A Time Ago
by George J. Smullen
I bore both my tackle box and a loaf of Wonder Bread, pilfered from the kitchen, while Grampa, hobbling beside me, lugged my rod and reel. Shortly, Ray Candleworth--Ichabod is what my older brothers called him--caught up with us. Toothpick thin and mountain tall, he had a prominent nose and a goiter that rode the gullet like a yo-yo. His dark eyes caromed crazily like a pair of berserk bumper cars at Six Flags. Constantly visiting his nostrils, an index finger on a search and destroy mission, attempted to capture a greenie while Ray talked about goofy sex things, which I didn't understand. Often, he chattered like a chipmunk while I either fished, or, if they weren't biting, skipped stones across the water.
"Who's your friend, huh, Gordie?" Gramps pointed a finger at his chest.
Ray nodded. "Yes, you."
"I'm-ah Frank Collacico."
"Cow-lah-CHEEK-oh?" Ray chuckled. "You a foreigner, huh?" Grampa shook his head.
"I'm-ah Gor-DON's grand pa-PA." Just like that, Ray changed gears and stared at a high school-aged girl coming toward us.
"Hey, check the jugs on her!"
Grampa gave me a look that said the middle aged Ray was about three quarts shy which I already knew, but he was company. Before long, we stared at the coffee-colored Wisconsin, swirling lazily by the concrete pier where I normally fished. To get there, we had to straddle a guard rail and then climb down ten feet on a rusty ladder precariously attached to a stone and mortar wall. As I descended the ladder, it groaned and wheezed as a million wrinkles overtook Grampa's forehead. Ray instantly seized Grampa by the shoulders, pulled the old man to him, and gave him a bear hug. Gramps somehow pushed him away.
"What's-ah matter you? You-ah crazy!"
"Just trying to help!" Grampa's hand shot up like a traffic cop's.
"Don't-ah help!" After shimmying over the guard rail, Grampa made the sign of the cross, placed a foot on the top rung of Old Shaky, closed his eyes, and shouted Italian phrases. What seemed like two years later, he reached concrete and sighed, "Thank-ah you, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" Ray followed in a flash while I soaked a couple slices of Wonder Bread in river water. "What's-ah that?"
"DOUGH BALL," Ray enunciated ever so deliberately, his mouth opening and closing dramatically, still thinking Grampa couldn't understand English too well.
"You-ah no fooling me," Grampa instructed with an index finger. "Fish eat-ah worms, not-ah sandwiches!" After wringing out the bread, I cupped the glutinous goo into a pasty snowball, hid it in the hook, and held it up for Grampa Frank's inspection.
"That," Ray observed, "looks good enough to bring in Hogshead Harry!"
"Hogshead-ah Jerry?" "What's Hogshead-ah Jerry?" Ray snapped fingers and jumped like a Masai warrior, commemorating a lion hunt.
"Harry! He's part whale and pit bull terrier, has lips like a rhinoceros, teeth like a coyote, and a pecker as big as an elephant!" Ray horse-laughed so loud, people, who walked over a bridge we could hardly see, stopped to stare at us. They looked like curious ants.
After I cast, Ray explained to Grampa how a fish, fooling with our bait, would tighten the line and jerk the pole's tip, which was exactly what happened. Grampa muttered Italian incantations while I brought up the rod, yanked hard, began the retrieve, and landed a foot-long yellow belly bullhead. As soon as I put it on a stringer and in the river, I prepared the bait, cast out the line, and handed the pole to Grampa who placed it on the pier as I had. Soon, the tip bent but did not jerk back as expected.
"Snag!" called Ray. Grampa Frank shrugged, not understanding. "You caught the bottom of the river!" Just then, the pole made a series of impromptu, wrenching moves.
"Buh-Buh-Buh . . . "
"Bite!" Ray yelled. Grampa snatched the shuddering rod and desperately held on. Lurching, the fish forced the old man to stumble against Ray who fell. Rising out of the water, the black-eyed monster glared at us.
"Hah-Hah-Hah-Hah . . . "
"Harry!" Ray shrieked. "It's Hogshead Harry!" As the line whirred, the Goliath charged the other side of the river, a quarter mile away. Grampa did nothing.
"Ruh-Ruh-Ruh . . . "
"Reel in!" Ray ordered. "Don't give him no slack!" Miraculously, Grampa cranked the reel, but Hogshead made an instantaneous U-turn and swam straight toward us at flank speed, thinking he was a sailfish, breaking the surface again. As Italian words spewed fast and furious, Grampa gave him no slack. In no time at all, the leviathan flipped and flopped onto the concrete pier.
"I'm-ah caught him! I'm-ah caught Pig's-ah face Jerry!"
"Hogshead Harry!" amended Ray.
"Whose-ah fish is he?" Grampa Frank shot back as he glared at Ray. Out of water, Harry was belligerent, slippery, and strong. He scowled while currents of fear rode up and down my spine, tickling the ends of my hair. Somehow, sticking the tip of the stringer through his huge gill and out the front of his cavernous mouth, I finally placed him under house arrest and grinned at Gramps. "We caught-ah him, Gor-DON! You-ah and me!" My grin grew so large, I thought my face would break.
"Kuh-Kuh-Can I kuh-carry him hah-hah-hah-hah-home?" With the monster's head on my shoulder, the tip of its tail brushing the sidewalk, Whiskey Rapids' residents drove by in their cars, honked horns, hollered, and whistled. I was considering taking bows. Ray ran off after spotting Mom who told me to bury that thing right away because it stank so much, but first I showed Harry to all the neighbors before I dug a hole in our garden. Grampa came out to say a prayer. A hand on my shoulder, he intoned, "God, I'm-ah get old and tired, but my-ah soul, she keep on-ah growing, and so I give-ah my soul to my Grand-ah son, Gord-DON. He's good boy!" His wink ended Harry's memorial. Hugging Grampa Frank so hard, I thought I might hurt him.
I never saw him again, for Gramps died two years later in Chicago. After Judge Conway sentenced Ray Candleworth to an institution for window peeping, undressing in front of townspeople, and other similar acts I never saw Ray again. Me? Sometimes, I swear I can smell Grampa's Prince Albert pipe tobacco and feel and hear his warm Westclox pocket watch that he pressed against my ear, its tick-tocks transporting me to serene, fantastic places. Listen. I can almost hear him calling me Gor-DON. Its sound prompted fleeting feelings of my being a prince instead of the frog I knew I was. Perhaps I do own part of his soul.
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Last Updated: January 19, 1996