Fishing license

The almost-conclusion of the ongoing separation of $erena the Waitress and Hasky

by Sally Cragin

Illustration by Lennie Peterson

TRITOWN -- Midsummer in Tritown is as silent and devitalized as midwinter. Everyone is stupified by the heat, and Hollis the Mountain Man abandons his plan to apply a coat of paint on the Mountain Cabin (well, the side that faces the road). He's good for little more than a long nap on the porch in the afternoon and a trip to the Rod 'N` Reel in the evening.

Thus he finds out about the once-simple, now-complicated amour of Hasky Tarbox and $erena the Waitress. Myrt Scully, who owns the joint, has been unwilling confessor to the despondant Hasky, and her legendary patience is wearing thin. "I don't mind hearing him out," she tells Hollis, pulling him a draft. "I don't even mind throwing him out when he's had too much. But I just can't listen to the self-hatred that comes pouring out of that boy."

Poor Hasky Tarbox. A genius at reassembling broken vehicles and certainly gifted at engine repair, he's the shining star of the Tarbox Automotive (Collisions? A Specialty) dynasty. But when his longtime girlfriend $erena decided to stay in Providence after graduating from the Deloverly School of Esthetology, he was shattered.

Hollis, always uncomfortable with strong feelings, has watched this unfolding saga with grim foreboding. "His heart needs welding," remarks Hollis to Myrt. "This isn't a Bondo job."

Myrt gives him a skeptical look and goes back to polishing the bar top. "Someone needs to take him out of himself," she says, "or at least take him out of here." She gestures at the slumped figure at the end of the bar. "He's keeping up with his tab, though, so things aren't that bad."

Hollis regards his drinking companion. He's known Hasky all his life, and until $erena went away, he'd thought Hasky to be just a typical Tritownie, both loud and sullen, eloquent only when discussing a particularly challenging repair job. Years ago, Delia had concluded: "He's like that comment the philosopher Hobbes made about life: nasty, brutish, and short."

These days, Hasky is still short, but he's lost his bluster and is straining just to get through the day. "Like a badly serviced engine running on the last quarter-cup of oil," thinks Hollis. "How long can he go on before the final flare-up and then total breakdown?"

A wave of unfamiliar compassion envelopes Hollis. Hasky is slowly tearing the label off his bottle using an oil-stained thumbnail. Bits of foil stick to his hand, but he doesn't seem to mind.

"Hey, Hasky," Hollis calls. Hasky looks up, and Hollis sees his ringed eyes and stubble-coated chin. He barely cracks a grin.

"Hey, Hollis," he says. "Didn't see ya come in."

Hasky turns back to his bottle, but Hollis takes the next stool and says casually, "Full moon soon enough. Thought I'd go fishing."

Hasky is silent. Fishing is one of his few passions besides $erena and the V-8 engine. He nods and says, "$erena loved fishing. She had a casting arm that would put a fly in the middle of the pond."

Hollis is exasperated. "Y'know," he begins. "She's not passed on. I bet she still loves fishing."

"Not many places to fish in Providence, are there?" Hasky retorts.

I bet there are a few, Hollis thinks to himself.

PROVIDENCE -- It is 99 degrees, or at least that's as far as the digital thermometer on the billboard goes. $erena the Waitress is chugging around town with her beauty-school friend, Christine, looking for a decent apartment. But mostly she's wondering what the hell she's doing. Graduation day was so much fun, and Hasky looked so, well, manly in his suit. Of course, her father hadn't taken the news that she wasn't coming home well, but he hadn't yelled. Just looked sad and resigned. "If that's what you want . . ." he'd said. He'd brought her flowers too, and now his star-gazer lilies and Hasky's white roses were wilted. She'd been allowed to stay in the dorm an extra few days, but since then, she's camped on Christine's mother's couch.

This whole plan is so cockamammy. Christine's sister Cheryl supposedly has a loan for a beauty salon and a line on a shop in a good neighborhood, but then the amount of the loan was cut back; and between looking for a place to live and changing her whole life in just a few weeks in this crazy heat, $erena is feeling stressed.

Providence is bigger than Tritown, and there are more people her age, but now that she isn't in a classroom nine hours a day she feels like she has nothing in common with her generation. She is getting to know some of Christine's old friends, who are kind of going to college and kind of not, but mostly going to clubs and getting blasted all the time; and $erena has done that years ago, when the R 'N` R booked bands. "How'd I get so old at just 21?" she asks herself, traipsing up the rickety porch stairs of a dilapidated two-family house. Of course she has money put aside, but that was her and Hasky's nestegg.

Ouch, that hurts. She bumps her shin on the top step and notices the screen on the aluminum door is torn. At least there aren't 'skeeters in the city. Well, not many.

Christine turns to her. "Your turn to knock," she says, tucking the circled newspaper ad into her backpack.

$erena sighs and lifts her hand. She still admires her manicure, though.

TRITOWN -- By 3 p.m., the Sunday after $erena's graduation, Hollis and Hasky are in the rowboat on Picture Pond, and Delia is on the porch with Hollis's new portable phone. Delia had convinced him to get it when she hatched the plan. "Great-uncle Wilton's bakelite phone will not stretch to the porch, and the point is that when I call $erena, I'll be calling from here. And I'll tell her you and Hasky are fishing on the pond."

"Don't you think if he were fishing with some beautiful blond she'd get her butt back up here faster?" asks Hollis.

"Probably," says Delia. "But we're a little short on beautiful blonds today, and you're all I got." She chucks him on his scruffy beard.

"The point is to create a word-picture enticing, yet casual that reminds her of the joys of home. Don't pray for rain, okay?"

Mid-afternoon, Hollis strolls up the gravel drive to Tarbox Automotive with a bottle of homebrew. Coaxing Hasky onto the rowboat is a piece of cake after that. Hasky especially perks up when he sees what a rotten caster Hollis is (Hollis's best acting since his performances in the dismal chamber next to the vice-principal's office when accounting for certain high-school pranks).

"Kee-righst, izzat the best you can do?" Hasky scowls, as a hook flies past his eye. "Lemme take over."

Hollis hands him the pole and lies back in the boat. If he tilts his head back, he gets a cool breeze under his chin.

On the porch, Delia finally connects with $erena. "Just checking in," she says. "I'm calling from the Mountain Lair, and it looks like they're biting . . ."

But she doesn't get a chance to finish her word-picture. $erena is breathless with excitement and anxiety. "Can you get Hasky to pick me up at the bus stop at nine?" she asks.

"You coming back to Tritown?" Delia replies. There is a pause, and then $erena says, "It's my aunt Theresa. She's in the hospital."

"Omigahd," Delia squeals, and then asks, "which Theresa?" (The T 'n` T Beauty Salon is run by $erena's older cousins, or maybe they're aunts, but they're both named Theresa.)

"Big Theresa," says $erena. "She had a heart attack. I'm packing now, the bus leaves in 15 minutes." Delia can hear voices in the background, and then $erena comes on again. "Just make sure I get picked up, okay?"

Delia agrees, and then stares at the pond. Hasky's pulled a bass, and it's playing the line almost to the center of the pond. She clicks the buttons on the phone till the light goes off, and then she runs down the stairs toward the shore.

to be continued . . .

Sally Cragin endorses neither excessive drinking nor careless fishing.

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