Remember when we used to spend summers up in the Northwoods with my grandpa, not showering—which made my shaggy hair greasier and less wavy—and being forced to work on an old Chevy pick-up truck. "Gonna try and teach ya somethin' useful," Grandpa would often declare.

We didn't learn a goddamn thing.

It's not his fault though, we were shit students.

When we weren't runnin' through the woods waving pocketknives at deer or workin' on the truck, we were fishin'. You were better at it because you knew how to shut up. That was the year I started talking, and when it came out, it wouldn't stop. I'd spent twelve years keeping my mouth shut, quiet as hell, then one day I said "fuck" in front of Grandpa. He didn't seem to care, and I realized I could say what I wanted, absolutely anything, so I did, for the first time in my life, and I just couldn't stop: fuck this, fuck that, fuck them, my grandpa grunting the whole time.

"Fuck fish," I'd say every morning as the red sun melted in reverse on the horizon.

Grandpa's shoulders would jerk and fall. "Heh."

And that was that.

You seemed to like fishing.

- MJ