PRESSURE PRESS ARCHIVE

OLD MAN CABLE'S STORIES Previously appeared, in an altered form, in ABBEY 37, 1981 Old Man Cable had a strange way of getting us to listen to his stories. We were all boys no older than twelve. I'd find myself running with friends thru yards & gardens, down the paths & alleys of our small town, up to this sagging yellow house masked by crab-apple & choke-berry trees. We knocked our secret knock on the dull pine door, it slowly jingled open & Old Man Cable shuffled around, his heavy face gleaming suddenly with bright greetings. "Well, look here! Everybody's come! Come in, come in, into the kitchen, & have a drink with me!" We slipped thru the warm entrance straight into the warm-smelling, toast-odored kitchen. Gathering at the table, silent as if trying for a perfect rehearsal, we waited until the old man appeared. "So glad you boys cld come." He opened denture-colored cupboards & brought out glasses. He set a glass in front of each us, carefully, his thick, giant hands slightly shivered. Nobody spoke. We watched his hands move like things that weren't supposed to move. "You will all share my Russian Vodka. A full glass for me, a full glass for you, too." He poured our Vodka from a special bottle, not the real Vodka he drank. He only gave us water, but that didn't matter, you got to believing there was booze in the glass, that it stung the mind & made you happy. There were times I felt the shudder in my shoulders after taking a gulp, shuddering just like him. "It was back, way back, in nine-teen-ten," he began, "back when you was all still flyin' around in Heaven with Jesus. I was down here then, just about the age you boys are now. I looked a little like all of you mixed together, 'course with different clothes. I used to wear a hat like none of you as modern kids have never seen, a magical cap. I found it down by the creek when the creek was a lot bigger, more like a lake in the woods, down by where the bridge is now. Didn't used to be a bridge there. You'd have to swim across & there were whirlpools. You had to know what you was doing in that water, where it'd suck you down in a wink, I seen that happen a couple times. We called it "Dead Man's Curve" back then, but now it's easy to walk the rocks over to the other side where I used to go fishing. I always took my dog Spotty, she was a good dog, that old girl cld snap chubs right from the water! Eh, she was a good dog, Spotty, but she run off into the sky one day. I found this hat floating on the water. It was real dark purple like wine, but when it dried it was lighter, almost the color of whiskey. It was maybe brown but when you looked at it fast it changed colors. I don't know how it got to be magical or who had it before me. I just found it. I let it dry on the bank & then I put it on. Suddenly, that instant when that hat touched my hair, it was like all the creek was electrocuted or something, but every trout & blue-gill & sucker started flapping high into the air toward me, I mean it was RAINING these fish all flapping at my feet! I stuffed as many fish as I cld into my bag, & it wasn't til I took that hat off that the fish stopped flying. My mother made delicious fish, we ate those fish for weeks. When I put on the hat to go tend the chickens, those dumb birds just squatted & started layin' eggs & eggs, eggs & eggs, all over the place. That hat was magical alright, it was either from God or the Devil, but I didn't figure from which one. The Devil makes powerful temptations & I sure felt temptation, you know, to be rich like the King of the Planet, to just wish for something & it'd happen as long as I had my magical hat on. I dreamed about having my own monster dinosaur, I'd ride on his head & we'd win the War, the big War you boys don't know nothing about yet. I figured maybe Spotty cld sniff for some dinosaur bones in the ground if I tied that hat on her head. I did & she started running up the creek, ontop of the water! & then she took off, she went up like a plane into the sky! I never saw her again, & that's how that hat disappeared. I never shld've wished for a stupid dinosaur. I had the chance to make the world a better place, to make people happy, but I was too young to handle the magic. When you're young it's best to think older than you are. Anybody ready for another glass?"