Thumbsucker (27 page)

The next morning, a floatplane bobbed at the end of a long dock. An Indian with a sleek black ponytail pumped fuel into its side. “What do you know?” he asked me. I shrugged my shoulders. It seemed to be all the answer he was expecting.

Mike and the pilot pushed dollies down the dock loaded with fresh supplies for the cabin. The Indian stood in the hold and helped them stow things: cartons of canned fruit salad and baked beans, packages of hot
dogs, jars of coffee, boxes of powdered milk and mashed potato mix. A case of bottled ale went by and a propane cylinder. The Indian stacked the supplies with care, distributing their weight around the plane.

“Last call for luxury items,” Mike said to me. “Anything from the dock shack? Cigarettes?”

Mike had never let on to knowing I smoked sometimes. He sounded almost approving, which surprised me.

“I’m fine,” I said. I already had my stash: three packs of Old Golds, some cough syrup, some pot, and a Scrabble board in case of rain.

Before I could offer to help him, Mike picked up all three rod cases, our tackle box, and both our duffel bags, leaving nothing for me to carry. He grunted and made low, complaining sounds. We followed the pilot into the plane and sat down behind the cockpit on wooden seats that folded out of the wall. I buckled my seat belt.

“If we crash over water, that belt won’t help,” Mike told me. “In fact, it might drag you down with it.”

I kept it on.

The pilot took off across the flat blue lake. He was a kid in his twenties, blond and handsome, and flying seemed to come naturally to him. He ate M&M’s from a bag inside his jacket, tossing them popcorn style into his mouth and washing them down with a can of 7 Up. On his lap was a map he didn’t bother to look at. He appeared
to be navigating visually, scanning the sky like a bus driver in traffic.

“The walleyes and pike have been hot and heavy,” he said. “The lake trout so-so. I’d concentrate on walleyes.”

Mike and the pilot talked fishing for a while and Mike made it sound like he was less experienced than he really was. He grilled the pilot for tips on bait and fishing spots while I looked out a small window at the lake. It curved to the horizon, filled with islands.

“My son and I don’t get much time together,” Mike said. “We’re looking forward to this.”

The pilot nodded.

“It’s hard raising kids these days. You’re just one influence. And not the most important one, at that.”

“I don’t have a family,” the pilot said.

“You will.”

“I enjoy being single.”

“We all do. Doesn’t matter.”

Mike rose from his seat and crossed the cabin and got his duffel bag. He dragged it back to his seat and loosened the drawstring and shoved his arm down inside it to the elbow. The canvas bulged where Mike’s hand was digging around. He drew out a bottle of Black Velvet whiskey, cut the seal with his thumbnail, and unscrewed the cap.

“You want a drink?”

The pilot held out his can of pop and Mike dribbled
whiskey inside, then looked at me. “You want a shot? We’re on a fishing trip.”

I made a face as the whiskey coursed down my throat, pretending I wasn’t used to alcohol. I’d had a few drinks since becoming a Mormon, too.

The plane landed hard. It bounced and skipped and shuddered. We taxied around to a planks-and-barrels dock with tire halves nailed to its sides and started unloading. When we were done the pilot shook our hands and climbed back inside the plane and taxied out. Mike held up the bottle in a kind of toast as the plane gathered speed and lifted off. It circled the island, dipped its wings, and vanished. Mike took another drink, and so did I. I got out my pack of Old Golds and offered him one.

“Thanks. I’d rather chew. You go ahead.”

I lit a match one-handed.

“Neat trick,” Mike said. I was hoping that he’d notice.

“Here we are,” I said.

“Nothing to do but fish and talk.”

“It’s nice.”

“It
is
nice,” Mike said. He dipped Red Man from his chew pouch. I was waiting for us to start talking. I was braced for it.

We went out fishing after we unpacked. The boat had a small slow leak we couldn’t find. Rusty water sloshed
around our feet. In it floated uncrinkling balls of cling wrap from the Velveeta sandwiches we’d eaten. While Mike read a map, I organized the tackle box, untangling treble hooks and sorting sinkers. We’d been running into the wind for forty minutes, crossing bays and flying up narrow channels, but only now was Mike checking our location.

“The legendary Trout Inlet,” Mike announced. He folded the map and slid it under his butt so it wouldn’t blow away.

“You’re sure?”

“Trust me. For once just trust me, Justin.”

“Fine.”

I let down the anchor—a cement-filled coffee can. The rope raced off the winch and spun the handle. The water was deep, the deepest I’d ever fished in.

“Man’s age-old dilemma: worm or leech?” Mike said.

“Leech, I think.”

“I was afraid of that,” Mike said.

He raised the bait bucket’s perforated lid. The leeches came out of the water long and snaky but curled into tight, leathery balls on our hooks. We fished them just off the bottom, attached to jigs, but nothing happened. A strikeless hour passed. Growing bored, we gave our leeches names. I named mine Leif for some reason. Mike named his Luscious. Eventually, we gave them voices. Leif was a male, a bully, and said things like: “Kiss my ass, you wimpy little walleye.” Luscious was a seductive female leech. “Hey there, killer,” she’d purr,
“you want to dance?” Mike’s Luscious voice was funnier than my Leif voice.

“Let’s change around,” I said after a time. “I’ll be Luscious now.”

“Forget it, fella. I’m starting to feel lucky. One lucky lady.”

I opened a bottle of ale from the cooler and drank while I bailed out water from the boat. Suddenly, Mike’s pole jerked down and bent. He brought up a walleye after a brief fight and whacked its head on the motor mount to kill it. Amazingly, his leech survived the battle. He pretended to kiss it before he cast it back out. He caught another fish immediately.

“
Now
can we switch names?” I said. My jealousy of Mike’s success surprised me. I wanted him to share his lucky charm.

“Sorry, tiger. Got a date,” said Luscious.

I drained my ale and opened another one. Mike didn’t seem to notice how much I was drinking—catching walleyes had put him in a spell. The breeze blew our boat in circles around the anchor line. Finally, I said, “I’m chilly. Let’s go back.”

Luscious said, “Leif is a quitter. What a pussy.”

“We still have two days to fish,” I said. “I’m hungry.”

“Pussy,” said Luscious. “It isn’t even dark yet.”

I reeled my line in, unhooked my limp, dead leech, and flung it over the side. I hated fishing. I threaded a worm on my hook. I hated leeches. When Mike made
another comment in his Luscious voice, I said, “Use your real voice. This is stupid. I thought the idea of this trip was that we’d talk.”

“But darling, this
is
my real voice,” Luscious said.

The cabin was sided in curling asphalt shingles and I could tell that only men had stayed in it. Enormous dead moths with outspread wings clung to the rusty window screens. The sofa was covered in cracked brown Naugahyde, its wooden arms heavily notched with cigarette burns. In the kitchen no two cups or glasses matched, and in the cluttered silverware drawer I found more bottle openers than forks.

For dinner we had canned green beans and panfried Spork, a Canadian version of Spam. Mike flipped the pink, spongy meat with a spatula while I boiled the beans.

“You said you weren’t feeling well yesterday,” I said, trying to start our long-awaited discussion. I was just drunk enough to want to have it now. “What’s been the problem? Woody? Is it just Woody?”

“Pass the pepper, precious,” Luscious said.

I handed Mike the shaker. “I mean it. Seriously. I’m asking how you’ve been feeling. I want to know.”

Mike wiggled his hips and turned a slice of Spork. He sipped from his plastic tumbler of Black Velvet. “Set the table, honey. Be a dear. Luscious is almost ready to dish up.”

Mike served the Spork and beans on paper plates that quickly soaked through with grease. We didn’t speak. We alternated bites of salty meat with long cold gulps of ale. Our stomachs rumbled. Mike had the smug, self-satisfied expression of a fisherman who’d caught his limit, and after we’d eaten dessert and thrown our plates away, I made one last stab at mature conversation.

“I really like drinking. It worries me,” I said. “Did you drink much at my age?”

Mike frowned and shrugged.

“Sometimes I wonder if I’m going to make it. Is that how you felt after football? Unprepared? Like everyone else has a secret they aren’t telling you, or maybe you’re just too dense to understand it?”

Mike took one of my Old Golds off the table. He lit it and blew out a smoke ring. He crossed his legs.

“I know what you mean about hurting inside,” I said.

“Darling,” said Luscious, tapping off her ash, “you have no idea.”

It was raining when I woke up. The cabin was freezing. I looked down from my bunk and Mike was at the stove, scrambling eggs and frying up more Spork. Five minutes later he called me to the table and I noticed his voice had not returned to normal. He wasn’t Luscious anymore, thank goodness, but some other creature: weary, moody,
put-upon. His strange high spirits of yesterday were gone.

“I drank all the coffee,” he said. “I’ll make some more.”

“I can make tea,” I said.

“There isn’t any.”

“Let me make the coffee.”

“I don’t mind. I’ll do it.”

After breakfast we put on rain gear and went out. The rain blew straight into our eyes in stinging pellets. Mike started the motor after several tries and steered us out into the lake. The rain was freezing. When Mike opened the bait bucket, the leeches lay slack and dead. He emptied the bucket over the side, said, “Fuck it,” and drove us back through the downpour to the dock.

We changed our clothes, and I set up the Scrabble board. Mike had never been a fan of board games, considering them a waste of time, like jigsaw puzzles, but there was nothing else to do. Our big talk was not going to happen—that seemed clear to me. We set out a bowl of potato chips and pretzels and opened two bottles of ale. While Mike chose his letters I visited the out-house and rolled a joint with toilet paper. I held my hits for as long as possible, then dropped the roach down the hole.

I went first. My opening word was
dervish
. My best words in Scrabble were words I’d never spoken, words that I was surprised I even knew.

Mike examined his rack and rubbed his lips. He set down his letters deliberately.
Dungeon
.

“Nice,” I said. I was finally enjoying myself. I spelled out
hose
, reconsidered, and put down
hove
. I counted my points out loud, then tripled them because I’d landed on a bonus square.

Mike seemed unimpressed. He put down
gloom
.

“That’s weird,” I said. “You ever notice that? A Scrabble board’s like a Ouija board sometimes.”