One August morning, while my boyhood best friend and mentor, Jaybird, and I were lounging on his front porch, he said, “Shoot, hit’s layby time and ain’t no work goin’ on. We might as well go try dem bream at Percy Blue Hole.”
“Okay,” I said, “but we’ve never done much good during these dog days of summer.”
“Fish is like folks; dey look fuh ways to keep cool on sho-nuff hot days. Dey down deep, but hot or not dey got to eat. If we can find ’em, dey might bite.”
We shoved the johnboat in the back of his pickup and headed to Fratesi’s Grocery to pick up our favorite fishing day lunch — sardines, onions, crackers, RC Colas — and crickets for bait.
On the way, he said, “Look what I got the other day at the hardware store — one of those fancy fish baskets with a spring-loaded lid.”
The old black man was proud of his purchase. Before, we’d used stringers, which were troublesome because they had to be untied from the boat before a fish could be strung. With the basket, all we had to do was push down the lid and drop in our catch.
We fished hard all morning, but couldn’t find the bream. Jaybird caught one large bottom-feeding fish Delta folks called “gasper ghouls,” that are extremely ugly and too bony to eat, but Jaybird’s hogs loved them, so he dropped it in the basket.
At midday, we stopped to eat. After the meal, Jaybird lit a Camel, and I stretched out for a nap.
Whether we caught fish or not, I loved being on the lake with that old man. What memorable days those were. I can still see the ancient cypress trees, with knees all around them like little children, unchanged since dinosaur days; I can still hear the hypnotic symphony of insects, frogs, and birds; I can still feel the gentle lap of water against the boat. But most of all, I still cherish the memory of absolute peace and security that I experienced when I was with a man who loved me as if I were his own son.
That day was no different. I was sound asleep when, all of a sudden, I heard a roar.
“Well, I’ll be damned! Where in hell is the basket?” Apparently, the rope had come untied, and it had sunk to the bottom.
“I paid $15 for dat basket. We comin’ back tomorrow. Dat gasper ghoul will be dead and bloated, so de basket will be floatin’.”
Sure enough, the next day the basket, buoyed by its deceased, putrefying occupant, was floating, not far from where we’d stopped for lunch the day before.
“Eben my hawgs wouldn’t eat that nasty fish now,” Jaybird said, and dumped him out. Then he noticed there were a few crickets left.
“Shoot! We’s heah, we got some bait, and we got us poles. Let’s fish. We didn’t catch no bream yesdiddy, but today … dey might bite.”
Jimmy Reed is an Oxford, Mississippi resident, Ole Miss and Delta State University alumnus, Vietnam Era Army Veteran, former Mississippi Delta cotton farmer and ginner, author, and retired college teacher.
This story is a selection from Jimmy Reed’s latest book, entitled The Jaybird Tales.
Copies, including personalized autographs, can be reserved by notifying the author via email (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)).
