He’s trying to be nice, and I don’t want to be a pain in the ass, so I walk around the front of the truck… and he’s holding fishing poles. This has got to be a joke. “We’re fishing?”
“Take about.” He pulls a Minnie’s Bait and Tackle ball cap from behind the seat and puts it on my head. “That’s my lucky hat. Don’t worry about the guts.”
“There’s guts on this thing?” My voice sounds kind of squeaky. I don’t like guts, but I leave the hat on my head instead of touching it with my fingers.
“Lucky guts.”
“I hate to deprive you of your lucky guts hat. You should wear it.”
“It looks better on you, city girl.” He laughs and holds up the bug spray. “Now close your eyes.”
He sprays every inch of me, then hands me the can. “Get the back of my neck really good.” I do as he says; then he grabs a cooler and hands me a tackle box that has seen better days. I don’t see blood or anything suspicious, but I’m sure it too was christened with lucky guts at some point. The metal handle is loose, and I tuck the box beneath one arm as we walk down a short path to a wooden dock.
He said I would love it. “This’ll be great,” he said.
“Have you fished before?”
“No.” And I’ve never had a desire to either. I like my fish the same way I like my chicken: packaged and clearly marked with an expiration date at the grocery store. The dock sways and creaks beneath our feet as we walk toward the two Adirondack chairs at the end. Simon sets the cooler between them and I ask, “What’s in there?” I hope it’s not live bait that might jump out.
“Water and Coke on ice.” He rigs the poles with shiny lures and red-and-white bobbers as I wave away bugs flying in front of my face.
“I don’t want to catch an actual fish.”
He looks down at me from beneath the brim of his own lucky guts hat, then reaches into his tackle box for a big knife. “We’ll both be safer this way.” He cuts the line beneath the bobber and the lure falls onto the dock. “When Jasper was too much for me, I’d come back here and throw in a line.” He ties a bell-shaped sinker beneath the bobber and lets go. “Nothing like it to get your head straight.”
He shows me how to cast, his big arms around me and his hands cupping mine. He smells like man soap
and bug spray. As it did that day in the garage, my brain says, Ooh, this is nice.
Simon drops his arms and takes the nice feeling with him. Which is probably a good thing. “You try now.”
To my surprise, I drop the bobber behind me only twice before I whip it over my head and out into the bayou. I smile with accomplishment. I’ve never fished before, but I sit in one of the chairs and watch my bobber rock within the ripples like a pro. Frogs croak and cicadas sing, and a snapping turtle comes up for air. I suppress my “city girl” urge to lock myself in the truck and hope ugly beetles don’t dive-bomb me. “What if there’s an alligator?” I sit up straighter. How could I have forgotten my alligator repellent? “What should I do? I haven’t practiced a zigzag!”
“Just watch your bobber, tee Lou. Don’t overthink it.”
“Easy for you to say. Your legs are longer, and you can run faster.”
“True.” Simon’s line makes a ziiiing as his lure whips out to the other side of the bayou. “But for you, I’ll give you a head start.”
“Promise?”
“Mais la! Gators don’t mess with you unless you mess with them.”
“That isn’t what you said at the grocery store.”
“You obviously don’t know when someone is joking.”
“And you obviously don’t know when you’re not funny.”
“Relax.” He sits in the other chair and looks over at me. “I promise to throw myself on a gator if you promise to relax.”
“Sounds fair.”
A shadow slashes across his face as he opens the cooler. “What’s your poison?”
“Water, please.” I do take a peek inside before I lean back in the chair, though, and I’m grateful that I don’t see anything in there but bottles. I stretch my legs out in front of me and stare out at trees and grasses on the far side. “Why’d you throw your lure so far away?”
“The current’ll take it downstream and dump it in a hole where the fish hang out.” He hands me the water and cracks a Dr Pepper. “Nothing to do now but relax and watch your line.”