Suddenly the overcast sky took on a very gloomy feel as Kevin made his way back to the shore, smile on his face as he saw Nick holding his fish up by the line with a look of pride on his face.
“Are you just going to stare at that thing all day or are you actually going to take it off the hook and put it in the bucket?”
“I have no idea how to do that; doesn’t it just kind of admit its own defeat and hop in there itself?”
“How on earth you lived in Tampa all that time without catching a single fish is beyond me,” he said pulling himself out of the water and placing his father’s fishing rod next to him as he sat down beside Nick.
“Hey there are two kinds of people in this world Kev,” He said handing the now dead fish on its hook to Kevin, “There’s the people who catch fish and the people who eat the fish people catch. I fall into the latter category.”
Kevin laughed as he pulled the fish gently from the hook and kissed it before placing it in the bucket, only to hear an amused giggle as he did. “Okay what’s so funny Carter?”
“Uh, nothing I guess if you always see people kiss fish.”
“Oh that.”
“Yeah that, so that was weird Kev...care to elaborate?”
“Kiss your fish and make a wish.” Kevin said to the water as if he wasn’t even speaking to his friend.
“Huh?”
Kevin turned towards Nick, “There is a saying that we Richardson’s use and that’s ‘kiss your fish and make a wish.’ After you catch your fish you have to make a wish and kiss the fish then whatever you wished for will come true.”
“Okay, and does it usually work?”
Kevin uncharacteristically sat as Nick always did, curling his legs underneath his body like a pretzel, “Well supposedly it started with my great grandfather Joseph. He owned a farm and one summer they had seen this horrible drought, all his crops withered and died and as a result he was about to lose his house. His brother, Maurice…”
Nick laughed out loud, “Mo and Joe…just like my talking dog joke!”
“Do you want me to finish this story?”
“Yes sorry…go on…your uncle Mo…”
“Right, Maurice…one day told my great grandfather to relax, stop trying to salvage his farm for a day and go fly fishing. Well…you can only imagine how Joe took that, he was not having any of that at all. He went off on Maurice, told him that it would be irresponsible of him to go out and have a good time while he was on the verge of making his family homeless. Maurice never let up though and finally after a few hours of convincing, the two of them went off to fish.”
“Sounds like you have told this story a lot.”
“Not really, in fact it’s the first time I’ve ever told the story. I’ve heard it a lot though.”
“You’re doing a good job.”
“Thanks…may I continue or you feel like interrupting further?”
“You can be a real sarcastic ass when you want to be Kevin.”
“So I take it that’s a yes I’m done please continue.” Nick stuck out his middle finger which made Kevin laugh.
“So they go out on the lake and they are there all day long without catching a single fish. Kind of like us.”
“You mean kind of like YOU.”
Kevin rolled his eyes, “Yes kind of like me.” Nick nodded and smiled which had Kevin shake his head.
“Anyway…so they are just about to give up when all of the sudden Joseph feels a tug on his line so Maurice goes over to help him…”
“Just like you helped me.”
“Yes…why do I feel like I’m telling this story to a five year old?”
“Sorry I won’t stop you again.”
“You sure?”
“No.”
“Well, he pulls on the line as hard as he can and this HUGE like 20 pound trout comes out of the water. So they bring it back to the shore and stare at it, trying to decide if they should keep it or let it go. Maurice then suddenly gets the idea that the fish was sent from a higher power and that maybe…just maybe if my great grandfather kissed it and made a wish, that everything would be okay. So Joe did just that, he closed his eyes, made a wish…”
“That this would last forever…”
“Shut up Nick.”
“Sorry.”
“So after he made the wish, he put the trout in the bucket and decided to take it home to his family for dinner. The next day, it poured down rain and the crops he had planted the few days before grew and he was able to save his farm.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, so whenever we go out fishing, when we catch something we make a wish.”
“Have you done it?”
“Every time, there was another time when…” Kevin stopped when a loud boom of thunder was heard. “Uh oh…guess those clouds will be staying put.”
“Maybe that was just the fish gods reacting to your wish.”
“Could be…”
“You were telling me about the other time?” Nick sat, his eyes transfixed on Kevin as he told tales about his family; he loved hearing stories about people’s lives. Anything was better than having to talk about his own.
“Right once my grandfather took my dad out, he was down on his luck my grandpa, so remembering the story he had heard, he took my dad out on a boat and the two of them went fishing together.”
“Regular or fly?”
“Always fly. They spent the entire day out on the boat and they caught about three fish that day. They kissed every single one, supposedly the next day my grandfather’s luck turned around.”
“Wow, did it ever happen for you?”
“Little things here or there, like I might make a wish that I would do well on a test or make a wish about a girl, nothing major.”
Another boom of thunder clapped through the sky making Nick actually jump, this time accompanied by lightning. “Relax little man, maybe we should make our way back towards the car.”
“Shouldn’t I kiss my fish? I mean no offense to you Kevin but maybe you are bringing on this weather because I was the one that did all the work and you kissed the fish.”
“Good point,” Kevin said handing Nick the fish out of the bucket just as the first few droplets of rain fell on them. “Go ahead and make a wish.”
Nick closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. It seemed to last forever before he finally lowered his face towards the fish and kissed it. Kevin smiled at Nick’s grimace from the feel of its cold, smelly scales.
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“What did you wish for?”
“I can’t tell you that, but it better come true though because that was about the most disgusting thing I have ever done.”
Suddenly the rain exploded out of the sky turning from an innocent sprinkle to a downpour, making the two guys run for the car before they got further drenched. Funny considering they were both wet to begin with.
Kevin fiddled with his key as the rain pelted him, coming down so hard he could barely see in front of him. “Hurry!” Nick urged.
Finally Kevin managed to grab a hold of the right key and quickly opened his door and clicked the button for the passenger side to open as well. Nick jumped in, fish and all and shook his hair out like a wet dog, “Whoa it’s coming down out there.”
“Nick, watch the seats!”
“Sorry, maybe if you had opened the door sooner…why did you even lock it to begin with?”
“Because locking your car is the responsible thing to do…please tell me you lock your car.”
“I never lock my car bro!”
Kevin placed his hands on his face and shook his head, “Nick! That is so dangerous, sweet Jesus you would think with all the fans following us all over the damn place that you would err on the side of caution just for once.”
“That’s the thing though Kevin, they’re fans. I never understood why we needed bodyguards around the fans, I mean they love us they have no desire to hurt us.”
It was that kind of naïve talk that always got to Kevin the most, he swore to God this kid was going to give him a stress induced heart attack by the time he was forty. Nick never made it a big mystery about his whereabouts ever when fans were concerned. All they had to do was ask. He would tell them what hotel they were staying at, sometimes what floor even to the point that management and the guys themselves wouldn’t give him the correct location. He trusted too easily which was ironic actually when you thought about it, particularly because the boy always had a wall up when it came to his problems, in all other aspects, he was just this small naïve child.
“Nick, all it takes is ONE psycho! Just one, the guy who shot John Lennon…”
“Yeah I know… he was a huge fan. You tell me this all the time.”
“Then how come it hasn’t sunk in yet?”
“Kevin my man…you worry too much…” Nick took his fish out of the bucket, “Here kiss the fish, you’ll feel better.”
“Apparently my wish didn’t come true because I see you haven’t gained ANY common sense in that head of yours.”
Nick rolled his eyes and turned to look out of the window, the rain was coming down so hard now that the tapping against the car almost felt like the incessant banging on the windows the fans tended to do when their brigade of cars would pass them by. “Wow it’s raining like a mother out there! Was it supposed to be like this today?”
“Nope, the weatherman said it was going to be sunny and hot.”
“He was wrong.”
“Apparently.”
“It feels like hurricane weather.” Nick said when he heard a howl of wind accompanied by another clap of thunder.
“We don’t get those hear Nick, we’re inland.”
“What about monsoons? Kentucky get those because I tell you what at any minute I expect to see Noah pass by on his arky arky.” Nick sang the last two words to imitate a popular Christian song and that made Kevin crack up.
“You are too much sometimes kid, you know that?”
“We can probably open the windows and fish from in here if we really wanted to.”
“But we don’t.”
“Kevin I swear you are the biggest fuddy dud.”
“Keep it up and you can fuddy duddy yourself all the way back home.”
“That made absolutely NO sense at all!”
“I was attempting to speak Nickish. You know how you tend to make up words all the time and how those words barely make any sense?”
“Oh, well you failed miserably; I’ll make you a Nicktionary later.”
“Thanks, I appreciate that.”
“So Kev, tell me more about this whole kiss a fish thing, what about your dad? Did he do that too?”
Kevin smiled, thinking back to all the times he had seen his father do that. “My dad kissed many a fish. For every little thing, but sometimes he would use that as a way to make up with my mother after they had just had a fight. He would bring in a freshly caught fish, walk over towards her and in ear shot say, I wish that my wife would get over being angry at me and when I kiss this fish, she will run into my arms and tell me I am forgiven for being a meathead.”
“Did it work?”
“Every single time.”
“Did you ever do that with Kris?”
“Please, she’d tell me I can take the damn fish to bed as well. Kris is not big on the whole kiss a fish thing.” That made Nick burst out laughing.
“What about your brothers?”
“Yup they kissed fish too, we all kiss fish Nick.”
“Okay, well as much as I would love to say, that makes your family weirder than mine; I know that’s not the case. How sad is that?” Kevin shook his head and smiled. “So no other stories then? How you wished for gold and it suddenly fell from the sky?”
Kevin looked at the steering wheel, becoming a bit more serious now and Nick could feel what was going to come next. “My brothers and I went out to the lake shortly after my father passed away; we sat in the boat trying to catch fish, all of us mourning but none of us saying anything about it. I was taking it the hardest, see I felt guilty for not being around. It was selfish of me to be in Florida when the entire family needed me here. Especially my mother and father, so when he died the guilt I felt was so consuming.”
“Kevin it wasn’t your fault.”
“I know, but sometimes you don’t think that way you know what I mean?”
Nick nodded as Kevin continued, “My brothers thought maybe fishing was the way to help me so that’s what we did. We sat out on the boat all afternoon and about half way through the experience we started to talk, mostly about the old times, stories about my father and things like that huge toaster I was telling you about. It got to the point that right before we were ready to leave we were actually smiling and laughing. Tim felt a tug on his line, so we all helped him pull this huge fish out of the water. Not quite as big as that 20 pound trout that my great grandfather supposedly caught but still a huge fish. They asked me to make a wish and I kissed that fish, because supposedly I was the one that actually pulled it out of the water.”
Kevin smiled as he looked at his hands, probably remembering the feel of the fish in them as he opened and closed them.
“What did you wish for?” Nick asked as intrigued as a young child hearing a fairy tale.
“I wished for my father’s forgiveness.”
The car was still being pelted by a heavy rain, bursts of lightning shot across the sky and thunder cracked right above their heads. The grass they had been sitting on earlier was now drenched as Kevin continued with his story.
“When we got back into the car Gerald said he had to tell us something, he said our dad had told him and that when he felt the time was right it was up to him to tell us. I guess he felt like that was the day. He said that my great grandfather had made up the whole kiss a fish thing. He never made a wish on a fish. Tim and I were confused about it, like what a stupid thing to keep from us you know?”
Nick nodded, still staring at his friend as he talked. “So I was angry, probably because I felt like my wish was so important and now I was being mocked. Gerald placed his arm around me and he said, ‘don’t you get it Kev? It’s not the wishing that makes all of this special. It’s the act itself. Haven’t you ever wondered why dad always brought us out here when we were having hard times? Why the day he found out he had cancer, he pulled me along to fly fish with him? When he finally told me about this huge deception he said that there was an importance to fly fishing just as he had told you, Tim and I that on many occasions. He told me what it was though Kevin…the importance of fly fishing is that at the end of the day, it heals your soul.’ I remember looking at my brother and bursting into tears, falling into his arms and feeling such a great sense of relief. He was right, by going out there on the water and talking about all the old times and then making that wish, I felt better.”
When Kevin was done with his story he looked over at Nick to see him wiping away a few tears from his eyes. “So tell me Nick, when you made that wish…what did you wish for? What’s the one thing you want to make you feel okay?”
Nick took a deep breath before he spoke, “Happiness, I wished for happiness.”
Kevin pulled Nick close at that point and kissed the top of his head as his little brother cried on his shoulder.
The rain still pouring all around them as thunder clapped in the sky.
As always thanks for the feedback. I'm sad to say this one is soon coming to an end. :( lol
