“Leroy Stole Fish”

N. Dannison

…I did, once, catch a fish that was 18 inches long and yet this small prize was immediately taken from me by the capricious hands of the fish gods. They employed a turtle.

For a few years I had been making designs on a particular turtle that haunted the beaver house where I caught perch. I had an idea of making a wide helmet from his massive shell. The turtle was a bog-standard northern snapping turtle and he was about three feet long by the tail. I called him Leroy and once he laid into the toe of my leather boot, destroying it in the process, and I hated him ever since that day. I hated him because I knew that he was eating the fish in the pond, and that he was better at catching them than I was, and that in the divisions among my particular tribe of companions the majority of them sided with the damned turtle.

“He’s probably very old,” she would say, sitting on the sandy side of the pond, playing with her sunglasses.
“I’m not taking an amicus brief from a vegan,” I said, and carried on fishing.
“Nathan, if you harm that turtle, it’s like you are harming this whole lake.”
My anger was too long in the tooth. “I am going to kill that turtle, eat him, and make a hat out of his shell.”
“Well, if you do, his ghost will haunt you. A giant turtle ghost. Just think about that.”
I said, “I am not haunted by the souls of the smoked fish I eat and I will not be haunted by anything else that I pull out of this lake.”

Some years later there was a very large gathering of people on the lake. It was in a liminal time when many of us had children, but a few didn’t, so we had to have two camps. One camp was for families and the other was for those of us who still drank brown liquor from plastic jugs. That year was the last year we still shot our guns out by the powerlines.

We would buy a dozen ripe watermelons and set them on posts and by the end there would be strands of red fruit hanging from the wires above our heads. I loved to purchase the largest 12 gauge ammunition from the tackle shop and see what it felt like to run these massive, 650 grain slugs through a 24-inch smoothbore barrel. It was like firing a cannon. It was glorious. If you missed the melon you still got the movie-magic of a two foot crater in the ground to either side.

That was also the year that I caught the fattest largemouth bass I have ever seen in the flesh. He was no trophy but at 18 inches he was my trophy. And as was my practice I would carefully stuff him with cherries and smoke him over a greenwood fire. I had been fishing with Hamdog and he was relentless, better at everything that had to do with fishing, and I had been watching with envy as he caught panfish with a fly rod. I was so proud of that fish. Hammy acknowledged my fish and everybody on the beach was impressed and I was bursting with pride. Pride is a cruel and dangerous gamble.

I tied him off to the end of a log as I didn’t have a large enough bucket and I hiked up to camp to build a little smoker fire. I told everyone who would listen about the size of the bass I was about to bring up. I was generous with my promises. And right as I was striking the match — a boy, I think it was Jacob’s boy, came running hot up to the camp.
“Hamdog says Leroy ate your fish.”
I thought that was about the funniest thing, I said, “Tell Hamdog that I said Leroy can have any other fish he wants.”
The boy said, “Listen, I don’t know anything about Leroy or who he is, but Mr. Hamdog said he ate your fish.”

My body temperature seemed to vacillate between hot and cold. I dropped what I was doing and stood, stunned.
Everyone at camp turned and looked at me.

Some of the girls saw something horrible in my eyes, I think, because I remember hearing their voices as though they were ten miles away. “Now, Django, just hang on a second…”

“No hanging on.” I said, “That turtle dies. That turtle dies today.” And I went to the trunk and retrieved a Mossberg 500 and a fat round of buffalo ammunition. I popped the covers off of the optics.¹

Steve was there. Steve was the only person in our group at the time with any military experience. He didn’t like to shoot guns as much as the rest of us but he would teach us neat little hand-to-hand combat lessons. Steve realized that I was not in a good condition to be handling firearms and he said as much. “It’s just a turtle, man.” “It’s not,” I replied. “That turtle is the physical embodiment and manifestation of all things unholy on this planet.”

I jogged down to the lake trailed by two groups. The first, led by Steve, was there principally for moral support. The second parade had taken up a loud wailing and mourning for Leroy, beseeching me to allow the better angels of my nature take reign and spare the turtle. And through gritted teeth I said, “I am going to eat that turtle today.”

When I had gotten to where the fish was tied I saw Hamdog. He gestured to the slack rope that still held the bottom jaw of a largemouth bass. “You gonna shoot the turtle?” he asked. I nodded. He reeled in his line and started back for the trees, shaking his head. Steve started motioning that people really needed to stand back and I remember mother’s began gathering their babes in arms and fleeing the battlefield. And as if on cue, I saw the murky carapace of Leroy cresting the water beside the beaver house. He lifted his fat head above the water between the poplar staves and stared at me. “Calm down,” Steve whispered. “I am calm,” I said. And I fixed the optics of that gun on the head of that turtle at no more than five paces. I breathed in and let half the breath out in a whispered “goodbye” as I prepared to end the enmity between myself and the turtle. I carefully squeezed the trigger.

The blast created a huge geyser of lake water and muck and bits of beaver-sticks. There was also smoke. And the next thing I heard was Jacob’s boy shouting, “There he is! I see him!” And he pointed and by the hand of Almighty God that turtle was swimming away, whole and entire and without a single wound on him.

The optics on the gun, I recalled, had been dialed in to take whitetail deer at a distance of about eighty yards. I had missed. Had I simply pointed the damned thing at the turtle and fired he would be gone. But I was so hungry for his destruction that I needed to see him eye-to-eye through the scope of the gun. And so, all things being equal, the gun fired true and the slug went over his head by probably six inches or more.²

As we went back to camp there were small cheers from the vegans and probably they made toasts to Leroy. Steve put his hand on my shoulder, “You didn’t shoot Leroy, man, but today you shot the idea of Leroy and that’s just as good.”
“It’s not as good,” I replied.
“It’s something.”

Mark Stubbs wrote a song about the whole affair called “Leroy Stole Fish,” which became a sort of anthem for the occasion.³ While I am pleased to have been painted as the hero of the ballad I know today that I was the villain. Furthermore, it’s very likely that I’m not even the first man Leroy has tested and found wanting. I tried to kill him, from the depths of my rage — so help me God — I tried to kill that turtle. And I could not and I remain uncertain as to whether the fish gods will ever permit me another trophy bass.
So if I’m to have redemption for my pride and anger I’ll know it on the day I finally reel one in.

[1] In Southern Michigan it is illegal to hunt deer with rifles. Many hunters have specialized slug guns with optics that are accurate to roughly 100 yards. Mine was such a gun.

[2] According to the Michigan State code it is illegal to use firearms for hunting reptiles and amphibians.

[3] “Leroy Stole Fish”
by Mark Stubbs

On a dark stormy day back I don’t know when
A creature was born, the burden of men
with fire in the sky a great crack crossed the Earth
a hole opened up and a beast, he was birthed.
Leroy, Leroy.
No egg and no spaceship, no sound and no source
A slayer of men, no regret or remorse
Stomped as he bit, looted and pillaged
Stole all the virgins from all the lands village
Leroy, Leroy.
In the darkest of night, all hope lost indeed
a man was born that would challenge the beast
a soul was aligned with flesh and with bone
a man of the cloth with the courage of stone.
Django, Django.
Made his way up North to reclaim land of his fathers
but he didn’t know that, in the depths of the waters
The physical embodiment and manifestation
of all things unholy on this planet.
Leroy, (hey those are his words, not mine) Leroy
Django stood on its home, made out of sticks
spoke its true name, he was shaking his fist
It rose from the depths — some dark and deep hole
its shell battle-scarred, its eyes black as coal.
Leroy, Leroy.
Leroy’s mouth opened slow, we heard an ancient voice
echoed through the hills, “You must make a choice,
Good and Evil are one, they both must exist.”
Django pondered his words while Leroy stole fish.
Leroy, Leroy.
Oh, Django agreed that these words must be true,
but after he thought the war was not through.
The stand-off was tense, the feud it ran long
but the battle was meant for some other song.
Leroy, Leroy.
Leroy.