Archive of Our Own ^beta

For what little remains of the school year, that was all I saw of Sandy, he almost looked like a ghost sometimes except that I could see his cheeks getting rounder. Some of the rumors around town said that Mikey Sanders had picked up a job somewhere as an apprentice to a taxidermist, how he managed that I have no idea must've been somebody took pity on him. Or maybe it was the fact that my stories about how Sandy and I had spent those days in that fishing shack where he would catch his meals and fillet them with the skills he had learned from Mikey. Maybe Camille and Darrell, those big ol' gossips, just let those gums of theirs flap and flap until the rumors were spread all over town. Maybe that was how Mikey Sanders got that taxidermist apprenticeship.

Maybe that was how it came to be that weeks after school ended Mikey and Sandy Sanders showed up at our doorstep with what looked like two whole weeks worth of catfish neatly filleted and packaged in their hands.

"We meant to come calling sooner," Mikey Sanders said. There was a might bit of bashfulness in his voice that I had never heard before. "This here's some fish to show some gratitude."

There was awkward shuffling on Sandy's part, I noticed that straight away. Though I couldn't be so sure if it was from Louisiana's summer sun bearing down on his bare shoulders in that church basement tank top he had on, or if my father's scrutiny was giving him a case of the wiggles. Scrutiny was the new, but not really new, word that gray haired Mr. Nelson the English teacher made us learn on the last day of school. He told us it was a good word to learn on the final day since it'd help us remember God was keepin' his scrutinizing eye on us while we were on summer break.

When Mom took the fish from Mikey's hands, Sandy cleared his throat and squeaked, "You know, in some parts, catfish goes by hornpout in some people's mouths."

I almost died of embarrassment for Sandy right there on our front porch, but not Sandy. He stood straight and if he had a cap on he may have tipped it and been on his way with his brother. They had their backs fully turned to us when my dad invited them in. Just like that. Just out of nowhere. As if those layers of awkward between the Sanders family and ours hadn't been there not too long ago.

And my dad said real casual, too. A simple man's invitation. "Y'all come in now. Almost time to start cooking dinner. You brought the fish, we've got the fixin's."

The brothers' hesitation was more comical than I think anyone would ever admit to in any future retellings of what transpired next. Fact is, I don't much remember what happened next.

I remember there was a lot of laughing and chopping. Mom and Dad, and Mikey, too, had kitchen knives in their hands but they were using to chop up vegetables for dinner. I remember twice as much rice being cooked on that night and a pot of beans with the ham hock in it that Mom kept at a simmer on the back burner got turned up to high. She added more broth and onion to that pot in hopes that that would stretch her recipe enough to feed the two Sanders boys who looked at her bean pot with greedy eyes. I remember Mom beaming with pride at how they looked at this beans, how she hadn't worn that prideful look since the last time she watched Khalid on the football field.

Best of all, I remember me and Sandy taking our plates to the tent in back. I remember putting on a One Piece playlist on my phone and laughing our way through the videos as we shoveled good, hot food in our mouths.

I had my friend back. Finally.