He thought, this is a fishing day, let's head out to the reservoir. Recently licensed and having access to the second car his family owned, he headed out to the lake near the border of the thriving Massachusetts town. High school classes were almost done for the year. Soon he would be graduating and making decisions that might follow him for years to come. A soft breeze drove small waves to the shore, filled with stones and offering a few places to sit and watch the birds while making food offerings to the fish. The irony involved in this gesture did not escape him. Barbed it was. His mother was a Barbara, he thought in a brief reflection on nothing more than sound and lapping waves on rocks. This compounded the guilt he was already feeling about tricking the fish. His dear mother was merely telling him that joining the military might do something for him in the discipline department. His grades were just below Merit Scholar level and he was not particularly interested in bringing them up, in any case. Nor was he interested in being picked up on the street and shipped to a jungle to try and kill residents of that area, if he did nothing. It just seemed unnatural for some reason. Bad enough what he might do to fish now having a relaxed time below. What was he doing here, anyway?
A car drove up and two men emerged heading in his direction. One of them signaled he wanted to talk. "Where's your fishing license?' he asked, in a rather neutral way, without any pleasantries about the day, the weather or even a hello. Hell was the unexpressed word in the mind of our young fisherman, this time without a hint of the self-reproach seemed to drape itself around him like a fishing net sometimes. He pulled his fishing permit from his pocket and showed it to this person, whoever he was, for he had not identified himself. "That should be pinned to your shirt where I can see it. I can take you downtown for doing that". The guy went on about the location of the permit for awhile and walked off with his friend who began berating him for being an asshole with the kid. Perhaps those were not his exact words but once again, our young man was coming up with his own vocabulary this morning. There was the fishing hole which had promised peace and quiet. There was the man's khaki panted, overweight, ass which was pointed in this direction and then there was a witness to all of this who was apparently trying to teach his bad tempered friend something now.
No longer interested in casting out a line our young man, Paul, unscrewed his pole and headed back to his car when he suddenly thought of something he really did want to do. He turned and ran toward the older men, stopping just before he would have made contact with them. "Okay, take me downtown. Let's go. Put me in jail. I get a phone call right? I will need to call my Dad. And he's going to want to call some friends of his to get me out. And your friend will make a good witness about what happened. Right sir? Both of you are serious gentlemen, it seems to me. And we need to let everybody in town know about the seriousness of this situation."
Out of the corner of his eye he could see little rings appearing in the water. And it wasn't raining. Can fish applaud, he thought? Are they happy I am going to jail? How will my mother feel about this? What will Dad tell his friends? Do I care?
Not really. He thought as they drove off to the town center. The car was silent as it moved along with the prisoner in the back seat. Houses went by as they usually did but this time appeared cell-like, full of uncertainty and doubt. He was an alien in a strange land reminded him of Africa. Music from the radio played in his head. Was Paul dead? Did he blow his mind out ina car?
He didn't join the military in the aftermath of this event at the reservoir. He went to school and read some poems in classes that made sense to him somehow. Later on he got a job helping veterans who became addicted to heroin in the jungles of Vietnam after stabbing themselves in an act of unknowing.
He never went fishing again. He was an odd sort of person who didn't fit in and everyone knew it. But he liked to play golf.
One day he was playing golf, by himself, in Richmond, Virginia. It began raining heavily and he took shelter under a tree.
Lightning hit the tree and killed him. So he didn't finish the round. Later, his family received a bill claiming he didn't return the golf cart he was using at the time to the clubhouse. This turned out to be a bureaucratic error like much of what happened in those days before computers straightened everybody out. A homeless gentleman had come along, seen what happened before anyone got there, and driven the golf cart off to find help. Somewhere between the 8th and 10th hole he saw a friend, got distracted (he had severe ADHD) who offered him some medication for his ailment. The two of them parked under a bridge next to the James River and celebrated the life of their benefactor. They had no idea who he was but he looked like a friend after being hit by the lightning, deeply tanning and very crispy.
