Old Man: Part III - The Fisherman's Tale

Fishing

The floor heaved under his feet and Matt nearly fell to his ass as he stepped onto the 17ft Javelin bass boat that his father held in-place with one hand atop a soggy piece of boat dock.

It had been ages since Matt had stepped foot on anything other than a fancy charter boat and he instantly felt his guts rock and bob with the churn of the lake. His ol' man chuckled and gave a shove, setting the boat free from its spot in the harbor. Matt stumbled over to the nearest seat he could find, a precious few to be found on bass boats, and collapsed into the cushion. Dean Ward took three casual, confident steps and slipped behind the wheel in his captain's chair.

"You look like you've never been on the water in your life."

"It's been awhile, Dad."

"What the hell for? You're a little closer to heaven out on the lake."

"Closer to? Or in it?"

"Well," Dean adjusted the trim of the motor a bit as the harbor gave way to open lake, "in this case... I guess 'in'."

"Yeah." Matt took a few breaths and with each passing second, muscle memory began to set in as the smell of the lake water, somehow equal parts clean and musty, brought him back to the countless afternoons he'd spent out on the boat with his father. "So which of your old spots are we fishin' at today? We hittin’ the docks around Cranberry's or the brush patch?"

"You didn't answer my question about why you haven't been on the lake in ages."

"After you died the family just kinda stopped. Mom sold the boat about a year after.” Matt leaned over and gave his dad a slap on the shoulder. “I've been on a couple yacht parties if that counts."

"Not a chance."

“So Cranberry’s or the brush?”

“Doesn’t matter. As much as I enjoy fishing, not really what this is about.”

“What?”

“We’re supposed to be talking about why you’re here… zipping around on a bass boat with the ghost of your ol’ man.” On cue, Dean pushed the throttle as the boat departed the ‘No Wake’ zone and headed for deeper water. He laughed as his son frantically grabbed at the top of his head, securing his Buckeyes ballcap a split second before it would have been off for swim.

“Still not givin’ anybody a warning, huh?”

“It’s funny!” Dean yelled over the hum of the motor and the sounds of the lake water tearing by. “You know to turn the damn hat backwards.”

“What am I? Tony Romo?”

“So why are you here?”

“I dunno. Aren’t you supposed to tell me what’s wrong with me?

“Not a chance.”

“Ah.” Matt begrudgingly turned his hat backward as they sliced across the lake in his father’s Javelin. The buzz of the boat filled what would have otherwise been a brutal silence, but both of his dad’s preferred fishing spots would come up fast at-speed. If he didn’t have an answer in 30 or seconds, they’d be back to the shallows and the silence.  “I don’t know how to be a father like you. A good one.”

“Is that it?” Dean quickly glanced over at his son, before turning his gaze back to the lake, even though they were the only boat out and about on this spiritual experience.

“Is that it? I don’t think I can get much deeper than that.”

“Well, my advice would be… just do what I did.” Dean smirked as he slowed the boat, nearing his favorite channel on the lake… the one with the towering oak that had split a large branch and fallen into the water, creating a favorite spot for bluegill, and the largemouth bass that would feed on them.

“Much like changing the brakes on the truck, I didn’t pay enough attention to what you showed me.”

“Why not?”

“I dunno.” Matt turned his hat back around. “I wrestled a lot, but never with the idea that someday you wouldn’t be around to show me anything else.”

“And you thought you couldn’t get any deeper than ‘I’m a bad father’.”

“I give up my day to come do… whatever this is…” Matt gestured around boat, “and you’re just gonna sit here and bust my chops?”

“No. Gonna catch some fish too. Least I hope.”

“Seriously, Dad. You kinda set a helluva standard to live up to. I mean, there had to have been 400 plus people at your celebration-of-life. You weren’t a celebrity. You weren’t a millionaire. Just a regular dude… the most unassuming guy…”

“Thanks.”

“C’mon, you know what I’m saying. You’re just an easy going, quiet guy. And then you died and people literally showed up from around the globe. There was a guy there from Canada. A guy from Australia. Every table, every chair, people lined up along the walls. Standing room only. And me? Cold hearted wrestler, half-assed husband and deficient father.”

“Son,” Dean shut down the engine and walked to the front of the boat, dropping the trolling motor into the grey water of the channel. “I really don’t need you ruining a perfectly good afternoon fishin’ with that kind of nonsense. You’re a good man, not a perfect one, neither was I. You magnify your own failures 10x… 100x what they really are. Being a father can be exhausting, but it’s never complicated. Love them. Don’t ever waiver from that and its straightforward.”

“I don’t think it’s that easy.”

“I didn’t say it was easy. I said it was straightforward. Lifting a refrigerator over your head isn’t a confusing task, but you’ll sure as hell struggle with it.”

“Fair.” Matt leaned forward from his seat and opened a long storage compartment, pulling two sleek black fishing rods from their slumber. One of the rods had a chartreuse spinnerbait hooked at the end of pole. “Ha… is that a Bill Dance spinner?”

“Looks like it.”

“Guess this one is mine then.” Matt smiled and sat the rod next to him, handing the other to his father.

“What is it that I did that made me such a great dad?”

“Huh?”

“You said I was such a good dad and set such an unreachable standard. What did I do?” Dean unhooked his line and settled into his chair. “It wasn’t teach you how to start the lawnmower. Or check your engine oil. Youtube videos will do that.”

“I… I dunno. I mean, you did teach me stuff, or try anyways. I didn’t pay enough attention. And you coached soccer and… basketball. I…”

“You’re not coming up with much of an answer because I didn’t do much of anything special. I loved you. I was there for you. I didn’t always understand what you wanted or were feeling or what stupid new song or videogame you were obsessed with. I didn’t always agree with you or tolerate attitude, and lord knows, I didn’t always make you the happiest kid on the planet. But I did care. Every day.”

“Is that it?”

“Is that it?” Dean chuckled. “That’s a lot more than it sounds like, SA”

Matt hadn’t heard that nickname in years. Smart Ass. His father had adopted it as his go-to term of affection when Matt was in Junior High. It was good to hear it again, and for the first time since pushing away from the dock, he felt a sense of ease.

“SA.”

“Yeah,” Dean nodded toward a small compartment under the console. “Now grab the anchor and settle us down.”

** ** **

Hunter & Hailey

“More lasagna?” Hunter picked up his fork and stabbed at a slab of pasta and meat on his plate. “That’s like third time this week.”

“I like it.” Hailey jumped in her seat at the table and immediately dove into her dinner.

“Sorry, bud.” Matt gave his son a pat on the back. “It’s what people do. We’ve got a couple pans of this stuff to get through.”

“Awesome.” Despite his moaning, Hunter chopped off a massive bite and shoved it in his mouth.

“Listen, guys, take it easy while I’m in Vegas. I’ll be back in couple days and then I promise no more lasagna.”

“Awww.”

“You’ll be ok, kiddo. And I promise we’ll do something cool after I hang up the boots at Colossus.”

“Deal.” Hailey bobbed her head as she devoured her dinner.

Matt looked at his son, then his youngest daughter. 2000 miles away, his eldest presented a problem that needed solved, but at that table, in that moment, those hurdles could wait.

“Love you guys”.

“Love you too, Dad.” Hunter didn’t look up.

“Wow,” Hailey weighed in. “This lasagna is so good.”

** ** **

Fishing

“How do I do this again?”

“Just hold this here, swing back, then forward and release the line where ya got it pinched.” Matt leaned over Mary’s shoulder and wrapped his hand around hers, trapping the line against the rod. In one motion, there bodies turned together and spun forward. They released the line and the spinnerbait splashed into the water about three feet from a rotted tree stump. “Like that.”

“I nailed it!”

“You did.” Matt kissed his wife on the cheek, brimming with pride.

“I’d tell you two to get a room” Dean pulled on his line, arcing it back and letting go in a slingshot move reserved for the pros. His lure skipped across the surface of the water, sliding perfectly under an abandoned old dock, “but this isn’t one of those party yachts you were talking about earlier.”

“Sorry.” Matt stepped back.

“Don’t be. I’m just givin’ you two a hard time. To be honest… I’ m pretty happy. The quicker she catches on, the quicker I have a fishin’ buddy in this place.”

“Just getting settled in here. Give me a bit of time and I’m sure I’ll get into the swing of things.” Mary slowly reeled in her line, hoping for a bite. “Why are you on this boat anyways?”

“Matt thinks he’s a bad dude and a lousy father.”

“Oh brother.”

“I’ve been tryin’ to set him straight” Dean nodded at his son, as if there was any question who he was talking about, “but he could probably use a little more encouragement.”

“Oh. So call in the big guns?” Mary smirked and cocked an eyebrow.

“And now y’all are about to team up on me?”

“No need.” Dean turned back to the lake and pulled in his line, giving another cast, this time just off the side of the dock. “I’ve said all you need to hear from me.”

“So?” Matt turned to his wife.

“What’s the problem?”

“Lack of confidence, apparently.”

“Kinda funny to think you do what you do for a living, but are sitting here with your shoulders slumped.” Mary gave a tug and popped her spinnerbait out of the water. With a self-assuredness her husband apparently lacked, she gave a perfect cast, this one with no assistance. “Like… you can beat Cecilworth Farthington, but a seven-year-old is too much?”

“Hailey isn’t the problem. She adores me. She’s an angel and I’m sure that’ll all be a lot harder in about five years or so… but I’m fine now. Even Hunter, I can relate to being a teenage, bored-out-of-his-mind boy, but…”

Mary sighed. “Georgie.”

“Yeah.”

“Matthew,” Mary looked up at the blue sky and stopped reeling, her lure sinking to the shallow bottom of the channel. “If I have one regret, the biggest mistake I made in my life… was that for so long, I wasn’t supportive of what you loved. We are who we are. Our passions should be celebrated, not condemned. I’m sorry that for all those years I made you feel like you should have been ashamed of what you were so good at.”

“Ma…”

“And I am so proud I got to see you beat Farthington… even if you kinda cheated… and to see that you still had it. All of it.” Mary sat down her fishing rod and grabbed her husband by the belt, pulling him close. “Maybe you’d prefer Georgie had some other passion… music…or art… but this is the picture she wants to paint. Embrace it. Celebrate that you share that passion. No championship title, no main event, no amount of money will mean more for her than to just have her father smile when the bell rings and she locks up.”

The couple stared at each other for a moment before Mary leaned in and kissed Matt softly on the lips, then rested her forehead against his chest.

“Ok.” Dean pulled in his line and lifted the trolling motor. “I feel like there’s not much fishing happenin’ here. Maybe its time for a beer.”

Matt gave his wife a firm hug then spun and sat down in the captain’s chair, turning the key and firing the Evinrude motor.  As the water churned and bubbled behind him, Matt gripped the steering wheel with his left hand and placed his right on the throttle.

“Guess I’ll steer us over to Cranberry’s then.”

Dean stepped down off the deck and took a seat of his own next to his daughter-in-law, turning his own hat backward.

“Lead the way.”

** ** **

Georgie

It was with a hint of reluctance and a heaping, fucking pile of nerves that Matt hobbled up to the front doors of Troy Combat Systems and stepped into the stale air of the wrestling school.

The gym was mostly empty, a couple of staff members straightened up in the lobby while a bit of after-hours training rattled ring ropes. His presence brought an immediate heaviness to the room, heavier even then the smell of sweat and hard-work that filled the gym. All eyes watched as he zeroed in on a ring and made his way across the floor. As he approached, Matt turned to a staff member folding a pile of clean towels.

“Is she here?”

“Your daughter or…”

“Lindsay.”

“No.” She nodded her head as she stacked a newly folded towel. “Not tonight.”

“Thanks.” Matt stepped to the ring and cast his eyes upward to the trainer. “Any chance I can get a minute to talk?”

“I dunno how LT would feel about you being here.”

“If it upsets her, she’ll have the chance to smack me around for it here in a few days.”

The trainer looked across the ring for confirmation it was ok, then stepped through the ropes and hopped off the apron. As he walked passed Matt, he didn’t mutter a word, just waved a hand to the ring as if to say ‘all yours’. Matt nodded an unspoken thanks and then walked to the corner of the ring, gingerly stepping up the steel stairs.

“Knees bothering you again?”

“Certainly not what I would call one of the good days for ‘em.”

“Why are you here?”

“Sheesh,” Matt took a deep breath as he leaned across the top rope, staring in the ring at his eldest. “Feel like that question’s been comin’ up a lot lately.”

“Seriously, Dad. Whatever this is, I need to get back to training.”

“I know.”

“Did you have some spiritual awakening after Mom passed?”

“Actually, something like that.”

“Yeah?” Georgie reached over to the nearby turnbuckle and grabbed a water bottle from the corner. As she twisted off the cap, she cocked an eyebrow at her dad, just like her mother had done so many times. “You might wanna make it quick. If Aunt Lindz stops by and catches you, she might pop you in the mouth.”

“She’s pretty mad at me, huh?”

“A little less so since the news about Mom, but… yeah. Don’t think you’re cracking her ten-favorite people list right now or anything.”

“Probably not top-hundred. And I deserve that. I’ve apologized. The best thing now is probably that she gets to hit me as hard as she’d like at Colossus.”

“It’s gonna be pretty hard.”

“Hahaha. I don’t doubt it.”

“Dad…” Georgie gestured out to her trainer, standing 20ft from the ring, now playing on his phone. “I’m willing to talk, but I really need to get back to training.”

“I know. Listen… when your Mom’s cancer came back outta the blue, and so aggressively I…you go back a dozen years or whatever its been… to when your grandfather passed. He was my foundation. I owe everything, the man that I am, to your Papaw. And everything that I am isn’t as much as it could have been with a teacher like him. That’s my fault. I spent every day since he passed wondering how I get to a point of being half of what he was. Half the father, half the husband, half the friend… just half. And that’d be a win.”

“He was a pretty awesome guy.”

“I spent so much time trying to figure out how to honor him. Truthfully, that time should have been spent just being a dad and a husband. Because that’s what he invested his time into. And that’s what made him the amazing man that he was. Every day. Every minute. He wasn’t an aviation expert or a fisherman or Corvette enthusiast. Those were his job and his hobbies. He was the father to two boys and the husband to a beautiful wife. He never started anywhere else to define himself.”

“I get it, Dad.” Georgie put down her bottle of water and, for the first time, took a step or two away from the corner post, moving closer to her father.

“When reality set in about your mother, I realized I was still fighting to honor my father and figure out how to fill the role of two parents. I was overwhelmed.”

“I know.”

“But none of it excuses anything. And the truth is this, Georgie: I love Hailey and I love Hunter. I love you. And I love professional wrestling. And that’s who I am. The father of two beautiful girls and a pain-in-the-butt son. And a wrestler.” Matt paused for just a moment. “Georgie, if this is who you are, then breathe this in till your lungs are full.”

With a purposeful pace, Georgie crossed the ring and wrapped her arms around her father, squeezing with the tightest hug she could muster, half drained from an hour of training. “Thank you for saying that, Dad.”

With his arms pinned to his side, Matt leaned down and kissed his daughter on the top of the head. “Georgie, I didn’t come here to tell you that.”

“Huh?” She peeled herself away from her father, looking up with a puzzled stare, “Did you come looking for Aunt Lindz?”

“No, but speaking of… I do have one last rodeo with her. And it’s on a pretty big stage.” Matt placed his right hand on his daughter’s left shoulder and gave her a gentle shove to the side, moving her out of the way. With space cleared, he slipped between the middle and top rope, stepping into the squared circle. “And I hear someone’s competing in the Belmont Classic.”

“Yeah.”

“So we both probably need to get back to some training.”

“Are you serious?” Georgie pointed downward. “With those bad knees?”

“Yeah, keep that in mind,” Matt shot a glance outside the ring and gave a dismissing nod of the head to Georgie’s trainer, “but show me what ya got.”

“Dad…”

“Pumpkin.” Matt sprung up and down on his toes a few times, getting the heart rate up a beat or two. Then he reached his right hand into the air, and with a tiny, imaginary hammer, he rang the bell. “Ding Ding Ding.”

Georgie grinned as she matched the spring in her father’s step. With each little hop, her smile spread a bit further, till there was no more room to grow. She cracked her knuckles and pounced, charging forward.

** ** **

Well I ain't afraid of dyin' There's people dyin' every day I'm afraid of where I've failed at any turn along the way Well I hope tomorrow finds me With a chance to try again I pray the weathers good My backs against the wind That weathers often stormy And that rain'll sting your skin We'll worry about tomorrow When tomorrow comes my friend Take caution through the curves Steadfast through the fray Got some ground to cover and skies are clear today

Just a lonely man that set out long ago for somethin' Just a lonely man that set out long ago for somethin' Just a lonely man that set out long ago for somethin’

-Lonely Man by Cody Jinks