(Insert bad fishing pun here.)

The only one I'd caught that day

had been by accident; I wandered over

to the pole on the ground, figuring the wind

had knocked it over or the tide had pulled it down

but when I picked it up I felt the tension on the line

that suggests the possibility of a fish being on the end

and sure enough, when I reeled it in, there was.

I was nine or ten then so my old man took it off the line

for me since I hadn't yet learned the art of taking the hook out

without cutting my hand or killing the fish. You could say I still

haven't, from a figurative point of view, but that's besides the point.

That was the only catch of the day for me, a ripe old catfish

pulled from the ruins of a pier in the Hudson. My father brought

us out, my uncle and cousins and me, and we were "going to have

wholesome fun, dammit. That's what fishing is about." And no, he

never said that, but it was always implied, as with all of the rest

of the things I was conned into doing as a kid when all I wanted to do

was sit in my room with my GI Joes and make up complex storylines.

My cousins were younger by three and five years, the girl being older.

The German-Italian side of the family was colder than my mother's

and any function with them always felt so forced. Hugs didn't happen

and even smiles were fake. It's part of the reason why I stopped going

to Christmas and Thanksgiving over there, it felt like eating cheese

and crackers at the city morgue. Anyway, these alleged blood-relatives

of mine had come along for the awkward ride and were not leaving without

saying they had caught some fish. They shadowed my father in all his

overly equipped glory as he cast his expensive rigs and untangled knots

in lines caused by the lousy technique of the amateur anglers who

supposedly were related to us. I had no interest in all that, though, I knew

how the script would pan out well enough to avoid a lead role. It's an odd thing

not being the main character in your own memories, but it explains why

I still can't sleep at night knowing he's out there somewhere

telling lies about my whereabouts and health when friends, family, and co-

workers ask, and seeing a woman who drives a white sedan.

While they watched him bait hooks and shoot lures out sixty feet

I stumbled around on the stony shore composed primarily of driftwood

and slimy green rocks submerged at high tide, still unsure of what I was

looking for. Somehow it seemed more interesting to explore on my own

than watch this charade unfold, see my father talk down to his little brother

like they were still kids, watch my cousins pick their noses and scratch

their crotches and not understand that to let it all play out again

is to say it was alright the first time. That's why I can't call him, you see.

It's my way of saying No to the cycle that his grandfather created.

It's a stubbornness of love that only those afflicted would understand.

It's a reason to sit on a hungover Sunday and write about a stupid fishing trip

that happened a decade-and-a-half ago and act like it matters, then or now.

The catch didn't interest me, the draw of the chase was not yet in my blood.

They were throwing them back anyway since fish from the river were deemed

inedible due to the pollution, except to the Koreans and Blacks and all those

in general too hard up to turn down a free meal based on speculation.

I had other plans for the quarry, however. I wanted to observe them

before tossing them back into the drink. Those slippery stones I stepped around

came in handy. I stacked them in a circle, more of a bastardized rectangle

just at the edge of the water and began filling it with the fish my family caught.

The smaller ones slipped through the cracks and the larger ones couldn't

swim in a wide enough radius to turn around, their dorsal fins sticking out

of the water, but it gave me something to do besides want to be somewhere else

and something to watch besides the waves and a family that was never really mine.

But then it happened, the tide came in. Soon the fins disappeared under the water

and only the tips of some of the bigger rocks stuck out and eventually

the entire coop had disappeared, along with my interest in it. He put his

rod down for long enough to walk over and state the obvious in fatherly fashion

like I didn't know I'd lose the battle with nature sooner or later; a ten-year-old

may not know how to yank a hook, but inferiority to the world is learned early on.



-----------------------------------------%%%%%^^**$$@~~~~~~~~}-~~~~~



And inferiority to the dead guys who did it better is learned these days

every time I sit down here to type. It should've read like a vague description

with a possible reference to the arc in his throw and the failed Atlantis

I tried building for awhile to distract myself from a situation I didn't want to be in.

That would've been so much more tasteful, so pleasing to the critical eye, but

I let what lies beneath all those images sneak its way into the story again.

For that I claim full responsibility, but let's see you lose a father

and his (uncomfortable, but none-the-less) family and not let that

spoil the surprise, take the fun out of deciphering it all for yourself.

Yeah, let's see you try it without missing, slugger.

My mother once said that he was the only man she knew

who could ruin a wet dream. It disturbed me to hear her

speak like that, but I guess it's true since he can even manage

to spoil the writing of a person he hasn't seen in a year-and-a-half.

You can write with the heart or with the mind, but not with both.













Currently reading:

"Tropic of Capricorn" by Henry Miller.