Unless you’re Bob.
Bob lives, in his boat, on the river, in a part of our town that is known in our town as Mud Bay.
Some people call it the Black Lagoon.
This is where the river is at its muddiest.
The banks along the river here are muddy too.
There is a dirt road that runs its way down to the river, down to where Bob lives on his boat.
This road is most of the time muddy.
This is a road that, in the mud, cars get stuck in.
Because of this, most people do not use it.
What would they use it for?
To visit Bob?
Bob doesn’t want to see you.
If there was a sign posted somewhere along this road, this sign would say, Keep Out.
Don’t go any further.
This is my river.
Signed, in mud,
Bob.
I know better than to go down this road.
When I go see Bob, I go by boat.
The dead man’s boat.
I wonder if Bob ever dreams about the dead man.
The dead man getting away.
The dead man was not a fish.
Maybe that’s why the dead man got away.
I wonder, too, if Bob knew that the dead man’s name was Henry.
Or did, to people like Bob, the dead man go by Hank?
These are just some of the things I’d like to some day ask Bob.
My mother, if my mother knew what I was up to, would say to me to stay away.
Stay away from the river.
Stay away from Bob.
He isn’t right, is what my mother would say about Bob.
He isn’t all there.
Where, exactly, I would want to ask my mother, is there?
Is there a better place for a man like Bob to be, or for a man like me to be, than on a boat on the river?
Why didn’t you ever tell him? I asked my mother once.
Why, in other words, didn’t you give Bob a chance to be my father?
I was young, my mother said.
She said she was afraid.
Of what?
Of what he would do.
What would he do, did you think?
I was afraid, my mother said, that he’d take you down to the river.
What I wanted to know was, What would be so wrong with that?
In a sack, my mother said, and she looked me straight in the eye.
In a sack tied tight with twine.
In a sack filled up with bricks.
I have a hard time believing what my mother said about the sack.
Maybe because I don’t want to believe it.
Maybe I want to believe that Bob would have been the kind of a father who would have taken me down to the river, not to get rid of me, not to give me back to the river, but to teach me how to fish.
When I see Bob out on the river fishing, what I ask him is, How’s the fishing?
One time all Bob did was bob his head.
Another time Bob said he had a couple.
When Bob says that he’s got a couple, he does not mean just two.
A couple dozen, maybe.
A couple hundred, on a good night.
Sometimes you will see boats on the river bunched up so close to each other that they actually bang together on the drift. Bob’s boat is never one of those boats.
Bob fishes alone.
Bob fishes outside the pack.
Bob fishes the part of the river that nobody else thinks to fish.
I am not the first fisherman to follow Bob around the river to find out how and where Bob fishes.
But the thing with Bob is this:
You can be fishing the same water as Bob and you won’t catch a single fish.
That’s because Bob is fishing up from the river all of the fish that you can’t catch.
It’s got nothing to do with luck.
It’s got nothing to do with the kind of bait that Bob is fishing with.
It’s got everything to do with Bob and with who Bob is and the fact that Bob does not just live on the river.
Bob lives in the river.
Yes, just like a fish.
It’s true that I’ve seen Bob fish a fish out of the river with just his bare Bob hands.
Sometimes it’s more than just one fish that Bob fishes with his hands out of the river.
It’s true, too, that I have heard Bob sing the fish up into his boat.
It’s not a song that you and I can hear just because we have ears.
But the fish can hear it.
The fish listen to Bob sing when Bob opens up his mouth and sings to them, Fish, oh fish, come here.
I’ve seen fish walk across water to get to where Bob is singing to them this song.
I’ve seen fish leap up at Bob and up into Bob’s boat like fish looking to be kissed.
One day I get home from the river.
What my wife says to me when I come in from the river is, I didn’t marry a fisherman.
She says, Remember, you have a son too.
Ever since you bought that boat, she says.
She does not finish this sentence.
She goes over to where the sink is and she turns on the faucet.
Hot water hisses against two dirty plates.
I am late again for supper.
I see my son sitting in front of the TV.
He is in his underwear.
He’s six.
He is watching a TV show that I do not know the name of.
Hey, buddy boy, I say.
He does not turn toward the sound of his daddy’s voice.
What’s going on, little man? I say.
He doesn’t say anything to this.
Guess what I saw out on the river today?
On the TV there is a clown made out of clay.
I saw this really big ship, I say.
My son looks up at me, away from the TV.
What? he says, though I don’t think he’s heard what I’ve said.
A big ship that sailed here all the way from China.
His eyes widen though I wonder if he knows what and where is China.
What about Bob? my son then says.
I wonder what and how much he knows about Bob.
What about Bob? I say.
Was Bob on the China ship?
No, I say.
I say, Bob was on Bob’s boat.
Then he says, Is Bob going to go to China?
I guess he does know what China is.
I don’t think so, I tell him.
On the TV the clay clown is juggling three clay fish.
Did you catch any fish? he asks.
A couple, I say. Want to see them? One’s got some pretty big teeth on him.
Maybe later, he says.
He turns back to face the TV.
Some nights it’s hard to get my own son to bite.
In bed, that night, my wife says it again.
I didn’t marry a fisherman.
She turns over onto her side.
Her back is to my belly.
Like that, she reaches over and turns out the light.
That night, I have a dream with Bob fishing in it.
In this dream, I am fishing with Bob.
I am fishing in Bob’s boat.
Bob is teaching me how to fish.
He is pointing to places in the river where, he says, there are always more than just one fish for a man to fish up.
Then Bob says to me, Hold out your hands.
So I hold out my hands.
He takes my hands into his own.
He looks down at my hands.
I can tell that he is looking.
I look down at his.
His hands are scaled and webbed.
His hands are fins.
I pull my hands away from Bob.
What’s the matter? Bob asks me. Haven’t you ever shaken hands with a fish?
I shake my head no.
That’s your problem, Bob tells me.
Bob turns, then, and just like that, Bob jumps out of his boat.