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Sample from The Biggest Fish I Ever Caught
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By Brian Weilert

Perform with a southern accent

 

Teaser

 

As a child I would relish

The two-week period set aside

every summer

for us grandchildren

to be with my Grandparents on their farm

 

Each of us

Alone

in turn

 

I was the middle

So fourth in the rotation

The heat of July

 

I was a bit clumsy

Never quite fittin’ in

but

I was never more special

More important

Than on that farm

 

My favorite

 

Breakfast,

Quisp cereal

Whenever I decided to get up

 

Lunch,

bologna sandwiches

with mustard so deep

It soaked through the bread

Oozing out the sides

 

Supper,

homemade chicken-n-noodles

With frozen corn from last year’s garden

 

Were each prepared because I was who I was

A standard generic grandchild

Made to be a king

 

But when Grandpa passed away

Grandma moved to town

And the summers I cherished

Came to an end

 

End Teaser

 

 

 

Last year,

Grandma ask me to write

About my favorite moment from all those summers

She said Grandpa always said the time

Was worth it because,

“We’re building memories for the grandchildren”

I guess she wanted to see if it was true

If we did remember

if it mattered

No different than any other human I suppose

            Did my life count?

Seemed a reasonable request

I also knew she would take the stories to bed at night

reading them to fill the void left by

being old

living alone

Mom told me she did this with letters

we had written to her in the past

letters worn from wear

too few

from me

 

I told her I would

I would write the story

But

I didn’t

You know teenagers

we have too much going on

 

Too much going on until…

something brings us back

making us aware of things that are really important

and

that we really have nothing going on

 

 

My high school English teacher

Is new to Kentucky

To put it politely

He’s a Yankee

And

He is always

Preachin’ of a powerful progressive plotline

Dissected with conflict

at the foot of the hill which is

riddled with obstacles

rising

action

rising, RISING

until finally

masterfully

shattering the shins of the reader

with a Louisville Slugger CLIMAX

then

s a u n t e r i n g down the slope;

a casual stroll

where one might smoke a cigarette

to a satisfying denouement

a big fancy word he always flings about

as if it were as common and everyday as:

 

Y’all

or

Coke-a-Cola

           

“A GREAT story,”

he soap-box spews

“is ALL about the plotline!”

He is eloquent in his presentation

A distinguished greyed-goatie bobbing rythmatically

Just below the hypnotic musical alphabet

Floating from his rehearsed lips

 

And…

 

I hate the man

 

“Your assignment…”

He managed to sound condescending

“is to write a story from your life,

remembering that it will only be good

if the plotline is…. well… good.”

I smiled to myself at his inability

 to come up with a new word for “good”

Even I could have managed:

Swell

All right

Cool

Prime

Tiptop

 

 

A phone call late in the night

waking me up

 

quiet whispers from mom

followed by long, awkward silence

then the hushed sobs of woman who just lost her mother

 

 

 

I chose to write about the time

I caught the biggest fish of my life

 

Grandpa worked during the day

so it was just Grandma and me

 

We dug worms from the garden

Plump, juicy creatures excreting slime

There had been a rare rain the night before

And as I trudged back and forth

In my size 4 Keds

from shovel to Styrofoam cup

mud gathered

the width

the weight increased

 until I fell face first into the strawberries

A brown masked boy

Stared up

Spitting bits of soil from his lips

Grandma laughed so hard

she didn’t say she was going to pee her pants

she actually peed her pants

 

 

I washed up

She changed her underwear

And we were on our way to

Drake’s pond

As we bounced down the cattle path

The bobbers dangling over the bed of the pickup

Hit the tirewell in a sporadic rhythm

 

 

 

 

 

“Hop out and get the gate will you hun?”

It made me feel grown up

Like a man

when she gave me the responsibility

to open the make-shift barbed wire gate so

we could get to the pond

My dad always would get out and do it himself

Making me feel like a kid

 

When we arrived at the spot

Grandma looked disappointed

The moss had grown completely around the sides

Leaving’ just a doughnut-hole of clear water in the center

She knew I was a bit of a walking fishing catastrophe

My father and brothers all made fun of me

Being left handed I always held my open-face reel

Upside down

Which meant right side up

I had spilled an entire bucket of minnows once

after pleadin’ my case of  how I was old enough to carry them

I watched in horror as every last one of them flopped to their escape

My hook seemed to seek out trees that hid in the shadows of my back cast

My fishin’ line just wanted to knot into three dimensional spiral-graph renditions

My lure seemed to always snag on submerged debris

that others who cast in the same spot seemed to be able to avoid

These things frustrated anyone who had to take me fishin’

and often times they found excuses not to take me

soon I stopped askin' to go

Buy now to see how it ends!!