GONE FISHING

OR;

A GOAT AND HIS BAGEL

LEE WATERS

Nick could feel the plastic tin of nightcrawlers bulging and writhing against his palm. He’d cracked the lid open at the bait shop and seen some monsters and knew tomorrow morning was going to be good. He opened the front door with his free hand. 

“I think I’m going fishing tomorrow.” He hung up his cap and slipped off his boots. “Honey?” The TV silently lit the living room in flashing blues and the empty room on the right was open. “Honey?” 

He peered through the doorway. Anna was curled up asleep on the rug–otherwise, the room was about the same. The bed remained made, with cross-country medals pinned above. The curtains were still drawn open. “Hey, let’s get up, okay?” 

She stirred. “Why?” 

“C’mon.” 

Her head dropped back to the floor. He knelt down. Anna was not heavy, but she was completely limp and he struggled to lift her in front of him. He carried her across the hall to the bedroom door and jostled the handle with his elbow. The lightswitch was too difficult to reach–he navigated by feel to the bedside. She was snoring softly already, and he was careful to lie her on her side before pulling the other half of the comforter over her. 

Nick paused for a while. He brushed her hair out of her face, stood up, and went to get a trash bag from the kitchen. 

—–

  The second wine bottle was on the desk. He dropped it into the bag and it rattled against the first, rising in pitch quickly—Nick spun the trash bag around until it was silenced. The journal on the desk was open to April, and he closed it before tucking it back between the mattress and the wall. He tied the bag around itself before placing it next to the kitchen trash. The worms were still by his boots, and he took them to the fridge in the garage. As a reminder, he brought his tackle box in front before turning off the lights. 

Inside, he set an alarm on his phone for 5:00AM and swapped HSN for South Park. He liked the little guy with the orange coat. 

—– 

There was a weathered wooden fence maybe one-hundred yards in front of him, and he was aware that he was inhuman–something smaller, and far hungrier. This was not a surprise to him, although it was becoming uncomfortable, and reflexively he knelt his head to the ground. It was fibrous and dewy and each blade popped gently under his teeth. He digested, then chewed his cud, before shuffling forward and repeating. 

His head bumped the fence, and he realized that some time had passed since he’d begun eating. He looked up–the fence continued about fifty yards towards either side before stopping at a corner. In front of him, beyond the fence, more food stretched along the ground a short distance before fading into a layer of fog. As he knelt down again to eat, he noticed a round object to his left, and he rotated his body such that he could bite it.

The outside was tight and sweeter than the soft, airy interior. He could feel the skin snap with the second bite, and he bit and bit until his mouth was full. He ground it side-to-side, savoring how it melted on his tongue even before ruminating. From his first stomach, he felt it begin to vibrate and ring and he woke up. 

Nick shook his eyes open and turned off his alarm. He dug the remote out from under his thigh and stood up. 

—— 

The garage door shook against itself as the motor powered on. Weak blue light ran up and down the lawn through the pines at the end of the drive, casting shadows even to the edge of the house. Nick lifted his tackle box clear of the fridge door, then took out the worms. The box, he threw in the bed–he took the worms in the cab of his truck and left for the lake.

—— 

The sun would not be above the horizon for another ten minutes. He switched on the radio. Fifteen more minutes of driving, and then about a six-minute walk from the parking lot to the pier. The guardrail at mile fifty-one was still bent down, but the gash in the dirt had overgrown quickly. Linda Ronstadt came on, and he found the volume dial’s reeded edge under his fingertips. 

He was the first person in the lot, and given that it was a weekday he didn’t expect to see anyone else for at least another half-hour. The serpentine belt squeaked and stuttered as he turned into a spot and pulled out his key. He put the truck in first and took the tin in his hand. The worms were writhing no less than yesterday. 

A steady, light wind blew from the water and towards the dawn. It did little to cut the humidity, but kept the morning pleasant. By noon it would be above ninety and too muggy to sweat. He couldn’t quite see the other side of the lake, and to his left and right the shoreline continued nearly straight for some miles. The pier’s branched end was barely lit, and he clutched his tackle box eagerly as he began the half-mile walk. The further he got from shore, the weaker the breeze became, and Nick knew the fishing was going to be good. 

The last time he went out was six weeks ago, and the walleye were already huge–he didn’t have a cooler today, but maybe next week he could find some time to come out again. It’d be a nice dinner. Could pan-fry it–maybe make some coleslaw, too. Aren’t any more lemons, though, and he needed to get eggs. On the way home, maybe… 

He could feel sunlight crawling down his hair and warming the nape of his neck and he smiled. Even without the breeze, the lake was still cool–the temperature at the pier’s end was still pleasant, and he set down his tackle box on a bench. Next to it, he cracked open the worms and reached for the hook he’d dug into the handle of– 

His curse was audible to none but himself and entirely damped some twenty-one minutes back home. The dawn yellowed and crept up through the garage door windows, across the carport and up the wall towards the cork handles of two fishing rods.