One for Scotty

We were CNAs then,
orderlies pushing wheelchairs
through the antiseptic halls
of nursing homes and hospitals.
We worked at the Catholic home
on the north side of town.
Those nuns and priests
could be orneryer
than a whiskered channel cat.

Night shifts smelling of bleach
and tired lungs.

But on the weekends
we were musicians.

My brother on guitar,
me on bass,
and Scotty—

big redheaded Scotty
with a voice that could tear
the paint off the walls.

He could sing AC/DC,
Pearl Jam,
anything with gritty soul.
He even sang gospel.

Half drunk and after a couple of joints,
we’d roll around band names.
“How about Scotty,”
he’d say, “and the Red Horse Suckers?”
Or “Scotty and the Cocksuckers?”
We’d all laugh.
Scotty’s face would turn bright red,
and he’d go into one of his coughing fits.
Scotty had a thing with junk fish from the rivers.
He didn’t like the carp or the quillback.
Loved those damn fish sandwiches.
And after the laughter, he belted some notes
that reminded us why he was our front man.

The crowd never expected it
from a guy built like a pastry chef
that ate one too many cakes,
with a fisherman’s hands
and that matted red hair.

But he’d open his mouth
and the room would tilt.

He also fished
like it was a science.

Early mornings
below the Center Street Dam
in Des Moines,

mist lifting off the river
like breath.

Scotty standing there
in the half-light
with a coffee
and a tackle box
that looked like it held
the secrets of the world.

And somehow
he always caught the big ones—

walleye,
flatheads,
wipers bending the rod
like it might snap.

Scotty standing there
in the half-light, pissed off
when the beavers slowly emerged
from the bubbly water.
Buck-tooth bastards
scare the fish away,
he’d say.

Didn’t look like the type,
but he knew the river
like a preacher knows
his Bible.

One day he showed up
at six in the morning
with his rickety John boat
tied to the hood of his jalopy.
We went down to Scott Street Bridge.
I caught a grumpy snapping turtle.
I was getting ready to throw it back
and Scotty said,
“If you don’t want it,
I’ll take it. Turtle soup.”
And laughed.

Years went by.

Bands faded.
Nursing homes blurred together.

And Scotty—

heart problems
that finally caught him
in his forties.

Now sometimes
I stand below that dam
in the early morning

watching the current
slide past the concrete railing,

casting into the same water
he used to read
like a book.

Still trying
to catch the big one
for him.