Rowin' Jones and the Wrath of God

A core memory on the water

It’s strange how some moments echo louder when the wind kicks up and the sky turns dark. The kind that settle in deep and stay there, quiet at first, then surfacing when the air smells like rain and metal. This one’s carved in like a bone memory.

It’s been too hot to think straight this week. The kind of thick, Southern summer heat that makes the air shimmer and the garden wilt. Step outside, and it feels like you’re trying to breathe through a bowl of gravy. By evening, the sky has had enough of it, too, and starts to grumble. You can smell the storms coming before you see them—sweet and sharp like metal and damp earth. The thunder rolls in slow, like it’s warning you to batten down the hatches.

Last night, I lay in bed watching the lightning flash through the curtains and dance across the bedroom walls while trying to convince the dog that she wasn’t going to die. And just like every time I listen to the syncopated patter of rain under the bass roll of thunder, I think about the time I almost died on the Chickahominy River.

I was maybe 11 or 12, and Daddy and I were out there in his old jon boat, catching bass on topwater plugs and feeling like we’d hacked the whole system. No outboard motor, no trailer—just that beat-up boat he used to heave into the back of the truck, wedged up on the cab, tied down with rope. We’d driven almost all the way to the Morris Creek boat ramp with that thing bouncing behind us.

Photo by Raychel Sanner on Unsplash

That boat ramp was familiar ground. It opened into a wide, weedy stretch of the Chickahominy River, where hyacinths and cypress knees would tangle our lines. I could smell the brackish water long before I could see it.

And we were catching fish. A couple of bass boats sped past us as Daddy rowed, trying to beat each other to the best spots. Daddy just grinned and shook his head. We knew better ones anyway.

We were joking around like we were filming an episode of Fishing with Rowin’ Jones — our own bootstrapped spin on Fishing with Roland Martin, one of Daddy’s favorite shows. We thought we were hilarious out there with nobody but the ospreys and red-winged blackbirds to witness our antics.

He was never in a rush and always in a good mood when we were on the water. That’s one of the things I remember most. He was always stoic, distant, and somber at home. But on the water, he came alive. He was funny. And always in the moment, never worrying about bills or Mama or what needed fixing at home.

And while other fishermen were gunning it across the water, chasing some idea of success, Daddy just kept a steady rhythm with the oars, making jokes as he went, even though I know it must have been hard work that tired his body. But out there, in that meditative flow state of casting and reeling, he was completely present. That’s how I learned what love looked like — steady, lighthearted, showing up without needing to make any fanfare out of it.

We spent most of the day trying to keep our treble hooks from snagging, swatting at the deer flies, and getting sunburned. But shortly after a break in our casting to eat a lunch of soggy peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and lukewarm Pepsi, the wind started to shift. A wall of dark clouds swept in fast, turning the sky the color of a deep, purple bruise.

Just before the first crack of thunder, everything went still. The birds stopped calling. Even the hyacinths, usually gently rocking with the current, looked like they were holding their breath. It’s the kind of silence you only notice in hindsight — too quiet, too charged. We didn’t say anything. Daddy just picked up the oars and started to row like hell.

He never said he was scared. That’s not the kind of thing he would ever admit. But I could see the shadow of it on his face when the rain started to pelt us before we even caught sight of the boat ramp..

By the time we were halfway across the river, the storm had turned violent. Rain was falling sideways. The waves slapped the boat like white, angry hands. And the air felt like it was sizzling just before lightning started to crack the shore ahead of us.

Daddy handed me a plastic-covered throw cushion and told me to sit on it.

“Keep your sneakers flat on the bottom,” he said, “and don’t touch the sides.”

I was old enough to know that a throw cushion wasn’t going to ground me, especially if lightning hit the boat. But I held it like it might. Because we were the only thing on a large swath of open water, and there was lightning striking all around us. The thunder sounded like a loud whip cracking right next to my ear. It was nothing like the low, steady rumbles you hear when you’re safe and sound inside your bedroom.

I thought we were both going to die.

I wondered how long it would take them to find our bodies. Would it be long enough for the fish to nibble our fingers? Would they find the boat first? Would Mama cry at our funerals? I’d never seen her cry.

We did make it back. Soaked, shaking, and quiet. The kind of silence you earn. The rain was letting up just as we started to wrestle the boat back into the truck.

Daddy didn’t say much on the way home. He was chain-smoking, one hand on the wheel with a Winston between his fingers, the other resting on the truck door like always. But his knuckles were white.

After that, the story became legend. One of those tales we told now and then, just to feel the heat of it again. Rowin’ Jones versus the Wrath of God. We’d laugh about it while warming cold toes over a deer season campfire, bringing it up whenever we were wetting lines on calmer waters. But underneath the laughter, I could always feel the pulse of that moment — that edge between adventure and disaster.

I can still feel the way the air felt, thrumming and alive.

It was the first time I understood how thin the line is between control and chaos. That nature doesn’t care how good you are at casting or rowing or catching fish. That you can do everything right and still almost not make it — that scared me. But it also hooked me. Because after you’ve faced down something wild like that, you’re never quite the same.

That storm carved itself into me. Not just the fear, but that wild, soaked, half-holy feeling of being out in the world and alive.