Discussion for “The Bass, The River, and Sheila Mant,” and “Sonny’s Blues”

Discussion for “The Bass, The River, and Sheila Mant,” and “Sonny’s Blues”(summarize the two text in attachment in 300-400 words)
1

The Bass, The River, and Sheila Mant – W. D. Wetherell

There was a summer in my life when the only

creature that seemed lovelier to me than a

largemouth bass was Sheila Mant. I was fourteen.

The Mants had rented the cottage next to ours on

the river; with their parties, their frantic games of

softball, their constant comings and goings, they

appeared to me denizens of a brilliant existence.

?Too noisy by half,? my mother quickly decided,

but I would have given anything to be invited to one

of their parties, and when my parents went to bed I

would sneak through the woods to their hedge and

stare enchanted at the candlelit swirl of white

dresses and bright, paisley skirts.

Sheila was the middle daughter—at seventeen, all

but out of reach. She would spend her days

sunbathing on a float my Uncle Sierbert had moored

in their cove, and before July was over I had learned

all her moods. If she lay flat on the diving board

with her hand trailing idly in the water, she was

pensive, not to be disturbed. On her side, her head

propped up by her arm, she was observant,

considering those around her with a look that

seemed queenly and severe. Sitting up, arms tucked

around her long, suntanned legs, she was

approachable, but barely, and it was only in those

glorious moments when she stretched herself prior

to entering the water that her various suitors found

the courage to come near.

These were many. The Dartmouth heavyweight

crew would scull by her house on their way upriver,

and I think all eight of them must have been in love

with her at various times during the summer; the

coxswain would curse them through his

megaphone, but without effect—there was always a

pause in their pace when they passed Sheila’s float.

I suppose to these jaded twenty-year-olds she

seemed the incarnation of innocence and youth,

while to me she appeared unutterably suave, the

epitome of sophistication. I was on the swim team

at school, and to win her attention would do endless

laps between my house and the Vermont shore,

hoping she would notice the beauty of my flutter

kick, the power of my crawl. Finishing, I would

boost myself up onto our dock and glance casually

over toward her, but she was never watching, and

the miraculous day she was, I immediately climbed

the diving board and did my best tuck and a half for

her and continued diving until she had left and the

sun went down and my longing was like a madness

and I couldn’t stop.

It was late August by the time I got up the nerve to

ask her out. The tortured will-I’s, won’t-I’s, the

agonized indecision over what to say, the false

starts toward her house and embarrassed retreats—

the details of these have been seared from my

memory, and the only part I remember clearly is

emerging from the woods toward dusk while they

were playing softball on their lawn, as bashful and

frightened as a unicorn.

Sheila was stationed halfway between first and

second, well outside the infield. She didn’t seem

surprised to see me—as a matter of fact, she didn’t

seem to see me at all.

?If you’re playing second base, you should move

closer,? I said.

She turned—I took the full brunt of her long red

hair and well-spaced freckles.

?I’m playing outfield,? she said, ?I don’t like the

responsibility of having a base.?

?Yeah, I can understand that,? I said, though I

couldn’t. ?There’s a band in Dixford tomorrow

night at nine. Want to go??

One of her brothers sent the ball sailing over the

left-fielder’s head; she stood and watched it

disappear toward the river.

?You have a car?? she said, without looking up.

? Scull – row, as in a rowboat. ? Coxswain – person steering a racing shell and calling out the

rhythm of the strokes for the crew.

? Epitome – embodiment; one that is representative of a type or class.

2

I played my master stroke. ?We’ll go by canoe.?

I spent all of the following day polishing it. I turned

it upside down on our lawn and rubbed every inch

with Brillo, hosing off the dirt, wiping it with

chamois until it gleamed as bright as aluminum

ever gleamed. About five, I slid it into the water,

arranging cushions near the bow so Sheila could

lean on them if she was in one of her pensive

moods, propping up my father’s transistor radio by

the middle thwart so we could have music when

we came back. Automatically, without thinking

about it, I mounted my Mitchell reel on my Pfleuger

spinning rod and stuck it in the stern.

I say automatically, because I never went anywhere

that summer without a fishing rod. When I wasn’t

swimming laps to impress Sheila, I was back in our

driveway practicing casts, and when I wasn’t

practicing casts, I was tying the line to Tosca, our

springer spaniel, to test the reel’s drag, and when I

wasn’t doing any of those things, I was fishing the

river for bass.

Too nervous to sit at home, I got in the canoe early

and started paddling in a huge circle that would get

me to Sheila’s dock around eight. As automatically

as I brought along my rod, I tied on a big Rapala

plug, let it down into the water, let out some line,

and immediately forgot all about it.

It was already dark by the time I glided up to the

Mants’ dock. Even by day the river was quiet, most

of the summer people preferring Sunapee or one of

the other nearby lakes, and at night it was a solitude

difficult to believe, a corridor of hidden life that ran

between banks like a tunnel. Even the stars were

part of it. They weren’t as sharp anywhere else; they

seemed to have chosen the river as a guide on their

slow wheel toward morning, and in the course of

the summer’s fishing, I had learned all their names.

I was there ten minutes before Sheila appeared. I

heard the slam of their screen door first, then saw

her in the spotlight as she came slowly down the

path. As beautiful as she was on the float, she was

even lovelier now—her white dress went perfectly

with her hair, and complimented her figure even

more than her swimsuit.

It was her face that bothered me. It had on its

delightful fullness a very dubious expression.

?Look,? she said. ?I can get Dad’s car.?

?It’s faster this way,? I lied. ?Parking’s tense up

there. Hey, it’s safe. I won’t tip it or anything.?

She let herself down reluctantly into the bow. I was

glad she wasn’t facing me. When her eyes were on

me, I felt like diving in the river again from agony

and joy.

I pried the canoe away from the dock and started

paddling upstream. There was an extra paddle in the

bow, but Sheila made no move to pick it up. She

took her shoes off and dangled her feet over the

side.

Ten minutes went by.

?What kind of band?? she said.

?It’s sort of like folk music. You’ll like it.?

?Eric Caswell’s going to be there. He strokes

number four.?

?No kidding?? I said. I had no idea whom she

meant.

?What’s that sound?? she said, pointing toward

shore.

?Bass. That splashing sound??

?Over there.?

?Yeah, bass. They come into the shallows at night

to chase frogs and moths and things. Big

largemouths. Micropterus salmoides,? I added,

showing off.

? Chamois – soft leather used for polishing.

? Middle thwart – brace across the middle of a canoe.

? Micropterus salmoides – the scientific name for a largemouth bass.

.

3

?I think fishing’s dumb,? she said, making a face. ?I

mean, it’s boring and all. Definitely dumb.?

Now I have spent a great deal of time in the years

since wondering why Sheila Mant should come

down so hard on fishing. Was her father a

fisherman? Her antipathy toward fishing nothing

more than normal filial rebellion? Had she tried it

once? A messy encounter with worms? It doesn’t

matter. What does is that at that fragile moment in

time I would have given anything not to appear

dumb in Sheila’s severe and unforgiving eyes.

She hadn’t seen my equipment yet. What I should

have done, of course, was push the canoe in closer

to shore and carefully slide the rod into some

branches where I could pick it up again in the

morning. Failing that, I could have surreptitiously

dumped the whole outfit overboard, written off the

forty or so dollars as love’s tribute. What I actually

did do was gently lean forward, and slowly, ever so

slowly, push the rod back through my legs toward

the stern where it would be less conspicuous.

It must have been just exactly what the bass was

waiting for. Fish will trail a lure sometimes, trying

to make up their mind whether or not to attack, and

the slight pause in the plug’s speed caused by my

adjustment was tantalizing enough to overcome the

bass’s inhibitions. My rod, safely out of sight at last,

bent double. The line, tightly coiled, peeled off the

spool with the shrill, tearing zip of a high-speed

drill.

Four things occurred to me at once. One, that it was

a bass. Two, that it was a big bass. Three, that it was

the biggest bass I had ever hooked. Four, that Sheila

Mant must not know. ?What was that?? she said,

turning half around.

?Uh, what was what??

?That buzzing noise.?

?Bats.?

She shuddered, quickly drew her feet back into the

canoe. Every instinct I had told me to pick up the

rod and strike back at the bass, but there was no

need to—it was already solidly hooked.

Downstream, an awesome distance downstream, it

jumped clear of the water, landing with a

concussion heavy enough to ripple the entire river.

For a moment, I thought it was gone, but then the

rod was bending again, the tip dancing into the

water. Slowly, not making any motion that might

alert Sheila, I reached down to tighten the drag.

While all this was going on, Sheila had begun

talking, and it was a few minutes before I was able

to catch up with her train of thought.

?I went to a party there. These fraternity men.

Katherine says I could get in there if I wanted. I’m

thinking more of UVM or Bennington. Somewhere

I can ski.?

The bass was slanting toward the rocks on the New

Hampshire side by the ruins of Donaldson’s

boathouse. It had to be an old bass—a young one

probably wouldn’t have known the rocks were

there. I brought the canoe back into the middle of

the river, hoping to head it off.

?That’s neat,? I mumbled. ?Skiing. Yeah, I can see

that.?

?Eric said I have the figure to model, but I thought I

should get an education first. I mean, it might be a

while before I get started and all. I was thinking of

getting my hair styled, more swept back? I mean,

Ann-Margret? Like hers, only shorter.?

She hesitated. ?Are we going backward??

We were. I had managed to keep the bass in the

middle of the river away from the rocks, but it had

plenty of room there, and for the first time a chance

to exert its full strength. I quickly computed the

weight necessary to draw a fully loaded canoe

backward—the thought of it made me feel faint.

?It’s just the current,? I said hoarsely. ?No sweat or

anything.?

? UVM or Bennington – University of Vermont or Bennington College, Bennington Vermont.

? Ann-Margret – (1941- ) Movie star, very popular at the time of this story.

4

I dug in deeper with my paddle. Reassured, Sheila

began talking about something else, but all my

attention was taken up now with the fish. I could

feel its desperation as the water grew shallower. I

could sense the extra strain on the line, the frantic

way it cut back and forth in the water. I could

visualize what it looked like—the gape of its mouth,

the flared gills and thick, vertical tail. The bass

couldn’t have encountered many forces in its long

life that it wasn’t capable of handling, and the

unrelenting tug at its mouth must have been a

source of great puzzlement and mounting panic.

Me, I had problems of my own. To get to Dixford, I

had to paddle up a sluggish stream that came into

the river beneath a covered bridge. There was a

shallow sandbar at the mouth of this stream—weeds

on one side, rocks on the other. Without doubt, this

is where I would lose the fish.

?I have to be careful with my complexion. I tan, but

in segments. I can’t figure out if it’s even worth it. I

wouldn’t even do it probably. I saw Jackie

Kennedy in Boston, and she wasn’t tan at all.?

Taking a deep breath, I paddled as hard as I could

for the middle, deepest part of the bar. I could have

threaded the eye of a needle with the canoe, but the

pull on the stern threw me off, and I

overcompensated—the canoe veered left and

scraped bottom. I pushed the paddle down and

shoved. A moment of hesitation . . . a moment

more. . . . The canoe shot clear into the deeper water

of the stream. I immediately looked down at the

rod. It was bent in the same tight arc—

miraculously, the bass was still on.

The moon was out now. It was low and full enough

that its beam shone directly on Sheila there ahead of

me in the canoe, washing her in a creamy, luminous

glow. I could see the lithe, easy shape of her figure.

I could see the way her hair curled down off her

shoulders, the proud, alert tilt of her head, and all

these things were as a tug on my heart. Not just

Sheila, but the aura she carried about her of parties

and casual touchings and grace. Behind me, I could

feel the strain of the bass, steadier now, growing

weaker, and this was another tug on my heart, not

just the bass but the beat of the river and the slant of

the stars and the smell of the night, until finally it

seemed I would be torn apart between longings,

split in half. Twenty yards ahead of us was the road,

and once I pulled the canoe up on shore, the bass

would be gone, irretrievably gone. If instead I stood

up, grabbed the rod, and started pumping, I would

have it—as tired as the bass was, there was no

chance it could get away. I reached down for the

rod, hesitated, looked up to where Sheila was

stretching herself lazily toward the sky, her small

breasts rising beneath the soft fabric of her dress,

and the tug was too much for me, and quicker than

it takes to write down, I pulled a penknife from my

pocket and cut the line in half.

With a sick, nauseous feeling in my stomach, I saw

the rod unbend.

?My legs are sore,? Sheila whined. ?Are we there

yet??

Through a superhuman effort of self-control, I was

able to beach the canoe and help Sheila off. The rest

of the night is much foggier. We walked to the

fair—there was the smell of popcorn, the sound of

guitars. I may have danced once or twice with her,

but all I really remember is her coming over to me

once the music was done to explain that she would

be going home in Eric Caswell’s Corvette.

?Okay,? I mumbled.

For the first time that night she looked at me, really

looked at me.

?You’re a funny kid, you know that??

Funny. Different. Dreamy. Odd. How many times

was I to hear that in the years to come, all spoken

with the same quizzical, half-accusatory tone Sheila

used then. Poor Sheila! Before the month was over,

the spell she cast over me was gone, but the

memory of that lost bass haunted me all summer

and haunts me still. There would be other Sheila

Mants in my life, other fish, and though I came

close once or twice, it was these secret, hidden

tuggings in the night that claimed me, and I never

made the same mistake again.

? Jackie Kennedy (1929-1994)First Lady during the administration of President John F. Kennedy; greatly admired by the public for her dignity

and sense of style.

5

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