The Bait Shop That Opened at Four

What It Said

There were six words on the back, in blue ink, in a hand I had last seen on the memo line of a check.

I get up at four too.

I read it once. Then I read it again, because I did not trust my eyes. Then I put both hands flat on the counter, because they had stopped being mine.

“He wrote it standing at the tailgate,” Mr. Hasselquist said quietly. “With my pen. He held it for a good while before he handed it over.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“No. He shook my hand and helped my grandson up into the truck. That was all.”

I should tell you what I wanted to do. I wanted to pick up the phone on the wall and finish the tenth digit. I had the whole number in my head. I could have had it done in seven seconds.

I did not do it.

I want you to understand why, because I have thought about it ever since. My son had not written me a letter, or an invitation, or a door left open. He had written six words on the back of a card I wrote, and handed it to a stranger.

That is what a man does when he is not ready, and still cannot stand to say nothing. It was an answer to seven years of silence, and it was small enough that I could carry it.

If I called now, I would be calling for myself. I would be asking him to take away the weight I had earned, because I could not stand it any longer. That is the same pride that said no in the back room, and I knew it the moment I looked at it.

He deserved better than the call I wanted to make. He deserved a man who had finished the work.

“Mr. Hasselquist,” I said. “Would you do me a favor?”

“Anything.”

“Come Friday night. The Lions fish fry. I would like you to be there.”

“I wouldn’t miss it,” he said, though he had no idea what for.

Roscoe

Roscoe came in at five, in his barn coat, with the Bay City paper. He read my face before he got his coffee poured. He set the paper on the counter without opening it.

“He got to you, didn’t he,” he said. “The dentist. I told him in July he ought to say something.”

“You told him?”

“I told him what I knew. I figured one of us had to.” He poured the coffee. “Doss, it’s been seven years and I’ve kept my mouth shut. What did the card say?”

I showed it to him. He read it, and he took off his glasses and polished them for a long time on his shirt, which is a thing Roscoe does when he is not going to talk about something.

“Four hundred and twelve of them,” he said at last. “I buy the blank ones at the Dollar General in Alpena, because you’d sooner I didn’t see the stack shrink. I count the empty boxes.”

“Roscoe.”

“He read one, and he wrote on it.” He put his glasses back on. “That’s the boy I watched tie a blood knot on your front steps. That’s him exactly. What are you going to do?”

I told him.

Roscoe said, “Well, it’ll cost you.”

“It’s supposed to.”

“I’ll bring the chairs,” he said.