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David Fischer, in a dream, finds himself fishing from the center crossplank of a
weathered wooden rowboat on a foggy morning in May on a lake he knows
in real life, in Galloway County, Wisconsin. A lively tangle of details, like a glistening
glob of angleworms in the bottom of a can, will linger when he wakes, but for the moment,
in Fischer’s uneasy sleep, he takes a broad view of himself, and of the entire misty
scene, looking down on it from on high, as if hovering like a dragonfly.
The time is somewhere in the future, for Fischer is with his friend Nadine, with
whom he has never fished, day or night, though he has hoped he someday might.
A round plastic bobber, white on top and red beneath, floats a few yards
from the boat. Suddenly it scoots sideways on the water.
It descends
and rises
and drops again.
It is Fischer’s first strike of the day. He is excited, we could say.
David, dreaming, in bed alone in a small stone home in a small Wisconsin
town, jerks his rod back and sets the hook. Bluegill, he can tell. A big one,
this he knows. He plays it till it tires. Then he cranks his Zebco
reel until the fish, still struggling, still sending sparkling splashes into
the air, arrives at boatside. Fischer smiles, satisfied.
“Nice one!” says Fischer’s friend Nadine, facing him from the bow.
Her words are muffled, a whisper, or a sigh. Fischer grunts a thank-you.
This, yes, will be his first fish, you see, but Nadine has already landed three.
The oars are stowed in the stern, beside an ice chest, life vests, a landing net,
and an untidy heap of anchor rope. Fischer leans forward for the net. He tries
twice, but it is beyond his reach. So, he’ll hoist the bluegill up by hand. Holding
his rod with his right fist, line thumb-locked as if he were about to cast, rod tip pointing at
the sky, Fischer thrusts his left hand forward toward his line, but the bluegill tugs away, and
Fischer’s wristwatch—how odd! his beloved Rolex in a boat?—snags on an oarlock.
The chrome-link bracelet comes unlatched, and the watch flies off the wrist, flies forward
past the fish. It seems to float, and turn, and display its face, the hands, as one, showing
three-sixteen—that can’t be right, Fischer thinks, in morning light—and then the watch slowly
begins to sink, slowly, slowly, disappears from sight.
In his wakeful world Fischer has never owned a fancy watch; he gives
scant attention to the time of day. But in the dream he cries, “Oh, Lord!”
And he still has not brought his fish aboard.
He turns to his friend, who shakes her head in sympathy. She looks away. She
looks back and says softly, “Dave, it’s okay.” She lights a Salem, sets her lighter
on her tackle box, exhales, and says, “Dave, it wasn’t real. Your Rolex was a replica.”
He’s shocked. Nadine is so mistaken! He can’t believe she could be so wrong. Fischer
lays down his rod, lets his line go limp, and grips the gunwales with both his hands.
He leans toward his friend and sadly asks, “You think I’d own a fake one? A knockoff?
Some cheap toy? No, Nadine, that watch that sank, that was the real McCoy!”
Nadine’s a kind and gentle woman. But her eyes are wide with skepticism, and she
looks away, blows smoke again, then stares Fischer in the face. Her words float, light
and low, “Well,” she says, “it’s gone. So I guess, Dave, we’ll never know.”
♦
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