Bam, bam, bam. Dave’s hammer echoes in the dim light of the woodshed. “Let’s go fishing,” I holler up at him; “I’ll dig the worms.” The pounding stops and my big brother looks over the edge of the loft. His dark blond hair, sun-bleached on top, sticks to his sweaty forehead.
The resinous smell of Doug fir almost smothers the sweet scent of alder that drifts from the jumble of firewood slowly drying on the floor.
“Okay,” he sighs. “But I can’t be gone very long. I gotta finish this coop. I’m getting the pigeons this weekend.” He steps to the top rung of the ladder, slats nailed between two studs in the unfinished wall of the cavernous room, and climbs down, holding the hammer in his left hand.
I was seven and he was nine when we moved from California to Oregon into a house with a big backyard. He put up posts, strung chicken wire and turned the old pump house into a chicken coop. With the help of our grandfather he put in a concrete pond and got ducks. Now, three years later, he’s getting pigeons.
I rummage through the dark tool closet built into the side of the woodshed, holding my breath against the old dirt and dead plant smell, pull the shovel from behind the rake and hoe and shoulder open the woodshed door. My chest contracts with excitement. I can’t believe Dave is going to stop work to fish. Dad never stops working long enough to fish.
I carry the shovel and a tin can past the banties pecking in their coop, over the circle of lush grass above the septic tank, to the bottom of the backyard. The purple leaves of the plum tree brush my head as I stand on the blade of the shovel. Good thing the tree never fruits or the ground would be littered with rotten plums covered with wasps.
Five tries later I still can’t drive the blade through the long, coarse grass. Dad doesn’t have time to mow, either. On my knees I wrap my fist around a handful of grass. It doesn’t budge. I grab a smaller bunch and pull. Gradually a small patch of soil appears. On my feet I rest the point of the rusty shovel on the bare spot, put all my weight on the step and break through.
As soon as I pry loose a hunk of damp sod a worm tunnels away. Before it can bury itself in the dirt I grab and pull. Flecked with crumbs of dirt its pink-and-gray body stretches long as I ease it out of the stringy white grass roots. Fresh from the earth it feels clean and new. Five minutes later the bottom of a can that held green beans last night, is covered with worms curling and twisting around each other.
In the house to use the bathroom, I pass my older sister sitting at the dining room table. She’s shuffling cards and playing her new single full blast on the record player: She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah.
A mile from the house, where the sidewalk ends, his pole and tackle box held loosely in one hand, Dave yells over his shoulder, “Watch out for log trucks,” and walks across highway 101. I swing my head left, right, clutch the worm can and sprint after him, my bobber clicking against my rod. Blackberry vines tear at my jeans as I cross the ditch between the road and the railroad tracks. I hurry to catch up with him as he walks beside the tracks towards the trestle.
Two or three miles before it flows into Winchester Bay and then the Pacific, the Umpqua River passes under a railroad trestle, a platform on stilts laid with tracks. On the bank a kick of salt rushes by on the breeze. While I sniff the air Dave baits his hook and walks toward the trestle, the gravel trackbed crunching under his tennis shoes.
I reach for the bait can. At the sight of all that moving flesh I pull my hand back, “Can you put the worm on the hook for me?
They’re all soft and squishy,” I say, my voice high and thin. He doesn’t answer. He ignores me when I whine. “You baited it for me last time,” I say, from lower in my chest.
“You’re old enough. Do it yourself,” he says without stopping. Heart pounding, I kneel on a creosote-soaked railroad tie that stinks of gas and tar. In the yard, it was a game to catch the worms before they dove for safety. Crawling over each other in the can, they look like little snakes. I can pick up a garter snake. I’d never reach into a bucket of them.
“What if I poke myself with the hook, ” I yell, looking for any reason not to touch the squirming heap of flesh.
He sets down the tackle box and strides back towards me, frowning. “The hooks we’re using are small,” he says. It’s no worse than a blackberry sticker.”
“I don’t know how to do it,” I say. I lean back on my heels and squint up at him.
“Don’t go straight in one side and out the other,” he says; “It won’t stay on. Jam it on lengthwise.” He holds up his baited hook with a freckled hand, knuckles red and rough. The worm contracts and stretches, trying to escape.
My shoulders drop. I should’ve made myself bait my own hook a long time ago. Every year they look more disgusting. Dave turns and walks back to the trestle. If Dad were here he’d do it for me. All that fighting with the stupid shovel and now I can’t fish. I sit on a rail and watch him walk down the middle of the tracks and out onto the trestle. Why do I have to be so girly? In books tomboys aren’t scared of worms.
I don’t want to be like my sister and sit in the house playing solitaire and listening to the same Beatle songs over and over. I want to be like Dave, playing football in the street, climbing up on the roof and walking on top of the concrete guard rail of the bridge to Bolon Island, putting worms on hooks.
Tears build behind my eyelids and I blink at the green wall of trees on the other side of 101. They grow down to the shoulder of the highway like a crowd on the starting line of a race. In the ditch next to the tracks wild flowers fight for space with the blackberry vines.
If I’m not going to fish, I may as well check for berries. I turn my back on the river and wade into the brambles. All the berries are hard and green but Queen Anne’s Lace, like white umbrellas, sways in the breeze. A butterfly drifts away as I yank on a tough, fuzzy stem and bring the flat-topped cluster of tiny white flowers to my nose. It has no scent and disappointed, I drop it on the ground. The frayed stem leaves my hand tacky, and before I wipe it on my jeans I lift my hand and smell licorice and carrots. Maybe I’ll try again with the worms.
They’re slower now. They don’t raise their heads up, they just roll around. I shut my eyes and reach in. Caught between my thumb and forefinger, it squirms so much I drop it in the dirt. Before I chicken out, I grab it again and this time I squeeze hard and run my tongue over the inside of my top lip. That’s what the worm feels like, lips.
When I was little I put everything in my mouth. I can almost feel the worm on my tongue. I shut my mouth, inhale through my nose and catch the faint peppery smell of Queen Anne’s Lace. I grip the hook and press it into the curling body. It lifts and jerks away and the point of the hook snags on the tip of my index finger. Dave was right. I can barely feel it.
A worm’s skin’s tougher than it looks. I hold tight and stab the hook lengthwise through the twisting body like threading an arm through a sleeve. Black stuff oozes out and I inhale sharply. I can still smell the juice of the flower. I bunch the worm up the length of the hook, stand and walk toward the trestle.
Victoria Lewis grew up on the Oregon coast, taught school in Portland and worked as a computer programmer.
