Flight

By

Neal Dorenbosch

     The girl sat cross-legged in the passenger seat, wide-eyed, facing the boy driving.  She wore faded jeans, hiking boots and a blue T-shirt with no logo.  She was ready for the outdoors.

      “Do you think we’ll really catch anything, Gordon?” she asked.   “I’m not sure I want us to really catch something, but if you catch one will you throw it back?”

     Gordon sat rigid behind the wheel, jaw set, eyes scanning the gravel road.  When he answered, a little wooden stick danced between his lips.

     “I ain’t coming all the way up here just to throw any back, Anna,” he said. 

     “But do you really think we’ll get any?”

     “Sure thing. We’ll catch plenty.”

     Anna turned to sit properly in her seat, and Gordon watched her from the corner of his eye.  She was staring out the passenger window, watching the red rocks and juniper trees go by.  He wondered what he was still doing messing around with her. 

     “When I was a little girl,” she said, suddenly,  “I used to imagine what it would be like to live in the desert.  I used to believe there were still cowboys and Indians out here.”

     “Yeah.  Whatever,” Gordon smirked.

    “I’ve never been fishing before.  Did you know that, Gordon?  I wonder if Georgia O’Keeffe ever went fishing when she moved to the Southwest.”

     “God,” Gordon mumbled under his breath, “not O’Keeffe again.”  Everything was O’Keeffe this and O’Keeffe that.  If he heard anything else about Georgia O’Keeffe, Gordon thought he might just puke. 

      “Don’t think I’m a stupid girl,” Anna said, coyly.  “I didn’t grow up in the great outdoors like you.”

     Gordon focused on the road, ignoring her, driving carefully so as not to fishtail in the gravel. His arm dangled out the window and was sunburned already. His Hawaiian shirt was unbuttoned and flapped open and closed in the breeze.  The bright orange parrots in the print looked as if they might take to flight and crash through the windshield any minute.     “You’d better roll up your window,” he said.  “It’s getting pretty dusty now.”

     They had taken his beat-up VW Beetle, the one he’d owned since high school, and he hoped the road wouldn’t become worse than it already was.  He had no idea how bad it might get.  He hadn’t been to this lake before.         

     The gravel thinned after a while, and soon they bumped along a stretch of red clay.  Every few feet, Gordon would have to slow down to veer around a rut that could easily take the muffler off the car.  He’d curse under his breath and build up speed again.  After an uphill stretch that nearly rattled the doors off, the lake came into view.  Anna sucked in her breath.

     “Oh, how beautiful!” she cried, leaning forward.  Gordon watched her profile and decided her freckles made her look too childish.    

     “Pull over,” she insisted.  “I want to look at this view.”

     Gordon found a turnout just over the hill.  They both got out and stood near a little copse of scrub brush.  Tiny brown lizards scurried for cover. 

     They stood quietly apart.  Anna gazed toward the lake, one hand cupped over her eyes.  Gordon swatted a gnat on his neck. Then he spat on the ground, launching his toothpick into the brush.  Over the ridge, he saw the lake’s surface was clear and smooth.  Gordon couldn’t see anyone along the shores, and he was glad for that.  It would be just Anna and him, and she’d have to believe he knew what he was doing.

     “It’s beautiful, Gordon,” Anna chirped.  “I think I can see the fish from here.” 

     “Don’t be ridiculous,” Gordon said.  He tried to see what Anna saw and decided they were too far away from the lake to see any fish.  He wasn’t the great outdoorsman he had led her to believe, but he was pretty sure you couldn’t see any fish from here.  Gordon had no idea why Anna developed this sudden obsession for fishing, but he assumed it might be related to her bizarre behavior in general lately since she’d found out she was pregnant. 

     “I still can’t get used to the perspective,” Anna said, dreamily.  “You can see forever out here.  Where I grew up, everything is so cramped.  You start to paint like that, too.  My paintings are all cramped.  I can see why O’Keeffe came here.  You can feel eternity out here.”

      “Do we have to talk about O’Keeffe all day?  Geez, Anna!” Gordon spat.  Gordon had lied at first and told Anna he loved O’Keeffe’s work, even though he’d never heard of the artist before and might have said she was an Irish politician if pressed.  He wished he had told her right from the start he thought all artists were nincompoops.   “We better get down there,” he sniffed.  He hated it when she turned every conversation into an art lesson.  

    Gordon put the VW in gear and headed toward the lake.  Anna clapped her hands and bounced in her seat.  “We’re finally going fishing,” she squealed. 

     Gordon just rolled his eyes and shook his head. 

     When they reached the lake, he parked on a little steppe above the natural boat ramp.  Then he took his fishing pole and tackle box out of the back seat.  He had only bought the crap because Anna kept pestering him to go fishing. Before he finally agreed, Gordon had also had to read up on fishing himself.  He’d led on like he was a Hemingway or something, but he hadn’t been fishing himself since he was a kid.  He’d had to scour the local nature brochures, and he found some books on fishing at the school library.  Then he stopped at a few bait shops and talked with the old-timers who hung out there.  That’s how he had found out about the lake they were scurrying down to now.

     “I’ve decided I just want to see one,” Anna said as they made their way to the shoreline.  “I just want to see one so I can paint it from memory.”

     “Look,” Gordon grumbled.  “I told you I didn’t come all the way out here just to catch and release.  If I catch any, you’re not only going to watch me clean them, you’re going to help.  You seem to think nature is all rainbows and flowers and whatnot like your paintings.   Well, it’s not.  Nature’s ugly and ruthless.”

     “I don’t see it that way, Gordon, and I think it’s sad if you do.”

     “Oh, for Christ sakes.”

     Gordon set his tackle atop a flat red boulder when he found a good spot.  “People have had to hunt and fish for millions of years.  It’s only a recent phenomena that you can run to the local supermarket and pick out a nice juicy steak.”  Gordon said this and realized he’d never been hunting in his life.  If all the supermarkets were to suddenly close, he knew he’d starve like most everyone else he knew.

     Anna just smiled and gazed across the lake.  Gordon followed her eyes.  A red cliff jutted sharply from the lake’s opposite shore.  It was steep and cragged and had little scrub bushes growing out of it.  Above it, several large birds wheeled against the sky.  Some of them would land and then disappear.

     “Eagles,” Gordon said.  “This place is full of golden eagles.”  He only knew that because some old geezer at the bait shop had warned him.  The old man had told him to sink his bait because the eagles liked to come down after floaters.

     “They’re wonderful,” Anna beamed.  “I’ve never seen a real eagle except at the zoo.”

     “It’s no big deal,” Gordon huffed.

     He pulled a Styrofoam container from his tackle box.  When he removed the little lid, a knot of writhing blood-brown creatures stretched to get free.  They looked like little snakes you might find on a bobblehead Medusa.  Gordon snagged one and felt it contract in his hand.  He hadn’t put a night crawler on a fishing hook since he was a boy, and handling it now made him feel like he needed to spit.

     He got the worm hooked securely after a little fight.  He stabbed it through the front and back ends where it was more pliable.  Then he made a little knot out of it and wiped his fingers on his Dockers.  Anna had been watching and looked repulsed.  If she wants fishing, Gordon thought, then she’s going to get fishing.  He decided he’d make her hook the next worm herself.

     “Move back a little,” Gordon said.  “I’m going to cast now.”

     Anna moved aside.  Gordon snapped the pole forward, but forgot to release the line.  The tackle swung out a few feet, snapped back and whizzed over his ear before wrapping around his arm.

     “Is it supposed to do that?” Anna smiled.

     “Hardy-ha,” Gordon sneered.  “There’s something wrong with the pole.”

     He hovered over the reel and pretended he knew exactly what he was doing.  He jiggled the pole up and down and took three good whacks at it.  Then he straightened up and made another attempt. This time he got the tackle out into the lake a good twenty feet.  He grinned at Anna, triumphantly.  Anna smiled and clapped her hands.  They stood there looking at each other for a while until Anna said, “Now what?”

     “What?”

     “What do we do now?” she asked.

     “We sit here and wait, is all.”

     “Aren’t you supposed to do something?  Like get the fish’s attention somehow?”

     “Jesus, you are city bred, aren’t you?”

     Anna had grown up in the city and had come to the Southwest to attend the community college because she had developed an obsession for Georgia O’Keeffe in high school.  Gordon had wanted to become an electrical engineer, but he’d flunked his math courses.  He’d taken a job with the campus maintenance crew after that and met Anna the next fall.  

     Anna frowned. “Well, how do the fish know to come eat the worm?”

     “Ha!” Gordon laughed.  “They use their radar.  Every kid in grade school knows that. Some fish’ll just come along and pick my worm up on its radar.”

     Anna nodded. Neither of them said anything for a while until Anna asked: “How long does it take?”

     “What?”

     “How long does it take for their radar to pick up your worm?”

     “Oh, Jeez, Anna.  I don’t know.  I’m not a fish psychic.  Fishing takes patience.  Might take hours to get a bite.”

     “I should have brought my paints,” Anna complained.

     “Good time to just sit and think,” Gordon said.

     Anna sat in the sand.  Gordon stood, eyeing his pole.  They waited like that in silence for half an hour.  Gordon made up his mind several times to tell her what was on his mind, but he didn’t know how to bring up the topic.  After a while he noticed a jerk on his line, and this took his mind off the baby.  He snatched up his pole and began reeling.

     “We got one!” he shouted.  He could hardly believe it himself.  He spun the reel as quickly as he could.

     “Yeah!” Anna clapped, standing beside him.  “You got one already.  How big is it?”

     “How do I know how big it is?” Gordon said. “Feels like a big one, though.  He’s fighting a little.”

     He moved closer to the water and continued reeling.  Soon he could see the flash of something struggling in the water.

     “I see it,” he hollered.

     “Where?” Anna said, moving closer.

     “Right there,” Gordon said, pointing.  The fish suddenly jumped.  It looked like a knife blade glinting in the sun.

    “I see it too!” Anna cried. “It must be huge.”

     “Feels like it,” Gordon agreed. 

     When he finally pulled in the fish, Gordon pretended not to be disappointed.  It was a baby rainbow, not much over four inches.  Gordon knew he’d have to throw it back.

     “It’s just a baby,” Anna chirped.

     “I can see that.”

     “I want to see it up close.  Oh, look how shiny.”

     “It has to go back,” Gordon sulked.

     “Good.”

     “We’ll get a bigger one, eventually.”

     “I know.”

     Gordon had some trouble getting his hook back.  There was a little scraping sound as he pulled it through the fish, and blood began to foam from its fanning gills.  When he tossed it back, the fish just rolled on its side and floated there, lifeless. 

     “What’s wrong with it?” Anna asked.  She held her face in both hands.

     “It’s going to die,” Gordon said.  He said it matter-of-factly, as if this happened to him all the time.

     “Poor thing.  Isn’t there anything you can do?”

     “I’m not Jesus.”

     Gordon put on another night crawler.  He could see Anna was in no condition to do it.  He cast again and got the bait out a good thirty yards this time.  It took up almost all his line.

     “I’m not sure I want you to catch another one,” Anna said.

     Gordon just eyed her.  After a minute he spit between his boots.  Anna squatted at the water’s edge, poking the dead fish with a long stick she had found.

     “I’m not giving up now,” Gordon said, finally.  “There’s supposed to be some big ones in here.”

    Anna just jabbed at the dead fish with her stick. “How can you feel nothing for such a beautiful creature?” she asked after a while.

     “It’s just a stupid fish,” Gordon said.  “I told you nature’s ugly sometimes.”

     “Maybe,” Anna said.

     Neither of them said anything after that.  Anna gazed across the lake.  Gordon sat near his pole.  He could see she was watching the eagles in flight over their cliff.

     “You know what those eagles do?” he said after a minute. “Those eagles come down and pluck fish right up out of the water. They don’t care if they’re baby fish or grown fish. That’s how nature works.”

     Anna didn’t answer.

     “Do you find that beautiful?  Everything dies – even babies sometimes.”

     When he saw she wasn’t going to take his bait, Gordon stood and stretched his legs. 

    Anna was still brooding over the dead fish.  When she didn’t answer, Gordon threw up his hands.

     “Here, take the pole,” he said, holding it out for her.

     “Why?”

     “You wanted to come fishing.  Take the pole.  Fish for a while.”

     Anna stood and took the pole.  Gordon showed her the proper way to hold it.

     “Just stand here and wait, like this,” he said, demonstrating.

     Anna took the pole and stood there, waiting.  Gordon went back to sit alone on the flat-topped boulder.

     He watched Anna handling his pole and he couldn’t believe he’d gotten himself into his situation.  Anna was no one he wanted to be with.  He couldn’t imagine being saddled to someone who just wanted to paint all day and go on and on about people like Georgia O’Keeffe.  She’d never get a real job. And if she had the baby, he’d be stuck with two children to take care of.

     “I’m going for a walk,” he announced.  “I’ll be back in a while.”

     “What if I get a fish?”  Anna whined.

     “Just reel it in like I showed you.”

       Gordon turned and walked down the shoreline, kicking over rocks and picking up fishing tackle that had been left behind by other fishermen.  By the time Anna was out of sight, he’d filled his pockets with several clear bobbers and a few good lures. A little farther away, he came across a Camel cigarette box.  He looked to see if there were any smokes left.  Inside the box, he found a little hand-rolled job.  He sniffed and knew instantly it was marijuana.

     Gordon carried the joint to a little cove in the shoreline and found a place where he could sit out of view.  He slipped a book of matches from of his back pocket and lit the roach.  He took deep drags and held them in as long as he could until the edges of the sky and the sound of the water began to feel like cotton. 

     He finished as much of it as he could without burning his fingers. After a while, he noticed a cloud making its way across the sky.  At first Gordon thought it was shaped exactly like a bullet bike with a rider bent over the handlebars.  He could even make out the wheels and little side mirrors.  It looked just like the one he’d had his heart set on before Anna got pregnant.

     After a minute, the motorcycle-cloud began to drift and change.   It morphed into a cradle and soon Gordon could see a baby inside. The motorcycle’s fenders and wheels had rolled in on themselves to become the cradle, and the chassis and rider had meshed to become the baby.    

     Gordon stood and shook a fist at the sky.  “Bring the Goddamn motorcycle back!” he shouted.  He stood there staring fiercely at the cloud.  His heart was pounding.  He made up his mind that he’d have to tell Anna he wanted her to get an abortion.  He gathered his courage and thought out the words he’d use. After a while, he began picking his way back toward her.  He watched little pinpoints of light bobbing on the lake, and he tried to predict what her reaction might be.  He was afraid she might cry, and he thought he might not be able to stand it if she cried.

    When she came into view, he noticed the eagle circling the water above her.  Then he heard her scream.  Anna’s hands fluttered about wildly and she snatched up his fishing pole.  The tip bowed downward in an arch, making an inverted U, almost touching the ground.  She had a big one on the line, Gordon realized.

     He tried to pick up his pace.  He tried to get his legs moving, but the pot he’d smoked made him feel like everything was in slow motion.  Then he saw the fish she had on the line.  It broke the water’s surface, and he realized he’d never seen anything so beautiful.  The sun flashed off its sides like steel.  It struggled against the line, snapping this way and then that, muscular sides flexing. Then it was gone.

     The eagle overhead suddenly fell from the sky.  It plummeted downward, wings swept back, talons extended, and snapped up Anna’s fish. 

     The eagle took flight again with the speared fish dangling from its talons.  It had no idea a pole was attached to its prey and that a woman was attached to that pole.  When the line ran out, the bird seemed to stall in midair, confused.  Gordon just watched as Anna struggled to hang on, but the eagle was too strong.  The pole swung out over the water.  Gordon rush to Anna’s side.  She was shielding her eyes with her hand, staring into the sky.

     “Why’d you let go?” Gordon shrieked, breathless.  The eagle shrieked back, as though gloating.

     “That bird took our fish,” Anna mumbled.

     “I know. You let go of the goddamn pole!”

     Anna stared into the sky.  “That bird has our fish and your pole.”

     They watched the eagle fly in an odd path, like a plane running on one engine, coming in for a crash landing.  It headed back for their side of the lake.  They saw it coming in low, still clutching the fish, pole skimming the water.  It landed in a cove of rocks a few yards behind them.  Then they heard it shrieking.

     “You stay here,” Gordon said.

     “Not on your life.”

     They found it lying in a tangle of fishing line, wings bound.  Its brown eye darted wildly.  It struggled to get free but only tangled itself more.  The sharp, hooked beak parted, releasing an ear-piercing scream to warn Anna off when she tried to get closer.

     “Get back,” Gordon said.  “It’ll tear your head off.  See those claws?”  The talons were embedded in the trout and blood ran from the wounds.

     “What do we do?  It can’t fly.”

     “I don’t care if the stupid thing can’t fly,” Gordon said.  “I’m getting my fish back.”

     “What?”

     “I’m getting my goddamn fish back.”

     “What do you mean?”  Anna said, frantic.

     “You watch.” 

     Gordon climbed a ledge that gave him the high ground.  He scooped up a boulder.  It was nearly as much weight as he could lift.  He carried it to where he could easily throw it over the ledge.

     “No!” Anna cried.

     “Watch!” Gordon shouted.  But something solid crashed into his face before he could do any damage.  It pelted him hard enough to cause lights behind his eyes.  He dropped the boulder on his foot and yelped in pain. 

     “You asshole,” Anna screamed.  She had another rock ready, hand cocked. “Do realize you were just about to kill an eagle?”

     Gordon saw she’d drawn blood.  It ran in a small trickle from his forehead and along the bridge of his nose.  He was stunned

     “Do you know what’s wrong with you?” Anna screamed.

     Gordon lowered his hands but said nothing.

     “You’re a child.  That’s what’s wrong with you.  You have the mind of a twelve-year-old.”

     “Me, a child?” Gordon scoffed. 

     “Yes.  You’re even too stupid to know that fish don’t have radar, and too stupid to know that I wouldn’t know that.  Ha.  You’ve never been fishing in your life, have you?”

     “I’ve been fishing plenty of times.”

     “And you’re too stupid to understand people like O’Keeffe.  Nature is beautiful.  That eagle deserved his fish, you jerk.  He fought for that fish, nature boy.”

     “Look, you.  Be careful.”

     “You be careful, Gordo! The only thing ugly about nature is people like you. I don’t want to be with you anymore. I’ve only clung to you because I didn’t know what else to do, but the streets would be better than you.  Me and my child can do better than you!”

     Gordon just stood there not knowing what to say. 

     “I’m going to get help for that bird,” Anna said.  “You keep away or I’ll turn you in.  It’s a federal offence to harm an eagle, dumbshit.” 

     She stormed off, and Gordon heard his car start a few minutes later.  He’d left his keys in the ignition.

     When she was gone, he skulked to the shoreline.  He sat beside his tackle box and gazed across the lake to where the eagles circled their cliff.  Anna had called him a child. 

That was like the pot calling the kettle black.  He was the one with a job, wasn’t he?  She needed him.  

     After a while, he turned his face to the wide-open sky, now becoming hot white in the afternoon.  Every so often he could hear the damaged eagle crying out, but the sounds it made became weaker and weaker. 

     Gordon took in everything around him and tried to see things the way Anna did, beautiful – artful – but all he saw was red clay and scrub brush.  He began to wonder if something was wrong with him because he couldn’t see anything special.  He wondered if it was him who couldn’t live without Anna. 

     He thought about heading off to find her, but it was a long walk home.  He decided to just stay put and wait for Anna to come back.  He had a few things he wanted to get straight with her.  She wasn’t going to just leave him like that, for instance.  And if they were going to stay together and start a family, she’d have to promise to never throw rocks at him again.  Gordon thought about all the things he wanted to say when she came back.  He sat there waiting even after the sun dipped behind the cliffs on the opposite shore.  He was still there waiting in the dark, even after the horrible sounds from the wounded bird had stopped.