Man Trip Read Free

“Not home yet, huh?”
    “Soon, prob’ly.”
    Ledward watched us fish for a few minutes. “What you going do with these aholeholes?”
    I shrugged.
    “Feed um to the ants,” Julio said. “They’re junk fish.”
    Ledward frowned. “If they’re junk fish, why don’t you just throw them back in the water after you catch them?”
    We both looked at Ledward. Throw the fish
back
?
    “You just killing them for no reason.”
    I looked at Julio. Who threw fish back? Nobody I knew.
    Julio raised his eyebrows.
    “Was me,” Ledward said, standing up, “I’d throw them back. If you not going eat um, let um live, ah?” He smiled. “Hey. Gotta get these flowers in some water.”
    He headed back up to the house.
    Julio looked at me.
    “I know,” I said. “Weird.”

A few minutes later Mom drove up and pulled into the garage. She got out and went right into the house. Good. If she saw that lawn mower sitting in the same place, she’d say, “The man of the house always finishes what he starts.”
    I frowned. I wasn’t much of a man of the house.
    Julio pulled up his line and wound it around his bamboo pole.
    “Take the fish,” I said.
    “What for?”
    “I don’t know. Give them to Maya’s cat?”
    “Pshh. Just throw um in the bushes for the mongooses.”
    “What you’re saying is you’re lazy?”
    “Bingo!”
    Julio flicked his eyebrows and left.
    I tossed the seven dried-out fish into the bushes and smelled the fish stink on my fingers. Some lucky mongoose would have a feast.

    When I put my fishing pole back in the garage, Streak was sitting there with a tennis ball in her mouth.
    I laughed. “You’re kidding, right?” Streak was the laziest ball fetcher on the planet.
    She dropped the ball.
    “All right,” I said. “But you better bring it back to me, and I mean all the way, got it?”
    Streak ran out into the yard.
    I picked up the ball and tossed it toward the river. Streak bounded down after it and brought it back … halfway.
    She dropped it and sat.
    I walked down to pick it up.
    I squatted to scratch her chin. “Lazy dog, you are something else, you know?”

    Just then, Ledward came out and waved to me. “I have an idea.”
    I stood, tossing the ball up and down. “What kind of idea?”
    “Come,” he said, nodding toward the river. “Let’s sit.”
    We sat side by side on the grass. I tossed the ball from one hand to the other.

    For a minute no one said anything.
    “Who’s Shayla?” Ledward asked.
    “What?”
    “The girl who called you?”
    “Uh … she’s just a … girl. She won’t leave me alone. It’s kind of a problem.”
    “That’s not a problem.”
    “You don’t know Shayla.”
    Ledward chuckled.
    He glanced at the lawn mower. “What about that?”
    I looked up in fake surprise. “Oh. Yeah. Forgot.”
    Ledward laughed but said, “Be good if you finish that job. Your mom counts on your help.” He crossed his arms over his knees. “What’d you do with the fish?”
    I lifted my chin toward the bushes. Ants were probably crawling all over them by now. “In there.”
    Ledward said nothing. Then, “I’ve been thinking. You know those tickets I won?”
    “Yeah. Hawaiian Airlines.”
    “Got two left, and I think you and me should take a trip, too. A man trip.”
    I sat up. “Man trip?”
    Ledward smiled. “Me, I try to get away once in a while, just to rest my head. Sometimes I go by myself. Sometimes I go with some guys I know. But I always come back relaxed and thinking clearly. That’s a man trip. You get away by yourself, or with some guys. This time you could come with me.”
    “Me?”
    “Why not?” Ledward bumped me with his elbow. “How’s about it?”
    “A
real
trip?”
    “Uh-huh. We could go deep-sea fishing. Fly to the Big Island for the day. I have a friend with a boat.”
    “Ho!
Really?
”
    “The fish will be a little bigger than those aholehole you caught, but I think you can handle it.”
    “Yeah! Let’s do it!”
    I could see