Erie

Flies swarmed over blood smears on the deck. They buzzed in our ears and bit us all over. We shook them off, spun them off, danced them off. When we couldn’t take it anymore, he fired up the motor and said, "Reel ’em in."

The propeller chewed the lake. Wind scoured the deck and the flies scattered. We took her out to 70 feet, then started to drift.

Two capsules fell into his palm from an amber container.

"What are those?" I said.

"I had a tooth pulled,” he said. “These are the big boppers."

He tilted his head back and popped them into his mouth.

"I might have a toothache, too," I said.

We drank beer and watched the rods. When the sun got too hot, I went down in the cuddy, sprawled out on the cushions, and closed my eyes. Hazy red spheres twirled and shimmied.

A man's voice crackled over the radio: "This is the boat. How about somebody out there giving me a radio check?"

I put my beer down and picked up the mic. "What boat? Over,” I said.

"The Boat. Over."

"You're telling me you named your boat The Boat?"

"That's right,” he said.

I rested the mic on my knee, then raised it again. I said, "Did you ever notice that green bottles and sun make rotten beer?"

The line of rods bobbed with each rolling swell. I pressed my thighs against the side of the boat and launched a thick stream of urine into the lake, spattering its surface with sallow effervescence. As I was zipping up, one of the rods dipped. I grabbed it and set the hook. "Got him," I said.

"Walleye?" he said.

The fish dove deep, stripping line. "No," I said.

I brought the fish up and scooped it into the net. Its mucous-hued belly was lustrous in the sun. "Sheephead," he said. I squeezed it tight and tore the hook from its mouth. Blood seeped between my fingers, dripping onto the deck. I hurled the fish at the sun. It came down. It floated.

On the way in the wind picked up, and the seas were rough. Spray moistened my face. He jerked the wheel toward shore, then straightened us out again. His eyes were squinty, his sparse hair blowing upright in the breeze. He turned to me, lifting both hands from the wheel, and held up a pink beer koozie. There was a blue sailboat emblazoned on the side. "I got this in Virginia Beach," he said. “But I hate it.”

The beer koozie whirled past me in a pink and blue blur. I fell hard, crashing into the cuddy door. Tackle and bottles and buckets slid across the deck as he frantically pulled the throttle back.

"Jesus," he said. "We were almost over. Are you all right?"

I felt my ribs and winced. "No blood," I said.

We ripped through the water and the cottages along the shore melted together. "Keep your eyes on the lake and your hands up on the wheel," he sang. "Goin’ to the boathouse, gonna have a real good time."  We bashed into a wave and the bottle clanked against my teeth.

"You're not psychologically scarred or anything, are you?" he said.

"I'll never step foot on a boat again," I said.

He looked at me. I laughed. We both took a drink.           

Dan Morey is a freelance writer in Pennsylvania. His creative work has appeared in Hobart, Thin Air, failbetter, McSweeney's Quarterly and elsewhere, and he's been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Find him at danmorey.weebly.com.