Turbo's Very Life and Other Stories by Carroll Dale Short

Author:Carroll Dale Short [Dale, Carroll Dale]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Turbo's Very Life, NewSouth Books, Carroll Dale Short, fiction, short stories, Southern fiction, Alabama
ISBN: 9781603060905
Publisher: NewSouth Inc.
Published: 2006-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Throwing The Hook

Hand . . . over hand . . . over hand he went, swinging gorilla-like across the honeycombed iron underside of the new river bridge the day before they opened it to cars. He was a third of the way to the other side before he made himself look down—at Charlie and Albert and Willie all the size of mayflies in the brush of the riverbank, looking up at him with their mouths gaping like he was an airplane or something.

But the motion of the olive-colored river, its lines of force sparkling in the three o’clock sun, gave the illusion that the surface was motionless and it was the bridge, and him, that were floating off. All the air fled his throat for a second and he had to look up to get it back. He followed the progress of his hands on the cool new iron, already crusted with bitter bird droppings, until his breath came regular again. He knew that falling would most likely not have killed him. Harl Davison from the high school had gone off the bridge on a bet the night he graduated, but he’d spent all of June in an arm cast and brace and still held his neck funny when he talked to you.

Hand . . . over hand and then he was halfway out and then two-thirds or better and could smell the hot honeysuckle of the opposite bank. Now he was getting close and Willie was hooting to all hell like a rebel soldier and when he made it the whole way and dropped like a sack onto the gravel of the embankment they were all on him at once, beating him with their caps and hugging his neck and saying all the cuss words they knew. He tried once to stand up but his legs wouldn’t take hold yet, so he laid back down in the gravel with his hands laced behind his neck as if he meant to luxuriate there, on purpose, in the glow of what he’d done.

That was when he felt someone grab his bare ankle—not any of the three boys because he could see all their rapt faces against the blue sky—and as he tried to jerk away, the intruder became his wife’s scaly hand, pulling him up through the bed and into his actual life.

She had the big round pill wedged between his lips before his eyes were open good, and the rim of a water glass at his chin in preparation to wash it down. The doctor said he should take the medicine before he got up, and Evelyn took that to mean before he even raised his head up the least bit. Hanson maintained any sensible person would know it meant before he stood up and walked around any. They debated the difference endlessly except on days like today when she caught him addled enough on waking to swallow without question. Argument closed. The pill, like all the ones she handed him, tasted faintly of cold cream.

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