Read The Poacher's Son for Free Online Page A

dressed in a lavender polo shirt and white tennis shorts, and he wore a gold chain around one tanned wrist. His shoulders, neck, and chest were corded with muscle as if from lifting weights in a gym, but his legs looked like they belonged to a skinny teenager. “What’s going on here?”
    â€œYour son and I were just talking about fishing.”
    â€œIs that so?” The man approached within a few feet of me, his eyes on a level with my own. An invisible, aromatic cloud of aftershave hung around his head.
    â€œYou two headed out for the day?” I asked.
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œYou’ll find some good-sized smallmouth at the south end of the lake where the creek flows in.”
    He didn’t answer at first. “You wanna see my fishing license, right?”
    It wasn’t the way I’d wanted the conversation to go, but so be it. “Thank you. Yes, I would.”
    He transferred both of the rods into one hand and reached into his back pocket. He handed me a folded piece of paper. It was a fifteen-day, nonresident fishing license issued to an Anthony DeSalle, of Revere, Massachusetts. In the summertime it seemed that the entire population of Greater Boston participated in a mass invasion of the Maine coast. You could sit along Route 1, watching the traffic crawl north to Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park, and for minutes at a time you wouldn’t see a Maine license plate. Tourism was the lifeblood of the local economy, and so it was probably inevitable that these summer people—with their flashy cars and fat wallets—provoked equal amounts of love and hate among my neighbors in Sennebec.
    â€œAnd your registration for the boat, too, please,” I said.
    â€œYou gotta be kidding.”
    â€œNo, sir. I’m not. You have no registration stickers on your boat.”
    â€œI just got them yesterday.”
    â€œYou need to put them on.”
    â€œI haven’t even gone out onto the fucking water yet!”
    The little boy was watching us with wide eyes.
    â€œWatch your language, please,” I said.
    â€œMy language? Jesus Christ.” He rummaged in his pocket for his registration. Then, realizing he didn’t have it on him, he dropped the spinning rods at my feet and turned and stormed off toward the Suburban.
    â€œMr. DeSalle?” I called after him.
    â€œIt’s in the car!”
    I watched him throw open the door and begin rummaging around inside the vehicle.
    I glanced over at the boy, who was now standing ankle-deep in the water, tightly clutching the boat line. His whole body seemed as taut as the rope.
    A moment later DeSalle came walking back. He waved a piece of paper at me. “Here it is, OK? My goddamned registration.”
    He thrust the paper with the attached validation stickers into my face.
    â€œSir,” I said, “your son is watching us. You might think about the example you’re setting for him here.”
    â€œHow I raise my son is my own fucking business, buddy.”
    â€œYou need to cool down, Mr. DeSalle.”
    A sheen of sweat glistened along his forehead. “I’m renting a house on this lake, you know. Fifteen hundred bucks a week!”
    I glanced down at the registration. Then I handed him his papers back. “I hope you have an enjoyable vacation.”
    He jammed both documents into the front pocket of his shorts. “Yeah, I bet you do.” He brushed past me and waded out toward the floating boat, grabbing the rope away from the boy. “Pick up those fishing poles.”
    The boy approached me cautiously, with one eye on the gun at my side. I bent down and picked up the rods and handed them one by one to him. “Here you go. I hope you catch a big one.”
    â€œCome on, let’s go!” DeSalle stuck the new registration stickers onto the bow of the boat.
    The boy hurried out into the water. His father grabbed the rods away and threw them into the powerboat.