An Afternoon With Grandpa

Sam scrunched his eyes but he couldn’t keep all the sunlight out, and it started to hurt. If the light were just coming from the sky it would be OK, but the way it bounced off the water made it hard to look out over the lake.

He put his right hand up next to his eyes and that helped. He kept his left hand on the fishing pole, worried that if he set it on the dock the only fish in the whole lake would suddenly grab it. Even though he and grandpa had been out here for what seemed like a whole day.

Sam knew it really hadn’t been that long. Even at 6, he was pretty good at time and knew that when he was bored, minutes would go by really slow. He turned his head and looked down at his grandpa’s wrist, and then remembered. Grandpa lost his watch. He saw the white stripe on Grandpa’s skin, a perfect watch shape with a bulge in the middle. And a the top of that bulge there was a red mark, a cut but not a cut because Sam couldn’t see any blood.

Sam looked up at his Grandpa, who was wearing his floppy fishing hat as usual. He wore the had even when he wasn’t fishing, and his mom told him it was to keep the sun off Grandpa’s head because he lost his hair a long time ago. But not all of his hair. Puffs of gray sprung from below his hat, and he noticed his grandpa would take off his hat every now and then to run his hand over his head, as if seeing if he still had any hair. “When you’re my age,” his grandpa would say, “you’re lucky to have any hair at all.”

“Grandpa, what time is it?” Sam said.

“Time enough to fish,” Grandpa said. Grandpa said that a lot, even when they weren’t fishing. Sam knew it was his favorite thing to do, and last year on his birthday he and his mom surprised Grandpa with a new pole. Only it was in the basement, Sam knew. He wasn’t sure if Grandpa ever used it, and mom told him it was because Grandpa was “set in his ways.” And one of his ways was fishing.

“Your grandpa has a certain way of doing things, so it’s just best to let him be,” mom said. “You get into a groove in life and it gets to you just want to keep things the same. Grandpa’s not one to change.”

That was why Grandpa was still up her at the cabin, even though mom wanted him to live with them. They had a room at the house that mom kept calling Grandpa’s room, and there was a bed, even a TV. Sam would to in there sometimes and watch TV. Sam didn’t think of it has Grandpa’s room, though. It was his safe room. He found out that if he shut the door and turned up the TV real high, he couldn’t hear all the other stuff. And if he couldn’t hear the other stuff, he felt better.

That’s why Sam liked it up here so much, even though he really didn’t like to fish. It was quiet. When Sam would wake up, all he would hear is music from the radio in the kitchen. So much better than the other stuff at home.

Sam squirmed because his butt was starting to hurt. Then smiled because he thought of the word “butt.” Butt butt butt. He wasn’t allowed to say that word at home, because there were con-say-kwensees. There were con-say-kwenwees for lots of stuff, like not doing what he was told (and he had to do it “right away”). Or talking back. Or not talking at all. And sometimes there were just con-say-kwensees. Mom would cry. And then she would have con-say-kwensees.

Sam wondered what con-say-kwensees there would be now.

“Butt,” he said. Again. “Butt.” Testing.

“But what?” Grandpa said.

“Nothing,” Sam said. “Only my … only it’s getting hard sitting so long.”

“We’ll just stay out here a little longer, that OK with you? Not too much longer, I promise.”

“OK, Grandpa.”

The sun didn’t hurt as much. Most of it was behind the trees now, and that helped a lot. Sam loved the nights here. Grandpa let him bring in the wood from the stack outside and build a pile in the fireplace. Sometimes Grandpa would even let him use the lighter. Then Grandpa and Mom would tell him stories about growing up. Mom was a “tomboy,” which was a girl who wanted to be a boy, or maybe just did boy stuff. Sam wasn’t sure, but it was fun thinking of his mom playing baseball and climbing trees and swimming faster than anyone else. And he also liked how his mom smiled and laughed, because she didn’t do that a lot.

He wondered why Mom couldn’t have stayed a tomboy. She never played baseball or climbed trees or swam anymore. Sam found it hard to believe his mom did any of those things. Now all she did was make dinner and wash dishes and do what she was told (and it had to be right away, or there were con-say-kwensees).

That’s another thing he liked about Grandpa’s house. There were no con-say-kwensees. He still had to follow all the same rules, do what he was told and not talk back and stuff, but it didn’t hurt if he forgot sometimes.

He felt a tug. In his left hand. The fishing pole. There was a splash.

“Hey there boy, ya got something?” Grandpa said.

There was another pull on the line, and Sam held on with both hands and tugged up like he’d seen his grandpa do. But he forgot what else.

Suddenly there was another hand on the pole, and Sam felt Grandpa at his back.

“That’s good, you want to keep him on the line by pulling toward you,” Grandpa said. “But you have to reel him in too. You remember how to do that?”

“I think so,” Sam said, lifting his right hand off the pole and grasping the reel’s handle between his thumb and middle finger. He tried to turn it, but it wouldn’t come.

“It’s stuck,” he said. “ I can’t, Grandpa, I can’t get it, I’m sor-“

“Sammy, relax, everything’s fine,” Grandpa said. “What we’re gonna do is pull up, right, just like that. Now as we dip back down, you start to wind that reel, OK?”

Sam tried it again, biting his lower lip. Only this time it turned. And it was easy.

“Grandpa, I’m doing it,” he said. “We’re going to get him, Grandpa.”

“That we are, Sammy, you’re doing great.”

They lifted together, pulling the line taut as it danced back and forth. Sam heard a splash and suddenly he was tumbling backward, his arms shooting up over his head and striking something soft.

“Jesus, ow, dammit!”

If they were home, Grandpa would face con-say-kwensees for bad words. But they weren’t home, and Sam was not sure he’d ever seen his grandpa face con-say-kwensees.

Sam leaned forward, still gripping the pole, and sat up. He turned around to look at Grandpa, who was holding his face. There was only a little sunlight now, but just enough to see a splash of red between Grandpa’s fingers.

“Grandpa, you all right?”

Grandpa stood up, one hand pinching his nose together. “Oooh boy, that smarts. And twice in one day.”

“Sorry Grandpa, I was pulling and then I don’t know.”

“He just got away, Sammy, right when I thought we had him. Sometimes that happens. They get away. But if you get the big ones, you can go home happy.”

“Was that a big one, Grandpa?”

“Not so bad, but not the biggest today, that’s for sure.”

“For sure.”

The worst part of fishing, Sam thought, was the end. When you actually saw the fish flopping around. Sometimes Grandpa would being a bucket full of water and toss the fish in, where it would wriggle. But that would only make Sam even more sad because he knew what was coming and the fish didn’t. Once Grandpa showed him how to “clean” a fish, only Sam thought it was everything but “clean.”

Once Sam asked Grandpa why the fish flopped around so much when they were out of the water.

“Well, if you look on where their necks might be, if fish had necks, you’d see little slits,” Grandpa said. “Those’re called gills. I’m not exactly sure how they work on account I never was very good at biology, but somehow gills grab air from water so fish can breathe.”

“Fish breathe? Then why don’t they just breathe regular air like we do?”

“You see, they need the water to bring the air to them,” Grandpa said. “They were built to live underwater, just like we were built to live on land.”

His grandpa sat back down next to him, fingers still pinched around his nose. Grandpa reached with his other hand into a back pocket, taking out a handkerchief. He flapped it a few times and put it up to his nose.

“Body gets too old to put up with this abuse,” Grandpa said. He looked at Sam. “And a body can be too young, huh Sammy?”

Sam kind of knew what Grandpa was talking about. But Grandpa promised things were going to change. Sam knew Grandpa kept his promises.

Sam hadn’t noticed how little sunlight was left until he noticed another light coming from behind him. There was a sound too, an engine, then some doors slamming.

“Well, Sammy, guess it’s that time,” Grandpa said, standing and shoving the handkerchief back in his pocket. Even in the fading light, Sam could see Grandpa wasn’t looking so good. He bad a black eye and a cut right below the brim of his fishing hat. And his nose was bloody again.

Sam stood as well and took one last look out at the lake, where he could still make him out, barely. Or maybe not. Maybe it was just a piece of wood.

“Grandpa, only fish have gills, right?”

“You bet, Sammy. Just fish. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“Cause I don’t want con-say-kwensees.”

“Neither do I Sammy, but if one of us has to face consequences, I’d rather it be me.”

Sam reached across, his hand swallowed by Grandpa’s, who gave his a reassuring squeeze as they walked back to the cabin.