Gone Fishing

In an insane moment of fatherly affection
I decided to take my son fishing one day.
Being only six or seven at the time, he
was young and inexperienced, but he appeared
ready. Right away, the worm thing was a
problem, but once he got used to the idea
that a worm's life meant nothing to us, it
was easy for him to stab the sharp silver
hook into the wiggling end, killing it for
all intents and purposes. Was it in the head,
the tail, who knows, girl or boy, we couldn't
figure that out either, but no screaming was
involved despite the considerable amount of
squirming and blood when the hook went in.
We then cast our single line, plop, into the murky
water and stood there motionless for what
seemed like five hours, but was only fifteen
minutes. We smacked violently at the horseflies
and mosquitos that were ravaging our legs and arms
and my son looked at me strangely when he heard
words he had never heard before. We then recast,
rewormed, and then repositioned to a point maybe
ten feet from where we were standing. This part
of the man made lake seemed better, despite the
fact that there was still the horrible smell
that reminded me of an open dumpster behind a
chinese restaurant. We finally got a nibble
and our line quivered, then a strong bite,
so we pulled back on our rod, bending it ever
so slightly so as to snag the hook into the stiff
lip of the unsuspecting fish. He took it and we
could feel his struggle on the line and in the
fiber rod. Slowly we reeled him in so as not
to lose our catch. It skimmed weightlessly
along the surface before comming to a halt at
my son's feet. What is it, he asked. It was about
three inches long and was the color of an anemic
goldfish, pale and frightened. I shook my head
and ran through the list of fish I knew, fish
I had ordered off of menus or seen on the box
of frozen foods at the grocery store, I don't know,
I said, flounder? Of course he wanted to keep it,
so after a struggle of getting the hook from
it's grimmacing mouth we dropped him into a
small bucket of lake water. At this point my
son was calling him little Willie and the fishing
part of the day was finally over. We had to get
little Willie home, we had to feed him. My son
was worried that the hook may have injured Willie's
boney lip. Perhaps mom had some neosporin at home
we could dab on him. Thankfully Willie died
within minutes of being put into the bucket.
Shock, whatever. He couldn't take it. It
might have been me squeezing his one ounce
body too hard as I yanked the hook out of it's
mouth, crushing it's tiny fragile organs.
But we were done here. My son was upset and tears
filled his eyes, he was talking now about
Willie's brothers and sisters still in the lake
looking for him, his mother waiting for him
to come home for dinner. There was no mention
of Willie's father which bothered me in a whole
other way. We tossed the remaining cup of blood
worms into the water, hoping that it would help
little Willie's friends and family get over
their tragic loss. Then my son said that he had
to pee really bad, so I pointed at a tree
where he could go. So he went, then we drove
home quietly and talked about getting a pizza
and washing our hands the first chance we had.