It wasn’t like when he was younger, when his eyes were worth a damn. When his hands could bend steel bar in half like a paper clip, if he needed to. When had weekends off. Gladys and the kid, a road trip to the delta, a hockey game, a Sunday roast. It wasn’t like that at all. For one thing, there was no more Gladys?—?not for three years now. And his son didn’t hardly ever call him nomore. Phone calls at Christmas. Grandkids, spoiled, no respect, as if it was torture just speak a second. And it wasn’t like he had Sundays or hockey nights, or weekends, or the lake. How many years since the casting of a fish line, the led weight plopping just right, the cold beer as noon washes away the clouded sky, the canvas tilly hat drenched in sweat, hanging from a cord around his neck as he wrestled on board another big one, silver scales and fat belly. His son would bring him out another time.
