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First Quarter
One
Josh
August 2018
What is it about the lake that makes cell service go to shit? I squint down at my phone’s screen, which I can barely see for the sunlight streaming over my shoulders and around my head. No bars. I guess really they’re dots. But anyway, there’s none of them.
Probably for the best. You always hear how it’s better to unplug and all that good stuff. Fishing’s just so boring. I should probably quit coming out, but there’s something about stepping off the dock into the boat’s hull that I can’t resist. Sometimes I bring my buddies, but honestly, I like the water better when it’s just me.
I reel my line in, lay my pole down in the belly of the boat, and use the trolling motor to scoot out of my quiet little spot, winding down a marshy inlet that makes up one of the lake’s nine fingers. It’s pretty big, as far as lakes go—80 square miles, smushed between the Alabama and Georgia lines—and on a map, it really does look like Nine Fingers Lake has nine fingers.
When I was a little kid, I would look up at the red clay cliffs that make up most of what would be shoreline, and I would imagine Native American warriors swinging down off vines, maybe battling a gator or fishing for one of the big catfish that made our lake a famous fishing hole for pro anglers. That was before I understood what happened to those people. Where they went. And how I got here.
Damned depressing. Makes me mad, too. If there's anything I hate, it's bad, unfair shit. My mom says I've always been that way. She used to tell everybody maybe I'd make a good judge one day, but that's not happening. Only judge I know of is the one that did my parents' divorce, and he's a shithead. Not looking to be like that guy.
Don't know what I will do, but I've got a year to decide how to escape Fairplay. It's early August now. Next year at this time, I might already be at college. Probably at Auburn, Bama, or UAH in Huntsville. I've got some time to pick. Not that many options, and probably none outside of Alabama due to cost, but it’ll be okay. I can still start my next chapter once I get out of this backwards place.
I'm so lost in my head, I'm almost surprised when the water turns choppy, sloshing up into the boat a little. Coming up on the channel—that's the deep part of the lake—and still using the trolling motor. Dumb.
I fix that, lowering the larger motor down into the water. I’ve gotta gun it to get planed off, but after that I'm moving at a good clip, flying over the open water, so fast that the humid air makes my eyes water. I'm passing by a bunch of little sandy islands, making sure I'm in between the red and green buoys that dot this water like tree signs on a hiking trail.
I've got a memory for almost every island, especially Snake Island. It’s a haven for water moccasins, so for Fairplay High homecoming every winter, we dare each other to jump off Harrison Point, and then you have to kick up from the depths and start swimming toward Snake Island.
It's not the sand that's water moccasin paradise, but the water all around it. It's out there in the middle of the lake, where it’s not normally marshy, so nobody knows why snakes like it there. Anyway, I know two people who've gotten bitten, but we keep on doing it. Traditions.
I think about explaining that to my new stepbrother. He’s coming down to live with his dad—my stepdad—for senior year. Coming from Richmond, Virginia. I grin, imagining what he’ll think of all us Alabama rednecks.
Is it weird I'd like to come back here one day? Long time in the future, when I'm done with school and got my degree. Maybe got a good job doing something practical. I could start a business.
If local people knew about me, would anybody come?
That's years and years away, though. I could even wait ten years. Let this place catch up to the times.
I cast my gaze out over the water. The wind is pushing it down flatter out ahead of me, and a beam of sunlight bouncing off the surface makes me squint, even with my shades on.
There's a bunch of places I could go—a lot of quieter, tucked away spots—but I always end up out here on the widest part of the lake, which flows under both the causeway—a bridge for cars—and the train trestle bridge that adjoins my hometown of Fairplay to Cillin, Georgia.
My boat’s got a depth finder; it says the water under the trestle bridge is more than a hundred feet deep. All the old folks in our town tell stories about the man-eating catfish that live under there. Local lore. Still, when my friends get drunk and try to jump 100-plus feet off the thing, I shoot that shit down real fast.
