Bob, or Man on Boat

Two boys, brothers, were the ones who found it, the dead man’s boat.

These two brothers didn’t know it, at the time, that the boat belonged to a man who was dead.

These boys, brothers, they didn’t tell their mother or father about the dead man’s boat.

These brothers used the dead man’s boat, to fish in, all of that summer and into the fall.

They fished.

And fished.

They kept on fishing.

It was a good summer of fishing for these two boys.

It wasn’t until the winter that these boys finally decided to tell their father about the boat.

When the father of these boys saw the boat, he saw that this boat, it was not a boat from the waters of Ohio.

There are letters on boats, there are numbers on boats, that will tell you that a boat is from someplace else.

This father made his sons give up this boat.

The father of these two boys, he picked up the phone. He did some talking into it.

He took two men with badges on their chests down to the river to take a look at this boat.

The men with badges took the boat from there.

They took the boat and found out who this boat belonged to.

It was the boat, they soon found out, of a man who went out fishing one day and then, this man, he did not come back.

This man was the dead man.

The two men with badges on their chest took the boat and gave the boat back to where and to who the boat belonged to.

The dead man’s wife.

But the dead man’s wife, she did not want this boat to be given back to her.

This boat, the dead man’s boat, it now belongs to me.

I bought it.

The dead man’s wife, for the dead man’s boat, she gave me a good deal.

What do I want with this boat? the dead man’s wife asked me.

She said to me, What am I going to do with this boat?

This boat, she said, it doesn’t mean a thing to me.

I just stood there nodding with my head.

How much? I said, after a while.

The dead man’s wife held out her hands and said a number that I knew was better than fair.

I nodded my head some more.

Then I fished my hand down into my trouser pocket.

I gave the dead man’s wife twenty dollars over the number that she said.

Thank you, she said.

When I left with the dead man’s boat, I told her I was sorry.

For what? she said.

He’s the one, she said, who should be sorry.

She looked off towards the river.

All the time out on that river, she said.

All the time fishing for fish.

Do you fish? she asked me this.

No, I said.

What you want this boat for then? was what she wanted to be told.

I want to learn how, I told her.

I told her, I want to fish.

The dead man’s wife looked me right in the eye then and asked me was I a married man.

Do you have a wife? she asked. Do you have kids?

No, I’m not, I told her. I don’t.

I didn’t want her to know that I did, that I do.

My wife, too, I didn’t want her to know about me going out and buying the dead man’s boat.

She would have said it was a bad idea.

Nuts is the word that she would have said.

What, do you want to end up like your father?

Do you really want to be like Bob?

I don’t know what I would have said to this.

That’s a good thing, the dead man’s wife told me when I told her that I did not have a wife.

A married man has got no business being out on that river, she said.

If it wasn’t for that river, she said.

She said, My Henry wouldn’t be dead.

I didn’t say anything to this.

I didn’t say anything though what I was thinking was that it wasn’t the river’s fault.

You can’t blame the river.

It’s the river, is what I wished I had said.

It’s the river that kept Henry and men like Henry, men like Bob, a man like me even—

It’s the river that keeps us alive.

The dead man drowned, as bad luck would have it, because he did not know how to swim.

I did not say this to the dead man’s wife though I was thinking it the night I bought the dead man’s boat.

I bought it for a song.

What I wish I had said, that night, to the dead man’s wife, was that the dead man fell out of his boat, into the river, not because he was standing up in his boat, not because he was pissing in the river, but that it was the moon’s fault, it was not the river’s fault, that the truth of that night is this: that the dead man was leaning out over the side of his boat because he was trying to kiss the moon’s reflection on the river: that the moon, that night, it was a fish floating in the sky, and when the dead man saw it bobbing by the side of his boat, the moon, it looked close enough to touch.

And so he reached out to touch it.

He reached out with his hand to touch this fish.

When he reached out to touch it, the moon, it shattered into a billion pieces. Each broken piece became a star.

So why did I go out and buy the dead man’s boat?

I bought the dead man’s boat so that I could get closer to Bob.

So I could get to better know who Bob is.

What I know is this: Bob is my father.

I know, even though Bob doesn’t, that I am Bob’s son.

How else can I say this?

Bob, I wish I could say.

Father, I wish I would say.

Teach me how to fish.

To fish, to catch a fish, this is what you need.

A boat.

A river.

Fish.

Something to fish with.

Some bait.

A net to net the big fish with.

But what about patience?