This is a simple short story used to help me develop some characters in the Be A Man series. This is not a part of any manuscript or storyline I plan to write, but this passage embodies the characters from a future title from the Be A Man universe.
At fourteen and a junior Olympian, Shawn grew to be a world-class archer by the time he reached high school. The son of wealthy parents, Shawn, lived a privileged life until he got into trouble. Being the middle child of five kids, he often found himself mixed up in the troubles of his older brother and the tattletale rumors from his little sisters. With troubles, consequences always came afterward. Each time, I tasked Shawn to do manual labor to learn from his mistakes. I sent him and his brother to chop down trees and split wood, work the family farm, and even hunting with their uncles were life lessons he and his older brother needed as overly privileged children.
The archer loved hunting. Not allowed to tote a gun, Shawn carried his compound bow with him during the hunts. On his first hunt with one shot, Shawn downed a twenty-point buck before either of his uncles could fire a shot from their rifles. Stuffed and mounted in the practice arena he shared with his mother, Shawn’s memories of his life as a hunter excited his spirit. With Olympic dreams and a love for his bow, Shawn always enjoyed a challenge. The next challenge was fishing with his uncles.
I caught my first fish when I was five. My brother, Marcus, helped me bait the hook, cast the line, and reel the fish in. Exciting and fun, I enjoyed it very much. Yet, fishing with my family after was a rather lackluster task versus it being for leisure. Once my boys were of age, Marcus asked if he could take his nephews alongside him fishing. When I think about it, Marcus never invited me with him and my sons.
My oldest son, nicknamed Twenty, had always been the more roughed between the two. When making firewood, Twenty made it a challenge on who could split the most wood. Although Shawn had the upper hand on Twenty with hunting with a bow and arrow, Twenty did actually down a deer before Shawn. Shawn was never the strongest, fastest, or smartest out of my teen boys, but Shawn possessed something his older brother did not: a level of resourcefulness most boys don’t develop until they are left in the woods by themselves with a pocket knife and their wits.
The fishing trip with their uncles and older cousin happened during the middle of the 2020 pandemic. On a grand yacht Rachelle bought for afternoons on Falls Lake, five guys I shared some form of DNA with fished together on a hot summer day with no luck for my youngest son. While kicking back near the front of the boat, Dejuan and Twenty laughed at Shawn as he yelped while attempting to rig his hook with a nightcrawler. The disgust on Shawn’s face told the story. His brow frowned deeply, like when he was a baby when I first fed him chitlins before spitting the mouthful back at me. Shawn’s lips and cheeks made the worst frown, as if he was dissecting a frog. My grandfather said when Shawn assisted him and his friend with butchering the deer, Shawn died three times before toughing through removing the front quarter of the animal.
“Shawn, hook it three times so it won’t be just feeding the fish!” Dejuan said to his cousin while seated next to Twenty.
“I got it!” Shawn said while fighting his disgust piercing the body of the worm.
“Bro, you don’t have to make that face,” Twenty said. “Just get it done and cast your rod out, dude.” Twenty and Dejuan relaxed with their rods baited and already cast in the water. Dejuan had his blunt fired up, and he was in a good place. Twenty had his phone in his hand while he texted back and forth between three girls who were all pursuing him. Between the puffs of smoke Dejuan bellowed and Twenty’s text message conversations, the two found time to irritate the youngest crew member aboard the SS Legacy.
“Dejuan, hurry and smoke that thing. You know, your uncle probably got the cameras on this boat streaming to his office,” Marcus said to his son of his choice of intake for his cannabis as he walked past the two to assist Shawn. Both my brothers constantly teased me about things that made no sense in teasing someone.
“Not yet,” Twenty said. “But don’t put it past him. He’s such a nerd.”
“Yeah, a nerd that’s put us all in a good place right now. Don’t be talking about my uncle like that,” Dejuan said while also joking with Twenty.
Marcus pivoted his attention to Shawn to assist him with baiting his hook before Shawn cast his rod for ten feet from the boat. “So, when you cast your reel, you’ve got to be one with your rod,” Marcus told his nephew.
“Hey, I know how to do stuff like this. I’m a natural man,” Shawn said while reeling back his baited hook.
“I’ll be damned! You throw like a robot!” Travis said from the opposite side of the boat where he and Marcus had set up their rods and beers.
“Bro, do it like you’re trying to turn the double play playing short,” Twenty said.
“Twenty, I said I got it,” Shawn said. “This one slipped.” My son was proud. He never liked to receive help before he got it. When he cast his hook the next time, it was perfect. His hook traveled 25 to 30 yards from the boat, which prompted faux cheers from Travis and Twenty.
“That’s how you do it, nephew,” Marcus said. “Take your time like that after you catch a fish. You’re going to be just fine.”
While Twenty watched both his and Dejuan’s floats on their cast rods while Dejuan medicated himself, Travis and Marcus did what they did best: drink and tell lies about everything. The two were just missing their other brother to continue with the telling of the lies. Meanwhile, Shawn fished alone and felt the pressure to catch not only one fish, but the biggest fish. However, he struggled mightily. While Travis and Marcus reeled their fish in left and right, Twenty and Dejuan caught their fair share. With at least ten fish in the collective bucket, Shawn hadn’t caught one for the group yet. Shawn fought with the waters and the insults tossed from his brother to no avail as he tried his best to catch a fish.
After five minutes in one area, Shawn would reel his hook in to check if anything touched his bait. Nothing. He re-cast over and over and over again. Looking frustrated, Travis switched places with his nephew as Travis had caught the most fish on the boat. Travis, also, re-baited Shawn’s hook similarly to how he did his own to ensure Shawn had the best opportunity to catch a fish. Almost immediately, Travis caught a largemouth bass before he could sit his rod down. This fish was Travis’ largest fish of his life as it weighed over ten pounds. This infuriated Shawn, as he had fished in the same area as his youngest uncle for nearly an hour.
Ticked off, Shawn immediately marched inside the cabin after reeling his rod completely and sitting it on the deck. The fourteen-year-old angry at the situation had seen fish in the water but could not catch one. He was determined to catch not only a fish, but he wanted to catch the biggest fish. Initially, Travis and Marcus thought the easy to anger Shawn had given up, but Twenty knew his brother would only leave to recalibrate himself.
With his trusty compound bow he used to hunt with his uncles, Shawn emerged ready to fire every arrow into the water at every fish that swam close to the SS Legacy. “Shawn, you can’t hunt for fish like that. We’re on a boat,” Dejuan said.
“Quiet, you!” Shawn said as he walked with his head held high. “This archer is at work.” This boy was eager to fight for the win. From the battles with his brother as a youngster to the battles he had to endure overcoming a physical disability, my son always wanted to ensure his supremacy. After opening the case for his bow, Shawn went to work breaking and modifying the fishing rod with his bow.
While he took his time strapping the reel to his bow, Travis walked by him to observe what he was doing. “Boy, what the hell are you doing? I know you ain’t done broke up that two hundred dollar fishing rod,” Travis said while Shawn went to work.
“I’m catching fish the best way I know how,” Shawn said while not wavering from his work. He strapped and taped the bow and fishing rod together to make a makeshift fishing bow rig. My son had always been skilled at making his vision come to life from the construction of his Lego sets, but as he made use of the fishing rod, bow, and rope he found onboard the SS Legacy, Shawn impressed his two favorite uncles.
“Do you know how hard it is to catch a fish like this from a boat?”
“Nope, but we’re going to learn today.”
Thirty minutes after he began engineering a bowfishing rig, Shawn stood on the side of the boat in an archer’s stance except he aimed his arrow at the water. The jokes and laughter around him soon turned to silence when Twenty realized his brother had his eyes on the prize. While Marcus and Travis continued to cast their reels and sparsely catch fish, Shawn struck gold. It took him one shot to spear the largest fish of the day. Reeling the fish up onto the boat, and with Dejuan’s help with a net, Shawn landed a sixteen-pound largemouth bass.
Stoic and stern, Shawn displayed the maturity of a man three times his age as Marcus, Travis, and Dejuan celebrated the feat. While Marcus had never seen a largemouth bass that large, Travis captured Shawn’s feat at every moment. While holding the fish in his hands, Travis asked him how he was able to nab the large fish.
“You know, I get my toughness from you. My resilience comes from Uncle Marcus. My determination, I get from Grandpa Russell, and my soul beams from both my grandmothers. When I saw that fish earlier, I needed it on the wall of the practice arena.”
“You’re not going to try to eat it?” Travis asked.
“I eat Chilean sea bass, bluefin tuna, and wild king salmon all the time. Why would I want to eat wild Falls Lake bass the size of my thigh? Uncle T, I’m good.”
“That’s a big ass fish.”
“How in the hell did you do that, cuz? I ain’t never seen anything like this before,” Dejuan said.
“Remember who my parents are. My mom is the most resourceful woman in the world. She’s the female MacGyver. My dad, your uncle, and their brother made everything out of nothing. This is nothing compared to what Dr. Walton and Rachelle Burkett have been able to do for the world. I’m lucky to call them my parents.”
“Hey, dumbass, you do know they make fishing bows. You didn’t have to jury-rig and tape up your bow and that two hundred dollar fishing rod. Mom’s gonna kick your butt!” Twenty yelled.
Shawn smiled and nodded. Hearing aids on full blast, he could hear the wave crashing against the side of the boat. No scale could measure his happiness as the fish he captured made him proud to be a boy who downed a deer, snake, and fish with a bow and arrow. “So what? I proved something, though. I am the fishing archer!”
Be A Man Universe 