The Eels...

The other night I was having sushi with a friend, and I came dangerously close to telling this story:

You see, I can't eat sushi without thinking of Elmer.  Long before I even knew what Sushi was, I knew Elmer.  He was short and burly.  The hair he did have was cropped short, and he was one of those guys who was proud of his baldness.  His head always shone like my mother's stainless steel mixing bowls, and probably contained just as much substance.  He had one of those bellies that kept a belt well preserved.  If you squinted you could just imagine him at the mall in a Santa-suit, but it would help if your image of Santa was of a guy who worked as a crude, alcoholic, fisherman during the North Pole's off-season.

Even our connection with Elmer was strange.  He was my uncle's ex-wife's new husband, and even though there was no blood relation to either of them, we always visited, maybe for our cousin's sake. Elmer was a seasonal eel fisherman.  He would set traps called Eel-pods out in
the rivers and then sell his catch to the Japanese.  His partner's name was Rick.  Rick was the type of guy that everyone always called "Rickster"
or "Tricky Ricky."  He had one arm, which made him immensely fascinating to us kids.  He had lost his right arm in some kind of accident years ago.  He always wore plaid flannel shirts with one sleeve pinned up and it was impossible, as a kid, not to stare.  If he caught us, he would say something like," Are ya starin at my arm kid?"  We would nod in terrified silence, until he would invariably say something like, "No y'ain't, I don't got one." Then he would laugh in a raspy, gurgling way that made me think of cigarettes and clogged sinks.

My Dad and I decided to go out with Elmer and Rickster one Saturday while we were visiting.  A chance to go for a drive and get out on a boat was always welcome.  My Dad glanced into Rickster's truck and did a double take.  "You drive a standard?" he asked.  "Yup, shure do."  Rickster was proud of the fact that he had never given up his manual transmission despite his missing appendage.  He explained how he worked the clutch with his left foot, the brake and accelerator with his right, steered with his knees and reached across his body with his left hand to shift.  My older cousin Bill climbed up into the cab beside Rickster.  I started to follow him.  "No way in Hell," mumbled my Dad as he dragged me over to the car.

We spent the day retrieving eels from the stations where they were stored until they went to market.  It was more work than I wanted to do on a Saturday, but I think it was one of those parental lessons along the lines of "now you know how good you've got it" from my Dad.  On the way home though, things got interesting.  Rounding a corner on the Old River Road, Rickster misjudged the turn, no doubt some error in his beloved armless shifting.  His truck fishtailed onto the shoulder, he overcompensated again as it swung back onto the road, and two 1500 Gallon containers of eels flew off the back of the truck and spewed their contents all over the road.

We had been following at a safe distance, because with amazing foresight, my Dad had said, "I'm staying back, he may look 'armless, but driving like that is dangerous."  This was the type of joke we got all the time from my Dad, usually accompanied by elbow jabs to the ribs.  We got out and surveyed the damage.  The road was a black, swirling mass.  Eels curled and writhed on the pavement. Wildly, Elmer and Bill started scooping them back into the containers with shovels.  The road was now alive with their profits, because as Elmer said, "Those Japs will eat anything."  We stood back, since there weren't enough shovels anyway.  I was glad.  Truth be told, eels creeped me out.

Suddenly, from some distance I heard the roar of an engine.  It was a powerful engine, and if one thing was certain, it was an engine that wasn't slowing down for the corner.  We yelled out to the eel shovellers and they dove for safety just as a black Trans-Am (It was the 80's afterall) squealed around the corner and into the eels.  The driver slammed on the brakes, which was probably the worst thing he could have done.  But really, I can't blame the guy.  What would you do if you were roaring along on a Saturday, came around a corner, and the road was suddenly covered in snakes?  The muscle car spun out of control on the slippery surface.  It swung through a circle and a half, spraying chunks of eel everywhere, until finally it stopped, facing the way it had come.  The door flung open wildly and a young guy jumped out screaming, "What the fuck? ... What the FUCK!?"  He didn't seem capable of saying anything else, until an eel started to wriggle up his leg, and he said "Jesus Fucking Christ, what the Fuck!?" 

I wasn't accustomed to adults swearing in my presence yet.  It was a big day for me really, as far as childhood trauma goes.