The wise words and questionable deeds of Crole read fine in any order.
I’m not big on resolutions. Every day a person wakes up, they ought to take stock of the work ahead, make a plan, and go.
Fixing up a list on January 1 never did anybody a single push-up, nor pulled one clump of johnsongrass from a farmer’s field.
My neighbor #Crole, though, lives for them.
“This year, I’m giving up pork rinds.”
The wind was howling off the river dividing our properties, but still we were fishing.
Crole continued, “Once it thaws, I’ll rip out them scraggly buckthorn like Ethel” — his third wife — “always wanted me to.”
I reeled in a twist, and felt enough drag to believe the line still had bait.
“Won’t that be nice,” I said.
Crole’s misshapen eye trembled, and he kept on. “I’m calling Uncle Sam and getting on that do-not-call list. After that, every last jerk who calls asking for money I’m reporting.”
“Even the sheriffs’ union?”
“*Especially* the sheriffs. What’d they ever do for me?”
He was going to clean his gutters. He was going to call up his kids and grandkids, those that hadn’t disowned him.
He pulled two perch and a skipjack shad during his fervor, as though Heaven above were encouraging him.
Sue-Ann lay curled against my boot. With each catch, she roused and cocked an eye at me.
I nodded at Crole’s jug on a rock between us. “You could lay off the shine while you’re at it. Give your nose a break.”
Crole gets bad nosebleeds when he drinks.
He drew up sharply and said, “Quit being a crank.”
We kept fishing, and he made plans clear into the afternoon.
"I can make it fruity or I can make it strong / All you gotta do is tell me what you want" #countrySong
#Crole doesn't generally take requests when he's fixing a new batch of moonshine. But I know he will use fruit. He likes pears after they rot, especially Grandma Kepsie's Bartletts which develop a shriveled black crust.
As for strength, I can attest Crole brews a stiff shine. He claims the scrapings of beaver lungs multiply the effects of fermentation.
There aren’t many kids out near me and #Crole to shoot off fireworks. Bennie Nix used to favor M-80s, but he’s gone to school. You’d see the Urquell sisters years back running sprinklers around their dock. They’re older now, busy with phones or boys. Or both.
It was too hot to fish the day of the fourth. I read partway through a stack of injustice letters on the screen porch. Sue-Ann hardly moved from her spot by the mat.
At dusk, we headed out to the spot. Crole was already sitting on the rock nursing his jug.
“How’s the chain looking?” I asked.
He snarled at the rusty links hanging half in the water. “One lousy trout. I figure he’s deaf.”
The sharp fizz of a bottle rocket sounded up the river.
I strung my lure. “Yoders could have their grandkids over.”
“Could,” Crole agreed. “Or old Sully skipped his meds, start feeling patriotic.”
Fireworks spit along the banks and up at the lower sky for the next hour. Crole caught another trout — stringing up, he told the first, “look, found your deaf twin” — and a half-dozen bluegill. I had a hearty crappie on the line but lost him.
It remained hot. Sue nosed into the water and wet her ears.
Right at ten, a hiss built from the direction of Kitzmiller. We looked in time to see a shower of green-gold sparks. They fell in gentle winking loops.
Crole reeled in his line. “Close the books on fishing.”
I stopped as well as the Kitzmiller show began. It lasted ten minutes. Bangs and long, growing sizzles. Blue bursts and orange flashes and red smiley faces I didn’t care for. Lots of smoke. In between flurries, we faintly heard cheers and catcalls.
Crole said, “Our sales tax dollars at work.”
“You never buy anything in Kitzmiller,” I said.
His bloodshot eyes bulged as he polished off the dregs of his jug. “You’re darn tootin’ I don’t.”
Still, we took our time packing up, and enjoyed a couple other displays over the winding Potomac.
#Crole had an appointment to get vaccinated at noon. He got a call this morning from the Kitzmiller Health Department.
“I’m not a resident there.” He nodded angrily over the river we were fishing. “This deal’s screwy as a cross-eyed titmouse. How come it ain’t Elk Garden? Where’d Kitzmiller get my damn information?”
I cast my line. I had a fair idea. Bucephelus T. Taggart mentioned the other day, down at Nethkin’s Feed & Fertilizer, that he had some vaccine app going. Tap in your info, hit a button, Buce’s app runs around looking for a place with appointments.
Buce had scrubbed his orange shock of hair and grinned like a hyena. “Guess who’s my first guinea pig?”
“You didn’t,” I said.
He cackled. “I most surely did.”
Now Crole started making excuses. The chipmunks had nibbled his truck’s brake lines. It wasn’t fit to drive.
I said I would take him in the van.
“I drank last night,” he said. “They can’t vaccinate you if you just drank.”
He had his jug out now, in fact.
“The liver’s not involved, as I understand it,” I said.
“Oh, you’re a doctor now? You and that Fauci?”
Things continued this way through three hours of fishing, walking back up to the houses, and on the road to Kitzmiller.
I turned from the steering wheel. “Haven’t heard this much whining since Maybelle and I took Luke to get braces in the fourth grade.”
Crole didn’t appreciate the comparison. “Like to see you roll up your sleeve for some experiment. Something Bill Gates cooked up in his garage.”
“I will, it’s my turn,” I said.
Between whatever Saddam fired at us during Desert Storm, and forty-some years breathing tractor fumes, I figure a couple ounces of science can’t hurt.
“Don’t hardly need a vaccine anyhow,” Crole said. “Who do I ever see?”
“Me.”
“Yeah. Who else?”
I touched my hat. “You go up to Wal-Mart, Barboursville.”
He scowled. “I take precautions. I see somebody sneeze, I skip that aisle.”
I said, “That’s smart.”
“And I been brewing the shine with squirrel carcass ever since this mess started. They got organs, them tough little organs. You think some *virus* gonna bother a squirrel? 99.9% virus?”
I raised a shoulder. “Don’t outsmart yourself. How many big brains they got working on these vaccines?”
Crole scowled again and looked out the window. We were passing over the Potomac, gray, sluggish. She wasn’t frozen, but she wasn’t running free either.
No matter what he said, Crole was concerned about the virus. I’d seen him answer the postman’s knock, standing clear back from his front door.
He was scared, like plenty are.
We got to the clinic well before Buce’s appointment. I pulled around a circle drive and stopped.
Sue-Ann, who’d been snoozing against a Stinger missile tube in back, struggled up. She looked to Crole.
He said, “Trade you places. I’ll stay here ’n’ sleep in the van, you take the poke.”
Sue turned at me, hopeful.
I said, “Doc Spuckleseed gave you your shots last month. Lay back down, girl.”
She did.
Crole was staring at the clinic, a flat industrial building. A sign said, “Get Vaccinated, Get Back Your Life!”
“Sounds about right,” he said. “Government holding my life until I let ’em stab me.”
I had to laugh there. “Bring your mask?”
He fished a blue and white disposable out of his overalls. It was soiled and Scotch-taped at the chin.
I said I’d wait with Sue in the van.
“Wish me luck,” Crole said.
And he started toward the clinic entrance, moving pretty good.
#Crole is watching that convention on TV. He tells me all about it.
“Ol’ Trumpy, he’s not leaving without a fight,” Crole said, flinging his first cast.
I watched the spot where my line met the river. “No. Didn’t expect he would.”
“He’s sending his kids out, got this prosecutor gal from Florida laying into Biden’s son.” Crole, talking loud, tipped back his jug for a swallow of moonshine. “Heck, he pardoned a bank robber — right in the middle of the dang convention!”
I saw no sense in pardoning a bank robber. But then politics follows a different sense. Those who practice it can turn frogs into jackrabbits and back again.
I asked, “Where’s he doing it?”
“Oh, I think it’s online. Or on tape.” Crole scratched his wiry white hair. “Can’t really tell. There ain’t balloons and big cheering crowds, though.”
Sue-Ann, who’d been slow following me from the house, loped up now. She slumped against my boot.
Crole said I should watch tonight. They had some real cards talking, real interesting ideas.
I patted Sue’s side. She felt thin.
“Naw,” I said. “I watched, what would we talk about tomorrow?”
Crole shrugged. He tipped his rod right, and the line went stiff. He had something.
I explained to Buce about the fried chicken smell. How Blanche Beaudelaire was trying to attract upscale clients. He disputed the defect at first.
“How does she know it’s my essential oils? Those women use all kinds of spritzers, lotions.” Buce raised his arms and sniffed about. “There could be cross-effects at work.”
“According to Blanche,” I said, “the pattern was consistent.”
He flung an arm backwards, knocking a string of dangling hubcaps. The clatter was deafening. It woke Sue-Ann, who’d fallen asleep on a mat of crosshatched straw.
“Well, hell,” he said. “I ain’t running the Ford Motor Company here. You know Loretta Sykes, lives in that little efficiency over Jed’s Joint?”
“Sure.”
“Loretta handles my bottling. It could be her — she could be playing pranks! Might have hidden cameras set up all around town, catch some video of a fancypants smelling like greasy chicken. Take it viral.”
The way Buce’s eyes were gleaming, the idea could have been his.
According to my neighbor, #Crole, Buce and Loretta were an item. Though I put no stock in Crole’s scuttlebutt. His rumors are as good as his fish stories.
“Be that as it may,” I said, “the tainted oils came from here. Your operation. Your responsibility.”
Buce stood and paced.
“Might not’a been, might not’a been.” He snapped his fingers as he talked. “Could be my source materials failed me. Old Jebson had a rocky night over on the fry basket? There you go. That’ll do ’er.”
“Source materials,” I said. “Jebson works over at Dan’s Dandy Diner, correct?”
“Yep.”
“Your oil comes from the diner?”
“Oh, sure. I get their frying oil, end of the night. Canola I believe. But don’t you worry. It’s all purified and aerified and sanitized.” Buce raised his chin in earnest. “Bulletproof sixteen-step process.”
“I smelled the stuff,” I said. “With my own nose.”
Buce tried several more excuses, each wilder than the one before. All you had to do was look him dead-level in the eye until he gave it up.
Finally, I stood. Sue looked up reluctantly. She’d gotten comfy on the straw mat.
“Let’s go see Blanche,” I said. “Let’s make it right.”
Buce dropped his head, orange hair sagging forward.
#ElkSalonOils
#Crole believes the middle toe of his right foot is attuned to fish. To their rhythms.
They weren’t biting the other day so he took off his shoe.
“Let’s have a listen,” he said, and waved the magic toe out over the river.
Sue-Ann was sleeping on the banks. She opened an eye.
I said, “You oughta wear socks.”
Crole raised a finger for quiet. The toe drifted left. “I feel you, fishies.”
The toe drifted farther left. Crole knocked into his moonshine jug and nearly spilled.
“Careful,” I said. “Don’t feel too much.”
Crole sampled from the jug. Making sure the delicate mix of hot peppers and Jolly Ranchers was still right, I guess.
Then he kept on with the toe business.
He said we should aim our next cast left, in a line with Missy Teatruckle’s acreage.
“The fishies must smell her alfalfa,” he explained. “They’re moving.”
My cheeks filled with air and I looked at Sue, see if she was hearing this.
The dog was out cold.
“Sure.” I casted that way. “Now put your dang shoe back on.”
Out fishing today, #Crole said, "Little Track got to shag some flies today."
"How's that?" I asked.
Track is Crole's youngest grandson, over in Shinnston.
"The governor said so, youth sports practice is back on." Crole tipped up his jug of shine, toasting the occasion. Then he offered me some.
I refused. "What's that, phase four?"
Crole shook his head. "Phase four was last week, casinos and concerts."
"Casinos and concerts is a whole phase?"
Crole shrugged. He was rigging up a wormsare. "I sure don't make the rules."
That made two of us.
"Bet he enjoyed seeing his teammates," I said.
Crole finished rigging and cast. "Bet his mother enjoyed him seeing his teammates more."
I smiled.
Little League was back.
#Crole got this handsome fella in the boat today.
"He's disappointed, look it!" Crole said, working the hook free. "He can't believe it was an old man like me pulling."
I examined the fish's expression. I couldn't tell much.
"Well," I said. "It's not his day."
"Most surely, it is not," Crole agreed.
#Crole's drunk deer chili is late into week two. It's fine stuff hot off the stove, but now it needs hot sauce. Lots. Carrots have disintegrated in the broth. Meat tastes like beans and vice versa, both slick on your tongue. Color's more brown than red.
We were fishing at the spot and Crole poured some in his thermos cap.
"If only food aged like moonshine," he said, helping himself to the jug too.
"If only," I agreed.
Had good luck on the river today with the rod and reel. #Crole and I filled up his chain with perch and bluegill, and a whole bucket besides.
He asked, "What're you gonna do with all these?"
"Eat them," I said.
He pulled back his line and cast, holding his stomach daintily. "Well, I'm watching my figure."
I felt a tug. Couple yanks and I was pulling another out of the water.
Crole said, "Boy, they must be hard up down there, way you're catching."
"Must be," I said.
#Sue-Ann heard the fishes moving around the bucket and woke. She nosed over the plastic rim.
"They're getting frisky," Crole said. "Turning into a party. A bucket party."
I smiled. It's said Crole was the life of the party as a young man. Abe Nethkin, over at Nethkin's Feed & Fertilizer, has some stories.
"You know," I said, "I can't eat all them. And lately Sue only takes her chow."
Crole nodded.
I said, "That food bank in town take whole fish?"
Crole shrugged. "That I don't know."
Sue gave up watching the fish disco, lay back down in the dirt.
"I'll skin 'em just in case," I said. "What do you have going next?"
Crole was collecting another off his hook, a four-incher. "Sounds like I'm skinning bluegill."
Our eyes met, then moved back to the river.
#Crole was fishing on stink. Forming a ball of it over his hook, he made a face.
He said, "Wonder if I ever started a virus by accident."
I looked over.
"They say it started with exotic animals," he said. "Bats mixing with bamboo rats, those open air markets."
I'd read the same article in the Coal Valley Times. "You got a side job I never heard of?"
He waved his line, making the foul bait bob. "The stink. Some batches I use crickets, or varmints I trapped in the barn. And I always use hog brains. That's three animals right there."
We both cast. I said, "Cooked?"
Crole shook his head. "Tames the flavor too much."
I looked across the brown-gray river. Its currents pulsed ahead, swelling, shrinking.
"Well, who knows," I said. "I wouldn't go confessing to Uncle Sam."
#Crole caught the first fish, a bluegill with faint stripes. He held it up in the morning sun.
"Think it's got that virus?" he said.
I tugged my line to move the lure. "Looks healthy enough."
He shrugged and attached the fish to our stringer by its gills.
I hear different things about animals. One day dogs could get it. Now they're saying no. That's good. #Sue-Ann's no spring chicken.
#Crole came over to fish. He carried his jug and tackle box, wearing blue surgical gloves.
I looked at him.
He kept a straight face for a second, then laughed.
"Gotcha," he said, taking off the gloves.
I shook my head. Sue was wagging her tail, ready for the river.
"And a little bit of chicken fried / Cold beer on a Friday night"
#Crole's planning to fry chicken tonight. He gets the oil from Etta at the donut shop, cast off. Swears by it.
If we drink, it'll be moonshine.
#countrySong
#Crole believes Walmart is tracking him, and refuses to engage the greeters.
I told him that's nonsense. We're all tracked, everywhere. Nobody cares what Crole Burgess does.
Now he thinks I'm in on it.
#Crole claims fish can burp — certain species, and only females.
I suspect there's a story behind how he knows this. I've never asked.