two grouse today with my rifle and cooked them for supper. Wrapped them in aluminum foil with a bit of bacon and baked them in coals. Pat said they were almost as good as his Whatchagot stew, which is great compliment from him. For breakfast tomorrow I'm cooking pancakes and venison steaks. Pat and Retch have offered to do dishes, clean my rifle, and oil my boots.
Love, Hub
 
Friday
Dear Dump,
Good ol' Pat got his deer today, a four-point mulie. Even asked my advice, if you can imagine that. Told him I figured deer would be bedded down on the leeward side of the ridge because a sharp wind blowing all morning. Told him I'd swing around on the downwind side and see if I couldn't flush deer out onto open ground and that if he was in a
good position to cover the ridge he'd probably get a shot. That's just the way it worked out, too.
Well, I'd better turn in. Exhausted and exhilarated.
Love, Fenton
 
Saturday
Dear Marge,
Got my deer!
To tell truth, I hadn't known what this sport all about until now.
My old buddies Pat and Retch showed me how to dress out deer. Did it all by myself! Took me quite a while, but Pat and Retch said to take my time and do it right and not to worry about the camp chores because they were tired of me hogging all the fun and from now on they get to share them with me.
Best wishes, Fenton
 
Sunday
Marge,
The three of us talked it over and decided we won't be home for another week. Driving into town tomorrow for elk tags. Will mail these letters to you then. Don't worry if you don't hear from me for a while.
Cordially, Fenton Quagmire
I
had been sixteen years old for a long time now. Sixteen was an age I felt comfortable with. It was an age filled with exuberance, expectation, and surprise, with just a dash or two of madness. As is the nature of youth, I thought I would remain sixteen forever.
Vern and I had been fishing the river above the falls that day, and I remember snagging my favorite fly near the far bank and wading through the icy water up to my armpits to retrieve it. The force of the current lifted my feet and caused them to skitter dangerously over the rocks on the bottom, but I got the fly back and returned safely across the river, and Vern and I laughed because I hadn't been swept over the falls and drowned. Then we ate lunch, which was very soggy because I had been carrying it in the back of my fishing vest when I waded the river. We had to wring out the sandwiches before we could eat them. We cooked some of our smaller fish in a foil pan over a driftwood fire,
seasoning them with salt, pepper, a whole cube of butter, and ashes and sand, and we ate the fish crisp and hot with our fingers. For dessert we ate handfuls of plump, sun-warmed huckleberries, the big fat reddish ones that grow on the tall bushes in the shade by the water. For dinner music, the river and the falls performed a symphony in the background, Mozart I think. Then it was time to climb the steep, winding trail up to the car on the logging road and head home.
“You know,” I said to Vern, “I think I'll stay sixteen forever.” He gave me a funny look and started up the trail.
When I got home that evening and squished into the kitchen, the family was gathered around the dining room table, one end of which was piled high with decoratively wrapped packages. “Surprise! Happy birthday! Happy birthday! Yea!”
“My birthday? Again, so soon? I thought we just celebrated it. Well, no matter, I do love my birthday. This looks a bit more festive than usual, though.”
“Of course,” my wife Bun said. “It's not every birthday you turn fifty.”
“I suppose not,” I said. “Hey, this is great. What a surprise! Let me at those presents. This one looks about the size of a fly reel. Now who could have guessed I needed a new …
what did you say?”
“I said it's not every birthday you turn fifty.”
“What is this, some kind of cruel joke? You know I'm not fif-fif … anywhere near that old. That's the age of old geezers, like grandfathers.”
“Ha!” Bun said. “And just who do you think these four short people sitting here with the party hats on are?”
“My
grandchildren? You're kidding! I thought they belonged to the neighbors.”
“You have to start paying more attention,” Bun said. “You're not sixteen anymore.”
“I'm not? You mean this isn't a hoax? I really am fif-fif-fif …”
“That's right, fifty—the big five-0.”
It was a shock. I suppose if I had aged gradually, it wouldn't have hit me so hard, old age. Say if, for example, the previous year I had been forty-nine and the year before that, forty-eight, and so on, I could have accepted such a dismal fate as inevitable. But it hadn't happened gradually. I jumped right from sixteen to fif-fif … to
half a century old.
The jolt of it staggered me.
After the party, I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. Staring back at me was a person with gray hair, skin lined and blotched by the sun, a white mustache, a grizzled beard, and two chins, both of which began to quiver. So, it was true. This was not the face of a sixteen-year-old. This was a face that had been kicking around for half a century, the face of an old geezer—a grandfather!
Instantly my joints began to ache, my back to stiffen, my shoulders to slump. I felt my wrist—weak, fluttering pulse. I could practically hear the old ticker chugging and wheezing like a worn-out bilge pump. And to think, just a few hours before I had waded a cold river up to my armpits to retrieve an eighty-five-cent fly! Of course, I had still been only sixteen then. Something like that could kill an old geezer. I felt tired and weak and went into the den to take a nap, the first I'd taken since the age of three. From now on, I'd need lots of naps.
The next morning I got up feeling my age, which was old. I puttered about the house for a while.
“What in heaven's name are you doing?” Bun asked.
“Puttering about the house. Why?”
“Well, stop it! You don't know anything about puttering, and it's getting on my nerves.”
“Got any stale bread around? Maybe I'll go sit on a park bench and feed the pigeons. It shouldn't be too hard to learn how to sit on a park bench and feed the pigeons. Where's the park, anyway?”
“We don't have a park. Go sit on the porch and feed the sparrows.”
“I'd better put on a sweater. I wouldn't want to catch a chill.”
While I was sitting on the porch, Raymond, a neighborhood kid, rode up on his bicycle. He is a shaggy, rumpled person, with more knees and elbows than average, or so it seems, possibly because his bike is much too small for him.
“Hey, whatcha doin' sittin' out here all by yourself on the porch? You look like some broken-down old geezer, ya know?”
“Beat it, Raymond. I don't need any cheering up.”
“C'mon, I was just puttin' ya on. I heard ya turned fifty yesterday. So what! It ain't the end of the world.”
“What do you know about it?”
“You can still have some fun. Like you could, uh, uh, no, I guess you couldn't do that, but you could, uh, uh, how about feed pigeons in the park? I admit it don't sound like a real blast to me, but lots of old guys seem to dig it.”
“I've already thought about the pigeons, but there's no park around here. What do you want, Raymond? I know
you didn't just come over here to shoot the breeze with a geeze.”
“Well, now that you mention it, I thought you might advance me a couple bucks on mowin' your lawn.”
“Raymond, you already owe me mowed lawns up into 1989. Say, what do
you
do when you're not speculating on lawn futures?”
“Ah, nothin' much. I hang around. What's to do?”
I couldn't believe he had said such a terrible thing. He's only sixteen. When I was sixteen, which happened to be the day before, I had 1,589,643 things to do, not even counting the things I didn't want to do. I was only up to 5,854 on the list, too, when I so suddenly got old.
“Raymond, don't talk like that. There are a million things to do. Actually, there are well over a million and a half things to do.”
“All you old guys talk like that. Give me some examples.”
“Well, you could take up fishing, for instance.”
“That's one. What else?”
“What else! What do you mean, what else? Fishing is at least 800,000 things to do, all by itself. After you take up fishing, there's never again a moment when you don't have something to do. Take organizing a tackle box, for instance. You can spend your entire life just organizing a tackle box.”
“You organize your tackle box a lot?”
“No, I've never organized it, but the point is it's always there waiting for me to organize it when I don't have something better to do. When you're a fisherman, though, there's always something better to do than organize a tackle box. Of course, you never have just one tackle box waiting to be
organized. You have a tackle box for panfish, one for trout, one for bass, a couple for saltwater fishing, and so on. Over the years the contents of the various tackle boxes all get mixed up together. That's one of the things that make fishing such a wonderful challenge.”
I then went on to tell Raymond about my long, unrequited love for fly-fishing and all the hundreds of different flies I still wanted to tie, as soon as I took lessons in the basics of fly-tying, and the fly rods I wanted to build as soon as I learned how, and all the famous and exotic lakes and streams I wanted to fish as soon as I accumulated the necessary cash. I told him about the purity of fly-fishing—the thrill of going up against wily trout with nothing more than a slender rod, some line, a tapered leader and a few flies, and that's all, except for the canoe, float tube, rubber raft, fly books, landing net, hip boots, boot waders, stocking waders, vest, extra rods, extra reels, thirty-seven different lines, salves, oils and ointments, hook sharpeners, wading staffs, and the ten dozen or so other essentials.
“Geez,” Raymond said. “Do you have all the stuff you need for fly-fishing?”
“No, nobody has all the stuff you need for fly-fishing. It would require a warehouse to store just half of it. You see, no matter how much stuff you have for fishing, there's always more stuff you need. There's always new great stuff that you absolutely have to have, even though you didn't know you needed it before you saw it in a catalog. Fishermen spend hours poring over catalogs to find new stuff they can't possibly get along without. It's wonderful!”
“Yeah, fishing does sound like it might be fun.”
“Fun? Raymond, I can't begin to tell you how fantastic it is—an evening hatch coming on, the light soft and mellow
on the water, and you lay a dry fly soft as thistledown right next to the swirl of a big trout. Hey, let's go fishing right now! C'mon out to my warehouse and I'll get you outfitted.”
“All right!”
“Listen, Raymond, you're going to love fishing. Never again in your whole life will you have nothing to do. I'll show you all the techniques, too—how to cast and tie knots and everything, even how to wring out sandwiches.”
“Wait a minute,” Raymond said. “I thought you had gotten too old for this sort of thing.”
“Where did you get that idea? Sixteen isn't old, Raymond.”

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