Ablution

The path to the stream was overgrown and barely visible, but Walter knew the way. As a boy he had fished there for brown trout with his father, and later brought his sons with their fly rods and wicker baskets. Standing for hours in cool moving water, threading out the line, flicking the bamboo tip so the tied fly landed precisely, freed the mind and refreshed the spirit.

“Don’t force it, Kevin. Make friends with it. Respect it. Take joy in the dance between man and fish.”

“Yes, daddy.”

Kevin was his younger child, always cheerful and eager. He listened well and learned from the mistakes Aaron made, three years older. Aaron had already mastered the fly rod when Kevin was six, and made perfect casts while his younger brother wrestled with a backlash.

“Need help, Kev?”

“No, I got it.” His pocket knife cut away the kinked line and he retied the lure.

By the third year they were fishing as equals, standing in swift eddy tossing their lines ahead of the ripples made by the fishes’ tails. Once they snared two beauties at the same time and laughed, eyes sparkling in mutual respect.

Walter smiled from the camp, blowing on the fire that would cook their dinner. Kevin was adept with a sharp knife and would surround the filets with green onions, garlic and chestnuts in the iron skillet prepared with sunflower oil. After the bottoms browned, he would flip the filets and add a dash of Cholula hot sauce.

These memories occupied his mind as Walter made his way through the cedars toward the stream. A red fox darted across his path. An owl screeched overhead. Dank odor from the fecund carpet of leaves rose to meet his nostrils. He was at home, just another creature among many in the neighborhood. A flash of color that did not belong. Walter bent down for the orange food wrapper, wadded it up and stuck it in his pocket. It appalled him others could disrespect Mother Nature, but he let the thought go.

Beyond the cedars the path opened into a lush green meadow. He could hear the rush of the stream, the cool clear water sliding over the smooth rocks. It was just as he remembered it. Pristine and soothing. He went to one knee and cupped his hands. The water was a glorious, life sustaining fluid, and he drank deeply.

He slid off his rucksack and untied the leather cylinder fastened beneath, pulling the zipper around the crest. He extracted six pieces of bamboo and assembled them, slowly twisting the ends together, until they were snug. He flicked the rod and it cut through the air like a whip. He stood there in silence, visualizing the rod in Kevin’s hand, that last time two years ago before the cancer.

Kevin’s coordination had gone first. Aaron had kidded him about the hot sauce and dismissed his little brother’s clumsiness as indigestion. Then came the seizures. Sporadic at first, then more frequent.

“Glioblastoma,” the doctor had said. “Kevin has a large tumor in the right hemisphere of his brain.”

“What can we do?” Walter and Tracie asked, feeling hopeless and afraid.

“We try radiation first. Then surgically remove what we can. Then the chemo.”

“What are his chances?”

“His cancer is in stage 4. Not many survive.”

The family abandoned their plans and moved to Memphis to be with Kevin for the radiation, staying in lodging provided at St. Judes. The tumor continued to grow and they moved on to surgery at the Cleveland Clinic. The incision was stitched like in a baseball, curving over Kevin’s ear. The family remained close for daily rounds of examinations, treatments and physical therapy, leaving after visiting hours only when the nurses made them go.

“The MRI shows the tumor is growing back faster than before,” the doctor said, recommending an experimental technique for producing a vaccine form his tumor’s cells. But, the tumor persisted and a second surgery removed the new growth to relieve the pressure inside his skull.

“We’ve done all we can for him,” the doctor said, visibly shaken. “Perhaps you should take him home.”

Kevin didn’t want to die in the hospital, and passed in his own bed holding hands with those who loved him. His tumor was donated to the hospital for research.

Walter pulled a second set of bamboo pieces and assembled them, laying the rod next to the first on the soft green grass. Aaron had died the month after Kevin. Despondent and drinking on a rainy night, he swerved to miss an oncoming car and crashed into a light pole. Two granite headstones in the tiny church cemetery in remembrance to his boys. There would be no graduations to celebrate, no weddings, no daughters in law, no grandsons.

Walter pulled the third set of bamboo pieces from the sheaf and assembled his own rod. He thought of Tracie, how after their sons were gone could not bear to look at him. She left for Illinois to live with her parents.

Donning rubber waders, Walter stepped waist high into the stream, carrying the three rods to the center where the current was the strongest.

“Good bye, sons.” He laid the rods together on the surface and watched the current take them past the flat mossy rocks where the fish always waited. He then pulled a pistol from his vest, placed it against the spot where Kevin’s tumor had been. He pulled the trigger an instant after a big trout hit his leg and caused him to slip.

Walter sputtered in the cold water, his feet finding purchase. Blood ran from the crease along his hairline. He looked up. Two eagles were winging skyward. A third eagle stared down at him, unmoved by the gunshot.

A sense of peace swept over him. He threw the handgun as far as he could into the stream, then crawled up onto the shore.