Fishing in a River of Booze

The bottle that lived in the tackle box emerged. A memoir by JD Clapp.

Photo by Jonathan Zerger on Unsplash

The night before we fished the river, we drank heavily—a drunk old man and a kid who could already throw them back. Around noon the next day, still drunk, you handed me the keys. I drove off with high hopes. You insisted we stop for lunch at an old joint in some small town that hadn’t yet succumbed to drugs and rural poverty. We ate fried bologna sandwiches. You ordered a few hair-of-the-dog boilermakers to wash it down.

Someplace amid the vineyards outside Canandaigua, a whiskey bottle emerged from the glove box.

“We can stop for wine on the way home. It’s not Napa, but not bad,” you said.

Nearing the lake, you took frequent and heavy pulls and passed me the bottle.

“I better not, I’m driving,” I said.

I held you steady as you bobbed and wove your way to the dock. I helped you into your boat; I loaded the gear.

You piloted the small skiff off the main river into a tributary, that itself split off several times. We snaked our way through narrow cattail-framed rills. You quoted Conrad—called me Marlow. Looking at you, I thought Kurtz.

“There is a great pike spot back in here,” you slurred.

The bottle that lived in the tackle box emerged.

The sky darkened, thunder rumbling off toward Buffalo. Gentle sprinkles spat from the dank, thick air.

When you found your spot, a large channel cut by a winter flood running parallel to the main, you hit the deck, the dulcet thud of a dead fish. Blackout. Down for the count.

I couldn’t roust you.

I should have felt fear, maybe anger. But we had common genes. My Catholic all-boys school prepared me well for blacked-out comrades.

I managed to roll you to the port side. Then, I took the tiller and retraced the maze of rills and tributaries. Thunder rumbled. Squalls dotted the horizon.

You woke at the dock.

“How did we do?”

“Fuckin’ killed ‘em,” I said.

Then you fell out of the boat into chest-deep water, making your way for the current rather than the near shore. Marlow dove in and struggled with Kurtz. Both went under, and Marlow feared drowning before wrestling Kurtz to shore.

I drove us home, soaked, and reeking of mud and river water. You snored, waking only for the occasional slug from the bottle that lived in the glove box.

Over the years, we never mentioned that day. We were not there. It was Marlow and Kurtz fighting in that river of booze.

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JD Clapp is based in San Diego, CA. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Afterimages, Wrong Turn Literary, Café Lit, The Milk House, Fleas on the Dog, The Whisky Blot, among several others. His story, One Last Drop, was a finalist in the 2023 Hemingway Shorts Literary Journal, Short Story Competition.