What Freaks Me Out: Fishing.

This entry launches another new regular blog feature: What Freaks Me Out.

I may be showing dubious judgement, launching this feature, for I am only giving the mischievous and unrepentant torturers in my life some fresh ammunition. But they say that the best writing comes from deep wells of emotion: things that we love, things that we hate, things that give us shivers...

And in fact, this entry's subject (fishing) did indeed make its way into CANDOR (see below), so perhaps there's truth to that.

I grew up in a family that likes to fish. They buy big white squishy styrofoam containers filled with dirt and long live worms in them, then stick them in the fridge. Then they take those poor trapped worms out on a row boat, stick a hook in them and dangle them in front of fish while they try, desperately, to escape and somehow find their way to a nice flower bed before they meet their worm maker. Yeah. You know how often that happens.

Sometimes those worms sit in the fridge for days. I imagine them trying to move through that little bucket of dirt, always bumping into each other. "Hey, Fred, you again? Man we go to all the same places! Hey, have you run into any white walls lately?" Do they know what is in store for them? Oh yes. I am sure they do.

(Once I threatened to liberate a container of worms but my cousin fiercely told me that I'd have to walk down the hill from our cabin and buy a fresh container for him at Stewart's, which was far too much of my allowance to sacrifice plus that's a really long walk so... I am afraid my rebel ambitions died far too fast).

Fishing freaks me out, from the bucket of worms to skewering them to a hook getting stuck in a fish's lip. But as with many things that freak us out, they also fascinate us. So what did I do, back when I was eight or so?

I fished.

I went out into the middle of the lake in the early morning--when I'd heard fishing was best--and I brought alone a pole with a rubber worm on it (I had my limits). Then I flung the worm in the water and waited. Flung again. And then... the stupid big bass actually bit.

I was horrified.

I did what any reasonable person would do in the middle of a lake in the early morning. I screamed for help--and I mean screamed. It was probably when I discovered the scream that got me cast in my first high-school play. 

We'd been taught in our family: Never Scream At The Lake Unless It's A True Emergency. So my cousins and next-door neighbor dudes came pouring out of their cabins. My mother came a-running in her robe. And they jumped in boats and made their way to me. 

They reeled in the fish. They brought it to shore. ("I'm sorry," I kept saying. "I never meant to catch anything.") They took a picture of me holding it, smiling even. But then I looked down at that poor big fish (16", I do recall) and I said I was sorry one more time. 

Then I got them to put that fish back underwater and release it. I've never been fishing since. My child still thinks that he's fishing when he flings a lure into the water. What he doesn't realize--not yet--is that we clipped the hook off. I don't know what I'll do when he figures that out.

To close, here's a little bit of the chapter about fishing in CANDOR... based directly on the moment when I let that fish go. In this selection, the main character, Oscar, is fishing with his father:

It's eighteen or nineteen inches, with beautiful gray-green scales. "You got a big one," I say.

"Even the fish listen to me." He grins and holds the line up high.

I watch the gills flap in and out. My stomach clenches. I think, for a second, that I'm going to puke.

"What a beaut." He turns around and waves. Unbelievable. There's the tour bus, creeping past us. Some of the tourists cheer. 

It was for real. This isn't a trap. I'm just a prop for the tour bus.

I reach for the fish. "It can't breathe."

"I'm done anyway." He hands me the pole and heads for the bus.

I slide the hook out of the fish's lip. Then I kneel and set the fish in the water. It stays in place. Waves its tail once, twice. 

"Welcome to Candor!" I can hear Dad from here. He'll climb on the bus next. Invite people to stay a bit. Get some cold water in our stunning model homes. 

The fish twists its whole body.

"Go," I whisper.

One more flex of its tail and it's gone.

CANDOR copyright 2009 Pam Bachorz, all rights reserved.