If Catfish Had Nine Lives(68)

            “It’s okay, Miz. It’s been a long time. I can wait a little longer.”

            I wondered if he could, though. The ghosts’ visits had expiration dates. Was Joe’s visit truly destined to be short? Was he going to get so close and yet not be able to finish what he and Gram had started all those years ago? The singed and incomplete letter made me think that Joe might not be destined to have all the answers. But I didn’t vocalize that thought. It wouldn’t have gone over well.





Chapter 18




            I’d grown up in a family of fishermen. Both of my parents had instilled the ritual of waking me and Teddy up long before the crack of dawn to gather poles and worms—never anything but worms, back then, but I’d never tell Jerome that part—to take us out to a nearby crick, not creek, not pond, not lake, but crick. I’d never been all that thrilled to be awakened that early and dragged out of my comfortable bed for some family time, but I’d enjoyed it once we got there and dropped the lines. We’d always fished for catfish, and it was always an adventure.

            There were giant catfish in the waters of Missouri. Some were hundreds of pounds. Literally. But we never went for that variety. We just fished for some good-sized “catters” that we could fry up at home.

            This tradition had, however, begun with Gram when my dad was younger. Apparently, they spent many a morning drowning worms and catching those catters.

            But the best part of fishing for catfish is, without a doubt, eating them. According to Gram, there was truly only one real way to cook catters: Fry them up in a cast-iron skillet over an open flame. It isn’t a difficult process, but it does take a little practice to get it right. Gram has had plenty of practice.

            “Yeah, that’s the part I don’t like, the cleaning.” A gentleman in jeans, an embroidered red Western shirt, and an out-of-place light blue Bermuda hat stood closest to Gram, but the crowd was pretty big.

            There was no doubt that the cowboy poetry convention’s party atmosphere probably wasn’t up to par with the celebration-filled bash it had been in years past, but Orly and his crew had found a way to infuse some lively spirit that wasn’t disrespectful to the murder victim.

            One of the ways that he’d done this was to continue to spread excitement about Gram’s cooking demonstrations, about both the Dutch oven dishes and the frying demonstration. When the poets first heard that Gram was going to offer cooking lessons during the convention, enthusiasm built quickly. And after the success of the morning event, even if people weren’t interested in learning the techniques for frying the fish over a campfire, people were interested in seeing Missouri Anna in action, and they had gathered in appreciation.

            I was always a little surprised by her still-rising celebrity. It caught me off guard when a fan asked for her autograph or for a photograph with her. Her cooking school’s reputation had only grown. The building itself and the cemetery next to it (if only the tourists really knew what was going on there) had become bona fide Broken Rope attractions.

            “I agree. Tell me your name,” Gram said.

            “Jed,” he said.

            “I agree, Jed, but you get used to it after a while. And you get quick, too. You can clean and fillet a catter lickety-split, and you learn not to even pay attention to the cleaning part,” Gram said as she flung the catfish’s guts into a pail next to the small portable table and chair she was using.

            “Oh,” Jed said. He attempted to smile.

            “And then you slice here. Like that. And then here. Like that. And voilà, you have fish ready to fry.”

            “Can this apply to any fish, Missouri?” Esther asked. She was on the other side of the crowd, and I’d seen her there but hadn’t had a chance to talk to her. I thought Jake would be happy to see her when he arrived.