Perspective

ORCHARD PRESS MYSTERIES, SHORT FICTION & POETRY

March 2007

Perspective
a short story
by Roger W. Harrington

Roger Harrington is a former "Rock and Roll" star in England; gold miner; advisor to the Thai government on ESL teaching; college teacher; Russian interpreter for CAR; and gold-miner, among other things. He has two academic fellowships, a published novel, The Journey of Marie-Jeanne (Reviewed on CBC) and three others. Roger's published short stories include: Michael, Time-sliding, All the Little Children, Room for Murder, The Tryst, The Duck, A Christmas Gift, The Turncliffe Letters, The Christmas Bell, and Executive Decision, plus five short story awards. His poems number more than 150, with six awards, including the Massey College Junior Fellow Poetry award.

The car is a bright red Ferrari. I am impressed. He is trying to change a tire and not doing so well.

"Can you give me a hand, son?"

My father owns the local garage, so I know something about changing tires. I give him a hand.

"There." he says, when we are done.

"You’re not too good at changing tires." I say.

"Never had the opportunity." he replies.

He is smooth-looking; like a movie star. I like him right away.

"Nice car." I tell him.

"The best." he says. "Want to take a spin?"

Do I want to? That has to be a dumb question.

"Sure." I say.

We drive for a while, and it is great.

"Tell me," he says, as he pulls the Ferrari over, "what would you really like to do?"

I’m not sure what he means by that. I mean, I think we are doing fine, but I know he wants me to say something.

"I’d like to go fishing", I tell him.

"Sounds good to me." he says. "Where can we get some fishing tackle?"

I tell him and he drives there.

I’m not so sure we need all the stuff he buys, but he’s paying so I don’t argue.

"Where do we go to fish?" he asks.

"Kelly’s Point." I tell him.

"Show me the way." he says, and I do.

To tell the truth, we don’t do so bad at Kelly’s Point. We pull in a few big ones.

"Can we cook them?" he asks.

"Reckon so." I tell him. I do most of the fixing. He doesn’t seem to know much about cooking fish.

We are half-way through the meal when he tells me.

"You know, I never did this before."

As if I can’t tell.

"I kinda like it," he says, you do this a lot?"

I’m not going to tell him that I don’t have the money for fishing gear.

"Once in a while." I say.

"You’re lucky." he says.

Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t share his view.

He sees this and he says, "No, I mean it. You keep to the simple things and you’ll appreciate them."

"And the Ferrari?" I remind him.

"Nothing." he says. "You don’t see it now, but you will."

There’s no way I’m gonna convince myself of that, but I nod. After all, it’s his trip and his money.

"I gotta go." He says after we finish eating.

Let’s face it, I never thought it would last forever.

He drives me to where I found him.

"You take it easy." he says.

"Yeah, you too," I say, and he is gone in a cloud of dust.

****

"You see the paper, Jim?"

"No, Honey."

"They finally caught that son-of-a-bitch, Brady."

"No kidding?"

"Yeah. Killed two cops. He’ll fry for sure."

I look at the picture in the paper over my mom’s shoulder.

I think about it, and I think about the time me and Mr. Brady went fishing. To be truthful, I couldn’t feel nothing against him. He’d treated me right; that was for sure. But I don’t tell her. She wouldn’t understand.

Contact the Author - roghar@xcelco.on.ca