The Only Words That Are Worth Remembering by Jeffrey Rotter Read Free Book Online

Fisheries. A string of shark rigs ran the length of a sunken island called Gallstone. The trap was brutal and clever: four metal rods protruded from a cement piling, bait balls attached to the end of each one. Those rods carried 20,000 volts of electricity delivered from a generator on the platform. Oak and his partner worked them like crab pots, boating from one platform to the next to goose the generators, load the rods, and collect fried sharks from the sandy bottom.
    Whatever rig they had reached by nightfall, that is where they would camp out. Every time a shark got zapped, an orange signal lamp flared. Grandpa said it was near impossible to sleep.
    He had taken a long weekend home in Houston before setting out for his second rotation of the season. First night back on the job, the dispatcher urged them to hurry through their rounds. A tropical was bearing down on the Texas coast and the Chief wanted to gather as much shark meat as he could in case his rigs blew down.
    By the time they reached the last platform, the swells were so high, they couldn’t see the pilings. They tied off as best they could and radioed the dispatcher. The job was done but they would have to hunker down on the platform for the night. The dispatcher suggested they tether themselves to the ironwork tower. Oak told the man he intended to cut the boat loose; if it blew onto the platform, they might be crushed. The dispatcher refused to authorize; doing so would be a breach of contract. Consolidated Fisheries would no longer be responsible for their welfare.
    â€œNobody will come for you,” he said.
    The following morning a Consolidated grief counselor arrived to notify the family in Houston. Called himself “Gene from settlement.” He stepped in funeral brogans over broken glass and chewed-up branches. The storm had made a mess of the condo complex. A Fanta machine lay at the bottom of the pool; a slow leak turning the water a pale orange. He employed a respectful knocking rhythm learned from the Consolidated book of comportment: knock, pause, knock-knock. Grandma answered the door, then excused herself, leaving Gene to wait on the shit scraper. She did not return.
    Pop was the only boy among five older sisters. After their pa died his mother elected not to look at him anymore. People had always compared Pop to Oak; it was a compliment. But now the resemblance left him motherless. He started hitting the road and having adventures. Every time he got lonely, bored, or broke he would slink back to Houston where his ma would pretend he had not entered the room. Finally, at age fourteen, Pop set off on his last long run.
    He learned to pick soybeans and poppy and peaches and to live in a tent or a bunkhouse or sleep on a barge. Migrant farming brought him east. Once you got in the tubes of Bosom Ag, the company would take you on wherever it was harvest time, even if you came from Texas. Gradually he picked his way around the Mexy Gulf and down into Floriday, where his happiest weeks were spent. Pop was a rowdy teen living rough in the orange groves. He fished cat in the rivers and ate what he wanted from the branches. At the end of the harvest he rode north with some boys to look for work in a So Caroline textile mill. When he saw the painted-over windows of that block building, he thought, with the finality of the young, that the good times were finished. A certain type of man spends his youth sure it will end by the week after next. But the truth was, happiness had just begun for Pop. It was in that textile mill that he met Umma.
    Her people had been Consolidated War & Jail partisans for generations, so loyal that they had ascended to middle management. Umma’s father was a man named Coylan Howard and he oversaw the cutting room. When Pop turned up seeking employment, Coylan could tell right off he was a Bosom man, so he offered him the dreariest job on the floor. All day long he’d spool fabric off an unwinding truck and layer