Page 63 - WTP Vol.IX #3

over the only hole they never fished. As the sound of crunching boots draws closer, Beard emerges from the fishing shack with a licorice whip hanging out of his front teeth.
“Never saw the police out here,” says Beard, rubbing his forearms.
All-Orange shakes his head. He keeps an eye on the boy and speaks in a low, quiet voice. “They came out,” he says. “Got up the road and found a truck pulled off to the shoulder. Some guy put a gun in ‘is mouth. Only been dead a few hours when they found’m. S’prised you’d didn’t hear nuttin’.”
“That close, eh?”
“A mile’r two. Said soon as they get things squared away over there, they’s gonna come up this way. Told ‘em we’d leave the shack out. Should be able to find’m from there.”
“Ya, they should.”
“Don’t figure on tellin’ the boy,” says All-Orange. “S’pose he’s seen enough already.”
Beard walks to his coat, still splayed on the snow, for the first time since he lay it there. He grabs the boy’s coat and throws it towards him. “Gotta fillet it your- self, if’n you wanna take’r home.”
The boy walks away from the hole, nodding like he’s just finished a conversation, and steps on his coat before noticing it’s there. He picks up the bucket with his fish inside, hangs his hood on his head, and walks towards the two men. His coat floats behind him like a cape. “There gonna be blood?”
Beard snaps a bite out of the red candy and tosses the boy the other half. “Nuttin’ you can’t handle, kid.”
Loughrin lives in Milwaukee, WI, with his wife, his three children, and a pit bull named Esme. His short story, “The Rocking Trees,” was published in Issue #4 of The Hunger Journal.
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Splashing Humming-Fish
mixed media on canvas 24'' x 24''
By Beverly Kedzior