by Gray, Amelia
Dale emerged from the back room with his baitcaster. “Sorry for the late start,” he said, pulling a six-pack of beer from the fridge.
“No problem.”
“You make sandwiches?”
“They’re in the cooler.”
Dale nodded. “I had some problems down at the DMV,” he said. “They installed a security checker, and everyone was all up in arms about me bringing in a weapon. I was holding up the line, I had to talk to some supervisor. After all that, I didn’t even have the right identification.”
Howard grunted.
Dale fit the baitcaster on its rod. “Can’t let that kind of treatment go. It’s a concept of self-respect. If people can’t treat with respect, what are we supposed to do? As a civilization. You know what I’m saying?”
“Sure.”
“All I’m asking for is what’s fair for me and my family. This country has long flagged on the equal rights front and this is another card in the deck.”
“People might think it’s strange, is all,” Howard said. “It’s none of their business.”
Dale picked up the paring knife and placed it cork-down in his breast pocket. “It’s not their problem,” he said. “That’s what it is.”
“It’s not your problem, either,” Howard said, picking up the six-pack. “Let’s get out there.”
* * *
The two fisherman sat all morning without a single bite. It was a few hours in before they got to talking.
“Explain women,” Dale said.
They enjoyed having these theoretical discussions, though they were both married and each secretly felt he understood women well enough.
Howard leaned his shins against the cooler as he spoke. “We’re fishermen who don’t eat fish,” he said. “We catch fish, but we enjoy pointing out interesting things about their fins and scales.”
“Remember that trout I caught with the two mouths?”
“That trout was mutated.”
“It only ate with one of those mouths,” Dale said. “I cut it up later and that second mouth was a vestigial situation.”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
Dale looked out at the quiet pond. He liked to avoid misunderstandings. “We don’t eat fish,” he said.
“We are interested in fish, but we don’t eat fish.”
It felt like the kind of morning where men end up making decisions, Dale figured. He was using his old baitcast reel, the Rick Clunn model. He had a lot of respect for Rick Clunn, a professional angler who seemed to keep his life in order with more ease than the average man. He was determined to practice his fan cast that morning, sending the line out like the arm of a clock in an attempt to cover as much water as possible with each cast. The line kept falling slack and Dale eased back into his old overhand. Howard was dozing under his cap, head bowed.
Dale considered Rick Clunn’s idea that angling is an art form, and that his own artistic growth faltered until he recognized it as such. Rick Clunn felt that the highest level of his aspiration as an angler was to help a select few touch perfection in that which they most enjoyed. Rick Clunn felt that the world’s troubles were caused by everyone else mucking up the works with details and greed.
Dale, for his part, felt that the world’s troubles were caused by simple misunderstandings. From sprawling wars to domestic disputes, any problem could be easily drawn down to something happening and a person or group of people getting the wrong idea.
The theory was cemented in his mind every time he brought his paring knife with him to church.
There they were, dressed for service. Every week, Dale pressed his pants and sharpened her blade lovingly against the oilstone. He knew it looked a little strange for a man to prop a paring knife next to him in the pew, he realized that, but he figured that as long as he kept the tip of the blade protected with a cork, nobody would say anything. One Sunday, the head usher tapped him on the shoulder as the first hymn began.
“I’m sorry to disturb you,” the usher said, once they reached the narthex. They sat on the spare pew under the picture window, as they did when they had these conversations. Dale’s paring knife rested between them.
“It’s no trouble,” Dale said. They were Presbyterians, which meant they were unfailingly polite.
“The knife is bothering folks again,” the usher said. “I know you don’t mean to.”
“Who is bothered?”
“It’s a new family. We’re trying to keep them in the flock. We value young families, as you know.”
“My wife and I are a young family,” Dale said.
“And we welcome and accommodate you, as we have for years.” “I wonder if we would feel more welcome if we had children.” The usher took a long moment to scrape a patch of candle wax from the wooden pew with a credit card. Wax shavings drifted to the seat between them. “Of course that’s not necessary,” he said. “Perhaps you could keep your wife in your breast pocket? Close to your heart?” The usher nodded politely to the paring knife.
“I respect your position,” Dale said. “I respect that we can have a dialogue about this. But when I’m sitting in church, I’m trying to hear a sermon, and everybody else should be too. Instead, everyone’s swiveling around and looking at me, and you’re having to come drag me out.”
“They don’t understand your position,” the usher said.
“Darn right they don’t understand my position. That’s exactly what I’m trying to say, here. This is a misunderstanding on their part.”
“And in turn, would you say you perhaps misunderstand their position?”
“I don’t understand it,” Dale said, “but I don’t misunderstand it. There’s a slight difference there.”
“But a difference, all the same.”
The sermon was over and the organ had begun to play the offertory. Dale and the usher stood. “I may as well head out and beat the rush,” Dale said.
“For what it’s worth,” the usher said, “I think she’s a handsome knife.”
Dale slipped her into his breast pocket. “I appreciate that, sir.”
* * *
Howard sometimes wanted to cook and eat the frozen tilapia, but he always resisted. He made a special portable cooler, one that could be plugged into a wall outlet or a cigarette lighter. This allowed Howard to keep the wife in bed with him, even to take her on short trips, such as to the Western history museum Howard loved, the one with the special barbed-wire exhibit. There were many different types of barbed-wire, but his favorite was the type with the independently rotating spurs, five every yard. It was too bad about the safety glass. If the safety glass was not in place, Howard would flick the spurs, sending rust flying. He had fitted his portable cooler with a convenient shoulder strap, which allowed him to carry the wife right into the museum. They could be in there for an hour and a half before thawing became an issue.
By noon, there were a few more boats on the water, and the campers were moving around on the shore. Dale adjusted the rod and watched the patterns his line made on the water. His Rick Clunn baitcaster glinted in the sun. “Here’s my thoughts,” Dale said. “As adults, we experience a finite number of crystallizing moments in our lives, these points when we each had to close the door on a person or a feeling, or a way of life. The night of that formal dance in high school, I closed the door on women.”
It took Howard some energy to consider that far back. “Because Jan Parmentel got sick?”
“She could have at least told her girlfriends to tell me.” Howard reeled in his line and cast it again. “Seems like a minor infraction.”
“Sure, it was. It was. But it hit me at just the right time, right on my sweet spot. You know how baseball bats have a sweet spot, and you hit the ball right at that spot and it flies over the fence? Every time?”
Dale looked to Howard for confirmation. Howard twitched his line.
“Winter Formal 1983 was my sweet spot,” Dale said, “and Jan Parmentel was the last girl on Earth.”
/> Howard’s portable cooler was empty at his feet, as the bag of frozen tilapia was snug in with sandwiches and beer in their larger cooler. Dale’s paring knife was still in his breast pocket. It rubbed a little against the side of the pocket and had begun to slightly cut the fabric. It was just a few threads every day, but soon the shirt would be ruined. On the shore, a lone camper, a woman in a black bathing suit, was waving. They watched her.
“I believe that woman is waving at us,” Howard said.
“She’s just waving,” Dale said. “She’s not waving at us.”
“It looks like she’s by herself out there.”
Dale squinted. “You think?”
“Maybe she needs help.”
“That isn’t our business.”
“Come on, now. A woman’s out there waving directly at us, and you’re saying that’s none of our business? There’s some idea of implicit blame there, if something was happening to her.
It was difficult to see the woman from where they were sitting, but she was definitely moving her arms in their direction. Howard could barely make out the black of her bathing suit and the white of her legs. She had both hands over her head. Howard reeled in and started the motor. “Let’s just have a look,” he said.
* * *
On shore, Wendy finished her beer and backed up to accommodate the advancing boat. “Howdy,” she said, snapping the wide band of her bathing suit on an encroaching mosquito. The men stepped out of the boat and pulled it farther ashore. Dale reached in and retrieved his Rick Clunn baitcaster and rod, carefully securing the line.
“Hi there,” said Howard.
“Good day for fishing.”
“Were you waving at us?” Dale asked.
“Pardon?”
“Settle a bet,” he said. “Were you waving?”
“I was stretching,” Wendy said. She had a wide smile that displayed the line of gums above her teeth. Howard estimated her to be about five years younger than he.
“Knew it,” Dale said. “I knew it.”
“We were just getting ready for a little lunch,” Howard said. “Mind joining us?”
“Sure, I’ve got a couple extra beers. I was about to have a bite, myself.”
Howard hauled the cooler out of the boat and planted it next to Wendy’s lawn chair. “I’m Howard, this is Dale.”
“Wendy,” she said. She was pretty, Howard observed. They shook hands and she reached into her backpack. “Care for a beer?”
“I’ve got one right here, thanks.” He opened his cooler and pulled the sandwiches out with his beer. The plastic bag holding the sandwiches had opened, and Howard examined the food inside, wrapped with wax paper. The bread was wet but salvageable. He handed the drier sandwich to Dale and picked a soaked piece of bread off a second. They were bologna sandwiches, which reminded Howard of school. He wasn’t sure how a plain girl like Jan Parmentel could ruin a man’s entire outlook on life Dale was eating his sandwich and watching them moodily. “Sorry they’re a bit wet,” Howard said. “The bag broke.” “It’s a good sandwich,” Dale said.
“Bologna from the old days.”
“What old days?”
“Back in school, like we were talking about.”
Dale shook his head. “I didn’t eat bologna.”
“Sure you did,” Howard said. “You loved those sandwiches. You got my mother to pack you an extra one on Fridays.”
“I never liked bologna. I never ate it.”
They stared at each other. “We appear to be at an impasse,” Howard said.
“We can be at whatever you want, Howard. This is the first bologna sandwich I have ever eaten.”
“In your life?” Wendy asked.
Dale grinned at her and lifted the sandwich.
“He’s full of shit,” Howard said.
“Tasty sandwich,” Dale said.
Howard closed the lid of the cooler with his foot. “How can you know you never liked bologna if you’ve never had it?”
“What I meant is, I never liked the idea of it.”
“That’s not what you meant.”
“What did I mean?”
“I don’t know what you meant.” Howard flung a piece of soaked bread into the woods. “What you meant is a mystery between you and Jesus.”
Dale took a careful bite of his sandwich. “I’m not sure we have to bring higher powers into it,” he said. “I’m just enjoying a sandwich while you enjoy our fine company, here.” He smiled at Wendy, who smiled back a little nervously. She leaned towards the cooler and opened it again. “Whatcha got in there?” she asked, and before Howard could stop her, she pulled out the bag of frozen tilapia. “Seems a bit expensive for bait, hmm?”
“Let’s have that,” Howard said, trying to reach casually for the bag.
Wendy pulled it back, playfully, and turned it over as if examining the package. “Don’t these things have mercury in them? That could be bad bait, you know. Can’t have a mercury level in your body, that never goes away.” She snorted. “Unlike some things.”
“S’not bait,” Howard said.
“What’s that?”
“It’s not bait.”
“What is it, then? Lunch?” She held the bag with both hands at the corner, as if she was going to open it. She flicked at the plastic with one fingernail, then balanced the whole bag in her open palm as she used the other hand to snap at her bathing suit strap again. She tossed the bag in the air and caught it with one hand. She saw the look on Howard’s face and started to laugh, displaying her shining gums. The pillow of white skin across her thighs rippled as she laughed. His expression opened something dark and playful in her, and she laughed louder, holding the bag over her head, dropping it into her lap. Howard stared at her, helpless.
Dale, deciding at that moment that he had seen enough, picked his fishing pole, gripped the rod backwards, and clocked Wendy on the mouth with his Rick Clunn baitcaster. It happened in one smooth movement, almost natural. The anodized aluminum frame of the baitcaster landed with a smart thwup on the woman’s face.
Wendy howled and fell back, dropping the bag of frozen tilapia and holding her reddening face. “You bastard,” she managed, reeling.
Howard scooped up the bag, threw it back in the cooler, hefted the cooler onto the boat, and pushed it off. Dale was right behind him, wading fast through the water in his galoshes. Neither of them looked back. The engine started on the third try, and they were four hundred feet off the shore in half a minute. They could barely hear the woman screaming over the sound of the engine.
Howard couldn’t bear to look back. “That was unnecessary,” he said.
“She’ll be all right.”
“We were having a conversation.”
“You weren’t going to do anything.”
“That was god damn unnecessary.”
“Are you kidding?” Dale said. “She was about to open it.” Howard reached into the cooler and pulled out the bag of frozen tilapia. Bringing the bag to his mouth, he gripped it with his teeth in the same place where Wendy had held it. He pulled open the bag and flung it, frozen tilapia and all, across the water. Howard spit out the plastic that had lodged between his teeth.
Dale gasped. “What have you done?”
The water was speckled with glittering, frozen white fish fillets. They floated, bobbing with the boat.
“We don’t eat fish,” Howard said.
They had been too long on the water, and the day of fishing was over. The motor and their commotion scared everything off. Still, the men were slow to leave, watching the tilapia waver uncertainly before sinking. Dale felt like he had been in the sun too long, like he was going to be sick.
When they finally came ashore, and the police were there with that woman, he wasn’t immediately sure why. “You’ve got the wrong idea,” he kept saying, “you’ve got the wrong idea,” but explanations vanished. They caught hold of him, and both officers had to wrestle him to the ground to take his knife away.
&nbs
p; THERE WILL BE SENSE
And then, though they had a choice, the doctors put a generator in my heart, and they gave me a magnetic band to wear on my wrist which I must pass over my heart when the old feelings begin again. Arnold, they say, you are certainly a special man. The following are true:
1. Because of a history of powerful migraines accompanied by the trilling melody of seizure, I had certain precautions installed to prevent me from biting off my tongue;
