Awakening
Copyright 2022 Erik F. Helm
(Author's note: A true story as imagined, and told from a different perspective: that of the rod itself. The history was itself dreamed and imagined, and who knows who owned the rod in its 100 years, or where it accompanied the man to the rivers. The Italian looking man is Joe Balestrieri, who restored the rod from a lonely tomato-stake, and yours truly had the joy of a re-birth or awakening in a stream never fished before in a setting beyond beauty.)The rod restored... with period reels and flies
The rod was born in a large brick room by being split,
beveled, and glued into something new. The creator had a beard and whistled to
himself. He wrapped the rod with red silk thread and gave it a shiny finish
with a brush. The rod remembered the before-time only vaguely: like a pre-natal
memory of swaying in the wind with his brothers and sisters in some far-away
place.
The creator finished the rod with pieces of cork and a metal
handle stamped: ‘H.L. Leonard, Leonard and Mills Company, Makers.’ A newspaper
folded nearby proclaimed, “Calvin Coolidge elected President!”
The rod was carefully nestled into a cloth bag with sections
for each of its three pieces, and set on a shelf under a sign that read
‘Finished Fly-Rods.’
The six strips of tonkin cane carefully assembled now had a
name and a purpose, its colorful silk wraps, snake guides, and metal ferrules
all coming together to bend again in a different but similar way: the hand of
man directing the process, but the rod flexing to its own rhythm and dance in
pursuit of a trout. The rod did not know what a ‘fly’ nor a ‘trout’ was, but it
could dream…
The rod was taken out of its case and bag and placed in a
display in a large open room crowded with curious other items. Through the tall
windows, the rod could see that the street outside was full of noise and
motion. Then the rod waited patiently to be chosen, and dreamed of things it
knew not about.
The man came at noon on a Saturday. He smoked a cigar and
wore a brown felt fedora hat. He examined a few other rods before picking up
the rod. He closed one eye and sighted along the sections, then placed the rod
together and wiggled it. Finally, he gave the varnish a little sniff, produced
a small handkerchief from his jacket pocket, gave the rod a gentle caress, and
said, “I’ll take this one!”
The rod learned to dance in the man’s hand, to roll a silk
line through the air with graceful curves, and to bend and play a trout. The
trout were speckled things that lived in beautiful places where there were
rivers and mountains and valleys. The man and the rod made many memories
together; paths wandered, rivers waded and crossed, and fish brought to hand.
After each time the new memory was made, the man took out his handkerchief and
carefully but lovingly wiped down the rod. The rod felt needed, and in that
need, that symbiosis of man and rod, of trout and river, the rod felt alive.
The rod and man were partners. The man’s hands staining the cork, his very
fingerprints burned in like the memories. The rod smelled of varnish and fish,
and it was happy.
One crisp fall day when the leaves were turning to fire, the
man took the rod up the narrow stairs in the house he lived in, and placed it
against the wall of the attic space. The rod heard the man’s footsteps slowly
creaking as he descended.
The rod waited patiently for the man to come back, but the
weeks and months passed by with only the cracking of the attic woodwork, the
whispers of mice, and the sound of the wind to keep him company. It became cold
in the attic and then warm again as the seasons passed, but the man did not
come. The rod, in its protective bag became covered with dust. Its varnish
began to crack and it became weary and tired with waiting.
The rod, lonely now, drifted off to sleep.
In the world outside the attic, bombs dropped somewhere far
away, countries were born and died, nations cried, and still the rod slept:
jets and rockets soared, hair grew long, then short again, protests came and
went, and still the rod slept: man visited the moon, split the atom, art became
abstract, babies were born, novels written, presidents assassinated, old men
passed, and so did time, and still the man did not come… and the rod slept.
The rod awoke from its slumbers and dreams to the sounds of
voices and boxes being moved and banged about. It was bleary and confused. A
hand grasped its cloth bag, and the rod heard once again the creaking of the
stairs as it bobbed and descended. It was placed on a large table with other
things that were covered in dust. A man took the rod out of the bag and began
to blind it with bright flashes of light while talking: “Number 247, fish
pole,” he said. The rod thought this man looked a bit like his friend of the
memories, but was younger, had no hat, smelled funny, and wore odd clothing.
The rod looked at himself on the table. His skin was old and wrinkled, his silk
wraps hung in tatters, and mice had chewed at his cork handle. However, his
bamboo core was straight and true, his memories as present and intact as his
loneliness.
The rod briefly slept again before it became aware of great
motions. It was in some sort of container, and was being jostled and turned.
Sounds of clicking, whirring, beeping were finally concluded by footsteps and
the sound of a doorbell.
A different man said, “Come in! Put that tube on the table,
but keep all the bills!”
An Italian looking man with graying hair took the rod out of
its bag, his movements precise and quick. “Who are you? The Italian man
whispered to himself, and “What have you seen in the last 100 years?”
Sniffing the bag, the Italian looking man wrinkled up his
nose, and placed it in the trash. The rod was worried now. What would happen?
As if the Italian looking man could interpret cane thoughts,
he chuckled out loud, “Don’t worry old boy, you are in good hands now!”
The Italian looking man put the rod together and bent it
one-way and then another. One of the ferrules fell off in the process, but the
Italian looking man smiled all the same at the trueness of the bamboo.
The rod was placed into a cool bath of funny-smelling
liquid. When it emerged, it was naked again. Gone were the wrinkles of age. The
Italian looking man removed some of the frayed silk wraps, poked here, and
fussed there, glued on another ferrule, and gave it a new baby’s skin of clear
varnish.
When dry, the rod was assembled, and a reel was attached to
the handle. The Italian looking man strung a silk line through its guides, and
in a large grassy yard, the rod remembered how to dance again. The Italian
looking man smiled once again.
Then the rod was placed in a new cloth bag and set in the
corner where it waited and worried about sleep and wrinkles and time and men.
Then, one evening, guests came over to the Italian looking
man’s house. There was loud talk and laughter. The rod was placed on a wooden
table along with newly made bamboo rods. The Italian looking man was excited as
he capered here and there, explaining this and expounding on that. Another man
was examining the table of rods. He smelled like scotch, while the Italian
looking man smelled like wine. The rod, despite its new skin was the geriatric
at the table. The other rods had clean cork grips, while the rod still had
traces of the memory-man’s hands on its cork.
Then a funny thing happened. The new man assembled the rod
and wiggled it. He smiled and stated, “Nobody will ever understand this old
girl. I’ll take her!”
On a fine sunny spring day the rod was assembled again in a
place filled with green hills and valleys. The new man cast the rod and raised
his eyebrows. The rod learned the new cadence of the man, and the man grew to
understand the rod. A slower tempo, graceful and reflective was agreed to. The
rod learned a few new dancing moves as well. The new man taught it to curve in
circles, gently shooting line straight to the target.
The rod was returned to its new bag after the new man took
out a cloth from his pocket, and gently polished it. It rested quietly for the
time being.
The next time the rod emerged from its shroud it was in a
different setting. Mountain peaks surrounded a meadow full of sage and
wildflowers. The sky was the clearest blue, the air crisp, and the few clouds
so close above that the rod felt that it could touch them.
The new man took a reel out of a leather case. The reel was
as old as the rod, and fitted perfectly to the handle. The reel had a patina
too, and its own memories from long ago.
The new man carried the reel down the slope to a small
stream with water so clear that the rocks shimmered through it. The wildflowers
lined the bank in pinks, blues, purples, and yellows of every shape. Birds
dipped over the water as the new man tied on a dry fly to a gossamer tippet.
Then time elongated as the new man, the rod and the water
became one in a harmony of stillness. All eyes and instruments tuned and
waiting for the baton to strike the downbeat, and the concerto to begin. Slowly
a mayfly ascended the scale, only to descend it again. A caddis took up the
refrain and elegantly brought it to a quivering and tantalizing riffle. The rod
bent back and forth, the line gliding out in hovering loops as the fly gained
speed and then settled gently at the end of the fast water.
A jolt shot through the rod like electricity, and it was
raised sharply as a trout engulfed the fly. The trout was born in the
mountains. It was as young as the rod was old, and its spots and red slash
mimicked the vibrancy of the wildflowers. As the fish was released, it looked
at the rod, and their eyes locked. A gentle breeze moved the wildflowers. Time
met, contracted, and expanded and circled back again. The young were old, and
the old young again.
The fish swam back to its home. The fly danced again through
the thin air, and the rod was very happy.
Finis
