One Perfect Moment In Time

The mundanity of this world is what gets you every time. I’m telling you. Most expect it to be the violence, or the rivalries, or the need to best yourself, but that’s what fells the, let’s be honest, shitty criminals. Those of us who are actually good, and don’t have eyes above our station, we never really have to deal with those sorts of problems. Violence can always be avoided, if not prevented all together. Great secret rivalries really only exist in the movies. And as far as oneupsmanship with yourself, most don’t bother. It costs too much time and money to even try, and when you’re stuck operating on a shoestring, job-to-job budget, that sort of idea doesn’t even cross your mind. But no one can avoid the mundanity of sitting around without a gig. That’s why you always need to find an escape, no matter where it’s from.

My last gig, it had gotten me a smooth six figures, enough to get by for a year or so, depending on how much life cost me. But that meant I was stuck sitting around doing nothing for a year. With a sigh, I stood up from my thinking chair, an old, small, uncomfortable dining chair I’d set staring out the large rear window of the house at the lake sitting in our backyard. I used to live in the city, as it was easier to get odd jobs when I was living near all the local hangs, but once I started to be the kind of person one sought out and my jobs began to be more lucrative, I moved out to the sticks. Land was cheaper out here, and the views were more relaxing. The added benefit was, when I grew bored, I didn’t try to get a random gig from the local coffee shop. I did normal person things, like gardening and fishing. Tried golfing, but I was too good at it. Turns out, some skills transfer better than I’d like.

With a sigh, I walked over into the kitchen, where Lily greeted me with an equally bored sigh. I shook my head in her general direction, saying, “Don’t be doing that, Lil, I’m bored enough already.”

Lily laughed. “You’re the one who wanted us to move out here. ‘Too many stressors in the city,’ if I recall correctly.”

I groaned. “Fuck off, using my words against me.”

“Can’t,” she replied with a smirk, “Café del Whatchamacallit is closed for renovations.”

I groaned again. “Great,” I let out, “Just what I needed.”

Lily tossed me a plate of eggs. “Maybe you just need a real person job. Not your weird contracting work.”

I caught the plate with a flourish. “You’re right,” I joked, us both knowing that I wouldn’t get a job, “Maybe I should run for mayor?”

Lily and I both laughed. “Right. Because you have a chance in hell of winning an actual campaign.”

I shrugged as I began to devour my eggs. “You never know,” I said between bites, “I did convince your drunk ass to move out here to the land of blue laws.”

Lily shook her head. “I’m not a drunk,” she replied.

“Really?” I countered, “Are you saying our best friend isn’t a bartender? Who got fired because her free drinks to us made a noticeable deficit in her old bar’s books?”

“Fuck off,” she spat.

I smiled as I finished off my eggs. “Sure thing. I was planning on going fishing today.” Then, after a moment, I added, “And tell Vanessa that she really needs to pick quieter people to come home with. Last night’s woke me up twice.”

Lily chuckled. “I was planning on it. She even managed to wake me up.”

I paused, actually minorly impressed. “Really? I’ve blasted metal while working out in the next room over and you slept through it. Now I kinda want to meet this mystical personage.”

“’Fraid she left already,” Lily answered, “Didn’t even stay for eggs.”

“Rude,” I joked as I left the kitchen and headed to the garage. Loading up my bike with the fishing rod and bait box, I pulled on my leather jacket over my white hoodie, got on my bike, flipped my hood over my head, and rode out of the garage looking badass as all get-out. The only problem with my bike was, being mostly electric, it was too quiet to wake people up. That was the reason I got it in the first place but having a ‘wake-up-my-housemate-who-kept-me-up-all-night’ setting would’ve been nice.

Riding over to the fishing spot didn’t take too long. County ordinances meant we weren’t allowed to fish in our backyard lake, as it was technically a natural site in need of conservation, so I had to travel three miles to another, slightly larger lake in which fishing was legal. Going to the lake also meant I got to talk with all the locals. A few years ago, when we first moved out here, we were the evil city folk invading their territory. Then, they realized Vanessa was a real good bartender and arguably the easiest lay in town. And Lily was one of the nicest people they’d ever met, so long as she was kept relatively sober. And, after I stopped beating their pants off in golf and started fishing with them, they took a liking to me as well. Parking my bike at the bait shop on the dock, I grabbed my rod and box, and walked onto the dock.

“How’s the haul today, Jer?” I asked one of my fishing buddies, Jerry, a man who had been born here, lived here his entire life thus far, and was fully intent on dying here.

He looked at me. “Steve-o,” he said with a smile, “I figured you’d still be hung over from yesterday. You just lost me ten dollars, you know.” He raised an eyebrow at me, inquisitively.

I smirked right back at the man. “I’d thought you’d’ve learned by now, I don’t get hung over. And you still ain’t answered me.”

“I’ve caught shit for now. A couple of guppies. Not even enough to feed the kids, much less the grandkids.”

“Tell you what,” I said, “Since you lost that ten, if you still got jack come the evening, I’ll give you half my haul.”

“Aw, go fuck yerself,” he shot back with a chuckle, “We both know you ain’t got shit on me in this department.”

I smirked again at him. “Well, I had to give you one thing. It wouldn’t’ve been fair if I won everything against you.”

Alison approached as I said that, as usual at just the worst time. “So, I take it Steve here’s bragging again,” she joked.

“I’m tired, sue me,” I replied with a sigh.

“Why are you tired? Drinking doesn’t fuck with you like it does normal human people,” she asked.

“Watch yer fucking language, lady,” Jerry joked.

“Oh, fuck yerself with a rusty metal pole, Jer,” she shot back.

I shook my head at the two of them. “You’re right, of course,” I said with a smile, “But being kept up all night does wonders for one’s wakefulness.”

At first Alice looked somewhat worried, then she furrowed her brow, seemingly piecing together what happened last night, and finally remembering the end of the evening, when Vanessa shut down the bar and kicked everyone out. “Oh. Right.”

I smiled. “So, would you like to come out on the boat with me, to wake me up when I inevitably fall asleep?” I asked Alice, looking as innocent as I could muster with the question. We both knew better, but where was the fun in admitting that.

She laughed. “Of course. We don’t want you capsizing out there. Without you, who would we be able to beat consistently?”

I chuckled as we turned to walk to my boat. Before we left, and loud enough that he clearly intended for us both to hear him, Jerry not-whispered to me, “Smooth,” with a wicked grin across his smug face.

I flicked him off as I got into my small fishing boat. I was old school, preferring oared boats to motorized ones when fishing. It was a lot more work for slightly better rewards, but that was the point of life in my book. Alice, like me, understood the value of putting in the work, even when it didn’t amount to much. We rowed out into the middle of the lake put a bit of bait onto our rods, and cast them out, hoping for something big to bite. Or not, as that wasn’t the only reason for fishing. Not for us, anyways.

As we waited, I leaned back and smirked. Whispering, in case the water had ears, I said to Alice, “I saw that worried look on your face, when I mentioned being up all night. It was cute.”

“Oh, blow it out your hole, Steve-O,” she scolded, “I was just worried I might’ve blacked out at the end there.”

“Mm hm,” I replied, my smirk growing to massive proportions, “I believe you.”

“God, you can be such an ass sometimes,” she said, as she started to laugh.

“I’m insulted,” I said, feigning over-the-top offense, then after a pause I finished, “Only sometimes?”

She grinned. “Only sometimes. The rest of the time, you’re just a dick.”

I leaned in, “Thinking about dicks at a time like this?” I asked, “A bit Freudian, don’t you think?”

She leaned into my ear, as though preparing to whisper sweet nothings, then she said, “You should be focused on fishing.”

Tilting my head to bring it even closer to her ear, I whispered, “So should you.”

She began to kiss my neck when we were oh so rudely interrupted by my rod being pulled, and not in the sense I was hoping. Grabbing the fishing rod and laughing, I began to reel it in, joking, “Of course the one time I hope I used the wrong bait, I get a heavy bite.”

She laughed. “Maybe the world’s telling me something,” she replied with a smile. She was enjoying this, even if it might mean I would beat her in today’s haul.

“What, that you should give up fishing?” I joked back.

She smirked, mimicking the smug look I’d had earlier. “I was thinking that I should replace my sail with some rowlocks.”

I nodded as I hauled it up. It was a big one. “You should, of course,” I said, a smile across my face, “And that’s clearly the only thing this whole ordeal meant.”

“Clearly,” she said, her smirk still growing. Then, she too got a tug. Not quite as impressive as mine, but the world didn’t need to draw her attention from something. She began to reel her bite in as I put my rather large bass into the icebox.

As she finished catching her fish and putting it into the icebox, I got on the radio with Jerry. “You see,” I said to him, “The old ways work. Me and Alice already caught two pretty nice sized bass. Over.”

Jerry didn’t even deign a response, simply standing atop his motorboat’s roof and flicking me off with both hands. I, of course, ever cordial, smiled large enough that he could see and waved. This made him radio back, “Go back to getting cockblocked by god. Over and out.”

I smirked back to Alice, who was staring at my ass. “You heard the man,” I said, raising my eyebrows.

“Best not keep god waiting too long,” Alice replied, standing up and walking over to me.

I pulled off my hoodie in one smooth flourish. “Sounds like a plan.”

She began to unbutton her blouse, and I my shirt, as we met in the middle and kissed. Looking like a goddamned pair on the cover of a romance novel. We lay down in the boat as we pulled at what remained of each others clothing. Away from society, away from everything that held us back, that kept us focused on other aspects of our life, we could actually be ourselves, and we loved it. The sun warmed us as we turned over and over in that boat, under the lip so no onlookers could peek. Our bodies were intertwined as one. It was perfect, even if for only a few brief moments of our lives.

We kept on lying there, as the sun set over the tree line on the west side of the lake. It was beautiful, and both of us really needed that one perfect day. And, just as the sun finished setting, as though on cue, both of our phones chimed. “Fuck,” she cursed as she moved to the far side of the boat. I checked mine. It was a text from Lefty. He wanted me for a job. I looked over at Alice.

“Sorry, sweetie,” she said into the phone, “I know you wanted me to pick you up, but I told you, today was mommy’s fishing day. I told you I was going to have Suzie get you and put you to bed. I know honey, I know. Tell you what, I’ll be back home soon, and I can read you a story, okay? Kisses.” And she hung up, a slight tear in her eyes.

I looked over at her. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize.”

She shook her head. “No, I needed today. Elaine was just worried why I wasn’t home yet.”

We began rowing back into shore, both of us having a look of nostalgic melancholy, as though we both didn’t want to return to our lives and hated ourselves for that desire. The day had truly been perfect. at the end of every perfect, storybook day, however, everyone involved had to return to reality.

#realisticfiction #story #nsfw #firstperson #fiction