The boy leaned into the cold wind that numbed his face and ears. Slowly, he released his grip that held him in place on his seat. He adjusted to the rhythm of the boat as it bounced across the surface of the river, and he shut his eyes, spreading his arms wide. Soaring high overhead, he looked down to the scene far below. He and his father, two tiny specks from this far up, stationed at each end of the small fishing boat, a white trail of foam tracing behind. Over time, the boy had gotten better at removing himself and going to his safe place on days when his father wouldn’t
speak—and wasn’t really his father at all… like today.
The roar of the boat’s engine ceased, and the forward motion of the craft halting to a stop nearly tossed the boy from the front of the vessel. He picked himself up from the floor of the boat; seeing his father’s attention focused on the engine behind him as he fumbled with the wiring, he hurried back to his seat. Nothing upset his father more than someone who didn’t pay attention while out on the water.
His father turned, looking at him suspiciously with one eye, his other swollen shut from the all-nighter he’d spent at Robby’s Pub, gambling with the boys and pushing his dollars on the dresser. That’s what his father called the women down at the pub after the boy’s mother had left, disappearing from their lives nearly a year ago to the day on Christmas Eve. His father had replaced his mother with gambling, fighting, and the dresses not long after she’d left. The boy missed his mother and looked out the window still at times, waiting for her return. Sometimes, he could almost hear her humming her favorite melody and could smell the fresh cakes of bread she’d made for him that were coated with sugar and cinnamon. Since she’d gone, his father barely fed him anything, leaving the boy to fend for himself. Most often when his father was at home, he treated the boy like he wasn’t there at all.
It had surprised the boy when his father had awakened him to hitch the boat to the truck for a fishing trip this morning. Maybe his father was his father today and just didn’t feel like a talk. His father dug beneath the seat at the back of the boat, cursing incoherently. After a moment, he pulled a bottle of rye out from beneath the seat. That was his father’s new wife, the rye. He pulled the cork from the bottle’s neck and took a deep pull. His father wiped his lips and looked at the boy with his one good eye. “Come ‘ere, boy.” Uncertain, the boy stayed in his seat. His father reached out, handing the bottle towards him. “Here. Time to make a man of ye.” The boy shrank back from the bottle filled with balls of fire. That’s what the boy called the hot liquid that had burned his stomach the last time his father made him drink. It had caused him to be sick all day. “‘Ere,” his father shouted, rising from his seat at the back of the boat. Before the boy realized it, he was up, snatched by his collar and the seat of his pants, flying up over the side of the boat and into the icy cold Ohio River. He couldn’t swim. His father knew this! The boy flailed his arms, trying to stay up, his nose and mouth filling with icy cold water. He caught glimpses of his father as he struggled, watching him as he sank, pulled by the undercurrent of the strong river. As the darkness closed in around him, he felt a tug on his arm, and he was pulled back up into the light.
Oddie saw his reflection holding the round wooden ball in his hands. His skin was oily and several days’ growth covered his face. How long had he been standing in the mirror, and what the hell just happened to him? He hadn’t been dreaming. What he’d just experienced was as real as it had been when he was ten years old. A chill coursed over his 37-year-old body, and he remembered the ice cold December of that river years ago when he’d nearly been drowned by his father. He set the wooden ball down on the stand and saw that his hands were soaked and smelled like riverwater.
