The Empty Seat in the Green Jon Boat

Changing a prop on a tailgate

Monday after my route I drove to the marine shop in Searcy and bought a new aluminum prop for the Johnson.

It was a hundred and sixty dollars with the thrust washer and a new cotter pin. The man behind the counter asked what happened, and I said I hit gravel.

I changed it myself Monday night in my driveway with the boat on the trailer, a socket set, a block of two-by-four to keep the prop from turning, and a headlamp.

Grandpa showed me how when I was twelve. You do not forget a thing like that if somebody patient taught it to you.

Then I went to the farm store and bought a new bow line, braided nylon, fifty feet. I spliced a loop in one end on the tailgate the way Grandpa did it, tucking each strand three times.

I bought a new rebar stake, too, a longer one. I did not plan on losing that boat twice.

When I was done I sat on the tailgate in the dark and ate fig preserves out of the jar with a spoon and thought about Lamar.

I was not angry the way I thought I would be. I was angry, but underneath it there was something else that felt a lot like worry.

A man who cuts his cousin’s boat loose over a fishing hole is not thinking straight. Something in him had gone wrong and nobody had noticed.

Aunt Kathleen in the front yard

Tuesday after my route I drove out to Aunt Kathleen’s. She lives on the old place east of town, a white frame house with a porch swing and a pecan tree in the front yard that Uncle Monte planted the year Lamar was born.

She was on her knees in the flower bed pulling henbit, wearing Monte’s old canvas work gloves that were two sizes too big for her.

She is 64. She used to be the loudest laugh in the church kitchen. Since Monte died she has gotten very quiet and very small.

“Well, look who it is,” she said, and sat back on her heels. “You want tea? I made tea.”

I sat on the porch step and she brought me a glass and sat beside me. We talked about the mail route, about the Pruitts’ dog that chases my Jeep every day, about the price of eggs.

She did not ask about Lamar and I did not tell her.

“Aunt Kathleen,” I said after a while. “When’s the last time you went fishing?”

She looked out at the pecan tree. “The Sunday before Monte passed,” she said. “Lamar took us up to Leroy’s hole. Monte caught a flathead and lost it at the boat and cussed so bad I made him sit in the truck.”

She laughed, a little. Then she did not.

“Lamar used to take us every Sunday after church,” she said. “Monte in the front, me in the middle, Lamar running the motor. After the funeral he just quit asking. I don’t think he can stand it, honey. I think he looks at that front seat and sees his daddy.”

I set my tea down on the step. “You want to go catch a catfish?”

She turned and looked at me like I had asked her to go to the moon.

“Honey, I don’t know if I still can. My knees aren’t what they were. I can’t get in and out of a boat.”

“You can sit in a boat,” I said. “I’ll do the rest. I’ll back right down to the ramp. I’ll hold her steady. If you don’t like it, I’ll have you home by noon.”

She looked at her gloves a long time. Monte’s gloves.

“What time?” she said.