Lone Island Lake Fork

Lone Island Lake Fork
”In the days of my youth, I was told what it means to be a man,
Now I've reached that age, I've tried to do all those things the best I can.”
- John Bonham, John Paul Jones, James Patrick
The kitchen was still except for the ticking of the
Westinghouse range clock and a faint whirring sound coming from
the back of the refrigerator. It was becoming light outside, but
the birds were still quiet in the thick fog.
I padded silently across the cold floor, pulling a hooded
sweater over my head. Surveying the scene, my hands on my hips
like a construction supervisor, I shook my head slowly. The glass
ashtray on the blue Formica kitchen table was jammed with white
cigarette butts, overflowing. “Alpine” was printed in feminine
pale green font – what IS a feminine font? – and many butts were
on the table. Black ash was mixed into spilled beer, the crummy
remnants of a bag of Cheezies was in a large mixing bowl and
orange bits also joined with the wet beer-ash mixture on the
table.
The place smelled like bum. A single, long Alpine cigarette
was planted in a round-edged pound of butter that rested on its

Lone Island Lake Fork / 2
unfurled aluminum wrapper. The cigarette stood proudly up from
the butter – a lone palm tree on a deserted yellow beach.
Evidence of a few taps of ash decorated the foil.
I heard steady breathing coming from the living room couch
and could see my mother’s socked foot hanging off of the end, a
fly walking along her bare shin like a mountaineer traversing a
ridge between peaks.
Wiping the table, a damp dishrag in my cupped hand, I pushed
plates, knives, forks, playing cards, potato chips, quarters and
nickels, packs of matches and a BEER BELONGS bottle & can opener
aside. I filled the sink with washables, and then piled the cards
and loose change into a small wooden box with a green felt
interior. Making steady headway, I gathered the last items from
the table and dumped them into a frayed wicker basket on the
ledge atop the pony wall that separated the kitchen from the
living room, where mom still slept. With a flourish of my rag, I
scooped the last bits of noxious detritus from the now gleaming
table and, in that same motion, stepped on the pedal to lift the
garbage can lid and deposit the waste into the stained paper bag
inside. An easy lay-up.
Outside, a squirrel chattered with annoyance and a crow
cawed back, flapping up to land on the braided hydro line in

front of the cottage. The bird nodded three times before taking
off towards the lake.
I pulled open the fridge door and surveyed again as the sink
filled with hot water, the pump rattling to life in the porch.
The scent of Palmolive dish detergent temporarily cut the smell
of bad breath, cigarette butts and stale beer dregs. An odor like
no other, it is certain.
A carton of white eggs, a bowl of leftover barbequed farmer
sausage and a yellow onion now sat beside the wooden cutting
board on the counter. Like a croupier at a Monte Carlo baccarat
table, I used a large knife to slice out a soggy rectangle of
soft butter from the end of the brick, taking care to exclude the
the Alpine crater and any residual ash. I plopped the pat of
butter in the cast iron frying pan atop the mid-orange spiral
element. It spat as it slid slowly to the low side, disappearing
rapidly from the outer edges, leaving a lacy, white scum. I was
concentrating on the pan, holding a large spoonful of chopped
onions in readiness for when the last of the butter was melted.
Suddenly, I felt my father’s bristled chin on my sunburned neck
and simultaneously smelled his fetid rye whiskey breath.
“Two, sunny side up please.” he rumbled into my ear.

“OK, sure.” I replied, glancing at him as he wobbled back,
turning to go outside. He stood uncertainly - a sailor on a
gently rolling deck - and peed into an icy, gray snowbank that
was the last of its kind, residing as it did in the day-long
shade of the oil tank. With pouting lips, he squeaked back at the
the noisy squirrel, laughing at the angry response and then
pulling up his fly with a shiver. I dealt diced sausage into the
sputtering eggs and onions. Hash it was.
#
It was not long after the first clink of dad’s fork hitting
the plate - paired with the sinfully rich aroma of butter and
fried onions - that my friends stirred and slowly shuffled out;
scratching, stretching and yawning. Like my dad and me before
them, they found places to stand on the back deck, saving a trip
to the outhouse that stood across a moat of wet grass and rotted
leaves. They came in one by one, rubbing their hands together and
slapping their bare arms, stamping their boots off on the rubber
mat by the door.
The tallest and thinnest was Dietrich. Narrow, bony
shoulders, protruding Adam’s apple and clavicles, carpenter’s
forearms swollen from pushing saws through wood and pounding
nails. He was serious and burdened by propriety and the need to

always put forward his best. His family had moved from Paraguay
when he was eight and he felt the pressure to be just so - never
slipping, relaxing his guard or allowing anyone to claim he was
only, “some Prug”. Bound this way as he was, he loved to be
around those who could not care less about what everyone else
thought. Deet cared, but saw it as the greatest freedom of all to
to be able to live without those cares. He envied and revelled in
in those who could cut lose with abandon, his hazel eyes
twinkling with delight as he watched.
“Roo” was Richard. Tall and raw, all elbows and angles he
was a Lab puppy of a boy-man. He was the designated mom of any
road trip and always brought an extra pillow from home or
remembered band-aids or hid a mickey of Southern Comfort in
someone’s uncle’s hedge and found it just as the party was dying.
He was a dangerous rebounder; leaping sinew and grit to get the
ball, then flaring his elbows high and pivoting hard to leave
purple bruises on biceps - friend and foe alike. I often thought
he was the best of us, but that would never have occurred to him.
Last of our fishing foursome was Bradford. Unlike the
others, he was kind of puny. He was slight - though somewhat lean
lean I suppose - buck-teeth, with Jesus Christ Superstar, parted-

parted-in-the-middle hair. Basically he was a delicate boy except
for his large, always dirty, incredibly smelly feet which he wore
bare in his sandals from Manitoba May long weekend - this weekend
- to as far into November as he could stand. As soon as he
switched over to winter footwear, it was the cheap leather
moccasins we had all worn back in grade 6. Not warm, not stylish,
but exceptionally well suited to “rutching” -- or bumper
shinning; the art of latching on to a car, truck or (the Rosetta
Stone) a School Bus bumper and sliding along on the icy road,
before the sand trucks got out to ruin the fun. Bradford insisted
on smoking Drum tobacco (“for effect - chicks love it”, he
insisted), walked in an annoyingly jaunty step-exaggerated heel
lift-step manner and carried around a “writer’s note pad” to
record inspirations and messages from his muses. Apparently his
muses had taken some sick days, because there was nothing in the
book but a few random words, an old list of things to pick up for
his mom and, optimistically, several girl’s names and phone
numbers.
These three sat with my dad at the table and quietly
reconstructed the previous evening as my mom murmured lip-
flapping snores from behind the pony wall.
Dad was sipping a Carling Black Label and tomato juice in an
an MLCB draft glass that I had stolen from the Steinbach (Men

Only) Beer Parlour. He chuckled softly as Deet recounted how my
mom had insisted on ashing her cigarette in the butter. His face
red from containing his laughter and keeping his voice down, Deet
Deet explained how he kept pushing the ashtray to her and she
would persistently move it out of the way and continue to tap her
her cigarette into the butter.
“The thing was, “ he intoned, his voice cracking, “that the
cigarette was not lit anyway.”
We all laughed, which started Dad coughing loudly, and
caused Mom to suddenly sit bolt upright on the couch, her head a
car crash of tousled hair standing in all directions and deep
sleep creases from the corduroy couch cushion embossing her cheek
and forehead.
“WHAT~!” she demanded loudly, in full alarm mode, after
waking up from the noisy coughing and laughing.
Our laughter pitched up and she tended to her hair with her
free hand, the other having reached up to regain her balance on
the ledge. The squirrel scolded again from outside the front
window and she got up and hurried to the bedroom and closed the
door with a soft click.
#

After eating, we gathered our gear and began loading it into
the homemade cart we had to take stuff down to the dock. It was
two balloon-tired bike wheels, set on a solid 1” steel shaft, the
wheels held in place with pipe clamps and large, rusted fender
washers. A wooden crate nested between the wheels and a red
tubular steel handle - scavenged from a snow scoop - stuck out to
one side.
Dad stood watching without interest, alternately cleaning
the sleep from his eyes and buttoning up his insulated plaid
shirt. He mumbled something and Roo looked at me and smiled a
bit, indicating with his eyes for me to respond.
“How’s that, Dad?” I asked.
“You going now?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Whatabout the fog?”
“S’not that bad.”
“Whatabout dead-heads?”
“We’ll go slow.” Then added, “Brad will sit on the deck and
look out. I know the way - been there a hundred times in the
little boat.”

He muttered something and turned suddenly to go in, twirling
a paper match in his ear as he pulled open the screen door. We
kept loading and made a few trips to the boat packing our tent,
coolers, fishing gear, sunflower seeds (“zote”), frozen minnows,
beer, a carton of smokes we had split three ways, axes, hatchets
and saws, a lantern, a Coleman stove and fuel, camp table and
other scrounged and borrowed gear from Roo, Deet and Brad and
their combined basements and garages. Brad had the special
package of Export “A” cigarettes in his jacket pocket, beneath
his Navy grade slicker. This pack of smokes contained several
carefully prepared and disguised cigarettes that had, in a
precise surgery, had the domestic tobacco replaced with a Mexican
variety. We suspected that it was mostly Oregano anyway because
Bradford was too trusting and naïve - you could say dumb - and
the “nickel bag” he bought was almost certainly a little “leger”
in respect of THC content. The Ex A’s probably packed more of a
wallop.
“OK,” I told the boys, “It’s almost seven. Let’s get a
coffee for the road and get going.” They agreed - it sounded so
grown-up - and we walked through the still fog, parking the cart
under the cottage.
Mom and dad sat in the kitchen, each with a cigarette
burning in the ashtray and glasses of scummy beer and tomato

juice in front of them. A bottle of Canadian Club had been opened
and was a third gone - given over as fortification to the Bloody
Marys. Mom had a pair of dad’s pajamas on and sat with one bare
foot hiked up on her chair, absentmindedly picking at her
toenails.
“Stupid kids,” Dad murmured, a bit of a hard edge to his
voice. “Going out in an over-loaded boat, in freezing water, in
PEA SOUP. Stupid, stupid.”
“You got that right Mr. Toews, sir.” said Roo, doing his
best shit-eater Eddie Haskell grin and knowing that he could do
no wrong in my dad’s eyes anyway. Then he laughed infectiously -
just a big, happy kid - and the mood broke. We crowded around the
the coffee pot, Roo pushing it by pouring a few shots of CC into
the big Thermos we were filling. My dad shook his head and blew a
steady stream of blue smoke up towards the knotty pine ceiling,
adding to the thick layer of nicotine stuck to the clear varnish.
Mom called out, “You should not go across in the fog!” Then
she added, “What about other boats? It’s the first day of
fishing, eh.”
We all looked down, except Roo, who smiled at dad, as if to
say, “Women!” or some such. But dad looked down and nodded his
head, his shoulder muscles working as he did. I grabbed the

Thermos and we headed for the door, pulling on ball caps and
taking toques from the shelf and pushing them into our jacket
pockets.
“Stupid kids,” Dad said evenly, eyes straight ahead, looking
out the kitchen window at the neighbour’s aluminum clothesline -
which looked like a broken umbrella turned inside-out by the
wind.
“Got your fishing licenses, at least?”
“Yeah,” we answered in unison. Boys choir.
“Life jackets?” dad said, but before we could answer, mom
called in a reedy voice, strongly, ”And you better wear them
too!”
“Yeah,” we sing-songed again, grinning self-consciously and
feeling, reluctantly, like “stupid kids”.
We left, dad staring stoically at the clothesline, which
held many blackened clothespins and a single Red Wing Blackbird.
The bird trilled, tightly gripping the plastic coated cable
stretched between the evangelically uplifted aluminum arms.
#

It took about a half-hour to get the boat going, all of us
red-cheeked by the time we finally managed to turn-over the 35
H.P. Chrysler. “This motor is too big to pull-start.” declared
Deet, expressing exactly what we all had thought a hundred times.
times.
“But it always starts.” I assured them. “It hasn’t run for a
week and we should have got it going last night, but it was too
dark when we got here. It’ll run good, don’t worry. Plus the
battery should be charged now - so no more pull-starts.”
“Hope so. Got paddles?” said Roo.
“Yeah,” we sang out together, laughing and lighting smokes
as we let the motor warm up. It idled in baritone, gurgling as
gray smoke rose up out of bubbles that popped on the surface
behind the big white motor. Every half-minute or so it ran
slightly faster, then vibrated, shuddering back down to the lower
lower idle speed, sometimes coughing unexpectedly.
Deet was staring through the fog at the shore and had a
worried look on his face. It was my dad. His plaid shirt was off
and he wore a white t-shirt from the bakery, yellowed with sweat
at the arm pits. He was a big man in the chest and shoulders. He
walked gingerly, his unlaced work-boots adding to his already

unsteady gait over the path to the dock, intersected as it was
with roots and rocks. He carried the 26 ounce bottle of Canadian
Club loosely in one hand, two fingers collaring the neck. The
bottle was nearly empty.
“Have a drive, drinker!” He called out, his eyes locking on
mine. They were small and mean like those of a dog you had to
watch. “If you’re gonna be stupid, be REAL stupid.” Then he
laughed, releasing my eyes and turning his gaze onto Roo, who
laughed too readily, showing his hand.
He stepped onto the planks of the dock, his footfalls like
hammer blows as he walked up to the boat. We were untied and
Bradford sat cross-legged on the fiberglass foredeck of the 16’
foot speedboat, his hand resting on the steel pipe that stood at
the end of the dock. He wore a wool newsboy’s hat, his rain
poncho, an orange life jacket and was, of course, barefoot in his
his Moses sandals. A strand of repurposed, plastic-coated
clothesline circled his waist and was tied to a chrome cleat on
the boat. My dad stopped, swaying slightly, and stared at
Bradford.
“Don’t tell me,” he started, “You’re gonna toss this
barefooted one out and troll with him, right?”

“Troll the troll!” piped up Roo, a freshly lit Sweet Caporal
clenched between his teeth.
“Bait for fish with poor taste!” Deet offered, smiling
meekly.
“Troll this!” yelled Brad, grinning and gesturing from his
awkward position on the bow.
We all laughed, including dad who looked down - suddenly
fondly - at us as we sat in the idling boat. We had packed our
gear with care and the boat, while full, was orderly. “Ship
shape,” Dad said, nodding and sticking his lower lip out. The
engine was warm and ran smoothly, the running lights were on and
would stay on as long as Deet’s electrical tape repair job held.
A loon called loudly - we could not see it because of the
fog but it was close.
“Fog horn.” Dad said to himself, stumbling a tiny bit but
catching himself in time as he stood thinking. All of a sudden,
he bent over, pushed the bottle down at Deet, who put his hands
up - no mas. Then Dad shoved it at me. I took the bottle,
smelling the alcohol clearly in the still lake air. The loon
sounded again, this time clucking to gather her chicks.

“Drink,” he insisted. I tipped the bottle back and swallowed
the inch or so of sharp, hot-tasting rye. My eyes teared and I
almost retched. He stood laughing, rocking back onto his booted
heels. Roo shook his head, smiled and commented with a bemused
tone, “Just another routine morning at the OK Corral!”
“Let’s go fishing!” I said, my voice wet and deeper than
usual.
“Yeah, GO!” Dad yelled. “Hundred miles an hour!”
Brad let go of the pipe, then reached out and gave it an
emphatic Wheel of Fortune tug to slide the small boat
noiselessly, far out into the fog.
“HUNDRED MILES AN HOUR!” dad commanded, his shout echoing.
The loon stepped up her clucks to a rapid warning warble that
meant, “Come now!” to her brood. Without looking, I heard Dad
suck in a loud breath, then his footsteps retreated.
After some shouting and rude comments (“Thar she blows!”), I
slipped the gear lever out of neutral and into forward, the
control cable catching and making a zipper-like sound as it
rubbed against a sleeping bag’s nylon cover. Just to be sure it
was OK, I turned the motor off and worked the gear shifter back
and forth rapidly a few times. It was stiffer than normal, but

seemed to work. I rolled the steering wheel back-and-forth
through 180 degrees. Even though the action was a little sticky
and made a rough burring sound, the tall, upright outboard turned
turned when I rotated the wheel so I supposed it was alright. I
restarted the engine, idled it back and forced the shifter into
forward. The motor clunked into gear with a shudder and I could
hear the soft prop wash break the still surface behind the boat
as we started forward.
“Don’t forget -- HUNDRED MILES AN HOUR!” he bellowed from
the shoreline, now pointing a finger east towards the river
entrance and the Lone Island Lake fork we would take to reach our
our camping spot.
I thought about gunning it for just a minute. I imagined
Brad falling back against the windshield, his sandaled feet
splaying out in front of him - of Roo howling, of Deet grinning.
I thought of my dad’s face as he heard the engine roar and saw
the gull-white wake shoot out behind the transom.
But, something stopped me and instead I advanced the
throttle just enough to step up the RPM to the speed of a fast
trot. It was enough to flap the little Canadian flag on the
stern. It made a “slap-slap-slap” sound. I heard the metallic
thrum coming - impatiently, it seemed - from the stern as the

propeller pushed the boat ahead. A second later I could hear the
shushing sound of the bow wake as water was pushed aside by the
V-hull. We moved forward through the glassy lake, the boat
sitting low in the water and nosing down because of Bradford’s
weight and all of the gear stowed forward, under the bow deck.
The boat was aimed at the neighbour’s massive wood dock - built
of stolen telephone poles and rough sawn 2X10s. We headed towards
towards it at a good clip and I twisted to wave at dad as I
turned the wheel, but now it was rigid and would not move. I
immediately yanked harder, then with two hands, but we held our
course, rushing towards the heavy cedar end posts. Brad turned
half-way around and raised his eyebrows. “Ahoy, Cap’n, sir - Hard
Hard a-port?”
I looked down at the wheel for an answer. The bezel read
only “Mayport 16 - Chrysler Marine”. I pulled the throttle back
and again it resisted. Forcing it, I heard a fabric-tearing sound
sound behind me, then the motor bucked as the gear lever jumped
into neutral. The boat rocked fore and aft, but still kept
heading steadily for the dock, not losing speed. I turned the
wheel and it spun emptily, making a plastic, rattling noise, now
completely loose. Little Brad was cursing, reaching between his
crossed legs to grab the helmet-shaped light housing to keep from

from sliding on the slick, dewy fiberglass when we struck. With
the hulking dock looming ahead, I frantically pulled back on the
shifter to put it into reverse, but it was jammed. Brad had just
managed to get a grip on the housing when the boat abruptly
jerked to a halt sending the open Thermos flying and skewing him
forward, his wool hat pitching into the water. We stopped at
almost the same instant that:
- my dad, wheezing, appeared on his knees on the dock in front
of us with his hands poised - a punter taking a snap - to
catch the prow of the boat . . .
- my mom screamed, “STOPPPP!”, from the foot of the path about
50 yards ahead of us, her mittened hands waving at her sides
. . .
- the loon let loose with a full-alert cry and could be heard
flapping in a web-footed, running aquatic take-off in the
fog behind us . . .
- a loud, wet “SPLOOSH!” sound came from just behind the boat.
I hardly knew where to look first. Brad, my mom, my dad and
the loon were all making noise, as were Roo and Deet who were
doubled up laughing in the back of the boat. I turned off the
motor.

The blue boat bobbed innocently beside the dock. My mom came
running up and stood next to where my dad was on all fours,
panting. Roo stood pointing at the taut rope stretched out behind
behind the boat, angled down into the dark water. Deet leaned
back in relief; his breath a puff of white vapour, the anchor
rope coiled around one hand. His face white, Brad slid himself
back up to a sitting position and I sat rigidly gripping the
steering wheel and staring ahead.
Roo jumped up to narrate an explanation, thinking for a few
seconds first to get the sequence right. His excited voice rang
out brightly in the damp air, “The control cables snagged on the
sleeping bag ‘cuz we had squished it into the side compartment
too tight. The bag ripped and that cloth got all bunched-up in
the cable pulley. That made the gear shifter stiff and also
forced the steering cable to pop off the pulley. That’s why you
had no steering at the end. We were gonna ram that dock so Deet
threw out the anchor.” He grinned, one-hundred per cent
triumphant. “Deet and I could see the whole thing happening in
front of us. It was like a play.”
We were quiet, the engine clicking as it cooled. Just then,
we heard the whistling, staccato beat of the loon’s wingtips as
it came back in, banking low and hard. Out of the fog came the

distinct, rushing sound of the smooth landing on the waveless
water. She immediately began clucking for her chicks.
END

Lone Island Lake Fork

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Lone Island Lake Fork