'74 & Sunny by A. J. Benza

fractions any day of the week,” I said. “You ready to fish, Uncle Larry?”
    â€œYour father is the fisherman in the family,” he said. “But he’ll teach me.”
    Right then and there I knew my uncle and Gino were in for trouble. When it came to people fishing on his boat, my father had the patience of a time bomb. He had a habit of telling you how to do things once before sending you off on your own. If you didn’t catch on, he’d steal glimpses of you in moments of complete incompetence and just shake his head, take a long drag on his cigarette, and mutter to himself. Not tossing the anchor overboard correctly, or squeamishly baiting a hook, or leaving the clamming sacks back home were practically capital offenses.
    By the time we got back and headed for the dock, my father was already waiting at the wheel with Lorraine’s fiancé, Frankie, and Jack. We shoved off and meandered down the canals of my youth and into the slapping tides of the Great South Bay. The bay had been good to us for years. In the summer of 1974, the water was still clear enough that you could see straight to the bottom, fishing twelve feet deep or so. Maybe more. There were times when we were fishing for blowfish or flounder that we could actually see where the bigger fish were and we’d drop our lines right on top of them.It was almost unfair. There were days when we’d fill a garbage pail full of fish in a couple of hours and we’d have to turn home because there was no more room to keep them on board. And sometimes we’d come home with so much that my mother would curse us.
    â€œOh, Jesus Christ! Who the hell is going to batter and fry all that damn flounder?”
    â€œYou are,” my father said, “with a smile on your face.”
    And she always would. And whatever we couldn’t eat would go to the neighbors up and down the block.
    On this particular day, the water was choppy and Gino and I sat upfront with extra-large Windbreakers on to ward off the waves that were splashing into the bow of the boat. Behind us, beneath the steering column, my father would always keep a huge flask of Scotch on board and traditionally brought it out for the men to “toast” certain things during the journey. Whenever the first white cap was spotted, the flask was passed around to all the men and everyone said, “ A salute! ” The flask also came out whenever we spotted the first nice pair of tits on someone else’s boat . “A salute!”
    First sighting of seagulls following a school of bluefish? “A salute!”
    First bite on someone’s pole? “A salute!”
    First fish on board? “A salute!”
    I remember Gino got seasick in the first five minutes and Uncle Larry was three sheets to the wind before he dropped his line in the water. We had what we called a “pisswah” on board,which consisted of a blue-capped Clorox bleach bottle with the bottom cut out. This was what the men and boys could pee into before dumping their business overboard into the ocean. Uncle Larry never saw the huge, gaping hole in the bottom, so he promptly unscrewed the cap, stuck his prick into the bottle, and didn’t realize he essentially peed all over the tackle box. Not too long after that display, my father turned the boat back around and headed near home for the flats to do some quick clamming, while his brother and nephew slept it off. Frankie and Jack snickered a bit, telling me I had a long road ahead if I was going to get Gino to toughen up and catch up to our standards.
    â€œGonna be tough jerking off to Pop’s Playboy s with Gino staying in your room,” Frankie said. “Right, Jack?”
    â€œOh boy,” Jack said. “I’ll give him till August before his balls explode in his sleep.”
    â€œYou guys are gross,” I said. “I don’t do that.” I was lying, of course, as the burning cramp in my right