The Snowfly Page 6

  I continued my efforts to return order to the cluttered Collection Room in the Natural Sciences Building. I tried to convince myself that I was driven by simple curiosity, but the truth was that I hoped that somewhere in that chaos lay a specimen called a snowfly and, if it was there, I was convinced I would find it. I wanted to ask Nash about the snowfly, but couldn’t bring myself to do it. He was a gentle, scholarly entomologist who liked to cogitate before he talked. It was as if words were too expensive to spend thoughtlessly. He seemed feeble and cautious and I had a hard time picturing him in a trout stream, much less feeling in his gut what gripped me when I was thigh-deep in fast, clear, cold water.

  The collection of specimens was immense, but I was patient and methodical, starting just inside the door and working my way along the east wall. I pulled out every case, opened it, cleaned it, and made a list, numbering each box and specifying its contents. Some were already labeled; I used Nash’s texts and reference books to verify these as accurate and several times found mistakes and reported these to him, which seemed to please him. “Becoming a real bug man,” he told me. I also used the references for unlabeled specimens but many times I had to take these to Nash. He wouldn’t tell me what they were; rather, he would take me through an entomological checklist so that I could get the family and then he would leave it to me to go from there. It was slow going and it consumed me.

  I was barely into the mess when I hit several boxes of arachnids, mostly tarantulas collected in Central America. In another case I found a family of mice that scampered for cover, but eventually came back to see what I was up to. I talked to them as pets. It occurred to me that I should get somebody in to eliminate them, but they were doing no harm I could discern. Those were the days when the term peaceful coexistence was in vogue, and I simply extended the concept down the evolutionary ladder.

  Despite it being my senior year, I was also having second thoughts about college. I had been busting my ass for four years and it was not at all clear where this was going to take me, and I naturally began to wonder why the hell I had endured it. I had completed the basic J-school courses, which were heavy on writing, English literature, poly sci, and history, all of which required a lot of tedious reading. I also decided early on to learn Russian and was in my fourth year with the language. The Cold War was on, and it was real to all of us. As far as the world was concerned, there were only two major countries, the Soviet Union and the U.S. It made sense that if I wanted to travel as a journalist, I ought to speak Russian. But it was a grueling routine: sleep, school, Nash, work, study. Balanced, it wasn’t. And there were days when the point of all the effort eluded me.

  One night I joined Spruce in her car after work. She was chain-­smoking, which was unusual.

  I was getting to know her pretty well and I liked being able to read her moods.

  “Problem?”

  She glanced at me then looked straight ahead. “I don’t think we should be doin’ this,” she said. “Anymore.”

  I thought she was joking. “Sitting in the car together?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t think it’s best.”

  I was amused as much as anything.

  “Best for what?”

  “You ask too many questions, Bowie. I think it would just be best if we don’t.”

  She was nervous and tight. “What’s going on, Spruce?”

  “Him,” she whispered.

  I had to think. “Your husband?”

  “Right.” She rolled down her window, tossed the butt, and lit another. “He’s crazy.”

  I suddenly had no further curiosity. “Okay.” When I reached for the door handle, she caught my arm and pulled me back.

  “He’s real jealous.”

  “Of me?” I felt queasy.

  “He doesn’t even know you exist.”

  This was good news in an otherwise bleak moment.

  I didn’t have a lot of experience with married women. There was Lilly, but she was about all, and Spruce seemed at least as happy as my sister. I’d never heard anything but respect for her man in Spruce’s voice.

  “He thinks I’m foolin’ around. Somebody told ’im that every night I sit in my car with a man. I think maybe it was Rick.”

  “Fistrip?”

  “Yeah, he’s been hustlin’ me and I haven’t given him the time of day and I think he’s seen us and he’s jealous.”

  “Fistrip? What is that guy’s problem? We haven’t done anything,” I said.

  “Facts don’t matter to jealous men, Bowie.”

  I felt uneasy again and quickly said, “It’s not like we sit together every night.” Panic can make us nitpickers. I hated riding the guilty seat when I was totally innocent.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “He doesn’t know your name. I said you were just a friend, but he’s always been real jealous. He scares me when he gets like this. He was a sniper in the Army and you know what they’re like.”

  I said, “I don’t want to be the source of a problem for you. If this is misinterpreted, then that’s easy enough to fix.”

  She looked at me. “You don’t understand. I like talkin’ with you. I love sittin’ here with you. You always listen to what I’ve got to say, as if you’re really interested in me, and part of me would surely like to do more than just talk.”

  Full panic set in. I opened the door. “I’ll just get out. I’m sorry about this.”

  She grabbed my arm again. “I’m real sorry. I wish there was somewhere else we could go.”

  It took a few seconds for her words to sink in. I looked back at her, but she was fumbling with the key. It was time for me to go.

  •••

  New Year’s Eve afternoon I was back in the secure environs of the Collection Room.

  I breathed in the musty air and found it mildly calming. I spent most of the day checking the identities of grasshoppers (Acrididae, Tettigoniidae, et cetera) and took a lot of time looking at them and thinking about what Doc Nash had said about them as trout bait. They start to show up in late June and tend to be dark and small, and by summer’s end they tend to be light in color and large. Nash loved hoppers and called them “caviar for trout.” He reminded me to always make sure a hopper fly had some red in it, and sure enough I found that all the naturals had some red. It was fascinating to see the reality of insects beginning to merge with my knowledge of artificial flies. And to begin to recognize cycles: Fish grow over the course of the season, and so do the crustaceans, minnows, and insects they eat.

  About ninety minutes before I had to report to work I found a box with six unlabeled, very large artificial flies. The box was on the floor in the corner along the west wall, buried under a pile of cardboard boxes filled with specimen boxes and capture jars. I saw the corner of the box because it threw a knife-shaped shadow onto the floor, seemingly out of darkness. Naturally, I had to find out what it was. The bugs were white and a little yellowed with age but way too big for Ephoron leukon. There were no labels. Between my Sundays in the library back home as a kid and my time with Nash I had a pretty good sense of what was what. I searched all around for labels but all I found, scored into the bottom of the case with a woodburner, were the initials mjk.

  I opened the box and studied the six flies; they were very different from each other and all of them old. A couple of them were attached to flimsy-looking green hooks. After a few minutes, I realized the hooks had to be made of brass. Somewhere I had read that brass hooks were used around the turn of the century, which convinced me these flies were ancient. One of them still had a couple of inches of gut attached to it as well, and gut bodies had gone out—when, the 1930s? Not academic specimens, but a box of fishing flies. Not much value scientifically, perhaps, but they’d have worth to a tackle collector or museum. What were they doing here? I imagined one of the bug docs had b
een in a hurry one day and left them in the room, and I laughed when I thought how pissed he would’ve been when he got to the river and had no flies. I toyed with the notion of liberating the flies, but decided that this would violate Doc Nash’s trust. What I did was bury the box in the clutter. As far as I knew, nobody but me went into the Collection Room, but I had a hunch about the gargantuan white flies and I wanted them safe until I could talk to Nash. I hid them in such a way that nobody was going to accidentally find them: I placed the box inside a box inside a box and then stacked other debris on top.

  I spent a lot of time thinking about them after they were hidden. What weight of line and leader would be needed to cast such things? More important, what size of fish would rise to them? Maybe the flies were an elaborate joke from a former time. Or not a joke at all. I had never seen a fly in nature even a third the size of these. Even the huge and nocturnal Hexagenia limbata, what Michiganders called a “fishfly” or “Michigan Caddis,” were dwarfed by the mysterious white flies. Nash and his wife were in Florida for the holidays; I couldn’t wait for him to get back to campus. Surely he would know what they were.

  There were days in the years ahead when I would wish I had never found the damn things.

  I was in a pretty fair mood when I got to work. As soon as I punched the clock I went looking for Spruce, but she wasn’t in the jewelry section. It was a night when we were shortstaffed in anticipation of low customer interest. It didn’t make sense to be open at all, but the company was willing to pay and I was happy to accept its money.

  All the sales clerks were wearing party hats to put customers into a celebratory state of mind. My uniformed status made me exempt, which pleased me. I had never been one for forced joviality; in fact, I had always found that fun and trout fishing had much in common, not the least being that the best times seemed to arrive by serendipity.

  At break there was still no sign of Spruce. I went back to the jewelry department. The clerk there was a young, rotund student with a pink party hat. He was wearing makeup, including blazing red lipstick, false eyelashes, and earrings. He saw me staring.

  “Do I look okay?”

  “That has to be your call, not mine.”

  He chewed his top lip. “It’s New Year’s Eve. I’m going to a costume party.”

  I said, “Good for you. Missus Graham got the night off?”

  He gave me the once-over. He looked puzzled. “You mean Spruce?”

  “Right, Missus Graham.”

  “She’s in back, doing inventory.”

  “I thought inventory was done on the floor.”

  “Every department except jewelry.”

  I didn’t ask where to find her, but felt his eyes on my back as I walked away. I didn’t know why, but I had doubts about whether she would want to see me. More important, I wasn’t sure I wanted to see her. Our last conversation had left me shaken, yet here I was seeking her out. I was Icarus ascending. I pushed all the alarms aside and decided I needed company.

  Our night manager was a former navy petty officer and retired Oldsmobile worker named Jolson. People were always saying “Mammy” under their breath when he went by. Most nights he stayed in his office, but tonight he was on the floor and cruising directly at me.

  “Mister Rhodes, there you are. I can’t find Mister Fistrip. Hike back to the cage. Missus Graham has informed me that there’s a problem with the lighting. Skeleton staff tonight, Mister Rhodes. You know where the electrical panels are?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Go and do your duty, Mister Rhodes.” He dismissed me with a wave of his hand, pivoted, and swooped back toward his office.

  The cage was a secure room surrounded by floor-to-ceiling walls of heavy-gauge black wire. The warehouse was even larger than the sales floor and one side seemed to be dark, but there were a few lights on nearest the cage. I wondered what the problem was.

  I had no key for the secure room. “Spruce?” I rattled the wire walls with the palms of my hands.

  “Don’t be making such a dang racket.”

  The voice was behind me, in the darkness. “Spruce?”

  “Hush and come on over here.”

  “I’ve got a flashlight.”

  “We won’t need that.”

  “Mammy said you had a light problem.”

  “I made that up so you’d come on back.”

  “Coulda been Fistrip as easily as me.”

  “God, Bowie. You are so dang thick sometimes. Rick clocks in and leaves the store. Then he comes back to punch out,” she said. “He gets paid for workin’ when he’s not even here.”

  I stared at her for a long time, trying to grasp all that she was telling me.

  She rolled her eyes. “You’re so blind, Bowie.”

  “He leaves every night?” I still couldn’t believe it. Didn’t want to accept it. How had I missed this?

  “Just about. He’s a real creep, Bowie. Do you know he’s gonna be an officer in the army when he graduates?”

  “I thought he was going to be a cop.”

  “He wants to be an army hero first and get what he calls merit badges.”

  Queen Anna and the old man had taught us that when you worked for someone, you did the job to the best of your ability. To do less, they said, was theft, which by their measure made Fistrip, the would-be cop and officer, a practicing thief.

  Spruce Graham smelled of fresh lilacs and was so close I felt cocooned by her perfume.

  “How’s your husband?” I asked.

  “Not here,” she whispered.

  The alarms sounded in my head again. I was shaking. “He’s not Superman.”

  “Not hardly,” she said. “He can’t see through cinder-block walls.”

  I could barely hear her.

  “Alone at last, but we can’t smoke,” I said, trying to make a joke.

  She didn’t say anything. We were both tense with anticipation and lightheaded. I needed words, the right words.

  “Maybe there’s something we could do here that we couldn’t do in the car.”

  “Could be,” she said. “Were you thinking of something in particular?”

  You learn by experience. With some women, it’s the man’s job to make the first move.

  I put my finger under her chin and lifted gently.

  Our kiss was soft and sweet and long. When it was finished, she put her hands on my chest and pushed me gently away.

  “Sorry,” I said. A programmed response.

  She touched her finger to my lips. “Hush,” she said. “I never cheated before.”

  I felt a surge of guilt and tried to apologize again, but she stopped me. “It’s not like it feels like a sin or anything. I just don’t want to get caught. Can you understand that?”

  I understood her husband was trained in the use of weapons. I didn’t want to get caught either.

  “Bowie, my husband hasn’t touched me since last June. Do you think I’m ugly?”

  “No way.”

  “All he thinks about is school and becomin’ an officer. Here it is New Year’s Eve and he’s studyin’. Dammit, I’ve got needs, Bowie. Big needs. It’s healthy to have needs. Maybe when school’s finished, things’ll be better for him and me, but right now I’ve just got these-here needs and he’s studyin’. Y’all understand?

  “I got this girlfriend,” she went on. “Julianna? Her hubby’s also a Bootstrapper and she’s goin’ through the same thing so she took her a boyfriend on the side? She keeps tellin’ me go ahead and do it, but I just don’t want to get caught.”

  “Well, if you’re not sure,” I muttered, stepping back. What was I supposed to say?

  “Geez, Bowie.” She let out a loud sigh. “You’re thick as cold chicken fat.”

  Which was her final comment of the evening. I had blown it. She retreated a few steps a
nd tripped the circuit breaker so that the warehouse was bathed in light. She went back to her inventory and I went off to patrol the floors with rubber legs and a pounding heart.

  Nash returned three days later and invited me over to his house on Friday night to eat some redfish he had brought back with him. I went to the Collection Room to retrieve the white flies. I looked at the hiding area and it looked undisturbed, but when I dug down into the pile, I could not find the wooden box. At first I thought I’d misplaced them, but that couldn’t be. I tried to remain calm and began moving everything in sight, but the flies were gone. I had Nash’s key. As far as I knew, only the janitor had another key. There was no other conclusion: Somebody had broken in and stolen the fly box.

  When I got to Doc Nash’s house I was in a lousy mood. I should have stolen the white flies. At least I would still have them.

  Nash grilled the redfish and told me about fishing he’d done in Florida. “Bonefish,” he said. “Talk about energy and efficiency. Like catching an artillery shell.”

  This was as lyrical as I’d ever heard him on the subject of fishing. He was peeling from sunburn and his hair seemed whiter.

  I told him about the white flies.

  “What species?”

  “Not specimens, trout flies. Huge things.”

  “In with the specimens?”

  “In a wooden box marked on the bottom with the letters MJK.”

  He nodded solemnly. “It’s been a long time since I was familiar with exactly what’s in there. A lot of my colleagues dump stuff there. Always have. Entomological detritus. All faculty members have keys.”

  My assumption of a break-in wasn’t necessarily right. Still, they didn’t fly off on their own: Somebody took them. That fact was indisputable. I got paper and rendered some sketches.

  He looked at them and shook his head. “Insufficient data,” he said.