So mostly I store-sit on fall weekends. But every so often, every blue moon or red dawn or whatever, I’m allowed to row. And although I am an abysmal fisherman and rotten storyteller, I can row. Dad likes to say I’m hell on oars.
Along with all the other inconsistencies of my life, even though I am uncoordinated and scrawny, I’m also freaky strong for my size. Last year Dad bought a rowing machine so he could use it during the winter. He didn’t use it more than twice, but I did. By spring, I could do fifteen pull-ups from the tree in my backyard. Dad could only do four.
He got so excited he took me out on the Madison River the next day. We put in at the McAtee Bridge and by the time we hit Ennis Bridge he said I was worthy to row anything in the shop. That was one of the best days I can remember.
The only problem is that most men don’t like having a five-foot-four Pop-Tart row like a sailor while they do their manly fishing, so Dad usually saves me for women’s groups, who think I’m the best thing since the sports bra.
This morning Dad is guiding a couple of female lunatics from Colorado, and I’m up. He says he wants me to row because his shoulder is bothering him, but we both know he wants me on board for protection. Last year these two got drunk before lunch. My dad said he thought for sure at least one of them would fall out of the boat, but they just kept catching fish. When they came back into the shop, one of the women kept putting her arm around my dad like they were great buddies. I’m guessing they tip well or my dad wouldn’t put up with this twice.
Dad’s recovered from the Mr. Andrew’s joke fiasco and seems like he’s almost in a good mood today. On the way over I say, “If they pinch your rear end I’m tipping them out of the boat.”
He looks at me and actually smiles. “I’m more worried about them throwing up in my boat.”
“I don’t see why people come on the raft to get drunk when they’ve paid to have you show them how to fish.”
Silence. I am a connoisseur of silence and its various connotations. In this case, I interpret Dad’s silence as friendly because my dad is:
1. not scowling, rolling his eyes, or clenching anything on his face.
2. allowing the radio to be on.
3. tapping the steering wheel to the music.
I say, “People should just sit in a bar if they want get drunk.”
“Let them worry about it,” says my dad. Another long pause. “It’s just good to get out.”
This is the phrase Dad uses to put a positive spin on unmet expectations. If he drives all day to try a new place and gets skunked (catches no fish) then he says, “Just good to get out.” If he goes out guiding for wildlife and they don’t see anything but blue sky and lodgepole, or if he comes home from a hunting trip with nothing to show for himself but a red face and a sore back . . . well, “It’s just good to get out.” I like this about Dad but I also find it mildly annoying.
We pick up the lunches from Gus’s Deli and meet the Denver Duo out front. One woman is skinny with a sunburn. She has on an expensive fishing vest, a hat from another fly shop, and some gigantic sunglasses. She’s the one who likes to hug my dad. The other has short blonde hair that she combs back wet. She’s wearing baggy safari shorts and striped wool socks and Birkenstocks. She looks to me like a woman who wears what she wants.
Dad reintroduces everyone. “Carol and Becca, this is KJ.”
“Well, love,” says Carol, the sunburned one, “you don’t look quite thick enough to row that boat.”
“Don’t listen to her,” says Becca. “She hasn’t had coffee.”
“Well, if you get tired, I brought something in my fishing vest to perk you right up,” says Carol. Her voice is edgy and I look at my dad to see how he’s taking the news that she’s packing pharmaceuticals.
He looks nonchalantly at Carol and nods. “You just make sure you have a license for everything you do on my boat and we’ll all be fine.” He chuckles a little to smooth it over and everybody makes nice.
Carol talks gear with Dad and she seems to know a fair amount about fishing. Apparently all three of her ex-husbands had this hobby in common.
We go out in our Avon raft twelve-and-a-half-foot self-bailer. Not the McKenzie, but steady and built to fish. Today we put in at the Greyling Arm, on the northeast side of Hebgen Lake, to fish for rainbows and browns. The lake is mirror quiet. We see two fishing boats moving slowly on the north side of the lake, but other than that it’s just us and the grebes.
The mist is burning off and the air is tepid. Bugs have started moving, so the fish are waking up. I don’t see any rises, but the women say that they want to dry fly instead of nymph. Fishing with nymphs is better when the fish are eating underwater, but it doesn’t look as flashy. We pull out the dries.
Dad starts the ladies on Callibaetis. The fish this time of year have lived through the summer and are ready to go into spawning mode. That means they are big and smart and fight like miniature pit bulls—it takes a good fisherman to get one on the line but it takes a great fisherman to get one in the raft. I’m not counting on seeing a lot of either happen today.
They fish for forty or so minutes then switch to Woolly Buggers. Then suddenly we are in fish up to our armpits, and I’m just trying to stay out of everybody’s way with the oars. The sound of line stripping fills the air. I never get tired of that sound. Carol hauls in a brown that Dad thinks is four pounds. I stop rowing and pull out our little water camera. I get Carol, Dad, and the gorgeous fish right before the fish starts flopping. Dad puts him back in the water while Carol curses for joy about ten times and then breaks out the hard stuff to celebrate.
“I take a drink for every fish I catch, and every fish Becca catches, too,” she says to me.
Becca is reeling in a fish, too, but she stops to frown at Carol, then goes back to her rainbow.
“Nice one,” says Dad. His face is lit and happy as he nets Becca’s catch. I take more pictures.
When Becca gets the fish off the hook and back into the water she sits down. She looks cheery but tuckered out.
“Well, it isn’t fair,” she says. The air moves hard from her lips as she talks. “That bit about her drinking for me.”
“Becca can’t drink anymore,” says Carol. “Her doctor says her liver’s grounded. . . . So I drink for her. I think it’s pretty generous of me.”
We row along for a few minutes talking about the fish and Becca’s liver. We pass two other fisherman: Ray White-head from the gas station and Kenner’s older brother William, in William’s beat-up two-seater. Regulars. We wave as we pass.
Dad says, “Any luck?”
William nods politely. “Fresh out of luck. You?”
“A couple.”
“Big ones,” says Carol, holding up her hands like she caught a marlin.
William says, “I’ve always said this lake is partial to women.” Unlike his brother Kenner, William has manners. I had a big crush on William when I was an eighth grader, like every other girl in the school. One of the best basketball players to ever come out of West End. They called him Sure Shot.
“See you have short stuff doing the rowing today,” says William.
“She’s little but she packs a punch,” says my dad.
I instantly forget how to row. Luckily Carol is being obnoxious while I bobble the oars and bump myself in the chin. She says, “They say luck is contagious. Maybe we should rub some off on you.”
“I wouldn’t know about that, ma’am,” says William. William’s fishing buddy snorts at that one.
Becca and Carol crack up as we row away. Carol turns to my dad. “Oh, he’s adorable. Are the men around here catch and release, too?”
My dad says, “’Fraid so.”
“Then I’m definitely going to need that second beer,” says Carol.
I’m starting two good blisters on my hand and sweating in spite of the slight wind that has picked up in the last few minutes. Dad suggests we stop and eat something. It’s half an hour before the usual lunchtime so I wonder if Dad is worried about how I’m rowing or about how much Carol’s drinking on an empty stomach.
I pull out the enormous sandwiches we get at Gus’s Deli, complete with six-inch pickles, kettle chips, and homemade oatmeal cookies. I eat my entire lunch and drink two bottles of water before I realize Dad is grinning at me.
“Hungry?” he says softly.
“I guess,” I say.
“Did you bring some gloves?”
“I forgot,” I say, feeling stupid and sore.
“You want to take a break?”
“I’m good,” I say.
The two women are eating happily on the other end of the raft. Dad scoots closer to me and pulls out his first-aid kit. He washes my hands with some bottled water, spreads something smelly on the blisters, and wraps my hands with two big Ace bandages. The bandages look melodramatic, but my hands feel better.
“Now you watch this wind,” he says.
I look around. Even if I could see wind I wouldn’t be looking at much. The water ripples gently in front of me. The sky is tinged with gray, but the air is still filled with sun and bugs. Just the same, I listen to Dad because I’ve never rowed for a group on the lake before. Normally I’m on the river, and there are a lot less options when you’re floating downstream.
“If we start to get that storm, we’re off. You don’t even wait to ask. I’ll explain it to Carol and Becca. You just lay your back into it and head for the dock. Got it?”
I look at the shore. I can’t see the dock anymore, but I know where it is because of the tree line and the mountains. We aren’t in the center of the lake, but we are farther out than Dad usually comes. A good thirty minutes of hard rowing with no headwind.
We finish our oatmeal cookies and start to fish again, with no luck. The streak is over. I get bored, so I start thinking about Virgil. I think about how his voice hums and how his hair smells like baby shampoo. There’s an endless list of things to think about.
A few more boats move in lazy circles on the water. A water-skier sends us a small wake and then disappears around the bend. After an hour my dad nets in two more rainbows for Carol and one little scrawny brown for Becca.
I’m thinking about how Virgil smiles with his eyebrows when I realize the sky has changed color and the ducks are gone. I look up at my dad and see he is waiting for me. Why does he do that? Why can’t he just say, “Hey, KJ! Big storm! Let’s go!”
I twist the oars and shift my back. The shore is even farther than it was at lunch. I’ve taken us too far out. The wind is pushing the water in the opposite direction but we have to get back where we put in if we want to get to the truck. The current pushes away my oars as I try to aim toward the dock. I look over at my dad, but he is explaining something to Carol.
I put my whole body into it, but I can’t get the angle that I need. We are heading toward shore but we’re too far down. My hands ache and sting under the bandages. The wind makes the water lap against the raft so it is difficult to hear. The lake is deserted from all other life. My shoulders feel like they are going to twist off. I suddenly feel massively uncoordinated, and I know I look it.
Carol has pulled in her rod and is watching me. “Sam, I think Tiger Lily needs some assistance.”
Dad nods, “How you doing, KJ?”
Why does he ask me questions like that? What am I supposed to say?
He says, “Put a little more weight on that left oar. Straighten out.”
I look down at my oars. I feel that tickle inside my head when everything is shutting down. Left? Left? Which one is left?
“Your other left,” says Dad.
They are all staring at me now. My chest is tight and I know my dad expects me to keep going. It’s one thing for me to be masochistic, but I can’t stand it when he expects me to be. It starts to rain.
Carol says, “This is ridiculous, Samuel. Her hands are sore and I’m freezing.”
Becca says, “Would you like me to take a turn, hon?”
Dad’s voice is calm and all business. “She’s fine . . . aren’t you, Katherine Jean?”
Katherine Jean. I feel the familiar heat in my face, the pinch in my neck, the itch beneath my skin. I aim for the tiny, faraway dock, I just don’t row that way. Every sweep of the oars takes us farther toward shore but farther from where we need to go. If I try to turn into the current, to muscle my way back on track, the hesitation in rowing makes the raft drift even more.
The water is choppy and high. It splashes onto our feet. I know this raft is sturdy, but it is definitely capsizable and in this lake, we would all be in big trouble if that happened.
I see myself tipping the raft with every stroke, falling into the freezing water with my dad and two unhealthy women. I look behind me and see Dad hunching a little in the wind, face calm and steady. He has given waterproof blankets to the women. Carol is emptying another flask. I look ahead. Even Becca is drinking now.
He is watching. I am the point he is proving, but why? He knows I can’t do it. He sits watching me fail. It takes a sadistic person to sit idly by while your daughter tries to drown four people.
He calls to me over the wind, “You’ve got it, KJ. Just don’t get sideways. You’ve got to compensate for the wind. Keep going. You’ve got it.”
I’ve got it, I’ve got it,
I mutter inside my fuzzy head. I’ve got blisters burning holes in my hands. I’ve got a butt so sore my toes are cramping. I’ve got a dad so starved for a son he’s willing to kill me off to prove he has one. I’ve got a head so messed up I keep going along with him.
The clouds settle in like a bad cold. I can’t make out the shore anymore. The rain is whipping into the raft, so I keep my head down and just row. I don’t look at Becca because I know she thinks it is all my fault, which it is.
We should be there in ten minutes,
I tell myself. Either that or drown, so either way it will be over.
Then I remember the Thurstons, the retired couple that drowned last year. They lived on the other side of town but they came into the shop all the time. The man, Garry, was a good fisherman. He and Edie stayed out just thirty minutes too long on Henry’s Lake and that was it. They found the boat the next morning, but it took them a week to find the bodies floating like blue logs in a slough.