Brass Hook
Brass Hook
A Michael Lee short story
July 28, 18
J.P. Grant, the great great great grandson of Ulysses Grant (okay 7 generations since U.S. Grant), is 36 years old and not truly doing much with his life other than working a nine to five dead-end job, growing old, and putting the minimum into his retirement fund against his mother’s weekly encouragements. He has a five-acre homestead and a few livestock animals that cost more than they are worth. His father stops by most days to tend to the animals while J.P. is at work, has been known to name the chickens here and there, and only charges a few eggs a day for his services.
J.P. Grant woke late Saturday morning, like most other Saturdays this year; still drunk from the night before and head spinning. He rolled out of bed, tangled in worn cotton sheets onto the floor; his head hitting the nightstand on the way down before his arms could free themselves from the sleep-made straight jacket, created after a night of drunkenly tossing and turning. Pushing the nightstand over with his head, his phone and lamp crashed to the carpet with him; he groaned with regret, had no desire to untangle himself, or to get up off the cool floor. Grant lay there on the soft matted carpet saying to himself for the first time “never again.”
His phone lay on the ground, the speaker as close to his ear canal as possible without actually being in his ear, began to ring at full volume. Grant rolled over with a start; struggled to untangle his arms and lifting himself up on his elbows threw up in his mouth a little bit, swallowed then grabbed his phone and said hoarsely. “Hello, mom.”
“Where the hell are you John Paul? Have you been smoking cigarettes? You sound like you’ve been smoking! Your dad’s birthday is today and you two were supposed to go fishing! Remember?” She said as unhappily as any mom could sound when her son misses an important outing with dad.
“Mom, I don’t smoke and Dad’s birthday is tomorrow, not today.”
“No John! It’s today! You are five hours late; your dad said just come out to the lake and he will come to get you in the boat. Maybe you can salvage his day. So get your ass up and go meet your father before I come over there! Don’t forget his present either, you forgot it last year, and even though he didn’t say anything I just know it hurt him.” She exclaimed.
“Okay ma, I’ll be there in a little while. Can you call him and tell him I’ll be there?” Grant asked knowing that if he called his dad, he’d be told not to worry about coming so late in the morning.
“Yes, J. P. I’ll let him know you are on your way.”
Grant got along with his parents pretty well and didn’t actually mind going fishing with his pops a few times a year. He didn’t forget the present this year either. A brass fishing hook with “Love you Dad” engraved along the side of it. So yeah, not a real hook. It’s one of the hat clip hooks but J.P. got a quality one that his dad wouldn’t mind keeping around for a while.
Grant got up off the floor, not stepping too far from his bed, looked around his room for a clean shirt to wear. He hadn’t always been so messy, or even a drunk, seeing his room like this made him feel gross inside. His eyes still a little blurry, mouth dry and filmy he could feel the room spin just a little before falling to the bed and going back to dreamless drunken slumber.
“Hey, son. Wake up. We need to talk.” Grants father said calmly as he gently rocked his son’s shoulders as to not surprise the sleeping young man half off the bed like he had just fallen there.
Grant opened his eyes a little thinking he was dreaming, then sprang up shouting. “ah shit dad I am so frickin sorry! I didn’t mean to go back to bed for real. What time is it?”
Grant’s father looked at him brokenheartedly, chin down he said. “It’s 3pm son.”
“Hey dad, you know, let me get cleaned up, maybe we can go get an early dinner or something, please let me make it up to you.”
“That sounds good but we still need to have a little talk before we go anywhere okay.”
Grant nodded his head, grabbed the clothes he attempted to put on earlier, and rushed to the shower leaving his dad in the bedroom doorway still glum-looking.
“Hey Dad, how did you get in the house?” Grant yelled from the shower. His father didn’t yell anything back and Grant figured he was a bit too far to hear him or was watching the news by now. Grant got out of the shower just as the steam finished filling the bathroom, dried off with a towel that still smelled fresh from the laundry mat then took a blow dryer to the bathroom mirror to dry away the fog. J.P. Grant didn’t have the dad-bod of his friends and still checked himself out in the mirror after every shower, asking himself where the beach was and what the shape of the world was even on his worst days.
“Hey, dad, where you want to eat?” Grant said while trying to shave off a week’s worth of hair with a two-dollar razor. He finished getting ready skipping the hair gel and settling for the trucker hat his dad got him last Christmas, blank with just a patch sewn on the front displaying a colorful rooster, and headed to the kitchen passing his living room where his dad was patiently watching the news, turned up just loud enough to drowned out a shower, waiting for his only son to hurry along. Grant rifled through the fridge trying to find something to drink to get the strange taste out of his mouth. Two cans of cola sat in the back of the fridge. One of the cans said in cursive along its side “Share one with dad.” Grant rolled his eyes and said to himself “just rub it in why don’t you.”
“Hey dad, you never said how you got in or where you want to go eat,” Grant said curiously as he walked from the kitchen to the living room sitting on the couch across from his recliner that his dad was occupying. His dad’s head was down and his eyes were closed and a house key on his knee. Grant smiled, cracked open the can just right to make it noisy but not spray soda everywhere, took a sip of his drink, and looked around at his clean house. “Hey there sleepy head, you cleaned my whole fricken house? I’m going to miss more family gatherings if you keep that up.”
Grant sat back and smiled; he was holding the brass fishing hook so when his dad looked up he wouldn’t be able to miss it. Thinking to himself, “Shit, my dad can be so damn cool sometimes.” His dad just lay reclined back as still as could be, the news lady on TV was complaining about something, and Grants eyes grew big body lunging forward.
“Oh fuck… DAD!”
Duck Lust
12-12-12
I woke today just like I would wake on any other day of the week. Tired. My bother in law is in town; sleeping in the living room on a comfortable air mattress waiting to be woken up by the smell of cooking food or my two little ones jumping on his belly. Mikey doesn’t come by all to often since there is an unfortunate seventy-five mile gap between our home and his, and we generally have opposing schedules. Today though, is not one of these days. He, Sarah, the kids and I are going to have a blast and we don’t even know it yet.
Mikey made it a point to be the one to cook an amazing breakfast with our wonderful tasty fresh eggs, most of which were laid this morning while we slept in a bit. There was non left to scrap out to the birds after we had our fill. Sarah made us French pressed coffee with a splash of sugar cookie creamer to sweeten the bitterness of Black Silk. After most breakfasts we plan out dinner and the rest of the day, this wasn’t one of those days. I kinda knew what was going to be for dinner but no one was really talking about it.
My nephew showed up shortly after breakfast and Sarah started planning our afternoon. We loaded up the kids and headed to the sponge docks and enjoyed an afternoon of store front shopping. We took our time and lots of pictures, after getting home my nephew went home too. The fun started shortly after Sarah’s return from dropping off Hunter.
After a few informational YouTube videos and a little bit of planning; My brother-in-law and I were ready to harvest a couple of ducks for a nice family dinner. We set up several strands
of twine for tying off anything that needed tying, set up a log with an empty five gallon bucket for catching anything that needed catching. We prepared a hot bath for loosening feathers, empty trash can with a fresh clean out bag. I sharpened my machete and butchering knives. We enjoyed a few shots of fireball and a half and egg sandwich before the harvest started.
Mikey and I tied off the first birds neck to a loose noose, Sarah got the video camera ready for filming and that’s when the life lessons began. Holding the duck by his wings I rested
his breast on the seasoned log, Mikey pulled firmly on the twine. I swung my machete down upon the unsuspecting duck with sorrow and joy. In one swift blow it was over, a second smaller slice to remove a little bit of remaining flesh; the body (only bleeding slightly) went to the bucket and the head to the ground still bound to the twine in Mikey’s hand. Sarah was only slightly mortified the event but did not scared away. There was very little movement from the body and after just a couple of minutes in the bucket to bleed out the lifeless semi white bird went to a hot bath for one minute to loosen the feathers from their strong hold and then hung by the foot to a nail to be plucked. The plucking process took the most time to accomplish and was very tedious. Mikey and I worked on the feathers for some time and it didn’t take long for Sarah to join in on the plucking. My wife continued to help us until the skin held no more feather. From the plucking station the bird went to a tray to have the insides removed. Mikey evacuated the chest cavity with little effort. We saved the liver and the heart to be eaten tomorrow. The feet were removed and hung to dry for later uses. From that station the bird went inside to be cleaned, quartered, cleaned again and then into the fridge to await its partner. Sarah bleached everything and Mikey and I prepared the next bird.
The second bird went just about the same as the first. I held the thin twine this time as
Mikey held the wings and machete. Sarah stayed inside to tend to the kids; she didn’t want to watch this time. There was a swing of the machete, body to bucket, head to the ground, hot bath, then to the nail to have only the breast feathers removed. The second bird was going to be skinned, cleaned, and then quartered. We only put a small incision along the breast bone and worked the flesh free by hand only using the knife for stubborn tissue connections. the wings were cut free to dry out as were the feet later on. Mikey cleaned the chest cavity on this one too and again the heart and liver were saved. The carcass was cleaned, quartered and cleaned again. Sarah, Mikey and I cleaned everything again with bleach, bagged all the unusables and started getting everything for cooking.
Its hard to explain the feelings I had during this ordeal. There wasn’t any pleasure, I think I just felt determination the most. I knew once everything started there was no going back. As soon as my arm fell toward the duck I knew that not just this ducks life was gone but so was the others. After the blow was landed it really felt like instinct took over and the cleaning process was just natural.
The ducks did taste great though and we will be having duck and vegetable soup for lunch tomorrow.
any questions let me know
Michael Trump
Goodnight and God bless.
Michael Trump 