Happy New Year!
In my last post, I mentioned I would be posting a segment from a larger piece for this month’s story. The section details the backstory of one of the lead characters in the main story.
Some background: Back in the summer of 2018, a coworker introduced me to a hard seltzer drink called White Claw. No one I knew had ever heard of it before. My coworker and I thought the named sounded "metal" and before we knew it we had created an elaborate legend about a bear with a white paw that spent its time terrorizing a hillbilly/redneck family in UP Michigan. The family had battled this bear generation after generation and lived in a remote location away from society in general.
Did I know White Claw would become really popular since then? No. Did I know that there wouldn’t be laws while drinking Claws? Absolutely not, but I should have known….
This segment is unfinished, as is the main story until I can find time to finish it. With that said, it doesn’t end in the middle of a sentence and therefore is post-worthy in my opinion.
White Claw - Interlude
Autumn 1953
Young Jem pulled his soggy boot from the muddy hole in the ice. He was walking along the creek bed, stepping on spots of the semi frozen surface where the leaves were visible under the ice. One step got away from him and next thing he knew his foot was submerged. A fierce chill swept into his boot with the water and soaked up his pant leg. It was only 4-5 inches deep, but Jem was a small kid with small feet. His entire boot was wet in a second.
Shaking his foot he tried to release the water but patches of half melted snow and ice along the edge of the creek caused him to sway and slip and lose his balance. Then he felt his tailbone hit the ground and the bitter sensation of sitting on something cold spread through his backside as the water slid up the ice.
He felt the hot sting of tears rush to his eyes and tried to fight them back. If Pa or Charlie saw him crying they would rip him a new one. He shifted slightly, assessing the pain, and when the throbbing turned to a dull ache he shoved his hands to the ground and lifted himself up from the slush underneath. The boot made a squishing, sloshing sound as his sock and boot scrunched with the movement. His backside was wet and his foot and ankle were soaked. He was cold all over.
Standing along the creek bed, Jem started to pout about his frustrations and how mad Ma would be to see him in this state. She just did the washing yesterday and would be plain angry to see the mud caked up on his only clean pair of trousers. Trying to be clever, he picked up some dead leaves from the ground and tried to wipe away the mud. It didn’t do much, and only seemed to leave little leaf fragments in the stickiest mud spots. Jem dropped the leaves and decided to make his way back home to the family compound. He had followed the creek for an hour now and simply had to follow it back the way he came.
The creek runs right up to the compound but before that he would have to cross a good section of forest and pass back through the rocky gorge. If he had to guess, the gorge was the halfway point. Jem made his way along the creek quickly at first, but the cold in his boot combined with the friction from the wet sock started to rub his heel the wrong way. Every step increased the ache, then as he kept his pace it started to burn as a blister started to form. Before he knew it he was limping like Old Man Stickney who ran the bait shop.
That crotchety old man had fought in some war or other and came home with shrapnel in his hip and thigh. As Jem limped along the creek his thoughts went back to the old Vet and how he was a mean, grumpy old man. On more than one occasion, Jem and Charlie had been scolded by him when they were horsing around in the shop. Charlie often tried to catch the minnows with his hands when they were in there. Pa was usually chewing the fat with Stickney when they stopped in, so they could sneak to the back and try to catch the bait in the tubs.
More often than not, they made a huge mess with the water and Pa would make them pay for any bait damaged in their boyish pursuits.
More often than not, the brothers didn’t have any money to pay for the bait and would have to work it off in the shop.
Eventually, the boys got to know Stickney pretty well. Pa also made sure Stickney knew he could discipline the boys any way he seemed fit. This usually led to Jem and Charlie sprinting from the bait shop as Stickney was true with his threats to shoot the boys if they messed around. They were lucky if it was the shotgun, because that required time to load bullets. Not so lucky were the days Stickney grabbed his ancient boning knife.
“That damn old man,” Jem muttered as he shuffled along the creek. He recognized the bend up ahead and knew he was close to the gorge now. In his reverie, Jem hadn’t noticed how low the sun had set and a sudden moment of panic struck him as he realized he maybe had quarter of an hour left of daylight. Suddenly, a rank smell hit him and he was struck dumb by it for a moment. Rotting flesh and animal musk. Something was nearby. The smell was shortly followed by a rumbling and shuffling from the nearby brush. Then he felt the hot breath of a large animal drift to the back of his neck.
Jem froze. The animal grunted, then sniffed.
Image sourced from Canva.
Disclaimer: The author and this website are not affiliated in any way with hard seltzer company White Claw.