Days of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and the World – José, Chapter 2

After a nice, long pull on his drink, Uncle Ernest continued his story. “I remember one day when José and our club members went into the temple to meditate. Most of the priests were there. They were using the temple as a financial trading place, auctioning off jewelry, bickering, and exchanging gold coins of different values.

“Well, Moose, you won't believe what happened. José wanted change for a twenty dollar gold piece and they cheated him—gave him three fives instead of two tens. Well, José went nuts. He turned over the whole table of money and yelled, ‘You’re all a bunch of thieves.’ Then he and I overturned all of the other tables, sending all the jewelry and the valuables crashing to the floor. A big fight broke out between our guys and the priests and their body guards.

“It turned out that José was quite a scrapper. He had a nice left-right combination and a powerful front kick. The other club members weren’t bad either, except for Jud, who wimped out by just flitting around saying, ‘careful, careful.’ I used my karate to full advantage—wasting seven or eight big body guards with round house kicks, uppercuts, and knee strikes.

“We won the fight and threw the bums out of the temple on their butts. All the people, folks who wanted the temple for meditation, thanked us for restoring order. They patted us on the backs and said that we were terrific.”

“Wow, Unk, great!” I cheered.

“Not so great in the long run, though,” Uncle Ernest said, shaking his head slowly. “Those priests really had it in for us after that. They got the military rulers from Reeme on their side, convincing the emperor, Pompous duPilot, that our club should be crushed. They convinced him that José was determined to overthrow the government by winning over the multitude of people. Moose, José told us that he could be convicted—put to death for treason at any time. So this was the beginning of the end, and as you know, all good things come to an end.”

“I was waiting for that, Unk; your luck always runs out just when things are going well.”

“You said a mouthful,” Uncle Ernest admitted, rising uneasily to replenish his drink.

I slid off the swing to sit down on our concrete steps so I could watch some ants scurrying in and out of their hole in the ground. In a few more years, Nina, I would be involved in a joyful pastime: trapping muskrats in the swamps and the banks of Back Creek. I trapped both sides of the river, using a collection of steel traps that I bought with the money I had made from working at the Chesapeake Boat Company. I liked it so much that I would get up hours before school to check my traps.

Sometimes, if the tide had come in far enough, the rats would drown and be dead before I got there. Many times, if it was freezing, a rat would be just a ball of ice. But often they would be alive, so I’d have to bust them on the nose with a stick. I would take them home and skin them, stretch their hides on a board, and gut their carcasses. They made a fine dinner, Nina—dark, red meat that was better than chicken or pork.

One brutally-cold winter I trapped the banks of the north side of the Back Creek, which meant that I had to row my small skiff across the river and a few hundred yards east of where I docked my boat. I remember one morning well. The temperature had been below ten degrees for several days, and on that particular morning the entire width of the river was covered with ice floes about four to five inches thick. The ice had been broken by ships and tugs, so some of the floes were stacked upon each other and the whole mass was moving slowly with the tide—crackling, creaking and popping eerily as they drifted.

       I couldn't row because the oars wouldn't go through the large chunks, so I had to shove the ice away from the bow and push an oar through the ice from the stern to scull across and back. It was dangerous fun and I loved it, in those days when nothing, except homework, seemed to be too much trouble. [To be continued Tuesday, 10/16/2012]