It was a Friday in April, Richard Nixon’s heart gave out, and Uncle Chip gave me a tackle box.
“You can have it,” he said. “Got a new one in the truck.”
His mullet dripped down his back, dark curls glittery in the light. The late spring sun smelled like nickels and lemon grass; the oriole songs plaintive against the swaying limbs throwing shade at our feet.
We went in opposite directions and paced the banks, casting our lines. The river rolled along, coppery and gentle. Every now and again I’d get a bite, but nothing stayed with me. Chip wasn’t having any luck either.
After a while, cloud-shifts over the sun told us to pack it up and herd it in, the moon already high and pale as bone in the pink sky.
“Guess canned spaghetti is on the menu tonight,” he said.
We got a fire crackling. A few wet logs hissed and spat back at the flames. He cut the lid off the can and nestled it into a little bed of coals. Ten minutes later we were eating with our fingers from overturned Frisbees, wiping our hands on our pantlegs and drinking warm tap water from old two-liter pop bottles.
“Too bad about the fish,” he said. “But this ain’t bad.”
I nodded.
“You sure are quiet,” he said. “You look like you’re lost in it.”
“I’m just happy to be here.”
“Me too, kid. Me too.”
Before calling it a night, he told me stuff out of a children’s book. Something about a guy looking for his toe. And another one about a murderer, which he claimed was true.
There were lightning flashes in the faraway distances as we climbed into the tent, wind picking up and scratching whispers across the canvass. I fell into a deep sleep to the cadence of his breathing.
I woke a few hours later. Thunder echoed off the white-caps, lightning so intense and frequent it bleached the sky. I reached for Chip, but not far enough. I couldn’t get to him. Or he couldn’t get to me.
What’s the difference?
More distance, strengthened by force.
When the clouds finally parted, the streetlights popped on, and the gentle sound of my mother’s voice, through the war of my blood, called me back up to the house to try to smooth away the hurt.
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