The Shark at Lawton Creek

That grill has been in my family for three generations. First it belonged to my Grandpoppa, then my Poppa, and when I’m eighteen, it comes to me. I’m eight and a half now, but already I dream about cookin’ up a steak so good that my dad calls it the best steak in the world. I can see it now. We are all sittin’ by the pool that we’re gonna get when Poppa gets the boss job at Kroger, and I am there with an apron and a spatula. The heat from the grill makes my forehead sweat, and I’ll give the meat a few extra flips to impress Poppa, and then slide it in front of him, medium rare, just like he likes it. He will look at it, smell it, and crinkle his nose like it smells bad, but only because he’s funny that way. Then he’ll take a bite and his eyes will get real big and his mouth will open wide and then he’ll say, “Son, that is the best darned steak I’ve had in my whole life.”

Almost every night I would think the whole story through. But when I wake up, I’m still eight and a half, and we’re still livin’ in our trailer in south Kansas, next to the green, rushin’ river. We still don’t have a pool, and the grill sits next to our sink waitin’ to be used.

Our trailer is only meant for three people, but since March 28, 2001, it’s been holdin’ four. My baby brother, Tony, just had his first birthday a few months ago. He sleeps in my mom and dad’s room, and I sleep on a bed in the living room that turns into a couch when my parents have friends over. Our trailer is one of many others. We have no neighbors to our left, but on the right there are a couple other families. My parents love the Williams family from two trailers down. I like ’em too. Their son Scott taught me how to tie a fishing line.

* * *

Today the calendar on the wall says April, and there’s a picture of Tony Stewart drinking a Mountain Dew. The clock next to me says 3 pm, but it’s dark outside like it’s midnight. Earlier this mornin’ I was outside ridin’ my bike that I got for Christmas when I was five. That Christmas was one of my favorites. Poppa woke me up early and called me into his room where he was standin’ with a Santa hat on and a blue Schwinn in front of him with the seat lowered so I could ride it easier. My momma was outside trying to find Santa to thank him for bringin’ the bike to us, so she wasn’t there to see me ride the bike for the first time, but she came back that night. She had a stomach ache though, so Poppa and I read Luke 2 without her.

It was windy outside this mornin’ when I left to go fishin’. I almost fell off my bike on my way to the creek. I had my fishing pole with me, stickin’ out in front of me like the knights in the stories. Last week, Timothy said that he saw a shark fin at Lawton Creek, and I am going to catch it so I can show it to Beth. Beth sits next to me in class and she is the love of my life, to put it like my dad does.

I was at the creek by the time the sun stood over the trees. It shined into my face, and I scrunched my eyes as I put the hook on the line. I forgot my sunscreen at home, but I did that on purpose so I could be tan for Beth when I bring the shark in to class.

Last year, I asked her to the school dance but she said she wanted to go with Scott because he brought some deer antlers to school after he went huntin’ with his daddy. She also said that Scott’s daddy would let them kiss in the back of his truck on the way to the dance while he was playin’ Toby Keith on the CD.

I sat at the lake with my hook in the water for hours. The wind made waves and pushed dirt into my eyes and covered my pb&j that I brought for lunch. By noon I had two bass, you can tell because they have the silver skin with dark stripes, but I still had no bites from the shark. The sun was gettin’ less and less hot, and the sky got much darker. The clouds were almost black as they moved in front of the sun. The wind got heavy then, and I decided that I could come back tomorrow and try again to catch the shark of Lawton Creek.

* * *

The way back home was even worse than the way to the creek. I pedaled as hard as I could but the wind was against me, and no matter how hard I tried, my bike couldn’t get movin’. I hopped off, grabbed the handlebars, put my head down, and walked into the wind. By the time I made it home the wind was forcing tears out of my eyes, and my skin got dry and peely. I looked up and the wind took my hat for the hundredth time, and I let go of the bike to pick it up and saw worms diggin’ into the ground to keep safe from the heavy wind that could pick them up like the small things they are. When I got my hat and turned around, Poppa was holdin’ the door open with baby Tony in his arms and callin’ me inside. I walked in and he pulled hard at the door to close it against the wind. On the table next to my bed there was a gallon of water, a flashlight, and two of the big batteries. Poppa’s hair was messy like he had just woken up, and his eyes were red and saggy underneath. He pulled out a chair for me to sit in. The thin metal legs made a loud squeak as they dragged across the floor, and he told me to sit down.

He looked up and told me that Momma wasn’t in bed when he got up this mornin’. I asked him where she went, but he just said that she was gone. He had waited for me to get back from fishin’ before he would leave to go look for her. I don’t know why Momma left, but Poppa said he had to find her. He left with Tony in his arms and said there was a sandwich in the fridge for me if I got hungry while he was gone. He pushed the door closed behind him, and the rain started to fall. At first it was only a little and then more and more. Then lightning struck far away, and I counted until I heard the thunder, a trick my dad had taught me last year when there was a big storm with a tornado that spun into a trailer park my friend Thomas used to live at. The number of seconds is how many miles away the storm is. The first few times I saw lightin’, I counted to twelve.

By the time I was hungry again the thunder was only eight seconds behind the lightnin’. I ate the sandwich off the grill’s shelf, sittin’ in the chair my dad had pulled up for me earlier. I looked at the grill and saw its knobs and the metal pieces inside. I wondered about how my Grandpoppa felt when he rolled home in his truck with a brand new grill in the back, or how my dad felt on his eighteenth birthday when the grill officially became his, and how I would smile from ear to ear when my time came to own it. Suddenly, there was a flash of light from the window above the sink, and three seconds later a boom shook our home.

Up until now, the rain had been staying the same speed. It wasn’t the worst rain I had seen, no, that was when my family rode to Oklahoma for my Grandpoppa’s funeral two Februarys ago. We sat in a church while the priest read from the Bible, and we all sang Amazing Grace, and the rain fell so hard you couldn’t even hear yourself singin’. And then, we all walked out into the terrible rain as a man lowered a box with my grandfather in it into the ground, and that was the last we were gonna get to see him. Now, the rain began to pick up, and the thunder kept coming closer behind the light. I opened the front door just a little to peek to see if Poppa or Momma were comin’ back.

The wind blew real hard in that moment and took the door from my hands, and a crack sounded even before the lightnin’ came. I reached out to grab the door and slipped on the front step and fell into the mud. The water ran up to my elbows before I could catch myself from fallin’, and I ended up having my face baptized in the flood. When I got back inside and finally pulled the door closed, I was dripping wet and shivering. The rain kept pouring, and I got real worried that the river would run into the trailer and carry it away.

I made a plan to go out of the trailer, left up the hill, and hide under the trees, at least then the water couldn’t get me. Two more lightning bolts hit before the lights in the trailer went out, and I put my rain boots and raincoat on in the dark. Then, I felt around blindly and found the flashlight Poppa had left out, and put the extra battery in my pocket. I turned on the flashlight, and it shined on the grill. The thought ran through my mind that if I left the grill, the river would take it away, but if I can’t drag it to the hill, then I could get taken by the river.

I rolled the grill to the front door. I couldn’t let my family lose its most prized possession. I pushed gently on the front door and the wind ripped it from my hand again. I put the flashlight in my coat pocket and stepped into the water that almost rose above the tops of my rain boots, and the wind nearly knocked me over. I brought the grill down with me as it clunked down the two front steps and the legs made a big splash in the water.

I dragged the grill behind me as best I could, but the risin’ river kept pullin’ it away, and my wet fingers couldn’t keep a good grip on the handle. I didn’t have to walk far. I could see the hill in front of me no farther away than the length of our trailer. When I turned around to regrip the grill, I saw another lightnin’ strike, and I could see the Williams’ trailer slowly moving’away. I wondered if they were still there, floating about, like God had changed their home into a boat.

With all my might I dragged it to the hill, one foot in front of the other, and my shoulder bein’ tugged back by the grill. When I made it to the hill, I dragged the grill out of the water behind me and up the slope. The wheel got caught in the mud a few times, and the grill felt heavier than it had in the newly made river. I pulled the flashlight out from my pocket and turned it on. The light flickered weakly in front of me, just enough to see a few steps ahead, and after what felt like hours, I was atop the hill and the flashlight died. I opened the bottom and put in the new battery, the old one dropping into the mud and burying itself there. I flicked the switch on and the light was even weaker than before and went out in a few seconds. The new battery must have gotten drenched and lost all its energy.

I sat down next to the grill and faced the trailer park, but saw nothing. A few lighting flashes showed the broken trailer homes driftin’ from their place, and some small trees abandonin’ their roots, makin’ a jungle of our old neighborhood. I cried into my sleeves and prayed that God would bring my Poppa back to me, and that our home would be okay. I begged him to be good to us, and promised to be good to everyone if he would just keep me, Poppa, Tony and Momma safe in this storm.

Then, in only a few seconds, the rain began to die down. The dark clouds lightened, and I could see the scattered pieces of our trailer park. They all used to fit like a puzzle, and now they were thrown about randomly, but no trailer too far gone. The water still ran through, and within the hour, people were in kayaks and canoes trying to make it home.

Then, I saw a big red kayak carrying two men and a baby. I recognized Poppa in the back holding Tony, while the man in front paddled them down the stream. I called out to them, and they saw me up the hill. The man steered the kayak to the base of the hill and let Poppa out. Poppa turned to the man for a few moments, shook his hand, and patted him on the back.

Poppa ran up the hill to me and gave me hug. He saw the grill and a tear fell from his eye, and he hugged me again.

“Where’s Momma?” I asked, nuzzled against his chest.

“I don’t know,” he said. I could feel his chin movin’ on top of my head as he said it. In the distance a siren wailed, and Tony cried, and out into the newly risen river, I swear I saw a shark fin.