Treble hooks and small boats

The boat was too damn small anyway.

It floated dangerously, his father’s weight making the stern sit low in the water, the two square ends and rough white plywood making it look like an over-sized toy. They pushed off from the dock, rocking away from the mosquitoes already appearing as the sun settled lower. Daniel sat facing backwards, too little room to face his father, looking at the sun flashing off the window of the rented cottage, so you couldn’t see in at all. His father rowed, and he could hear the creak of the oarlocks, metal on metal, the awkward splashes when an oar caught the water.

The lake was small - about 300 yards across, almost a deep pond, and they hadn’t caught any fish in the first four nights of their vacation.

They’d missed one night, when his father went back to the city after a phone call. He’d stayed in after dinner then, watched his sister play hair stylist, twisting and pulling their mother’s brown hair, her face as blank as the lake’s surface.

“Are you having fun, even if you’re not smiling,” his sister had asked her, and she had nodded but then left the room for a while, and he had read to his sister.

They always went to a different cottage, swam and got sunburn and tried to catch fish, and his father got tan and laughed. But this year they’d looked too late, and the cottage, the boat, the lake were all too small, and the dog had come out of the water with a leech, fat and black-red, on its back leg. His father had touched it with the end of a cigarete while the boy held the dog, and it dropped off into the sand, but after that they all had to check for leeches. The boy didn’t fear swimming, but he hate the moment when he had to look for something bad.

They stopped rowing in the centre of the lake.

“Right, let’s catch some breakfast,” his father said. “This looks like a fishy spot.”

“You think they all look like fishy spots.”

“No, this feels special. And we missed last night, so they’re in a biting mood tonight.”

“Why did you have to go back?” He kept his voice even, and didn’t look around, heard his father opening the tackle box, felt the boat shift as he leaned forward.

“What do you think, calm enough for a surface lure?”

He looked around, over his bare shoulder, and saw his father, hair a little too long, skin red.

“Sure,” he said. “How about I try the jitterbug.”

It was a chunk of plastic, red and white, with a big metal plate in front to make it bob and gurgle across the top of the water, trailing a treble hook.

His father tied on the lure, a practised knot that looked much easier to tie than it was, then leaned his head and with sharp teeth bit through the excess nylon line.

“Why did you have to go back.”

“Just work, something I couldn’t avoid. That will probably be it for now though.”

He handed the rod, the dark grey reel, and looked away. The boy saw how calm the water was, and deep, and looked at the cottage just up from the lake, where his mother and sister sat and played hairdresser or read about little children and country lanes.

He held the rod in his right hand, grabbed it with his left for support, then moved it backwards, stopping the motion quickly so it would bend and generate more speed as it snapped forward, the lure like a pendulum.

But he heard a little gasp, and didn’t pull forward, just turned around, holding the rod loosely. Two of the hook points were sunk into his father’s cheek, just above his mouth, a single drop of blood looking almost jaunty beside the bright lure. His father was smiling, he quessed to be reassuring, but instead he looked like he welcomed the pain.

He said sorry, watched his father stand before the mirror, trying to cut his skin with a razor blade so he could pull the barbed hooks out. But he couldn’t.

He just stood fo ra long time with the blade pressed against his skin, stretching it, but that’s all.

It took an hour to drive to the hospital, and his sister fell asleep in the car before they got back to the cottage.