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    Jimmy Catfish: The Beginning and The End
    Jimmy Catfish: The Beginning and The End
    Jimmy Catfish: The Beginning and The End
    Ebook234 pages2 hours

    Jimmy Catfish: The Beginning and The End

    By Bill Russo

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    The narrative of Jimmy Catfish starts peacefully in the 1950s with Cisco da Silva, captain of the last three masted schooner. Sailing back and forth from New Bedford to the islands of Cape Verde, he bravely battles the worst torments of the raging Atlantic Ocean. After a near fatal disastrous voyage he is forced into retirement on Cape Cod. That’s where his troubles really begin.
    His new life is at first peaceful and prosperous. A beautiful wife, a small lakeside cottage, a bit of land, and some cranberry bogs seem certain to portend an idyllic existence – but with the birth of his son – Jimmy Catfish, the amphibious boy - Cisco’s life becomes a nightmare.
    His skirmishes with the demons from the lake and the conflicts within his own mind lead him to a fiendish plot against his own son, who emerges as a leader of the scale-less beings that live under the surface of the lake.
    Jimmy Catfish is the story of a good man’s fight against the unfairness of life. It’s also the tale of an unfortunate boy, born deformed and ugly but with skills and abilities far above the reach of even the stoutest Olympians.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBill Russo
    Release dateAug 12, 2016
    ISBN9781370322848
    Jimmy Catfish: The Beginning and The End
    Author

    Bill Russo

    Bill Russo had lived in an area of Massachusetts called the Bridgewater Triangle for many years and never knew that it was said to be inhabited by scary swamp creatures until he met one. It happened on a midnight walk. Years later, two film producers read his blog about it and featured him and his story in their documentary, The Bridgewater Triangle. He also was approached by Discovery channel producers and was featured in the opening segment of Monsters and Mysteries in America - Season two, Episode two. Among his work, are two anthologies featuring the Bridgewater Triangle Universe. One is strictly fiction and the other contains his account of meeting the swamp creature - plus other stories from New England. As a disc jockey, he was the first person to play and promote the trucking classic "Tombstone Every Mile". He counted as a friend, the first man to cross the musical color line, in a 1940s Jazz Band. The "Human Jukebox", who opened for both Elvis and Roy Orbison, was a neighbor of his. Stories of these and other artists are included in "Crossing the Musical Color Line". Bill's background for writing comes from a Boston education at the venerable white shirt & tie, Huntington School for Boys. He followed that up with a study of journalism, music, and broadcasting at the famed Kenmore Square institution, Grahm Jr. College, where he said he learned more about music from an African American gentleman who was the school's janitor, than he ever could in a classroom. He introduced me to Gloria Lynne, Bill said. Years after he learned of her, she had a mega hit with I Wish You Love. One of Grahm's well known graduates was performance artist Andy Kaufman who created his Taxi TV character Latka while at Grahm. Andy also claimed he learned Transcendental Meditation at Grahm, although it was not taught there. But who knows? It could be true. Bill Russo learned music from the Janitor. Maybe someone in bookkeeping was a guru and gave Andy the secrets of TM. At various times during his career, Russo was a New England Newspaper Editor, a Disc Jockey, and a Radio newswriter and newscaster for a number of stations. He also has had stints as an iron worker, and a low level manager for a major mail order clothing retailer. One of his favorite jobs was partnering with Bill Barry, the inventor of a jewelry polish called Clear Bright n Shiny. The 'Bills' as they called themselves toured New England selling...

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      Book preview

      Jimmy Catfish - Bill Russo

      Leaving For a New Life

      Fogo (Fire) Island was burning and slowly being buried by creeping, molten lava.

      St. Nicholas Island was desiccated and people were in excruciating agony, dying of thirst.

      It was the 1950s and all ten of the islands in their archipelago were facing disasters as Cisco da Silva and Carlos Pires searched for a way to leave.

      Their only way out was to sign on as crewmen aboard the last commercially operated three-masted schooner still making Atlantic crossings.

      Misfortune eventually drove Cisco from the sea to a peaceful little island off the coast of Massachusetts.

      ...and that's when his troubles really began.

      -o-

      Jimmy Catfish:

      The Beginning and the End

      by Bill Russo

      Jimmy Catfish is the prequel to a yarn told around a campfire in my book of short stories, Swamp Tales. This follow-up volume is presented in two parts.

      The Beginning which is all new, narrates the story of events leading up to the birth of the unfortunate subject of the earlier tale; as well as his life as a young man.

      The second part of the book, The End, is the complete original short story - a few thousand words about eerie Codfresh Lake, the area around it, and its oddest resident.

      I've included the second part so that if you have been interested enough to finish The Beginning, you will not have to search around to find (and pay for), The End.

      -o-

      Bill Russo is retired on Cape Cod, U.S.A., and is the author of a number of books including:

      Crossing the Musical Color Line:

      and other stories of Singers and Players.

      The artists featured, some famous and some not, are mostly friends or acquaintances of the author. Many of them, he met during his years as a disc jockey and newspaper editor.

      Among his subjects are: the first man to cross the musical color line - in a Big Band during the 1940s. His entire career is covered including the time he spent as lead guitarist for Diana Ross.

      Russo was the first radio disc jockey to play and promote one of the biggest truck driving songs in the history of Country Music. He tells of meeting the singer and details how the man literally peddled his music from the trunk of his car in Madawaska, Maine all the way to stardom in Nashville.

      The Creature From the Bridgewater Triangle and other stories from Massachusetts.

      During a decade long stint as an Iron Worker, Bill Russo lived in a 'haunted' area of Massachusetts that stretches from Bridgewater and Raynham Southwards towards Fall River and New Bedford.

      His late night meeting with a swamp creature prompted him to write a blog article, and that led to Russo being featured in The Bridgewater Triangle documentary film and later on national television discussing the hairy 'littlefoot' that he met; and then finally to his short book detailing his encounter, along with about a dozen more stories and articles. Most deal with legends and myths of New England, but he also adds a few observations and even some Cape Cod travel tips.

      -o-

      Cover Photograph by Bill Russo:

      A secluded lake in Harwich near

      the right of way of the original

      Cape Cod Central Railroad

      -o-

      Smashwords Copyright Note

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author.

      Chapter listing Jimmy Catfish

      Prologue - Cape Cod in the 21st. Century

      Chapter One: Sao Nicolau (St. Nicholas)

      Chapter Two: Finding the Captain

      Chapter Three: Shipping off to Massachusetts

      Chapter Four: The Last Voyage

      Chapter Five: Healing Time

      Chapter Six: The Gold Crown Tavern

      Chapter Seven: Life on Codfresh Lake

      Chapter Eight: The Summer Brings New Growth

      Chapter Nine: Winter and Tragedy

      Chapter Ten: In the Brack with the Catfish

      Chapter Eleven: The Baby Arrives: February 15, 1958

      Chapter Twelve: At the Water's Edge

      Chapter Thirteen: A Visit from the Captains

      Chapter Fourteen: The Reunion

      Chapter Fifteen: The Doctor

      Chapter Sixteen: Total Isolation: The Summer of 1959

      Chapter Seventeen: Six Years Later, July 1965

      Chapter Eighteen: The Return of Cisco

      Chapter Nineteen: The Plan

      Chapter Twenty: The Professor

      Chapter Twenty-one: October 1, 1967

      Chapter Twenty-two: They Come for Jimmy

      Chapter Twenty-three: Mungo's Plan

      Chapter Twenty-four: What of the Professor?

      Chapter Twenty-five: Codfresh Fades Away

      Chapter Twenty-six: Alone

      Chapter Twenty-seven: Epilogue to The Beginning and Prologue to The End

      Chapter Twenty-eight: Jimmy Catfish -The End

      Jimmy Catfish - the Beginning and the End

      by Bill Russo

      Book One: The Start

      (Book Two follows. It is, The End)

      Prologue - Cape Cod in the 21st. Century

      The horse-shoe shaped highway that runs from one end of Cape Cod to the other, is 64 miles long. Halfway down, is the town of Harwich.

      In the middle of Harwich, several miles past bumpy Bell's Neck Road, where a dense forest has morphed into a shallow, tree-stump pond; is a dirt road - really just a path - that leads to a small village called The Marsh.

      There's only one business building in the tiny 'throwback' settlement. It's a creaky, wooden two-story structure with faded red paint, that houses a general store - with pickles, ice cream, common crackers in a barrel, and canned goods inside. On the porch, outside, framing the entry way, are two wooden park benches.

      The one on the left is painted blue with white lettering on the slats of the backrest, saying Democrats. On the right hand side, is a red bench, with the same white lettering saying, Republicans.

      Most of the villagers will sit in either one. They might call themselves G.O.P., but they like the Kennedys - especially the war hero, Johnny who became President.

      Or they might be Democrats, but they like Ike, the war hero who became President.

      A few old timers are gathered at the store on a warm summer day to sit on a red bench or a blue bench, depending on their mood; or where the sun is hitting. They talk, drink sodas, and and gaze across the street at a crystal clear lake with a sandy bottom and generous beaches.

      That little kettle pond is nothing like Codfresh Lake, says the owner of the store, who has just walked out to chat with the only customers he's had for over an hour. He is an ancient, shrunken man who everyone calls 'AP'.

      What's Codfresh Lake? one of his companions asks.

      Using the question as an invitation; the wrinkled old man takes a pull from his Birch Beer in a glass bottle, and slowly eases into the Blue bench opposite his friends. He wears a faded Red Sox cap. With his old-fashioned handlebar mustache on top of a fluffy white beard, he looks like a skinny Santa Claus.

      Setting his soda down, he stares for a moment at the faded paint of the bench. It's cracking and blistering. He picks off a few blue chips, as if he were stripping little flakes of skin from a sunburn. Peeking out of the corner of his eye, he waits until he is sure he has the group's full attention.

      Satisfied that he does, AP begins to tell a tale of a body of water so strange as to defy description. A lake compounded of equal but separate sections of fresh water, sea water, and an unearthly brackish stretch, reportedly inhabited by man-eating catfish.

      Even stranger than that, he continues, is that it was also home to a person who was more catfish than human. Few people know about Codfresh Lake, and even fewer about that fish-man, Jimmy Catfish. I saw him. I even knew him. The story ends here on Cape Cod but it starts out far across the ocean in a different cape, Cape Verde.

      Chapter One - Sao Nicolau (St. Nicholas)

      Two men on horseback are riding to Tarrafal, the only seaport, and one of just two villages on the tiny island of St. Nicholas. After an interminable season of famine and drought they have abandoned their homes and are fighting through an angry windstorm on a September afternoon in 1949.

      This barren island of St. Nicholas has little of Christmas in it, other than its name. It is 150 square miles of naked mountain surrounded by a ragged coastline too wasted to even sprout weeds, said Francisco da Silva, the taller of the pair.

      That may be true Cisco, but it's our home.

      Not for long Carlos. Not for long. When we get to Tarrafal, we will find a ship to carry us out of here.

      Cisco, you sound just like your cousin the poet. He's always stirring up people, trying to get them to leave the islands and go to America.

      Yes Carlos. Last year when he wrote his book, he predicted that by the end of 1950 one out of four Cape Verdeans will be emigrating to the United States for a better life.

      And do you think we will be among them Cisco?

      I do. There is nothing to hold us here. We have already left our houses. And what did we give up? A couple of shacks and a few acres of land that resembles over-baked bread.

      Cisco started to say something else but was cut off as the wind suddenly picked up and pitched a load of desiccated earth into his throat.

      The two friends, coughing from the biting onslaught, closed their eyes, covered their noses with their hands, and tucked their chins into their chests.

      Though there were a handful of cars on St. Nicholas in the 1940s, most people still rode horses, as did Francisco da Silva and Carlos Pires on that Autumn day when they headed from the main village of Ribeira Bravo to the island's only other settlement, the fishing town of Tarrafal.

      Plodding along, their horses slowly navigated the narrow cobblestone path that rimmed the island, running like a thread from the one town to the other. There was no place else to go; it was literally a 'one road' island. The way was bounded on either side, solely by mounds of parched earth. No trees. No brush. No Grass. No weeds.

      So bare was the view from the rocky path that to one side there truly was nothing but the choppy blue Atlantic. The opposite side was merely a barren expanse of motley colored brownish earth supporting clusters of jagged gray rocks leading to Mount Gordo, (The Fat Mountain).

      One time Carlos had called the roadside a desolate 'patchwork' and Cisco, who fancied himself a poet like his cousin who had published two books, said; No Carlos: the dirt here is not a 'patchwork'. It is so dry and empty that we should call it a 'parch-work'. Both men laughed, as each was young, hopeful, and in possession of the resilient ability to sneer at ironic misfortune.

      The raging wind got stronger, scooping up great chunks of earth; grinding and mixing them with the air until a thick brown dirt-fog was brewed that overspread the entire island. Visibility was reduced to near zero.

      Dismounting, they took off their shirts to cover the heads and eyes of the nervous horses, while shouting calming words to them.

      The bellowing storm finally hushed to a whisper, leaving Carlos and Cisco looking as though they had been flogged. Crimson rivers snaked down their backs from their shoulders to their waists, partly washing away hundreds of sharp dirt-spikes that had been hammered in.

      They poured tepid water from their canteens into their cupped hands for the still frightened horses, saving scarcely a swallow for themselves before remounting.

      Later, they wearily crested a ridge marking the final leg of their trip. The last bits of the dirt-fog drifted off towards the sun, which cast a golden path in the calm waters of Tarrafal Harbor.

      Prodding their mounts to a gallop, they raced to a slim, fresh water stream near the harbor. In winter it had been a river but the endless drought had reduced the Rio Gordo (The Fat River) to barely a skinny stream.

      Running and splashing like schoolboys on a picnic, the animals happily beat the water to a froth. The men let the mounts play for several minutes before hobbling them and setting them to graze in a yellowed field close by.

      Let us go to the beach and wash off the rest of the dirt from the ride, suggested Cisco.

      I think I'll also need a few minutes in the sand, Carlos added.

      The tepid Tarrafal water was a salty balm; soothing their raw backs as well as massaging spent muscles. As their strength returned they left the ocean and headed for the steamy, black sand. The unusual shiny sepia sand, found only on St. Nicholas Island, is said to have healing properties due to a high content of titanium and iodine.

      After a brief rest, buried up to their necks at the medicinal beach, they retrieved the horses and cantered to Joao Neves' bar for some food and grogo, the local rum. In high spirits, they had hopes of meeting sailors who could perhaps steer them to a job aboard a ship bound for North America.

      Chapter Two - Finding The Captain

      With a bottle of grogo between them and two mugs in front of them, Carlos and Cisco sat in one of the four high-backed booths in Joao's small building. Hungrily, they speared chunks of food from a platter of bread, cheese and sausage that had been set upon a table made of rough, unfinished planks.

      Six wooden stools with no cushions were in place in front of the bar but only one was occupied. It was a slow night in Neve's establishment, a fact which Joao lamented every time he poured a drink for his solitary bar stool occupant, a tall, spare white-skinned man who seemed to wince every time Joao complained about his sparse patronage.

      "Hey mister, if you are sick of Joao's grousing, perhaps it's

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