TATER

There was a steady wind sweeping the red dust in tiny eddies, like mini tornados, along the dirt road.  A stalk of grass, a leaf, an insect blown slightly askew, whirling past me as I made my way onward.  I dragged the toes of my Keds sneakers as I put each foot forward, liking the way the red dirt looked on the white toe caps.  I could see the truck ahead, and beyond it the waters of Lake Eufaula.

We are near the Arrowhead area, hosted by the Choctaw Tribe.  My father is friends with someone that lets us camp and fish here without payment or hassles of any kind.  I know from listening to them talk, that Lake Eufaula (southeast Ok, near Muskogee, Henrietta, and other towns I vaguely remember) is a man made lake.  A vast area of flooded land, used as a water control for flooding and water level for the Arkansas River Waterway.  It was completed around the time I was born, and is one of the 15 largest lakes in the U.S.

My father and I usually fish closer to home, but make it down here when my mom wants to visit her mother in Muskogee, or whenever she wants to visit my great aunts Lorelle and Audrey.  My father doesn’t care much for my mom’s relatives, and he takes me with him as an excuse to play hooky from the repressive Baptist rules of my great aunts, or from the cigarette stained, cramped double wide which houses Frieda Cloud, known to me as Meme.  Meme is mom’s mom, and doesn’t much care for my mother, her husband, or their offspring.  The apple of her eye is her oldest daughter, my aunt Joe, thrice divorced mother of four, and her kids.  Meme was the first person to introduce me to the willow switch.  First she would have me cut it from the tree in her yard, and then she would show me with a disciple’s love, the power and pain it could induce when properly wielded.  I wore Toughskin Jeans in those years, and they were pretty much indestructible ( I hated them and tried many times to destroy them, to no avail), but a switch could still find a way to sting me to tears through them, nonetheless.  I never much knew her reason for punishment, but I figured it had something to do with bitterness that we were better off and better raised than our favored cousins. 

She was nice enough when she wanted to be, I guess.  She liked to make us Jimmy Dean sausage and scrambled eggs for breakfast, served with orange juice in jelly jars, and biscuits from a can that she always burned the bottoms of prior to serving.  I thought them a treat at the time, cause mom always made hers from scratch, and I thought store bought was better back then.

I was always happy when my father announced that he and his fishin’ buddy (me) were going to hit the road and catch enough bass and crappie for a fish fry.  Meme would always protest just enough to show she didn’t really care and still be polite, and we would head off down the road.  My father was a scary man at times, but our fishing trips were always more fun than the alternative, and I enjoyed the chance to camp out.  We had a Chevy pick up that had a camper top on it.  A single bunk on either side, storage compartments, and a small (tiny) kitchen area.

My dad and I would leave before sun up, and get the boat in the water first thing, in order to catch a few fish before making camp.  My father was an excellent fisherman, and a good teacher.  I never went a day on the water with him without catching something.  He made his own spinner lures, and they were highly sought after on Oklahoma and Texas lakes in the late 60’s and early 70’s.  He once traded 6 of them for a brand new Abu Garcia rod and reel from a shop owner near Greenleaf State Park.  He gave that rod and reel to me, and I have used it ever since.

Lake Eufaula was a beautiful but eery place.  They flooded great tracks of land to make it, and there were areas we fished that had acres of trees rising out of the water like parched skeletons.  The bass fishing was excellent back in those trees, but I was always a little scared.  I kept peering in the water, thinking I would see the old houses buried in it’s green depths.  I imagined I just might be able to see a crawdad eaten corpse floating behind a window in a flooded out home.  What if they flooded it before everyone got out?  I would pose these theoretical questions to my father from time to time, and he would lean over the boat, spit out a long brown glop of Red Man tobacco juice, and say:

“I suppose some little old man or lady coulda ignored the police and not got out in time.  You see anything down there?”

“I think I see a roof down there” I would stammer.

“Well watch out for em and let me know if you see anything.”

This would always be followed by a belly laugh, letting me know that he could just be pulling my leg.  Could be, but there was still the possibility pinging around my hyper-imaginative boy brain like a mexican jumping bean.  Sometimes I would dream about the dead lake people swaying in dismay at the bottom of all that fetid green water, reaching to pull me under, to join in their lonely palaver, the fresh child in their horrific lairs.

We would fish all day, my father and I.  We would take a break for lunch, and hit one of the diners on the lake for my favorite meal,” hamburgfrenchfry” and a milkshake.  The ladies would flirt with my dad, and coo over my red hair and freckles.  They called me Opie Taylor on more than one occasion, and I would just blush and find one of my dad’s legs to hide behind.  My dad was a handsome man, and I meant that he wasn’t on the market, so they flirted with him but were merciless on me.  I could always count on lot’s of “sugar, sweetie-pies, ain’t he the cutest thang, and kisses” before we were back out the door and down to the boat. 

We would fish until dinner time, and knock off, set up camp and start a fire.  My dad would cook for us over the fire, and he always managed to get it just right.  Put that same man in a kitchen and it was sheer hell.  After dinner we would take the camp dishes down to the lake and scrub them out with sand and water, getting them ready to use again for breakfast. 

Darkness would start to fall, and I would roast marshmallows for s’mores, and dad would get his guitar from the truck and play.  He had a great voice, and an amazing memory.  He must have known over two hundred folk and bluegrass songs from memory, and never forgot a lyric.  He taught me how to harmonize with him when I was four or so, and I figured out the harmony for every song he knew.  The fondest memory I have of my father is singing together by the campfire, licking delicious chocolate and marshmallow from my fingers, as the fire threw shadows and light over our faces.  My father would point out the stars to me on the way back to the camper, and he was the one who pointed out the big dipper and the north star.  He told me how the slaves found freedom by following the drinking gourd, just like the folk song we sang described it, to the northern free states.

I would sometimes hear the coyotes start to sing their eerie night songs as I crawled under the covers.

“Dad?  Are their any bobbycats round here?”

Having been an avid wild kingdom watcher, Bobcats were in my fear repertoire.

“Oh there might be a bobbycat or two around here son, you never know.  Those bobbycats are scary, you feel like bunking over here to protect each other?”

“Okay.”

Love and hate is a delicate balance when you are trying to keep a chip on your shoulder.  Memories can be selective and bitter at times, but the truth is always waiting for us to see it.  Memories like these get through the armor and tilt the windmill of my childhood back in dad’s favor.  He was a tough son of a bitch, but he fucking loved me.  I would give anything for one more fishing trip, one more night of solitude and firelight.  Happy father’s day dad, I love you.