3rd Collection
By John Grey
18
TWD Magazine
The Rules Of Fishing
It’s fall. The tourist fishermen have left this river for their real lives in the suburbs and cities. Laid off from the mill, he hooks worm to float. tosses it out into the meandering current, settles back with his first beer. The town may be dying but the small-eye still run and he hasn’t lost his thirst. A friend plops down beside him, another man, mid-fifties, in similar straits. But they don’t talk up the job that got away. The arms are either for popping cans or stretching to the size of an exaggerated pike. That’s when the bobber suddenly dips. It’s almost an annoyance when it interrupts idleness. He reluctantly hauls it in. It’s a crappie and undersized at that. He frees the poor creature before it thrashes itself into unconsciousness. He almost apologizes as he tosses it back into the waters. He didn’t make the rules. He didn’t send a business south in search of cheaper labor. And it’s not his fault that a quiet river bank can be a perfect place when nowhere else even comes close. It’s a world in which who he is doesn’t much apply any more. And nor does a fish. At least not until it grows some more.
The arms are either for popping cans or stretching to the size of an exaggerated pike