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you in the butt.
    I sat there eating cookies and sort of daydreaming. I thought that this was the kind of life I’d live if it was just me and my dad, no mother, no Rayanne. I thought about how everything in our house got all weird when my dad came to visit. My mother would run around putting everything into piles on top of the TV or the coffee table. Then she’d go to the grocery store and buy things like broccoli and veal chops. We’d have to put clean clothes on and sit with her in the living room until she heard his truck coming down the street, the gears shifting down. My father would come into the house and we’d be standing there like we were in the army and you could tell from his face that he wished he hadn’t come. It was like he wanted to sneak in and have us find him sitting there watching TV like he’d never been gone. It was like he made himself think that he didn’t matter, that his leaving didn’t matter. Sometimes he’d try and fake us out. He’d drop by without warning. Rayanne, my mom, and I might be out in the front yard and we’d hear the truck as soon as it turned the corner at the end of the street. Rayanne would look up and see him sitting twenty feet up in the cab and she’d take off, galloping toward the truck in her retarded way, legs getting tangled in each other, never sure which foot should go next.
    The screen door slapped shut and somewhere in my head I heard it, but didn’t really know where I was. I was still thinking about my father, his truck, and the view from up in the cab.
    “Hey, hey, Johnny,” Randy said. “Are you sleeping?”
    “Not exactly,” I mumbled.
    “What exactly?”
    I shrugged.
    “You don’t have to spend all day in the house. When I saw you out there playing ball, I figured you were an outdoor type.”
    I shook my head.
    “I like to watch TV. I watch TV and my sister comes in. I can’t stand her, so sometimes I have to get out of the house. My sister is retarded, did you know that?”
    Randy nodded.
    “No matter how old she gets, she’ll never be better than a seven-year-old. She calls my father “Uncle” because she says that daddies live at home and uncles just come and visit.”
    “Yeah, well, get up. We’re going fishing. What we catch is what we eat for dinner.”
    “I don’t know how to fish.”
    “I’ll teach you, Johnny.”
    I shrugged.
    “Do you care about anything?”
    I shrugged again.
    “Don’t shrug. Either talk or don’t, but don’t goddamn shrug at me. It’s like saying go to hell, only worse. You’re saying it’s not even worth the energy it takes to say the words.”
    *  *  *
    I walked through the woods behind Randy.
    “The trick,” he said, “is just like life. Don’t let them know you want them. Play dumb and they’ll act dumb.”
    He pushed the boat into the water and we waded in. My jeans got wet up to my thighs and felt like weights wrapped around my legs. Randy rowed out into the lake. He handed me a coffee can. “Take one out and put it right there on the end.”
    I looked into the can and saw about a thousand worms. “I can’t,” I said.
    “You can and you will,” Randy said, holding out the hook to me. He talked in the same tone my mother used with Rayanne when she wanted her to do something. “We can sit here until the moon is blue.”
    I turned my head away and put my hand into the can. The thin rolls of worm were soft and a little silky. They were stuck together, piled on top of one another. I had to look directly into the can in order to pick one up. I handed it to Randy.
    “On the hook,” he said. “Put it on the hook.” I jammed it down on the hook, ripping its body, squirting worm juice into the air.
    Randy cast the fishing line out over the lake, explaining how it was all in the flick of the wrist. He handed me the pole and I looked out at the thin plastic line. I looked across the lake and saw a man on the other side. I got up on my knees, nearly dropped the fishing pole, and