Fish and Game

for RK

1.

His favorites were the long snaky monsters, pike, muskie, pickerel, hard fighting and crafty. They feared him, though, watching from the weedy shallows, recognizing his curled moustache, his bottles of Bud. He was dead-drunk by nine, sprawled out in his dinghy, in and out of sleep, never far from the rope swing where the children played, keeping an eye on him, waiting for him to do something foolish like dance in his boat or something amazing like pull a silver sword from the middle of the lake.

2.

He hunted deer only when it was time to, an X on the calendar, a chance to restock his freezer. Deer, he thought, begged for death. Ringnecks were more of a challenge. The earth spit them out, green and red and gold, a panic of wings, feathers scattering, although sometimes they just stayed put and, dogless, he could bag one by stepping on its head. King George had killed thousands; he limited himself to five a season. They were too pretty to kill and when they cried out in the afternoon heat they seemed to cry out to him: RK! RK! RK!