Chapter 5
Without looking at anyone, I took off my dirty, baseball uniform and put on my clean, school uniform. I thought of my old west-side friends: Benny, Steve and Mario. Suddenly I wanted to see them and hear about my old neighborhood.
I walked out of the school, up Sixth Avenue and into Central Park. The trees, I noticed, were sprinkled with small, green buds that I knew would soon blossom and turn into flat, hanging leaves—leaves that would change from green to orange and gold. It seemed sort of unfair that leaves became so beautiful right before they fell. Nature, I thought, would be better off if autumn leaves hung for another month or two. But at least trees blossomed; so I told myself I should take the good with the bad, unless I didn’t have to. And I didn’t have to be a part of fights.
Or did I?
I walked alongside the park road, outside the flow of automobiles and horse-drawn carts. I wondered, If I’m really a person who, like my mother, doesn’t believe in fighting, I shouldn’t feel so much shame—unless I’m a coward. Damn me! Maybe I should take boxing lessons. But disappoint my mother when she’s so sick? More than anything I want to be a good son.
The road curved sharply north. I followed it up to 72nd Street. Up ahead, a man cast a fly rod on a narrow strip of lawn.
I wondered if the man was Izzy. I marched faster and faster.
The caster lifted the line off the lawn and moved the rod back and straight up. He cast the line backward, forward, then backward again. The line unrolled behind him. He lowered the rod, then cast it forward. The front of the long line formed a narrow wedge.
The caster had to be Izzy. I ran toward him. “Izzy!”
He turned and smiled. “Ian.”
“You remembered my name.” I walked close to him. Suddenly I felt ashamed of my stupid, rich-school uniform. I took off the jacket and folded it over my arm.
Izzy looked down, suddenly, shamefully. “I can’t pay you back.”
“You can pay me back with fly-casting lessons, sir.”
“I told you I’m not a sir. And I’m not a teacher.”
I wondered if I asked for too much. “I can pay you.”
Izzy retrieved some line and piled it on the ground. “I’m not about money.”
Though his accent wasn’t strong, to me it sounded a little out-of-tune. I thought of asking Izzy where exactly he was from, but my gut told me instead to ask, “What are you about?”
“I’m about—I, I like to try to cast right between those two trees. Having a target is good.”
“So you’re going to give me a lesson?”
He nodded.
I said, “That rod looks shorter than the one you used in the tournament.”
“My tournament rod is too heavy to practice with.”
“What’s the fly line made of?”
“Silk. Connecting the fly to the silk line is a thin, clear line called a leader. Here. Take the rod.”
“Is there a fly on the end of it?”
“Just a piece of string.” Izzy held out the rod.
Afraid of making a fool of myself, I looked over the rod. Sunlight reflected off its smooth finish and seemed to turn the rod into gold. I thought of the beautiful rod in the Orchard Street apartment.
“Ian, you asked to learn. Don’t be scared.”
“I’m not scared!” I curled my fingers around the cigar-shaped handle. The handle seemed to fit my hand better than the handle of my favorite baseball bat. The rod was decorated with red and gold bands of thread. Near the rod’s handle were gold script letters that read: J. B. Abraham.
“Who is J. B. Abraham?”
“He’s a very good rod builder few people know about. Ian, I’m going to explain some of the basic principles of fly casting. But I don’t want you to try to remember them all today. Eventually, as we go over them again and again, they will all sink in. Also, I don’t want you to try to understand all the principles of long-distance fly casting, because I don’t. I’m not a scientist; but I don’t have to know how electricity works to turn on an electric light.
“Our first lesson will be about how power is transferred from our body to the rod, and finally to the line. I’ll start by saying that the fly rod acts as a spring, or like a bow. The more we get the rod to bend during the cast, the more tension or power we will store in the rod, and therefore the farther we will cast our fly. To shoot an arrow, an archer lets go of the line at once. We, in a sense, have to do the same thing by stopping the rod at the end of each cast as abruptly as possible.”
Izzy spoke calmly but passionately. I wondered how two different emotions could be in his voice at the same time. I stared into his dark eyes and thought that he looked a lot more like a person than an eagle.
“It’s important,” he went on, “we use a stance that helps us both stop the rod abruptly and rotate our hips, shift our weight, and transfer the power of our body into the rod. To do both, I’ve discovered my long-distance, casting stance. Facing the target, I point my left foot at the target and move my right foot back so that my toes are even with the front of my left heel. Next, I point my right foot outward about thirty degrees from the target. Let me see you put your feet in that position.”
I did as he asked. Two well-dressed men walked by. They looked at us and laughed. I felt a little foolish. Izzy, however, didn’t seem to notice the men.
“Great, Ian. Now bend your knees a little.”
“Like a batting stance.” I bent my knees.
“Yes. I love watching baseball. I wish I had played it, but I didn’t come to America until I was twelve. When I tried to play the other boys laughed at me, so I stopped. When we cast a fly rod our arm movement is more like cracking a whip than throwing a ball. We must abruptly stop our arm. When we crack a whip the lash moves in the direction the top of the whip moved. When we cast a fly rod the line moves in the direction the top of the rod moved. We therefore must move our casting hand in a straight line. This, Ian, is a lot harder than it sounds. After two years of practicing long-distance fly casting, on some days I would cast really well, but on other days I would mysteriously cast ten feet less and often hit the rod tip or myself with the fly. So I went to libraries and read every book I could on fly casting, but I didn’t find the answer I was looking for. I was so frustrated I almost gave up long-distance fly casting, but then a miracle happened: Almost by accident, I discovered one of the biggest secrets of long-distance fly casting—not pulling my elbow back during the back cast. You see, when I pulled my elbow back I couldn’t abruptly stop the rod. The rod tip therefore lowered.”
Suddenly, I didn’t hear his accent anymore, only his well-pronounced words. I asked, “Why didn’t you give up?”
Izzy smiled. “I’m really not sure why. Here’s a secret: to keep you from pulling your elbow back during the cast, don’t cast with your elbow all the way out from your body. Now, since the fly we’re casting, unlike a fishing lure, has very little weight, we have to use the weight of the fly line to pull on the rod and bend it. To do this we must start our casts slowly, then accelerate, and finally reach maximum speed only at the very end of the cast. But the more line we’re casting, the faster we have to accelerate. Ian, let me explain the cast from start to finish. Watch.” Izzy held up his forearm and pretended he held a fly rod. He bent his knees slightly. “I start the cast with the rod tip about an inch from the ground. Next I slowly cast the rod straight up and back. When the rod points to about one o’clock, I abruptly stop the rod without breaking my wrist. Without turning my shoulders, I look back. When the loop formed by the fly line has almost unrolled and is in the shape of a horizontal candy cane, I slowly start my forward cast, then accelerate faster and faster. Finally I break my wrist halfway, as if I’m hammering a nail. I stop the rod when it points to about ten thirty.”
“How come you break your wrist halfway at the end of your forward cast, but not at the end of your back cast?”
Izzy smiled. “Good question. Breaking my wrist halfway will lowe
r the rod tip at the end of the back cast, but not at the end of the forward cast.”
That didn’t make sense to me, but I remembered what he said about not having to understand everything.
“Ian, I want you to hold the line against the handle with your finger and try your first cast.”
“Now?”
“Yes, now.”
Nervous, I cast the rod up and back, faster and faster. As abruptly as I could, I stopped the rod. The fly line lifted off the ground and flew behind me. I looked over my shoulder. The line formed a wide loop. Just before it unrolled, I moved the rod forward, faster and faster. I stopped the rod. A wide loop unrolled in front of me.
“Great!” Izzy yelled. “Cast the rod back again, but this time start a little slower. Finish a little faster. Remember: hammer the nail.”
“Okay.” The fly line formed a tighter loop. I was proud. I cast the rod forward.
“Great!” Izzy yelled. “What you’re doing is called false casting.”
I false cast back and forth. My loops tightened even more.
“Okay, stop,” Izzy said. “I see you’re a natural. I’ll be here the same time next week. If you want, come by.”
“Do you want me to?” I handed the rod back to Izzy.
“It’s what you want, Ian.”
“I’ll be here.”
He reeled in the line.
I didn’t want to say good-bye, so I just stood there, staring at him as if he were a famous baseball player, like Ty Cobb.
“Good-bye, Ian,” he said, finally.
I turned away and strolled across the park, feeling as if I had acquired some sort of special, almost magical power. Again and again I saw myself standing at the end of the long dock and making a tournament-winning cast. Hundreds of people applauded. Triumphantly, I raised my fist, looked at the people and smiled.
I walked down the steps to my front door, and in my mind I saw myself asking my father if I could go back to public school.
I walked into our dining room.
My father looked at me. “You’re late.”
“I made the varsity baseball team.”
My father smiled. “That’s great.”
I sat down. My mother served me roast chicken. As I ate, I again saw myself making a tournament-winning fly cast. The image, I guess, helped me find courage. I told my father I hated the Browning School.
My father stared at me. “Ian, you just made Varsity as a sophomore. Besides, education is important in the real world. One day you’ll see that. I want the best for you. Is something going on in school you want to tell me about?”
I looked down and muttered, “No.”
“Ian, what’s wrong,” my father asked calmly.
“Some of the real rich guys are jealous that I’m a better baseball player than they are.”
“People will always be jealous. You have to stand up to them.”
I didn’t reply.
“Fighting is never the answer to anything,” my mother said.
“Sometimes fighting is the answer,” my father stated.
“No. It’s not!” my mother shouted.
“Ian will have to find out things for himself. Ian, do you want boxing lessons?”
I stared into my mother’s blue eyes, then insisted, “No!”
My mother smiled proudly.
The next morning I woke up afraid to face Brett and his friends. More than anything I wanted the day, the sun, to stop so I could stay in bed.
But they didn’t.
I faced Brett and his friends, but they didn’t say a word to me, surprisingly. Soon I figured out why: Coach Collins had heard about what happened and had told Brett to back off.
A part of me, however, regretted he had because I felt a coolness from most of my friends. They saw me as a coward, I knew. So again I looked into my mind and saw myself punching Brett. But seeing things in my mind, I soon realized, didn’t bring real redemption.
Some of that came in our first game of the season when I hit a home run and a game-winning double. That night, as I sat at my desk, I looked backwards in time, but instead of seeing myself hitting the home run and the double, I saw myself casting Izzy’s fly rod. I was thankful the next day was Friday. But then I wondered why Izzy didn’t seem eager to teach me about fly casting. Was it because he saw me as a rich kid? As a Christian?
I decided that no matter how he saw me, I was going to the park.
After baseball practice, I left my tie and school jacket in my locker and put on my old gray sweater. I jogged back to Central Park and all the way up to West 73rd Street.
Izzy practiced on the lawn. Breathing heavily, I watched the fly line roll back and forth. As I did, I saw ocean waves rolling to the shore, then breaking and turning into flat, foamy water.
I slowed into a walk and caught my breath. I wondered how Izzy would greet me.
He turned and saw me. He smiled. Relieved, I marched to him.
“Last time, Ian, I told you that, during the cast, the rod will begin to bend, or as we say, load, when the unrolling line pulls on it. Now let’s say we have forty or even thirty feet of line lying on the ground or floating on the water. And let’s also say there’s waves, or what we call slack, in the line; then if we begin our back cast we’ll have to pull the slack out of the line before the line pulls on and bends the rod. Therefore, it’s important that before we cast, we retrieve line until all the slack is out. Okay, Ian, ready?”
Afraid of not casting right, I wondered if learning how to fly cast was such a good thing. Then I remembered how, after hours and hours of practice, I had learned to throw a curve ball. Suddenly I grabbed Izzy’s fly rod and cast it up and back. A tight loop unrolled behind me. I cast the rod forward. A tight loop unrolled in front of me.
“Great!” Izzy yelled. “Okay. Stop.”
I did, then asked, “How’d you get interested in fly casting?”
Izzy looked over my shoulder for a few, long moments, then back into my eyes, finally. He smiled, slightly. “I was walking along the Hudson River and I saw someone casting a fly rod, and I thought, maybe that’s something I can become better at than every other boy, something I can do and won’t be laughed at. Now I want to show you a technique to help you increase the length of your cast. As we false cast we must let out—or shoot as we call it—more and more line. So when I stop the rod at the end of my forward, false cast, I let about five more feet of line slide between my thumb and finger. But keep in mind, if we shoot too much line we’ll add slack, unless we accelerate the rod faster. So how do we know when we shot five feet of line? Simple. We count: one, two, then we squeeze the line again. Ready?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re ready, trust me.”
Again I cast. The line flew out of my hand.
“Ian, shooting line takes practice.”
I again cast. This time I felt the line slide between my thumb and forefinger. I counted: one, two, then squeezed the line.
“Great!” Izzy yelled.
I was proud.
For about twenty minutes I practiced what Izzy had taught me.
“Ian, that’s enough for today. Since I’ll be away for a while, I want you to practice on your own, with my fly rod. I’ll see you here in two weeks, at the same time.”
“You trust me with your fly rod? It’s so beautiful!”
“I’m sure you’ll take good care of it.”
I handed the rod back to him. He reeled in the line, screwed off the reel and handed it to me. Then he reached into his pocket and took out a long, brown cloth sack. He slid the pieces of the rod into the sack. “I have the case at home.”
I looked into his close-set, dark eyes.
“Take the rod,” he insisted.
Gently, I wrapped my fingers around the cloth sack.
“Ian, I have a feeling you’re going to take to fly casting real quickly, so before I go a few more things: In archery we increase the bow’s power by pulling the arrow b
ack and bending the bow as much as we can. In fly casting, we bend the rod as much as we can partly by increasing the length of our casting stroke. Here’s how.” He held up his forearm in the 12 position. “After you stop the rod on your last back cast, wait until the line unrolls at about three-quarters of the way behind you, then lower your forearm to about one o’clock, slightly break your wrist back and lower the rod to about two o’clock, like this.” Izzy demonstrated again. “Now we can start our presentation cast.”
“I don’t think I can remember everything you’ve taught me.”
“We’ll go over everything in two weeks, after I get back.” He turned abruptly and walked uptown, alongside the road.
I yelled, “Izzy!”
He looked over his shoulder.
“Where are you going?”
“Not far.” He smiled and turned away.
I watched him turn off the main road and disappear behind a hill. Suddenly I felt alone and lost. I pulled the bottom piece of the rod out of the sack and wrapped my fingers around the smooth, cork handle. Something told me I didn’t deserve to hold such a valuable treasure. I pushed the rod back into the sack and strolled home, dreaming about being the greatest long-distance fly caster in the world. When I reached my block I wondered just how big the world really was. Was I, therefore, the greatest caster on earth, or in the solar system, or in the galaxy?
Or did it really matter?
The next day when I came home from baseball practice I quickly changed clothes, took Izzy’s rod, marched to Central Park and searched for a long strip of empty lawn. Finally I found one behind the art museum. I put the rod together, screwed on the reel and walked off about 70 feet of line. Trying to shut out everything around me, I false cast, then shot line and counted: 1, 2. My loop opened wide. I cursed out loud, then remembered Izzy saying I had to accelerate the rod faster when I shot line.
Following his words, I again cast.
My loop was tight. Proud, I decided to try to lengthen my stroke and to cast farther.
“Catch anything?” someone yelled.
I ignored him and again false cast, shooting more and more line. Abruptly I stopped my back cast, then lowered the rod and slightly broke my wrist.
The line sagged. The loop opened wide. I again tried to remember everything Izzy had taught me. But again and again my results were the same: wide loops. Frustrated, I stopped casting, looked up at the sky and wished Izzy was there to help me. But then a voice inside me said I should try to figure out my casting mistake by myself. I wondered: Since the loop was opening when I lowered the rod, was I lowering it too far or too fast?
Again I false cast, then abruptly stopped my back cast. The line unrolled about three-quarters of the way. Slowly, I pointed the rod lower.
My loop stayed tight. Ecstatic, I cast the rod forward and let go of the line. It streaked over the lawn like a bird, then unrolled and floated to the ground. I put the rod down. Using my feet as a ruler, I measured how far I cast.
About 65 feet, I figured.
Tomorrow, I told myself, I’ll cast 70.
But I didn’t.
Nor did I the next day, nor the next.
I wasn’t dejected, though, because I knew when Izzy came back he would teach me new casting techniques. Feeling on top of the world, I strolled across the park. Suddenly I saw my mother lying in a hospital bed. I asked myself, How can I let fly-casting make me feel so good when my mother is so sick? Am I a bad son?
I trudged home and opened the front door. My father glared at the fly rod. “Where’d you get that?”
I told him.
“So now you’re going to become a fly caster instead of a baseball player?”
“A person can do both.”
“Not very well when you also have school work. I just don’t see any sense in fly casting as a sport.”
Shamefully, I lowered my head.
“Ian, shouldn’t you spend more time home with your mother?”
“Yes. I’m sorry.” I told myself, I guess I really am a bad son.
The next morning after my father left for work, my mother put her hand on my shoulder.
“My uncle Clark used to go upstate to fish the Beaverkill River. He often told me fishing stories and promised to take me fishing, but my father said girls weren’t supposed to fish. Clark’s wife was foolish for trying to make him give up fishing.”
The rest of the story, I knew, was that Clark took his fly rods, packed up, headed west and disappeared into the rivers of Idaho and Montana.
I looked into my mother’s eyes. “I should spend more time with you.”
“Ian, you’re not going to be a boy much longer. Now’s the time for you to learn what you really love. We’ll keep your fly casting a secret. Now where did you get that rod?”
I told her about Izzy and about how I was determined to become a great fly caster like him.
Maybe fly casting changed me, because suddenly I just had to get back at Brett. What I wanted to do was to break his legs with a bat, but knowing I wouldn’t, and knowing he just got a new, expensive baseball mitt, I took my mitt to store after store and finally found a small jar that tightly fit into one of the mitt’s fingers. I went home, filled the jar with honey and stuffed the jar into the mitt’s finger. The next day, when Brett stepped up to the plate for batting practice, I slid the jar out and dropped my glove next to Brett’s. I kneeled down and pretended to retie my shoe laces. I unscrewed the small cap and poured the honey inside Brett’s mitt.
A few minutes later, Brett picked up his glove. “Damn!”
I gritted my teeth and stopped myself from laughing. I felt vindicated, at least a little.
Finally it was Friday. After school I went home, walked straight into the living room and kissed my mother and said, “Would you like me to read to you?”
“Aren’t you supposed to meet your friend Izzy today?”
“Yes, but—”
“Ian, just make sure you’re back before your father.”
I thought, Maybe I’m really not a bad son.
I ran up to my room, grabbed Izzy’s rod and reel and jogged to the west side of Central Park. Izzy wasn’t there. Breathing heavily, I sat on a bench and waited.
And waited and wondered if something unexpected kept him away. I started practicing by myself, often looking around and hoping Izzy appeared out of nowhere, the way he did at the fly-casting tournament.
But he didn’t; and I just couldn’t concentrate on fly casting. I took the rod apart and went home. My mother asked how practice went.
I lied, “Good.”
She put a record on the gramophone. We sat on the couch and listened to one of Chopin’s melodies. I held her hand, and she smiled. I told myself that maybe I was meant to spend the afternoon with her. After all, I had Izzy’s fly rod, so I was sure that Izzy would show up the next Friday.
But he didn’t. My disappointment turned into a river of questions: Did something bad happen to Izzy? What? Or did he just desert me? Why? Was deserting me his way of giving me his fly rod and reel? But they’re worth a lot more than the money I gave him.
The questions flowed so strongly that I couldn’t pull myself out of their current and concentrate on fly casting. I wandered home, feeling lost even though I knew the way.
“Ian, how far did you cast today?” my mother asked.
I lied, “Seventy-five feet.”
“Wow! I’m so proud of you.”
“Mom, when I learn how to fish maybe we’ll go up to the Beaverkill together.”
“I’m too old to start fishing, but maybe I’ll just watch you.”
She wore a pink dress I hadn’t seen before. I asked if it was new.
“Girls from the Garment Workers’ Union brought it as a gift.”
“I’m glad you’re going out tonight.”
“I’m not, but I wanted to wear the dress anyway. Ian, I have my books and my music. With the gramophone I can even play s
ome of my favorite Mozart concertos along with an orchestra. Mozart was such an optimistic composer. We’re lucky he lived during the Enlightenment.”
“What was the Enlightenment?”
“It was a time when Man thought he could understand and solve the problems of the world through science and reason.”
“What happened to it?”
“Napoleon’s horrible wars ended it and started an era of great doubt and stress, feelings that Beethoven reflected in his great music.”
It didn’t seem right that wars could change music.
My mother cried.
“You’re going to be all better soon, mom.”
“Ian, you’re old enough that I can tell you this: I don’t want to go out with a part of me missing.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I put my arm around her. “I love you, mom.” Then I said to myself, Please don’t die. Please live and be my mother forever.