When Lever Blake woke up and smelled the air deep in his chest and tasted the humidity in the curl of his eyelashes and saw the joy and genuine delight in the way the blackflies danced over the shrubs, he knew what kind of day it was.
“The fish are biting,” he said with happy delight. And so he took up his rod and his line and his tackle box and his good hat and he took Little Tim too, and all of them stepped out into the spring and shunned the roads and asphalt, turned away from the gravelled paths, left the sound of automobile and air conditioning to be muffled by the trees and went down the small ways and half-trials down to the lakeside together.
***
There was exactly the right shape and force of wind, and Lever knew the exact whip and slice of line for it. Eye, hand, motion. No thought needed or desired.
Plunk!
He sat on a stone, back alarmingly slouched, and he watched the insects swarm over the water and abruptly vanish to threats below and he knew life was good and true and real and everything was as it should be.
“Lever!”
And there was one more thing as it should be.
“Lever!” again, because Wedge Tyler never took silence for an answer.
“Wedge!” replied Lever. “I was just sitting here and thinking on how life was good and true and real and everything is as it should be.”
“Ah, that’s just fine, that’s just fine. How’s it going?”
“The fish are biting.”
Wedge whistled. His pitch was poor in sound but powerful in volume of air moved. “Fine, fine, that’s just fine. I’ll join you, if you don’t dispute it.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
So Wedge rolled up his pantlegs and stuck his legs in the lake and leaned back and considered clouds. “In my consideration,” he said, “those are some nice clouds.”
“They are, they are.”
“That one there looks like a bunny.”
“What kind of bunny?”
“White and wispy.”
“As long as it isn’t red.”
“Why so?”
“Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning. Remember?”
“Nah, nah, nah,” said Wedge, shaking his head like a wet golden retriever. “You were always the one for the weather stuff. You know when the fish are biting, you know when it’s time to make hay, you know when the rain is coming in.”
“You knew the fish were biting just now yourself or you wouldn’t have come down here.”
“It was optimism, that’s all. And besides, I’ve been coming down to check for the past week.”
“Better too much than not enough,” said Lever. He cast his line again, the arc, the hand, the eye, and something fell over behind him and he swore and the line splashed in an unseemly way.
“Fuck,” said the something. “’Zat you , Lever?”
“It is,” said Lever. “Be careful. You put me off my cast.”
“Sorry,” said the something, who was clearly and obviously Fulcrum Thomas. “Can’t see a damned thing in these glasses.”
“You still need those?” asked Wedge.
“Another few weeks minimum. But the surgery was worth it, so they say.”
“So they say,” said Wedge. “Should be fine.”
“Whatever.” Fulcrum had already begun to remove his jacket and whatever else he had to hand. “Lever, are the fish biting?”
“The fish are biting,” confirmed Lever.
“Damn straight,” agreed Wedge. “Ah!”
“Ah what?”
“One just took a toe,” said Wedge, holding up the leg who claimed toe ownership for approval. “See? There? Clean hit too. A muskey, y’think?”
“Could be, could be,” said Lever.
“Well that’s great,” said Fulcrum. He finished shucking off the last of his pants and immediately trundled into the lake and fell over with a godawful explosion of water and noise.
“Oh come ON,” said Wedge as he surfaced, swearing.
“I’m alright, I’m alright. Got my legs under me now. I’m alright.”
“You’ll scare the fish!”
“No I damn won’t! Ask Lever and he’ll tell you: if the fish are biting, they’ll bite. Argh! There’s one right now!”
“It’s true,” said Lever. “Just mind the spray, will you? This is my good hat.”
“Sure!” called Fulcrum. And furthermore, “ARGH!”
There was a clattering from up the path; Pulley Stevens was coming down the way with three head of fine cattle, their eyes rolling and their heads balking.
“Ah!” he called. “The fish?”
“Biting,” confirmed Lever. He cast his line again, but with less care; the time for craftsmanship had passed, now it was for the sake of the love of the experience of the emotion of the motion.
“Good, good,” said Pulley. Behind him the woods were alive with crackling branches; the rest of town was nearly here now, stragglers all. Hinge Thomas and Plane Rupert and Knob Wilson and all the others and all the rest, all dressed up, all ready to go, all here for those words.
“G’wan!” he called and tugged and cajoled. “Get in there! You heard the man!” And they did, with reluctance, which matched how Fulcrum received them.
“Keep on my lee side,” he bellowed. “I was here first! I’ve got the right of the fish! ARGH!”
“You can’t own the lake, Fulcrum,” said Wedge.
“And you can’t own everyone else’s business! Butt out!”
“Your butt’s in the way – YOU butt out!”
“The fish are biting,” reminded Lever, and he baited the hook with the very last of Little Tim and sent it on its glorious geometrically exquisite trip to the lake and everyone saw it and knew it was good.
“So they are,” said Wedge, the ripples growing red around his legs.
“Blessed be,” said Pulley, shoving a particularly recalcitrant and mournful snout away from the shoreline.
“Frog willing,” said Fulcrum. And then “ARGH!” and his whole mountainous body quivered. “THEY COME!” he screamed.
And so they did. The water boiled, the air shimmered with the splash and pop of their bodies and jaws. From ashore came the call, the echo of Lever’s early premonition.
“THE FISH ARE BITING!” and so they leapt and jumped and waded and foundered into the shallows, tripping and sliding on rocks, on branches, on each other. People fell and got up and fell and got up and fell and never rose again or were sucked down, screaming in joy and terror.
“THE FISH ARE BITING!” roared Fulcrum, as he melted away in the center of a bass vortex. “THE FISH ARE BITING! THE FISH ARE BITING!” and at the last even his lips were gone below and out of it all and no more sign or splash was made.
“THE FISH ARE BITING!” called Wedge as inch by inch he was tugged down and on and on and in towards the water, knee by thigh.
“THE FISH ARE BITING!” called Pulley in terrible rhapsody as he took a running dive and landed amidst the screams and bleats of his fading livestock, a thunderous burst amidst their ebbing struggles.
“THE FISH ARE BITING!” went up from a hundred and more sets of tetrapod lungs, emptied of air and filled with water and vacating chest cavities and more and more and more, all together, all united, all going, going, going, going, gone.
***
By noon the fuss was over and the wind was beginning to pick up, so Lever packed up his tackle box. The clouds weren’t the right shape anymore. The bugs weren’t dancing properly. The humidity was unhappy. The mood was gone.
But you didn’t judge a day by how it ended, but what was in it. It had been good. It had been right. It had been done.
The fish had bitten. And so in extrapolation the fish would bite. It had been ensured.
So when Lever put away his rod and his line and his tackle box and his good hat, he didn’t pack them too deep in his closet. You could never quite figure when those sorts of days WOULD come, but you could be ready for when they did.