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Hooked On A Wave

Out of respect (and heritage), Timbo carefully pulled to the side of the wet road and stopped as a funeral motorcade passed by in the opposite lane. First came the patrol car followed by the hearse, then began the long line of vehicles driven by family and friends of the deceased. Five minutes later we were still sitting on the side of the road as headlight-burning vehicles continued to drive by. I glanced over to see Timbo--his saliva retention affliction acting up again--mesmerized by the "whump whump" of the windshield wipers and the resulting strobelights.

"Hey! You can go now," I said. "The funeral procession is over."

"Huh? Oh...you sure? How do you know--they're still running their lights," he answered.

"Well, as best as I could tell, the last ten drivers weren't wearing suits...and it's raining, bro. That's why their headlights are on. It's the law."

Ah, rain! I closed my eyes and contemplated the dazzling compound alchemizing out of Angelique's bosom. Algelique was the first tropical storm of the season--a curse or a God-send, depending on where you lived--and we were experiencing her remnants. I wanted to embrace Angelique at that moment; it had been awhile, so to speak.

Timbo and I continued up the road to Enoch's Country Store where we turned at a sign that displayed: PROVERBS 3--CAMP WOOD--FISHING TACKLE.

"That's a sign!" he declared.

"I can see that," I said, "And black letters on a white background at that!"

"No, no...a Sign, a divination, a potent. Proverbs Three--I can't remember it all but there's something in there about the clouds dropping down buckets of dew."

"You mean to tell me that Enoch's metal and plastic sign--the vehicle for your portent--says that?"

"Yep."

I glanced up the tree-canopied road, now shadowed mokey green as the rain intensified. I wasn't about to argue with his innate recognition that sometimes the spiritual and earthly converge in the most mundane places. Timbo had been fraternizing with heathens for at least ten years now--ever since I taught him to roll--but his roots still ran deep and uncut.

We soon began paralleling a tannin-stained river that raced down from the mountains like some undulating henna snake-tat. What we witnessed was a far cry from the river that had been reduced to a trickling trout-stream for the past two years; it was now running fast and high. We stopped at the take-out turn-out and for shuttle stashed my old short-chained Diamond Back in the woods, laying it down and covering it with leaves. Nearby a Natural Resources sign lawed: ARTIFICIAL LURES ONLY. 18 INCH MINIMUM.

"Any Sign in that?" I asked.

"Nope. Don't read a thing in that," he answered.

We looked a short distance upstream at what we called The Take Out Wave, now steep and maned with a frothline running along its crest.

"Now I'm gonna spend some quality time there!" Timbo declared. "I'll be sitting on that wave 'til dusky-dark!'

We drove along for several more miles, the road sometimes meandering away from then returning to the course of the river; not a wilderness run by any means but still a favorite of ours, convenient and dropping nearly seventy five feet per mile. We had caught it runnable a couple of times during the last two years, but each trip had been a boney, marginal episode at best.

We pulled into the put-in turn-out and stepped from the car, marveling at the view in front of us.

"Jeeze--zus! Would you look at that!" I blurted. "We've got ourselves a good level today!"

We quickly changed, hopped into our boats, and slid into the water. The eddy pulsed as mats of dead leaves swirled around us. Ephemerals in Nebula Turbidia. I peeled out and enjoyed a bouncy ride down a series of waves before coming to the first horizon line where I charged a cushioned hump--our old friend Sugar Boof--and landed in the moving pool below. Timbo followed, landing fat and grinning.

"Ain't life grand!" he exclaimed.

We continued down the river, punching holes, catching waves, and boofing even when we didn't need to. Rollicking Unlimited. Whisps of fog draped the trees as the rain let up-- "Groundhog makin' coffee" the old people called it.

As I neared The Take Out Wave I carefully spun my boat then began cranking out forward strokes in order to catch the wave on the fly. I dropped into the trough and as my momentum carried me up the face of the wave, I leaned forward and paddled even harder until I slid down the wave, blasting the mound of water in front of me.

Suddenly Timbo came trashing down the left edge of the wave, arcing in my direction then bumping me off the wave. I washed off its backside and eventually caught the third eddy down. I was a bit puzzled at his loss of control but dismissed it as being either excitement or cobweb syndrome and turned to watch him surf.

And, oh, how he surfed! He arced right then cut back hard left, sending a silver slab of river into the air! He rode high on the wave then paddled like a madman to regain the trough. He sometimes one-handed his paddle and with his free hand excitedly gestured in what I gathered to be some sort of esoteric magiamancy. On that wave he was Resident in the State of Glee, Sir Surfmeister, the Knave of Wave, the Earl of Curl (I did noticed the absence of flat spins, though, a move commonly found in his rodeo poke of tricks).

"HihOtTa...hUckINhIsHhOoK...hEnhIHyiP!" he shouted indecipherably above the shish of the river.

Shipsafire! There he goes speaking in tongues, I thought. Exultation Manifestation! Somebody hand that boy a snake!

Even the branches of the trees seemed to celebrate his joy! An unaccountable breeze blew in, bending the leaves and branches left when he surfed left, right when he surfed right. They trembled and reached when he rode high on the wave, and rebounded in a flutter when he skittered down into the trough. And he surfed and surfed and surfed.... I finally worked my way up into an adjacent eddy to better watch this shredfest (and to remind him that he had been on that wave for a long, long time). At that moment a fan of sunrays broke through the clouds, illuminating my friend on his stage and a...

looooooooooooooooooooooooooong

strand of monofilament line running from his mouth to the whippy overhanging branch of a riverside beech tree. I looked closer and saw a colorful spinner-bait skewering his bottom lip. Trout Mask Replica; Captain Beefheart where art thou.

"Hi HotTa HucKin HiSh HoOk Hen Hi HyIp!" he shouted above the rivershish.

"What? Dude, you've gotta fish hook in your lip!" I shouted back.

I then watched in awe as he slid down the trough of the wave, the silver blade of the spinner-bait twirling from his lip like the propeller of a plane during takeoff. The Spruce Goose in Appalachia. Ho, ho.

"Hold on, bro! I'm coming!" I shouted.

I beached my boat and pulled a small river saw (Saw With An Attitude printed in bold letters on the guard) from under my floatbag. I ran up the bank to the tree where I jumped up and grabbed a low limb. I pulled myself up past the "Frankie loves Johnnie" carvings and carefully shinnied out to near the transgressing branch. I reached out and...commenced to saw! Green bark then white sawdust flew as the blade bit into the limb. The limb soon began to bend as I severed its fibers then broke away completely, falling into the river. Catch and Release, the credo of modern day Apostles of the Trout; Issac W. would be proud.

I jumped from the tree and raced down the bank to where Timbo had found an eddy. Hand over hand he reeled in his tether then chewed through the line until only a six inch strand remained. He threw the limb and wadded line on the bank.

"Heckfire! This must be at least fifteen pound test line!" he said, twirling the line between his fingers. "I wasn't going anywhere!"

"Yeah, some fisherman going after one of those trophy Browns for sure," I answered. "Must have been long-casting for that big eddy across the river and hung his line in the tree, broke it off and left it

dangling. Dangling that is until you came along, Fishface!"

"Son-of-a-bitch, this hurts!" he exclaimed, fingering the lure still stuck in his lip, pink saliva stringing away. "The barb is all the way through, too."

I ran down to my Diamond Back and pulled out a Fourteen-In-One tool from the repair bag then raced back to my wounded friend.

"Here, let me see that," I said. I gingerly held the lure, snipped off the barb, then pushed the hook back through and out of his lip.

"Want this?" I asked, shaking the colorful fish-carrot at my friend.

"Heck, no! Throw it away!"

We paddled together the short distance to the take-out. I spun my Diamond Back to the put-in and retrieved our vehicle while Timbo waited. We were soon on our way out and as we passed Enoch's Country Store, I looked at his sign again and began chuckling.

"What's so funny?" Timbo asked.

"I'm beginning to understand this Sign reading thing a little better now," I answered.

"What do you mean?"

"Look at the words 'wood' and 'fishing tackle' in Enoch's sign. Now That was a portent if there ever was one--you just didn't catch it! Plus you said you were going to spend a lot of time on that wave, which you did. Signs galore--everywhere--in my opinion!"

"Shut up and drive, smartass! I need for ol' Doc Zach to look about this!"

I turned onto the main road and floored it for home.

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