A Fine Catch

Dilbert watched his father pry two gold teeth out of a skull and wished his grandmother was alive. She'd have prayed as soon as they found it, dangling as if chewing through the bottom of that metal mesh on the crawfish trap. She'd have made his father bring the bones to the sheriff or a church. Maybe baked a sheet cake to raise money to bury it next to that old willow tree that had Spanish moss for hair.

All Dilbert could do was watch as Walter took the teeth then threw the skull back into the murky water where no one would ever find it again. It sunk under the new growth of weeds, the weight of bone and age pulling it down.

He wondered if he'd known whoever it was. He watched his reflection in the water and didn't say anything. His father's hand was hard and he had enough bruises already. At night, he'd lift up his shirt and count them, trying to imagine them as blessings or marks of valor or anything other than strange purple lessons that ached even after he'd healed.

Walter drove a town over to their pawnshop, trading the teeth for fifty dollars and a faded Hulk figure for Dilbert. He didn't want a toy, he mostly wanted to forget what a person looked like on the inside. He stared at the green flesh of the Hulk, imagining it stripped bare. Just a Hulk skeleton.

Dilbert couldn't sleep that night or any night after. He saw a man much like his father only this man had a smile. He held his kid up on his shoulders and their smile shone brightly with bloody teeth. He dreamed they both tried to crawl in his trailer door, demanding he give back what was stolen.

He took his Hulk and a mason jar of peach moonshine his father brewed last summer and rode his bike back out to the river. His t-shirt was soaked by the time he got to the edge and the sun had almost set.

He sat by one of the trees whose roots had dug into the mud, and held up his treasures.

"I'm sorry," he said.

He threw both in the water, watched as they hardly made a splash. He blinked hard as a dark, disembodied hand, emerged from the water to grab them both.

"Thanks." The voice sounded like a chorus of grasshoppers all moving at once.

Dilbert screamed and tripped, getting some of the muddy water on his pants. He jumped on his bike and rode away as fast as he could, jerking the wheel in his haste.

He didn't dream of the man again and he was punished for losing his Hulk and the jar of moonshine but he figured it was worth it.

After that Walter didn't scare him as much. 

WC: 475