Lost Between Houses by David Gilmour Page B

old man looking down, thinking of things to say. I think just the effort made it harder, like when you’re trying so hard to listen you can’t hear a goddamn thing. But he had a nice smile on his face, it was like he was
willing
the whole thing to go well.
    We came around the edge of the forest, went up a small hill and turned down through the swamp. The sun disappeared overhead into the tree branches. The air went cool. The mosquitoes came out. We went in single file, him leading, me following. Stepping over tree trunks. It was a spooky place down there; coming home from a dance late at night, it was like something out of a horror movie, the frogs croaking, crickets going creek-creek, creek-creek.
    We got to the boathouse, this shitty little red shack on the edge of the lake. Full of mosquitoes and wet bathing suits. Nothing worse than trying to put on a wet bathing suit. Makes your nuts crawl into your stomach. We hauled out the tackle box, a couple of rods, dumped them in the boat and headed out into the middle of the water. It was quite a pretty time of day, late afternoon, the sun setting on the water, everything sort of flickery gold, the old man and me, feeding out our lines, him shading his eyes because it was blinding out there with the sun bouncing off the water. We slowed the engine down to a crawl and then,bringing his rod with him, he came and sat beside me on the front seat.
    “I love trolling,” he said. “I never catch anything but I love it anyway.”
    “It’s the ritual,” I said.
    For a moment I thought he hadn’t heard me. He was looking way off at the horizon.
    “The ritual?” he said with this little frown. A friendly frown though. But like he was puzzled and just a teeny tiny bit irritated to not be sure what I was saying. It made something flutter in me, like
oh-oh, he’s getting mad.
I sort of jumped in with my explanation.
    “I mean it doesn’t matter if you catch anything or not. It’s just all the stuff around it. Getting in the boat, being on the water, the company, all that stuff. It doesn’t really have anything to do with fish.”
    “You figure?”
    “Yeah,” I said. “I used to have that about catching sunfish off the dock. I’d stay down there all day, catching the same fish over and over and over. Eventually I began to recognize his face.”
    He pulled back on the rod and the line rose from the water, silver drops falling away.
    “What do you suppose’d happen if I actually caught something?” he said.
    “You’d probably have a heart attack.”
    I wondered if that was a great thing to say to somebody who’d just been in a clinic for three months.
    “I think we’re safe,” he said.
    Things were quiet for a little while. I could feel him working up to something.
    “That was a damn fine report card you got, you know.”
    “Wen, I passed. That’s a relief.”
    “You did better than that. Your mother tells me you’ve turned into a first-rate drummer.”
    “Did she say that?”
    “Verbatim.”
    “She says I play too loud.”
    “That’s not what she told me. I’d like to come down and hear you sometime.”
    “I’d be nervous.”
    “You should get used to an audience.”
    “It takes me awhile to get warmed up,” I said. “You’d have to be patient. And give me lots of warning. And not sneak up on me in case I’m playing a really shitty song.”
    He frowned.
    “I’m sorry, but you know what I mean.”
    “I’ll warn you,” he said. “Plenty of warning. You know I used to play the banjo?”
    “You did not.”
    “I did. I had to stop though. Couldn’t make the chords any more.”
    He looked at his left hand. The fingers were bent into a sort of permanent handshake from where a tank hatch fell on them during the war.
    “So I hear you have a girlfriend?”
    “Yes. A model.”
    “Never had a model girlfriend. Nice girl?”
    “If she likes you.”
    “Well, does she?”
    “Yes.”
    I waited a moment. “Is that what you meant?” I said.
    “Well