I was warned, “Beware of the Gypsies.” Warned, like when they tell you not to get in a car with strangers or to keep your fingers out of wire cages. But I was young, and without personal experience a warning was just something else I pretended to understand.
In 1961, I visited my mother’s maiden England. Diesel locomotives were common then, but puffer billies—coal-fired steam engines—could still be seen as distant dandelions, dragging steam and smoke across green horizons. Few middle-class families had cars. There were two television stations; BBC and ITV. At thirteen, I carried more money in my pocket than a family earned in a week. Roma people were called Gypsies and traveled around England participating in carnivals, selling hand-crafted goods, working with livestock and steel.
To some people, Gypsies meant drunken men; fighting, stealing, sizing up a community, always looking for a chance. Gypsy life meant multi-colored wagons—horse drawn wagons—circled in a camp near the edge of town. Gypsy women, in colors wilder than their caravan homes, seemed to represent a blend of witches and she-wolves. They wore rings on all fingers, had piercings and silver-capped teeth. An innocent making eye contact could well be lost.
That danger with Gypsies was vague. I was warned not with specific admonitions, but with half-anecdotes like: “That time the Gypsies came for May Day, and young Hester—Madge and Brian’s little lass …” a tsk, shake of the head, slow blink, “… barely fifteen she was …” or “all I know is little Davey’s down at the river, fishing …” eyes in the distance, bottom lip pursed, “… and then he’s gone. Next day, the Gypsies have left town.”
The river Ancholme, slow and green, divided my mother’s hometown. Raised in the desert, I was sure I loved to fish, but I needed opportunity. So I spent my unscheduled days on the riverbank where biology was available; moss and nettles, water sounds without garden hose or sprinkler. Unseen fish could well be toys found in a box of cereal. You never knew what was in there until you pulled one out.
Working class towns, like my grandmother’s Brigg, featured old brick row houses. Little distinguished one from another—all two-story with an attic. The front door, for special occasions only, painted a bold enamel color, had brass numbers—like my grandmother’s 32—and opened up into a rarely used, small formal sitting room. For daily use, we took the dark passageways which allowed access from the street to the back door. Out back, away from the house, a small building held an outside toilet and coal room. Away from there, a long narrow garden, ended at the pig sty.
Streets were cobbled; worn smooth by feet, carts, hooves, and recently, cars. Morning air was cool, damp and sooty. Compared to America, England was quiet. Train whistles and hand tools interrupted silence like parenthetical asides. Everyone on Glebe Road remembered my mother as a girl and greeted me with a soft, “Now then, Rick.”
I liked to rise early, butter some penny bread loaves, add treacle, wrap them in wax paper, take a couple of cold sausages, and be gone all day. I’d hoist a wicker fisherman’s basket, strap it over my shoulders and grab my three-piece fishing rod. Going out the door, I would kiss my grandmother. She’d always say, “Mind the gypsies, lad.”
And stepping from my granny’s house, I’d sight the sty at garden’s end, inhale carbon and moisture, and duck through the passageway to the street. Feeling the cobbles beneath my high-topped tennis shoes, I headed for water mimicking the sound of the train; my dry mouth matching the steam whistle of the locomotive.
Along the way I stopped for bait. Tuppence bought a small tin of maggots writhing in sawdust. The Ancholme’s Tench, Bream and Roach favored fly larvae. I headed down Wrarby Way, turned into an alley, and followed that to the river. I walked down the riverbank until Brigg was behind me, traveling a path of clay, tightly-packed by the hooves of draft horses—long dead; beasts that once strained against creaking leather, pulling barges to the seaport, Hull. I continued walking away from town to one of my favorite places.
Half submerged, a boat—long sunk—marked my fishing hole. I waded down through nettles to the river’s edge, found a level spot for the basket, and assembled my pole; stringing line, setting the split-shot weights, measuring the placement of the painted quill float. Soon I had a line in the water and a train whistled, bound for Hull. I was free in my solitude. Any fantasy I wished to conjure could unwind in privacy. Adults held no power over me here. When I jumped from the riverbank to the cabin roof of the sunken boat, I was Tom Sawyer. I stood on my boat, the captain of autonomy.
One particular morning my quill jiggled—indicating a fish attacking the maggot. The line went tight and I snapped up the pole tip, setting the hook in my fishes’ mouth. As I reeled in a hand-sized Bream, a wolf of the Ancholme, a shadow, a three-foot Pike—all teeth and danger—snatched my fish. Then my line went truly tight. The chain of possession went from Bream, to me, to Pike, then back to me.
“Goddamn!” I hollered.
My line zipped, ripping gashes in the river, stretching tighter, emitting high notes, ascending toward the inevitable, PING!
When the Pike snapped my line, two witnesses shouted sympathy.
“Goddamn!” They shouted. “You had him!”
Turning, I looked up the bank. Long hair, colorful clothes, dark features. My breathing stopped. I knew they were Gypsies. Only American and Gypsy kids played by the river on a school day. I inhaled carefully as they picked their way from the river road, down through the nettles, to stand beside me.
The youngest, took my pole from me and switched it back and forth like it was a whip—as if he’d never held a fishing pole. With his older brother standing next to him he seemed to sense his safety. He watched me in a way that felt like a dare. I understood, not only the fact that I was out of my element, but that I stood at water’s edge, surrounded by nettles and Gypsies.
The older boy was about my age. He flung out an open hand, exasperated. “What were you thinking?” The hand chopping. “You should have let out some line, fought him a little, tired him out.” The hand turned, palm up, indicating my pole, “This line is too skinny for that fish.”
The youngest handed back the pole. “What’s your name?”
I must have blinked. I’m sure it seemed to them that I couldn’t remember my name. But I had just lost a big, great fish. My feeling of privacy was shattered. No one knew my whereabouts. Little Davey’s down at the river fishing … and then, he’s gone.
“Rick,” I said, then swallowed.
“I’m Jean-Pierre and this is my brother Anton.” We nodded formally. I was afraid to initiate touch, so a handshake was out. Jean-Pierre announced seriously, “You could have fed your family for a week.”
Anton stooped down, opened my wicker basket, and looked inside, then up to me. “Are you a Yank?”
I drew up in defiance. “American,” I said, surprised at how assertive I sounded.
Anton cowered and looked up at his big brother. Jean-Pierre smiled at me. His nod and shrug acknowledged our superiority. My disadvantaged position lessened somewhat as Jean-Pierre and I recognized the role of teenagers putting up with a younger brother.
Anton whined, “I’m hungry.”
Jean-Pierre mocked exasperation with a sigh. “Go get some spuds from the field.”
Anton stomped up the bank.
Still nervous and uncomfortable, I needed distance, so I jumped onto the roof of my boat. I looked into the water, expecting to see my big fish glaring at me.
From behind, Jean-Pierre’s voice, “We call this boat, Star of the Sea.” He paused, “Me and Anton.”
I continued looking into the water. “I wonder why it sank.”
“My dad says it was stupidity.”
Anton came back sulking with an arm load of potatoes. When he dropped them, they rolled unevenly down the bank. Ignoring the display, Jean-Pierre said, “Good. Now go get some clods.”
At the edge of the river we built an oven from dirt clods. Jean-Pierre tended the fire. I restrung the fishing pole and Anton caught two small Roach. We cooked them with our potatoes. Dessert was bread and treacle. While we ate, I kept looking from the field to the little oven thinking how easily fish and potatoes became food.
For the rest of the afternoon we played beside the Ancholme, jumping back and forth from the Star of the Sea to the bank, claiming territory, racing along the old riverside path and throwing clods at anything that moved.
Summer in the high latitudes made it difficult for me to adjust sunset to dinnertime. By the time we tired, my stomach was rumbling. The boys invited me back to their place for dinner.
It had been hours since I’d eaten—and I was always hungry. I knew well enough about little Davey and young Hester, but Jean-Pierre and Anton seemed like nice enough kids. Most important, I didn’t want to seem like I was a little boy who got into trouble with his mama. I tried to appear casual as I weighed my options. “Okay.”
Just a quarter-mile downstream, near the river, lay the Gypsy camp; some conventional travel trailers with car hitches and half a dozen wooden caravans, smartly painted, and on big-spoked wheels. Large, shining horses grazed in hobbles. Two men chopped firewood with an axe and a woman washed something in a tub. A pale, thin dog noticed us, but circled instead of barking. Upon entering the camp, the boys ran ahead to their caravan calling, “Mum!”
A mysterious-looking woman with black curly hair and thick eyebrows opened the top half of their door. Silver bracelets clattered at her wrists. Hoops waggled from her earlobes. She leaned out over the door. Would her teeth be filed to points? Could she capture me with her mind? The dog snuck up and sniffed my legs. Any second now, I would run for my life.
“We’ve brought our friend, Rick, to eat dinner!” shouted Anton.
Jean-Pierre was more careful. “Is it okay?”
With white, normal teeth, their mother smiled down at us. “Sure, it’s okay. Just a minute. Let me get something for you.”
A little self-conscious now, I felt like an intruder.
Safe again within the camp, Anton stepped back and hollered, “He’s a Yank!”
Their mother returned to the door and handed down three pieces of bread—torn from a loaf, three green onions, and three plate-sized, gauzy, flat discs with handles. I followed the boys to the river. Jean-Pierre handed me onion and bread. The disc was a wire coat hanger reformed into a circle. Over that framework stretched a ladies’ nylon stocking.
While the sun meandered near the horizon, we squatted beside the river. Thousands of tiny fish, no longer than the width of my eye, scuttled in and out of safety. I watched their movement—collective frenzy. A cluster of rocks, a clump of weeds or shallow water, gave protection from deep-water monsters. Nothing protected them from us.
Anton waited until a group of fish moved between two rocks. He quickly dipped his seine beneath them and lifted wriggling protein to his mouth. Using the bread in his left hand, he prevented them from flipping back to water. Then he tilted his net and the tiny fish bounced right into his mouth. Jean-Pierre stooped, expertly herding a small school before scooping them up.
I hesitated, wondering if I could get sick, realizing that my mom wouldn’t approve and would probably be worried about me. Then my stomach growled. And as if transformed, I joined in; tossing wriggling fish fry into my mouth. Nip the onion, tear a bite of bread, skitter back some fish. We could have been beside any river at any time in human history. We were three children feeding.
*
Back home, eight years later, with long hair and peasant shirts in colors, I shunned conventional life. I was a vagabond in a Volkswagen, living by my wits. I understood practicality and the importance of scale. If I couldn’t fix it or carry it, I didn’t want it. Most all my needs lacked magnitude when I considered nothing more than the days’ providence.
One day, I stopped to visit my parents. My father was scandalized, my transformation from middle-class heir, to him, a form of loss. He searched for the words that would insult me back to the sensibility of conservative America. He couldn’t bring himself to call me a hippie—too many other implications—things best not acknowledged. So, he called me a Gypsy.
Maybe young Hester didn’t like her prospects; living in a row house—unique only by the color of her front door—carrying coal, hanging drab laundry. Maybe some swarthy young Gypsy promised green fields and starry nights. Maybe a mobile home and horses granted access she could, otherwise, never achieve. It could be that a man who adorned his woman with silver and gold might trump any ruddy-faced youngster with a tin of sweets.
And maybe, playing on a rotten boat, Davey fell in the river and drowned. Fish might have eaten him as he floated—trapped beneath the surface. Or he might have just walked away, saved his money, bought a small car and toured the country.
Stolen by Gypsies. Maybe so.
Richard C. Rutherford is previously published in Hypertext, Fiction Southeast, Stone Coast Review, Squalorly, The Tishman Review, Red Fez, The Writing Disorder, Visitant, and many other fine literary magazines. He has daughters, so he’s a feminist. He supports local bookstores, reads Julia Whitty, Steinbeck, Audrey Lourde, DeLillo. He has a large collection of stories, many of them phone size.
