Justin Cronin - The Summer Guest

“Holy mother!”

I knew he was about to panic. “Set the hook now,” I called to him, scrambling down the bank. “Just a lift.”

But the excitement was too much: he yanked his rod upward, and the pattern sprang away, soaring back over his head.

“Fuck! Fuck it to hell!”

He climbed back out to me, splashing all the way. “Okay, you tell me what happened.”

I asked to see his rod. As I’d suspected, the drag was clamped down tight as a jar lid. I loosened it a turn and held it up to show him.

“See this? Forget the drag, at least until you’re sure you’ve got one on. Just use a finger to tighten the line when you set the hook. A quick jerk, but no higher than your shoulder.” I demonstrated once more, then passed it back to him. “These are heavy fish, they break off real easy.”

He fingered the line as I had done, lifting the tip of his rod just so.

“That’s it.”

“Why’d I give up golf? I still feel like an idiot.”

“It’s trickier than it sounds.” I shrugged. “It just takes practice.”

“These fish, like fucking movie stars. Won’t come out of their trailers.”

A bit downstream, Carl Jr. and Marathon Mike seemed to be having better luck; while I watched, each of them got into a fish, first Carl and then Mike, so that, for a magic minute, both had something on their lines. Just a couple of rainbows, but Mike’s was a nice one, over ten inches, and he held it up with a satisfied grin to show me before setting it back down into the riverbed. A bright, splashing flick of its tail, and off it went, none the worse for wear.

I was watching this when Pete stepped up beside me. He’d been gone about an hour, claiming he wanted to try the shallows down where the spillway opened out into the lake. Though, of course, this was a lie; he’d just wanted to go off somewhere to bob his line in the water and be left alone to think about his woe-filled, Ivy-educated life.

“Any luck?”

“Some.” He didn’t elaborate. I could smell a bit of whiskey rising off him; in one of those bulging vest pockets, I figured, was a flask, now mostly empty. The air was full of the cold water that roared with pulverizing force out of the aqueduct; even standing in bright sunshine, it was impossible not to feel its chill.

“How about these guys?” he asked, not at all interested.

“Nothing much. Couple of rainbows. The Atlantics are being fussy.”

“How’s Bill doing?”

“Nada so far.”

My answer seemed to satisfy him. He walked up the bank and took a beer from the cooler.

“Have one?”

“On duty.” I gave him my you-go-ahead-without-me smile. “Maybe later.”

“Aw, come on, Joe.” Pete patted the rock next to his. “Fuck it. Have a beer.”

There was no harm in this, really, though I knew that if I sat to drink with him I’d soon enough be getting an earful: the nitty-gritty of his divorce, the whole unhappy inventory of who-got-what. I could practically hear it already-the final ugly words, and some sour, eleventh-hour scuffle over a dog no one really wanted, the sound of luggage being hauled in anger into the trunk of someone’s car and the spray of gravel in the driveway. It was nothing I wanted, but on the other hand, given the way the day was shaping up, I would probably hear about this sooner or later, and four hours of standing in the sun had made me thirsty.

I took a can and sat beside him. It was good beer, something Belgian I’d never had before and wouldn’t expect to find in a can.

“I think I had something on for a while there,” Pete said.

“There you go.”

He ran a hand over his damp hair. The flesh around his jowls and neck had a kind of looseness that made me think he’d been heavy as a kid, not truly fat but big enough that certain things had not come easy, and that this might explain a good deal about him.

“Didn’t have a good guess what to do about it, though. I was actually sort of relieved when he got away. Tell me again, why is this fun?”

“Couldn’t say. People seem to like it, though.”

“So to you, this is all just a day at the office.”

“Never had an office, not the way you mean.”

Pete sighed good-naturedly and rolled his eyes. “He couldn’t say. Christ.” He pulled on his beer and looked at me. “You are one monosyllabic son of a bitch, if you pardon my saying so.”

“You think?”

He laughed, getting the joke before I did. “Touché.”

For a moment we sat and sipped our beers. Bill, still trying to cast through the wind to the Atlantics below the aqueduct, had closed the gap by wading out another ten feet into chest-high water. I thought about saying something to reel him in a bit, but then figured what the hell, it was his vacation. The worst that could happen was a long, wet walk back to the truck.

“So,” Pete said, “I screwed Bill’s wife. Did I tell you that?”

This, of course, was exactly the sort of thing I had expected to hear, minus the specifics. “Can’t say you did, Pete. That’s something I’d remember.”

He rubbed his eyes and squinted out over the water. “You don’t have to worry, he doesn’t know.” He gave his head a little shake. “Christ, you should see her. Beverly, I mean. It’s his second wife, you know. The first one-” He waved his beer out over the water, to mean long gone. “So, Carol and I had just split up, over all kinds of other crap-you know, stupid stuff that basically added up to we couldn’t stand the sight of each other another minute, and I ran into Bev at, get this, the office Christmas party, and she’s wearing this thing, showing off her brand-new rack, flirtatious as hell, you know how that is.” I had no idea, needless to say, not that it mattered. “I’d heard she liked to horse around a bit. We got to talking, and next thing I know I’m calling her up and the two of us are up in Boston riding the linens at the Copley Plaza.”

At just this moment Bill’s rod bent hard; he swiveled his head quickly to look for me, like a kid showing off to his old man, shouting, “Woo-hoo!”

“See?” Pete said to me, lifting his can toward the water. “Dumb-ass doesn’t have a clue.”

“You don’t mind my asking, where was Bill while all this was going on?”

Pete drained the last of his beer and crunched the can in his fist. “Oh, off in East Jesus someplace, tramping around in the cattails with some douche bag from the EPA. He really loves that stuff.” He frowned suddenly and gave me a worried look. “Why do you ask? He say something to you?”

A crazy question; of course he hadn’t. That Pete would ask it told me just how tippy the whole situation was. “Just filling in the details.”

“So he didn’t say anything.”

“No, but let me toss an idea your way. You guys always take vacations together?”

Pete mulled this over. “I see what you’re driving at. I do. But I’m telling you, you’re barking up the wrong tree. If he knew, I would have heard about it. Believe me.”

We sat another minute, watching Bill fighting what looked to be a pretty-good-size Atlantic. I just hoped he had the good sense to break off before it dragged him into the drink and filled his waders with water the temperature of a thawed Popsicle. I was figuring by this point that Bill didn’t just suspect something was going on-he absolutely knew, probably right down to the hour. This little outing was his way of saying, Up yours, junior, see if I care. I’ve got you in my sights.

“She’s a lot younger than him,” Pete said.

“I had a feeling.”

“Guess how old.”

I heard myself sigh irritably: guessing games, like junior high. “I don’t know, thirty?”

“Close, Joe, very close. Twenty-eight. Twenty-fucking-eight.” Pete scratched his cheek and flicked a bit of grunge away. “Probably I’m not the only one, I admit that. Given what everybody says. But I mean-Jesus, if you only knew.”