My father
could do anything. I used to
love to watch him move with his
supple, big cat strength. Even
at rest he was something to see:
the picture of masculine ease
smoking a cig
sipping a Stroh’s—
Humphrey Bogart between takes.
I couldn’t get enough of him.
Late at night in a rowboat
the cicadas sing their shrill
summer song, frogs belch and peep,
crickets chirp, owls hoot, dogs howl.
Eight years old I had no idea
so much life was still up
way past dark. My father
huddles over the candle stub
he keeps in the battered tackle box
crammed full of surefire lures and
fisherman’s secrets he reveals
to me year by year. Bent
over the pool of light he is tying
yet another hook to the end of my line;
the last one snagged in the lily pads
he’d warned me to avoid. I watch
his massive fingers twist
the stiffly bending line into
a fisherman’s knot: one loop, two loops,
three—moving slowly so
I can follow along; I ache
to get it right
—four, five, and six. His thick thumb
wraps the end of the line
back on itself into a slip knot, the
crux of the knot I have yet
to master, and he holds it still
for a moment so I can examine this
thing of beauty crafted by a master. He
grasps the line and pulls. The knot
slides down the line to the
eye of the hook, grips firmly, and
tightens around my heart
these forty years later.
Bruce Lawrie is the son of the late John Lawrie, professor of psychology at Wabash.
