An Early Winter (5 page)

Tim brings the package of salami and slaps it down on the counter next to the bag Melvin has filled. Granddad is stuffing some bills back into his pocket. Tim is glad the story is done. Melvin must be glad, too, though he doesn't look it. But then he never looks glad about anything, not even customers.

Melvin picks up the salami, arches a grizzled eyebrow at Granddad.

"Sure," Granddad says. "Sure. The boy loves salami."

"You're the one who loves salami, Granddad. Don't you remember?" Tim can hear the impatience in his voice, though he doesn't know why he's feeling impatient, exactly.

"Two thirty-seven," Melvin says.

Granddad reaches back into his pocket, comes out with two dollar bills and some change, hands the bills to Melvin. Then he stirs the change in his hand, his forehead crinkling as though he has no idea how to pick out thirty-seven cents.

Melvin scratches his belly again. His fingernails rasp against his hairy skin.

Granddad keeps stirring. "Here," he says at last, and he thrusts his hand, containing the entire pile of change, toward Melvin. "Take what you need." His face is red, and Tim's own cheeks heat up, too. It's one thing for Granddad to forget that his grandson doesn't like salami. Is it possible to forget how to count change?

The idea settles in the bottom of Tim's stomach like a stone. Could the grownups be right about his grandfather? Is he really "losing it"?

Melvin grunts, takes the appropriate coins from Granddad's palm, and drops them into his change drawer. Without a word, Granddad stuffs the rest into his pocket and heads for the door. Tim picks up the bait bucket and the bag of groceries and follows.

"Hope you have good fishing," Melvin calls after them unexpectedly.

Granddad, always friendly, always ready to carry on a cheerful conversation, pushes out the door without replying.

"Thanks," Tim mumbles. Halfway to the door, he even turns back as though there might be more to say. Like maybe,
Would you like to come with us?

But that's silly. Of course. He doesn't even like Melvin.

Besides, this is Tim's special time with his grandfather. The two of them are running away together. Why would he want to have Melvin along?

Tim stands over the plastic foot pump, pressing it again and again, watching the inflatable raft come slowly to life with each puff of air.
Change!
the pump huffs with each breath.
Change. Granddad can't even make change.

Tim stops pumping. It's a stupid thought. Just because Granddad let Melvin make change for him is no proof he can't do it himself. And even if he
has
forgotten a little thing like that, it's hardly worth worrying about. Hardly worth any more worry than a bucket of dead mice.

Dead mice
, says the pump when he starts up again.
Change.

Stop! Tim
commands his brain.
Just stop!
He steps away from the pump and gives himself a shake.

Why does he have to go spoiling everything? He's here at Silver Lake with his grandfather. They are going to go fishing. Isn't that exactly what he wanted?

The day is crisp and clear with an occasional woolly cloud grazing across the sky. The lake is calm, the breeze just cool enough for the sweatshirt he is wearing to feel good. And Granddad drove right to their favorite camping spot without hesitating once. Not bad for a man people claim has this thing called Alzheimer's disease.

Granddad had remembered where the inflatable raft was stored, too, folded away in the special compartment he'd built on the back of the camper to hold it. And he'd gone right to his fishing gear in its battered old box.

Grandma should have seen how happy he was to lay his hands on that gear. Maybe that would make her think twice about selling anything else of Granddad's.

Tim resumes pumping, the air shushing into the raft in sharp bursts.

They'll catch a mess of sunnies and fry them in the black cast-iron skillet over the campfire ... or a filet from a nice fat walleye. He'll gather acorns, too. There are a lot of those around. The Indians used to make flour from the acorns. Maybe they could have acorn-flour pancakes with their fish.

Granddad emerges from the back of the camper and hands Tim a sandwich. Peanut butter and jelly, the dark purple jelly already oozing through the soft bread, just the way he likes it.

Tim takes a big bite. "Grandma never should have sold the camper," he says around the wad of bread and peanut butter. "That was a dumb thing to do."

The words just pop out, impossible to retrieve once they're said, and Tim quits chewing, waiting for the inevitable response. Granddad has never permitted him to criticize his grandmother. In fact, saying something bad about Grandma has always been the quickest way to bring down his wrath.

This time, though, Granddad only grimaces and says, "I suppose she's afraid if we men go off together, we'll have too much fun."

Tim smiles at that—
we men!
—and begins to chew once more.

After a few more bites of the sandwich he realizes how thirsty he is. And remembers, too, that they didn't buy any pop or juice. They didn't even remember to take on water for the camper's holding tank, so he can't get a drink from the sink inside the camper or make up some cocoa. And the pumps in the campground are always turned off after Labor Day to avoid frozen pipes.

Well, they'll just have to drive back to Melvin's later and get water. This time the forgetting was his fault as much as Granddad's. The two of them are out of practice, that's all. It's been too long since they've had a chance to go camping.

Granddad gets out the tackle box and begins riffling through it.

"I think we'll use lures," he says, though the bucket of minnows is at his feet. "We can jig." Jigging, in this case, isn't a dance. It's a way of tugging on the line to keep a lure moving.

Tim doesn't reply. He doesn't mind fishing with a lure if that's what Granddad wants.

Granddad studies the lake and, after a long moment, takes out an orange and chartreuse lure and a lead head. Tim thinks the head he is using is the one called a "modified round," but he's not sure.

The camper had been sold in the spring, and he and his grandfather hadn't gone fishing even once before he and Mom moved this past summer. But the summer and fall before, Granddad had taught him which color lure to use, which head style, which weight for different conditions.

For jigging, one color lure is better for early morning, another for clear water on a bright day, another for murky water, another for a cloudy day or for evening. Tim tries to remember what kind of light conditions orange and chartreuse are good for, but he has forgotten. Granddad has so much to teach him still. He remembers about the modified round head, though. That is the best shape for avoiding snags.

People who don't fish—like his mom and his grandmother—think fishing is a simple activity. They think fishermen just go out in a boat and drop a line into the water and they catch fish or they don't and that's all there is to it. But it's not that way at all. Being a good fisherman requires knowledge and respect. You have to
know
the fish you're going after the way you know your best friend. Granddad always says that. You have to know and respect the creature you are going after. It's not just food you're taking; it's life itself. The fish's life to sustain yours.

His grandfather respects every kind of life ... except, perhaps, for mice. Tim shakes his head—why is he thinking about mice?—and pumps harder.

When the floor of the raft, the last section to be done, is full and tight, Tim joins his grandfather on the picnic bench. "Did you have a sandwich, too?" he asks.

"Sure," Granddad replies. But then he adds in apparent contradiction, "I wasn't hungry."

Tim wonders which it was. Did he have a sandwich or wasn't he hungry enough to want to eat? Maybe he wasn't hungry, but he had a sandwich anyway. He decides not to push the subject.

Granddad's fingers, usually so swift to assemble weight and lure, keep tangling in the line. "Piffle!" he says finally.

It's a private joke between them. Once, when Granddad caught Tim using a bad word, he'd said, "Don't you mean piffle?" And from that point on, piffle has become their favorite "swear word." Once Tim forgot and said it at school and everyone laughed. He's come to rather like the sound of it, though.

"We could tightline," he suggests. Even he can set up for tightlining. Nothing needed except a hook for the minnow and a weight, set about a foot up the line.

Granddad doesn't reply. He just thrusts the entire mess into Tim's hands, stands and heads for the outhouse, moving briskly.

Tim watches his grandfather's retreat for a moment, uncertain how to react. Granddad has never left him to set up the lines on his own. He has always been meticulous about such things, wanting the lines, the weights, the lures to be exactly right. In fact, Tim has sometimes grown impatient with the constant demonstrations, the endless explanations, wanting just to tie the knot himself or choose a lure because he likes its color or its shape, instead of because it's the one Granddad says is right for the conditions.

So apparently his grandfather thinks he's ready. At last!

Smiling to himself, Tim gets the jackknife out of the tackle box. He cuts away the mess of tangled line, drops the lure back into the box, and starts over again with a simple hook and weight. By the time his grandfather is back, he has both poles set up. He sits holding them, waiting for Granddad to come over to check them out, but he doesn't even do that. He just busies himself locking the camper.

Tim isn't sure whether to be pleased or disappointed. Is his grandfather so sure of him that he doesn't even think his work needs checking? Or doesn't he care what Tim has done?

Tim puts the poles in the raft, drags it down to the water, and sets it afloat.

"Come on, Granddad," he calls. "Old Marble Eyes is waiting."
Old Marble Eyes
is what his grandfather calls the walleye.

Tim climbs in, holding the raft close to the shore with one oar.

His grandfather approaches, but stops a few feet away. "Do you think Sophie is going to be cross?" he asks. His voice is plaintive. Almost childlike.

"Who cares if she is?" Tim replies, more firmly than he feels. Though his grandmother blusters a lot, she is seldom genuinely angry. When she does get angry, though, she is a force to be reckoned with. And there is no question, she will be angry this time. Since she's decided that Granddad has "lost his marbles," she will probably direct most of her wrath at Tim. Maybe that's only fair, though. Running away was his idea. "We'll go back when we're good and ready," he adds. "We've got something to prove, remember?"

"What have we got to prove?" his grandfather asks, still from the shore.

"That you don't belong in a nursing home," Tim reminds him. "That you can take care of yourself."

"I can." Granddad straightens his back.

"Yes," Tim agrees. "You can. Now, why don't you come get in and we'll go catch us some supper? I don't want peanut butter and jelly again. And I don't want your stinky salami, either."

Granddad grins. "Best salami in the world. Nice and garlicky. Excellent fat."

It's an argument they've played out many times before, and Tim laughs.

His grandfather rolls up his pants legs, and then, still grinning, wades into the lake. He just steps right in and walks toward the side of the raft.

The only problem is that he hasn't thought to remove his shoes and socks. He's wearing good leather shoes.

Tim had opened his mouth to speak, to try to stop him before he stepped into the water, but there wasn't time. Now there is nothing to be done but to watch him come. Watch him sit on the side of the raft, pushing the inflated edge down so far that Tim expects the boat to start taking on water. Then, just before the water can begin pour in, he tips over backwards. Just topples into the raft, landing on his back on the soft floor, his dripping shoes waving in the air.

Grandma will have a fit about those shoes.

Tim stares at his grandfather. He has always been a dignified man. Loving, funny, helpful, but slightly formal. Not the kind to get down on the floor to play games. And here he is, lying on his back in the bottom of the raft, arms and legs sticking up, giggling. The very sight of him, looking like an overturned turtle, is a shock, and all around them, the world seems shocked, too. Even the birds and the buzzing flies go silent.

But then a squirrel scolds from a nearby tree, a red-winged blackbird in a stand of cattails nearby resumes his lilting song, and Tim reaches to give his grandfather a hand.

"Here, let me help you," he says, and he keeps a firm grip while his grandfather struggles to right himself.

Everything is all right. Granddad has nothing to worry about. Nothing at all. After all, Tim is here.

Granddad settles into the opposite end of the raft, still giggling in ragged bursts, and takes charge of the oars.

"We're off," Tim says.

Granddad says it, too. "We're off." Then he adds, "Like a turd of hurtles."

"Like a herd of turtles," Tim repeats. It's another of their jokes.

Tense, Tim watches as Granddad jerks the oars, but after a few stuttering tries, he gets a rhythm going and Tim begins to relax. The raft glides along the surface of the water, moving away from the shore, heading unerringly for their favorite spot for walleye fishing on the other side of the lake. It's a spit of land that extends out into the water. Fish tend to congregate on the windward side of the spit. They've always had especially good luck getting walleye there.

Tim settles against the air-cushioned side of the raft and sighs. Everything is going to be all right. Everything
is
all right. He knows the lake. Granddad knows the lake, too. And the plan is going to work. Grandma, Mom, Paul, all of them will have to admit that a man who can still drive to Silver Lake, row a boat, and go fishing doesn't belong in a nursing home.