Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/641958
Grayson said. That was a couple of hours later, when me and Yancey was sitting on the end of the dock, sipping store-bought beer, watching the tide drop off towards dead low. We should have been throwing the net for finger mullet but we weren't. The surf was mumbling way off on the outer bars, whispering and swooshing onto the beach. Grayson had hauled the tent up to the hummock, and come back for the rods and tackle. But he hadn't come empty. In one hand was a can of Bo Bledsoe's beer, rusty and swole up like a dead possum in the sun. And in the other was his jackknife. "You boys is going straight to hell," he said again. He shook the can, drove a hole into one end, hosed us with a piss of hot, bitter beer. I thought to cuss him but I did not. I peeled my clothes and leapt naked into the cool green water, suddenly clean, suddenly wild, always young and free, suddenly forever. n Note: Roger Pinckney's new novel, The Mullet Manifesto, available from www.rogerpinckney.com. word went round and around like it generally does and pretty soon Grayson's momma got wind of it and she didn't speak to Yancey's momma for the next 20 years. She was a charter member of the Sisters of I Shall Arise on that Glorious Getting' Up Mornin' and so dry she crackled when she walked. Yancey's momma couldn't back a trailer so Yancey took over and got the skiff in the water. Grayson cranked the motor while I iced down the store-bought beer. "Now where are you going?" Yancey's momma asked. "Caper's Island," Yancey said. "Redfish is running." "Are running, son." "Yassum," he said. "They sho' is." She sucked her teeth and looked at him hard. "I'll pick you up nine o'clock Sunday morning. Grayson, you'll be back in time for church." "Yes ma'am," Grayson said. "Nine o'clock." We were two miles down the creek when I took inventory. Nobody was wearing a watch. **************************** "You boys is going straight to hell," lie if you weren't looking your best friend's momma square in the face. Yancey's momma had a drink balanced between her knees but she could lecture us about drinking anyway. "That Bo Bledsoe fishes down there. Tell me you're not gonna drink that burnt beer. That burnt beer is poison." "Oh, no ma'am," Yancey said. "I sure won't drink it," Grayson said. We were down on Seaside road, a mile or two from the landing. Yancey's momma braked hard, pulled over at Blocker's Store, set her drink on the dash, gathered her purse and scurried inside. She came back with a 12-pack of store-bought beer. "You boys gonna have to put it in the oven," Grayson said before she got within earshot. Grayson thought Jesus turned wine into water, not the other way round. S he laid the box on the back seat between me and Grayson. "Drink this," she said, "and leave that burnt beer alone." Grayson inched away like it was a copperhead snake. I never had nobody's momma buy me beer before and a couple of days later I mentioned it to somebody in school. Well, S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S 5 3