Most everything I tell you from here on out's truthful. Some names've been changed and I filled the gaps in my memory with what I think happened, but aside from that, this story is the truth. As much as some of it might seem like bullshit, nothing here's an outright lie.

I'd've liked to tell you more about my baby years, but ain't nobody's around who remembers anything about that anymore. Even if there was, I don't care much to ask. All you gotta know is that my name's Hosea. Hosea Fisher, born to the bravest woman I know and the man who was meant to father me in the charmingly crummy fishing village in Virginia named Menhaden Bay. Now that John guy decided to sing about our neighbors out west, but I kinda wish he sung about down here instead ‘cause nobody who ain't here to buy something ever stops by. It's a shame, really. There ain't no other smell than ocean and fish here, but it's a nice place, especially for fishing. Don't let the name fool you, menhaden ain't the only thing you're gonna catch here. There's a buncha striped bass swimming around and even some sturgeon. It really is a nice place.

Anyway, you don't need to know too much about my hometown. What you gotta know though is that my good friend who told me to write this shit in the first place also told me to not reveal things until they're important ‘cause even though I wrote this for myself, he said it'd do me good to read a halfway decent story. I'm keeping things a secret, but I ain't telling no lies. He also told me to start the story at a point closest to the ending and with lotsa important things going on, so with all that in mind, I guess the best place to start would be the summer of nineteen seventy-three, when I was eight.

It must've been a midday in August ‘cause it was hot as hell, at least a hundred degrees. The roads were blistering. The heat must've gotten to my head ‘cause before I even realized it, I was a hair's breadth away from drowning by the pier near home. It's all become a blur to me now, but I'd never forget drinking more river water than most anyone's ever drank in their life. It was a bitch of a feeling, but I'll never forget it as long as I live. In the first place, I shouldn't've even been in water deeper than my knees ‘cause I couldn't even swim, for Chrissake. I thought to myself that day "Shucks, since I can't swim, how 'bout I just learn to swim!" and so I tried to, without any grownups or floaties. We were all dipshits when we were kids, but I was a special brand of moron, and I still am. I thought I was just about a goner. I thought I was gonna be the haunting spirit of the river like the grownups said I'd become if I fell in with nobody around.

Right as I was about to drown, a hand and a voice reached out to me. It was a girl's and she yelled "Grab on!". Most everyone in my village knew each other, but I'd never heard her before. I took a glance at my would-be rescuer once I got my head outta water and I saw the most beautiful girl I had ever seen in my life, and she still is too. She had on this adorable little sunhat over her dazzling head of red locks. In fact, I was so swept off my soaked feet by her that I didn't even think to grab the hand she reached out to me. 

"Grab my hand, darnit!" she yelled once more.

I finally snapped back to my senses and grabbed her hand. She struggled to pull me out of the water, even almost falling in herself at one point, but by some miracle she managed to pull me up to dry land where we both laid spread out and out of breath.

"*pant* *pant* are you... all right?" she asked.

"Just about... I think. Thank ya, missy. I woulda *pant* died if it wasn't fer you."

"What were you doing anyway...? Can you even *pant* swim?"

"W-well..."

I hesitated to answer. My cheeks were more flushed than a good toilet and it ain't ‘cause of the heat, I assure you.

"You don't even have *pant* to tell me. You obviously can't."

"That ain't true!" I was a liar then, but I promise I ain't one now.

"Rubbish!" she yelled. "You had no idea what you were doing! You were flailing all about, clear as day!" she furrowed her brow and stared straight into my eyes.

Her eyes were like lil emeralds, but anyway I couldn't hold her gaze and stood up.

"Yeah, yer right. I can't swim. Make funna me if ya want!" I crossed my arms and pointed my nose to the sky.

"What's that you got in your hand there?" she asked as she got up.

"This thing?" I held it out to her. "A necklace. Them here's pearls, from the ocean."

If I remember correctly, which I ought to'cause I kept it for quite some time, my necklace was technically a pearl necklace, but it ain't like any you've ever seen before. For starters, there weren't pearls all around it. There were just a few, maybe around five, with two shiny big white seashells flanking one of the pearls while the rest of the pearls flanked them. The one in the very middle was especially gorgeous. It was the shiniest, roundest, and whitest of them all.

"Hmm..." she studied my necklace real intently.

"Purty, ain't it? It's one of a kin-"

"I'll buy it off you!" she exclaimed as her warm, lily-white hands clasped mine. "How does eighty sound?"

"Eighty..."

"Yep yep yep, and it'll be all yours. Just say the word!"

"I... I'll try and think about it."

The girl turned away from me, took off her hat, and went to sit at the end of the pier. She looked up at the sky while swinging her feet back and forth. I finally managed to get a good look at her without getting all flustered. She was wearing an elegant white sundress with some yellow flower-shaped embroidery at the hem. She was a bit shorter than me and really skinny. She also had these rosy little kneecaps that caught my eye when she was swinging her legs back and forth. In fact, she swung them so hard I thought her sandals were gonna slip off, but thank God Almighty they didn't. I was already so head-over-heels for her that I probably would've jumped in after them.

She noticed I was staring and looked back at me, so I quickly tried to think of something to say.

"Say, do ya know how to swim?" I said while approaching her.

"Yeah, I've been taking lessons since I was five." she pulled her legs up, probably realizing her sandals were slipping.

"How 'bout we play a lil game?" I said as I took off my necklace and squatted down.

I pulled the two seashells and one of the pearls off of the necklace's string and arranged them over the wooden pier. The girl watched me, much to her amusement.

"I'll put this 'ere pearl under this shell over 'ere and after that, I'll start movin' 'em around real fast and you'll have to guess where the pearl is once I'm done. If ya guess right, I'll hand over my necklace for free, but if you guess wrong, you gotta give me swimmin' lessons."

It looked like she was about to say "yes", but she shook the amusement off her face and frowned.

"I'm not in the mood for games. I'll give you eighty-five for that necklace."

"What's to lose, missy? Ya can get the necklace for free and even if ya don't get it right, all ya gotta do is teach me to swim. Or don't tell me, have ya gotten a lil yeller?” I said with a smirk.

I swear I wasn't usually this provocative as a kid. Girls, especially the pretty ones, they just get to your head sometimes. They make you not yourself and ‘cause of that, you do stupid shit that you'd never do otherwise. But even so, I gotta give my child self credit where it's due ‘cause my simple provoking riled her up real good. It took her a while though. She probably didn't know I was saying yellow.

"I'm not 'yeller'. Come on, I'll show you! I got good eyes, you know, and not just for jewels."

Thus, the game began. I placed the pearl under one of the near-identical seashells, the one on the left to be exact, and then I swapped them around. I started swapping them slow, but I eventually went faster. At the end of it all, I gave a little bow to the girl. I guess I thought all my fanfare would've impressed her, but she was more interested in the shells.

"Now, where do ya think the pearl is?"

She took a moment to think. She tapped on her chin, her freckled cheeks, her temple, and finally her sweaty forehead before making her choice. She pointed her dainty finger at the shell that was to the left of her. You could see in her eyes that she knew she was right.

"Final answer?"

She said nothing and simply nodded. Little did she know, she fell right into my sinister trap. If I had a mustache, I'd be twirling it right about now.

I slowly lifted the shell she chose up into the sky, revealing that there was nothing under it but her crushed hopes and dreams. I saw the color drain from her pretty little face as her smirk slowly flipped upside down. I probably laughed like a maniac, but I don't remember really. She tried to protest and showered me with “buts”, but the fact of the matter was that she just lost the bet and had to give me swimming lessons. Oh, Hosea, your dear old Ma didn't raise you to be this way. You were supposed to protect them little girls, not cheat and lie to them.

"Well, if it isn't there, then-" she lifted up the other shell, another dud.

She was completely hysterical and tears were trickling down her precious little eyes. I swear would've slapped child me in the goddamn face if I was sent back in time. No, I'd fucking throw that bastard into the river. The little asshole.

I looked at her dead straight in the eye with a grin so full of shit you'd think I ate my three meals a day in a pigsty. I then did a bit of over-the-top gesturing like I was some two-bit third-rate street magician ‘cause shit, that was pretty much what I was on this fine summer day under the scorching sun. I don't know what made me act like this, the girl, my near drowning, or the damn heat. After I finished gesturing, I reached into the back pocket of my shorts and pulled out a shiny white pearl. It was a trick I learned from the few older kids that I hung around with. I ain't gonna tell you how I did it though, as even a two-bit third-rate magician never reveals his secrets.

"Ta-da!" I shouted like a damn moron.

I saw the girl's face regain color, but this time she was red with rage. She grabbed me by the collar of my still soaked tank-top and yanked me towards her.

"Y-you... You cheated! You cheated! Cheater! Cheater! Cheater!" she cried at the top of her lungs while throttling me.

My near drowning had already made me all light in the head, but her shaking straight up made me wanna hurl. She was so vicious I damn near dropped the pearl that was still in my hand. It would've bounced right off of the pier and dived straight into the river where nobody'd ever find it, even if they could swim.

"Hey, I told ya to guess where the pearl was. I didn't say nothin' 'bout it bein' under a shell. It ain't cheatin'. It's a strategy. Ya gotta put yerself in a place where ya ain't likely to lose." I smirked.

Maybe my sudden big-headedness came about ‘cause I wanted to talk down to a rich girl. I didn't even know if she actually had eighty-five bucks on her, but I decided to talk all big about strategies anyway.

"Yeah, yeah *sniff*, whatever... Now that I look at it, those pearls aren't even that good anyway. It's worth half of my original guess." she said as she let go of my collar and used her now free hands to wipe her tears.

"Hmmmm...?" my shit-eating grin somehow got even shittier "Sounds like ya got a bad case of the sour grapes, ya sore loser."

"S-sour grapes?! Are you doubting my eyes? You're just a bumpkin kid, what do you know about the price of jewelry?!" likewise, her face somehow turned even redder.

"Yer right, I don't know much, but what I know is that this here necklace is priceless! The string, the shells, and the pearls all cost more than ya could ever pay me. My Pa made this necklace by hisself before he left for the war in... whatistcalled? Anyway, ya could never ever forever put a price on it." I stared her dead in the eye, my grin wiped off.

The color on her face slowly returned to as it was, white like the sands on a beach. She took a deep breath.

"Whatever, I guess. I'll teach you to swim or whatever it is you want, but you mentioned a war? You mean in Vi... Vitami-" she chuckled to herself. "No, no, no, Elise, that's not right. Ah, Vietman."

"Yeah, that's it." I nodded.

"But... if he's a married man, the army wouldn't want him. Father said he avoided service because he had kids. If he wasn't drafted, then was your father already in the military?" she said while still staring at my necklace.

"Nah, Pa was a fisherman. He went out once with Old Man Hawthorne once and caught a sturgeon thiiiis big!" I said as I stretched out my arms.

The sturgeon was much longer than my outstretched arms though. I saw a photograph.

"A sturgeon? What's that?"

"It's a giant fish. You don't see 'em often 'round here anymore, but they can grow longer than a bike!"

"A bike..." she paused for a bit "That's huge!"

"Yeah, yeah, I always wanted to catch one, but they're real strong. They'd pull me into the river and I'd sink!"

"So that's why you were out here drowning? You wanted to learn to swim so you could catch a sturgeon?"

"Yep, and I also wanted to try and swim across the sea. Maybe I'd end up in Vietma-"

"That's it! How about I teach you to swim and we go catch a sturgeon together. I'll be around for the rest of summer vacation, so that'll be enough time for you to learn to swim and for us to go catch ourselves a water bike!" she raised her arms in front of her, clenched her firsts, and began pretending to ride a bike.

"That's right, ya ain't from around here, right? Nobody 'round here 'cept for the school teachers talk like ya, and even then, most of 'em don't." I said as I skipped a rock over the river. She applauded.

"I'm here on vacation. I'm from up north." she pointed away from the pier. "It isn't quite here, but my family's got a summer home not too far from here."

"That so? Then why're ya over here instead of with yer folks?" I asked while reaching for another stone.

"The car broke down and I got bored while waiting for the butler to fix it. It probably would've taken a long time, the engine made an awful sound." she said as she grabbed the stone I was aiming for before chucking it into the river without so much as a bounce.

"I mean, if we got time to spare, then how 'bout we get started with those swimmin' lessons right now? I can even teach ya to fish if ya want, but I ain't gonna teach ya my pearl trick though."

"I’d have to pass for today. Old Maurice ought to be done with the car by now. I'll try to be back here tomorrow though, if I can remember the way." she said as she stretched her arms.

"Sure, tomorrow then." I started walking away from the girl towards my home, which was not far at all from the pier. She walked in a different direction from me.

I spent a lot longer on that pier than I ever imagined I would. My Ma would have hell waiting for me at home. I didn't have a watch, so I didn't know what time it was, but I knew that it was way past lunch time. This'd all be hell to explain to Ma once I get home. Not only did I almost drown, but I also made a girl cry and then promised her I'd go catch a sturgeon with her if she taught me to swim. Chrissake, if there's one thing that hasn't change since then, it'd be that girls really know how to get into my head.

"Wait!" the girl hollered out in a voice that I could hardly hear. "I haven't got your name yet! I'm Elise, Elise Maxwell."

I looked back at her hazy figure and took a deep breath.

"Hosea! Hosea Fisher! If ya can't find me, just ask around fer me. Most everyone in this village knows each other, they'll help ya find me!" I yelled at the top of my lungs.