the clouds. She adjusted the black scarf around her head and sighed. He’d picked her up in the wee hours of the morning, and both had shown no interest in conversation.
Aries was deep in thought, standing with his cigarette glowing like some beacon of light. After a while, he threw it on the ground and extinguished it. Embers gone, but the flame in his eyes burned still. Picking up the butt, he discarded it in his truck ashtray, doing his part to keep Mother Nature content. The truck rattled as he removed a tackle box from the back and grabbed a blanket to tuck under his arm.
“Lauren, come on outta there. I’m not the butler. Make yourself useful.”
For a split second, her muscles stiffened. He sounded like an angry police officer gone rogue and his attitude had her itching to rise up like dust during a scuffle and show this son of a bitch what she was made of. Mama didn’t raise no punk and Daddy didn’t raise no fool. Aries spoke that way often; it was his default tongue. A harsh, condescending tone covered in tarantula legs, scorpion stingers, and snake venom. He dripped with enough asshole-ness to last a month of Sundays.
By now she realized that was just his way, but with her brain only half awake, the tone took her off guard. She slowly opened her door and slid out like molasses, keeping quiet lest she cuss his sexy ass out, barely having the energy to keep her head straight let alone argue with the man. I am so tired… I guess I stayed up too late at the store last night cleaning up. Making her way around to the bed of the truck, she allowed him to pile her arms with poles and other odds and ends. Moments later, the two trotted off towards the water.
“It’s awfully quiet. Usually more people are here,” she stated as she let the items roll from her grip onto the ground.
She hadn’t been there in years. It used to be crowded, but not today. Aries dropped to his knees, getting busy preparing for their day. As he poked about in containers, he got grime all over him, and that seemed to make him happy. Hands covered in sludge and grit, the streaks across his knuckles now looking much like map lines as they caked with moist dirt, he set the fishing poles aside, then opened up a bait box full of creepie crawlies – some real, some artificial.
The dank smell of earthworms surrounded her, reminding her of when she, her brother, and a bunch of cousins would go fishing at the Chattahoochee River. She’d usually hang out somewhere close with a book, a flashlight, and a bag of buttery biscuits with a couple boiled eggs Mama would pack for her. Her favorite cousin, Teresa, would also sit with her. One time they’d spent hours giggling at the dirty scenes in an old pornographic book called, “Old Enough,” by Hilary Hilton, which she’d stolen from the local library. She smiled at the memory.
“Put this worm on the hook.”
She crossed her arms.
“Nuh uh. I don’t want to.”
He looked at her with the same disappointment and disdain of a nun overhearing the word ‘fuck’ uttered by unruly child.
“Did you come here just to watch me do all the work?”
“I came because you invited me. I never agreed to go fishing. You decided to make the choice for me, and didn’t ask. Just like with the wine on our first outing, and so many other times you took it upon yourself to be the one at the wheel. You want to drive? Drive. You can deal with the consequences. Besides, I’m tired and I’m sleep deprived.”
“And whose fault is that?” With pinched lips, he placed one of the worms on the hook. She winced at the way the squiggly thing fought for its life, the slippery purplish brown mass wriggling frenetically like it was having a cardiac arrest.
“Worms have five hearts,” she blurted. Hearts. Cardiac arrest. He paused briefly and shook his head, then returned to his task. “What do you call a worm with no teeth?” He didn’t respond, just kept working. “A gummy worm.” A smile creased his face, then quickly faded like a flash in a pan. “I needed more sleep,” she said behind a yawn.
“The early bird gets the worm. Do you know how to fish?”
“It’s been a long time. Seems you would’ve asked me that yesterday.”
“Seems you would’ve gotten