A Gritty Song
Late spring was masquerading as summer. Even early in the morning as I walked Sam, it was so humid the cicadas were barely whispering as if to preserve their energy for the full-on heat of the hottest part of the day. It wasn't until bedtime, well after dark, when they began wheezing joyfully in the cooler air. We were heading to Suwannee, Florida, the next morning to be the guests of one of the couples amongst our bevy of friends. They had invited us on a fishing trip and I was wondering how soon to take the Dramamine I'd bought as I sipped my morning coffee, looking out at small bits of the lake I could see over the deck railing. The slices of water were reflecting a cloud-choked sky as opaque as a gray cat's eye narrowed in a fit of hissing anger.
I had stocked up on Dramamine because I'd just had my first bout of seasickness during a fishing trip with Jim, the nine-foot swells in the Gulf of Mexico making me want to toss my toenails. I wasn't much for fishing, hating the fact that it must have hurt like hell when a hook entered the gullet or the outer rim of a fish's bony lip, but I did love to eat fresh seafood so I went along, making do with taking notes about the cruelty of it all in my writer's notebook. I did have to admit there was something graceful about the act of fishing, the caster's shoulders flexing when the line unfurled, the reels singing a gritty song, and the lures striking the black surface of the choppy ocean with a plop.
I wondered if the view the fish had as they contemplated the lure was akin to peering through gray/green water glass. Was it the murkiness of their world that fooled them into thinking the contrivance they were about to devour was sustenance? The foam that floated past as I lounged on the front of the boat was like spittle on the face of an elderly man whose expression had gone slack, though this unfathomable water presented a countenance closer to the face of a poker player—so much activity beneath the surface kept secret by the mind willing it not to show. The oyster beds drew black lines on the horizon—dark as India ink—and buoys and fishing boats pocked the water as far as the eye could see. One mound of shells was like a dark pillow continually gathering sand to soften its entry into the water. Nearby a lone leafless tree seemed so forlorn as it spread its arms to the sky, begging for a mirroring stripped-down lover to echo its hapless shape. Did it curse the fact that it landed in such an isolated place?
Jim was the first to pull a fish from the water, its vacant eyes disguising the turmoil its gasping mouth and trembling fins betrayed. Was it wondering what explosion had hit its soggy world to cause such an upheaval into what must have been a painful deluge of light? Its luckier water mates hid out in the leaden liquid filled with marsh grasses that segued to a dusty green shelf of mangrove. As we made our way from the ocean into a wide creek, foamy blankets of Milfoil swayed with the movement of the water near the jagged banks, unfathomable as it ate the light that might have penetrated to the creekbed. We crept into the channel just as dusk's light was purpling the surface of the water. Stumpy palmetto palms craned their bushy heads skyward, native-like and curious, they seemed to furtively peek from the grassy beds, some leaning precariously to one side while the others listened for noises in the opposite direction.
Snowy egrets were stark against the deep-coated world as if announcing their greatness by flashing their wings—the pristine hues of their feathers catching bits of illumination. I watched a giant pink sun sink below the line of the world's edge as a frog began its honking, inspiring the entire amphibian nation to follow suit. They were so boisterous they could have been a flock of geese camping in the midst of the tall grasses, and I wondered how large a frog would have to be to make such an impressive sound.
The next day I sat as morning awakened and marveled at the calmness of the water surrounding the house—there wasn't even the tiniest ripple in sight. Birds twittered, and just as I thought about how the world was softly silent, a pine tree beside the porch creaked as if to prove me wrong, then someone cranked the engine of an airboat across the marsh. It sounded like a giant mosquito buzzing around in the humid air. A second boat geared down on the river as the water mirrored the sky's baby blueness, the reflection of marsh grasses turned upside down as stem met stem, connecting twin opposites on the surface of the river. These thick-haired grasses held froths of white flowers, each delicate like a pin on a jaunty beret that would have been right at home perched askew on a young girl's head.
We were back on the water by mid-morning and as we approached Deer Island, the throaty grinding of the boat motor was the only sound reverberating in the hot, damp air. I tried to imagine how it would feel to be driftwood and realized that being blown into the ocean would likely be the perfect version of a nightmare—the water incessantly lapping at the skin, raw and exposed to the morning sun, which only added insult to injury. The waves would eat at the flesh, polishing the dermis to a stony smoothness. My view from my prone position would be water lapping up and over my eyes as the tide filled my world with nothing but liquid, a flood of color as murky as the feeling emanating from my abandoned heart. Grasses would drift onto my torso and rest like dark scars as the high tide receded, taking with it all the choking I had been forced to endure while the water entered every fissure it was slowly creating.
That evening, I sat on the deck of the couple's waterfront home, enjoying the quiet as the sky deepened, attempting to record everything about the trip that I'd found interesting. Darkness was grabbing at my pen and paper, so I had to write as quickly as possible as night ushered in the cool air. A cricket called from the flowerbed as the breeze stirred the ferns above the water that rippled past. A dark cloud was skulking toward me from the west and I had to squint to see the words I was recording as its front edge reached me, further muting the light. Wind chimes made far-too-happy sounds as I raced to get my reactions to the watery world in which I'd been immersed on paper. I'd never noticed how the tinkling of the hollow metal mimicked china teeth chattering on a winter morning. I looked up as something skirted past my peripheral vision to see a small black bat flutter against the charcoaled sky. In relief it was quite outstanding and I watched as it pirouetted in the last bit of light that oozed from the far horizon. Suddenly the dark consumed it and me; I put down my pen and rested in the chair in secrecy, the words I'd so desperately wanted to put on the page invisible in the inked evening.
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