North With Doc -- Night Moves

by Greg Knowles
Illustrations by Peter Kohlsaat

What begins as a search for a midnight snack soon becomes one of Doc and company's most memorable nights in the northwest Ontario bush. This story's proof that there's more to the fishing experience than just catching fish.

Aunt Lucy used to keep company with a drummer in a country band. The nearer it got to closing time, the more his stick work sounded like a cattle stampede through a ditch filled with aluminum siding. That was the sound that came to my ears a little after 1 a.m. in a remote log cabin on the north shore of Kezik Lake.

Shocked awake from one of those dreams you can only dream about, I catapulted from my sleeping bag and lunged toward the glaring light in the big central area that served as a kitchen, dining room, casino, lounge, and bare-faced-lie-telling emporium.

"What the hell is going on?" I yelled at Doc.

"Gonna make some popcorn," he said. He emerged from a lower cabinet with a pot large enough to cook and serve beef stew to an entire battalion of Marines. As he backed out, the pot banged against several cast iron skillets, he bumped against the silverware tray on the counter, sending service for 20 clattering across the plywood floor. Fourteen preschoolers with Zildjian cymbals and soup spoons couldn't have made more noise.

The attorney and banker stormed in, at least as upset as I was about having their beauty sleep interrupted. By the looks of the attorney, he needed another 60 hours minimum of bed rest to become even remotely presentable.

"We got a bear in the cabin?" the policeman hollered from the back room.

Only the plant manager continued to sleep, his snoring suggestive of a Caterpillar D-9 with its blade straining against a length of 3/4-inch rebar buried in a slab of interstate highway concrete.

"You ever made popcorn?" I asked.

"No, but I've seen it done," Doc said, slamming the pot onto the gas stove, covering all four burners.

"But why at 1 a.m.?" the banker asked.

"Why not?" Doc replied, as he turned on all the burners, then wandered around looking for a match.

"Back away from the stove!" the policeman said, standing there in his striped pajamas, pointing the business end of a broomstick at Doc's head. "Don't make me use this."

I shut off the gas before a stray spark could blow the cabin all the way to Winnipeg. "You want popcorn, I'll make it," I said.

Doc sheepishly pulled up a chair and sat at the table. A deck of cards was handy so he shuffled them and dealt out a hand of solitaire.

"Long as we're up, we might as well be warm," the attorney said, and he teased the embers in the Franklin stove, laid on some logs, and in a few minutes was pleased with himself at the happy snap and crackle.

The policeman put the broom away and filled the coffee pot with water. I stowed the cauldron Doc had selected and found a more suitable saucepan with a lid. Then I poured in a half inch of oil, dropped in two corn kernels, put on the lid, lighted a burner, and waited for a telltale pop to signal me it was ready for a full load.

Meanwhile, the banker rummaged in the fridge and brought out the cheese and pickles. I opened a fresh box of Ritz crackers, then added a knife and peanut butter to the tabletop.

A kernel snapped in the pan, and I dumped in half a cup of Orville's finest. It popped light and fluffy, and I made more while the boys snarfed away.

It seemed the most natural thing in the world to be up talking and eating with friends in the middle of the night. Any irritation at Doc for rousting us from bed dwindled, then disappeared, as we made the best of the situation.

Unfortunately, the popcorn triggered an outflow of unsociable emissions, and the attorney opened the door for some fresh air. But luckily, he added another dimension to the evening when he shouted, "Come quick! The ABs are out!"

Dressed in a mismatched collection of short and long underwear and promotional T-shirts, we stomped into our shoes, and clunked onto the porch. The northern lights, a.k.a. aurora borealis, or ABs to us, arched up one side of the sky, swept across the top, and skittered down the other side. Reds and greens, then silvers and blues painted the heavens with fingers, curtains, jagged brush strokes, and smears of metallic color. With all the "oohs" and "aahs" bouncing against the pine woods and echoing across the lake, you would have thought we were at a 4th of July fireworks display instead of at one of Knobby Clark's Northwest Ontario fly-in fishing outposts.

Like flipping a switch, the ABs stopped, and we tromped, shivering, back inside.

Between 1:30 and sunrise, we polished off a pound each of sharp cheddar and pepper cheese, a mountain of crackers, two dozen Oreo cookies, three big bowls of popcorn, a jar of sweet pickles, two pots of coffee, a sixer of Coke, and enough bite size Snickers bars to pave the streets of downtown Dubuque.

Even though we all had heard it at least a thousand times, the banker told the one about the 3-legged pig who saved the farmer's life, and we laughed and pounded the table as if the ancient joke was brand new out of the box.

Somewhere along the line we hooted at Doc when he cheated to win at solitaire, had a serious debate about buying versus leasing a pickup truck, voted on the five best athletes of the year, and came to the conclusion that baitcasting reels are a lot like women: no matter how good they look or how well they perform, every now and then they'll backlash like crazy for no apparent reason.

During one of the few lulls in the action, the plant manager suddenly emerged from his bedroom. He stretched, scratched, and belched like I imagine a rhinoceros would after eating 17 heads of cauliflower. "That could be the best night's sleep I ever had," he said.

It is hard to believe that any living human, and maybe even some dead ones, could have slept through the rowdy nocturnal session we'd just enjoyed. Doc looked around the table at our grinning faces and said, "You know, we tried extra hard to be quiet so we wouldn't disturb you."

The plant manager belched again, then said, "That's really considerate of you. Thanks, Doc."