Breaking Brooklyn by Scott Leopold Read Free Book Online

my escape from reality.
    The train that ran along the Monon Railroad
passed right by our three-bedroom townhouse, slicing Broad Ripple
into two equal halves. Walking along the tracks, hopping from one
tie to the next, took me through parts of town where I met the most
interesting people, many of whom became my dear friends. Best of
all, the train tracks led right to my favorite place, the Broad
Ripple canal.
    The canal had carved its way through the
once-tiny village decades ago. Now it’s lined with restaurants,
bars, and the after-wash of late night riffraff.
    Back when it was a child’s paradise, I would
tiptoe as soon as my feet hit the bank, so as not to stir up any
dirt. Then I’d flip a rock, catching a crawdad before it had a
chance to scurry away. I was really good at catching
crawdads.
    “ They make mighty-fine bait,” Jim
would tell me.
    When it got cold, Jim would go to the local
homeless shelter to live for the winter. I wouldn’t see him for
months. That was one of the many reasons I hated that season. I
could barely wait until spring, so Jim and I could get back to
fishing. We would spend hours casting our lines, hoping for a bite,
and me asking a lot of questions.
    The thing about Jim was he genuinely wanted to
be my friend, which made me feel loved. I asked him once why he
lived under the bridge. He told me he couldn’t be tied down to just
one fishing hole. Then he called me Ponyboy. He liked to call me
that and he always said it with a giant smile.
    Ponyboy was the main character in Jim’s
favorite book, The Outsiders. Jim kept a worn paperback copy in his
back pocket. He liked to read it to me, and I loved to listen.
While we were fishing, I would ask him to read my favorite parts
over and over again.
    I never really knew why Jim loved to call me
Ponyboy until I was old enough to read the book on my own. I was
Ponyboy to him, and he wanted me to stay golden. It wasn’t until
much later in life that I realized what a gift it was to have him
as a friend.
    Looking back, I suppose it was kind of weird
that my best friend was a forty-five year old black man who barely
survived the jungle hell of Vietnam, only to take up temporary
residence under a bridge in Broad Ripple. Jim’s face was worn and
callused like his hands. He was built like a soldier, lean but
muscular. His hair was long (afro style) with a chin curtain beard
that was speckled with grey. Jim would tell me all about his
adventures in Vietnam, the good ones, that is. When I would push to
hear about the bad ones, he would simply say, “Leave it alone,
Ponyboy,” and I would stop.
    As soon as I woke up in the mornings on summer
break, I would run to the canal to see my old fishing buddy. Jim
was easy to spot because he was always in his Army fatigues with
all kinds of different patches on them from his service in Vietnam.
My heart would glow when I saw him sitting on the bank of the canal
with his bamboo pole in hand. He didn’t have a reel, but he managed
to catch fish just fine.
    One particular morning on my way to go
fishing, I saw Jim at the canal, right at the dam where it meets
White River, where the railroad tracks cross. Jim was excited
because he just got a huge bite on his line. He yelled at me to
come help him. This was no regular fish nipping at the bait. We
both knew “who” it was. It had to be the legendary catfish that had
teased many a fisherman for years. Jim and I called him “Old Man.”
He’d lived longer and avoided more fishing hooks than seemed
possible.
    The bobber didn’t just sink, it popped below
the surface, back up, and then down deep. Each time the fish made a
run for it, Jim and I grew more excited.
    Just as Jim was pulling it to shore, the line
broke. The biggest fish in the canal still held the title of “The
One That Got Away.”
    Jim already had six catfish and a smallmouth
bass sitting in his bucket on the bank. But this was the one he
wanted. It was the fish everyone coveted, the one we all