“Up in Smoke” by John Carenen

Gunpowder & Peonies

Up in Smoke

My father and I did not get along. I thought he was too strict and he thought I was a wisenheimer. I think he was right.

Before the joys of smoking cheap Marvel coffin nails shut down his lungs through emphysema at fifty-nine, he was a well-known hunter and fisherman.His Stevens .410/.22 over‑and‑under put rabbit and squirrel on the table, and—yes—pheasant. Pheasant, you say? That delicacy routinely enjoyed by the wealthy? Yes! Pheasant Season in Iowa pulled in loads of outsiders, some rich and famous, to bag those beautiful birds that flourished in the cornfields.

I didn’t like hunting and fishing other than the part about being outdoors. I don’t remember ever being asked to go hunting with my father: He probably didn’t trust himself with his shotgun and me in the woods with no witnesses.
But he did ask me to go fishing with him a few times when neither one of us enjoyed the experience. He was proud of his fishing skills. And those skills provided plenty of bluegills, small mouth bass, and crappies to our oilcloth-covered kitchen table. I do, however, remember the last time.

We got up early that July morning and headed north out of Clinton to Sabula, “Iowa’s Only Island City” it calls itself, on the Mississippi River. It was hot and humid, the smell of the old river full in our nostrils, the waves slapping against the shoreline of the obscure, narrow dirt road that cut deep into the vegetation along the slough.

“One of my favorite spots,” he said.

We got out our fishing poles and fool-proof lures and began casting, just a few yards of weeds and bushes separating us. We did not speak as we fished. “The fish can hear you and they go away,” he said.

When the sun was high overhead we had lunch, but did not take a break. We ate baloney and sliced cheese sandwiches on white bread and passed a canvas-covered Army surplus canteen of water silently back and forth.

It was late afternoon when he called it a day. My father had caught seven bluegills. I had quietly caught thirteen.

“I’ll make a fisherman out of you yet,” he smiled.

He did not. By then I had discovered a love for basketball and nice summer days were for working on my jump shot and playing pickup games at Doc Lyon’s outdoor half court. He asked me to go one more time and I begged off. He went alone, his preferred way to hunt and fish. And do other things. He did not ask me again.

Now, decades later, I wish he had.