I
was out fishing one day and getting a few bites here and there when a broken
down piece of crap car, an oldsmobile somethingorother came hobbling in to the
woods by my fishing hole. It is not a secret place at all and I do not
care if others fish it but there is something sacred about fishing.
Fishing takes patience and usually anyone who has patience is also respectful,
it is the way of the outdoors maybe. Out of this car ambled three youths,
two overweight guys with long, tangled-hair, pants slung low, and t-shirts that
looked a little small. With them was a
young "lady" with short hair, big clothes, and no makeup. She was a plain sort of girl with apparently
all of her good qualities hidden from the light of this clear day. I was
kinda confused because if the guys switched styles with the girl, I think they
all would have looked a little better. Now I am no slave to fashion or
anything and judging them on this first appearance would be shallower than I
normally think I am. Where they lost me was with all the yelling, the
fake and really dumb laughter, and the cheap beer with no chips or anything to
nibble on.
I gave them the obligatory howdy nod which is common with outdoorsmen and they
replied with a "wave" and a nod. "Catchin anything"?
Maybe they were fishermen after all. It
was clear they were not real experienced woodsmen. I am sure the only
time they slept the under the stars was when they got locked out of their house
because they were late getting home and even then they probably slept on a
porch swing or something. With a wave, a nod and more speaking and with
nothing to nibble on to boot, they moved their queer little operation just
upstream from my spot. Anyway, I went on fishing and the youths came
nosing around to see what I was doing. I was sitting on my gray flannel
shirt folded on a small tree branch that ran along the ground and it had a kind
of give to it, so I was doing a little bounce as I fished. "Cool
setup" the less offensive of the three said while checking me out.
The other guy decided to sit on his cheap 7-11 cooler with three old Milwaukee
lite beers in it and smashed it all to little pieces and of course now the
cooler is going to be part of the fishing hole landscape for 50-60 years.
I am always amazed at how many pieces low-density polystyrene can break
into. The young lady was going to fish, she looked like she new what she
was doing because she was winding fishing line from a spool onto a fresh
out-of-the-box Zebco 320 stratocaster. She was using the two fingered,
redneck hold on the beer can while trying to load the line on the reel. Only
the most experienced fishing people even attempt to thread line while
holding a beer, tying the hook will be the test that separates the men from the
boys. She had decent hair and that distinguished her from the two blobs
she was with. Even though she spilled the beer a bit, I could have some
compassion for her due to the complete and irritating lamness of her
companions. The bigger of the two guys emptied his beer and his bladder
at the same time and in the same stream where I was fishing. Then he
threw the can in the water, I almost coughed up a lung. It was clear I was not
going to catch any fish at this spot for a while, but I decided I would stay to see them fall in or get hurt somehow. It was a damn nice
day and I could tell these kids would be leaving soon.
"What ya using for bait", asked the girl, "Crickets"
, I said. " freeze dried"! Now I am not sure what pissed
the guys and girl off, whether it was the word "cricket" or
"freeze dried" but they all looked at me like I was turning purple and moved down the
creek a bit. They kept laughing and peeing and throwing beer around and
doing very little fishing. They were not going to catch anything anyway
because fish know what a beer can looks like and beer cans mean fish fry to a
fish. The fat kid walks up to me and says "hey old dude" Is
there something I can do to this bait so we can catch some fish? Now
there are times in every ones lives that we kinda think out loud and should
have a little more control over one's mouths, this may have been one of those
times. I said, " You need to skank it". He chuckled at the
sound I guess and said "skank it, what the fuck is that". I kept
watching my bobber and said, “Have that skanky girl friend of yours rub it on
her crotch, you should catch something with that". I added " It seems
to have hooked you two morons". I am always surprised by the
quickness of youth. I did not really have much time to be surprised in this particular
situation. They were all over me, all three of them smacking me with lots
of little punches. The best thing about lots of punches is that you do
not remember many of them. It was not like in the movies where they would
lean back and wallup you, No, it was more like a vibrating bed, except harder I
guess. I remember thinking, "this does not really hurt like I
thought it might", yes I was thinking out loud again. They must have
been tired of hitting me because they started trying to kick me, but were
mostly just falling down and cussing.
Suddenly, they stopped flailing me and stopped falling down. They quickly
jumped in the olds 98 and with flying rocks and dust left my fishing
hole. They left the zebco 320 stratocaster, one beer, a scarf and a
bleeding old man. I guess they thought the PoPo would be after them for
beating up an old man but I was ok. I took the beer and poured it in the
river. (fish like beer, they just do not like fishermen) I collected as much of
the polystyrene cooler as I could find, grabbed the Zebco and headed
home. I remember thinking, "I did not know anything about those kids
and I was sort of disrespectful to them and I should apologize if I get the
chance. Also give that girl back her
zebco but until then, I guess a beating will have to do."