CHAPTER TWENTY
It’s All In The Head

Jack was up in the treehouse, swinging down to the ground. We had attached a long rope on one of the big, strong branches. We could use the rope to avoid having to climb down and it was much more fun. I watched Jack for a while as he would still be at a running pace when he finally let go of the rope. He would do it at just the right moment, to be going as fast as he could, when his feet hit the ground. He would climb right back up to the treehouse, doing it over and over, scraping the ground with his feet, dragging and landing in the same worn out spot we had made over time. No wonder he wore out shoes so fast. I was sure that the department store, the main store in town that sold shoes, loved that treehouse more than we did. We went through a lot of shoes.

The only person who didn’t like that rope was the next door neighbor Mr. Sutton. The tree we built the house in, was only about ten feet from the fence he put up to separate his yard from ours. With that same big swinging rope, we could get up some good momentum, swing over the fence into his yard, and then swing back to our side. He didn’t like that at all, and it would make him angry if he caught us doing that.

Mr. Sutton would sternly remark, “You kids are giving my dog fits, and I don’t want you getting hurt on my property either!”

He didn’t know we fed the dog many times, and it became friendly to me and Jack after a while. We figured the air didn’t belong to anybody in particular and he had no right to tell us where we could swing while on that rope. Besides, every once in a while it was a quick and easy way to swing over to retrieve a baseball and avoid climbing over his chain-link fence.

I had decided to go fishing today and figured Jack might want to go. As I approached the treehouse, I yelled, “Jack, I’m going fishin’ down at the old wooden bridge!” He didn’t pay me any attention, having so much fun swinging down on that rope. I kept up with my persuasion, remarking, “The water should still be up high now, and the fishin’ will be really good. There’s a big channel cat’, just waitin’ to be reeled in. Come on down, let’s go fishin’. You said you would go with me today!”

After swinging down the last time, he climbed back up again, and disappeared inside the treehouse. In frustration, I loudly exclaimed, “What are you doing in there, Jack? Come on down... Let’s go fishin’!”

Finally, Jack popped his head out and replied, “Okay-Okay already. I heard you the first time Bean.” He swung down the last time, digging in the ground with his feet, kicking up a pile of dust everywhere, including on me. He quickly let go of the rope, stopping right in front of me, as I was spitting out some of the dirt. Then, like it was his idea, he remarked, “Well, whatcha waitin’ for Bean? Let’s go fishin’!”

We started collecting our rods, extra hooks and sinkers, and other fishing supplies. We decided for bait, to take a few slices of light bread, and a good supply of worms. Sometimes, there were spots around the yard we could find to dig for worms, but we always had a good backup plan. We had our own worm bed that we had made out of an old wash tub. We kept it in a shady spot, next to a corner behind the house. Along with the dirt, we would put in oatmeal, coffee grounds, other food items and we watered it often to keep it moist.

If you neglected it and the dirt got dry, all the worms would die. What a delight to simply scoop in that moist dirt with your fingers, grabbing a handful of lively, wiggling worms for free anytime you wanted them. Those same few handfuls, would cost a quarter at the store and our homegrown worms were far better than any store-bought ones. Plus, half of the worms in the container you bought would be dead, and the ones still alive would be so small, you couldn’t get them on a hook. In our worm bed, we mostly farmed the bigger, fat earthworms we could dig up around the yard to put in the bed to multiply. Some of our earthworms were almost a foot long, not like the skinny red wigglers they sold at the store.

If our worm supply did happen to get low, bread was an easy alternative. Plus, carp and buffalo especially loved the dough bait. To use bread for bait, we rolled it into a little ball, and used treble hooks to hold it on longer.

For some reason, more often than not, we referred to bread as light bread and I never asked why. But it certainly came in handy if we got hungry. If we fished for a long time, we could always sacrifice some to eat ourselves.

Mama was always remarking, “You boys sure do go through this light bread, faster than anyone I know!” We never let on that we used it for bait too. Finally, with our rods, our bait and fishing supplies, we hopped on our bikes and off we went, headed for what everyone in town referred to as ‘the old wooden bridge’. When we arrived, luckily no one was fishing there and we were glad to have it all to ourselves.

This bridge was indeed old, wooden, and built on something like stilts. Cars had to go very slow in crossing it. The old boards always appeared to be way past replacing. It was so shaky, I was always a little spooked myself, while going over it in a car as you could feel the entire structure wobble. Also, not having any sides made it that much scarier to go across.

 If you leaned against the pilings underneath, you could feel the vibration caused by the cars going over the bridge. Cars crossing it, would make this unmistakable, rhythmic noise, TaDum... TaDum... TaDum, that you could hear a mile away, all day long. If you were there, fishing underneath, it was particularly loud and pieces of wood and dirt might hit you on the head, falling off the underside of the bridge.

Once under the bridge fishing, we hated being bothered by passerbyers. If they saw us fishing underneath, they would often proceed to come down to see what we were catching or only want to yap about something. We were there solely to fish and would hide as best we could when we heard someone walking over the bridge. I guess it also made for a fun way to play hide & seek, with people passing over.

So we liked to get underneath the bridge, staying out of sight as much as possible. If other kids saw us having any luck, we knew they might get their fishing stuff and come back. We surely didn’t want that, having others show up and ruin our fishing. Fishing to Jack and me was a real art. We knew exactly what bait to use, which kind of hook to use, depending on what we thought might be hitting that day and always talked quietly. If we didn’t walk gently, those darn fish would know people were walking around on the bank and that would scare them off. Fish might have little brains but they sure knew how to use every speck of the little brain they had. Most kids that would see us there would come running down the bank, making lots of racket and scare off our likely catch. That always would put me and Jack in a bad mood with any visitors showing up.

Then there was always the three Torry boys. Of course they were our good friends with whom we usually played baseball, fished with, squirrel hunted and messed around with most of the time.

But today, however, Jack wanted it to be only me and him. Brothers are like that sometimes. At times you feel like you almost hate ‘em for maybe something they did or said to you, and then the next minute you feel the need for some brother time.

Today was one of those days. I wanted to spend some time with Jack. I didn’t want anybody else to come along, not even the Torry boys. Besides, we would want to later show off all the fish we caught and make ‘em jealous. It was always like a friendly competition thing with the Torrys, to see who could outdo the other in whatever venture it was, especially fishing.

Every time the river would swell like this from some rain, we could always count on catching all kinds of fish; carp, catfish, drum, buffalo, and perch. We considered all of them good eating fish, except those troublesome gars that looked like little alligators. They had all these rows of really sharp teeth but were always a fun fight. You had to be careful while trying to get ‘em off your hook though, as those teeth could really do damage to your fingers while messing with ‘em, if you happened to reel one in.

 Now with catfish, Jack and I also loved eating the tails, but only catfish, not the others. Catfish tails would cook up all crispy, and tasted like eating French fries. Jack and I would always fuss over who would get to eat the last catfish tail when we had catfish for supper. Those tails were that good.

I dared Jack to try eating the eyeballs once. We fried a few up, but Jack said they were so small, and went down the pipe so fast, they didn’t taste like anything. Jack was always willing to try just about anything on a dare.

We were finally settled in under the bridge, and luckily, no one was bothering us. We were having some really good luck. Jack had caught two catfish, our favorite, and I had caught a pretty nice size carp. We had put them on a stringer in the water close to the bank, to keep them alive until we would get through fishing. I decided to put on a brand new sharp treble hook after the last carp I caught, so the dough ball would stay on my hook better.

With the fishing starting to slow up, the sound of the water and the wind, along with the chirping of the birds, it was a relaxing symphony put on by nature. It was making us both sleepy. My little brother had already nodded off, lying comfortably on the bank.

I was fighting sleep myself, letting out some awfully big yawns. I was about to take a break to catch a nap myself, when, bam, my rod bent over double and awakened me out of my slumbering state. I knew that I had hung a really big one this time and couldn’t wait to get it in, and show him off. I figured with that sharp new hook, I had put on, hopefully he was hooked really well.

It was all my little reel could do, to not let the fish take out any more line than I was reeling in. It finally felt like he was beginning to wear out, and I was winning the fight, when the fish hung my line up on something in the river bottom. I didn’t want to pull too hard and let this one get away or break my line. I finally had to give it some slack to see if the fish was still on but to my disappointment, he appeared to get off.

Now I just wanted to get that new hook back and get a bait back out there but I was still hung up on something in the river. I was pulling and yanking hard, but it was hung up solid. With all the commotion, Jack woke up, and strongly admonished, “Quit pulling on your line so hard Bean, you’re gonna break it!”

While straining and grunting, I decided to give it one last hard pull. That stubborn treble hook finally came loose and popped out of the river like a fired missile, going straight into the top of Jack’s head.

It must have gone in deep, as Jack went completely berserk. He ran up the river bank so fast, I didn’t have time to get something to cut my line, as he’s now hooked like a fish on my reel. Jack went off running and screaming, straight down the road toward the Coleman Brothers gas station. All the while, I was feeding him more line from my reel to keep the line slack, while trying to catch up. The gas station was a few hundred yards back toward town, close to Main Street. Jack was a very fast runner, and having a sharp treble hook buried in his head, didn’t slow him down one bit. I think it was the fastest I had ever seen him run.

He is running and hollering loudly as he could, with me chasing behind him, trying to keep up. I kept giving him more line from the reel, hoping it wouldn’t run out before he would stop.

Still screaming, Jack finally got to the Coleman gas station and I finally caught up. I was still holding the rod in my hand, with that hook still buried in Jack’s skull. There was fishing line all over the place, all in tangles, so I couldn’t reel any of it up.

Mr. Coleman, the old gas station owner, had never seen such a sight, and it took him awhile to realize what had happened. When he got us settled down enough, to really look at the situation, he cut the line from the hook, and the tangled line that was wrapped around our legs.

When he got Jack still enough to sit down to examine his head, Mr. Coleman said, “I can’t believe there’s a treble hook down in there. I can only see the top of the eye sticking out. I don’t think I better mess with trying to get this out myself.”

He put me and Jack in his truck, and drove us to the closest doctor, Dr. Holmes. He had a little three room office that I had been to a few times, and only once do I remember him having a nurse there. I think it may have been his wife at the time. We went on in, with Jack hobbling along like he was going to pass out with blood streaming down his head. We saw Doc Holmes laid back, in an office chair with his head propped back, breathing out of his mouth, with it wide open. I figured he was taking a nap or resting.

I had often wondered if he was a real doctor but we weren’t in any condition to be picky about our choices right then. As time went on, while trying to wake up the doctor, we realized that he was a little more than sleepy. We realized by now that he was drunk as a skunk.

With each persistent interruption from us, he was constantly stretching his eyes and mouth, shaking his head back and forth, trying to focus and stay awake. As Mr. Coleman was explaining the situation, Doctor Holmes started to come a little more to his senses. He was struggling to stay alert, but finally seemed to understand why we were there.

After being able to keep his eyes open, he grabbed a special doctoring tool that resembled a pair of needle nose pliers like we used for fishing. I thought to myself, those are the neatest set of pliers I had ever seen. They looked brand new, like they had never been used before. They were very long and so shiny, they seemed to almost blind me with the light they reflected. They had really big handles to hold them by and weren’t straight on one the end, like the ones we had for fishing.

Here I am, with all that was going on in that serious moment, and I was thinking how those pliers would make a great pair to have around for fishing purposes. I was picturing it in my mind. I would be holding a fish and using those nice pliers to get the fishhook out with ease, all the while admiring my new shiny pliers as I nodded in approval. At that moment, the real situation with Jack and the doc was slowly fading in my mind, giving away to dreaming about using that fancy tool for fishing down at the river.

With Jack still hollering, I finally managed to snap my head out from my dreaming world about those stupid pliers, and to pay attention to the serious dilemma immediately at hand.

That’s when I heard Doc Holmes saying in heavily slurred speech. “Well now, this don’t look bad at all, seen a lot worse... Don’t worry, son, I’ll get that hook out of there.”

The other problem was that he would close his eyes intermittently in a drowsy fashion, like he was nodding off while standing up.

Finally, when he opened his eyes, he had grabbed onto me instead of Jack and was fiddling all through my hair, looking for where that hook went.

“Now where did that dang hook go?” He inquired.

 Mr. Coleman grabbed his hand and put it back on Jack’s head, keeping him straight on whose head he was supposed to be working on.

When the doc realized his mistake, he only remarked, “Oh... Right... Yeah!”

After getting him settled on the correct head, he was holding those fancy pliers, waving them around in the air like a baton of an orchestra leader and in slurred speech still, said, “Okay, I got it now.. Trust me boys, this hook’s coming out.”

All the while, Jack was still hollering and we were trying to hold him still, so maybe we could get this ordeal over with. Doc kept probing and digging, yanking and pulling, like a dentist trying to pull a stubborn tooth not wanting to come out.

Finally, he managed to get the hook out and Mr. Coleman and I breathed a sigh of relief, but I’m not sure how much better Jack felt when it was all over.

Jack began to calm down, got patched up and Mr. Coleman told the doc he would get us home and talk about settling up later. On our way out, Doctor Holmes didn’t say anything at all. He slouched back into that same chair he was in when we got there at the beginning. He stuck his hand out over the top of the chair, in a weakened attempt of a wave, as his head appeared to quickly droop once again, to a state of slumber.

We all got back into Mr. Coleman’s truck under much calmer conditions this time, thank goodness! He took us back to the old wooden bridge to help get all our stuff we had run off and left. He told Jack to sit still in the truck, while he helped me load up our bikes in the truck bed.

Mr. Coleman said he should take us home and let my mama or anyone there know what had happened but no one was there when we arrived a few minutes later. He helped unload everything and made sure Jack got in the house okay and told him to take it easy and maybe lie down for a spell.

He wrote down his phone number for anyone to call the station if they had any questions about what happened. He made sure I understood and said, “Beanie, if Jack gets to feeling bad or something, before your mama gets home from the clothes factory, don’t hesitate to call me.”

 I thanked him for all he had done for us that day. I don’t know how it might have turned out if Mr. Coleman hadn’t been there to help us. That night, when I finally got to sleep after thinking about all that happened, all I could dream about was that nice, shiny set of doctor pliers used on Jack’s head.

I always thought Jack was the toughest kid I had ever known. He was a lot tougher than me, that’s for sure. But I would never admit it. From all his hollering from that incident, one might not think he was tough. But then again, I wasn’t the one with a big treble hook buried deep in my skull, with a drunk doctor cutting and digging into my head.

When mama got home and I recounted the entire story, she almost couldn’t believe what happened. Jack was lying on the couch asleep. She began to comb through Jack’s hair, examining the evidence and said, “I’ll call Mr. Coleman to thank him and figure out if I owe him anything for doing what he did.”

I told her the doc didn’t take any money and agreed to settle up later. She said, “Okay, I’m just thankful that the hook didn’t get in Jack’s eye. This could have turned out real bad.”

 I replied, “It’s a good thing Jack’s got such a darn hard head.”

“Yeah, good thing huh,” she replied with a smile.

I commented, “You know, I think Jack may have finally done something to overshadow me getting the name Bean. Once word gets around town about a hook in the head, they may start calling him Captain Hook or something.”

Mama said, “Yeah, but knowing Jack, he would probably love a name like that and would wear it as a badge of honor.”

The very next day, Jack was feeling a whole lot better. He wanted to get our fishing stuff together again and head back to the old wooden bridge, while the fishing was still good.

We loaded everything on our bikes again, and as usual, we rode by the gas station on the way there. We saw Mr. Coleman putting gas in a car and we gave him a big smile and friendly, thankful wave.
While he was using one hand to put gas in the car, he halfway raised the other in a hesitant, reply of a wave, with a surprised look on his face. I don’t think he could believe we were heading back fishing, again, that very next day.

We sure were thankful for Mr. Coleman, and everything he had done for us. We hoped he would always be close by, there at his gas station, for any future emergencies.

Plus, for a nickel, his station had the coldest grape sodas in town!