Fishing With Mama

 

Fishing with Mama

 

As her mother guided the skiff to their special fishing spot Pearl tried to make herself look forward to the long summer vacation that stretched out before her. She watched her mama’s hands on the oars. Strong hands for sure with blue veins that pooched through the rough skin on the back of her hands and big knuckles. They weren’t pretty hands. Pearl looked at her own hands resting in her lap. “I will have lady hands,” she said to herself. “I will make sure I kept them soft and smooth with Tillberry’s Lotion and I won’t let them get all rough by scrubbing clothes against a wash board like Mama does.” Pearl rubbed her hands over the folds of her gold colored skirt. Her Aunt Sarah has made the dress for her. Gold was Aunt Sarah’s favorite color. The dress had long sleeves to hide the scars on her arm. 

“I don’t know why you insist on wearing your good clothes to go fishing in. You’re just going to mess that dress up and I am the one that is going to have to wash and iron it. Always the little princess.” Pearl looked at her mother anxiously, but saw that she was smiling. 

Pearl stretched out my legs and examined her bare feet. “Doesn’t she have pretty feet?” That’s what Aunt Sarah had said about her feet.  

Pearl looked over her shoulder at the shore. She could see their house. She could just make out Rose sitting in the porch swing. She knew she was either shelling peas or looking collards or peeling quince. She wouldn’t be just sitting in the swing. She couldn’t abide idleness. She was keeping herself busy somehow.

The little wooden skiff moved swiftly and smoothly across Pungo Creek. Her Mama sure knew how to row a boat. The oars dipped evenly into the creek – no splashing – no wasted energy. They created little whirlpools the size of the silver dollar that her Mama kept in her jewelry box. 

Pearl studied her Mama’s face. People said she looked a little like an Indian. High cheekbones, tanned, deep-set eyes, firm mouth and chin. Her dark hair framed her face. At 45, Irene’s hair was already smoked with gray.

“Get ready to drop the anchor, honey. We’re coming up on our spot.” They were just off the point between Scott Toppins place and the bridge to Sidney Cross Roads. This was the spot where they had caught 12 good-sized croakers the week before. Pearl scrambled up to the front of the skiff and picked up the anchor and got ready to drop it when Mama told her to.

“Okay….now.”

Pearl lowered the anchor slowly into the water – careful not to let it make a splash that would scare the fish away. The rough anchor rope ran through her fingers until it slackened when the anchor got to the bottom.

Irene reached into her shirt pocket and took out her tobacco and rolled herself a cigarette. “You get our hooks baited while I smoke my cigarette.” The only time she smoked was when she was out fishing.

The cane poles were lying in the bottom of the skiff. Pearl picked up her mama’s pole and dipped the end in the water and pushed it down until it touched bottom.

“We’re about 5 feet deep here – maybe a little more.”

“That should be good.”

Pearl unwrapped the line from around the pole and pushed the cork down to about four feet above the sinker. Then she took a worm out of a tin can and threaded it onto the hook and spit on the baited hook for good luck and handed the pole to her mama and got her own pole ready. She put her cork a little lower.

“Poor little fishy in the brook…” Irene started the rhyme and paused for her daughter to say her line.

“Climb upon my little hook” she responded, but her heart just wasn’t in it.

“You be the captain..”

“I’ll be the cook.”

They said the last line together: “Poor little fishy in the brook.”

At eleven years old, Pearl thought she was getting a little bit too old for rhyming games but just on cue her cork bobbed under she jerked her pole to set the hook and up came the first fish of the day – a croaker.

“That’s a nice one baby girl.” Pearl swung the line over so she could take off her fish. She let it drop into the bottom of the skiff where it flopped around making its croaking sound. “It didn’t even have a chance to eat your worm. She added some mama spit and let go of the line. “Catch another one.”

They settled into a familiar rhythm of fishing and talking. The sun was at about 2:00 when Irene got a serious look on her face. “Pearl, honey. Is something the matter? You just have not seemed like yourself lately

“Nothing is the matter, Mama.” Pearl kept her eyes on her cork, avoiding her Irene’s eyes. Alarm bells went off in her head. Did her mother know something?

“Is something the matter at school?” 

Pearl took a breath and let it out slowly. Her mama didn’t know. She was just fishing around. Pearl would have liked nothing more than to tell her mama what was bothering her, but she didn’t know where to start. How could she tell her mama what Benjamin was doing?

She tried to avoid being by herself because every time she was alone it seemed like Benjamin was there. At first he just touched her, like he had that first time in the kitchen. Then he became more insistent. Once he found her alone in the barn. He pushed her down and rolled on top of her. Then he had grasped her hand and pushed it down into his trousers. “Feel that, Little Sister. See what you did.” When she pulled away from him he had pinched her hard. She had run away in tears but she had been afraid and ashamed to tell anyone. No matter what she did, he was always there.

 Mama put down her pole and she looked like she wanted to say something important. Instead she said,” Ready for lunch?” She opened the brown paper bag that held their lunch. Two banana sandwiches and a mason jar of sweetened ice tea.

Pearl nodded. “Guess so.” She was hungry. Worrying always gave her an appetite. She rested her fishing pole on the seat next to her but she let her line stay in the water.

She wiped her hands on her skirt, unwrapped her sandwich and placed it carefully on her lap.

“Better watch your pole, honey. A big croaker might just steal it from you.” Pearl looked down at her cork just in time to see it go under. When she reached over to grab the pole her sandwich fell from her lap and landed in the muck in the bottom of the skiff.

The sight of her sandwich floating in creek scum was more than she could stand. She started crying. Not tiny silent tears, but loud choking sobs.

Mama handed her half of her sandwich. “A lot can happen between May and September, Pearl.

Pearl had no idea what her mama meant but she took the sandwich.

 

           “Mama, nothing good ever happens on Pungo Creek.”

 

Reviews

[Calypso]

I like the last line it just foreshadows something. I think the characters are well written. I'm guessing this is the the south (USA) in the 1800's?

[justjenn_2u]

Two children: one with a scar of child abuse, the other with molestation. I am anxious to see what unfolds. This is a sad story but so well written.