Charles P. Ries
Charles P. Ries lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His narrative poems, short stories, interviews and poetry reviews have appeared in over two hundred print and electronic publications. He has received four Pushcart Prize nominations for his writing. He is the author of THE FATHERS WE FIND, a novel based on memory and five books of poetry. He is the poetry editor for Word Riot (www.wordriot.org). He is on the board of the Woodland Pattern Bookstore (www.woodlandpattern.org) and a member of the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission. But most of all he is a founding member of the Lake Shore Surf Club, the oldest fresh water surfing club on the Great Lakes (http://www.visitsheboygan.com/dairyland/). You may find additional samples of his work by going to: http://www.literati.net/Ries/
The following works are copyright © 2008. All rights reserved. No distribution or reprinting in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
The Wisdom of The River
“Dad, I’m not feeling good,” I said. It was a cold rainy day in early spring; I had a low-grade fever, a runny nose, and body aches. “How about getting Joe to go with you?”
“Joe’s bedding mink. Doesn’t look like you’re dying. You’re coming,” he said.
Three times a month my father and I would drive to the commercial fishing shanties that lined the Sheboygan River. Fishing boats would dock there and unload Lake Perch, salmon, and other edible fish. We came for the chubs. Chubs are garbage fish that bred in abundance in Lake Michigan and, while not suited for human consumption, were perfectly good mink food. We’d take them home, put them into fifty-pound pans, and freeze them for use throughout the month. My father’s walk-in freezer could hold several hundred tons of frozen food products.
I gathered myself, jumped into the pickup truck, and headed off with my dad to the docks for a chub run. We backed the truck onto the loading scale, and my father went to the office window to settle up for the fish. As he did the paperwork, I worked with Leon Heinmeister shoveling chubs into large wooden crates that lined the floor of the pickup. I’d worked with Leon before. He was a red-faced man in his mid-fifties with a medium build and a prizewinning beer belly. Leon let his beard grow wild throughout the year and shaved it off on New Year’s Day, right after the Polar Bear Club plunged into Lake Michigan. “It’s good luck to start the year off with a good intention and a clean face. Hell, maybe this’ll be the year I find that little lady to take care of ole’ Leon.”
Leon was wearing the same outfit he always wore—yellow rubber work pants held up by suspenders, black knee-high rubber boots, a tattered, red flannel shirt, and a blaze orange stocking cap that he wore year-round no matter the weather. He called it his “LuckyBucky”cap, and he would tell anyone who’d listen of his many victories during Wisconsin’s state holiday, Deer Hunting Season. “I tell you, kid, that buck was at least a 30-pointer—huge, more like a Brahma bull than a deer, really. Anyway, it was the biggest deer this sure-eyed man of the woods has ever seen. So, there I am. Out of bullets. It’s just man against beast, and he starts to charge me—and I don’t mean for the three hamburgers I’d had for lunch either. He lowers his head and comes tearing after me. Well shit, I’m not nuts; I turned tail and ran my ass into the woods. No way he’s going to fit that rack of his into those woods. But sure as shit if that big dumb beast doesn’t come thundering after me, thrashing his way through pine trees, raising hell and bearing down on yours truly. Well, you know what I did? I remembered I had some deer scent in my pocket. You know what deer scent is, don’t you kid?”
“No, Mr. Heinmeister,” I replied as I kept shoveling. With Leon, I always did all the shoveling.
“Well, it’s love juice—if you know what I mean. You’re old enough to know that deer hunting season is right smack dab in the middle of mating season, aren’t you?”
“Mr. Heinmeister, my dad raises mink. I know a thing or two about breeding season.”
“Oh, sure. ’Course you do. So I pour some of the love juice in my hat—the very hat you see me wearing today. Hey, I’m no spring chicken. I’m getting pretty damn pooped out at about this point. But what have I got to lose? I figure, ‘Shit, if this don’t do it, Leon, you are a piece of Swiss cheese.’ So I pour the whole bottle of love sauce in my cap and toss it over my shoulder. Just like this,” he said, demonstrating his heroic wilderness throw. “And you know what? Why, Jesus in heaven if that cap doesn’t land right on top of that buck’s fire-breathing nostrils. I swear. As God is my witness, it landed right on his damn nose! It was like I hit him with a ton of bricks. He stops in his tracks and kind of gets all misty-eyed. Must have thought he’d just been kissed by two of the biggest, sweetest set of doe lips in Krushski’s Woods. Shit, I don’t know. But he stands there and keeps staring at me all dreamy-like. I think, maybe he thinks I’m looking pretty cute right about then and I’d better watch my sweet little ass or that’s going to look like Swiss cheese too.”
Leon didn’t need to breathe as he retold his personal myths; his words filled the truck bed and I kept shoveling – alone.
“ But son-of-gun if that stud doesn’t just raise up on his hind legs like Hi Ho Silver, kicking his front hooves up in the air and giving me the biggest, loudest bray I’d ever heard. I guess he was thanking me and waving good-bye or something. Shit, I don’t know. But he turns and heads back in the direction he came, leaving nothing behind but this cap you see on my head.” Leon stopped, removed his cap, and caressed it fondly against his nose while inhaling its wilderness aroma. It wasn’t an ordinary hat. It was his crown of gold. “That’s why I call it my ‘LuckyBucky’cap…Chucky.” He finally said, using my name to good effect since it rhymed with his favorite topic of dockside conversation.
Resting for a moment, Leon realized I wasn’t shoveling at full speed and said, “Hey, come on there, junior. Get your ass in gear or this’ll take all day.” He said, without a hint of irony. “You feeling okay, kid? You look a little green around the gills.”
“I’ve got the flu or something. I’m okay. Hey, Dad, you got a hanky? I have to blow my nose.” I shouted over to the office window.
My dad turned to answer, but before he could reply, Leon did. “Fishermen don’t use hankies, son. God gave ’em a permanent hanky. Just like He gave us noses, He gave us all a hanky. Bet you didn’t know that?”
“No, Mr. Heinmeister, I didn’t. Where is it? I could sure use one right about now,” I said, my nose running like a river.
“Why, the damn thing is right here in your left hand,” Leon said. Standing knee-deep in chubs, he put his shovel he was leaning on aside and raised his right hand to the sky, assuming the pose young Prince Hamlet took as he gazed blankly into the eyes of the lofted skull, pondering his woeful existence. With his left hand, Leon massaged the end of his chin as if he were trying to remember something. Trying to divine some lost seafaring truth. After a moment he surprised me when he proclaimed, “To blow or not to blow, that is the question. Why, what the hell—I think I’ll let her blow!” Lowering his left hand, Leon pinched his nostrils slightly, bent over, and let rip with one of the biggest gale force hoots I’d ever seen. It was impressive—simple and practical, the perfect frontier solution to no hanky. I’d never seen anyone do it before. He stood up, placed his hands on his hips, and proudly proclaimed, “That’s what me and me friends call the Fisherman’s Cheer. Now, matey, let Captain Leon give you another little tip. Always blow with your left hand and never into the wind. You got that? Only use your left hand.”
“Why is that, Mr. Heinmeister?”
“Well, you little rummy, it’s because you eat with your right hand. Shit, you don’t want to be blowing your goddamn nose with the same hand you eat with do you?”
It was all coming too fast. I was trying to remember the instructions he was giving me. I didn’t want to lose a detail. This was good stuff. I would take it home and share it with the gang. I’d never considered the nuances of a Fisherman’s Cheer before.
Proud of having passed on one of the secret legacies of lake fishermen to a twelve-year-old landlubber, Leon looked at me one last time. He cocked his head to the right, squinted his left eye like Long John Silver, and said, “Well, matey, you ready to use the hanky God gave us seafaring pirates and blow that little schnozzola of yours?”
“Yes sir, I’m ready.” I gave it all I had. I did it twice. It worked great. He was right; God did give me hanky to go with my large nose.
On the way home my dad asked how I was doing and I told him, “Under the circumstances, this was one of the best chub runs ever. Mr. Heinmeister is a pretty cool guy. I thought he was just another stupid dock worker, but he turned out to be a really cool guy.”
“Never judge people by what they look like. There are plenty of people better off than we are who choose to dress like bums, drive beat-up trucks, and live in ordinary homes. What matters is what people have in their head and in the bank. It’s called German poor. We like our money in our pockets and not on our backs,” he said as we pulled up in front of the feed house.
I wasn’t quite sure what to make of my dad’s lecture on German character. But I was pretty sure Leon Heinmeister had neither brains in his head nor money in his pocket, but none of that mattered. I had valuable life information to share, and I ran out into the mink yard eager to show my brothers a brand new cheer.
