Jason and Elihu. Shelley Fraser Mickle
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no one could tell him any reason to make it make sense. He wanted to forget that sound—the sound of his mother crying, high and muffled, like a bird choking. As if he were standing on a mountain with his mother on another cliff, he couldn’t reach her, only hear her. Even on days long after, Jason heard the exact same sound in his head, sometimes right before he fell asleep. Swelling up in his chest then was a feeling so lonesome that it seemed he’d swallowed a bird whose wings beat against his ribs.
His father now lived in an apartment two blocks away. Every Monday and Wednesday Jason stayed there. When his mother and father decided to live apart, the house got quiet. There was no arguing any longer. And there were no dark moods swelling in every room like bad smells. But the silence had a taste–sour and yucky—like a rotten orange. Often, anywhere in the house, the bird in his chest beat its wings as if trying to take flight.
There on Mrs. Hasturn’s porch, his mother leaned over and reminded him: “You might want to keep your hands in your pockets, Jason. You know, Mrs. Hasturn has many little things sitting around in her house. And if it’s hard to keep still…”
“Yeah, I know. Be careful.”
“Yes, please try.”
Wiggle Worm, his father called him. His teacher said he had Attention-span Challenges. His soccer coach said he had Giggly Legs. His Sunday school teacher said he had Ants in his Pants.
Be still, Jason. Stop it, Jason. For crying out loud, Jason! One more minute and it’s Time Out for you, Jason. When he was little, he spent more time in Time Out than a flea on a dog.
Now, along with Eraser Head, Pipsqueak and Squirt, he was called P.P. for Principal’s Pet because he was so often sent to the principal for not being still. Already he’d spent three days in the principal’s office, and it was only October.
At least he wasn’t called P.P. for a worse reason.
On the day he became Mrs. Hasturn’s prisoner, he had stood with his mother in Mrs. Hasturn’s mildew-smelling living room and waved his arm to motion to the wide expanse of carpet. Cheerfully, he’d said, “Want me to come over and vacuum for you, Mrs. Hasturn?” Splat! He’d knocked over a two-thousand dollar vase sitting on a side table.
How did he know that stupid old vase cost two thousand dollars?
How did he know it would break into about three million pieces that not even Gorilla Glue could fix?
How did he know, too, that breaking that vase would send Mrs. Hasturn into a crying fit until a home-health nurse came to give her a shot to make her go to sleep?
The next day, Mrs. Hasturn sent over word that Jason would have to rake her yard for twenty-one Saturdays. And that was only enough to partly make up for the murdered vase. He was to bring his own bottle of water, too, because he was never again to be allowed into her house under any circumstance whatsoever.
Soon afterward Grampy Luke moved down from Michigan. He rented an apartment nearby. “Jason,” he said, “I’m going to teach you how to fish. I don’t know anything about Florida fishing, but we can learn together.”
Over the next three weeks only those Friday nights with Grampy Luke at the lake helped Jason feel better. It was those Friday nights that helped him forget how miserable he’d be the next day at Mrs. Hasturn’s.
Now on his fourth Saturday as her prisoner, Jason propped his rake against a tree and sat down on the ground to pick a briar out of his shirt sleeve. The front door opened.
“No free-loading on my time, Mr. Lazy. Get up and get at it.” Mrs. Hasturn stood on her front porch, bossing him. Her silky dress blew against her legs. Her bony back made her look like a witch in some television show.
Sure, it was awful that he’d broken her vase, but it’d been an accident. And she couldn’t seem to stop being so mean to him.
“Yes. Okay.” Jason stood up and looked over the yard. The grass sure looked better than when he’d started. He reached down for his bottle of water and held it up, taking a deep swig.
She pointed. “That part over there. You didn’t get to that part over there.”
“Yes ma’am, I’ll get to it next.” But as he raked and she watched him, he whispered, “You don’t own me. I’m going to catch Elihu. One day you’ll be sorry for how mean you’ve been to me.”
“What’s that?”
“Nothing. Just singing.”
He touched his back pocket. His wallet was there. In it was the fishing license Grampy Luke had bought him the first time they’d gone into the Tackle Shop. The license was just a little piece of paper, and since he was under sixteen, the law didn’t require that he have it. But Grampy Luke had bought him one anyway. For it was like a ticket. It was a ticket to a special place, like, to a club that only men belonged to. All of them in the Tackle Shop had the same one. The license was good for many years.
Jason knew that already he loved fishing so much that he would renew that license over and over, year after year, even after he was a grown man.
“Don’t linger now. You owe me seventeen more Saturdays.” Mrs. Hasturn’s voice grated on his ears like someone sandpapering wood.
“Yes, ma’am, I know.”
With every leaf he raked, the vision of Elihu danced on his fishing line. Each sweep of the rake became the net lifting up the great Elihu’s body. Even though Mrs. Hasturn was watching him, Jason began thinking of the dark-skinned fisherman out at the Orange Lake fish camp that he’d met there the last Friday.
The fisherman’s name was Cooter. When Jason and Grampy Luke had launched their jon boat, Cooter had been putting his canoe in at the dock. Jason remembered how he’d asked, “Mr. Cooter, you ever heard of Elihu?”
“Oh my, yes! We all hear about Elihu. Nobody I know’s touched the great fish in... well, let’s see now, must be two years going on three. I reckon that was Skeeter Nelson who was the last. You hook Elihu, you’ll be a growed man by the time you come back to this dock.”
“That’s enough.” Mrs. Hasturn’s voice broke Jason’s daydream. “Go home now. I’ll see you next Saturday. I want you to weed my mums then.” She held open her front door. “Put the rake in the shed. And don’t be so late next week.”
“But I wasn’t late.”
“Don’t talk back to me. And don’t throw that water bottle down in the yard. Don’t leave any trash.”
“I won’t.”
Jason walked home silently. He touched his back pocket where the fishing license was. That’s who he was: the owner of a fishing license, not some runty kid who had to rake yards to make up for something bad he’d done.
FOUR
THANKS BUT NO THANKS
That next Friday just as he promised, Grampy Luke was waiting in the driveway with the jon boat hooked to his pickup. “Let’s stop by and ask your daddy to go.”
Jason had doubts that his father would ever go fishing. But, “Sure,” he said.
Grampy Luke backed out of the driveway, and Jason waved to his mother. He clicked the snap on his seat belt. His feet tapped the truck’s carpeted floor. The afternoon light was like a gray-blue tissue spread over the road.
At Jason’s father’s apartment, Grampy Luke knocked on the front door, and when Jason’s father answered, Grampy Luke said cheerfully: “On our way out to the lake. Hoping to catch something to fit a biscuit. You’re welcome to go.”
Jason’s father sat back down